I'll now be updating the description to reflect the most recent chapter. Don't worry, same story!

Also, this chapter's recommended fic for when you're done reading and need a fill of more father/son Tony and Peter is Leisure Sickness by sahiya on Archive of Our Own: "It was called "leisure sickness," Tony eventually learned. It happened to some people—usually workaholic perfectionists who didn't sleep enough and pushed themselves way too hard.

So... his kid, basically."

Go check it out when you're done reading!

"Patrol," Tony scoffed on the other end of the line. "It's just a fancy way of saying that you go looking for trouble."

"I am not-" Peter paused mid sentence.

"What was that?" Peter could practically hear the smirk in his voice.

"Okay. So maybe you're right," Peter relented.

"I hope you know I recorded that. I'm making that my ringtone now."

"You really don't need to do that."

"I hear it so rarely, though. I should make it my doorbell, too. Get my fix of you telling me I'm right without having to pull your teeth for it."

Peter rolled his eyes before scanning the street below. He heard the low purr of the engine of the car before he saw it, before the driver pressed the petal the floor and the engine roared, sound echoing between the skyscrapers and vibrating the buildings.

It was a nice car. Not quite as nice as the ones Tony had scored for he and May, but a real looker nonetheless.

"He's not very stealthy for a carjacker," Peter noted.

"No?" Tony asked. "Someone who guns it down the middle of manhattan with the engine screaming is exactly the kind of person who would own one of those cars. Fits right in."

Peter raised an eyebrow. "You own one of those cars."

"Exactly. I know my people."

"Right. Well. I'd better go take care of this. Did you call for a reason, orrrr…"

"Just living the glory days vicariously," Tony said nonchalantly.

Peter chuckled. "Hey. You're welcome to fly down here and join me."

"No. Kid. I'm retired. You know that. Pep would kill me if she saw me get in one of those suits again. Besides. I've got the whole blind in one eye and one working arm thing going on, too. Believe it or not, I'm happy being retired."

Peter raised an eyebrow. Tony was plenty capable with his new disabilities and both of them knew it. And no matter how happy Tony claimed to be, he was going stir crazy, pouring himself into Peter's suits now that the iron man suits were more or less dead, and always checking in on Peter's cameras and watching through his lenses. It didn't annoy Peter too much. It was clear to him that Tony was just desperately looking for an outlet for something to do, for something to feel like he was helping, rather than watching him with intent to spy on Peter. And, for the most part, Peter enjoyed the company, enjoyed knowing that Tony valued him. Still, he couldn't help but miss his quiet patrols to himself some nights. That Tony was happy and couldn't do Iron Man anyway because of his arm and eye sounded more like a shitty forced excuse to him rather than a legitimate rationale.

"I seem to recall seeing you in the iron man suit precisely two times since I got back."

"If you make it a third, I'll personally ensure that the third time is the last."

"Is that a threat, Tony?" Peter teased.

"Yes. Also, your more immediate threat is getting away. Eyes on the road, Parker. You need to be able to walk and talk on missions. Not one or the other."

"Right, right." Peter rolled his eyes and began swinging. Tony's "backseat driving" as Peter had come to call it, was one thing that Peter wouldn't miss. "Hey, I don't tell you how to do your job," Peter had said the first time Tony butted in when he missed one of the bad guys while out on patrol. "You wouldn't have a job if it weren't for me," Tony replied, and Peter had to hand him that one.

He swung down from the rooftop he was perched on. It had been a slow night. No robberies. No weapons. Just a bar fight he'd had to break up and this. He was going to go home after this, he decided. Make some hot chocolate, look over his notes for the day, and call it a job well done.

"Initiating taser web," Karen chimed in his ear. Peter jumped.

"What?! Karen, no! Normal web! Normal web!" He was six stories up. What was he going to taze up here?

Sure enough, though, the next web that he cast buzzed with electricity, blue sparks dancing down the length of the web. What was Karen on?

He slung it at the adjacent building and the current fizzled harmlessly against the brick.

"Kid?" Tony asked in his ear, but Peter was too preoccupied to answer.

"Normal. Web. Karen." Peter stressed again, but Karen didn't answer. She always answered. Even when Peter didn't want her to speak up.

"Kid, this isn't right. I want you down on the ground. Now."

"But the-"

"Screw the carjacker. You can get him when your suit is working."

"Fine."

Peter shot his next web, a little lower on the fifth story of the building, beginning his descent to the ground. The next web he shot, though… were the little sparks dancing on the web coming towards him? No… Only, they were. Oh sh-

The electricity jumped up his arm, a net of ice blue stinging threads, and his muscles seized. His hands and shoulders locked. Contracted until the hot shocks of electricity weren't the most painful thing he was experiencing and he was convinced his muscles would rip themselves apart.

"Peter, let go!" Tony shouted in his ear. Peter couldn't, though. Tony had to know that. He knew how getting shocked like this worked. He wanted to let go. He wanted to so so badly. To just open his hand and stop all of the pain coursing up his arm and neck and across his back, because good God it hurt.

In that moment, he vividly remembered Ned leaning over his desk in Chemistry, asking him if he'd ever stood on top of a building and shot his web as far as it would go back when they were the same age. Vividly remembered Liz's party way back when he'd run out to stop Toomes and shooting the web until it had run out on the golf course. How long had it taken until it had run out, again?

Wide eyed, he counted the seconds. One. He swung, hand still forcibly gripping the tazer web. The web stopped deploying. Two. He reached the bottom of the web's arc and began to swing up again. Three. He reached the top of the arc and the web snapped, meant to taze, not hold Peter's weight when he went swinging through the city. It launched him into the air higher than the roof of the building that he'd been on just moments ago. His heart pounded in his ears and his limbs flailed.

"Tony!" He gasped.

"Parachute! Pete, where's your parachute?!"

The parachute was in his suit still. Locked and loaded, just like Tony always demanded. But, Karen wasn't cooperating right now, wasn't thinking enough to deploy it.

"Not working, not working, not working!" Peter chanted as he kept flying through the air. "Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!"

He had no choice but to try shooting a web again. It was that or fall, and that realization made the decision very easy.

"Normal web, Karen! Parachute! Something!"

Karen didn't reply until Peter was already aiming to shoot the web at a nearby apartment building when Karen finally chimed in his ears.

"Initiating web grenade."

"NO!"

He saw the grenade in slow motion as it arced towards the apartment building full of sleeping civilians that he could not let die, let alone with their blood on his hands, saw in slow motion as he reached out to grab it on instinct with the speed only an adrenaline-high superhero could manage.

He clutched the grenade to his chest as he fell. As the ground came zooming towards his face.

"Mr. Stark, ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod."

"Peter!"

Tony's face flickered on screen, sheet white and the very pinnacle of terror.

Peter kept expecting an Iron Man suit to materialize out of nowhere and pull him to safety like that first time with Toomes, like all of the other times that he'd been in such immediate danger. But, there would be none of that tonight. He'd used up all of that luck the first few times around.

"PETER!"

Tony was too far away. All of his suits were too far away. There was nothing anybody could do this time.

Peter couldn't decide if he should squeeze his eyes shut or watch wide-eyed as the ground zoomed towards him. He spotted an empty alleyway off to the side and threw the grenade into it before squeezing his eyes shut.

"No,no,no,no,no,no!" Tony repeated in Peter's ears like a mantra. Peter only swallowed. The wind rushing past his face was no longer exhilarating. The stomach in your throat feeling was no longer a thrill.

The sound of traffic got closer. The sound of the wind got louder. Peter's heart nearly lept out of his chest. What would Tony tell May? What would happen to Tony? To Happy? His last thought that was that he hoped they could be happy together. Hoped they'd have a good life, weird as it may be.

The impact in the little alley rattled him to the core. His vision went black as he rolled. Pain blossomed like knives in every part of his body. He couldn't even describe it. It wasn't a burning or a stinging or a stabbing pain, or a soreness. It was just pain in its purest form. Finally he skidded onto his back, blinking a blurry sort of vision back into his eyes.

Not a moment later, the grenade went off. Peter wanted to move, at least to shield his face from the fallout of the blast, but his limbs were too slow to cooperate.

Broken bits of stone smacked him in the face and all across the front of his body. He squeezed his eyes shut and winced.

Tony's picture blinked to life in the lenses of Peter's goggles. His face was frantic, hair so disheveled that one might have thought it was Tony who just fell out of the sky.

"Peter?" Tony's voice was barely a whisper.

The wind had been knocked out of Peter fully and completely. He couldn't talk. Couldn't even draw a breath in. His mind raced. Why couldn't he breathe? Did he break his neck? Was he going to die for real this time? Shouldn't he already be dead?

"Say something. Blink. Peter, do something. Karen. Vitals. Now."

Karen was silent.

"No, no, no! This can't be happening!"

Peter, agonizingly, forced a series of blinks, squeezing his eyes shut with each one. Suddenly, without his permission, his chest rose, gulping in all of the air it had been deprived of. He shrieked in pain, which only made it all worse, and he clamped his mouth shut and screwed his eyes closed even tighter.

"Oh thank fuck." Tony breathed. "Are you okay?"

"No," Peter whimpered, wrapping his arms around his ribs. "Hurts."

"I know, I know." Even as Tony said it, he panicked more, eyes frenzied. Peter never admitted to being too hurt. He always got right back up, insisting he was fine. Always. "I've got an ambulance on the way. Nearest suit is eight minutes out. Ambulance is twelve. I'm twenty-five minutes out by suit."

"No-" Peter gasped. Talking hurt. It hurt a lot. "No am'lance. Identity. Secret."

"Yeah. Sorry to break it to you, kid, but when it comes down to you dying, or your secret identity dying, I'm gonna have to go with the secret identity. Every time. I'll bribe the paramedics or something."

"Please?" His eyes pleaded with Tony and it almost broke him. "Please? May. MJ. Ned. I can't- They-"

"They'll be fine. Nobody is going to hurt them with the two of us around."

Peter shook his head and the motion made it spin. "Mr. S- T'ny. I won't be."

Tony's eyes grew both harder and impossibly more defeated. "The suit will run a diagnostic on you when it gets there. If it's not too serious, I'll call the paramedics off."

"Mph." Peter laid his head down against the concrete and winced.

"What hurts, exactly?" The sound of the suit firing up roared through the other end of the line.

Peter pinched his mouth shut and didn't answer. No more talking. Talking hurt too much.

"C'mon, kid. You've gotta give me something."

Peter shook his head, and the motion sent the buildings above his head spinning. He couldn't focus his eyes on anything and his stomach lurched. He finally moved a hand to cover his mouth until the world stopped spinning, breathing deeply between his fingers.

"Are you about to get sick?" Tony asked.

"Might be," Peter mumbled.

Tony frowned. "Can you turn your head? I don't want you choking on your own vomit or anything."

Peter tried turning his head but winced. The city went spinning again. Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop he mouthed.

Tony looked truly and utterly broken in that moment. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it and only mumbled "suit is there."

Sure enough, the automated suit, not for the first time, descended from the sky and landed gently next to him like the angel from above that it was.

"Alright." Tony took a deep breath as he connected to the automated suit. "Give me a reading. A diagnostic. Yeah. That's the word."

"Heartbeat detected."

Tony blanched at the words. "Yeah, yeah, I know. What else is wrong?"

Tony looked away from his screen as FRIDAY read out the grocery list of things wrong with Peter. "Concussion, basal skull fracture, three fractured ribs, a broken collarbone, a fractured scapula, bruising, and several abrasions along the shoulders and right side. No injuries appear to be life threatening."

Tony only frowned. "What about that concussion? How bad is it?"

The automated suit whirred for a second and the sound pierced through Peter's skull like a knife.

"There is no sign of brain swelling. However, this is Mr. Parker's third concussion in the past twelve months. Further head trauma at this rate may result in chronic emcephalopathy.

Tony looked at Peter angrily through his lenses. "Hear that, kid?"

"I dunno wha' that means," he slurred.

"Means you're messed up in the head."

"We already knew that," came Peter's response, even as he winced at the effort it took to speak.

"Three?! I thought this was the second? The first was the crash and this is the second! Where the hell did you get the third concussion and why don't I know about it?"

"Shhh," Peter winced. Noise. Way too much noise.

Tony's eyes hardened even more. "I'll be there in ten minutes, and we're talking about this."

"Mph." Peter agreed. "Tony?"

"What?"

"No ambulance."

"Right, right, I'll go call them off. This is against my better judgement, though."

Tony didn't bring it up when he landed, though. He landed much more gently than he had that first time after the crash, hovering in the air a few feet away, face plate off, as if he didn't want to believe that the scene in front of him was real. Peter. Crumpled on the pavement in front of him. Because of his technology and, presumably, his fuck-up.

"Peter?"

Peter only made a grunt in response. No quips. No jokes. Nothing classically Peter. "This one's bad, isn't it?" he asked.

Peter's silence was answer enough. Non life threatening didn't mean it was any less painful.

"Okay. Okay." Tony took a deep breath. "Let's see what we're working with here." He gently reached over and pressed the spider button.

Peter's mask eyes flew open (and oh- THAT was working?!) and he gasped, trying to push himself away further into the alley concrete.

"I know, I know. We need to get it off, though. Mask, too. Let's take it off."

Peter tried to reach up, but, once again, the motion sent a surge of pain through him so strong that his vision started sparkling. He didn't even hear the startled yelp that left his lips.

"Sorry, sorry!" Tony's face contorted in pain of its own as he peeled the suit's sleeve back. It finally snapped off and they both winced in unison.

"And now the mask."

Pain prickled across Peter's scalp at the slightest touch and his muscles seemed to lock up as the mask was removed. By the time Tony got enough of the mask off to see what he could do, Peter was a broken, sweaty, bloody mess on the ground.

"I'm really going to need my people to stop falling out of the sky and almost dying. Capiche?"

Peter was panting so hard, hiccuping in pain with every breath, that Tony almost missed the "no promises."

Tony smiled in spite of himself. The sass was back.

"Okay, okay." he traced his eyes down across Peter's collarbone. It wasn't the hairline fracture that his shoulder blade was. It was visibly at an angle beneath the skin, and despite everything Tony had seen in his career, his stomach flipped a bit. It was different seeing the injuries on Peter.

"Did you land on this shoulder when you rolled?"

"Yeah."

Tony looked at Peter's trembling form and felt like the most useless, underqualified person who could possibly be there. Few situations reduced him to that. He wasn't a doctor. Peter needed a doctor.

"Pete… Pete, I'm sorry. You need your collar bone reset. And stitches. You need a hospital."

He cracked his eyes open again. "M'kay."

"Okay? You're going along with this? Just like that?"

He mustered a thumbs up with his good arm. "How long 'til Happy picks us up 'n brings us to the compound?"

"Compound?" Tony shook his head. "Peter, it was iffy taking you back there before the bone set wrong when you had a good hundred miles behind you on the way to come visit. You- we can't go to the compound. You need something here."

Peter sighed, as shallow as he could manage. "Help me sit up."

Tony looked at him skeptically, but crouched down and finagled an arm under Peter's shoulders, slowly scooting him into a sitting position against the wall of whatever building the alley was up against.

"Agh!" Peter yelled. His head lolled over to Tony's arm and Tony didn't protest.

"Yeah," Tony said, patting him on the shoulder he hadn't landed on once he was sitting enough. "That's it. Just catch your breath."

"No," Peter wheezed. "No deep breaths."

"Right, right. Broken ribs. Shallow breaths, then."

Peter nodded, slowly this time, so as not to send the cityscape spinning again. "Okay. Let's do this."

"I've got the hospital on speed dial,"

"No," Peter said. There was no emotion in his voice or eyes. "Let's set this and stitch it up. Right here."

Tony opened and closed his mouth a few times, but couldn't manage to form any words. "Peter, no."

"Yes."

"We are not resetting a bone and stitching you up in an alley next to a dumpster."

"Why not?"

"Because!" Tony sputtered. "I'm not a doctor."

"You know know more than most doctors. And you have FRIDAY to tell you what to do. You sayings you made FRIDAY incapable?"

"No," Tony countered defensively. "Pete. We have no anesthesia. This is going to hurt like a bitch."

Peter took a slow breath and nodded softly. "Okay."

"Kid."

"I can't have anyone finding out, Tony."

"I told you, I'll bribe them."

"Not good enough."

"I'm still a bit clumsy with the new arm… and sight in one eye..." His face crumpled.

"I trust you."

Tony shook his head incredulously and he stepped back. "I can't believe I'm doing this. How do you talk me into this stuff? FRIDAY? How do I reset a collarbone with my bare hands on a Queens alley sidewalk?

He put his face plate back on, grateful that it would be hiding his facial expressions, and FRIDAY mapped out where to move the bone in front of his eyes.

For so long, Tony had hated that he had no sensation in the Iron Man arm. For the first time, he was grateful. He didn't think he'd be able to stomach feeling the bone move beneath Peter's skin. He reached over and took the thin bone through his fingers. FRIDAY's aid showed him exactly where to move it.

Peter leaned his head back and bared his teeth, not even daring to breathe. His fists balled up at the slightest touch.

"I know. I know. This is going to take a minute."

"Shit,shit,shit,shit,shit,shit,shit,shit-" Peter hissed through his teeth.

"Breathe through it." The bone moved easily underneath the thin skin and Peter made a guttural sound that Tony didn't even think people could make.

"Can't."

"Just breathe the best you can."

" 'kay." His voice was choked and strained.

Peter's jaw clenched and unclenched as Tony followed FRIDAY's instructions and slid the bone back into place. It fit back together with a sickening kind of click.

"Here. Here." Tony took the sleeve of Peter's suit, still only half on and dangling, covering only his lower half, and tied it around Peter's arm. "This'll have to do. We can stop at a Walgreens or something for a real sling later.

"It's done?" Peter asked.

"The bone is. We still need to do stitches."

"Give-" Peter trembled and leaned against Tony for support. "Give me a second. Dizzy. Really dizzy."

"Yeah, yeah, of course." He pulled Peter into his side to steady him and could feel his trembling through the suit. "No Spiderman for a few weeks, okay?"

"Okay. Yeah, that sounds-" he stopped for air. "That sounds reasonable."

Tony patted his shoulder and stared at the wall on the other side of the alley way. He was going to need things like this to stop happening. He just got him back.

"I think I'm good for you to go ahead and do those stitches now."

"Are you sure? You're not going to pass out on me?"

"No promises." There was no teasing in Peter's voice this time.

"Let me know if you need a breather."

"Yeah, yeah. Let's just get this over with."

"Okay."

Peter kept his eyes squeezed shut as Tony worked on the gash left by the debris of the web grenade blast. His back was already sticky with dried blood, and thank God for his quick clotting factor.

Tony started sewing and Peter's muscles jumped every time the needle went in.

"Do you have to put the needle so deep?" he grunted.

"Yes, actually. Hold still. We're two in. I've only got three more."

Peter hissed again with the next stitch.

"Where did you even get a needle and stitching from?"

"The suit. Nanotechnology. Just reshaping it into thread for now. You'll have to come back up in a few weeks to get it removed. I don't know if I trust this stuff to just slither its way out of you."

"That why it hurts so much?"

"Nope. That's just stitches."

Peter grunted in pain as the needle plunged in again. "It's never hurt this much before..."

"You've never done this without any sort of numbing agent before."

"Ugh."

"Do you need me to stop?"

"No," Peter whispered. "Keep... just do it fast."

"Okay." Tony pulled the broken skin together with one last stitch. "Done."

They both leaned their heads back against the wall, taking things in.

"So I guess I'm confined to the medbay for a bit again?"

Tony sighed and checked his watch. "It's rush hour, and it'll be hours before Happy can get here. I think…"

"Tony, no."

"Yes."

"Don't say it."

"We're going to have to invoke the wrath of May Parker."

"How did it happen?" May's eyes darted between Tony and Peter in her back seat. Peter was still dazed in pain with his head propped against the window.

The two shared a look. Did they dare tell her that Karen malfunctioned? Would she let him go out in the suit if she knew?

"I-uh. I ran out of web fluid," Peter tried lamely.

"Again, Peter?!"

"What do you mean again?!" Tony spun on him. "Why aren't I getting reports about this stuff unless-" His eyes widened in realization and he cut it short, and he looked up to the front seat to see if May was still watching them.

"Unless what?" May's eyes narrowed.

"Unless I need to have a word with one of my records keepers," Tony finished, but he shot Peter a look. A very 'I know you've been tampering with Karen again, you little shit' look. Peter gulped as May pulled into a parking spot next to a Rite-Aid.

"Okay. Sling and a ton of advil to overcome Peter's metabolism until we can get Cap's painkillers shipped down here, right? That'll be enough for those fractures?"

"Right," Tony said.

"Okay."

The moment the car door closed, Tony was on his case.

"Peter! You promised! No more of the games!"

"I'm sorry, Ton-"

"Nope. Nope. It's Mr. Stark again right now."

Peter gave him a deadpan stare. "You instituted a bubble wrap protocol."

"It's not that bad."

"It shuts down the suit if I'm not in bed by ten pm."

"No, that's naptime protocol."

"Ugh." Peter pressed his cheek against the glass, relishing in the coolness against his hot skin.

"You're still a kid, Pete. Try to enjoy some of that and try to enjoy still having people who will take care of you."

Peter would have laughed if he didn't know how much that would hurt with broken ribs. As if he or May would ever stop. Not that he really wanted them to in the end.

"You- tampering with the suit… it opens it up for cyber attacks if you don't do it right. And especially when we've been updating it so often… when… when I've been updating it so often…" he stared straight ahead. "I guess we both did this…"

"Can-" Peter huffed. The pain was starting to come back in stronger waves. "Can we talk about it later? I… I know it's important, I'm just… not up for it right now."

All the fight left Tony's body. "Yeah. Sure."

May came scurrying back to the car with an armful of bags. "I got that new movie you'd been talking about from Redbox."

"Redbox is still a thing?"

"It is."

And so, for the rest of the night, the trio piled around Peter's bad as he drifted in and out of chattiness and lethargy, only sort of following the plot of the movie. May and Tony exchanged stories from their college days while Peter begged them not to make him laugh until his ribs healed a bit more, until the sound of Peter's voice echoed around the room: "Okay, so maybe you're right… Okay, so maybe you're right… Okay, so maybe you're right… "

"Ope. It's Morgan calling to say goodnight. Hold on, I've gotta take this."

"Did you actually make that your ringtone?"

Tony smirked. "Someone has to remind you not to go looking for trouble."

Peter shrugged with his one shoulder and snuggled deeper under his mountain of blankets, watching the end of the movie through bleary eyes. "It worked out tonight."

Don't worry, I haven't given up on the story. A ton of major aspect of my life (job, living arrangements, school arrangements, relationships with some people, etc.) all changed in one week, and I'd be lying if I said I've been taking it well … but ONTO REVIEWS!

Marteeey: Y'all. Martey commented on my now deleted chapter, and couldn't comment on the new one and PM'd me a review instead. That is seriously the sweetest gesture ever, thank you SO much. Made my day a million times better.

CaptainS10: Thank you so much! Tony/Peter fluff is my life! You have no idea how much I love just sitting down at night and reading about their father/son relationship, and I love that this story can be that for other readers.

Mary: TYSM! I hope that this chapter was enough hurt!Peter for the time being, but I am totally jotting down some of those ideas. Also, welcome! I'm so happy that this story is still reaching new readers like yourself.

Beccissss: Thank you so so so so so much: I hope you enjoyed this one as well. I tried to make it a bit longer in the time I've had to work on it. ;)

Status of Bingo Card: Seven of twenty-five. Gala/Press Event |Happy Tears | Insomnia |Peter Meets The Avengers |Alcohol |Identity Reveal |Car Crash | Career Day | Hypothermia |PTSD |No Anesthesia |Jealousy| Sleepy |College| Nightmares | Road Trip | Drugs| Losing Powers |Bullying |Homesick | "I Thought I Lost You" | Panic Attacks | Bruises | Working In The Lab | Sick Fic

Please leave a review if you enjoyed, I love hearing from all of you!