Spider-Son & Iron Dad two shots

The Hospital Overture

Spooktober 12: Delirium

a/n: i change the process after endgame everytime i write it just for funzies. just as a treat

Peter's body was stiff as it walked down the hallway of the hospital.

The place was bustling from top-to-bottom still, only a week since everything had gone down and the nurses and doctors were passing from room to room with a speed in their gait and stress deep in the curve of their eyebrows. Emergency after emergency after emergency.

Peter was only here to see one of those cases. As he reached the door, he regretted having told May to just drop him off. He inhaled shakily and pushed the door open.

"Peter," Pepper breathed out a sigh of relief and sat up in her seat. She gave him a tired smile. "Hi, sweetheart. How are you? Was the trip coming up okay?"

Peter nodded distantly and let his eyes flick over to Tony. Still in the hospital bed. Still so out of it that even in his sleep, he didn't move, and that combined with the cadaverous sickliness of his face made him flinch instinctively.

"Is–" Peter swallowed thickly and looked away fast. He gestured over to Tony with a lame pass of his hand. "He's okay?"

Pepper looked exhausted, and she seemed to force her expression into something of a sympathetic placation. In Peter's opinion, it only served to make her look all the more defeated. "Not any worse than last time, honey."

Peter made his legs move forward, and he sat in one of the uncomfortable padded wooden chairs across from Tony's bed. He tried not to turn his head, tried not to look at his mentor.

He didn't used to hate hospitals. Most of his experiences with them had been times where he was the one in the bed, and he was achingly familiar with that, the sheets that were always too thin, drawn too tight. Suffocating, almost. Trying to convince Tony and May, and on the rare occasion that he was there for more than a day, Ned, that they didn't have to worry about him. So, they were annoying, and he rather wouldn't be there, but he didn't hate them.

Then the unthinkable happened, and suddenly Peter was staining the edge of a jet seat with dirt, soot, sweat, and tears, and suddenly Peter was standing beside Pepper and Rhodey in the doorway of hospital, and Tony's being wheeled away on a gurney through a crowded, panicked hallway, leaving a trail of blood and dust and bits of melted skin as he left–

Needless to say, it didn't take long for his opinions on hospitals to so drastically change. He hated them. He hated them and he especially hated seeing his family in them.

"Has he woken up yet?" Peter asked falteringly, pulling at a loose thread from the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

"Few times. Usually really late at night," Pepper murmured, settling back in her own seat. She reached over and took Tony's limp hand, interlocking their fingers. She sighed. "So far, he's only half-woken up. He'll try to talk for a minute or so, but then he falls back asleep."

"Oh," Peter said dumbly. He fiddled at the string of his sleeve with a radiating anxiety, his short fingernails scratched viciously against his fingertips. "Is that normal?"

Pepper's eyes softened at him, and her smile fell into a slight frown. "Yes, honey. Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yeah!" Peter rattled. He gave her a reassuring grin. His eyes burned. "I'm okay, I swear. I just, uh... I don't like seeing him like this, that's all. I keep expecting he'll just sit up, you know? And he'll tell me I'm being clingy and mess up my hair, or something."