It'd been a week and a half now. He was still staying with Ned, just going home during May's shift so he could grab fresh clothes.

Ned had taken it all pretty well, actually. The whole SHIELD agent thing was surprising, of course, but Ned mostly just wanted to see Peter's standard issue knives and his thigh holster and if he could hit a moving target. Which, of course, he could.

"This is the coolest thing I've ever seen," Ned had whispered, eyes blown wide when Peter hit a moving target 3 times in a row.

The one thing Ned had been absolutely floored by was Peter's spider DNA. He'd asked all sorts of questions, even asking for a sample of blood to analyze. Leave it to the STEM kid to ask for his best friend's blood sample.

Peter had been more than happy to help. He'd held out his hand like it was nothing and cut into a fingertip, squeezing out a few drops for his friend to hastily collect.

And in return, Ned, never even a slight bit queasy, had jumped right into the job of patching Peter up when he got hurt, which was more frequent that you might think.

That's why when Peter swung into a mugging and got himself shot in the leg, he shook it off, swung back to Ned's house, and stumbled to the en suite, leaving a very startled, very stressed out Ned in his room. Peter disappeared into the bathroom and Ned took a second ot process what just happened. He was still caught off guard when Peter got hurt, even after a week of patching him up. After a moment, he got up and stumbled into the bathroom after Peter.

"Ned, do you know how to remove bullets?" Peter was holding a wet washcloth to his leg, examining the wound as best he could from the angle he was at.

Ned's face had paled, staring at all the blood. "No, why would I know how to remove bullets?"

Peter shrugged. "I'm very accustomed to people knowing how to do that."

"Well I don't!"

Peter screwed his eyes shut, his head beginning to pound from the pain and the lights and the noise of Ned's yelling.

"Пожалуйста, соблюдайте тишину." (Translation: Please, be quiet)

Ned rolled his eyes. "Okay, Mr. Secret Spy, remember that I'm a pleb and I don't know Russian."

"Please, be quiet," Peter whispered, hands slipping over his ears. He knew he had a sensory overload coming soon. They were rare, especially after so many years as an agent and working with guns and all that, but when he was in a lot of pain, like now, it was easy to let heightened senses take over.

"Peter," Ned whispered, kneeling in front of his friend. "How can I help?"

Peter gestured to the medicine cabinet, barely moving his hand away from his head before pressing it back to his ear. Ned took the hint, grabbing a bottle of pills Peter had from Fury. It was some super-charged pain medication, like Tylenol on steroids. Ned poured 2 into his palm and passed them to Peter, who dry swallowed them and almost instantly felt relief wash over his body.

"Thanks."

Ned nodded. "It's no problem."

Peter looked down at his leg. If it weren't for the angle of the wound, he could have gotten the bullet himself, but where it was, tucked behind his thigh, just out of reach, he was almost sure to make things worse if he went poking around.

"Can you walk me through it?" Ned asked hopefully.

"No," Peter sighed. "I would if it were anywhere else, but if you nick one of the femoral veins or arteries, I'll bleed out in a minute and you'll be scared for life."

Ned nearly choked on his own spit. "So what are we gonna do? Do we go to the hospital?"

Peter bit his lip. Hospitals meant questions. That was the one things Fury had always driving into his brain.

"Don't be a baby."

"That's nothing."

"Go see a nurse here, don't ever go to a hospital."

"Hospitals mean questions, and questions are just trouble for me."

Peter finally shook his head. "No, I'm going to... I'm gonna go see May."

Ned's eyebrows raised so high, they might as well have been part of his hairline. "You sure?"

"Yeah. She'll patch me up, and maybe seeing me like this will make her sentimental. Maybe she'll tell me something about my mom."

Peter tied a thin strip of gauze around his leg to hold the bleeding, just for while he was swinging. His best friend watched from the side lines, wincing as he saw Peter tighten the cloth painfully.

"Okay, I'll be back for dinner." Peter rinsed his hands, then looked up at his friend in the mirror and added "hopefully."

"Hopefully?"

Peter shrugged. "She might start a long conversation."

Ned nodded, already thinking of what he would tell him parents about Peter missing dinner. The two said goodbye, Ned drilling into Peter's head to be careful, and then Peter was back out of the window and on his way to May's apartment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

May busied herself with coffee and tea. She was a tea drinker mostly, but Peter loved coffee, so she had just enough grinds to make a pot.

"Do you take cream and sugar?"

"Oh, no thank you."

The woman put the milk back in the fridge, then scooped a spoonful of sugar into her tea and putting the sugar back in the cabinet. She hooked her slender fingers through the handles of the mugs, carrying them out to the living room.

"So where is he?" Tony took the coffee from the woman carefully.

"Well," May stalled, taking a sip of her tea. She couldn't exactly say he'd run off after quitting SHIELD and finding out the woman he thought was his mother wasn't his mother at all. "He takes a bit coming home from school, he does clubs and-"

"May, I know he's Spiderman. I know quite a bit about him." Tony sipped his coffee slowly, pretending he hadn't just dropped the bomb. "And I know you've been a SHIELD nurse for over 17 years."

May busied herself with her tea, planting her eyes on the coffee table in front of her knees.

"If you're wondering what I know about Peter beyond that, I don't know anything. Once I figured out who he was, I went digging, but there was nothing in the SHIELD database on him at all. I thought that was a little odd, given that he's exactly the type of person Fury would want to make an agent. Anyways, he didn't come up. You did, though."

May found her voice, clearing her throat first before talking. "I'm a nurse. I don't deal with SHIELD's nonsense, just the injuries."

"And Peter?"

"My sister's son. He was orphaned when they went down in a plane. She was sent on a SHIELD mission to do medical on a group of hostages."

Tony hummed. He remembered that crash vaguely. Something about a mechanical issue, but everyone had suspected foul play.

"I'm sorry for your loss," the billionaire said softly. "Now, I'd like to talk to Peter."

May went to explain that the teen was probably out patrolling when there was a crash from the bedroom down the hall. Time seemed to slow down as Peter emerged from the room, limping on his good leg as blood began to soak through the cloth he had tied around the wound.

"Hey, May. Long time no see," he joked, his face pale. May sighed, getting up to get her first aid kit. 

"What happened?"

Peter still hadn't noticed the famous man on the couch, focusing instead on his aunt and how bad his leg might be. "I got shot."

May huffed. Peter knew after years of living with her that it meant 'go on', but he was too tired to explain. He wanted this thing out of his leg. He wanted to stitch it up and take a nap without worrying it would smear his blankets red. At the thought of a nap, Peter crumpled, almost folding over himself, and hit the ground.

The nurse made quick work of the wound, first cutting the suit up to where the wound was and then working her fingers through the slippery feeling of blood and pulling the bullet out expertly. She pulled a needle and thread from her kit, dunking the needle in alcohol before working it through the ripped flesh. Peter barely wined through the whole thing, only once commenting on the sting of the alcohol when May first started the process.

"Done."

In just a few minutes, the teen's leg was completely cleaned up and closing, Tony watching on with macabre interest and awe. These two made a powerful team, a dynamic duo, a fine tuned duet.

Peter sat up and  looked around for the first time since getting there, his eyes finding Tony on the couch.

"Holy shit."

Tony chuckled good naturedly.

"Hello, Peter. Or should I say, Spiderman?"

Maybe it was the blood loss, but maybe it was the fact that this incredible man, this literal superhero, knew who he was. Either way, Peter felt time slow, and his vision blurred. Before May or Tony could move, Peter collapsed to the floor, his eyes rolling back and his mind slipping into sleep.