#sitiches

Festive music was playing quietly in the background as Peter twirled around the kitchen. It was Christmas Eve and May was at work but that didn’t stop him from feeling overly cheerful. He’d decided days prior that the best way to start the Christmas holiday would be by surprising his aunt with a late dinner. He’d scoured the internet for recipes and spent the morning shopping for all the ingredients. It was going really well. There was a pie ready to go in the oven, a loaf of crusty bread on the table and a pot of warm broth just waiting to be turned into a hearty winter vegetable stew. All he had to do was cut up the vegetables, give them a quick saute and add them into the mix.

He started with the onion, taking his time to cut the pieces nice and even. When those had been set aside, he started working on the carrots and potatoes. The parsnips were next. He hummed along to ‘Santa Baby’ as he carefully chopped that up as well. It was all pretty easy until he got to the rutabaga. He was struggling to obtain an appropriate hold on the hard round waxy vegetable. When he was convinced he finally had it, he drew his fingers back and placed the knife against the root but it was firmer than he’d expected. He increased his strength, and he once again tried to press through the rutabaga’s tough exterior. That was enough to make a dent in it but he didn’t want to over do it. So, he decided that the best course of action would be to saw through it. He rocked the knife back and forth, each time with a bit more vigor but was getting nowhere. Eventually, he decided that perhaps it was time to employ his enhanced strength.

He pulled the blade out of the narrow groove he’d managed to carve and readjusted his fingertips to make sure they were out of the way. Then, with a grunt of frustration, he pressed down on the knife with considerably more muscle. However, despite his sticky fingers, the downward force caused the rounded vegetable to slip and the blade to hit the cutting board with an audible ‘clunk.’

Immediately, Peter knew something was amiss. The top of his thumb was burning, his heart was racing and his spider-sense was alight beneath his skin. He had to blink himself out of a daze before glancing downward to investigate. It took longer than it should have for him to process that he’d cut himself. Once he had, he shook his head to clear it further and began to think.

He’d not had a notable amount of first-aid training. But he’d had enough experience as Spider-Man to know that he needed to clean the wound and staunch the bleeding. He turned swiftly towards the sink, leaving little droplets across the floor as he went.

The warm water stung as it rushed past the affected area. Peter hissed and gritted his teeth as he forced himself to apply hand soap as well. Then once he was confident he’d rinsed it thoroughly, he reached for a wad of paper towels.

For a while Peter stood in the kitchen, applying and reapplying paper towels as the cut continued to bleed. Belatedly he looked at the clock, telling himself that if it didn’t stop in the next few minutes he’d call for assistance. Although he was fairly sure he wouldn’t need to. He had a healing factor and could see no reason why a small cut from a measly kitchen knife wouldn’t mend itself in an extremely short amount of time. Then again, he’d never tested theory.

Five more minutes passed, and Peter was still continuously swapping out makeshift bandages. He tried adding varying levels of pressure but nothing seemed to significantly stem the flow. Reluctantly, he collected his phone from the kitchen counter and allowed his good thumb to hover over his aunt’s contact information. It was still relatively early, and he didn’t want to disturb her at her job. That being the case, he sighed deeply and dialed Tony’s number instead.

“Hey, Mr. Stark!” he greeted with as much enthusiasm as he could pull together given the circumstances. “I, uh, I know it’s Christmas Eve and all, but can I ask you a really quick question?”

“Sure, kid. Go for it,” Tony said, followed by a deep chuckle that made Peter hesitate. He wasn’t sure of what sort of inquiry Tony was expecting. But he suddenly felt bad for not having anything more pleasant to discuss. However, no amount of remorse was going to alter the fact that he had to ask.

“Well,” he began, pausing briefly to nervously run his tongue across his lips. “With my enhanced healing, how would I know if something needed stitches or not?”

“Uh, by consulting a doctor, obviously,” Tony replied without missing a beat.

The comment was obviously meant to be light. But even so, Peter felt himself growing a little defensive. He was injured and as far as he was concerned he’d done the right thing. He’d performed what he felt like he could do on his own, then called an adult for help. “I am consulting a doctor! I’m consulting with you,” he pressed. “You have, like, three doctorates, Doctor Stark!”

Tony hummed in a non-committal manner. “I have four actually. But none of them are of the medical variety.”

Peter opened his mouth to retaliate, then paused while his brain automatically began to calculate the number of doctorates he was aware Tony had acquired. Mechanical Engineering, Nuclear Physics, and Robotics came to mind first. It took him a second or two longer to recall what the fourth one could conceivably be. He was convinced he’d known at one point and figured it made sense for it to be something math related; Applied Mathematics probably. Then a particularly intense pain shot through his thumb yanking his train of thought back on track.

“But you have field experience, right?” he belatedly inquired.