Work Text:
“Ksst-stiron! Can you hear me?”
“...hnng...”
“Hang on, I’m coming-”
She bit back a groan, shifting one muscle at a time. No sharp pain anywhere - no tingling or numbness, either. Just a steady pressure pinning down each armored limb. Not ideal, but awful.
“Cast Iron?”
“Yeah,” she grumbled, “I hear you.”
“Don’t worry, I’m almost there!”
She almost, almost told him not to bother, that she was fine, go ahead and finish the mission before digging her stupid butt out of a collapsed building. But even as the girl opened her mouth, a memory leapt to mind: one of her big brother’s stories about his early superhero days. Not a cheerful one, either.
So Morgan Stark bit her tongue, and waited quietly for Peter.
After another minute, rubble directly over her helmet shifted, letting in a bright beam of sunlight. She hissed and squinted, even as her suit compensated and dimmed the HUD inside her faceplate.
“Just a second,” Peter said, grabbing and heaving aside chunks of rubble, the bright colors of his suit washed out by a thick layer of concrete dust.
Morgan tried to tell him, “You’re good, I’m fine,” but those spider-strong hands never stopped moving. In moments, enough weight vanished for her repulsors to actually do some work, and a split second after that, the girl pushed herself out of the Cast Iron sized hole.
Immediately, her brother crowded in close, and started patting at her armor. “Pe- Spider-man. I’m okay.”
“You- yeah. Yeah, I- I know that.” His hands finally stopped, hovering in the air between them. Except- except they trembled. Morgan’s stomach swooped unpleasantly when she noticed. “You’re okay. You’re- okay?”
A quick check of her scanning system turned up no eyeballs nearby, human or electronic, so Morgan retracted her helmet. The slight breeze felt good on her sweaty skin, even if she’d need a shower later to get the rubble dust out of her short hair. “Peter. I am fine. I wasn’t hurt, and you came and got me, like, instantly. I’m okay.” And, after a slight pause, “Are you okay?”
He didn’t take off his mask, but Peter’s eye lenses were extended to their biggest setting. His hands slowly lowered, but didn’t stop trembling. “I’m-” His breath hitched. “I- will be.”
“You’d better,” Morgan said as sternly as she could manage. “You promised we could go to Central Park tomorrow.”
A small laugh spilled out of his mouth. “Yeah, I know. I’ll be fine by then, Mo.”
She ducked forward to give him a quick hug. “Good. I don’t like it when you aren’t okay.”
“I know,” Peter repeated. “Sorry.” One of his arms snaked around her in return, while his other hand came up to cradle her head, fingers splayed wide and probably getting more grime in her hair. But they stopped trembling, and Morgan cared more about that, anyway.