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The mission had been routine. Low-level bust, nothing flashy, nothing dangerous. Just a couple of weapons smugglers dumb enough to move stolen Stark tech in broad daylight.
Then one of them got lucky.
The round clipped Daphne's side. Not deep, but enough to spin her around and knock the air out of her. Tony heard her gasp, saw her stumble.
"Kid, report. Talk to me." He blasted the guy who shot her, landing on in the field.
“I’m fine,” she grunted, though her hand came away wet when she pressed it to her ribs. “Just… don’t feel good.”
"Mr. Stark, I don't feel so good."
Everything around him narrowed: the light, the sound, the air. FRIDAY was saying something in his ear, numbers maybe, but all he could hear was another voice—higher, panicked.
Peter on Titan, stumbling into his arms. The dust.
He looked down at his hands. Empty. Empty. He's gone. He's—
“Dad?” Daphne’s voice dragged him back, and he realized he was shaking.
He rushed forward. “Let me see. Where—how bad—”
“Dad, it’s okay, I—”
“Don’t—”
"Boss," FRIDAY's voice chimed. "Her vitals are stable."
Tony could barely hear her. Could barely hear either of them. His own heartbeat was roaring in his ears, uneven and too loud, drowning everything else out.
She was talking—he could see her lips move—but all he could feel was ash. Peter disintegrating between his fingers. That same breathless, broken sound of “I don’t feel so good” ricocheting through his skull until it hurt to think.
His hands hovered over Daphne’s side, not trusting himself to touch her. She was bleeding, Christ, she was bleeding. Not a lot, but enough. Enough for his brain to start sprinting toward every worst-case scenario it could reach.
“Tony.”
She said it softly, but it still cut through the fog like a wire. He blinked and focused on her face—pale, wincing, but there. Alive.
“Dad,” she tried again, steadier this time. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”
He swallowed, hard, forcing his breath back into some kind of rhythm. “You—you got hit.”
“Yeah,” she said. “And I’m gonna have a badass scar. I’ll live.”
He gave a weak, jerky laugh that was more a gasp than anything else, pressing his hand to his forehead like he could rub the whole thing away.
"Jesus, kid," he muttered. "Okay. Okay, let's go get you patched up. You have school in the morning."