Chapter 7
When Peter walked in the first thing he noticed was that everyone was in different stages of treatment. Some had hair and some had no hair. Some were hooked up to IVs and had a pole close to them, while others had nothing attached. He noticed some people with NG tubes, he smiled when he saw one girl with a sticker holding the tube on her face was spider-man. In that moment he didn't feel so alone. Pepper and Tony maybe were on to something when they sent him to group therapy.
The second thing he noticed was that they were all kids around his age, teenagers. They were all sat around in a circle on chairs, Peter snagged a chair that was next to the girl with the Spider-man sticker. He smiled when she looked at him.
"Hi," she looked Peter up and down, which in return made him nervous, "You're new, I'm Claire." She held her hand out.
Peter grabbed her hand and shook it, "Peter. I'm Peter," he took notice of her on going collection of hospital bracelets that were attached to her bag. It had to be at least forty. Maybe more.
Peter thought about how many he had, he had quiet a few. Whenever Tony made him go to the Med-bay with Spider-man related injuries the nurses would always give him one. He thought it odd because there weren't many patients, but it must've been a hospital protocol. He also had quite a few from before the bite, he had really bad asthma and was hospitalized a lot from it. Also, now because of cancer he had more, just like Claire. He never thought of keeping them though, whenever he got out of a hospital he always tore them off. He never wanted to look at them again, it was just a reminder, an ugly reminder.
"Oh," Claire must've took notice in his staring, "I like to keep them as motivation, it really just shows the journey I've been on." Peter nodded as she spoke, not really sure what to say. "I have osteosarcoma of the right leg, it spread though a couple months back. I'm pretty lucky though, only have a couple more rounds of chemo and radiation, and I should be good to go."
She stared at Peter, but Peter didn't know what she wanted from him, "okay," he responded dully.
"So, what do you have?"
"Oh- uhm. Leukemia," Peter nodded, he wasn't sure why.
Claire nodded back, "seems like a common theme around here."
"Theme?" Peter questioned.
"A lot of these kids in this hospital have Leukemia," she pointed to a couple kids that were seated in the circle, "Jake, Lucas, and Michelle. They all have it."
"Oh, okay," Peter's mind flashed to his own Michelle. No, not his own. That's just weird. He was thinking about Mj, alright?
"Not much of a talker, huh?"
"Sorry, I'm just nervous that's all. I've never been here before," Peter started fiddling with the tubing that ran from his port to his backpack.
"I get it, I was scared the first time too. You get used to it though, it's a piece of cake. You laugh. You cry. You go home."
Peter laughed at that, he doesn't know why that was funny to him. Maybe it was just the way she said it, but it cracked him up. "I do a lot of that. The crying and laughing I mean."
"Me too," Claire giggled out.
"Alright everyone, welcome to TC support group, let's take our seats." A man wearing a goofy bow tie, who must be the therapist, spoke up to the group. Everyone took their seats and the conversation died out. "I see some new faces, welcome. I'm Samuel and I am a cancer survivor. I had cancer of the kidney when I was eleven, but look at me now," he gestured to himself awkwardly. "How about we go around the circle and introduce ourselves, let's say one thing that made us smile today," he smiled at the group," Trevor, why don't you start us off."
Trevor stood up and immediately downcasted his eyes straight to the center of the circle, Peter felt the same way that Trevor looked. "Hi, I'm Trevor. I was diagnosed when I was 6, went into remission when I was 9 and my cancer came back when I was 15. Uh- uhm. One thing that made me smile today was... oh, I got it, my mom tripped up the stairs this morning." Trevor ended off with a nervous giggle, but smiled as he sat down when others laughed a little bit too.
The next person stood up, "Hello everyone, I'm Michelle." She had brown straight hair and fair white skin, he nose held her glasses in place, although she was still squinting through them like they offered no help. Overall, she was nothing like the Michelle he knew. "I've had leukemia since I was 12, it's been on and off," she shrugged her shoulders, "One thing that made me smile today was walking in here and seeing all of you again." Out of the corner of Peter's eye he saw Claire roll her eyes, Peter held in a laugh.
As the kids continued to stand up and share, Peter was getting antsy as it made it's way around closer to him. He was Spider-man for crying out loud, although he has spoken to a couple crowds as Spider-man and wearing the mask didn't help with that. At all. In a blink of an eye it was Claire's turn.
She slowly stood up, "Hi strangers and people I can't get away from. I'm Claire, I have cancer, shocking I know," Peter couldn't help but smile, she was so confident and he wished he had that. "One thing that made me smile today was meeting Peter here," she pointed at Peter and all heads turned to look at him as he instantly blushed. Claire sat down and gestured for Peter to stand.
Peter exhaled through his nose and stood up, wiping his sweaty hands on his jeans. He felt self conscious of the G tube that was visibly coming out at the bottom of his shirt, even when there were others in the room with the same thing. "Hi, I'm Peter," his voice betrayed him and cracked, "I've got- I'm. Sorry," god this wasn't fun, he decided to skip the whole 'I got this cancer, yadda yadda' instead he said, "What made me smile today was when my little sister gave me a hug before she went to school today. She does it almost everyday and it's the best." He nervously sat back down, instantly rethinking everything that he just said. God he was stupid, stupid, stupid.
Claire smiled at him, ignoring whoever was talking next and whispered, "You're cute as a nervous guy," Peter stared through her. Was she flirting? He wasn't even sure, he had only ever liked two girls. He was pretty sure he liked Mj and he didn't want to flirt back to Claire by accident and give her the wrong message, so he elected to keep his mouth shut.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I'm not interested in you like that, I don't want you to think I'm making a move." Peter continued to look at her, but didn't speak as she looked like she was on a roll with rambling, "I'm not into guys, so thought you should know that." She looked forward, like she was done talking, but then quickly looked back, "I don't like girls either, didn't want you to think I was a lesbian," she laughed out. "Not that I'm against lesbians, oh my god. I'm- what I'm trying to say is that I'm asexual or aromantic- or whatever. I'm not too keen on labels," she quickly added. She sighed and pinched her nose, "I'm really bad at making friends, let me start again. I'm not trying to get in your pants." She slowly looked at Peter for a reaction.
Peter slowly smiled, "Hi, 'I'm not trying to get in your pants', I'm Peter." Peter put his hand out for her to shake. She instantly, playfully swatted it away.
"God, that was awful."
"No, I think it was pretty good," Peter looked up at the ceiling in satisfaction.
"That's what she said," Claire quietly mumbled, making Peter laugh with a hand over his mouth to muffle it. She joined in a few seconds later.
The group therapy went on for an hour and a half, after sharing some feelings and laughing and maybe some crying like Claire had promised, it was time to leave. Peter threw his backpack on and stood up, ready to get out of this hell hole. He stopped when he felt the presence of a hand on his shoulder.
"Want to hang out maybe?" Claire asked, hopefully, "not today or anything, but sometime in the near future?"
"Yeah, yeah. That'd be great." Peter took the phone that Claire offered to him and put in his contact information.
"Alright Peter," Claire looked down at her phone, "Parker, I'll see you around."
"Yeah, see ya!" He watched mesmerizingly as she left the room. He really liked her and not because of the Spider-man sticker, that he was just realizing he forgot to comment on. He liked how different she was, she wasn't afraid of what other's were thinking as she was being her true authentic self.
Peter got into the passenger seat of Tony's car with a smile plastered onto his face.
"Wasn't so bad, was it?"
"No, it was bad."
"What? Why are you smiling like a kid who successfully stole a cookie then, huh?" Tony was poking Peter's side.
"Okay, stop, stop," Peter laughed, "I met this girl named Claire and she was really nice."
"Peter Benjamin Parker-Stark. You met a girl and you're openly talking about it? Who are you and what have you done with my son?" Tony was looking back and forth from the road to Peter in shock as he drove down 165th street.
Peter shrugged, "FYI, it is totally not like that. She's aromantic, so she's not interested and neither am I."
"Arrow-mantic? What in Thor's name are you even saying?"
"Oh my god Tony! You need to educate yourself, I can't be seen with you like this."
"You don't want to be seen with Tony Stark? I'm literally a billionaire, philanthropist, genuis and an ex-avenger. I'm the coolest around and you don't want to be seen with me. I'm your dad Pete."
"So?"
Tony had the urge to slam on the brakes, "You're a brat. You know what? You're grounded. No more phone, no snapface for you."
Peter stiffled a laugh at that, "Kay."
Tony looked over at Peter in fake shock and disbelief, "Alright, no more Ned."
"What!?" Peter threw his hands in the air.
"Yeah, no Ned." Tony felt honored that he got the kid to be upset, even though it was an obvious joke. Peter seemed genuinely mad at the thought of not being able to see his friend.
"Okay, okay. I take it back, I like being seen with you."
"Attaboy, what else," Tony cupped his ear in the direction of Peter.
Peter mumbled something.
"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that, what did ya say?"
"You're my favorite avenger," Peter mumbled louder with no emotion.
Tony wooped in success. Dad of the year award goes to, the one and only Iron Man.
"You're the worst sometimes, you know that?" Peter rolled his eyes, all in dramatics. Tony caught it though in the side of his peripheral.
"You're gonna be okay, you love me." Peter dodged the hand that Tony stuck out to ruffle his hair with.
▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎
Pepper was placing the last dish on the table, "Alright that should be all." Pepper took her seat next to Morgan. Peter sat with a clean dish in front of him. He wasn't going to eat and wasn't planning to, but his parents wanted him to sit with them and try. He was doing a lot of that lately, trying. Trying to eat, trying to stay awake, trying to pretend like he wasn't nauseous and in pain all the time. He was failing at all of those tasks right now.
"Hey Underoos, you okay?" Tony was filling Morgan's plate with green beans, while she looked at it in disgust.
"Yeah, my head just kind of hurts a little. Can I go lay down?" Peter crossed his arms on the table and laid his head on them.
"Of course you can, want us to get Casey to bring down some more meds?"
Peter shook his head, which in turn made his vision blur from the pain, "no, I think I'm just gonna go to sleep." He slowly lifted himself up and trudged to his room.
"I'm worried about how much pain he's in, he's been hiding it more than usual. The headaches, those are new," Pepper moved her food around with her fork, her appetite gone.
"I know, but his body is fighting, Helen said it was normal," Tony took a swig of his water, "he's going to be okay Pepper."
He was just as worried as Pepper, but he was sure that Peter was going to be okay. He just had to be.