Chapter 8
Tony was awoken at three in the morning by a blood curdling scream. He sat up at the same time as Pepper and they both instantly ran out the room and towards the screams. The noise led them to Peter's room, where they found the culprit of the screams, Morgan. Pepper and Tony both ignored her and looked at what she was screaming at. Peter was on the floor in a heap next to his bed, persumably haven fallen out of it as the blankets were askew and lying half on the floor. His body was curling inwards, his hands in air tight fists, tensing into his chest. His body was shaking to and fro, his eyes were in a vacant stare. That wasn't even the worst of it, the worst of it was the noises that were coming out of his mouth.
Tony didn't think, he hurried towards Peter and scooped up his body and ran, leaving Pepper behind with Morgan. Morgan being traumatized wasn't important to him for the time being. Peter continued to shake in Tony's hold and the elevetor ride to med-bay felt like hours.
woosh
The doors opened and Tony kept running adding in a plea of 'help'. Someone came with a gurney and Tony was hesitant about putting Peter down, out of his arms. He had to be safe in his arms.
"Tony let him go, you can hurt him like that."
Someone had said it, he didn't know who. He placed him on the gurney and watched as a nurse put Peter on his side and another started talking to his AI, Friday.
They were given permission to use Friday in order to help monitor Peter while he was at the penthouse. It was helpful when things like.... this, occured.
Three minutes. Three full minutes later, the seizure had stopped. Leaving Peter in a dazed state while he breathed heavily. Tony wanted to scoop him back up and never let him go, but the nurses wheeled him away again. Tony started running with them, but a nurse stopped him from following.
"That's my son, let me through."
"Tony, Tony," Helen moved to Tony's eyesight, blocking him off from seeing Peter enter into a room, "we need to run tests and you will get in the way. We're going to figure this out, but you need to let us work."
"That's. My. Kid." Tony seethed.
Tony flinched when someone touched his back.
"Tony," Pepper breathed out. Morgan was bundled in her arms with her head buried in her neck, sobbing.
"Pep," that's all that would come out.
"I suggest sitting in the waiting room, it might be a while. We have to run a few tests," Helen walked them to the waiting room and then left them be as she went to go help the nurses.
Tony shook his head back and forth for what felt like an hour, "I don't understand."
"Me neither," Pepper said absent-mindedly.
"No. Pep. I don't understand," he said again, "I don't understand why Friday didn't alert us."
Pepper raised her head from where it was resting on top of Morgans.
"Friday should've alerted us, not- not Morgan's screams."
Pepper was thinking things through, she agreed that it made no sense.
"I'll be right back, I swear I'll be right back."
Tony ran back to the elevator and rode down to his personal lab where he took charge of his stupid bots.
"Friday why wasn't I alerted about Peter?"
"There are no protocols in place that say I should have alerted you about Peter."
Tony skewed up his face in pure confusion, "There's a protocol in place for you to alert me, if anything and I mean anything puts Peter into danger or if he is in distress!"
"I don't have anything programmed for that nature."
"I don't- Friday list off the protocols you have in place for Peter."
"There are no protocols in place for Peter."
Tony screwed his eyes shut and banged the table he was leaning over. "Fuck!" He started pulling up holograms and files, trying to look for a hack or a breach. "Friday list any changes made in the past 3 weeks."
"There has been a reset in all protocols that mention the name Peter, this reset was set into place Tuesday of November 7th."
"By who," Tony demanded
"Ned Leeds."
"God dammit!" Tony put his head in his hands, he didn't know if he was angry or upset at the little shit. He knew that Ned would never do anything on purpose and that it was probably Peter's idea in the first place. But he put his kid in danger, no kids. That means he erased protocols that were also for Morgan, as most were for both Morgan and Peter. He knew it was too good to be true that her nightmares had stopped.
"Friday put all the protocols back and then redact it, I don't want anyone getting into those files ever again."
"Done Boss."
Tony brushed his fingers shakily through his hair and walked back to the elevator, but not before he threw up on one of his projects that was near the door.
"Pep," Pepper was shushing her daughter who was still in hysterics, but she looked over at Tony none the less. "It was Ned, he erased all protocols that pertained to Pete. I don't think he did it on purpose, but god da-." He cut himself off as he looked at his daughter, instead putting a hand on his mouth.
"Hey, at least you figured it out."
They sat in uncomfortable silence until finally Helen made her way out to them. Her face led to an intense investigation, it held no emotion so Tony couldn't figure out if anything bad or good happened.
"He's stable," Pepper clenched her hand around Tony's bicep. "Come down to my office, I'd like to speak to the both of you in there." She nodded towards her office and led the way.
Everyone took a seat, Morgan on Tony's lap now.
"We took an MRI and CT scan, as well as a new lumbar puncture. There's no easy way to break this down so I'm going to give it to you straight, the leukemia has spread to Peter's cerebral fluid."
Pepper and Tony stayed in tense silence, not wanting to hear more, but preparing themselves mentally.
"It's what caused the seizure. The time off chemo was good for his neutrophil count and for him to build up calories, and just a break for his body in general. Unfortunately, ALL is aggressive and it took over in the past week and a half. I couldn't have predicted that it would move so fast, for a regular person it would move fast, but Peter is a special case and it moved far faster than I have ever seen in anyone."
"What does that mean- what's going to happen now," Pepper's voice was raw and she was holding back tears.
"We're going back on Chemotherapy tomorrow morning, I want him to rest tonight. It's hard to treat cancer that spreads to the spinal fluid, but we are going to be inserting iron chelators directly into the spine, it will cut off access to the iron there and hopefully starve those cancer cells. It's tricky and hard, and I'm not going to lie, it won't be easy," Helen watched on as Tony and Pepper jittered around, this was the hard part of her job.
"What can we expect from this," Tony waved his hand in the air, not really sure what he wanted to say, "is he going to have more seizures, I don't. I don't want that, he's already going through so much."
"He will probably continue to have headaches, we can try to alleviate them with medication. He might also continue to have seizures as well, we won't know until it happens. Some other symptoms that may or may not happen are balance problems, abnormal vision, and he might vomit more than he already does."
Tony slapped his hand onto his knee, "can we go see him, I need to see him."
Helen understood Tony, she's worked with him for years, he was an avoider. He always avoided things that made him uncomfortable, he had been doing this a lot more since Peter's diagnoses. She understood though, she really did.
"You can, he's going to be out of it for a little while. We gave him some meds to make sure he doesn't have anymore unwanted seizure activity and also so he can get some rest. So, if he wakes up a bit loopy, there's no need to worry it just means the drugs are working," She got up and opened her door and led them to Peter's room. It truly was Peter's room, he was always placed in there when he got injured. He even had some artwork on the walls from Morgan that made their permanence with tape.
Peter was awake when they entered, which suprised Helen. The drugs they gave him should have knocked him out for at least a couple hours.
"Baby," Pepper walked straight to her boy, gripping his cheeks and mobbing him with kisses.
"Mom," Peter echoed back in the same tone.
Tony placed Morgan on the couch that was in the room, she protested violently. Pepper gestured for Tony to hand her over.
"Hi Underoos, how're you feeling?" Tony brushed back Peter's sweaty curls.
"I'm doin' amazin'," Peter giggled. Yeah, he was totally high right now.
Pepper and Tony laughed. Oh god did he say that out loud.
"Yeah, you did say that outloud."
Peter licked his lips and then blinked slowly, he had been fighting the drugs in order to see his parents. They were here now though.
"Why don't you rest."
"C'n ya res' wi'h me?" Peter moved not even a milimeter over, but he tried. See, he was always trying.
"Okay, I can do that," Tony got onto the bed besides Peter and gently pushed him over to the right side of the bed. He kicked off his shoes and hauled his legs onto the mattress. "This good?" Peter dropped his head onto Tony's chest, but other than that he didn't move or speak.
"You should take Morgan upstairs so you two can get some real rest," Tony had offered up, but he knew he couldn't force her. If he was standing with Morgan and Pepper was making the offer he would decline in a heartbeat.
Pepper looked down at Morgan who was refusing to even glance in the direction of Peter, "yeah that's probably best, I should call Dr. Marsh, she's going to need to talk about what happened."
Pepper had given Morgan a therapist, without Tony's consent, because of her nightmares. It had been working to a certain degree, her nightmares were few. Not that they would know because of the protocol mishap, but it was bound to rise again after what she had witnessed tonight.
Tony held Peter close, running his hand up and down his arm. Peter was sound asleep, he looked peaceful. His face wasn't scrunched up in pain, Tony could almost pretend everything was normal, almost. Except for the fact that there was an IV in his kids arm and wires attached to his chest, there was a G tube snaking out from under the pile of blankets, and his kid was in a hospital with a hospital gown on. God did Tony hate seeing him in those dingy gowns, Peter hated them, so the fact that he was in one right now made him want to vomit. It meant that Peter was extremely ill to even fight about it.
Tony had the urge to call up Ned and just lay it on him. He wasn't that guy anymore though, he wasn't that evil guy from after the ferry incident with Peter. That was years ago, he was changed. He also didn't want Ned to blame himself. The kid already blamed himself enough, if he ever found out what happened it would eat him alive over and over again. He made a vow to himself that he was never going to share what happened with him or Peter.
Sometimes Tony wondered if it would've been better if they didn't undo the snap, then his kid wouldn't be suffering every day and night. It was selfish to think like that, he knew it was, but god did he wish he could fix this.
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The sun was what woke Tony up, that and the fact that a nurse was tampering with his kid. She had woken him up to get ready for the new round of chemo and Peter was squirming about while she tried to take some more blood. Tony was surprised the kid still had any left in him with the amount of times they've taken some.
After she got what she came for she meandered out the room, Peter put his head back on Tony, resuming the position that he was in before the nurse attacked. He started to fall back asleep but Tony sat up a little, dislodging Peter's current position.
"Sorry buddy."
Peter looked up at Tony, longingly, "can you get my clothes?"
"I'll get Pepper to get some."
"Tell her to bring your SI hoodie and my star wars pajama pants, with the lightsabers, that one."
"My hoodie, huh?"
"Yeah- the one with the SI logo and your name on it," Peter pulled up the blankets to his chin, "It's cold and that hoodie is warm." Peter snuggled into Tony, "and you're warm too."
Tony couldn't help but to smile, he would never think about 'what if we never snapped' ever again.
"Knock, knock," Casey, Peters daytime nurse, walked in with the vial chemotherapy bag, "morning you two."
"Mornin'."
"I heard last night was rough," she hooked the bag onto a pole and made her way to Peter's side of the bed.
"I was just break dancing."
"Oh were you now?" Tony was amazed at how fast his kid was to just joke about the difficult stuff in his life, "please never dance again, yeah?"
Peter crossed his arms in fake defense.
"I come barring gifts," Rhodey interuptedly came in with an actual gift and also Peters clothes that he requested.
"Rhodey!" Peter put his arms out so he could get a hug and Rhodey accepted.
"Hi honey bear, that gift for me?"
"No, the gift is not for you," Rhodey slapped Tony's hand that was reaching for the present. Rhodey handed it to Peter, "here you go Pete."
"Thanks, told you I was a good dancer," Peter nudged Tony's ribs. Peter pulled out the tissue paper that was sticking out of the bag and put it in Tony's lap, who in returned rolled his eyes and crumpled it up. "Woah!" Peter pulled the gift out and looked at it in awe.
"For his collection I presume?"
"Yeah I may have asked Morgan what to get and she only said that it had to be soft."
"It's so cute!" Peter was staring at the gift like it would break if he looked away.
"Mhmm, so what is 'it'?"
Peter slowly looked at Tony, "seriously?" Peter tilted his head towards Tony, "It's a tauntaun." Peter's voice was all business, "Empire Strikes Back," Peter provided when Tony still looked lost.
This was all fun in games for Tony, he knew exactly what it was. After Peter was dusted he watched the movies about a million times over. He watched them with May, he watched them with Rhodey and Happy, he watched them with Morgan when she was three, the age he declared old enough to understand films. He mostly watched them when he missed Peter, which was a lot.
"Alright, want to get your clothes on before I hook you up?" Casey was dauntingly holding the IV in her hand.
"Yeah," Peter decided. Casey stepped out of the room so he could have some privacy, "Tony, can you help me? I'm really tired."
Peter looked disappointed in himself, "Of course."
Tony helped Peter change and then helped him get back into a comfortable position, which was Peter basically using Tony as a bed than the bed itself.
Casey came back 10 minutes later and hooked up the IV and also hooked up more feed for his G tube. He hated that, because even though he wasn't 'eating' the food, it would still violently come back up like he had.
Thirty minutes in and onto round five of uno with Tony and Rhodey, Peter slapped a hand over his mouth. Tony was used to this happening so he was quick to shove a basin under Peter's chin. Rhodey, who hadn't ever been around to see Peter like this was frozen in fear.
After that Peter tapped out of the game, feeling too nauseous to resume. His head was killing him and he was too embarrassed to inform Tony about it, opting to just lay down beside Tony instead of on him this time. It secretly crushed Tony's feelings. Peter laid with his back to Tony's thigh and his legs scrunched to his chest.
Tony leaned over Peter while rubbing his hand up and down his spine, "how you feeling? Be honest."
Peter moaned out in pain, not wanting it to escape past his lips, but it was the only sound that came out.
"I know buddy, I know." Tony tapped his fingers along Peter's side.
"C'n you hand me my phone?" Peter didn't mean for it to come out as a whine.
Rhodey got up to get it, he needed to do something.
Peter tapped away and Tony wondered what he was doing, but then he put the phone up to his ear.
"Hey," Peter croaked out to whoever was on the other side of the phone.
Tony wished he had superhearing like Peter, because it was killing him to not know who he was talking to. He was trying not to smother him though.
"Jus' hurts," Peter croaked out, "please."
Tony caught Rhodey's eyes and started having a silent conversation with him. Like who was he talking to and why did they get to know he was hurting. Peter had stopped talking to the person on the phone, he had switched it so the phone was laid on the bed and his cheek was over top of it and his eyes were closed. Tony could hear mumbling coming from the phone.
A good twenty minutes later and Tony was sure that Peter was fully asleep, he gently lifted his head and retrieved the phone. Rhodey was waiting in anticipation, he was also curious as to who it was. Tony tapped the speaker button and waited for the person, who was labeled as 'S-M Sticker' in the phone to talk, but it remained silent.
"Hello?" Tony ventured.
There was a jostle on the other end like Tony had startled them, "Peter?"
"Nope- this is Peter's dad."
"Oh, oh. Hi Mr. Parker, is he asleep?" Interesting 'Mr.Parker', Tony thought to himself.
"Mr. Stark," Tony corrected, "Dr. Stark if you want to get technical. And yes he's asleep."
The girl let go of a breath she was holding, "good, that's good."
"Who are you, just curious as to why my kid is talking to a random girl I've never met." Rhodey was staring down Tony, disapprovingly.
"I'm Claire, I met Peter at support group."
So this is the girl that Peter was smiling about, "Oh yes the infamous Claire, you should stop by some time, I'm sure Peter would enjoy your company."
"Yeah, that'd be awesome. Oh- I've gotta go, tell him I said to call me later."
"Will do." Tony hung up the phone and placed it on the table beside the bed, Tony raised his eyebrows at Rhodey.
"Oh, Peter has a little girlfriend?"
"Nope, Peter said she's aromantic or something like that, she doesn't like people or whatever."
"Huh, interesting," Rhodey looked as confused as Tony sounded.
"Plus he likes that scary girl from decathlon even though he says he doesn't, trust me, I know my kid."
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Pepper was sitting in Dr. Marsh's office, Morgan was on the floor sat on her knees showing Dr. Marsh what happened the other night with dolls. It was hard for Pepper to watch, but Dr. Marsh said it was helpful for her to talk about what happened in order for everyone to understand her fears and get it out.
"So you got up after a nightmare and your brother was on the floor?" Morgan nodded, "what happened after that?"
Morgan picked up two more dolls and had them go to the area that was supposed to represent Peter's room. "Mommy and daddy ran inside the room and daddy picked up Peter and he ran."
Morgan swiped off the two dolls that represented Peter and Tony, onto the floor. "Mommy picked me up because I was sad. And then she said we gotta go to Petey."
"How were you feeling when all of this happened?"
"Scared," Morgan shrugged, "sad."
Dr. Marsh nodded, "how are you feeling right now?"
"I don't know," Morgan was playing with the two dolls that were left on the table, just making them stand unceremoniously, "I'm still sad?"
Dr. Marsh lowered herself to sit on the floor, across from Morgan on the other side of the table, "It's okay to be sad, especially when something scary like that happens. Do you have anyone that can help you feel not sad?"
Morgan kept moving the dolls along the table, "uhm. Daddy. Also mommy," she flicked her eyes over at Pepper, "and Petey and Ned!"
"That's good."
Morgan looked down at the table and dropped the dolls, "Am I going to get cancer?"
Pepper threw her hand over her mouth, she was glad that Morgan wasn't facing her. She blinked back tears and waited to see what Dr. Marsh was going to answer with.
"Hmm, that's a big question. Is that something that scares you?"
A jerky nod was what Dr. Marsh got in response.
"That's a scary thing to think about, isn't it," Morgan began to bite the inside of her cheek, "you go to the doctors, and they help you to stay healthy."
"Yeah, and mom said they weren't going to give me a shot, but they did!" Morgan was angry and the other topic was forgotten at this point. "It's okay because mommy says that it makes me healthier and they gave my a sucker at the end!"
"Oh yeah? What flavor was it?"
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Rhodey kicked Tony out of Peter's room so he could get some rest in his own bed. He had fallen asleep a little bit whenever Peter was sleeping, but it wasn't a lot. Rhodey was making him take a two hour nap, Helen was arriving after that to inject the chelators into Peter's back for the first time.
Peter was resting his eyes, but he wasn't asleep.
"Want to watch a movie maybe?"
"Not really, no."
"Hmm, want to talk about the avengers?"
Peter snapped his eyes open and moved his head to look at Rhodey, "yes."
"Haha, I knew you would." Rhodey put his phone down and faces Peter all serious like. It wasn't often that he got an avenger's story, Tony didn't like to talk about it. He was surprised that Rhodey even wanted to share, I guess being sick has its small perks.
"Alright so this is an old story, before the avengers were even a thing. Hey, don't look at me like that, it is an 'avengers story' I promise."
Peter sat up a little so he wasn't laying all the way flat anymore, "no promises that I won't throw up in the middle of your story."
"That's alright kid," Rhodey laughed, then he turned his face back into business, "so the year is 1999, it's New Years eve-"
Rhodey goes on to tell Peter a bunch of stories that he knows Tony would never tell the kid. He enjoyed watching Peters shock and laughter at his father's idiocy. Just like Peter said, he threw up a couple times inbetween laughter, but it never seemed to rain on his parade. Why did a kid like him have to have the world shit on him?
"Do you think-" Peter cuts himself off. He wasn't even sure why he was bringing this up to Rhodey. He didn't feel comfortable bringing it up with Tony because he would just smother him and baby him.
"Do I think what?" Rhodey probed on, it was enough to get Peter to change his mind.
"Do you think I'll ever be Spider-man again?"
Peter had this hopeful glint in his eye, ever since his diagnoses he's been so focused on trying to get better while being sick that he never even thought about Spider-man at first. Laying around all day really makes your mind wander though. He had been thinking about Spider-manning at a constant, he was letting Queens down, he was letting New York down. The people deserved better.
"I do. I think you will be Spider-man again and it's okay to take a break."
"I mean yeah, but. Those people out there," Peter pointed out the window, "They count on Spider-man, they count on me. People are getting hurt out there, people could be dying."
Rhodey placed his hand on Peter's that was beginning to pull at his hair, "Kid, you can't help others before you help yourself. Got it? Trust me, I know what it feels like." Peter raised an eyebrow. "Well, sort of. Not exactly. When I was injured," Rhodey was dancing around the word paralyzed, "I felt helpless, like I could've been doing so much more. I felt guilty for laying in a hospital bed, not being able to move."
Peter was soaking in every word that he was saying. Like Rhodey had the cure all in the back of his head somewhere, Rhodey didn't know how he felt about that. The kid trusted people too easily, luckily Rhodey was one of the good ones.
"Even when I was getting physical therapy, I felt like a burden. Then Tony made me these," Rhodey slapped the side of his leg brace, "but I wasn't happy. Sure, I could walk again even though it was tough at first. I was just so caught up inside my head about the fact I was incapable, that when I was finally capable again I didn't know how to process it." Rhodey took a second to watch Peter's features, making sure he was understanding the point, "The truth is, I was capable even before the braces. Even if I had no braces I could still be doing what I love, helping people. Obviously it wasn't at the same capacity, but I could still make an impact on others."
"So, I can still fight crime when I'm sick?" Peter sounded unsure.
"Not exactly. What I'm saying is that you can take yourself out of the Spider-man suit, but you can't take the Spider-man out of you. Also, you were still you before you got bit. You are always going to be Peter Parker, you've always had the instinct to help others. At least from what I was told."
Peter smirked, "I get it now. Thank you, Uncle Rhodey."
"Uncle Rhodey," Rhodey looked in thought for a second, "I like that."
"Me too."
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Right on time, Helen and Tony entered the room.
"I'd like to discuss something with you Peter before I give you the chelators."
Peter sat up with his listening ears on and his heart pounding faster than normal.
"We have to insert chelators into your spinal fluid everyday in order to get the best results," Peter grimaced, "exactly what I was thinking. I was thinking it would be best if we placed a intrathecal port. I know it's a big word, it would be placed in your lower back and then we would just wrap the tubing towards your front to put the pump on your lower abdomen."
Peter looked at his Dad and then his Uncle, he wasn't sure if he wanted more tubes. Did he really just call Tony his dad in his head? It did sound better than getting an injection in his back everyday. "Yeah, that sounds good?" He didn't like using the word good to describe, well that.
"Okay that's great, we can do it tonight or tomorrow. Which ever sounds best for you."
Again Peter looked at his Dad, no Tony and Uncle, this time he couldn't think of a decision. Tony put his hand on Peter's shoulder and squeezed, "Can we get back to you on that?"
"Absolutely, Peter can you lay in your side for this?"
"Can Tony stay this time?"
"Yeah, I think that'd be okay." Helen wanted as much comfort for him as possible this time.
Tony squeezed his shoulder some more, "hear that, she said that would be okay," Tony said with his eyebrows perched to make Peter laugh.