Outnumbered

It’s boiling outside.

Like, why am I wearing a navy tuxedo during May in hot, humid, Long Island weather, boiling.

Peter tugs at the collar of his shirt, feels sweat rolling down his back. May had promised everyone the wedding ceremony would only take fifteen minutes, tops, but he hadn’t factored in walking her down the aisle, for the officiant to go so slowly and make so many jokes along the way. They’re closing in on thirty minutes and he wonders, briefly, if his blood sugar is dropping, if the heat and the nerves and panic about not losing the damn rings are working against him.

He glances at his StarkWatch and sees that his Dexcom continuous glucose monitor is reading 142. He exhales slowly, confident that his blood sugar is not the issue.

It doesn’t change the fact that it’s boiling, though.

Or that he feels a little…swimmy.

Is that a word?

“Kid,” Tony whispers from his place in the line of groomsmen, kicking his heel softly. “You okay?”

“Y-yeah,” he whispers, not wanting to take the attention on the altar away from May.

May’s always made everything about Peter. Always. And that fact only intensified after his type one diabetes diagnosis three months ago.

But today? Today is about May. About Happy. About the two of them choosing each other and being happy together, and Peter has done everything he can think of to keep his diabetes and his tendency to be an absolute klutz from interfering with that fact.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride,” the officiant announces, the small crowd cheering as May and Happy kiss. Peter smiles and claps, feels his body sway a bit and blinks his eyes as he steadies himself.

He’s fine.

Dexcom says he’s fine.

He’s fine.

The second the wedding party enters the coolness of the air-conditioned venue, Peter shimmies out of his suit jacket and tosses it on a chair in the cocktail hour room. He grabs a glass of water, but it shakes in his hand, splashes a bit on the floor.

For what isn’t a blood sugar issue, this sure as hell feels like one.

“Test, kiddo. There’s no way you’re in the 140s,” Tony says, a hand on his shoulder. Peter knows Tony has access to his Dexcom data, that he, along with Pepper, May, and Happy, can pull it up on his phone and watch. “You’re sweating through your dress shirt,” he whispers, grabbing Peter’s jacket and leading him out of the cocktail hour and up the stairs toward the privacy of the bridal suite. He deposits him on the couch, which Peter is half grumpy about, half thankful for, because the room is starting to spin a little, and hands him his kit.

Peter’s hands shake as he wipes with the alcohol swab, readies the strip, and pricks his finger.

The meter beeps.

52.

Too low.

“Fuck.”

“Let’s see what we’ve got in here,” Tony says after seeing the number, opening the mini fridge beneath the wet bar. “Orange juice, Dr. Pepper, Coke, Stella Artois–”

“Stella.”

“Funny, kid. You’re not 21, and it’ll make you drop more, even with the carbs.”

“Dr. Pepper.” He leans back on the couch, closes his eyes, and wills the spinning to stop.

Tony pops the tab on the soda and grabs a straw. “FRIDAY, calibrate Peter’s Dexcom to 52 milligrams per deciliter.”

“Of course, sir. Calibration complete,” Tony’s watch replies.

His Dexcom readings affect his pump. Tony refers to these moments where his sensor is off by a wide margin as garbage in, garbage out; without accurate readings, his pump doesn’t suspend insulin when it should. Peter shudders at the thought that he’d been getting insulin during the wedding even though he was dropping.

He hates this fucking disease.

Peter leans forward and goes to take the open soda from Tony, attempts to grip the can and get the straw between his lips, but his hand shakes again and the straw spins away from him. Tony grabs the full can just as it’s about to tumble to the floor.

“Underoos,” Tony comments with a sigh, guiding the can and straw to Peter’s lips.

He sips and sips, the carbonation making him feel nauseated. He really doesn’t want to throw up right now. “I feel like crap,” he admits when he lets the straw go.

“You were swaying during the ceremony.”

“Couldn’t tell what was going on because it was so hot.”

“Thought you were in the 160s when we started but you must’ve been way lower. Heat probably made you drop, too.”

“Was nervous,” Peter adds. “Thought I might lose the rings.”

“Shit, we didn’t pause your basal,” Tony says, referring to the continuous dose of insulin Peter’s getting in the background. He unclips Peter’s pump from his waistband with his free hand, careful not to pull on the tubing connecting the pump to a cannula site on Peter’s abdomen.

“Leave it. Don’t wanna go too high.”

“Yeah, and I want you to come up. You’re still making some insulin. Can’t have you hitting rock bottom at Aunt Hottie’s wedding.” Tony’s referencing Peter’s ‘honeymoon’ period; because he’s only newly diagnosed, his pancreas is still producing insulin in spurts. Combined with the fact that he’s pumping insulin, it’s created the perfect storm of sudden, stubborn lows that don’t like to come back up.

“Hate this,” Peter says with a groan before taking another sip. His hands are less shaky, a lot more stable now, and he’s able to get the straw to his lips by himself.

“Looks like Basal-IQ took over and lowered your basal automatically on your pump once we calibrated,” Tony comments as he clicks through the screen on Peter’s insulin pump, pleased with the recently upgraded technology. “Keep forgetting we did that update. So used to manually correcting and suspending insulin.”

“May said the same thing yesterday,” Peter comments, because this has been happening a lot, is not the first time in the last few days that he’s dropped so quickly.

“Think you’re coming up? Dex says you’re 72 and rising,” he says, reading the teen’s pump, which acts as a Dexcom receiver. “You trust it?”

“How long have we been up here?” Peter asks.

“About 15 minutes. You wanna test?” Tony reclips Peter’s pump to his waistband.

“Y-yeah,” Peter says, repeating the process from earlier. The meter beeps. 75. “Close enough.”

“Daddy!” Morgan yells excitedly as she bounds up the stairs, Peter squinting at the shrillness of her voice; he loves Morgan, but his Spidey senses go haywire when his blood sugar is off and her voice is piercing.

“Shh,” Tony coos as she enters the room, reaching his arms out to pull his five-year-old into his lap. Her pink, fluffy flower girl dress puffs around her as she sits.

“Is Petey okay?” she asks, burrowing into Tony’s chest.

“Yeah, baby. His blood sugar’s a little low, but he’s okay.”

“Did Daddy give you candy?” she asks sweetly.

Peter puts the can on the side table and laughs. “Yes, Mo, all the candy,” he jokes.

“No fair!” she pouts.

“Hey, guess what?” Peter says to get Morgan’s attention. He’s feeling better, though there’s the lingering fuzziness at the edges of his vision, the kind that leaves him feeling foggy for a good hour or so after he’s really low.

She brushes her hair out of her face and focuses on him. “What?”

“I saw some cupcakes downstairs at the cocktail hour. Pink ones with sprinkles.”

“Ooh!” she says, clapping happily, looking up at Tony. “Can we go, Daddy? I want a cupcake!”

Tony looks Peter over, and Peter tilts his head, has a wordless conversation with his eyes to convince him he’s fine. He’s had most of a Dr. Pepper, is almost in the 80s.

“Alright, let’s go get one before they’re all gone,” Tony says, Morgan up and off his lap in an instant. “No running down the stairs!” he yells after her. “Wait at the top, baby!” He grabs the can and scraps from testing, tossing it all. “Take it easy,” he warns as Peter slowly rises from the couch. “You’re still coming up. Don’t want a repeat of Easter.”

Peter winces as his Easter low flashes through his mind. He’d only had his pump for two weeks at that point, had only been diagnosed for about three weeks. It had been tricky figuring out carb counts while factoring in his honeymooning. After going low and coming back up on repeat, he’d finally overdone it by taking insulin for what he didn’t realize was a sugar-free candy egg. He’d hit his lowest, 36, as he’d gotten up from the floor where he’d been playing with Morgan, had collapsed like an accordion and bashed his head on the living room coffee table.

Peter had acted angry, but on the inside, he’d been scared shitless by the incident, hadn’t realized how low he could actually go. Truth be told, he’s still somewhat panicky when he drops, worries he might close his eyes and not wake up. He rubs absently at the scar hidden beneath tufts of brown hair on the side of his head as Tony grabs the teen’s suit jacket.

“Daddy! Cupcakes!” Morgan yells from the hallway.

x

Peter feels like he might pass out.

Not feels, is sure, this time.

He bites his lip and lets May pull him to the center of the dance floor, just the two of them. It’s quiet as he puts one hand on her shoulder and the other on the small of her back, just like they practiced, tries to keep the baked ziti he scarfed down during the first course from coming back up. He hates the attention, the lights and cameras focused on them, but he knows he has to do this. For May. It’s what she wanted, one of the few things she asked of him today.

“You look…gorgeous.” He’s said it so many times today, but with the lights glinting off of the beading on the bodice of her dress and the bottom, flowy and grazing the floor, he can’t help but say it again. She smiles, but he can see that her eyes are glistening. He knows that today wasn’t easy for her, that Ben has been on both of their minds. She’d cried to Peter a week ago, worried that Ben would never forgive her for this, but Peter knows that he would, that Happy is exactly the kind of guy Ben would want for her. He’d held her on the couch, let her cry into his chest for a change, and tried not to let his emotions get the best of him at the time.

A few bars of music play, but it’s definitely not “She’s Got A Way,” like he expected. His eyebrows knit and he plasters a fake smile on his face as he tries to make sense of what song this is. It sounds familiar, but he can’t put his finger on it. “What happened to Billy Joel?” Peter asks as they start to sway playfully to the upbeat tempo.

May smiles and winks, starts to mouth “Never Gonna Give You Up” with exaggeration. “Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you…”

“Did you just…Rick Roll me…at your own wedding?” Peter asks, laughing with his whole body. They let go and jam out as May waves for everyone to join them on the dance floor.

“I knew you were nervous, so I planned this instead. And I may have Rick Rolled you, but I mean every word, Peter. My marrying Happy doesn’t change anything between you and me. You know that, right?”

A lump forms in Peter’s throat as he nods and wraps her into a tight hug. “I know. I love you May.”

“I love you too, baby.” She keeps him there for a moment, rubs his back like she always does when they do something difficult together. A tear slides down his face and he wipes it away quickly, hoping the photographers and videographers haven’t caught it. When he finally pulls away, he can see that May is wiping away tears, too. They both laugh, get back into the song with, “Never gonna give, never gonna give!”

Tony shimmies over, does his signature vogue move with his hands around his face, which has Peter nearly doubled over from laughter. Happy joins in, nods toward Peter as if asking if he can take over dancing with May. With a grin on his face, he hands May’s hand over and gives a nod back, backing away to join the Starks for a little dancing.

x

Peter thought he was fine with all of this.

With Happy and May looking so blissful, with the service and reception being everything he would have wished for May. Watching them take their first dance and laugh candidly as they shoved cake in each other’s mouths had assured Peter that Happy would take care of her in all of the ways Peter couldn’t.

He’d meant it when he promised her that Ben would want this for her.

Peter loves Happy.

Happy is not the issue.

Peter is the issue.

It’s Peter and his stupid Parker luck. It’s his penchant for losing parent figures and trying to do the right thing but always fucking it up anyway. It’s the fact that May has sacrificed everything in her life for him, giving up medical school to raise him after his parents had died. It’s that he still feels responsible for Ben’s death, even though he knows it was an accident and May has always assured him of that. He wants to give May and Happy the space they deserve, the life they deserve, the one he wished he could have given May and Ben.

It’s why he felt that staying with Tony and Pepper for the next year was the best gift he could give her. That, and the Starks had their hands full with Morgan, needed someone who could babysit in the evenings or on weekends. He’s spent his entire life being an only child, and having Morgan as a sister brings him joy he never expected to have.

He’d been okay with all of this. All of it.

But then May’s cousin Carol had patted Peter on the shoulder and assured him that Happy wasn’t replacing him in May’s life, could never, and Peter had felt his chest ripping open at the thought, felt his breath catch in his throat as he nodded just to appease her.

It’s never going to be just May and Peter ever again, he realizes, and he doesn’t know how he hasn’t thought about that until just now.

“It’s just you and me, kiddo,” May always said, and then two hours ago, she’d assured him that Happy wouldn’t come between them, but…how could things not change?

The thought stings, makes Peter’s heart heavy.

He feels selfish for his tears. Nothing has gone wrong, not really, and yet he’s outside and alone, sniffling as he leans over a railing and takes in the dusk spreading across the Long Island Sound.

“Kid,” he hears Tony call out behind him, but he can’t get himself to turn and face him, not with his face red and tear strewn. He sniffles and tries to wipe the evidence from his cheeks, but it’s no use. “Hey,” Tony says softly, a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “You okay?”

“Do I look okay?” Peter asks quietly, unable to see through his tears.

“I thought this would happen at some point. Come here,” Tony comments with an understanding sigh, pulling Peter from the railing and wrapping him in a hug.

Peter gives in. He can’t stop crying, and it’s embarrassing. As much as he tries to hold it all in, he can’t. “It’s not gonna be just May and me anymore,” he sobs.

May, who always cooked up tomato soup and grilled cheese when he had a cold, made back-to-school shopping feel like a million bucks even if it was only for a pair of sneakers and some jeans at Kmart. May, who flipped chocolate chip pancakes for his birthday every year without fail and pushed him to apply to Midtown even though his grades had slipped after Ben died. May, who’d spent countless hours patiently teaching him how to do this whole diabetes thing without making him feel like none of his questions or anxieties were too stupid.

“You know, sometimes the brain likes to avoid acknowledging the truth until it can’t avoid it any longer. I think you hit that point tonight, Underoos. And it’s okay. It’s normal. As much as it hurts, it’s part of growing up.”

“She’s all I have,” he says, sniffling.

“You know that’s not true, Pete,” Tony reminds him.

“I know, but I can’t…how am I supposed to…”

“You let it sit for a little and then you go back to the party when you’re ready.”

“What if I’m never ready?!”

Tony chuckles softly and ruffles his curls. “You will be. Take your time. I’ll stay with you.”