Outnumbered

Peter’s bedroom door slowly creaks open, waking him. He’s usually a heavy sleeper, but the middle of the night wakeups so that Tony can check his blood sugar, help him treat a low, or give him a bolus of insulin have made it so that the tiniest of noises has him up and wired.

“Petey?” Morgan whispers. “You awake?”

“Yeah, Mo. What’s up? Everything okay?” he asks, sitting up.

He doesn’t mind this, these nights when Morgan tiptoes into his room with her bunny stuffed animal, doesn’t get angry or irritated with her. He knows Tony needs sleep, that with his health and love of late night lab sessions and making sure Peter’s blood sugar is in range, he barely gets enough, so Peter lets Morgan wake him when she has her nightmares, when she wants a cup of water, when he thinks he can handle the myriad of stories Morgan conjures up with her wild imagination, in place of Tony.

“I dreamt about Daddy’s arm again,” she says, and Peter can barely see her in the dark, can just make out the outline of her unruly hair and long nightgown in the little bit of light coming through his window, but he imagines her as smaller than she is, can picture her biting her lip and clutching her bunny close.

“Come here,” he says, lifting her up and into his bed so that she’s tucked against him. He moves his pump, which he unclips from his pants while he sleeps, so that she can’t rip his pump site out.

She’s done that more times than Peter cares to count. Unintentionally, of course, but painful every time.

“I don’t like it when I dream about Daddy’s arm,” she says, sniffling.

“I know, Mo. I know,” he whispers back, brushing her hair from her face. “Hey, you wanna see something cool?” he asks her softly as he turns his lamp on. She burrows into his chest and nods.

While going through things from May’s apartment a few weeks ago, Peter had found the old View Master he’d had as a kid, the red plastic goggles and white cardboard reels in pristine condition.

He gets up from the bed, is trying to get a good grip on Morgan so that he doesn’t have to put her down, when he feels the weight of his pump pull on his infusion set. It hits the wood floor with a loud clatter, his eyes closing as he silently curses himself.

He should be used to having a pump by now, but he isn’t.

“Oh no!” Morgan whispers, shimmying out of his arms and pulling his pump into her hands. She gives a small sigh of relief. “Look, Batman’s okay!”

Peter had named his pump Batman and his Dexcom sensor Robin to help Morgan adjust the weekend after his Easter low. They’d been sitting watching Saturday morning cartoons, Batman, to be exact, when he’d come up with it. Morgan had been eyeing his pump from her side of the couch. He’d felt self-conscious, all of a sudden, exactly like he’d felt at school the few weeks prior with his shiny new pump, though he didn’t exactly blame her for the interest. She was only five, after all. She didn’t fully understand. And how could she? His dramatic Easter fall with blood gushing from his forehead, or so May had told him because he doesn’t remember most of it, had been more than enough to give Morgan a new set of nightmares. Giving the devices familiar, fun names and explaining their functions as simply as possible seemed to do the trick.

“Thanks, Mo,” he whispers with a smile, examining the pump for himself in the lamplight and deeming it fine before clipping it to his pajama pants. He crouches down beneath his bed, pulls out the box, and digs for the View Master and set of Disney scenes from his favorite animated movies. When he finds it and holds it up in all of its red and yellow glory, Morgan’s eyes go wide.

“It looks like Daddy’s helmet!” she says with a loud giggle, and Peter has to shush her.

“Shh, Daddy’s sleeping, remember?” Peter reminds her sweetly.

“He needs his sleep ‘cause his heart isn’t strong, right Petey?” She’s referring to the loss of his reactor, the one that effectively led to him becoming Iron Man. Before Thanos, Tony had his reactor and remaining shrapnel from the blast in Afghanistan removed, was using nanotechnology to keep his heart as healthy as possible. But then the jolt to his body from the stones had been too much, and Tony would never openly admit it, but Peter’s seen him struggle with stairs on a bad day, with palpitations and spurts of chest pain during movie nights and lab sessions.

“Yeah, Mo,” he says. “Daddy needs a lot of sleep, so we need to be really, really quiet, okay?” She nods while he slides a random Disney reel into the slot on the top of the View Master and holds it up so that the light can come through the front. A scene from Aladdin comes to life before his eyes. “Oh, this was one of my favorites when I was your age!”

“Let me see! Let me see!” she begs quietly in the lamplight, though Peter can see the excitement in her wide eyes. He turns her toward the lamp and helps her put the View Master to her face. “It’s Princess Jasmine!” she whispers.

Peter helps her click the wheel to change the image.

“Oh, it’s Genie!”

The childish wonder on her face brings a smile to his.

“It’s like magic!” she whispers with awe.

Peter chuckles, helping her click the wheel again. “It is, isn’t it?”

He feels like he’s been missing magic in his life lately. He’s not sure why or how, but LEGOs with Ned and making the team for States this week have only made his anxiety worse. Tony, and May are pressuring him to go to therapy, to become better at planning ahead, to start thinking about how he’s going to handle States, Nationals, the SATs, driving, and college. All of that was foreboding enough before diabetes, now it feels like he’s on a train that’s derailed, is about to take out everything in its path, and he wants to jump before it crashes but he doesn’t know when.

He’s afraid of the fall, of taking everyone around him down with it.

Morgan, though, keeps him tethered to childhood, to simpler times, to daydreaming and asking questions like, “Is cereal soup?” as they sit at the kitchen island eating breakfast before school. Her new favorite show is Arthur, which he watched religiously on PBS as a kid because May and Ben couldn’t afford cable, and while he knows it's babyish, he likes sitting with her after school as they snack on Goldfish crackers and color. Spending time with Morgan, Peter’s convinced, is the only thing keeping him together right now.

“It’s all done,” she says, pulling the View Master away from her face.

Peter pulls the reel out and rifles through the box. “I think I have dinosaurs and The Little Mermaid ones in here.” He knows she loves dinosaurs, which is why he’s promised to take her to the American Museum of Natural History this summer, but she’s also obsessed with Ariel and mermaids right now. He finds both, lets her look at the reels to decide.

Tony and Pepper have her enrolled in The Waldorf School uptown, which has made it difficult for them to spell things to Peter that they don’t want Morgan to hear or understand. While she can’t read most picture books yet, Peter knows she can recognize the words “dinosaur” and “mermaid.”

She takes the dinosaur one and slides it carefully into the top of the View Master.

“When are we going to see the real dinosaurs?” she asks.

“Soon, Mo,” he assures her. “I promise.”

“Why not now?” she whines. He doesn’t correct her, though; she gets like this when she’s sleepy.

“Well, it’s nighttime and the museum is closed,” he jokes softly, but he knows what she really means: He promised her months ago, before he was diagnosed, and now Tony and Pepper don’t trust him taking her anywhere alone because of his low blood sugar episodes. They’re fine with him babysitting at the Tower, with FRIDAY and members of the Avengers nearby, just in case. He doesn’t blame them, not really, but he hates that Morgan’s missing out, that his diabetes has to be factored into something completely unrelated once again.

“It would be silly to go to a museum at night,” she says with a giggle.

Peter gets an idea. “You know, there’s a movie about it. Rumor has it that the museum comes alive at night.”

She tilts her head and puts a hand on her hip, gives him the same look Pepper does when she thinks Tony’s trying to pull a fast one. Morgan’s imaginative, sure, but she’s also smart as a whip.

Peter winks, which makes her laugh. “FRIDAY, can you download Night at the Museum for movie night this week?”

“Downloading a digital copy,” she replies.

Morgan yawns, which gets Peter yawning. “I think it’s time for bed,” he announces.

She frowns. “But I didn’t get to see the dinosaurs yet!”

“How about this: If you promise to take really really good care of my View Master, I’ll let you borrow it.”

Her face lights up. “I promise!”

A moment later, he walks quietly down the hallway, Morgan half-asleep on one hip, her head on his shoulder, and the view master box in the other, his phone’s flashlight app lighting his way to tuck Morgan in.

X

This week’s second decathlon practice starts with Harrington realizing he left his copies of practice packets in the copy machine down the hall. Usually, Peter likes the freedom of not having adults breathing down his neck, but lately, it creates more anxiety than it’s worth, especially at school.

It’s not the stupid comments that Flash manages to come up with.

Okay, so it’s part of it.

But really, it’s that Flash always seems to find every available moment that Harrington is out of earshot to sneak them in, and Peter doesn’t want to tell anyone, because that means Peter has to speak up about the bullying (is it really bullying, though?), and now about his diabetes. He knows can ignore Flash like he always has. He doesn’t need to give him any more ammunition. Not with States so close and May and Tony on him about the support group. The last thing he needs is Harrington to email them with “concerns.”

He really doesn’t need a repeat of the Griggs situation.

Betty calls him and Ned over, shows them a TikTok of a small dog rushing up the steps only to tumble backwards.

They laugh, watch it again, Peter interrupted by a silent vibration alert on his StarkWatch.

Peter looks down and notices that his blood sugar is around 70 with a slight down arrow. Definitely not where he wants to start an intense decathlon practice. He unwraps a Starburst and pops it in his mouth.

“Hey, Sugar,” Flash calls over, Peter stiffening at the nickname as he chews. “Are you sure you’re supposed to be eating that?”

Peter scrunches his face, has to hold back the words threatening to stream from his mouth, the ones that could get him kicked off the team. He takes a deep breath, reminds himself that he’d probably be as rich as Tony if he got paid every time someone said that phrase to him.

It doesn’t help.

“Ah, the Penis Parker meme face!” Flash quips, rubbing his hands together. “Perfect!”

“I didn’t realize we had the food police in our presence,” MJ says, striding over. She cocks her head at Flash and crosses her arms.

Peter’s cheeks redden. He does not need anyone, let alone MJ, coming to his defense when he can surely handle this on his own with his usual tactic of avoiding the problem until it goes away.

Only, Flash isn’t going away. He’s moving closer to Peter now, has his eyes locked on his.

The room is getting warm, Peter’s body prickling with nervous electricity, because everyone has stopped and is focused on them. He doesn’t want to have to explain himself. It’s not their business.

“It’s obvious that your knowledge of biology is just as shit as that of history,” MJ comments with her usual huff, the room erupting in laughter as Flash turns to look at her in irritation.

And even though Peter knows the laughter is directed at Flash, he still feels like it’s about him, because it is.

This whole conversation is.

This, right here, is why he doesn’t like talking about his diabetes. The questions, the lack of knowledge and understanding, the awkwardness. He can’t blame them for not knowing, but that doesn’t stop him from wishing that they did.

If he walks out of the room, it’ll be clear that Flash has gotten to him, and if he stays, lets the stupid question simmer the entire practice and affect his performance, it’ll also be clear that Flash has won.

It’s exactly what Flash wants.

“Spare us your gross misunderstanding of gluconeogenesis and maybe get your head in a practice book or a textbook for once,” MJ adds.

Peter’s never once doubted the height of MJ’s intelligence, but gluconeogenesis? That’s on another level completely.

“What I said wasn’t gross,” Flash argues, MJ facepalming in response.

“Gross as in massive, you dolt! Remind me again how you got on this team?”

“He’s fast and his specialty is pop culture references,” Charles reminds the group, which earns an eye roll from MJ and groans from everyone else.

“Leave it to Charles to make the idiot statement of the year,” Ned whispers under his breath.

The conversation is forgotten when Harrington returns, and everyone finds a seat to begin practice. MJ slaps a packet down on Peter’s desk and tries to make eye contact, but he can’t get himself to look at her, fixes his eyes on the window to his left and fidgets with the pen in his hand. His body is still buzzing with nervous energy, the kind that comes from his health being uncomfortably brought to everyone’s attention, and he’s not sure if he’s glad or bothered that MJ took it upon herself to dish Flash’s question back at him.

He pops another Starburst as Harrington starts with the literature questions. He waits a few minutes before checking his watch out of habit, finds that he’s cruising at a steady 91. He hopes he doesn’t have to deal with Dexcom or pump alarms for the next hour and a half because he needs to do well during these drills if he wants a chance at States. Tony’s been practicing with him every night after Morgan’s been put to bed, just the two of them. It’s been just the thing, the perfect distraction that Peter’s needed, to keep him emotionally afloat while Harrington compiles his final list for States.

“The term for the minimum amount of fissile material needed to achieve a self-sustaining chain reaction,” Harrington prompts.

“Peter,” Ned nudges with a glare one desk over.

Flash’s bell dings. “Isotope.”

“Incorrect.” Harrington repeats the question.

Peter hits the bell on his desk. “Critical mass!”

“Correct!”

Flash sneers from two rows over.

“This element was detected in space during a total solar eclipse in 1868 but wasn’t discovered on Earth until 1895,” Harrington continues.

Peter rings his bell again. “Helium!”

“Also correct.”

Peter gives a small smile, but on the inside, he’s beaming. Listening to Tony talk about science, especially nuclear and astro physics, makes him feel like he did with Ben: Like the world is at his fingertips, like even though he’s aware of how much he doesn’t know about the world, about the universe, it makes him thirsty for more knowledge.

“Coming in clutch with the physics questions,” MJ comments, nodding in approval. “Nice!”

He takes a calming breath, clears his head, and gears up for the next round of drills.