Chapter 8
Chapter 8
Thursday, December 26 - Friday, December 27
MJ returns on Thursday, and then again on Friday. Peter wants to question why she doesn’t want to spend some of the break at home, but he’s nervous to go there. Truth be told, he’s afraid that if he asks, she’ll leave, and with Tony in Baltimore while Pepper handles things in the office a few floors below, he’s nervous to be by himself.
Not that he’s truly been by himself.
Bruce comes by a least three times a day to see how he handles short spurts of time off of the oxygen, and Steve and Natasha check-in on him in person in the mornings and evenings to make sure he’s eating. And May’s stopped by between business trips to make sure Peter’s taking his meds and actually resting. The check-ins seem orchestrated, though, like there’s a kind of rotation that’s been scheduled via an Excel spreadsheet, and he doesn’t put it past Tony to have put that into motion. Tony’s been checking-in via text and FaceTime every four hours or so, right around the times he should be doing breathing treatments, and it’s that fact alone that’s convinced him that Tony’s the one behind the elaborate check-in schedule. Peter knows he wants to be here, but he understands why he can’t.
So MJ and Peter have been setting up camp in the living room, eating popcorn and going through a list of Disney movies that Peter’s never seen. On Thursday, they finished The Rescuers, The Rescuers Down Under, and Oliver and Company. Now that it’s Friday, The Hunchback of Notre Dame is on, soon to be followed by The Aristocats. Depending on how Peter feels, of course. He doesn’t want to admit it, but trying to stay awake while MJ was over late on Thursday is catching up to him; if he wasn’t so damn exhausted, he’d probably have the energy to be angry about it, but instead he’s blinking to stay awake, his eyelids closed more than they’re open.
He lays on his side, cheek against a couch pillow as MJ sits comfortable on the attached lounge of the sectional, adjusts his oxygen tubing so that he doesn’t end up with a mark on his face. He’s actively trying to ignore the fact that his lungs feel worse today and failing. It’s the weaning off of the oxygen, he figures, which he’s happy about, but it hasn’t been the clear-cut victory he was hoping for. “Might fall asleep on you,” Peter comments with a yawn.
He can see MJ fighting a frown as she pauses the movie. “I can go if you’re not feeling well.”
“No!” he’s quick to say. “No, I-I want you to stay, I just didn’t think you’d want to watch me nap. You know, in case you had better things to do. It’s Christmas break.”
“This is my better things to do, Peter.”
He smiles sleepily and looks over at her. “You sure about that?” It comes out breathy.
“More than sure. We can watch something else, you know.”
“No, I like it, but I think it’s putting me to sleep. Keep me awake?”
“Keep you awake, huh?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.
“No,” he replies, cheeks going red as he laughs. “I mean, like…talk to me or something. Have a conversation?”
She puts the movie back on and lowers the volume. “We could make a summer bucket list.”
“I hate summer.”
“Excuse me, you what?!” MJ asks, head snapping to face Peter. “First of all, hate is a strong word. Second, summer in New York is the best thing ever. It means no school, not getting up at the crack ass of dawn. It means sun and free public pools and reading in the park. How can you not love summer?!”
“Okay, so I don’t hate summer, but my last few summers haven’t exactly been so great and…”
Ben died three summers ago, right as school was letting out for the year. Then, the summer before ninth grade, Peter spent six weeks in a sweaty cast after falling off of his bike and breaking his arm. And if last summer, his first summer with asthma, was any indication of what future summers might be like, he’s afraid that this one is going to be a repeat of days spent inside in the air conditioning avoiding air quality alert days.
“Peter and MJ’s Summer Bucket List,” she narrates as she types into a note on her phone. “You need this. We’re doing this.”
“Do we have to?” he groans. “Can’t we just sit inside and watch movies? Like we are now?”
“Oh, the High Line!” she says, ignoring him as she types it into her phone.
He scrunches his nose. “Isn’t that super touristy?”
“Yeah, but who cares.” She shrugs. “It’s the best view, they’ve got popsicles, and it ends around Chelsea Market, so we can grab something good and cheap for lunch or dinner if we want.” She grabs a handful of popcorn from the bowl between Peter’s head and her hip with one hand, shoves it in her mouth, and chews. “Your turn.”
“Things to do during summer…in New York City,” he starts. “Let’s add standing on a…subway platform that feels like a sauna, the smell of rotting garbage the…night before trash pick-up…and watching May navigate…alternate side parking rules.” He takes a couple of breaths, hopes MJ hasn’t picked up on how shitty his lungs are today. “Oh, wait! I know, let’s add…watching the debt counter…walking avenues during a heat wave…and experiencing no service between Penn and Jamaica…after lightning hits the tracks!”
MJ lowers her phone and raises an eyebrow. “Wow, you okay, Pete? That was pretty dark and twisty, especially for you.”
“I just really…ha-dislike summer, MJ.” He doesn’t want it to come out as a whine, but it does, and he’s not sure if it’s because he’s feeling worse than he did when they started the movie or if he’s having an aversion to discussing summer, but it’s definitely harder to breathe than it was an hour ago. “Summer…reminds me of Uncle Ben dying, a-and breaking my arm…”
“Well, maybe I can make this summer different,” she offers softly, scooting closer. “There’s gotta be something you love about summer in the city. What’s your favorite summer memory?”
He thinks for a moment, shifts again on the couch. He doesn’t want to talk about Ben, but all of his memories of summer include him because May was always working. “Um, Ben used to take me to Mets games in the summer? It was our…thing.” He laughs quietly to himself before adding, “May hates baseball. Says she only went to games to get ice cream in those plastic baseball hat cups.”
MJ smiles in response. “My dad used to take me to Mets games. Before his promotion to detective. He used to run security at Shea, before they knocked it down and built Citi Field.”
“Oh my God, Shea Stadium! My first Mets game!”
“See, I told you there was something you liked about summer,” she says, not an ounce of force in her voice. “If you want, we can go to a Mets game this summer. But only if you think you’re ready.”
“Y-yeah,” he says, because while he had pretty much vowed to never set foot at Citi Field ever again since Ben died, going with MJ feels…right. He knows they’ll have a nice time and he suddenly can’t imagine going with anyone but MJ. “Yeah, that’d be…awesome.”
“Alright,” she says, typing into her phone. “Mets Game. I’m going to add a trip to the Museum of Natural History, because science.”
“Haven’t been there…since a trip in third grade,” Peter adds.
“What?!”
“Stop looking at me…like that!” he says, laughing. “Not my fault! Didn’t live in Manhattan until…a couple of months ago.”
Her face contorts in confusion. “Wait, really? I thought…”
“May lives in Forest Hills.”
MJ nods slowly, trying to put the pieces together. She knows a little about Peter’s family situation after overhearing an awkward discussion between him and their Spanish teacher, Senora Rodriguez, last year. Peter had tried to explain that his family tree assignment wouldn’t meet the requirements on her rubric because he didn’t have at least five people in his family to list and write about. His parents, he’d said, died when he was four. “I live with my Aunt May. S-she’s my guardian?” he’d explained nervously, shifting his weight from one foot to another. “My Uncle Ben used to live with us, but he died a year ago, and now it’s just us two. I don’t have any grandparents or extended family.” She’d let him add and write about friends, but that had been hard, too, since Ned was his only real friend at the time, so he’d written about Mr. Delmar, the deli owner down the street, and Murph, the deli cat, and taken the hit for points on the rubric. She knows because she’d studied his poster with the attached rubric on the bulletin board, had watched as Peter pulled his poster down one day after class when Senora Rodriguez wasn’t looking. She remembers feeling a pang of guilt over the fact that Peter had felt it necessary to explain his family situation to the teacher so that he didn’t fail the project, that he’d been so self-conscious about how it had come out that he didn’t want others to see it.
She refocuses her attention on him, sees that he’s staring up at her with soft, tired eyes. She hates that he’s been so sick, that right now, he’s working harder than yesterday to breathe. She wonders if maybe she should leave, let Peter get some actual rest, but she really doesn’t want to. Being around Peter, even with him like this, makes her feel like things are okay for just long enough to keep her from falling apart completely. She knows it’s selfish, but part of her has stayed because without her here, Peter’s pretty much on his own, and though she knows that isn’t entirely true, she’s convinced herself that that’s why she should stay. She looks around and takes in the grandeur that is Tony Stark’s living room: Marble fireplace, ten-foot Christmas tree with pristine glass ornaments and soft white lights, garland wrapping the mantel and elaborate, lighted Christmas figures that scream Pepper having hired a personal designer. It’s the pictures in tasteful frames around the room, though, of various Avengers and a few too many with Tony and Peter in everyday clothes, that prompt MJ to ask her next question. “So then, you live with Tony because you’re Spiderman?”
“No.” It comes out as a dejected, small puff of air.
“No? Okay, so then you live with him because…” she tries, coming up with nothing, and it’s in the silence that she realizes this isn’t her business, that maybe asking isn’t appropriate and she should stop now.
Peter licks his lips. “It’s because May travels for work,” he starts, “and I had a pretty severe asthma attack…while she was away last April. It was…bad…so now Tony kind of…looks after me while she’s away. It’s not really conventional…but then again, nothing about my life is…so I guess it’s fine. I really like Tony and Pepper…so it…works.”
“I guess I just thought…after I saw the Spiderman suit…”
“That I lived some…kind of glamorous life?” He’s wheezy now, looks even more tired than he did five minutes ago, and MJ feels the worry creep in, watches as Peter adjusts the cannula under his nose and closes his eyes.
“You just seem so happy all of the time,” she comments, sliding from the cushion so that she can sit on the floor in front of Peter. She knows it must be hard for him to keep tilting his head back to look at her, and now with his eyes closed, she’s worried he won’t tell her how awful he’s really feeling. “It’s like nothing bothers you. You never complain. You’re just…quiet.”
Peter’s eyes stay closed as he says, “I am happy. Doesn’t mean…my life is…glamorous. And I do complain, just not…to you.”
“You can complain to me, you know,” she says, and it feels vulnerable for both of them, enough so that there’s a beat before Peter answers.
“About what?”
“About not feeling well.”
He lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “M’just sick right now, MJ.”
She pauses and bites her lip, finds herself wanting to know more about the boy in front of her, the one she’s been hoping for over a year would notice her. She’s been in most of his classes and lunch period for the last two years at Midtown, has been his lab partner and on the decathlon team, and yet, she’s never noticed his breathing sounding like it did on Friday in chemistry or the nurse’s office, like it does right now. “Was it always like this?”
“This is like…the first time…I’ve ever had pneumonia, so-”
“I meant, did you always have asthma.”
“Not until…after.” He makes a crawling spider motion with his hand on his leg.
She’s confused. “After Uncle Ben died?”
“After the spider bite…that gave me my powers.”
“Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?”
He takes a shaky, wheezy breath in, eyes still closed. “Yup.”
“I’m sorry, Peter,” she says, taking his hand.
“Not your fault.”
“I’m not apologizing because I think it’s my fault, I’m apologizing because I’m sorry you’re dealing with this. You look absolutely miserable. Can I get you anything?”
“Stop worrying about me,” he huffs, but MJ can see a small smile on his lips. His eyes flutter open and meet hers. “Can’t decide if it’s patronizing…or cute.”
“Well, I see a smile, so I’m gonna go with cute.”
“I do feel…like crap,” he finally admits, rubbing his chest with his free hand. “Bruce had me off of my oxygen earlier…twice…for a half hour at a time…and I feel like my body…hates me now.”
“That’s supposed to be good, though, right?” she asks, rubbing her thumb over his knuckle. “They want to wean you down?”
“Yeah, but my lungs…seem to have other plans.” He turns away to cough, gives in when his lungs don’t want to let up rather than fight it. It takes him a few minutes to catch his breath, but he’s happy that MJ is there, sitting beside him and holding his hand as the movie plays. None of this feels patronizing, at least not like his conversation with Steve on Christmas. He knows Steve meant well, that he was trying to help Peter reframe all of this, but it still isn’t sitting well, makes Peter nervous when Steve’s around because he’s afraid he’s going to bring the conversation back up. MJ though? MJ acts like needing oxygen while half-asleep watching Disney movies on the couch is almost normal, like loud breathing treatments and coughing fits are things everyone does. She’s worried, sure, but she’s also respectful about it, just like Tony’s been. Only, MJ doesn’t have to be here, doesn’t have to be worried about him. She barely knows him despite all of their time spent together at school, and that’s what’s making him feel like putty in her hands, fills his chest with some of the only good feelings he’s felt in a week.
And yeah, maybe Tony doesn’t have to be here either, worries a little too much and takes way too much responsibility for Peter, but he’s also in Dad Mode, feels like it’s his personal mission to get Peter back up and running, both literally and figuratively.
“Just like they had other plans on Friday?” MJ jokes when his coughing and breathing have settled down.
“Well, I knew I was sick on Friday…and I didn’t say anything…’cause I wanted to go to your party,” he admits with a laugh and smirk.
“What?!”
“Didn’t think…I was that sick. Thought…it was a cold.”
“Peter,” she says, squeezing his hand. “You’re such an idiot, you know that?”
“Everyone’s told me that at least…once this week, was just…waiting for you to say it…again.” He gives a small smile, adjusts his hand so that his fingers are weaved between hers.
“Well, you’re my idiot now,” she comments. “Is that too…territorial?”
“No, kinda like it,” he says. “Makes it feel like we’re…”
“Dating?”
“Yeah. Is that okay?” he asks, a flurry of nerves suddenly wild in his stomach.
“Of course it is, loser,” she says, inching closer so that their noses are almost touching “Is this okay?”
And Peter doesn’t answer, just closes his eyes, moves in, and plants a kiss on MJ’s lips, their hands still interlocked as the credit screen rolls.
Saturday, December 28
Tony returns a little after one in the morning from his meetings in Baltimore with Lockheed, thinks briefly about heading to bed but decides on coffee, emails, and projects instead. His “to do” list has grown exponentially over the last few days, and while he knows FRIDAY tried to be helpful by automating some of the more brief email responses, the deadlines looming over his head refuse to let him sleep.
“You’re working yourself to death, Tony,” Pepper comments as she comes up behind him and places her hands on his shoulders so that she can massage them with her thumbs. He’s surprised she’s up, but then again, she’s a light sleeper, probably heard him banging around in the kitchen trying to get a pot of coffee ready. “Come to bed.”
He checks his watch. “At this rate, I could just work through the next four hours and shower before my first morning meeting, finish the schematics Grumman keeps hounding me for. They want them for our brunch meeting on Sunday.”
She stops. “I thought Sunday was a no-work zone? Tony. We’ve talked about this.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t plan on losing three critical workdays right before the end of the quarter,” he says, sighing. He squeezes the bridge of his nose. “What am I supposed to do, Pep, just close up shop and go into the New Year with a shit ton of paperwork and defense contracts hanging?” He talks wildly with his hands, but it’s more subdued than usual, is a sign that he’s sleep-deprived and running on caffeine and guilt.
“Sleep, Tony,” she says softly. “That’s what you should do.”
“Sleep is for the weak.”
“Sleep is for humans. You, my love, are human. And you’re not that young anymore. You need to take care of yourself before you stress your system. You’re running on empty. Remember what happened last time?”
He rubs his face as if that will help him keep his eyes open and sighs. “That was years ago, Pep, and yes, I remember.”
“Did you talk to Bruce?”
“About Peter?” he asks.
“About you.”
Tony turns to look at her. He loves when she wears her hair in a wispy, messy bun, how she looks when she takes her makeup off and has that classic Pepper glow that melts his cold, steel heart, even after all of these years. She’s wearing cotton lounge pants and a baggy t-shirt, isn’t the put-together Pepper most people get to see, and yet, he thinks she looks perfect just like this. “After,” he assures her as he takes her hand in his. “When everything with Peter and work settles, I promise I’ll have Bruce take a look.”
“You say that like you want to mean it, but I know you,” she explains with a sly smile, wagging a finger in the air. “I know you much too well, Tony Stark, and I know you’re ten minutes from falling asleep at the kitchen table.”
“I am not!”
“The hypnic jerks you’ve been doing for the last twenty minutes say otherwise.”
“That was just me stretching my neck. Besides, Tony Stark doesn’t do sleep.”
Pepper hums. “Maybe the Tony Stark from ten years ago, but not this old man.”
“You calling me old?” he jokes with a small, tired smile.
“With all that gray hair?” she jokes back, ruffling it. “Come on, Grandpa. The emails can wait.”
He returns his focus to his StarkPad. “Just a few more.”
“Bed, or I’ll tell FRIDAY to lock you out of your email until sunrise.”
“You know I can override that, right?”
“I know something else you can override,” she says, wagging her finger again with a clever smile and raised eyebrow before turning and heading toward the bedroom.
x
“You have a low oxygen level alert from Peter,” FRIDAY reports sometime around four in the morning.
Tony’s clambers out of bed and nearly takes the duvet with him, doesn’t even look at his alarm clock or respond to Pepper’s half-asleep murmur, and by the time he’s actually sitting beside Peter and switching his lamp on, he already knows that the kid’s okay, that he isn’t wheezing or breathing too heavily. He rubs his face and exhales. The kid’s okay.
“T-Tony?” Peter’s asking as he comes to, blocking the lamp light with his hand, his oxygen cannula hanging off of his face. Peter blinks sleepily. “W-wha’s wrong?”
“Your oxygen dipped, kiddo,” Tony says, fixing the tubing so that it’s securely in Peter’s nostrils. “You’re okay. You can go back to sleep. Gonna stay up for a while and make sure you come back up, though.”
“H-how l-low did I go?”
“Don’t worry about it, Pete.”
“S’that why I’m sweating and feel like I ran a marathon?”
Tony rubs his face, exhaustion blanketing him. He doesn’t have the patience for Peter’s thousand questions right now, especially not with back-to-back early morning meetings scheduled. “Probably, but you’re fine now.”
“FRIDAY woke you up?”
“Mmhm. Go back to sleep.” He clicks the lamp off and stumbles his way through the dark so that he can sit at Peter’s desk. He checks the time on his watch and sees that it’s a little after four.
He has to be up in an hour.
He’s never really been one for sleep, but lately, he’s starting to feel like he can’t just bounce back after two hours of sleep like he used to. He pulls Peter’s oxygen levels up on his watch and sees that he’s at 92 and rising. He decides that he’ll leave when he’s sure it’s at least 96.
“S’you’re…just gonna…watch me s-sleep?” Peter asks with a yawn.
“Go to sleep, Pete.”
“Kinda hard to sleep when-”
“Shhh.”
“Did you just shush me?!”
“No.”
“Yes, you did! You just-”
“Oh, for fucks sake,” Tony says, getting up and clicking the lamp back on. “Kid, you’re killing me!” He’s trying to hide his rage, but it’s an unstoppable force. “I’m running myself ragged here, trying to keep Stark Industries afloat after missing three days of work before the end of the quarter, all while keeping you from…” Tony puts the breaks on, stops himself from saying it, doesn’t want to pile the rest of his exhaustion on Peter, who’s been panicked about going back to school soon, about having another attack, about...
“Dying?”
He sighs and rubs his face. “Not what I meant, Pete.”
“That’s exactly what you meant.” And Tony can see the pain in Peter’s words, knows that the kid has been majorly affected by the last week’s events. He knows he had a nightmare Thursday night, a short one that FRIDAY didn’t wake Pepper over. But Tony had gotten the alert in his hotel room 200 miles away and had been up for hours after, watching Peter’s vitals. He knows that Bruce has been weaning Peter off of his oxygen, that it’s fine for the half hour intervals here and there but that it leaves Peter struggling later, and he’s been realizing more and more just how arduous this recovery process is truly going to be. It’s all he could think about in the car rides between his hotel room and Lockheed, while trapped in his meetings as figures were discussed around him.
For Tony, it’s made not being here for the last two days difficult in ways that he can’t even get into words, and here he is, taking all of that out on the one person besides Pepper that he knows he can’t live without.
“I’m sorry, Pete. Didn’t mean to go there. I’m ten steps beyond exhausted right now, I’m not making any sense, and I wasn’t expecting that low oxygen level alert. FRIDAY got me all worked up over nothing. I’d be…I’d be devastated if something ever happened to you, Underoos.” He bites back tired, emotional tears as he pulls Natasha’s blanket up over Peter’s shoulders, and he doesn’t do a good enough job, because he can hear it in his voice as he says, “I had to make sure you were okay before I let myself go back to bed, kiddo. That’s why I stayed.” He gives a teary smile, sees Peter’s features soften in the lamplight.
“Can you keep it on?” Peter asks, looking back at the lamp.
Tony nods without needing an explanation.
He stays for another ten minutes, checks his watch over and over for Peter’s oxygen levels, only leaves when he sees that golden 96. It’s not where he wants him, not where he should be, but it’s progress. The smallest baby steps of progress that even Tony can’t deny.
“Peter all right?” Pepper mumbles half-asleep when Tony slides back beneath the covers.
“Yeah, he’s fine. He’s gonna be just fine,” he answers with a yawn, wrapping an arm around Pepper, refusing to think about the half hour he has left before his alarm goes off.