Chapter 15
Wed, Jan 8
“Why are you avoiding me?” Ned asks Peter at lunch on Wednesday between bites of macaroni and cheese. They’d stood beside each other on the lunch line, are sitting across from each other, and yet, they haven’t spoken at all in the ten minutes they’ve been together.
“I’m not avoiding you,” Peter states as he picks at his food. He’s done with his antibiotics, but his stomach is still off from the steroids. He reminds himself to stop at the nurse when he’s done to do his treatment and take his midday pills, tries not to sigh because he knows Ned’s in just as shitty a mood as he is based on the question he’s just asked. “I’m sitting here, aren’t I?” he adds, full-well knowing he’s being ridiculous.
Ned puts his fork down. “Clearly, you are, so if I’ve done something, I’d like to know, because this is getting kind of weird. We’re on day three of barely talking at all and I don’t even understand why!”
“I’m just really tired, Ned. Like, exhausted on a level I didn’t think was possible. I’m overwhelmed by coming back to school, and I have to get to the nurse in like,” he pauses, checks his watch, “five minutes for meds and,” he pauses again, sighing as he puts his fork down. “You probably wouldn’t understand.”
“Or maybe I would? If you’d actually open up and tell me literally anything?”
“Not the correct use of literally.”
“Peter, you didn’t even tell me you were okay until like, Christmas! I know MJ was worried about you, because she was texting me, but I was scared, too. I’m still kind of scared. You don’t seem like yourself and you’re super wheezy all the time, and I feel like there’s stuff you’re not telling me.”
“There’s not much to tell, Ned.”
“We talk about everything, Peter. It’s always been like that, but now, suddenly, it’s not? What gives?!”
“I’ve been busy with Spiderman stuff.” He shrugs, picks his fork back up but doesn’t eat. His stomach grumbles.
“That’s funny, because the news just had an entire segment on how Spiderman has been MIA since before Christmas, and as far as I know, you’re the only Spiderman in our universe.”
Peter doesn’t answer.
“I get it, Peter. You’d rather spend your time with MJ. It’s fine.” He shrugs, goes back to his macaroni and cheese. “I just wish you’d tell me the truth instead of leaving me in the dark.”
Peter looks up. “No, Ned, it’s not like that.”
“If I was hanging out with a girl like MJ, I’d probably be doing the same thing, but I’d tell you about it, you know? Maybe I’d even invite you over so we could all hang out sometimes.”
“You wouldn’t have wanted to hang out with me over break, Ned. I was…really sick.” There. He’s said it, admitted it out loud.
“We could have played video games or worked on my new Lego project-”
“I was too sick to do any of that, Ned. I couldn’t even...” he trails and looks away, not wanting to add the word shower. He puts his fork down and takes a breath, feels like he owes Ned more of an explanation. “I spent, like, two weeks on oxygen, and I still have to wear it at night because it gets hard to breathe, and I’m doing, like, five treatments a day with two different meds, and then there’s a bunch of inhalers and pills I have to take, all so that I can breathe, and I have to start these injections soon to keep the attacks from happening because my immune system is trying to kill me and I’m just…between school and keeping my lungs somewhat functionable, the word tired doesn’t even describe it. It feels like the mitochondria in my cells are just not working and nothing that I do helps and May’s telling me each day is a fresh start but I’m just trying to make up ground from the day before because I’m so tired and they’re just stacking, one on top of another, and I’ve only been back at school for three days and I’m…I’m…” he pauses, puts his elbows on the table and covers his face with his hands to keep from crying. He definitely doesn’t want to do that here, in the cafeteria, in front of everyone. In front of Flash, who usually sits a few tables away.
“You could have told me about all of this, Peter. I would’ve been there for you.” His voice is soft with understanding, and Peter knows he doesn’t deserve it, but he wants nothing more than to be left alone, to just finish eating, get to the nurse, and maybe take a ten minute nap on one of the cots while he does his treatment.
“I wasn’t really up for company,” he whispers from beneath his hands. “I was too sick, Ned.”
“MJ was over practically every day.”
“MJ invited herself over and basically watched me wheeze and sleep while movies played on the TV, so you weren’t exactly missing much.” He refuses to move his hands, doesn’t want anyone to see his eyes filled with tears. He’s blinking them away, hopes that when he looks up, it won’t be obvious.
He knows it will be.
“Hey,” Ned is saying softly. “I’m not mad, Peter. I Just wanted to know what was going on.”
“And now you know.”
“It was really that bad?”
And Peter just nods because he doesn’t want to tell him about almost dying.
Thinking about almost dying yesterday sent him into a panic attack on the subway, left him getting off two stops before the Tower so that he could get to the street level and find air. He’d walked home in the cold, wonders what Tony and May would say if they found out he’d spent 20 minutes walking in the bitter, dry air.
Not thinking about almost dying is better than letting it get in his head.
“I have to get to the nurse,” he says, sniffling as he quickly fills his tray with his milk carton and napkins to throw in the trash.
“But you didn’t even finish.”
“I’m not hungry.” Anymore, he wants to add, but doesn’t.
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“No, it’s fine, MJ-” he says, pausing. “MJ usually meets me. It’ll only be like, five minutes, so it’s not a big deal anyway,” he adds, but he knows Ned isn’t buying it.
“I can bring my Lego set over later-”
“I have my internship.” That I’m not even sure I’ll be awake enough to go to, Peter thinks.
“With MJ.”
So he knows. How did he expect him not to?
“Ned,” Peter tries, but his friend is already walking away with his tray, and even though Peter puts his backpack on and picks up his own, follows him, he can’t keep up.
x
MJ can sense that something’s bothering Peter while they’re together in the nurse’s office, and then again during their internship. Tony’s had them coding a sample for an upcoming conference, and while MJ’s gotten a considerable amount of work done, Peter seems frustrated, stuck, where she was nearly an hour ago.
“Take a break, Pete, before you write code that even Happy can’t debug,” Tony comments from across the lab without looking up. “Actually, scratch that, I’m closing shop,” he adds when he realizes that the kid is wheezy, looks over at him and notices that he’s already half asleep. “MJ, you wanna stay for dinner?”
“Yeah, that would be great, sir. Thank you,” she says, cleaning up her area and grabbing her backpack.
“Treatment, kiddo, before that wheeze turns into something worse,” Tony points out as he comes over to Peter and puts a hand on his shoulder. “You feeling okay?”
“I know, I know. And yeah, I’m just tired. Been a long week,” Peter grumbles as he shrugs out from under Tony’s grip, gets up from his stool, and puts his backpack on. His chest feels tight, head fuzzy and heavy with fatigue, and all he’s been able to think about since he got up this morning is sleeping.
“Only Wednesday, Pete. Still got two more days to go.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Cut the attitude, kid.”
He mumbles something under his breath, is thankful that Tony doesn’t have superhearing. They take the elevator, curl up on Peter’s bed while he does a treatment. He fights to keep his eyes open, wants to spend time with MJ, but his body feels like it’s being pinned down by a giant boulder.
“Too tired to breathe,” he whispers around the mouthpiece.
“Not a thing, Peter,” MJ jokes.
“Definitely…a thing.”
“I brought you something,” she says, sitting up to unzip her backpack. Peter watches as she pulls out a copy of The Fault in Our Stars.
“Book from the bench?” It’s all Peter can manage.
“Let me know what you think.”
He hums a thank you.
“I can go,” she offers, taking his hand in hers.
He shakes his head, closes his eyes.
“You pinkie promised that you’d tell me if you weren’t feeling well,” she adds, squeezing his hand.
“Doesn’t count now,” he mumbles.
“It always counts, Peter. I know you feel like shit. You have dark bags under your eyes and you’re wheezing more than usual. You can be honest with me.”
“Don’t wanna be alone,” he whispers.
“Because you don’t feel well?”
He nods, eyes still closed.
“You feel that shitty?”
He nods again, face twisting as he tries not to cry.
“Hey,” she says squeezing his hand again as she puts her head on his pillow, the sides of their foreheads touching. “You want me to get Tony?”
He shakes his head no and sniffles.
“You sure?”
“Sorry,” he says, gripping the mouthpiece a moment later with his teeth so that he can wipe under his eyes with his free hand.
“You don’t have to be sorry about this, Peter. Not with me.”
“S’like breathing…through a straw.”
“Did you miss any of your meds today?” She remembers sitting with him in the nurse, knows he at least did a treatment and took some pills.
“No,” he says, his eyes open now, and it comes out with a slight whine, like he’s defeated and frustrated. “Took extra.”
“I’m gonna go get Tony, okay?”
“Don’t!” There’s power in his words, in the way he looks at her with wide, panicked eyes. “Please.”
“Peter, if you’re sick-”
“I’m okay!”
“You just agreed that you feel like shit. That’s the opposite of okay, Peter.”
“It’s fine. I’m just tired because…I’m back at school and…the internship… Thought I’d…feel better…than I do by now.”
“Peter,” she warns. “If you don’t tell me the truth, I’m leaving.”
“MJ, please don’t start with me,” he whines. “I don’t need you mad at me, too.”
“Is this why you and Ned are fighting? Did you guys have this exact conversation?”
“No,” he says, then reconsiders. “Maybe? Yes?” He groans. “I don’t know.”
“Did he comment on your wheezing?”
Peter huffs a wheezy “Yeah.”
“He texted me, you know. He’s worried about you.”
“Everyone’s…worried about me,” he says, panting. “If I could…pay people…to stop…”
“Alright,” she says, seeing how worked up Peter is getting. She scoots in closer, softens her voice. “How about you focus on breathing and I do the talking?”
He closes his eyes, nods, and MJ pulls the book into her lap. “The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Chapter 1. Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.”
Peter snorts, MJ continuing. “Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer. But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying. (Cancer is also a side effect of dying. Almost everything is, really.) But my mom believed I required treatment, so she took me to see my Regular Doctor Jim, who agreed that I was veritably swimming in a paralyzing and totally clinical depression, and that therefore my meds should be adjusted and also I should attend a weekly Support Group.”
“This feels a little…too real,” Peter comments.
“I can stop reading.”
“No, keep reading. I like it.”
“This Support Group featured a rotating cast of characters in various states of tumor-driven unwellness. Why did the cast rotate? A side effect of dying.”
Peter laughs again, even though he feels like he shouldn’t because cancer and death, but he can’t help himself. “This is gold,” he adds.
“Glad you like it so far.”
MJ reads on, Peter swapping nebulizer cups and medications a little while in so that he can do a second treatment, the two cuddling back up, Peter careful to keep the mist from the mouthpiece from getting in her face. They don’t notice Tony checking in on them from the small crack in the doorway, just out of sight, listening and watching to see how Peter’s doing.
“Isaac leaned a hand against the snack table and focused his huge eye on me,” MJ reads. “Okay, so I went into clinic this morning, and I was telling my surgeon that I’d rather be deaf than blind. And he said, ‘It doesn’t work that way,’ and I was, like, ‘Yeah, I realize it doesn’t work that way; I’m just saying I’d rather be deaf than blind if I had the choice, which I realize I don’t have,’ and he said, ‘Well, the good news is that you won’t be deaf,’ and I was like, ‘Thank you for explaining that my eye cancer isn’t going to make me deaf. I feel so fortunate that an intellectual giant like yourself would deign to operate on me.’”
Peter chortles, has a grin on his face that is noticeably different than the look of exhaustion Tony remembers in the lab. Tony smiles, checks his watch to see Peter’s vitals and listens a little longer just to be sure that he’s okay, before heading to the kitchen to help Pepper with dinner.
Thursday, January 9
Ned shows up unannounced around six after school on Thursday, his backpack on and a box of Legos in his hands. Happy lets him up, gives a few short knocks on Peter’s closed bedroom door.
“Yeah?” Peter asks, opening it. He’s got his oxygen on, is annoyed that he’s been interrupted in the midst of writing an enduring issue paper for global history that he was supposed to finish in class but couldn’t because he’d had to ask for a pass to the nurse for a treatment. “Ned,” he says, pausing for a moment.
He hasn’t wanted Ned to see him like this, see his room like this, with stackers of medication and machines to help him breathe.
And now, he doesn’t have a choice, because Ned is here, holding a box of Legos in his hand, shifting his weight awkwardly because he isn’t sure how Peter is going to react to this unanticipated visit.
“This okay?” Happy asks in the awkward silence, and Peter nods, bites his lip, opens his door for Ned to come in.
“I couldn’t do the cold shoulder thing anymore,” Ned admits, standing in the middle of Peter’s room. “I don’t really have a lot of friends, Peter, and it’s been really lonely without you.”
Peter just stands there, doesn’t know what to say. He watches as Ned focuses first on the nebulizer on his nightstand, then on his stacker, and finally on the cart with his BiPap and vest machines. His eyes fall back on Peter and his oxygen.
“Why didn’t you tell me about all of this?” he asks, and Peter just looks up at the ceiling with watery eyes, can’t look Ned in the face, because he was fine two minutes ago when he was trying to come up with a crafty way to connect nationalism between the seemingly disconnected documents in the task, and now he’s not.
It’s been like this all week. One minute he’s fine and the next, he just crumbles. He clenches his jaw, tries not to let himself break down again.
He really, really doesn’t have the energy to break down right now.
“Peter.”
He’s frozen, doesn’t want to speak, think, or breathe. If he doesn’t do any of those things, he can keep from breaking down a little bit longer.
“If it’s a bad time…”
He holds his breath even though he knows he can’t afford it, that it’ll just make everything worse. The panic is clawing its way back at the thought that Ned, his best friend, knows the true extent now that he’s seen it with his own eyes, and it means it’s real.
That all of this is real and there’s no escaping it.
“Here,” Ned says, trying to give the box to Peter. “I know it’s for like, babies, but I thought you might get a kick out of it, so I used some of my Christmas money to buy it.”
Peter takes the box into his hands and studies it, his thumb brushing over the picture of Spiderman, of him, in the righthand corner of the box. There’s the Stark jet, a Lego version of Happy, which looks nothing like the real Happy, and a pretty spot-on Nick Fury. He sees that Mysterio is included and bites his lip.
“I took Mysterio out. You know, in case it was too much or whatever.”
Peter gives a small smile. “The Stark Jet looks nothing like this,” Peter says quietly with a laugh, but then he looks up at Ned, face twisting as he tries not to cry with the box in his hands, tries to get the words out. He took Mysterio out. His voice cracks. “You did this for me?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because I’ve been an asshole?” He feels so small all of a sudden.
“You have,” Ned acknowledges. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be your friend, that I don’t care about you. Peter, I’m really worried about you.”
“I’m sorry for being an asshole.” The tears press even though Peter doesn’t want them to. “I’m sorry. I feel like all I’ve been s-saying lately is s-sorry,” he whispers. “I don’t want to talk about any of this anymore and it’s all anyone else can talk about, you know? And I keep thinking about how I almost died, Ned. I a-almost…died, and…and…I didn’t tell you…because…because…” He looks up, takes the deepest breath he can to stop the tears from coming. It seems to work for a few seconds, but then he feels them, warm on his cheeks, and he sniffles, musters the courage to say the truth. “Because this has been a lot for everyone around me and I feel really guilty about it. You were there after Ben died, and I know that was hard for you, so I didn’t want you to go through that again,” Peter says quietly as more tears fall, putting the box down on his bed so that he can grab a wad of tissues, remove his cannula, and blow his nose. He takes a few deep breaths, tries to quell the burning in his lungs from crying and talking.
“You thought that I wouldn’t want to be there for you through this?”
“No, Ned, I just,” Peter replies, sighing. “I just didn’t want to make you go through it, too. Tony and May have been stressing over me…and then MJ forced her way in, and she’s been all stressed even though she’s been trying to hide it, so it’s like everyone around me is just on alert and waiting for my lungs to fuck up, and you...” he says, gesturing toward Ned before returning and adjusting his cannula beneath his nose. He takes a few deep breaths, tries to control the wheezing he can hear. “I kept hoping you wouldn't bring it up and...I don’t know how I thought you wouldn’t eventually ask me about it o-or worry, but I was banking on it, enjoying it while it lasted. And then you confronted me about it the second I got back to school, and I was already feeling really defeated and had already had a fight with Tony about my treatments that morning, and I think I just needed one person who hadn’t seen me yet, wasn’t going to focus on my lungs, you know? Who wasn’t going to bring up my wheezing and remind me again that I’m sick and can’t be Spiderman like this.” Peter sits down on his bed, tries to catch his breath and keep from crying again, doesn’t want to look at Ned, who he knows is freaked out by the way his breaths are uneven and loud even with his oxygen and this, this right here is why he’s been avoiding Ned. Because Ned has seen him at his worst, and Peter hasn’t wanted to do that to him again, is still not over watching Ned try to cheer him up and make him smile when all he wanted to do was hide beneath his covers and refuse to leave his room after Ben died. “And then you did…you brought it right up, and I felt like I was collapsing on the inside. It’s been terrifying, absolutely terrifying, not being able to breathe, and I keep reliving the morning that I thought I was dying…and I’m supposed to be getting better, but today I had to go for two extra breathing treatments just to get to ninth period, which is why I’m stuck writing this essay at home,” he says, taking a breath and motioning toward his desk, “…about nationalism…looking like fucking Hazel Grace from The Fault in Our Stars…and I’m tired. I’m tired of everyone asking me questions…and looking at me like you are…and I’m tired of having to work to breathe.”
It’s all the air Peter has left.
He closes his eyes, sits up as straight as he can to get a slow, decent breath of air. It sends him straight into a coughing fit, the kind that leaves him hunched. The coughs are deep and painful, nearly have him gagging, but he slows the fit just in time, is left breathless and gasping greedily from the cannula in its wake. His breaths are ragged, strained, but they slowly even out, the two of them sitting there in silence until Peter gets just enough breath back to stop seeing stars.
Ned comes over to the bed, but doesn’t sit. “I would have come, Pete. If you had texted me and told me how sick you were, I would’ve come. You know that I would have.”
“You had a cold,” Peter whispers back.
“Before I had the cold.”
Peter shakes his head. “You don’t understand, Ned.”
“I understood when Ben died, and I understand now, so stop telling me that I don’t understand!”
“I didn’t want you to see me like this!”
“What, MJ can see you like this, but I can’t?” Ned looks hurt by the notion, looks just about ready to cry himself.
“I didn’t want you to see me like this because I knew you’d look at me the way you looked at me after Ben died, and I was right, you’re doing it right now! It’s different with Tony and MJ because they didn’t know Ben. But you,” he says, shaking his head and sniffling. “You and May give me that look. Every time she looks at me, I’m reminded that I can’t let her lose me too, Ned. I almost…I almost died, and May would be left all alone, and I’ve been trying so hard to get better, and I’m failing, and…I-I…” he says, his voice cracking and the tears returning. “I thought that if we didn’t talk, then maybe…maybe you wouldn’t look at me like you are and…I just didn’t want to have to do this to you either is all. I didn’t want to put you through this, too, because you’re my best friend and I don’t want you to have to lose me either.” He’s panting again, sucking in whatever air he can, and he’s trying to calm it down, trying to keep this from becoming a panic attack, doesn’t need FRIDAY to send Tony alerts, which she probably already is, to have him come barging in, overwhelming him with guilt that he’s interrupted another meeting, another phone call, another moment with Pepper with his shitty lungs even though he knows Tony would never let Peter think it. It feels like his airways are the size of straws again, just like they were last night when he told MJ he was too tired to breathe, and-
And suddenly Ned is standing at Peter’s bed and pulling him close, letting Peter ugly sob into his hoodie, Peter reaching out and hugging him right back, squeezing his best friend so tightly with all of the energy he has left because he’s terrified, doesn’t want to get sicker, doesn’t want to have another close attack and need the epi-pen to make it to stop, doesn’t want to have to think about his lungs closing, about drowning, about May and Ned and Tony and MJ losing him.
He’d give anything to stop all of that from ever happening.
Anything.
Even Spiderman.
They stay like that, Ned standing and Peter sitting, burrowed up against Ned’s shoulder, for what feels like hours to Peter.
“Remember when Ben set the stove on fire and we had to help him put it out and hide it from May?” Ned finally asks, throwing Peter completely off guard.
“Y-yeah?” Peter, replies, his voice a hoarse whisper between sniffles, pulling away slowly as Ned sits on the bed.
“Do you remember what he said when the fire was out?”
“I guess water…really doesn’t put out a…grease fire?” Peter tries to recall as he refits his cannula.
Ned laughs. “Ben was so panicked about May walking in on the stove on fire that he sprayed it with water from the nozzle on the sink.”
“And I grabbed the fire extinguisher,” Peter says with a small laugh through his tears.
“And there was just foam and water everywhere, and we had to clean it up, and I slipped,” Ned says, laughing harder, and soon they’re both just hysterical, Peter coughing as they laugh, wiping away happy tears.
“He threw the pan out the window,” Peter adds, cracking himself up. “And May came in and was like, there’s a pan out on the sidewalk, looks kind of like ours, and she just…never figured it out.”
“Oh, she figured it out all right. She just did her whole I’m not even gonna ask thing she always did with Ben.”
They sit, the air growing silent between them for a few beats.
“I’m mad at you but I’m also not mad at you,” Ned admits. “I mean, I get why you didn’t want me to see you, but you know me. You know I would’ve been here right away if you had told me the truth from the beginning. And knowing you didn’t want me here…after everything…kind of hurts, Peter. I’m not gonna lie. Like, I stayed away because I wanted to give you time, but…”
“I know,” Peter says, fiddling with his oxygen tubing. “I’m sorry, Ned.”
“And you know that if this gets worse, I’ll be here. You just have to tell me and I’ll be here.”
“I know,” he whispers.
“And I know that you hate that everyone is worried about you, but it’s because they want to worry about you. People don’t worry about people they don’t care about. It’s just not how worrying works.”
“That supposed to make me feel better?” Peter laughs.
“No, but this is,” Ned says, putting his hand out to do their signature handshake.
Peter smiles, lets his hand meet Ned’s, thinks about how silly the handshake was when they first made it in 6th grade, when they were too busy arguing over whether to do the fist bump or swooping movement first to think about things like Ben dying or Spiderman or Peter getting sick.
His face twists as he fights tears when they finish, has to bite his lip to stop himself from completely crumbling, because damnit, that handshake reminds him of when things were simple, of when it was just Peter and Ned, taking on the world, one day of middle school at a time, and man, does he wish they could go back.
“You okay?” Ned asks, and Peter nods wordlessly, squeezes his eyes shut and holds his breath. “Really? You don’t look okay, Peter. It’s okay to not be okay, you know.”
“I-I’m not okay,” he says, taking a large gulp of air before swallowing the giant lump in his throat. “I-I think I need a distraction? Like a big, big…distraction?” He’s trying not to let himself fall into the panic, to the flashback of that morning where he was drowning in Tony’s arms, doesn’t want to close his eyes again because it will be there, waiting.
They’d spent the summer after Ben died designing and building a giant K’NEX rollercoaster in Ned’s room, a welcome distraction from the endless casseroles and days where May wouldn’t leave her bedroom, and he needs that again, needs someone to keep his brain so busy that he can’t even remember what drowning in Tony’s arms was like.
“Legos?” Ned asks, shaking the box, and in that moment, Peter gets it: Ned has known how sick Peter was this whole time, all of these weeks, and he’s been waiting for Peter to let him in. Peter knows that MJ probably went behind his back and texted Ned everything, and he’s not even mad, knows Ned was just trying to be respectful, that Ned would do anything for Peter, anything at all, just say the word, and here he is, forcing his way in, too, because he knows Peter, knows how much he just needs to keep his hands and mind busy to distract him from all of the scary stuff that this world can throw at you.
“I understood when Ben died, and I understand now!”
“Y-yeah,” Peter says, nodding through his tears, grabbing the box and opening the top so that he can dump all of the bags of pieces on his bed. “Wanna see how this inaccurate this Stark jet really is,” he jokes, and when he looks up, he notices that Ned isn’t giving him that look anymore, the one he was so afraid of, is focused completely on the directions that have spilled out. It makes Peter smile as he sniffles his tears away, feels his face dry, grabs the bag that says 1 on it so that they can get to work.