Chapter 26
ONE MONTH LATER
Monday, April 6
Things feel normal.
Normal-ish.
As normal as they could be after being intubated, Peter guesses.
He’s back to school. Decathlon. Internship. Patrols. The Avengers.
But there’s also the treatments, inhalers, steroids, and appointments. The things that let him do the things from Before, make him feel Peter-ish.
He’s still not convinced he’ll ever be fully used to this.
Sure, he’s in a routine now, but that hasn’t exactly made it easier.
He’d had to hold back tears a few minutes ago when FRIDAY sent him an orange zone alert for wheezing and dropping oxygen levels.
So much for feeling proud to be back to team trainings, the ones Tony isn’t even back to yet since his surgery.
There’s a knock at Peter’s door a moment before it opens. “Just checking in,” Tony says.
“I’m okay,” Peter assures him, holding his nebulizer mouthpiece up before flipping the ‘on’ switch. “Was just about to start on…some chem homework. My lungs have…shitty timing.”
“FRIDAY has you in the orange zone,” Tony explains, holding his phone up.
“I know. Got the same alert.”
“You want company?” Tony asks, and Peter can tell that he’s itching to make sure Peter is actually as okay as he says he is.
Peter doesn’t want to admit it, because this isn’t anything like being in MedBay or the nightmare that was being on a ventilator, but that orange alert has his heart pounding. He wonders if FRIDAY’s registered it yet, if Tony’s gotten an alert for that, too. He hadn’t felt tight or wheezy at first, since he’d been working on an essay and was distracted, but after the alert had popped up, he’d felt it, struggled to get across the room and fumbled with a box of nebules to get a new pack out.
“Y-yeah,” he says, putting the mouthpiece between his lips.
“Been getting a real kick out of your Spiderman Instagram posts,” Tony says with a smile as he takes a seat beside Peter on the bed.
Peter nods, closes his eyes because the medicine isn’t working yet and his heart is still racing from the unexpected alert. Tony’s just trying to change the subject, and Peter wants to appreciate it, but he’d rather his lungs weren’t doing their thing right now.
“I think it’s really great that you’re taking the time to post pictures about Spiderman living with asthma to encourage other kids, make them feel less alone in all of this. I know it’s not easy to put it out there.”
Peter nods again, eyes still closed.
“You’re not okay. I can tell.”
“I…I just thought things would be…better by now. Like…Steve called me a warrior during team training earlier, but I’m…I’m not winning this?”
“Can I let you in on a secret?” Tony asks softly, a hand on Peter’s shoulder.
Peter takes a deep breath of the medicine and nods.
“Not everything can be won, Underoos.”
And Peter’s known that this whole time, has been fighting against his asthma with the hope that if he does everything he’s supposed to, it will become a little less intense, a lot more manageable, but here he is, constantly assessing and reevaluating his next move to take deeper breaths, lessen the wheezing, keep FRIDAY from alerting like she just did.
He’s tired but he keeps on running, pushes until he’s out cold, dreaming of someone, anyone, acknowledging how hard this actually fucking is. How hard it will probably always be.
“We do what we can and then we rest, just like you are right now.”
This doesn’t feel like resting.
It feels like defeat.
Like his lungs are going to be tight for hours, maybe days. Like the start of a flare.
It’s technically spring, even if it’s still chilly in New York.
He has homework to finish, was going to FaceTime with MJ before bed. There’s definitely no energy left for any of that now. The medicine barely feels like it’s working. His whole body feels heavy.
“H-have homework,” he whispers, as if that’s the most important thing right now, as if this is a minor inconvenience and not something that might mean a trip to MedBay or an urgent appointment tomorrow with Bruce and Cho.
“You don’t need to deflect with me, kiddo. You know that.”
“Don’t wanna slow down, but I…I don’t think I…have a choice…”
Tony sighs, squeezes Peter’s shoulder. “It’s hard to accept that, isn’t it? I think most days I’m still fighting against that fact myself.”
“It’s gonna be like this…all of the time.”
It’s not a question.
It’s a statement.
It’s Peter saying it out loud, acknowledging it.
Letting it sink in.
He doesn’t cry even though he wants to.
“Maybe not all of the time, but yes, sometimes it’s gonna be like this,” Tony says, Peter leaning into his shoulder.
“Didn’t want to admit that. Was scared that…that if I did, it’d never go away. But it’s not…going away…”
“It’s okay to say that it’s a part of you, a part of your life,” Tony says, rubbing Peter’s shoulder. “Hell, I unintentionally made a whole superhero out of my health crap.”
Peter chuckles, because, yes, that’s exactly what Tony did. Merged his love of science and tech with the worst thing that ever happened to him.
It’s like...like looking at a glimpse of what his own future could be, possibilities for finding ways to live with this as a superhero.
He thinks back to lying in bed with MJ two weekends ago, how he still needed oxygen. She’d brought over a book called Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth for them to read together.
“You’ve already read it, though,” he’d argued.
“Which is how I know it’s good and that you might like it.”
“Is this meant to be…inspiring?” he’d asked. There was attitude in his tone, one he wasn’t expecting to come out; he’d read the synopsis online and wasn’t in the mood for The Fault in Our Stars 2.0.
“Not inspiring, no. Maybe it’ll resonate, though? Can I read just a little bit and then you can tell me if you want me to stop or not? I really think you might find something you like in this, but I don’t want to force it,” she’d said.
Peter had closed his eyes and nodded for her continue not because he wanted to listen, but because he was growing too tired to argue.
“Do you know I have to set alarms to eat and drink? And check myself constantly for broken bones and bruises,” he says to Cyra. “It’s exhausting, paying this much attention to your body.”
“Is…is this a book?” Peter’s eyes opening.
MJ nodded. “I’ve been reading, trying to understand as much as I could about what you were going through and I found this book. I actually liked some of the literary analysis.”
“It’s not so bad.”
“Oh, so now you guess it’s not so bad?” she’d teased, kissing him on the cheek.
Peter had leaned into her, asked her to start from the beginning because yes, the book was resonating, was making him feel like he was worth something even propped up in bed with oxygen, and he hadn’t felt that in a while.
“Kid?” Tony asks, bringing him back to the present. “Is it getting any better?”
Peter comes to, realizes he’s been banking on this getting better, on getting it completely under control.
Remission.
It’s not off the table, could happen, but right now it’s not, and Peter’s not exactly okay with the fact that this is where he is, not really, but he still has to figure out what to do while he’s waiting for it to maybe happen, while he’s doing treatments and making sure he’s doing as well as he can be to be Spiderman.
To be Peter.
“Yes and no.”
Tony nods. “I get that, I do. We just have to do things differently. Live with the yes and no.”
And even though so much has happened in the last five months, and even though Peter feels like absolute crap and will probably need to do an Atrovent treatment before school in the morning, he feels a little more settled than he’s expected.
It’s grief and joy at the same time.
It’s weird, but it’s what he thinks Tony’s been trying to show him.
That you can hold the two side-by-side, that that’s what being chronically ill is actually like.
It’s not some inspiring story or thing that goes away when it’s convenient.
It’s the in-between, the ups and downs, the yes and no altogether.
It’s accepting and fighting at the same time, which is exhausting, but also empowering sometimes.
“Oxygen’s coming back up,” Tony comments, rubbing Peter’s back. “You sound a little congested, though. You want the vest?”
Peter nods, because even though he despises it and would really rather not do it, he knows it’ll help. He’s used to doing things he doesn’t want to for small semblances of relief and his brain is telling him that he should do it because his lungs don’t feel so great and Tony’s here, so at least he won’t be all alone. While Tony sets him up and refills the nebulizer, Peter sends off a quick text to MJ to reschedule their FaceTime. He plans on attempting to finish his homework tomorrow at breakfast, the subway, or lunch if he’s well enough to go to school. It’s not important right now, not really, but his brain is already plodding ahead, making plans. It’s weird how his two worlds collide so easily now, become one, especially when his lungs do their thing.
With his nebulizer going a second time and the vest shaking his whole body, Peter reaches over to grab two video game controllers from his nightstand. He hands one to Tony and uses his watch to turn on his TV.
“You want me to stay?” Tony asks, taking it.
Peter nods, smiling around the mouthpiece.
Music plays as the game loads. “Mario Kart?” Tony asks, laughing. “You got it, kiddo.”
Peter leans back against his pillows, Tony joining him, the two laughing over the sound of the nebulizer and buzzing vest as they play round after round.
It’s in the middle of a Rainbow Road race with Tony throwing banana after banana to throw him off that Peter realizes something important.
We don’t do things in spite of our chronic illnesses.
We do things with them.
A few months ago, that thought would’ve broken him, fully and completely.
But right now, in this very moment, he’s good with it. Allows it to settle in and make itself cozy. It doesn’t mean he has to stop trying, and it doesn’t mean he has to be overcoming every second of the day.
For right now, he can just be. And maybe, he thinks, that’s all he’s really wanted permission from himself to do this whole time.