Chapter Text
Thursday, March 9, 2017
“Here you go, baby,” May Parker said softly, dropping the two white pills into Peter’s hand.
“Thanks,” Peter mumbled, washing the medication down with a few grateful gulps of water.
“I guess I need to dust, hm?” May said kindly, but it stirred up a whirlwind of guilt and shame in Peter’s gut.
“No, no, it’s fine! I’m sorry, May, it’s really not bad!”
“Peter, Peter, hush! It’s okay, baby, I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again,” she said softly, but what was meant to be a reassurance did just the opposite, and Peter slumped in on himself even more. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry,” May crooned, pulling her nephew close and pressing a kiss to his soft curls.
“I don’t want to make more work for you,” Peter said, voice barely above a whisper.
“Shhh, it is not more work for me! It’s the same amount of work as it is for everyone else, okay? If anything, I’ve been quite lazy with the cleaning lately so it’ll be nice to get back on top of it.” A few moments of silence passed, and upon seeing that she wasn’t making this any better, May sighed softly. “I’m gonna go to bed, okay? You get some rest. Come get me if you need anything. I mean it, baby, wake me up.” She pulled him into a tight hug, feeling him nod against her shoulder but not believing for one second that he’d actually come get her for anything short of an absolute emergency. “I larb you!”
“Larb you, too,” Peter said with a sad smile, basking in the way she brushed her cool fingers through his curls before pulling away and flicking off his bedside lamp.
“Goodnight, sweetheart, get some sleep.”
“Night, May.”
May rolled onto her back, sighing and rubbing at her face with her hands. It had only been an hour since she’d left Peter’s room, but it was already shaping up to be a long night of listening to her nephew struggle through the thin walls.
It had come on slowly, so gradually that it took weeks for anyone to really understand what was happening. February had gone fine, but Peter’s mild symptoms that he’d had since the holidays crept up in frequency and intensity, slowly and subtly. It wasn’t until she’d found him in a full-blown allergy attack the other day that she’d realized that he’d been sniffling, sneezing, wheezing, and coughing quite a bit. While it was a bit early in the year for most people with mild allergies to be feeling the hit, Peter had always been so sensitive, so allergic, and he always got a head start on other allergy sufferers. Perhaps it was the slow onset, or maybe the familiarity of it all, but May hadn’t truly realized that his allergies were back until they hit her like a freight train.
In the two days since, she’d done a deep clean of the apartment while Peter was at school, and while she expected a worsening of his symptoms from all the dust getting kicked up from the initial cleaning, it didn’t make listening to him struggle any easier. She just hoped that returning to the religious cleaning regimen she’d followed before the bite would yield results sooner rather than later.
It had been easy, almost comfortable in a melancholy way, returning back to the lifestyle they’d had before the bite. She coached Peter on taking his inhaler, pushed fluids on him, administered antihistamines nightly, all while the both of them went about their business and did a fantastic job of ignoring the situation. They didn’t talk about it, but rather went through the motions with a familiar ease and carried on.
As May cringed through another dry coughing fit, however, she had to face what she’d known for weeks: Peter’s allergies were back, and from the looks of it, they weren’t going anywhere any time soon.
Friday, March 10, 2017
“Just ignore him, it’s not worth it,” Ned whispered, and Peter huffed, trying to tune out Flash’s snickering from behind him.
The teen wasn’t in the best of moods, after days of shit sleep and constant itching and pretending that the antihistamines May was pumping into him were working. It all felt so familiar, but he’d had just enough distance from the way he used to feel every spring (…and summer, and fall, and winter—he had seasonal allergies, as in every fucking season) to lose the tolerance he’d built up to the discomfort of being allergic to everything on God’s green earth. It wasn’t horrible, still not nearly what it had been before the bite, but it was just enough to make him distracted and uncomfortable and itchy. He rubbed at his eyes again, just the thought making the dry, irritated itching flare again.
“Don’t rub,” Ned whispered, swatting his hands away, and Peter pouted. He was right, and Peter knew he was right, but Ned didn’t understand. Allergies didn’t come with a normal itch, but rather an all-encompassing, infuriating level of itching that surpassed what options the English language offered to describe it. It was impossible to ignore, and it was the icing on top of the cake of fatigue, congestion, and a whole slew of symptoms that would be enough to make someone new to the sensation loose their fucking minds. Peter, of course, was not at all new to the situation, and even he was still tempted to go off the fucking rails because it was just so uncomfortable. While the reaction itself wasn’t as bad as it had been before the bite, the enhanced senses and sensitivity that the bite had given him seemed to make even low-level symptoms so much more intrusive and harder to push to the back of his mind or power through. Peter just hoped that after a period of adjustment, the discomfort would fade into the background and become the mundane background noise that it had been before the bite.
“Have you been crying?” Happy asked, squinting at the sulking teen in the backseat.
“No,” Peter said simply, and Happy raised an eyebrow.
“You and MJ okay?” He asked, thinking of the first plausible explanation for why Peter had entered the car for at least the eighth time over the past few weeks looking like he’d just bawled for hours.
“Yeah?” Peter asked, confused. “Why do you ask?”
The two made eye contact through the rearview mirror, then Happy cleared his throat uncomfortably.
“Alright, kid, tell it to me straight: are you smoking something?”
Peter recoiled as if the question had been a physical blow.
“What?! Happy, no, what…what?!”
Happy frowned, seeing that the reaction was genuine. Peter Parker had no poker face and was the exact opposite of subtle and cunning.
“I don’t know, kid, either you’ve been crying or you’re smoking something or you’ve beat Tony’s record for number of days without sleep. You look like hell,” Happy admitted with a shrug.
Peter sighed, cringing at the slight wheeze that tainted the exhale and rubbing his eyes again with his fists before he sniffled and ran his sleeve briskly under his running nose.
“It’s allergies,” he admitted, accepting defeat. He’d rather swallow his pride than have Happy—and by extension May, Tony, Pepper, or more—think he was doing drugs.
“…allergies??”
“Yeah? Allergies? You know, pollen and crap?” Peter asked incredulously, cocking one eyebrow and tilting his head at Happy’s obvious befuddlement. “Never heard of them?” He asked, a slight smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth.
“Alright, no need to be a smartass. Didn’t the bite fix that?”
“I thought it had. Honestly, I thought the bite did lots of things that it apparently did not.”
Happy deepened his trademark frown, but this time out of concern.
“That sucks, kid.”
Peter huffed a dry laugh and sniffled.
“Yeah. It does.”
“Boss, Mr. Parker has arrived,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. chirped, and Tony smiled, the AI already turning down the blaring music in anticipation of the bubbly teenager and his enhanced hearing.
“It’s about time. Cut the music for now, dear,” the man said, wanting to be able to visit with Peter for the first few minutes before they delved back into their own projects. Tony heard Peter before he saw him, the familiar cough dragging the corners of Tony’s lips downwards slightly. The cough, amongst other things, had become a bit of a permanent feature lately, something that did not escape Tony’s notice and already had the genius’ gears turning. Thanks to some help from his AI, Tony had already identified a pattern in the uptick in outbursts from his son and various possible triggers. While he didn’t like to hear him sound anything less than perfectly healthy, Tony was already on top of tracking what was going on and collecting data to forward to Bruce. The kid didn’t seem bothered, however, and he did know of Peter’s history, so for the time being he wanted to afford the kid just a little bit of independence and privacy and left his concerns (mostly) unvoiced. At least, that is, until Peter came into view.
“Hey, bu—woah!” Tony fought to smooth his face into a neutral expression, but he wasn’t quick enough. Peter looked like hell, eyes red and puffy and bruised underneath, nose red and running visibly even from across the room. He looked tired and miserable and uncomfortable and Tony could already hear the slightest hint of a wheeze coming from his chest. “What happened, kiddo? You look like you tried to fight a flower bed and lost.”
Peter wanted to scowl at him, but instead found himself barking out a laugh. He rubbed at his eyes again with another liquid sniffle, but shrugged, not wanting to mention the presence of trees planted right around Avengers Tower that provided beautiful greenery and that he was also highly allergic to.
“W-wai—” Peter couldn’t finish the word before he cupped both hands tightly to his face, spinning away from a worried Tony and pitching sharply downward with a rapid string of kittenish sneezes that toppled out on top of one another, sometimes two or three in the same breath.
Tony’s eyes widened, and he watched in concern and, honestly, awe. He’d seen Peter have his little fits hundreds of times, but he’d never seen the kid spit them out so fast and if he had to be honest, it was pretty impressive.
“Holy hell!” He exclaimed as soon as Peter stilled, remaining bent over at the waist and keeping his hands to his face as he caught his breath. Tony rushed over to the panting teen, rubbing at his back as Peter replaced the sneezes with coughs. Tony’s eyebrows furrowed as he heard a wisp of dampness seep into Peter’s cough. “Buddy, what’s going on?” He asked softly, and Peter shook his head.
“It’s fine, it’s just allergies,” he said, voice stuffy and muffled from behind his hands.
Tony left his side to grab the box of tissues—he kept tissues everywhere nowadays—and handed a few to his son with a deep frown.
“They really are back, huh?” He asked, and Peter nodded miserably as he accepted the tissues and cleaned himself up before he blew his nose. He didn’t sound terribly stuffed up, more just drippy and runny, but Tony had no doubt that it was distracting, annoying, and uncomfortable. “Do you want anything? Like, I don’t know, a Claritin or something?” Tony was spitballing, and he knew it, but Peter’s eyes were so red and just that alone was tugging at every heartstring the man possessed.
“It’s okay, May gives me that already.”
Tony nodded uselessly, rubbing Peter’s back. He knew she did, both because it was May so of course she had it under control and because he’d watched Peter take the two little pills on multiple occasions himself. May always packed them, and Peter took them before bed without a single comment or complaint, just to go to bed and sneeze his ass off.
“Can we get started?” Peter asked, already snapping back from the fit.
“Of course, buddy, wash your hands and get your supplies.” Tony watched the teen stride over to the sink, shaking his head. He would never, could never, understand how Peter was so happy and bubbly and optimistic and how he popped right back up after each and every setback.
The kid sniffled sporadically, sure, and occasionally aimed a little handful of sneezes or a rapidly-dampening cough into his shoulder, but all in all, he remained in good spirits as he got to work on his own suit and kept up a lively chatter with his father as they tinkered. As the afternoon turned to evening, however, Tony watched Peter’s energy decrease. He was irritated by the constant stream of sniffling, coughing, and sneezing, and was spending more and more time attending to his respiratory system than working on the task at hand.
“You sure you’re okay, kiddo?” Tony asked cautiously around sunset, and Peter answered him with nothing more than a nod. Tony bit his lip, but forced himself to return to his own station, not wanting to risk a repeat of when Peter had caught that cold in January. The kid would come around, and Tony just had to be patient. The man sighed softly, hoping his Nonna was watching down on him so she could see just how good he’d gotten at practicing the patience she’d always tried to drill into him. “Bless you,” he repeated, keeping his voice carefully casual as Peter recovered from another rapid-fire sneezing fit.
“Thanks,” Peter breathed with another runny sniffle, sounding exhausted. He wasn’t cranky this time, as it appeared that allergies sapped his energy quicker than the cold had, and he seemed to have simply resigned himself to his body’s drippy protests.
The two worked in “silence” for another thirty minutes, Peter’s overactive immune system providing the only soundtrack, before a particularly long, rough fit of eighteen sneezes had Tony setting his tools down.
“Okay, buddy, that’s it. You need some Benadryl and a nap,” Tony declared, spinning around on his stool to face Peter as he rubbed at his eyes.
“It’s fine,” Peter insisted, but the way his eyelids drooped and his lip pouted slightly screamed otherwise, not to mention his slumped posture and general air of defeat.
“Nah-uh, bubba, not this time. We have Benadryl in med-bay, I’ll go grab you some. Stay put,” Tony said, getting up and wiping his hands on an oil-stained rag.
“No, wait!”
“What, Roo?” Tony asked, his voice gentle, and Peter wheezed out a raspy sigh, his shoulders slumping further.
“It won’t work,” he said quietly, and Tony cocked an eyebrow.
“You’ve been taking antihistamines for weeks? Surely something gets through your metabolism?”
Peter shook his head, intentionally avoiding eye contact the way he always did when he was guilty of something.
“No,” he whispered, and while normally Tony would’ve laid into his ass for hiding something like this, something about how upset Peter seemed gave him pause.
“Baby, why didn’t you say anything? We could’ve been working harder on synthesizing something if we’d known you weren’t getting the help you needed.”
Peter sniffled, this time from more than just allergies. He swiped at his eyes and shrugged.
“I’m already a pain in the ass, I didn’t want to make it worse. May’s gonna have to go back to cleaning like she did before and she already works so hard and—” Peter broke off into a cough, the tears ramping up the congestion and pushing his cough from slightly damp to fully congested, the crackling starting to rear its ugly head.
“Hey, hey, hey! None of that!” Tony didn’t hesitate, closing the distance between them in a few long strides and folding Peter into a tight hug, rubbing his back as he allowed him to finish coughing into his shirt. “How many times are we gonna have to have this talk, Roo? You are not a burden, you are not a pain in the ass, it is not more work. When you love someone as much as we love you, it isn’t work anymore, not in the way you’re thinking. Sitting through a boring meeting? That’s work. Getting off my ass and vacuuming so you can breathe through the night? Not work. I don’t know how to explain it to you, kiddo, but once you enter the picture, shit that I would normally hate doing just…doesn’t bother me. You’ll understand one day, when you have kids of your own. Until then, I need you to trust me, okay? The only part of this that sucks for those around you is the part where we have to watch you be uncomfortable. We don’t want to watch you struggle emotionally on top, especially when there’s just no need for it.” The talk was familiar, the stuttering and bumbling from a few weeks ago replaced with smooth reassurances. Tony had given more of these speeches than he was able to count, but he still had trouble getting it into Peter’s thick skull.
“I know, I’m sorry, I just…I don’t know. I just thought this was over and then I…I don’t know. I’m sorry,” Peter babbled, pulling out of the hug to rub at his eyes again.
“Nuh-uh, stop that,” Tony said softly, gently tugging Peter’s hands away from his face. He was shocked when Peter went from a few trickling tears to shoulder-shaking sobs.
“I can’t!” Peter cried, coughing out more wheezy sobs as the exhaustion from the past few days caught up and he pulled his arms easily out of Tony’s grip to return them to his face. “You don’t get it, it itches, Dad, I can’t.” He rubbed hard, hissing at the burn from the irritation of rubbing at such sensitive areas for so long, but he just couldn’t stop.
“Hey, hey, I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry. It’s okay, we’re gonna figure this out, okay? I’m gonna call Bruce, okay? We need to talk to someone, I can’t let you go on like this.”
Peter nodded, coughing out more hollow cries. Tony reached for him and pulled him into another, tighter hug, this time letting him keep his fists pressed into his face as he wept into his father’s shirt.
“Shhhh, it’s okay, sweetheart, you’re alright,” Tony crooned, the tender term slipping out on its own accord. “C’mon, let’s go get some ice, okay? It might feel good, hm?” He guided to Peter to stand, and kept one hand soothingly on the teen’s back as he led him out of the lab, letting F.R.I.D.A.Y. catch the lights on their way out.
“Is that better?” Tony asked in an impossibly soft, tender voice, and Peter nodded, still heaving shuddery breaths and hiccuping as he calmed. Tony had made a good call for once, as Bruce confirmed that ice would likely help and swore to be over the next day to run some tests and check Peter out more thoroughly. He prompted Tony to give the kid a triple dose of Benadryl and see what that would do, as well as some of the already synthesized super-kid fever reducer to help with the soreness and inflammation. “Good, baby, just sit still for a second, catch your breath.” Tony hummed, continuing to rub Peter’s back as he calmed.
“Thank you,” Peter murmured after a few minutes, sounding much more like himself, and Tony smiled.
“Any time, bub. We’re gonna get you all drugged up and feeling better, okay? Bruce is coming tomorrow and we’re going to figure this out. That’s a promise.”
Peter nodded, finding it impossible not to believe the man when he spoke with such conviction.
“Now, assuming your allergies don’t affect your appetite, how many pizzas do you want?”
Peter smiled, brightening in spite of himself.
“Mm. Four,” he said, smiling cheekily, and Tony shook his head in awe.
“You heard him, Fri, get us our usual. Don’t hold back on the tip.” After a confirmation from the AI, Tony patted Peter on the back. “C’mon, Roo, let’s get you cleaned up,” he said, and Peter nodded, allowing himself to be led to the bathroom, already feeling better and hearing his stomach start to growl.