Chapter Text
The day had been the hottest on record for the month of July. Hot and humid and smelly and sticky. The subways had melted down—almost literally—and Queens was grumpy.
Peter sensed the grumpiness in the number of domestic spats he heard through windows that were open to let in what little breeze there was. He sensed it in the number of fist fights––and one knife fight––he broke up between kids younger than him who were just trying to escape the heat of their unairconditioned apartments (and their grumpy parents) by hanging out on street corners. And he sensed it in the altercation he broke up between a dude with an ice cream truck and a dude with a baseball bat he tried to put through the truck’s windshield.
Peter had a hard time picking sides in that one. On the one hand, ice cream guy was just trying to make a living. On the other hand, he thought you could only hear “Turkey in the Straw” so many times before it became a default insanity defense.
By the end of the day, he was feeling a little grumpy himself from dealing with New Yorkers who were not inclined, on a day when the heat index had reached a hundred and eight, to thank their friendly neighborhood Spiderman. Also, his last rescue of the day had been a dog tied up in someone’s yard, and that had pissed him off. He’d broken the poor, panting dog’s leash and gotten him into the shade with a bowl of water, but what he’d wanted to do was steal him away altogether.
Peter liked to think that most people were decent, but some people seemed to go out of their way to disprove the theory.
All in all, Peter was happier than usual to be swinging home. The climate control in his suit had held up pretty well—it would’ve been impossible for him to be out all day otherwise––but he was still feeling sweaty and gross. There were also some serious storm clouds gathering on the horizon, and the one kind of weather he’d promised both May and Mr. Stark he wouldn’t web swing in was thunder and lightning.
He got home just as the first drops started to fall, swinging through his window and collapsing onto his bed. He hit the spider emblem on his chest and the suit went loose, letting him shrug out of it. He rolled over and turned on the fan by his bed, and lay in his boxers, letting the air blow over him.
Maybe six hours of web swinging in heat and humidity had taken it out of him more than he’d realized. He should get up, take a shower, drink some water, and make himself dinner. May was upstate visiting her sister for the weekend, and Peter had just barely managed to convince her that he should be allowed to stay on his own––with Mr. Stark on speed-dial––so he had to be extra responsible about taking care of himself.
Five minutes, Peter promised himself. He swallowed against his dry throat and closed his eyes. Five minutes.
He was woken by an enormous clap of thunder. He jerked upright, heart pounding, and nearly fell out of bed. There was a breeze––much cooler now––blowing through the open window, bringing splatters of rain with it. Peter yanked his window closed just as a flash of lightning lit up the street, followed by another enormous boom. Then the skies opened up and the splatters of rain became sheets.
Peter sat up slowly. He hadn’t been asleep for more than twenty minutes or so, but he was feeling a little... weird. Achy and headachy and just sort of off kilter. He rubbed his eyes. He had weird after images in his vision, like he’d looked at a bright light, but the apartment was dark. Maybe from the lightning just now.
Food and water would help, he decided, and dragged himself off the bed. He pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms and went into the kitchen. He drank a glass of water standing at the sink and then stood blinking at the fridge, trying to make a decision about what to eat. Nothing looked good.
He had to eat something. Mac and cheese, he decided, and took a box of Annie’s down from the top shelf. He put a pot of water to boil and turned the box over to remind himself of the instructions. He squinted at it. The bright spots were still there, but they’d moved around and grown, and they were kind of... pulsing. He rubbed his eyes and tried again.
He couldn’t read. The words were there, but it was like each of them fell out of his head as soon as the next one entered. He couldn’t read. He’d been reading since he was four years old, and now he just couldn’t do it.
Peter’s breathing quickened. He didn’t remember getting hit on the head, but maybe he wouldn’t remember if it’d been a hard enough blow. He reached up and felt his head; surely there’d be a bump or something. But there was nothing.
He was starting to feel kind of sick. The pulsing lights were getting to him, and it didn’t help that he was starting to seriously freak out. He wasn’t a medical expert, but he was pretty sure that seeing things that weren’t there and suddenly not being able to read were not good symptoms.
He turned off the water under the pot, because he definitely did not want mac and cheese now. He didn’t want anything. In fact, he was pretty sure he was going to be sick.
He tried to keep his breathing even as he stumbled into the bathroom. He didn’t hit the lights; he had the feeling that wouldn’t be a good idea. He sank down on the bath mat and cradled his head in his hands. Pain was flaring in his head, centered on the left side, right behind his eye. Wincing, Peter tried to put pressure on the spot; that alleviated the pain a little, but he was still left with the pulsing lights and the nausea.
This was not good. What if he had a tumor? What if he had an aneurysm? That was a thing, wasn’t it? People just fell over dead because a blood vessel in their brain had burst. Was there any kind of warning, Peter wondered––like, say, a headache and weird lights? That seemed like the sort of thing that would happen before you started bleeding out in your skull.
He was going to be sick, he realized, and lurched for the toilet. But then he didn’t throw up after all. It was like somewhere between his brain and his stomach, the signals got scrambled, and he just ended up leaning over the toilet, feeling really, really sick. Peter slumped sideways and rested his head on his arm, feeling overwhelmed and miserable and alone and trying not very successfully to stop himself from crying.
He didn’t know how long he’d been like that when his phone beeped. He’d forgotten he even had it on him, but he must’ve slipped it into his pocket when he’d left his room. He fumbled it out and looked at the message. It was from Mr. Stark, but he couldn’t even begin to make sense of it.
“FRIDAY?” he managed.
“Good evening, Peter. You didn’t check in after you returned from patrol,” FRIDAY replied through the speaker in Peter’s phone. “Boss would like to confirm that you’re uninjured and don’t need assistance.”
“Um,” Peter said. “I don’t... I don’t know...” If it was nothing, he didn’t want to bother Mr. Stark with it. But he was pretty sure that he and May would both be pretty upset if Peter ended up dead from an aneurysm because he didn’t say anything. Peter himself wouldn’t be pleased about that, either.
“Mr. Stark is calling,” FRIDAY said. “I will take the liberty of connecting you.”
“Wait,” Peter said, but it was too late.
“Hey, kid,” Mr. Stark said. “Everything okay? You know you’re supposed to check in with me when you get home.”
Peter didn’t know where to begin. Worse than that, it seemed like his reading problem had become a speaking problem. “I’m––I can’t––there were these lights.”
“Lights?” Mr. Stark repeated. “What lights? Is the power out at your apartment?”
“No.” Peter had almost forgotten about the storm, but a clap of thunder made him jump. “There were lights, and then I started to feel kind of sick. Mr. Stark, I can’t read!” he added, unable to keep the distress out of his voice.
“Wait, kid, hold up––you weren’t hurt on patrol, right? This all happened after you got back?”
“Yeah.”
“There were lights, and you felt nauseated, and then you couldn’t read.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you have a headache?”
“Yeah. Like... behind my eye. Do you think...” Peter paused and sniffed. “Do you think it’s an aneurysm?”
“Jesus, kid, no. I think it’s a migraine.”
Peter blinked. Everything felt like it was processing at half-speeding. The lights were obscuring half the toilet bowl, a half-crescent of just... pulsing black void. Not really lights, now that Peter was thinking about it. The nausea was much worse. He swallowed hard. He really didn’t want to throw up while he was on the phone with Mr. Stark. “A migraine?”
“Yeah. Have you ever had one before?”
“No.”
“Okay.” Mr. Stark’s voice was surprisingly gentle. “It’s unpleasant, but it’s not life threatening, I promise. It’s a bad headache with aura––that’s the lights––and nausea. It’s definitely not fun, but you’ll be okay.”
“Oh,” Peter said. He relaxed and dropped his head to rest on the edge of the bathtub. He swallowed again, feeling as though his grip on his emotions was even more tenuous than it had been when he’d thought he might be dying. “Mr. Stark?” he said in a small voice. “I feel really bad.”
“I know, kid. Tell you what, give me––shit, okay, give me an hour, because like Spiderman, Iron Man shouldn’t be flying around in a thunderstorm, so I’m going to have to get to you the old fashioned way. But give me an hour and I’ll be there with Excedrin and Gatorade.”
“Y’don’t...” Peter bit his lip. “You don’t have to. S’just a headache.”
“Migraines aren’t just anything. They suck. Also, I promised May that I’d keep an eye on you this weekend, and she scares the hell out of me.” Peter cracked a smile. Mr. Stark being afraid of May would never not be funny. “Hang in there, kid. Drink some water if you can.”
He was really thirsty, Peter realized then. But also still really nauseous. He had the feeling anything he drank would just come back up. “I’ll try. Thanks, Mr. Stark.”
They disconnected. Peter leaned his head against the cold, smooth porcelain of the bathtub. The throbbing behind his eye worsened until it felt like someone was stabbing him repeatedly.
He hadn’t known a headache could feel like this. His eyes flooded with tears. He wished that May was home, or that he’d agreed to go to the tower for the weekend. He’d wanted to prove he could take care of himself, but it would’ve been nice to have someone else there to take care of him right then.
An hour, he told himself. He just had to hang on for an hour. An hour was nothing in the grand scheme of things.
It just felt like forever.
***
The thunder and lightning had started to move on by the time Tony arrived at the kid’s apartment, leaving behind heavy rain and overflowing storm drains. There was no parking to be had for four blocks in any direction, and Tony drew the line at walking in the rain in Italian leather loafers anyway. He made Happy drop him off in front of the building and told him he’d call when he needed to be picked up.
At least he hadn’t been stuck trying to get here from upstate. Not for the first time was Tony glad he hadn’t sold the tower. Gutted and renovated the top ten floors, sure, so that no square inch of them was the same as when the Avengers had lived there––but not sold.
“You sure you don’t want me to stay?” Happy asked, frowning.
“I think I can handle one kid with a migraine,” Tony replied, rolling his eyes. For someone who had made a big show out of not liking the kid for the first six months he’d known him, Happy was sure terrible at hiding his protective streak.
Happy did not look like he agreed that Tony was capable of handling it, but he was at least silent in his judgment. Tony climbed out of the car with his bag of Excedrin and Gatorade and dashed through the rain to the front door of the Parkers’ building.
May had given him a key for emergencies, and Tony had accepted it without mentioning that it was, in fact, unnecessary. By that point, Tony had already bought the building. He’d quietly made a few improvements––repairing the broken elevator, firing the negligent management company and do-nothing super, and hiring a daytime doorman so people would stop stealing packages. He’d also––even more quietly––installed several top of the line security features, including cameras at all the entrances and on the roof.
He couldn’t do much more than that without May Parker smelling a rat, but it was something. It let him sleep at night, anyway, since May had flatly refused to let Tony buy them an apartment in a high security building. He knew there would be hell to pay if she ever found out the truth, but that was a problem for his future self.
The building was quiet, everyone in for the night because of the heat and the storm. Tony let himself into the Parkers’ apartment. Most of the lights were off, save for one in the kitchen. It looked like Peter had stopped in the middle of making dinner; there was a box of Annie’s mac and cheese on the counter and a pot of water on the stove. At least the burner was off.
He glanced into Peter’s room, but it was empty. Bathroom, then.
The lights were off, but there was enough ambient light coming in the window for Tony to see Peter curled up against the bathtub, head pillowed on a towel. He stirred as Tony came in and crouched down beside him. “M’ssr Stark?” he mumbled, lifting his face. Jesus, the poor kid had been crying. Peter hadn’t even cried when he’d broken his elbow last month.
“Hey kid,” Tony said, keeping his voice quiet. “How’re you doing?”
“Not good,” Peter admitted, voice trembling. He let Tony help him sit up, back against the bathtub. “Never felt like this before. I don’t like it.”
Tony didn’t like it either. Peter’s eyes were dull, all his vital spark snuffed out. Tony squeezed his shoulder. “Did you throw up?”
“No,” Peter mumbled. “Wanted to, though. Feel so sick. And it hurts, like... like someone’s stabbing me in the head.” He looked up at Tony, eyes watery and half-shuttered. “I just want it to stop.”
“I know, kid,” Tony said, reaching out to stroke a hand through his hair. Peter leaned into the touch, eyes closing. “Migraines are idiosyncratic. That means everyone is different, and different things work for different people. So we’re going to try a few things and see what helps, okay?” Peter nodded. “Let’s start by getting some Excedrin into you. I brought my Imitrex pills, too, but I can already hear what your aunt would have to say about me giving you meds that weren’t prescribed to you, so we’ll start with the OTC stuff.”
“Pro’bly none of it’s gonna work,” Peter predicted morosely.
“Well, maybe not,” Tony admitted. “Let’s try anyway. And we’ll wash it down with some Gatorade, because I’d bet my Maserati that you’re dehydrated. You were out all day in the suit, weren’t you? Did you stop to eat or drink anything?”
“No,” Peter admitted.
“Yeah, so, not enough fluids or food, out in the heat all day, and then a massive change in air pressure when the storm rolled in this evening. Any one of those might’ve been the trigger, or it could’ve been the combination of all three that did you in.”
Peter didn’t look like he was tracking, so Tony decided to shut up while he got pills and fluids into him. The good news was that while the kid obviously felt like shit, he wasn’t feeling so sick that he was unwilling to sip at the Gatorade Tony had brought. He was going to have to program a reminder into Karen for her to tell Peter stop and drink something if he was out in the suit for more than a couple of hours.
After a few minutes of sitting together on the bathroom floor, Tony realized that the kid was sort of listing toward him. Not quite leaning, more like... melting in his direction. Slowly but steadily, as though Tony wasn’t going to notice when Peter eventually ended up on his shoulder. Tony caved with a sigh, putting his arm around Peter’s shoulders, and Peter took that as an invitation to slump the rest of the way into his side.
“How you doing, kid?” he asked. “Is that Gatorade helping?”
“Not really,” Peter murmured. “But ’m less thirsty.”
“Well, that’s a start. How’s your pain?”
Peter hesitated. “Like... a six. But the nausea and the lights...”
“The lights are the worst,” Tony agreed.
Peter made an interested noise. “You get migraines?”
“Occasionally. Not that often anymore. The worst ones were when I was––um. Well, there was this time back when I had the original arc reactor where I was sort of... dying.” Peter made a dismayed sound, and Tony tightened his arm around his shoulders. “I didn’t die, obviously. But palladium poisoning will give you some fucking awful migraines. And even now, a couple times a year, something sets me off––usually it’s red wine when I haven’t had enough sleep, or at least Pepper insists that’s what it is.”
“It’s so weird. S’ss... s’like... my brain isn’t my brain.”
“Yeah, I know that one,” Tony said. He curled his arm around, sliding his fingers into Peter’s hair. Peter made a wordless noise and went basically boneless. Tony smiled to himself; the kid was obviously weak for having his hair touched. “Besides the lights, I always thought feeling stupid was the worst part. And the Imitrex makes it worse for me.”
“Sucks.”
Tony gave a quiet laugh. “Yeah, it does.”
He stopped making Peter talk after that, just kept his fingers moving in and out of the kid’s hair while he drank the Gatorade. It took him almost forty-five minutes, but eventually he managed to drain the bottle. He’d melted all the way into Tony’s side by then and was halfway into his lap. Tony knew from past experience that the kid was clingy when he was tired or stressed, but not feeling well apparently unlocked a whole new level of clinginess.
Tony thought he should probably do something about that. Push the kid away, make him sit up, set some nice firm boundaries. He should want to do that. And the part of him that was panicking because nursing the kid through a bad migraine was serious parent territory, there was no denying that––that part of him did. But most of him... didn’t. Most of him wanted to lean into it the same way the kid did. As though it was that easy.
“Mr. Stark?” Peter murmured, lifting his head. “You okay? Your heart is beating kind of fast.’
“I’m fine, Pete,” Tony said, smiling down at him. “How’re you doing? Think maybe we can get off the floor?” Peter nodded. “You want to go to bed and or lie down in the living room for a bit?”
“Um.” Peter hesitated. “Are you staying?”
If you want me to was on the tip of Tony’s tongue. But if he said that, Peter would say he was all right on his own, because there was nothing the kid hated more than feeling like he was a burden, and then Tony would either have to leave––which he didn’t want to do––or convince Peter to let him stay. Better to just avoid the whole fiasco.
“Yeah, thought I’d stick around,” Tony said. “Lousy weather for me to ask Happy to come back out in.”
“Yeah, “ Peter said, visibly relieved. “Yeah, that’s true. Um... living room, I guess.”
Tony helped him up. He swayed dizzily once he was on his feet, and they ended up braced over the bathroom sink for a minute or two because Peter thought he might throw up. But eventually they were able to shuffle unsteadily out of the bathroom.
The living room was mostly dark. Tony helped Peter stretch out on the sofa, then went to get him another Gatorade and some crackers. He should really eat something more substantial than crackers at some point, Tony thought, but he didn’t think that’d be an option until at least tomorrow morning. He really hoped the worst of this would have passed by then; Tony had had a handful of multi-day migraines in his life, and he ranked them above open heart surgery in a nice clean hospital (albeit below open heart surgery in a cave) in terms of misery.
“Thanks,” Peter mumbled, accepting the Gatorade and crackers.
“How’s the headache?” Tony asked, ducking his head to try and get a look at Peter’s eyes.
“Better, maybe. Like... a five. The, um, the lights are mostly gone now.” Peter drew a deep breath and closed his eyes, obviously trying to marshal his mental faculties. “Could you... there’s a quilt on my bed,” he said, looking embarrassed and very young. “Could you get it for me? I always have it when I don’t feel well.”
“Sure, Pete.” He didn’t bother to stop himself from ghosting a hand over Peter’s hair as he left the room.
The quilt in question was a t-shirt quilt, obviously handmade, now faded and worn and a little too small. The shirts had all had science puns on them, Tony realized, sort of like the nerdy shirts Peter often wore when he came over to the tower. Tony paused, then folded the quilt more carefully over his arm. He didn’t know for sure whose shirts they’d been, but he could guess. Richard Parker had been a biochemist by training.
Tony brought one of Peter’s pillows back out with him, too. “Here you go,” he said, draping the quilt over Peter’s lap.
Despite the heat, Peter wrapped himself up in the quilt. Then he moved over, making room for Tony to sit beside him. He leaned against him, resting his head on Tony’s shoulder. “Thanks for coming,” Peter mumbled.
Tony was digging for the remote between the couch cushions. He finally found it and turned the TV on, then put his feet up on the mismatched ottomon. “Well,” he said then, “I did promise your aunt I’d keep an eye on you.”
“Mmhm,” Peter said, sounding as though he wasn’t fooled by Tony’s deflection. He never was, unfortunately. “Um... dunno if I can watch anything. I still feel pretty... not all here.”
“I know, kid. I’m not putting on anything you have to follow, and we can turn it off if looking at the screen is uncomfortable. But I think this is almost better than Imitrex.” He found what he was looking for on Netflix and loaded it.
Peter was quiet for a few seconds, frowning at the TV. “How old is this?”
“Hey, we made some good stuff before you were born. Like Star Wars.”
“Yeah, but... this is literally just a dude with big hair... painting? He’s just gonna paint?”
“Yep.”
“...why?”
“Because he’s Bob Ross, that’s why,” Tony said, feeling exasperated, or maybe just defensive of his own coping mechanism. Bob Ross had gotten him through a lot of migraines when Tony hadn’t had anyone else around to help. “He is going to paint some happy fucking trees and you are going to lie down and zone out while he does.”
“Um, okay,” Peter said, and did indeed lie down. His pillow was tucked up against Tony’s thighs, so his head was almost but not quite in Tony’s lap. It was easy for Tony to reach down smooth the hair back from over his forehead, though, and easy for him to tug the quilt up so it covered Peter’s shoulder. Peter had some of the quilt bunched up in his arms, like a teddy bear. It had clearly been made for a much smaller Peter. Tony pulled a blanket down from the back of the couch so it covered the rest of him.
“Thanks,” Peter said with a sigh. He went quiet, staring blankly the TV. Tony sank deeper into the sofa. The apartment was slightly too warm, rain pattered against the windows, and Bob Ross droned on soothingly about how there were no mistakes, only happy accidents. Tony hadn’t been sleeping well, but he had the feeling that wasn’t going to be a problem tonight.
“I guess this is pretty nice,” Peter admitted drowsily, as the first episode rolled straight into the second. “Soothing.”
“Told you. How’s your pain?”
“Mmm. Better. Not so sick.”
“Good.”
“Could you...” Peter hesitated.
“Just ask, kid.”
“Couldyoustrokemyhairagain?” Peter asked, so fast that it took Tony a second to parse it.
“Oh,” Tony said, only a little awkwardly. “Sure.” He sank his fingers into Peter’s hair, focusing on separating out all the curls that’d gotten matted together from hours in the Spiderman suit. The kid probably needed a shower, but he finally seemed comfortable, and Tony wasn’t about to move him. Tony rubbed the pads of his fingers against Peter’s scalp; Peter made a noise that was remarkably like a cat’s purr and sank even more heavily into the sofa. Tony smiled to himself.
Another episode, another mountain landscape. “How you doing, Pete?” Tony asked softly. On the screen, Bob Ross was brushing back and forth across the canvass, cheerfully blending the base of the mountain into a lake.
“Mmm,” Peter replied groggily.
Tony smiled to himself. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“Mmm.”
Tony unlocked his cell phone and typed a message one-handed to Happy. In for the night. Will let you know when we’re up and moving in the morning. Gonna try to bring him to the tower. Then he texted Pepper to let her know what was going on, and then, finally, May.
May was concerned, but Tony managed to convince her to wait until the morning to call, since Peter was pretty close to asleep. She agreed readily to his plan to take Peter back to the tower. That was what both of them would have preferred to begin with, but Peter had lobbied hard to be allowed to stay on his own. He’d been scheduled to come over on Sunday anyway, though, so this didn’t change their plans much.
Finally, he set his phone down and let his head fall to rest against the back of the sofa. It was surprisingly comfortable with his feet up on the ottoman, and he was loath to move Peter now that he was resting. Tony let his eyes track the movements of Bob Ross’s paintbrush until his eyes drifted shut.