Chapter Text
Peter woke to Tony and Morgan’s voices, quiet and close-by—sitting on the foot of the pullout, Peter thought. Neither of them seemed distressed, so he let himself lie with his eyes closed, eking out just a few more minutes before letting them know he was awake.
“—six and seven together is how many?”
“Thirteen.”
“Good job. So do you want to hold or draw?”
“Draw!”
“Okay. What’d you get?”
“A six. So that’s... nineteen.”
“Good job. Hold or draw?”
“Hold.”
“And I have a jack and a three, so I’m going to draw—a five.”
“That’s eighteen. Do I win?”
“Hang on, kiddo. I’m going to draw again—dammit.”
“Eighteen and six is twenty-four! That’s too many, Daddy. Now do I win?”
“Yep, now you win, you little card shark. Collect your spoils.”
Peter opened his eyes. “Tony. Does Pepper know you’re teaching Morgan how to play Blackjack?”
“There are lots of things Pepper doesn’t know,” Tony said. “But in this case—yes, she knows. It’s good for her math skills.”
“Uh huh,” Peter said, sitting up. The two of them were apparently playing for cough drops, which wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. Morgan was shoving one of her cherry-flavored winnings in her mouth. “How long did I sleep?”
“A few hours,” Tony said.
It was almost dark out. Peter reached for his phone, checking the time—just after six—and their temperatures—100.4 for Morgan, 101.3 for Tony. “You guys feeling better?” he asked.
“Yep!” Morgan said.
“Somewhat,” Tony said.
Peter squinted at him and decided he was probably telling the truth. “Who’s hungry?”
“Me! Can we have pizza?” Morgan asked.
“No,” Tony and Peter answered together.
She pouted. “Why not?”
“Because twenty-four hours ago, you threw up on me,” Peter said. “That’s why. But if you’re sick of soup—"
“Sooooooo sick of soup,” she moaned, collapsing dramatically across Tony.
“—I can make pasta.”
“With butter and cheese?” she asked hopefully.
“With butter and cheese,” he agreed. “Tony? That sound okay?”
“Hold the cheese on mine, not sure I’m ready for it. But yeah, Pete, that sounds great.”
The first time Peter had made pasta with butter and cheese for Morgan, he hadn’t realized that it’d been as much a staple of Tony’s childhood as it had been of his own. Ben and May had both been indifferent cooks, and they hadn’t had a lot of money, so Peter had eaten pasta with butter and cheese and sometimes—if Ben was feeling fancy—crispy fried sage probably three times a week when he was a kid.
The first time he’d made it for Morgan, Tony had blinked a lot, gone very quiet, and finally said, “My mom used to make that all the time for me.”
Since then, almost any time Peter found himself in charge of dinner, he made pasta with butter and cheese. If Pepper was home, she insisted on a vegetable or a salad to go with it. If she wasn’t, they ate it on its own.
It only took about twenty minutes to make. Peter dished it up into bowls and they ate in the living room again, slurping noodles to the soundtrack of Finding Dory, because Peter had promised Morgan earlier in the day and Morgan never forgot a promise.
She was still wide awake when the movie was over. Peter gave her a dose of night time cough medicine, both for the low grade fever and in the hopes that it would make her drowsy. Tony volunteered to read to her, so Peter gave her a hug and a kiss good night. “I love you three thousand,” she whispered in his ear.
“I love you four thousand,” he whispered back, and she grinned. He kissed the top of her head and let her go. The two of them climbed the stairs, taking Morgan’s stuffed animal menagerie with them, and Peter turned his attention to the complete mess they’d made of the living room and kitchen.
He had no business being this tired, he thought, elbow-deep in dish suds. He’d had a three hour nap in the middle of the afternoon. He hadn’t done anything except lie around with Tony and Morgan and do his homework, and yet all he could think about was crashing.
By the time the kitchen was clean and the living room more or less back to a state that wouldn’t appall Pepper, it was nearly nine o’clock. Peter hadn’t heard anything from upstairs in about half an hour, which he hoped meant that Tony had been successful in getting Morgan to go down. He dished up two servings of raspberry stuff and grabbed his philo reading. “Hit the lights downstairs, FRI,” he said as he dragged himself up the stairs. The living room and kitchen went dark.
The lights in Morgan’s room were off when he passed, though her arc reactor night light glowed reassuringly. Peter continued past it to Tony and Pepper’s room. Tony was in the en-suite, but Peter put the bowls on Pepper’s nightstand and stretched out on her side of the bed with A Critique of Pure Reason and a yellow highlighter.
“Hey kid,” Tony said, coming out of the bathroom. He’d changed his pajamas again. “Thought you might be crashing in your own room tonight.”
“Oh,” Peter said, suddenly hesitant. “I—I guess that makes sense. I’m sorry, I didn’t even think—“
“Hey, no, it’s okay with me,” Tony said. “I don’t think I’ll sleep right away anyway. Gonna see if my brain is functional enough to answer some emails. My inbox is a horror show.”
“Don’t push yourself,” Peter said, relaxing slightly.
“You’re one to talk. Kant? Really?”
“It’s great bedtime reading,” Peter said wryly. “Puts me out like a light.”
Tony snorted. “I bet. What’s this?” he added, when Peter handed him a bowl of raspberry stuff.
“Applesauce, raspberry Jello, and raspberries.”
“So, pure sugar.”
“Basically.” Peter shoved a spoonful in his mouth and opened up the book.
“Jesus Christ,” Tony said, after a few seconds. He sounded like his mouth was full, and Peter looked up to see him staring in bemusement at the bowl. “Nothing involving Jello should ever be this delicious.”
“Glad you like it, because it might be Morgan’s new favorite thing.”
“Ugh. I’m blaming you when Pepper finds out. She likes you better anyway.”
“Feel free,” Peter said. He had the feeling he’d be in Pepper’s good books for a while after this.
The two of them settled in, working amicably side by side. Peter kept one ear out for noise from Morgan’s room, but she stayed quiet. He forced himself through a section of Kant, but realized at the end of it that he had even less of an idea than usual what it was about. His head was pounding.
“How’s the email?” he asked Tony.
“Headache-inducing,” Tony replied, and tossed his tablet aside with a groan. “How’s Kant?”
“Same.” Peter passed him the bottle of Advil and watched with envy as Tony swallowed two. None of it would work on him, of course.
The two of them sat in silence for a while, neither of them making a move to start working again. “You know what Pepper would say if she were here,” Tony said finally said.
“Just go the fuck to sleep?”
“Something like that. What do you say?”
Peter sighed. He should work, but the truth was that he could hardly hold his eyes open. “Yeah. Okay. Do you––you’d probably be more comfortable if you had the bed to yourself,” he said, hating himself a little for how he was fishing.
Tony shrugged. “It’s a big enough bed, I hardly noticed you last night. Probably a good idea for you to stay upstairs in case Morgan needs you in the middle of the night.”
“Yeah,” Peter said, trying not to sound too happy about it. “Probably.”
He washed up in Tony’s en-suite, using a new toothbrush instead of making the trek downstairs to his own bathroom. He collapsed into bed utterly exhausted and rolled himself up in the blanket he’d used the night before. Despite being his excuse for staying, he really hoped Morgan didn’t need him in the middle of the night.
“Lights, FRI,” he heard Tony say. “G’night, kid.”
“G’night, Tony,” Peter mumbled and fell straight to sleep.
***
Peter had been prone to nightmares long before he was Spiderman. He couldn’t begin to guess the number of nights he’d stumbled from his bed and crawled in with May and Ben, tears still drying on his face––from dreaming of a plane crash he hadn’t actually witnessed, or being lost in a crowd and searching and searching and searching for his parents, unable to find them and knowing, somehow, that he never would.
Once he became Spiderman, the nightmares diversified. There was Ben, of course; Peter was always too late. Sometimes May was there, and he lost her, too. Later, there was being crushed by a building, the feeling that he couldn’t breathe and couldn’t call for help.
He didn’t remember getting dusted, not even enough to dream about it. He didn’t remember his time in the Soul Stone at all. None of that was nightmare-fodder, at least not for him. Instead, he dreamed about something that hadn’t happened.
He dreamed that instead of Carol, Tony had worn the gauntlet. And that it had killed him.
Peter had had that dream at least twice a week for months after the battle with Thanos. It’d gotten rarer recently, which was probably good for his sanity. It was easy enough for him to confirm that Tony was alive; all he had to do was reach for his phone and see their text thread from the previous day. Sometimes, if he was especially shaken up, he called him. Tony always picked up for him, even in the middle of the night. So it was easy to reassure himself. But that didn’t make it less awful in the moment.
Peter had never told Tony. It felt like tempting fate to tell him about the dream. It hadn’t happened and wouldn’t happen, but it felt horrifically plausible. And Tony wasn’t enhanced, he was just a standard-issue human. Carol and Bruce had barely survived using the gauntlet; Tony would not have, Peter was sure.
Tonight’s dream was especially vivid. Peter could smell the smoke and the ozone in the air, he could feel the heat from the flames. All the hair on the back of his neck was standing up, his sense that something terrible was about to happen was screaming at him, but he couldn’t do anything to stop it. He was never able to stop it, just like he was never able to save Ben or find his parents.
Peter.
“I am Iron Man!”
Peter, wake up!
Peter jerked awake. Tony was leaning over him. He was in Tony and Pepper’s room at the lake house, miles away from the compound, years away from that battlefield.
“Hey, Pete, you’re all right. Breathe, okay?”
Peter nodded, gulping air. Tony helped him sit up against the headboard and handed him a glass of ginger ale watered down by melted ice. He took a couple of sips. He couldn’t take his eyes off Tony––Tony, who was frowning and pressing his hand against Peter’s forehead.
“Shit,” Tony said. “FRI, what’s Peter’s temperature?”
“101.2, boss,” FRIDAY said.
Peter blinked in confusion. He usually ran a little cold. “What?”
“Yeah, sorry, kid,” Tony said. “Looks like you caught our flu.”
“I... did?” Peter said, bewildered.
Tony looked sympathetic. “That nightmare must’ve been a doozy. You want to talk about it?”
Peter shook his head, looking away.
“Are you sure?” Tony asked. “I heard... you said my name.”
“It’s okay,” Peter said, voice rough. He swallowed; it hurt, though not as bad as it had when he’d had strep. “It didn’t happen. What I was dreaming about didn’t happen.”
Tony was quiet, watching him. “Does this have anything to do with why you occasionally call me in the middle of the night for no particular reason?”
“Maybe,” Peter muttered. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Tony brushed the hair back from Peter’s face. Peter glanced up and could see the moment he decided to let it go––for now, anyway. “How’re you feeling?”
“Not great,” Peter admitted. He’d had a headache when he’d gone to sleep, but now he had that weird, overly sensitive, achy feeling to go with it. And he was chilled. “I think I need another blanket.”
“Or you could just get under the covers. Don’t know why you insist on sleeping on top of them, anyway. Come on.” Tony started tugging at them. He let out an annoyed sound and got up, coming around the bed to physically pull them out from under Peter and start tucking him in. “There you go,” he said, pulling the blankets up to Peter’s chin.
“Thanks,” Peter mumbled. Tony crawled back into bed on his other side and held his arm out in invitation. Peter thought about resisting, but the truth was that he felt pretty awful, was feeling worse by the minute, and kind of wanted someone to coddle him. He felt like he shouldn’t be making Tony do it, since he was still sort of sick himself, but Tony was offering, and Peter couldn’t bring himself to say no.
“Ah, kid,” Tony murmured, “I’m sorry.”
“S’okay,” Peter mumbled into Tony’s chest. This was really nice, he had to admit.
“You’re not driving back tomorrow if you’re sick.”
“I was going to stay over until Monday anyway,” Peter said sleepily. He was feeling a lot warmer, at least. “Drive back early.”
“Mmm. We’ll see,” Tony said. “This thing took out Morgan for two, almost three days. Took me out for three, going on four. You’re not driving three hours back to Cambridge if you’re still sick on Monday.”
Peter was too tired to fight about it. “Might be okay by then.”
“True,” Tony conceded. “Guess it’s not worth arguing about now. You think you can sleep?”
Peter was already mostly asleep. “Yeah.”
“Good. Wake me up if you need anything. Lights, FRI.” The room went dark.
Peter closed his eyes. It usually took him a while to get back to sleep after a nightmare, with all the adrenaline fizzing in his blood, but the sound of Tony’s heart beating steadily beneath his ear was enough to dissipate his memory of the dream and send him to sleep.
This time, he didn’t dream at all.
***
He woke, overheated and sweating, with Morgan glued to one side and Tony glued to the other. He fought his way free of the blankets enough to stick one foot out. He felt like—well, Tony’s hot garbage analogy from the day before was accurate enough. His head was pounding and his mouth was dry and he felt like he might throw up, which was a problem, because he couldn’t really move. He’d felt safe with Tony holding him the night before, but now he just felt hot.
He was so uncomfortable that it took him a minute to realize that the sound of a car in the driveway had been what had actually woken him. Peter went still, honing his super hearing until he heard a key in the lock downstairs and familiar footsteps in the foyer, followed by the sound of a small roller suitcase, and Pepper’s familiar sigh as she took off her coat.
Peter relaxed all at once. Pepper was home. Thank God.
He was still lying trapped under both his sleeping companions when she appeared in the doorway. She took in the scene with a sympathetic smile, which turned to a frown when she got a closer look at him.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
“Not really,” Peter whispered back. “Can you move Morgan?”
She nodded and carefully picked Morgan up. Morgan stirred but didn’t wake. Peter sat up and slid to the edge of the bed, slumping over. Pepper knelt on the bed with one knee to resettle Morgan closer to Tony. Then she stood up and surveyed Peter.
“Uh oh,” she said. “Not you, too?”
“Yeah, since last night,” Peter said, looking up at her ruefully. “How was your trip?”
“Successful. I cut it a little short to get back here a few hours early. I'm glad I did.”
“Me too,” Peter admitted.
Pepper smiled at him. “I'm sorry you're sick, but you did a great job taking care of them. Now it's our turn. Well, my turn, really.”
Peter smiled weakly at her. “I won’t say no.”
“Good. Saves us both the argument. Want me to help you downstairs so you can sleep in your own bed?”
“Please,” Peter sighed.
It was such a relief to have Pepper there. She got him downstairs and into his bed in short order, tucking him in with brisk efficiency. Peter was worn out from being on his feet for less than five minutes, and he curled up gratefully under his comforter. She brought him a glass of water and an extra pillow to prop him up a little higher, since he was feeling congested.
“Thank you,” Peter said, finally relaxing.
“Don’t thank me,” Pepper said. “I could take care of you for the next week, and I’d still owe you.”
Peter hummed in response. He really hoped that this didn’t last a whole week. It wasn’t likely, given that Tony and Morgan had both been on the mend within three days, but it reminded him of just how much work he had to do, and how much more waited for him back on campus, whenever he got there. He’d planned on working more today, and now he was pretty sure that wasn’t going to happen. His brain felt like mush.
On the other hand––he had so much work. Midterms were rapidly approaching, and he had a paper due for philo on Friday, and he couldn’t ask his lab partner in chem to cover for him again.
“Hey kiddo, you okay?” Pepper asked.
“Yeah, just thinking about how much work I have.” He rubbed a hand over his face.
“It’ll wait.”
“It kind of won’t at this point. That’s the problem.”
“Do you need to ask for an extension on anything?” Pepper asked, sitting on the bed.
Peter rubbed the bridge of his nose. His head was pounding. “Maybe my paper for my philosophy class. It’s due Friday. The reading for it is really dense, I haven’t been able to get through much of it.”
“Okay.” Pepper reached out and rubbed his foot. “Sleep a little more, and I’ll help you write to your professor later. And we can triage your other assignments and see if there’s anything else you can ask for a few extra days on.”
Peter took a deep breath, feeling his incipient panic dissipate just like that. “Thanks, Pepper.”
“No problem, kiddo. Let me know if you need anything.” She squeezed his foot one last time and got up to let herself out, leaving the door cracked behind her. He heard her climb the stairs back up to the second floor, and then, faintly, Morgan exclaiming, “Mommy!”
Peter smiled to himself, snuggled down in his pillows, and let himself fall back to sleep.
The house was very quiet when he awoke. For a second or two, Peter thought he was alone, but then he realized that Tony was sitting on the unoccupied half of his bed. He could hear him breathing and tapping on his StarkPad. If he paid attention, he could also hear the very slight hum emitted by the nanite casing, and the steady beating of his heart. All of it said home and safety to the back of Peter’s brain, and he instinctively relaxed again.
He was tempted to fall back to sleep. But before he could, Tony said, “You’ve been out for a few hours, kid. You should drink something before you pass out again.”
Peter sighed. “Okay.”
“I’ve got ginger ale right here, but I can also make you some tea.”
“Ginger ale’s fine,” Peter said, sitting up. Tony handed him the glass. “Where are Morgan and Pepper?”
“Grocery shopping. Morgan was climbing the walls. How’re you feeling?”
“Crappy,” Peter admitted. He let himself slump over until he was resting against Tony’s shoulder. “How’re you?”
“Tired,” Tony said. He took his glasses off and set them and his StarkPad on the nightstand, and then slid his arm around Peter’s shoulders. “But I’m officially fever-free, so that’s something.”
“Good,” Peter said with relief. He sipped his ginger ale slowly.
“No dreams this time?” Tony said after a moment, his tone faux-light.
Peter rolled his eyes. “You’re not subtle. I’m sick, not stupid.”
Tony did not look especially repentant. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“Good,” Peter muttered.
“But I’m here if you do. You know that, right, kid?” he added seriously, smoothing the hair off Peter’s face. “You don’t have to just suffer.”
Peter was silent for a while. He probably should tell someone about the dream, he thought. He wasn’t sure he wanted that someone to be Tony, though. Not only did it feel like tempting fate, it also felt like a burden. Even if he couldn’t quite say why. It wasn’t one he wanted to place on Tony or Pepper. Maybe May. Or Bruce. Bruce could probably handle it.
“I know,” he finally said, when he realized he’d never responded. “It’s okay, Tony. Like I said––it didn’t happen. And it’s gotten a lot less frequent. I think it was just the fever.”
“Mmm,” Tony said skeptically. “All right. I trust you, kid.”
“Thanks,” Peter said gratefully. He closed his eyes. “So why are Pepper and Morgan at the grocery store? Other than Morgan climbing the walls.”
“Something about not having any food in the house,” Tony said, waving his hand. “We’re just about out of soup, and now you need it, so I think she was going to get ingredients for that. And more raspberry Jello, because Morgan wants to live on the crap. Thanks for that.”
“You’re welcome.”
Tony snorted. He wrapped his other arm around Peter, so he was holding him with both. Peter sighed in contentment. He adored Morgan and Pepper, but he’d have been lying if he’d said he didn’t cherish the moments when it was just him and Tony. He loved that they were a family now, more than they had ever been before, but there was a tiny part of him––maybe the part of him that had been an only child for more than fifteen years––that liked having Tony all to himself.
Tony’s arms tightened around him briefly. “I’m proud of you, kid.”
Peter blinked. “Why?”
“Because you handled everything really well the last couple of days. It wasn’t an easy situation. Watching you take care of Morgan––hell, being on the receiving end of it myself––it struck me that you’re not the kid I met all those years ago.”
“I mean...” Peter swallowed. “I am, kind of. Sometimes I feel a lot like him.” Right now, for example, Peter felt very young, and very grateful that Tony was there to take care of him.
“Not just that kid, then,” Tony amended. He pinched Peter’s arm. “I’m trying to pay you a compliment, Pete.”
“Sorry,” Peter said with a wan smile. “Thanks, Tony.”
“That’s better.” Tony brushed a hand over Peter’s forehead. “You need anything?”
“Nope,” Peter said. He sighed, feeling fatigued and achy and kind of nauseous, and also utterly content. “I got everything I need right here.”
Fin.