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His head hurts. The entire right side of his skull feels like it’s being incinerated. It’s painful. And distracting.
“Hey, kid. You paying attention?” Mr. Stark waves his boxing glove in front of Peter’s face.
“Hm?” Peter blinks, trying to clear the haze and get back to the task at hand. Which is…training, apparently.
“I’m working on a thought-reading device, but unfortunately it’s not finished yet,” Mr. Stark says. “But I’m not sure I’d use it on you, anyway. I don’t think I want to know what goes on in your head. Were you thinking about girls?”
Peter presses his taped-up fist to his temple. If he could just get the throb under control, maybe he’d be able to make sense of what Tony’s saying. He has the impression it’s supposed to be a joke, but he’s missing the punchline.
“Or boys?” Mr. Stark shrugs. “I’m not gonna judge.”
“What? I’m not…” sure what you’re talking about. Articulating discrete words is becoming more challenging by the minute.
“Chill out, kid. Whatever. It’s fine.” Tony adjusts the Velcro on his glove. The scraping sound translates into a new wave of discomfort that makes Peter grit his teeth.
He should call it quits. Excuse himself from the gym and run upstairs for Excedrin and a nap. The longer he stands here under the boxing ring’s fluorescent lighting, the more urgently he needs to lie down. But it’s also getting more and more difficult to think straight. Sorry, I don’t feel so good, can we do this tomorrow? seems like a tongue twister he’ll never be able to vocalize.
“Alright,” Mr. Stark says, getting back down to business. “This game’s called dodge. You’re good at getting out of the way from a distance, but you’re taking a lot of hits in hand-to-hand.”
“Ok.” Peter nods. Which hurts. But he can track with this. They’d just been looking at the data recorded in his suit’s internal wiring. How nice it would be to go back to the lab, with its comfy chairs and soothing mechanical hum…
Mr. Stark’s fist is a red blur as the padded glove sails toward Peter’s ear. Whoa. Ok. Apparently he’d missed the call of go. But he can work with this.
Peter jerks left and bends his knees to avoid the blow. The change in altitude has him reeling, but he maintains his footing.
The next hit is aimed low, toward his ribs, so Peter snaps up and sidesteps. He bobs back and forth in time with Mr. Stark’s feints and jabs, doing his best to breathe through his nose and ignore the clammy sweat dampening his palms.
“Ok, good. Let’s make this tougher.”
Normally Peter would glow at the compliment, but today the words are not what he wants to hear. He barely has the presence of mind to step back as Tony’s fist flies past his face, sending an uncomfortable breeze across Peter’s skin.
He blinks hard and swallows, hoping one last time that everything will settle. He should say something. Call it off. Ask for a rest. Sorry, Mr. Stark, my head really hurts… But he’s ok. He can do this. He has to do this.
The red glove is coming toward Peter’s head again. Coming to his right. No, his left. His vision doubles, then crosses, and continues to rotate. Peter’s bones turn to jello and his organs seem to liquefy as he falls in slow motion. The floor’s becoming the wall, and some kind of odd, sideways gravity is holding his torso upright as his knees hit the mat.
“Kid? What the hell? I didn’t even hit you.” The cold, slick boxing glove touches his shoulder, and Peter instinctively twitches away.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake…” Velcro tears loudly, and then hands are on him, gripping his arms. Bright blobs of starlight nearly obscure Peter’s vision, but he can just make out Mr. Stark’s blurred face staring down at him.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
If Peter opens his mouth, he’s going to die. The space that was once his ribcage sloshes sickeningly. His throat is tight and hot. He has to get out of here.
Peter somehow gets his feet under him and trips toward the edge of the ring. He ignores Mr. Stark’s call of, “Hey, sit back down,” and flings himself between the ropes. Peter trips across the gym, set on getting as far away as he can before his legs collapse.
Nausea ends up catching him first. Peter’s body lurches forward before he’s able to mentally prepare, and he scrambles for a grip on the wall. He retches hard, disgusted by the torrent of liquid that splatters against the floor.
Delayed vertigo and pain crash into each other behind Peter’s forehead. He all but hugs the wall as he throws up again. The sound and the smell and the pain are too much. He’s going to faint. He’s going to die.
Someone grabs him by the back of his t-shirt before Peter loses his footing. “You’ve got to start telling me what’s going on with you,” Mr. Stark says. “Are you sick? Do you have a fever?”
“No,” Peter chokes, holding back a dry heave. “’M ok.”
“No, you’re not. Come on, let’s get you somewhere you can lie down.”
Peter loses the battle to suppress another gag.
“Or maybe to the bathroom.”
Tony steers him toward the hallway. They make it a few steps before the rest of Peter’s tunneling vision disappears and he stumbles. “Fuck,” he grunts through gritted teeth. Then, “Sorry…”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m surprised you’re still stringing words together.” Mr. Stark wraps his arm around Peter’s chest and practically carries him the rest of the way to the bathroom.
Peter closes his eyes and rests his cheek against the toilet seat. The throb in his head lines up against his heartbeat, which makes him feel sick and sleepy.
“How many migraines have you had like this?” Tony asks. He runs the sink for a moment, and the sound has Peter drowning.
“I don’t… a few?”
Mr. Stark sighs. “Ok.”
“Sorry,” Peter mutters, pushing himself up on his elbow to squint in Tony’s general direction.
“Here.” Mr. Stark gives him a paper cup of water.
Peter takes a shaky sip, swishes, and spits. He raises the cup to his lips again, but a hiccup keeps him from swallowing. “Sorry,” he chokes again.
“It’s fine. Just…tell me next time, ok? Powering through, you know, it’s just not worth it.” Tony pats Peter on the back.
“Sorry.”
“Kid. Shut up.”
“Yeah, ok. I’m s—” The word is lost as Peter retches again.