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It was spring break and Peter couldn't be happier. Neither could May... or Tony, for that matter. Everyone seemed to have their week planned out perfectly. His Aunt had finally saved enough money to go on that girl's bonding trip she'd always wanted to take with her friends and while she was gone, Peter would be with Tony. May called it 'Boy Time'. Peter called it a week of 'Freedom and Science' but Tony... he called it 'Bonding Time'. Just not out loud. Out loud he called it 'Babysitting'. Mostly to listen to his favorite young adult adamantly protest that he was fifteen and didn't need a babysitter. It was cute...
No matter what you called it, the result was the same, both boys were eager to spend an entire week together. So when Tony showed up Saturday morning to collect Peter and drive May to the airport the tiny apartment was filled with pure excitement and energy. May was running back and forth between her room and foyer making sure she had all of her bags while Peter rambled endlessly about everything he hoped to accomplish before Friday when they were set to return home. With all of the commotion in the room, Tony just stood back and observed. He couldn't help but feel like something was off. He just couldn't figure out what.
One last glance at his watch and Tony was sighing. "May!", he called out down the hall. "Is this everything? We need to get going or you're going to miss your plane! I can do a lot of things... but delaying a commercial flight isn't one of them.", he teased when May popped out of her bedroom carrying a few more items to shove into one of the bags still sitting by the front door.
"This is the last of it, I swear.", she laughed. "I just need to grab my shoes and my travel bag."
"Perfect.", Tony replied with a smile before looking across the room towards where his kid was sitting on the arm of the tattered couch with his nose buried in his phone. "Hey, Pete... Why don't you take those bags down to my car? Me and May'll meet you there in ten.", he kindly requested and smiled as the boy pleasantly acquiesced, hopping up to do what he was asked with no further prompting. Once he was sure the boy was out of enhanced hearing range, he turned his attention back towards May. "Does he seem off to you?"
"Hmm?", May asked distractedly as she rushed to locate her other sneaker but when Tony repeated his inquiry she took a pause and sighed. "I was thinking the same thing. I just can't seem to--"
"--Put a finger on it. Yeah, me either. He's smiling, talking non-stop and doesn't seem worried about anything... I thought maybe I was reading into it too much or something.", Tony replied with mild concern. If May had also noticed then there was definitely something.
"No... I was wondering too.", May sighed out sadly. As excited as she was for this trip she hated the idea there was something up with her nephew and she didn't know what it was. She was just thankful that she was able to leave him in good hands but that didn't stop her from voicing her concerns. "Just... just keep an eye on him for me, will you? I know he's not a baby and he can take care of himself but he's my baby... and it's probably nothing but just in case--
"--I've got him, May. You know that.", Tony said with a light chuckle. It was interesting to hear May ramble as she was. It reminded him of Peter and he wondered if she picked it up for him or if it was the other way around. Then, another brief glance at his watch had him frowning. "Come on, we need to go. I promise I'll keep an extra close eye on him and keep you posted."
"That's all I ask.", May returned with a small smile. Then she grabbed her purse, followed the man out into the hallway and locked the door.
The ride to the airport was uneventful. Peter hugged his aunt good-bye no less than four times and was soon in the front seat heading towards the tower with Tony. Only instead of the car, remaining filled with chatter as it should have been, it was quiet. That was enough to turn Tony's mild concern into actual concern and he decided it was time to address it. "You alright, kid?", he asked with furrowed brows.
"Mm-hmm", Peter replied with a smile and then peeled his head off of the cool window to face his mentor. "I was just thinking. That's all."
Tony raised his eyebrows and laughed. "You never think that quietly. Ever.", he teased but there was still a niggling of worry in the back of his head. "Are you sure everything is okay? You're not homesick already are you?"
"I don't get homesick, Tony.", Peter flatly replied. "There's just a lot I want to do while I'm at the Tower and I was trying to decide what I wanted to do first, that's all."
Back to smiling, Tony reached over the center console to pat the boy on the knee. "Care to know what I want to do?", he asked but didn't actually pause for an answer. "I want to eat too much take out, watch too many movies and then maybe tinker in the lab some.", he said with glee. He knew Peter would want to spend the entire week holed up in the workshop. He could understand that but he was also looking forward to spending some downtime with the kid. They didn't do that near as often as he wished they did. This time he was going to insist upon it.
Peter nodded his head and gave a cheeky smile. "That sounds like a pretty good plan but I was thinking we could eat too much take out and ice cream... spend too much time in the lab and maybe watch a movie.", he amended knowing that if he played his cards right he could get Tony to see things his way. It didn't usually take much persuasion. The man tended to spoil him in all the best ways.
After that, the remainder of the car ride was spent discussing movies, projects, and their preferred pizza toppings but Tony's feeling that something wasn't right, never completely faded. He continued to glance beside him and had to stop himself, several times, from once again pressing the teenager about his wellbeing. There was no point at this stage. Peter had already insisted that he was fine and nagging him wasn't likely to get him to change his answer.
Back at the tower, Peter immediately went to put the handful of things he'd carried with him into his room before joining Tony in the lab. He had several ideas about how he could increase the tensile strength of his webs and once that was perfected his web-shooters would need to be adjusted as well. The chemical engineering alone was going to take hours if not days to perfect and he was more than ready to get started.
Bouncing into the lab with his notebook in hand, Peter crossed the room to where his mentor was sitting on a stool reviewing some old schematics of one kind or another. "Hey, Tony? Can you look at these formulas and make sure they look stable enough to attempt?", he asked since that was the rule now. Any new chemical mixtures had to be 'reviewed before brewed' because he may or may not have accidentally sort of made a tiny mistake one time that caused an entire corner of the lab to end up covered in webs.
"Sure, kid.", Tony replied before going over the various equations and components jotted down messily across several pages. He was just about to reach for a pencil to correct one small mistake he'd found when he heard a muted sneeze come from beside him. Having never heard the kid sneeze before, he immediately laid eyes on the teenager who was still wide-eyed with his hand cupped over his mouth and nose. "Did you just sneeze?"
"Yes?", Peter replied as he causally brought his hand back down and slid it into his pocket. "Something must have gotten in my nose or something...", he mumbled as if he needed to have an excuse for sneezing. People sneezed all the time. It wasn't a big deal and Tony must have agreed because after looking him over for several seconds with his eyes all soft and assessing, he turned back to the notebook.
"This looks good. I corrected one thing over here.", Tony said as he pointed towards the corner of the page. "You had a negative where it should have been positive. The math was right, the signs were wrong. I didn't want it to confuse you later when you went back to it.", he explained and watched carefully as the boy nodded his head and scurried over to the chemical cabinet to collect supplies.
Things went by in a normal fashion for quite a while after that. Tony manipulating his holographic designs and Peter clanking beakers together in his corner of the lab. The music played at a comfortable volume and the two of them chatted back and forth about their respective projects as they worked. At some point, Tony decided to get up and go check on his budding genius and started to cross the distance between them. However, as he grew closer he heard the boy sniff several times and he was suddenly worried that the kid was crying. "Pete? Are you okay?", he asked with trepidation as he looked over the table for any kind of evidence of injury. A spill, broken glass... anything at all that might explain the presumed tears.
"I'm fine", Peter said looking up in confusion. He'd been deep in thought and not given any thought to his sniffling. "Why?"
Realizing his mistake, Tony sighed and rested his hand on Peter's shoulder as a way to surreptitiously evaluate him for any kind of fever. When the kid didn't seem overly warm, he allowed himself to relax. It was nearly dinner time and a singular sneeze a few sniffs in a three-hour stretch wasn't a big deal. It seemed that his own reservations combined with May's pleas that he keep an extra close eye the teenager had him overanalyzing everything. "No reason. Are you at a stopping point? We should order some food and then maybe we can watch a movie or play some games or something."
Satisfied that he's gotten at least some work done, Peter agreed to a lazy evening on the couch. He made a few notes and cleaned up his mess before following the man up to the penthouse. For some reason, the pizza they had discussed earlier no longer sounded good and they ended up ordering sandwiches at Peter's request. Tony didn't question it too much, the kid was often changing his mind about things and hot sandwiches were one of the teenager's favorite foods.
As they ate, they sat together on the couch and watched some eighties sci-fi movie that Peter hadn't seen yet. Outside of some laughter, there was no real conversation to speak of during the movie but there never really was. When it ended well before ten, Tony suggested a second one and was somewhat surprised when Peter not only agreed but went to put his pajamas on before they started it. Typically once dinner was over, the boy begged to return to whatever project he was focused on at the moment. "Really? You're not going to bargain for more lab time?", Tony teased.
"Not tonight.", Peter returned with a smile. He wasn't sure why but the cushy couch seemed far more appealing than a hard leather stool at the moment. "Tomorrow we're going to be in there all day though, right, Tony?"
"I don't know about all day... but we have time, kid. All week. You'll get your sticky spidery web science done in no time.", he replied with a smirk and smiled when Peter pulled the blanket off of the back of the couch and leaned into him. "Comfy?"
"Mm-hmm", Peter hummed in contentment before having to stifle several small sneezes. "I'm sorry.", he said as he sat up and rubbed his nose with the heel of his hand. "I don't know where that came from."
Tony rolled his eyes and sent the kid off to wash his hands and grab a box of tissues from the bathroom. Then when he returned to the couch moments later, he tried to feel the boy's forehead only to be dodged completely. "I'm fine. There's nothing wrong with me. Stop being a mother hen.", Peter strained as he batted away his mentor's hands and laid his head down on a pillow at the opposite end of the couch rather than returning to Tony's side.
Grabbing an ankle instead, Tony quickly decided that he was satisfied with the lack of excessive heat coming off the kid and didn't question him any further. Not even when Peter decided to go to bed after the second movie. While it wasn't particularly early it wasn't exactly late either so there wasn't really much he could say about it. He simply told him good-night and slipped back down into the lab for a little while.
As Tony was working on his latest breakthrough idea, Peter was sound asleep on his pillow. However, he woke up several hours later feeling like he'd been hit by a truck... or maybe a train... the point was, he was achy and his throat was kind of sore but mostly his head was pounding in time with his heartbeat. Groaning, he rolled over onto his back and flinched when he swallowed. His first thought was to go find Tony so that the man could make it all go away for him but then he remembered what he'd said to him on the couch a few hours prior. He'd adamantly told the man that nothing was wrong... though in his defense, at the time, he was sure that there wasn't. He'd felt absolutly fine.
He lay there for a while trying to decide what to do. He really, Really wanted to go find Tony but at the same time he didn't really want to have to admit to the man that he'd been right. It was quite the debate but eventually, his misery won out over his pride and he peeled himself off the bed and stumbled out into the living room. The lights were dim, the television was quiet and Tony was nowhere in sight. Looking out the window he could see that the sun had yet to even think about rising. It was then that he realized he had no idea where to find the man at such an hour. Sighing, he coughed a little to clear his throat. "FRIDAY? What time is it? ...and, um, where's Tony?", he rasped out quietly.
"It is currently four-twenty-three in the morning and the boss is asleep in the master bedroom.", The AI dutifully answered leaving Peter feeling slightly disheartened.
If he were at home, there would be no debate. He would simply go wake up his aunt May, she would wrap him up in a blanket, make him some tea and then cuddle him until he fell asleep. Then all of a sudden, he missed her deeply but to be honest, Tony was the next best thing. He just wasn't sure how to go about getting the man's attention so early in the morning. There had never been a reason to question it before. "Am I allowed to wake him up?", Peter finally asked the AI even though he felt childish for even considering it.
"The boss wouldn't mind being woken if you are in need of his assistance. Your wellbeing is of utmost importance to him.", the AI eventually replied and Peter nodded his head.
With very little debate Peter began to slowly make his way towards Tony's room. Once he was outside the door he took a deep breath before pressing it open. The room was completely dark outside of the sliver of light that was pouring in from where he stood but he was able to see the outline of his mentor's sleeping form at the edge of the large bed. As he crossed the room, it occurred to him that he'd never been in the master bedroom before and he suddenly felt like he was intruding. He was right on the verge of darting back out into the hallway when his nose started to itch. Realizing that he couldn't stop it, Peter closed his eyes, buried his face in his hands and sneezed three times, in rapid succession. Each one sending a wave of pressure through his skull that led him to keep his eyes closed long after the sneezing had ceased. As such, he was startled when a gentle hand began to brush the fringe of his bangs away from his forehead.
"Hey, kiddo. Not feeling so good, huh?", Tony whispered as he pushed the overgrown hair to the side and rested his palm firmly upon the boy's head. "You're warm. I was wondering when that was going to happen.", he added with a sympathetic smile. While he hated it that Peter was sick he did feel sort of proud of himself for knowing his kid well enough to have seen it coming.
"I'm sorry, Tony.", Peter said as he leaned into his mentor's touch. Despite feeling like he was going to freeze to death from the inside out, the man's cool hand on his aching head felt nice.
"Sorry for what? Being sick?", Tony asked with amusement. The kid had apologized for a lot of unnecessary things but that was probably the most farfetched apology to date.
"Sort of.", Peter grumbled under his breath. While he was sorry that he was sick because that meant he wasn't going to be able to spend the entire week in the lab, that hadn't been what he was referring to. What he'd actually been thinking about was how he'd been dismissing the man's concerns all day long. "I'm also sorry for waking you up but I'm mostly sorry that I told you not to mother hen me."
Smiling at the underlying message, Tony wrapped his arm around Peter's warm shoulders. "So, what I'm hearing is that now you want me to mother hen you. Is that right?", he gently teased.
"Mm-hmm.", he hummed, ignoring the playful taunts. He was tired, sore and didn't feel like he could keep up with any sort of banter at the moment. "My head hurts."
Unsure of how to handle the situation, Tony guided his kid back into his own room and got him settled under the covers. He knew he needed to call or at minimum text May as promised, however, he wanted to get Peter as comfortable as possible before he did that. "What's his temperature, FRIDAY?", he asked knowing that the majority of the teenager's aches and pains were probably stemming from that alone. The rest were more than likely from sinus pressure. Both of those things would require a trip to the Medbay to collect the appropriately synthesized medications but first, he needed to know what he was up against.
"Mr. Parker's core temperature has been fluctuating within two-tenths of a degree of one-hundred-and-one degrees farenheit for the last hour and a half.", the AI provided after a quick assessment.
Tony smiled down at Peter who was still shivering despite the multiple layers. "That's not too bad. Just enough to make you feel gross.", he said before standing up to go collect the necessary supplies. "I'm going to go get you some medicine. You said your head hurts... Anything else?"
"No--", Peter began but he was cut off by another round of sneezing that made his eyes water and his head feel like it was going to crack in two. Then after having to sniff a few times to keep his nose from running, he saw Tony looking at him with an inquiring quirk of his brow. "... and that, I guess... and my nose is running."
Giving a curt nod, he disappeared just long enough for Peter to nod off. He almost felt bad waking him back up. "Hey, Pete. Wake up for just a minute, Buddy.", he whispered as he nudged the boy in the shoulder. When Peter finally blinked his eyes open, several seconds later he couldn't help but smile. He looked so young and vulnerable at the moment that it was hard to remember that he was fifteen, let alone a superhero capable of lifting an entire car.
Peter sat up, accepted the tablets and sipped at the water bottle. The cool liquid felt nice against his raw throat. When he had finished half of the portion he set it on his bedside table and flopped back down onto his pillows with a pathetic whine that turned into a small cough. He still couldn't get it out of his head that if May was there she would make him some tea and sit with him. It made his eyes stupidly water. He tried to wipe them away before Tony could notice but of course, he wasn't fast enough...
"What do you need me to do, kid? I've never taken care of a sick person before. Outside of giving you some pills and putting you to bed... I don't know what you want or need unless you tell me.", Tony softly explained, wishing more than anything that he had some kind of miracle cure. Even a genius of his caliber couldn't cure the common cold.
Peter's first thought was to say that he wanted his Aunt May but he knew that was unreasonable. Then again, so was asking Iron Man to snuggle with him until he fell asleep. So... he remained tight-lipped blinking back more tears as they tried to push through. The emotion was making his nose run even more than it already had been. Trying to ignore it made him sneeze again and that came with another burst of hot white pain. He had to keep telling himself that he wasn't a child, he could take care of himself and that he didn't need anything. Though, Tony didn't seem to be buying into his silence.
"Come on, Pete. Talk to me, please?", Tony pleaded. Here he was, looking down at his miserable kid and he had no idea how to help him. It was evident by the look on the boy's face that there was something he wasn't telling him and it made his heart ache. "Let me help you."
Biting his lip, Peter turned his head away from where his mentor was looking at him expectantly. "Could you stay with me until I go back to sleep?", he finally whispered with undeniable shame lacing his tone. He could feel a heat burning in his cheeks and he knew that it wasn't from the fever. He was sure his face must have been bright red by then but Tony didn't comment on it.
"I can do that.", Tony replied softly before lowering himself onto the edge of Peter's bed and then casually laying down beside him. "Look at me, kiddo.", he encouraged and when the boy did so, he smiled. "Is this all?", he asked as he began to slowly thread his finger through the teenager's rapidly dampening hair. The fever-reducer was already beginning to do its job and sweat was starting to form on his brow.
Peter nodded his head as the mortification he'd felt just a moment before began to fade. He didn't really know why he'd been embarrassed, to begin with. He already knew that Tony would do anything for him without judgment. The man was practically his second parent anymore. His dad. "Can you make me some hot tea in the morning? With a little bit of honey in it?", he found himself murmuring as sleep started to take over.
"Absolutely.", Tony assured with a smile. Now they were getting somewhere. He could definitely handle keeping his kid company and he was more than capable of making some tea. So far, the kid hadn't asked for anything that he didn't think he could manage. "Anything else?", he quietly probed.
"No.", Peter replied with a few sniffles that turned into a wide yawn. "Just stay with me"
"There's nowhere else I'd rather be, kid.", Tony whispered. Then several minutes later when he was certain the Peter was relaxed enough to find sleep again, he texted May. 'Our boy had a bad case of the Spider Sniffles.'
It didn't take long for Tony to receive a message back. 'Aww. I'm so sorry!', May had typed out with a little sad face emoji that made him smile a little more than it should have given the circumstances.
'He woke me up about an hour ago. He's pretty miserable but I've got him taken care of. No need to worry.', he typed back quickly in order to quell any regret or concerns that she might have been having. However, he'd needed both hands to do that and he could feel the lightly dozing boy's head nudge his arm in protest of the loss of contact. Rolling his eyes, he replaced his hand the moment he'd sent his reply and nearly laughed when he read May's response to his reassurances.
'No, the I'm sorry was meant for you. He gets all clingy when he's sick.', he read with a smile pulling at his lips because he knew the moment he removed his fingers from the kid's hair again that Peter would be silently demanding he return them immediately and he wasn't sorry about that at all. He secretly enjoyed the way the kid liked to be close to him on a good day. He was actually sort of looking forward to having a snuggly kid to watch more movies with later, though he did hope he felt less miserable.
After waiting several minutes to make sure the kid was actually sleeping and he was able to stop his ministrations without objection, he shook his head and sent one last text before going back to sleep himself. 'Yes, he is. ...but I don't actually mind.'