Chapter Text
“So”—Tony snaps the single use ice pack to activate the chemicals and gives it a few shakes as he moves back over to the kitchen table—“which one of you is going to explain what happened here?”
Morgan shakes her head gravely side to side. “Peter didn’t catch the beans...”
“Well, to be fair,” Peter points out, his voice significantly more nasally than usual due to the wad of paper towels he’s pressing to his heavily bleeding nose, “you didn’t really warn me you were about to chuck a can of beans at my head.”
“But I did!” the six-year-old defends. “I said, ‘I’ll throw down the supplies.’”
“Supplies for what?” Tony questions. He passes Peter the ice pack, earning a grunt of thanks.
“For the mission,” Morgan explains as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “We were playing superheroes and we needed to pack the supplies to take with us ‘cus we had to go fight the bad guys in space.”
“She’d been stockpiling stuff for the last couple days in the treehouse,” Peter goes on, “so she was just tossing everything down for me to put in the bag. Which, y’know, was fine for the stuffed animals and the walkie-talkies and the plastic lightsabers”—he gingerly touches the ice to his nose—“just not for a sixteen-ounce can of refried pintos.”
(Tony winces in sympathy.)
Morgan lets out an exasperated exhale. “Well, we had to bring something to eat—it’s a long way to Pluto.”
Huffing out a laugh, Tony shakes his head slowly. “I guess it’s hardly Peter’s first experience getting injured before a mission officially even begins...” he muses. He grins at the teenager. “Remember when you tripped off the Quinjet ramp and sprained your ankle two minutes after we landed?”
Peter rolls his eyes, clearly annoyed. “That was one time, Mr. Stark.”
“Memorable though,” Tony quips. He gestures to the kid’s messy face and sighs. “Alright, let’s see the damage.”
Reluctantly, Peter pulls the paper towels away and fresh blood starts to trickle down. There’s a cut at the bridge of his nose and it’s rapidly swelling, a dark bruise already starting to form under his eye.
Tony prods carefully at the break, making Peter wince. “Well, it’s definitely broken,” he reports after a moment, “but it seems pretty well-aligned at least. Nothing to reset.”
Peter lets out a short, breathy laugh. “Probably because it was already a little crooked from the last time I broke it. Guess she knocked it back.”
“So… I made it better?” Morgan asks hopefully.
Tony turns in his daughter’s direction. “Oh no, don’t you start thinking you’re off the hook here, little Miss Budding Plastic Surgeon,” he says, holding up a stern finger. “You still need to be more careful where you’re chucking your beans.”
Peter snorts, then instantly seems to regret that as he groans and adjusts the ice pack on his face.
Morgan’s expression sobers and she drops her gaze down to her feet. “I just thought he would catch it. He always catches stuff when I throw it to him…”
Her comment gives Tony pause. Now that he thinks about it, it’s not the first time since Peter arrived at the lake house for their long weekend that the kid has seemed rather sluggish and off his game. He’d dozed through most of the drive over on Friday afternoon and then slept in until almost noon the next day. Even now, he can see the dark circles under Peter’s eyes and the pallor to his cheeks that can’t be completely explained by his current blood loss.
“It’s okay, Mo,” Peter reassures her with a small smile. “I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. It’ll be all better by morning, okay?”
Morgan perks up at that, so Tony pushes aside the twinge of worry in his gut. After all, Peter’s been taking seventeen credit hours at MIT this semester, not to mention his Boston vigilante activities and the additional part-time lab assistant gig he’s picked up; that’s enough to make anyone run a little ragged.
“Why don’t you two just watch a movie or something?” Tony suggests. “Give Peter’s nose a little time to sort itself out.”
Morgan and Peter agree, so Tony rustles up some of Peter’s super-strength painkillers and sets the kids up in the living room with some weird movie that Morgan inexplicably loves about a talking parrot whose biggest goal in life is to see the sun rise over the Grand Canyon. Before they even hit the fifteen minute mark, from out of the corner of his eye, Tony sees the ice pack slide down Peter’s face as the boy drifts off.
X
The combination of pain pills and the usual post-injury recovery time knocks Peter out and he sleeps straight through the rest of the movie. He’s still a little groggy and disoriented when Tony wakes him for dinner, but years of mentoring a reckless teenage superhero have taught the man that this is all par for the course.
Given that the pork chops Pepper left for them to reheat (before heading to her sister’s house for the weekend) require a bit more chewing than Peter’s face is up for at the moment, Tony whips the kid up a smoothie to drink instead.
Peter peers warily into the glass Tony hands him, swirling the green contents around. “What’s in here?”
Tony shrugs. “Whatever I found in the fridge. Blueberries, yogurt, scoop of protein powder, a banana, some spinach…”
“Ew, why would you drink spinach?” Morgan interrupts, her nose wrinkling up in disgust. “That’s gross.”
“Says the girl who put mayonnaise on her graham crackers last week,” Tony points out.
“It was good!” she defends.
Peter takes a cautious sip of the drink. He looks contemplative for second, then must have decided that he approves of the flavor because he just shrugs and proceeds to down about half the glass in a few gulps.
Morgan makes a dramatic gagging noise. Tony rolls his eyes and flicks her arm playfully.
“It’s actually really good,” Peter admits, lowering the cup back down. “Been awhile since I’ve had real vegetables.”
“Ugh, lucky,” Morgan groans as Tony adds a few pieces of asparagus to the little girl’s plate. “They’re the worst. Except for artichokes—those are good.”
“You like artichokes?” Peter questions.
“Uh huh.” She grins. “And turnips!”
“Well, Gerald likes turnips,” Tony clarifies, “and Morgan likes feeding them to him.”
This comment inspires Morgan to launch into a long-winded explanation of all the things she’s ever seen Gerald eat—from grass, to broccoli stalks, to a weird-looking bug—and which of those were his favorites. Peter nods along to her rambling, but seems far less engaged than usual and doesn’t even react when she mentions Gerald’s favorite type of cookie is double stuffed Oreo.
(Tony, on the other hand, interrupts at that point with a stern lecture for the six-year-old on what she can and cannot feed the alpaca moving forward.)
Once dinner is over, they all migrate back to the living room. Morgan wants to play Uno, and Peter obliges for a while, but his overall lack of focus persists.
“Peeeterrrr,” Morgan whines for the third time, poking his arm to snap him out of his daze. “It’s your turn again. You gotta draw two.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Peter takes two cards from the deck and adds them to his hand before reaching up to rub tiredly at his temples.
Tony’s brow furrows. “Headache?”
“Yeah, kinda,” Peter admits. “It’s not bad, just like… there.”
“Hm.” Tony nods. Turning to Morgan he says, “What do you say we finish this game up tomorrow?” Morgan’s face screws up and she looks like she’s about to protest before he adds, “Pretty sure there are some fudge-pops left in the freezer. I won’t tell Mommy if you don’t.”
Morgan drops her cards with an excited whoop and jumps up to run to the kitchen.
Tony gets to his feet to follow her. He glances back at Peter, who has sunk into the cushions with a relieved sigh. “Fudge-pop?” he offers.
Peter makes a non-committal noise in his throat. “I dunno. Think I might just head to bed.”
Tony glances at his watch. It’s just shy of eight o’clock—even Morgan doesn’t usually go to bed for another half hour. He knows Peter’s healing always takes a lot out of him, but he’s seen the kid looking less drowsy and out of it after getting slammed into the airport tarmac in Germany and cracking three ribs than he does at the moment. “Think you might be coming down with something?” he asks.
Peter shrugs once more, prompting Tony to press his hand to the kid’s forehead. He definitely isn’t detecting a fever—if anything, Peter’s skin is a little cold.
“What’s not feeling good?” Tony clarifies. “Head? Stomach? Throat?”
Peter hesitates a second. “Just… just my head I guess.” He sighs. “I think I’m just tired. Haven’t really been sleeping that great lately,” he confesses.
Tony’s forehead creases in concern. “Kid, you know May and I talked to you about overloading yourself your first year at school.”
“No, I go to bed,” Peter clarifies, “I just don’t always, like, sleep.”
“Why?” Tony’s frown deepens. “Are you having nightmares, or…?”
“No…” Peter exhales deeply, running a hand through his hair. “It’s not that. I just can’t always, like, settle down? I don’t know—it’s really not that bad,” he quickly backtracks. “I think I just need a good night’s sleep. I’ll be better tomorrow.”
(Like an idiot, Tony believes him.)
“Alright, well, sleep well kid,” he says as Peter shuffles off to the guest room.
X
“Okay, so... this is a little weird,” Peter says as he enters the kitchen the next morning.
Tony glances up and blinks at the sight of Peter’s very swollen and now darkly bruised nose and cheekbone. He sets down the bowl of waffle batter he’s been whisking and moves over to get a closer look.
“What the hell, kid?” Tony mutters under his breath, running his fingertips carefully over the still-clearly-broken bone. “You once healed from a compound fracture overnight.” He pauses a beat. “Of your femur.”
“Eh...” Peter shrugs tiredly. “Super-healing isn’t really a science, is it?”
“Well it’s certainly not an art,” Tony retorts. He gestures to the kid’s nose. “Unless this is your Black-and-Blue Period, Picasso.”
Peter groans, sinking down onto one of the kitchen chairs. “That was almost as painful as my face,” he complains.
It’s clear the kid meant it as a joke, but that admission does nothing to alleviate Tony’s concern. He finds Peter a fresh ice pack and doses him out another painkiller before resuming making breakfast.
Somehow even a second night of sleep doesn’t seem to have restored much of the kid’s energy. Peter sits hunched forward with one elbow on the table to hold the ice to his face and has his phone resting in his lap. He scrolls idly through it, looking like he might nod off any second.
After a few minutes, the backdoor to the kitchen swings open and Morgan re-enters with pieces of hay still stuck to her boots.
“I gave Gerald two turnips,” she announces. “And he hummed at me and then he tried to steal my hat but I got it back ‘cept for the fuzzy thing.” She points at the red knit hat on her head, which is missing a pom-pom.
Tony groans as he ladles more waffle batter onto the iron. “He didn’t swallow it, did he? Because if that vet has to come out here one more time, I swear—”
“Peter!” Morgan blurts, suddenly noticing the boy at the table. He startles and looks up from his lap as she runs over to him. “Your face looks so bad!”
Tony clears his throat. “Uh, Morgan, we don’t—”
“So, so, so, so bad,” she emphasizes, as tears well up in her eyes. She throws her arms around his waist. “I’m really r-really sorry!” she cries. “I didn’t m-mean to hit you with the beans!”
“Hey, hey, it’s okay, Mo,” Peter assures, wrapping her in his arms. “It’s gonna heal really soon, okay? I’m a spider, remember? I always heal fast.”
“But sp-spiders don...don’t heal fast!” Morgan sobs into his chest. “You can squish ‘em re-really easy, and they d-die if it gets too cold or if they get sprayed with- with bug killing stuff...”
Peter glances up and shoots his mentor a look of utter helplessness. Tony shrugs his shoulders in an exaggerated fashion.
“Don’t look at me, kid. I’ve been wondering the same thing since we met.”
Still holding the crying child, Peter rolls his eyes at him.
“Kidding, kidding...” Tony says under his breath. He abandons the waffle iron and heads over to gather his sobbing daughter up into his arms. “Morgan, sweetheart, listen to me,” he says as he rubs her back gently. “Peter isn’t really a spider, okay? He’s actually more of a mutant.”
(Morgan only cries harder at that.)
Peter huffs out a short laugh and leans back against the chair. “Doing great, Mr. Stark.”
“...And because he’s a mutant,” Tony plows right along, “his DNA is different from ours and that’s why he usually heals freaky fast,” he explains over her tears as she buries her face in his shoulder. “Except it’s just being a little slow today, so we’re gonna just let him rest and eat some good food and that should help fix him up, okay?”
She hiccups a few times. “So he ju...just needs some w-waffles?” she manages to get out.
That jogs Tony’s memory. He spins around to see that the iron is still very much on and the waffle is starting to burn, smoke wafting up around the edges. “Ah shit,” he mutters.
“It’s okay, I got it,” Peter says, pushing himself quickly up from his seat. But the moment he gets to his feet, he staggers sideways and grips the table, his face draining of color.
“Pete?” Tony goes to set the still-sniffling six-year-old back down, but before he’s able to get her feet on the floor, Peter’s knees give out.
Tony curses and shoots a hand out just a second too late as Peter crumples first to his knees and then to the ground, landing directly on his already-injured face.
Morgan’s eyes go wide. “Daddy!” she shrieks.
Tony plops her down abruptly. “Go unplug the waffle maker, okay?” he instructs her as he drops to his knees next to Peter. He figures the last thing they need to add to the chaos is a smoke alarm.
Eyes still locked on the scene before her, Morgan nods and runs over to the counter to unplug the device. Meanwhile, Tony rolls Peter over onto his back and instantly grimaces at the sight. Besides the deathly pallor, the kid’s broken nose is definitely crooked now and fresh blood is streaming down.
“Is he… dead?” Morgan asks, horrified.
“No, no, of course not...” Tony presses two fingers to the pulse point in the boy’s neck, relieved to feel a strong, albeit fast, beat. “He just fainted—he’ll be fine," he says, shaking the unconscious boy’s shoulder.
“He looks dead,” Morgan whispers, still staring.
“Yeah, but he’s not,” Tony says firmly. Not wanting the blood to run down Peter’s throat, he continues to roll the kid over until he’s on his side in a sort of modified recovery position. “Pete, c’mon, this isn’t a good look,” he mutters, tapping Peter’s cheek. “We’re all getting enough trauma therapy as it is…”
Finally, the kid’s eyelids start fluttering open. “There you go, that’s it,” Tony praises when Peter blinks up at him. “You back with us yet?”
Peter groans and lets his eyes close again. “Do I ‘ave to be?”
“Yes,” Tony says curtly. He starts shaking Peter’s shoulder again, though gentler now. “I need to know how I’m taking you to Bruce—car or ambulance?”
“Ugh… How ‘bout neither?” Peter mumbles. He lifts a hand up tiredly to wipe a bit of blood off his upper lip. “‘M alright. Just got a lil’ dizzy…”
“Nope.” Worry is quickly taking over Tony, though it comes out in the form of briskness. “You’ve got sixty seconds to get off the floor or I’m choosing for you,” he declares, already pulling out his phone.
Morgan’s voice comes out small and quavering. “Peter…?”
Ultimately, that sound is what it takes to make Peter move. With Tony’s support, he pushes himself up and sits there for a moment, blinking wearily as blood trickles down from his nose. Tony sends Morgan to fetch a box of tissues and a clean shirt for Peter, then loads them both into the car for a little field trip.
X
“Anemia?” Peter repeats, incredulous.
The kid is sitting on an exam table at the SHIELD Medical base, his recently-reset nose now splinted. Meanwhile, Morgan sits in the chair beside Tony, entertaining herself with a handful of wooden tongue depressors and a roll of medical tape.
Bruce adjusts his glasses as he scans the results from Peter’s blood panel on his tablet. “Yeah, that’s what the tests are showing. Basically, it means that your body isn’t getting enough iron to produce hemoglobin, so it can’t carry oxygen effectively. This results in fatigue, lightheadedness, insomnia, headaches, shortness of breath, and—apparently in your case—a reduced healing factor.”
“But how did I get anemia?” Peter balks. “I’m Spider-Man.”
“Well, there are a few possible causes,” Bruce explains, “but based on several nutrient deficiencies I’m seeing in your bloodwork, my best guess is from your diet.”
“Ah.” A look of understanding flickers across Peter’s face for a second. “Yeah, okay, that checks out...” he mumbles.
“Wait, how exactly does that ‘check out’?” Tony asks.
Peter shrugs. “Well, I just… haven’t been eating the best food lately.”
Tony raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean? Doesn’t MIT’s cafeteria serve a pretty decent spread?”
“Uh, yeah, I think so,” Peter allows. He rubs a hand at the back of his neck awkwardly. “I just haven’t been really… uh, going there?”
Tony blinks at him. “Why the hell not?”
“That’s Mommy’s word,” Morgan pipes up without looking up from the two wooden sticks she’s connecting together with tape.
“I just don’t have a lot of time between my classes and job and stuff, and the cafeteria is all the way across campus,” Peter explains. “So I mostly just eat my own food.”
“Which would be…?” Bruce asks.
Peter hesitates. “Ramen,” he says after a moment. “The chicken flavor one.”
“Hm, okay…” Bruce nods, jotting this down on his tablet. “Not really the most nutritious option, but definitely a college staple. What else?”
Dropping his gaze to his lap, Peter starts picking at a piece of fuzz on his sweatshirt. “Uh… sometimes I get the beef one?”
Tony blinks at him. “Beef ramen?”
“I tried the lime chili shrimp one once. Not a fan.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” Tony blinks again. “Peter, I’m paying for you to have three square meals a day at that college—not three styrofoam cups of dehydrated noodles.”
“I also eat granola bars,” Peter retorts. “And bagels.” He starts ticking foods off on his fingers. “Microwave burritos, yogurt, uh.... those little frozen chicken taquito thingies? But like, only if my roommate isn’t using the freezer for his weird cult ritual stuff. That’s why I usually stick to the soup.”
Tony pinches the bridge of his nose and heaves out a sigh. “Jesus take the wheel…”
“Oh! I had an apple last week!” Peter throws in.
Bruce runs a hand through his own hair, exhaling a carefully measured breath. “Okay, Peter, you know that you have an enhanced metabolism, right? That means you need to eat significantly more food than the average person.”
“Right, and I do!” Peter nods. “I always make sure I get enough calories.”
“And that’s good,” Bruce says, “but you also need to make sure you’re getting enough nutrients. Calories are just a part of that. With your unusual physiology, it’s especially important that you’re getting all the required vitamins and minerals to support the rapid regeneration of your cells, and a diet of cup noodles and bagels—”
“And frozen burritos,” Peter interrupts.
“—is simply not nutritionally dense enough for you,” Bruce finishes. “Not by a long shot.”
There’s a beat.
“Oh.”
“What does ‘nu-tri-tion-al-ly dense’ mean?” Morgan asks. Her tongue depressor creation has folded over itself and vaguely resembles a collapsed bridge now.
“It means Peter needs to eat more vegetables,” Tony butts in. “Just like you and Gerald.”
She sticks out her tongue. “Gross.”
“Alright, we’re gonna start you on some iron supplements,” Bruce addresses Peter. “But it might take a couple weeks to get your levels back up enough to reverse the anemia. I’m also going to give you a list of foods high in iron—things like dark leafy greens, broccoli, dried fruit, nuts, red meat, kidney beans—”
“NO BEANS,” the other three all declare in unison.
X
After hauling the kids back to the lake house, Tony sets Peter and Morgan up on the couch with another movie (Pirates of the Caribbean this time) and heads to the kitchen to fix them all some lunch. Potatoes and turnips are both high in iron, so he cooks and mashes up a big potful with some milk, butter, and salt, figuring that would be easy to chew without hurting the kid’s face too much. He scoops some into a bowl for Peter and then whips up another green smoothie for him to drink, as well as sandwiches for himself and Morgan. Once everything is ready, he piles it all onto a tray and heads back.
As he approaches the living room, Tony can already hear Morgan’s voice floating towards him in the falsetto stage-whisper she always uses when she’s voicing make-believe characters.
“Help me! Help me!” she cries. “Oh no, I’m falling!”
Tony stops in the room’s threshold to watch. The movie is still playing in the background, but neither kid seems to be watching. Instead, Peter is lying on his back on the sofa with his eyes closed, giggling quietly while Morgan kneels on the floor in front of the cushions, dancing a single M&M around the edges of the boy’s open mouth.
Suddenly, she drops the candy into his mouth with a dramatic gasp. “Noooo… the king has fallen into the pit! The ‘Nemia monster got him!” she cries.
“The anemia monster?” Tony asks in amusement.
Peter’s eyes snap open. “Uh, we were just playing a game.”
Morgan turns back to look at her dad, grinning. “Chocolate is on the list Uncle Bruce gave him!” she says, waving the piece of paper in Tony’s direction.
“Pretty sure that says dark chocolate,” Tony says, eyes narrowing at them as he crosses the room. “Not leftover M&Ms from the Christmas stash.”
Morgan’s face falls. “Aw…”
Tony sets the tray of food down on the coffee table. “Don't worry, kids,” he says, passing Peter the kale and fruit-rich protein smoothie. “Iron Man to the rescue.”