Work Text:
Peter didn't tell Mr. Stark. He didn't think he needed to. Everything was fine. The man worried enough and there was no reason to make him worry even more over nothing. Because it was nothing. No big deal. The man was still recovering from three months ago when Peter had been stabbed in the stomach and had been unconscious in the medby for nearly a week. To be fair, that stab wound hadn't even been his fault. Not really. He'd been mugged on his way home from school, his reaction time just a little too slow to help him evade the knife that had been stuck into his stomach.
And he'd called for help! He'd called Mr. Stark on his phone right away, apparently staying on the line until he'd passed out, not that Mr. Stark has wanted to talk about that part. Ever. The man had sat at his side for six days, his hand gripping Peter's, and throughout the rest of the month, Peter had been banned from patrol. Mr. Stark had wanted to make it longer, but Helen had insisted he was fully recovered.
Mr. Stark had bought them an apartment in a safer neighborhood.
It had been almost a year since Titan...since Peter had followed Mr. Stark into outer space and they'd managed to get the infinity gauntlet away from the crazy purple monster guy that Peter did his best never to think about. A year since Thanos had nearly decimated half of the universe's population, only to be killed by his blue daughter after being distracted for a while by Mr. Stark and the Guardians, plus Peter who had done his best to get the gauntlet off his hand. And it had worked. It was a victory that had come so close to being a tragedy that Peter could barely stomach the thought of it.
He'd thought that the tragedies were over. He'd lost his parents, then Ben. He had Mr. Stark now, and Pepper and Rhodey and even some of the Avengers! He was graduating from high school and had been accepted to MIT, and things were looking up. He would take some time off from Spiderman and focus on being a college student, at Mr. Stark's insistence. MJ was going to a school in New York, and they'd agreed to try long distance, if only for a little while. MIT wasn't so far away, not when Mr. Stark had offered them the use of his private jet whenever they wanted it. Everything was going so well…
And then May collapsed at work.
Peter didn't tell Mr. Stark when he spent a full weekend at the hospital holding his aunt's hand, or when the doctor came out with the diagnosis that would require more tests and scans and an entire plastic bag of medicines. He didn't tell him when May started to forget things, like where she'd left her keys or their address or the name of their favorite Thai place. He didn't tell him when he withdrew his acceptance from MIT, now resigned to the fact that he couldn't leave. Not now. Not when May needed him.
The doctors gave her eight months, max. It was a number Peter didn't know how to make sense of. Eight months. It was only March...so just before Christmas. He had until November. Thanksgiving. If he was lucky, he'd get one more Thanksgiving with her. They'd already had their last Christmas. Their last New Year. He was going to be eighteen...if they were lucky, they'd each get one more birthday together. And then, at the age of eighteen, he would lose everything he had left.
He spent every weekend with her, the two of them talking and being together, with him driving them around now that May wasn't able to. She'd quit her job. They didn't have to pay for the apartment since Mr. Stark had given it to them, so, Peter thought, when horrible practicality came to mind, he'd have a place to live. He had it so much better than some others, he reminded himself. He would have a place to live. He could get a job. Mr. Stark might even hire him.
But he still couldn't bring himself to tell Mr. Stark. He didn't know if he could stand to see the sadness and pity in his eyes. Didn't know if he could stand the arms that would wrap around him and the assurances that everything would be okay. So he continued to patrol in the evenings, just enough to keep Mr. Stark from catching on that something was wrong, and, somehow, it took him until April to remember what he'd almost forgotten.
Doctor Strange. The Doctor bit of his name, as Peter had learned on their trip to space, wasn't made up. He was a doctor. Had been a doctor. A neurosurgeon. Thankfully, finding the weird building not all that far from Central Park hadn't been that hard. It was knocking on the front door that was hard. It was bringing himself to speak aloud the words no one but doctors had said yet.
May was dying. His last living relative was dying and he was only seventeen and he had no idea how to cope with this.
A man Peter didn't recognize opened the door, giving him a strange, unsure look. "Can I help you?"
"Hi...um...I'm here to see Doctor Strange. Uh...Doctor Stephen Strange. I'm...I'm Peter. We...we went to, uh…". Peter hesitated, then pointed at the sky, as if that would clear anything up. After a moment, surprisingly enough, the man nodded, stepping back and ushering Peter inside.
He didn't touch anything. Didn't dare. The room was full of what looked like magical artifacts and he kept his hands clasped behind him, eyes downcast, until he heard footsteps on the stairs, and Doctor Stephen Strange descended into the room, his red cloak billowing in wind that didn't exist.
"Ah. Stark's ward." The man greeted dryly with a nod, although he didn't seem unfriendly, exactly. But the words hit too close to home. Ward. That's what he would be. Well, not technically, since he'd be an adult. But that's what he'd feel like. The man's eyes narrowed as Peter blinked back the heat forming in his eyes, softening just a fraction. "Can I help you?"
"Doctor Strange, I...I need…". He stammered for a moment, but swallowed hard, doing his best to meet the man's eyes. "I need a favor. Please."
"Alright." The man stretched the word out, a slight nod Peter's only signal to go on.
"My aunt...she has a brain tumor. And she's all...she's the only family…". He swallowed back the rest of his words along with his tears, and the doctor nodded a little.
"Have you spoken to Tony about this?"
Peter shook his head. "I just...I don't know what he can do. But they said she only has eight...no….seven more months." He adjusted the count in his mind. It was almost April. They'd already spent one of their precious months. "Please...if you could just look…"
Doctor Strange moved over to the sofa, gesturing for Peter to join him, and Peter did. He was a little bewildered as he sat down, and then a glass of water was being pressed into his hand. "Drink," the man ordered, and Peter did. Then there was a granola bar and he stared at it for a moment before the man gestured at it. "Eat."
"What?"
"You look like you haven't been eating. Eat."
"But my aunt…"
"Where is she?"
"At home." It was Saturday, and ever since May had been forced to quit her job, she'd spent most days alone, with Peter coming home after school and staying home on weekends to be with her. She insisted he didn't want him giving up on his own life...that she didn't want him to stop patrolling or spending time with his friends to be with her all the time, but he did anyway. He couldn't stop. Couldn't give up any of their precious, limited time.
His brain refused to think much about after. How could he possibly process that? How could he ever face life without May?
"We'll bring her here and I'll run some tests."
Peter felt his eyes fly open and he stared at Doctor Strange with so much home it nearly choked him. "Really?"
The man gave him a strange look. "Yes. Of course. Tell me your address and we can bring her here."
Apparently, Doctor Strange's idea was to make a portal and have Peter fetch his aunt that way. She was having a bad day, her eyes focusing and unfocusing at random, and when she first saw Peter, her brow furrowed in a confusion that made his chest ache. But he led her to the sanctum anyway, her not even questioning the portal, and once Doctor Strange hd led her into a different room, Peter's legs gave out and he dropped onto the sofa once more.
He couldn't do this. Her bad days had been getting more and more frequent and it had only been a month. What would she be like in two months? In five? By November.
Peter shouldn't have been surprised by Mr. Stark's appearance. The man always found out everything. Still, Peter didn't look up as he sat down beside him, a heavy hand landing on his shoulder, then wrapping around him as silent tears ran down his face. He was too tired to sob anymore. Too tired to lose it and scream into pillows and beg a god his aunt had prayed to to spare her life...that it wasn't fair! That she was such a good, kind person and that she didn't deserve this. But he did let himself be pulled, lips against his hair for a long moment.
"Oh, Pete…" He whispered, sounding close to tears himself. "You should have told me, buddy." It wasn't a reprimand, though. Peter didn't think he could handle a reprimand. He didn't answer, just hid his face on Tony's shoulder and cried, the silent tears soaking into the man's shirt. He guessed Doctor Strange had called Mr. Stark, which, he supposed, made sense. The wizard did think he was Mr. Stark's ward for some reason. "It's going to be okay, Pete."
Peter shook his head. "They said she probably wouldn't even make it to Christmas," he whispered, eyes shut, too exhausted to even lift his head. Suddenly something was covering him, and Mr. Stark shifted in his seat, pulling on Peter until he put his legs up on the sofa, and something moved on top of him, tucking itself around him. Too curious to let it go, he opened his eyes and found that Cloaky was acting as his blanket. "Thanks." He patted the back of the cloak's collar, and Mr. Stark gave a strained chuckle.
"They didn't have the best neuroscientist in the world on call. She's in the best possible hands. It was a good idea to find him." Mr. Stark ran a hand through Peter's hair, squeezing his hand and rubbing his thumb back and forth over Peter's knuckles.
"What if he can't help her?"
"Then I'm still going to be right here. I've got you, Pete. It's going to be okay."
He sniffed, balling up one hand in the cloak's soft fabric, and it seemed to tighten around him, like it was trying to give him a hug. "I withdrew from MIT. I couldn't...not with her so sick…"
"I get it, buddy. It's okay. We can worry about college later. You can take a year off. It won't hurt anything."
Peter wanted to tell Mr. Stark that he couldn't lose May...that she was all he had left. But it was blatantly untrue. Of course he could lose May because he'd lost everyone else. When had the universe ever shown mercy on him? Mr. Stark tightened his arms once more, rocking him a little, and together, they waited for Doctor Strange to deliver the news, good or bad.