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Peter remembered when he was nine May and Ben took him to Disney World for four days over Christmas break. It was the biggest trip he had ever been on, Peter knew they couldn’t afford to travel much and he had come to terms with that.
Until Tony Stark came into his life.
Which is how, after making an off-handed comment about not knowing what poutine is, Peter ended up on an 8 hour car ride with his mentor to a small Québec village near Mont Tremblant while his school was closed for renovation for a week. (Peter swore he had nothing to do with it. Spider-Man on the other hand...there may have been an incident with giant gerbils. Don’t ask. He’s still finding wood shavings in his hair. And he wears a mask.)
May sent Peter off at way-too-early o’clock with promises to text and a kiss on his head before packing his bags into one of Tony’s more modest cars. (key word: more. it still probably cost as much Peter’s apartment.)
Climbing in the car, a weird feeling crept up on him. A nagging feeling at the back of his conscious saying something was off. But his spider-sense wasn’t going off, so he didn’t think it was dangerous...but something didn’t quite feel right. He cracked his knuckles nervously.
Tony noticed Peter’s hesitation.
“You alright?” Peter pushed his anxiety back and plastered on a smile. Probably just nerves about being away from home. But he was with Tony, so he would be fine.
“Yeah, I’m good. Oh, and I was reading up about Québec, and apparently we might see a deer there! I’ve never seen a deer before, but–” Peter dissolved into rambling about the animals that he has seen before, and more of the research he did and let his nerves fade into the background until they were nothing more than a nagging feeling at the back of his head.
Peter conked out about two hours into the drive when Tony switched from blaring music to some kind of interesting podcast about some Danish scientist. He probably would’ve been more interested if he wasn’t so tired. He figured it wouldn’t be so bad if he took a quick nap while they drove towards the frigid moose lovers and igloo-dwellers. (Just kidding. Probably. He’d never been to Canada before.)
Unfortunately, his sleep was cut short to a hand tapping his face unrelentlessly.
“‘s happening?” Peter muttered, rubbing his eyes and sitting up in his seat.
“I’m bored,” Tony stated.
Peter groaned. “You woke me ‘cos you’re bored? Child.”
Tony rolled his eyes. “Also because you’ve been sleeping for almost three hours–”
“I slept for three hours?” Okay, maybe his nap wasn’t cut short.
“–and I don’t think I’ve ever known you to sleep that long at night. Had to make sure you were still alive and all that jazz.”
Peter stuck out his tongue. “You just missed me.”
“Real mature. I thought I was the child?”
“I changed my mind. You’re just an old man.”
“I will open the door and push you out.”
“No, you.”
“I-what?”
“That’s what I thought.”
“I’m revoking your rest stop privileges for that.”
“Not unless you want me to pee in your car.”
“Really embracing the whole ‘Spider-Baby’ name, I see.”
Peter flipped him off. Tony pushed his hand away without taking his eyes off the road.
“Brat. Didn’t your Aunt ever teach you to respect your elders?”
“I changed my mind again. You’ve been demoted to very old-looking child.” Tony choked on a sip of his coffee.
“Okay, okay. You win. Serious face now. We’ll probably stop soon so you can have your potty break. And also get some food in you, I’m sure you’re starving. I was actually planning on stopping before this, but you sleep like the dead, kid. We’re about an hour out from the border, so we might make this our only stop depending on the traffic on the other side. Sound good?”
Tony mentioned food, but Peter actually wasn’t very hungry. Which was...vaguely worrying. All he’d eaten in the past five hours was a granola bar and some grapes May had packed for him. AKA, not nearly enough for his raving metabolism. He wasn’t feeling necessarily unhungry, but Tony was right. He should be starving by now.
Ignoring his concern, Peter later ate the sandwich Tony had grabbed for him from Subway at their rest stop. He was sticking with his earlier idea of being anxious about being away and pushed his uncertainty aside yet.
They made it across the border with no issue, and once they were on the road again, even though Tony’s music was back to blaringly loud, he found his eyes slipping shut once again.
------------
This time, waking up wasn’t nearly as pleasant. He woke up in a cold sweat, and the anxious feeling was ramping way up. The sub he’d choked down earlier was not agreeing with his stomach at all, and he found himself searching through his car backpack for a bottle of water to sip on before he lost his lunch all over Tony’s fancy car.
“Welcome back to the land of the living, kiddo.” Peter was afraid to open his mouth, but luckily Tony saved him from having to say anything else by continuing talking.
“How much work have they been giving you at school lately? May says you’ve been in by curfew every night, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sleep this much.”
Peter couldn’t either. He’d slept almost the entire car ride, and he still felt incredibly fatigued. And sick. Very sick.
“Midterms coming up,” he responded in vague explanation.
Peter cracked open a window a bit so he could try and get some fresh air to try and calm the rising nausea.
Tony noticed the new air circulating and deeply inhaled.
“Ah, Canadian fall.”
Peter managed a weak chuckle. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Look out your window and look at all the leaves.” Peter glanced out and noticed the wide array of colours spreading as far as the eye could see. There were mostly just yellows and oranges, but there were a few really vibrant reds and for a minute, Peter temporarily forgot about his ailments as he drew in how totally engulfed in nature they were right now.
“Pete, trust me. You’re gonna love this. I can already taste the maple syrup and butter tarts and the fucking delicious poutine. I know that gravy and cheese curds put on fries don’t necessarily sound appealing, but I promise you, kiddo. You’ll thank me.”
Peter belched into his hand, the nausea coming crashing back.
“Um...can you not talk about greasy food right now?”
Tony looked over sharply, his eyebrows creasing as he took in Peter’s hunched over figure.
“Woah, kid. What’s wrong?”
Peter blinked sheepishly.
“Just a little car sick,” he mumbled, his cheeks colouring.
“Need me to pull over? We’re about 40 minutes away from the hotel.”
“Nah, ‘m okay. Just gonna close my eyes again. The roads are a little bumpy.”
“Go ahead, Pete. Let me know if you need anything, I can probably pick up some ginger Gravol from a convenience store somewhere if it comes to that.”
“Mmm, ‘kay,” Peter mumbled, already curled up into his hoodie and blanket.
-----
Peter woke up for the third time to Tony lightly shaking his shoulder.
“Come on, buddy. Time to wake up…” Peter blearily blinked his eyes open.
“What time’zit?” Peter mumbled as he sat up.
“Almost 2. We’re here, and I already brought our bags up to the room.”
“I could’ve helped,” Peter muttered, trying to get his bearings. He was feeling a little woozy.
“Figured I’d let you get your beauty rest. Heavens know you needed even more sleep.” Tony winked and Peter stuck his tongue out half-heartedly.
“Rude.”
Tony laughed.
“That’s no way to treat the guy who just carried in your three bags of luggage. You are aware we’re only here for six days, right?”
“I have stuff,” Peter whined. “You never know what you might need.”
“Yeah, yeah. Important teenage stuff and all that.”
Tony ruffled Peter’s hair good-naturedly and paused, his eyebrows creasing.
“You’re warm.” Peter rolled his eyes.
“I’ve been wrapped up in this hoodie and blanket for the past hour.” Peter shrugged. “I don’t thermoregulate well. The heater was on.”
Tony didn’t look totally convinced but nodded anyway.
“Alright. Regardless, I think you should chill out in the hotel while I go out and grab us some groceries and maybe pick up some McDonald’s as a late lunch for us. Or maybe some crackers, if you aren’t up to that. I would say let’s go out and explore, but you’re still looking a little green around the gills.”
Peter flushed a deep red. “Sorry, long drives mess me up a bit.”
Tony ruffled his hair. “Just veg out for a bit and grab a ginger ale from the minifridge. On me.” Peter didn’t even have the energy to argue with him about the prices of hotel food and beverages, he just headed straight to one of the beds and wrapped himself up in the many blankets on the luxurious hotel bed and collapsed.
Almost an hour had passed and Peter was still alone in the hotel, feeling no better than he had in the car. He was deliriously tired, despite the amount of time he’d spent sleeping in the car, and he couldn’t fall back asleep. He was trying to pay attention to whatever random show was blaring from the TV, but he couldn’t find it in himself to focus. His mind kept drifting into static and he was having trouble paying attention to the show playing in front of him.
The nausea hadn’t subsided one bit. It was actually getting significantly worse. As saliva kept pooling in his mouth, he decided he should probably get to the bathroom. With wobbly-ass legs, he stumbled his way over the toilet, dragging one of his duvets with him.
He was pretty sure being car sick didn’t last this long once you were out of the car.
Maybe he was sick sick.
Peter stared down at his biometrics tracker, but the numbers swam in front of his eyes when he tried to read his temperature.
“Karen, am I running a fever?” he murmured.
“Your temperature is currently 39.3 degrees. Would you like me to call Mr. Stark for you?” Karen replied from his wrist.
The numbers took a moment to process in his hazy mind. It felt like he was moving through Jell-O.
“39.3 degrees,” Peter repeated. That...didn’t make sense. That was a very low number. He knew he ran cold, but not 60 degrees cold. Peter felt tears springing to his eyes. Something was really wrong.
Was he dead? He looked at his hands.
His skin was pale and he couldn’t be sure, but he certainly felt cold. He wasn’t really shivering...oh god. He wasn’t shivering because he was hypothermic. He was more than hypothermic.There was absolutely no way he should be alive right now with this body temperature. Was this a Spidey thing? Oh god, was it Canada? Was he becoming Canada?
Peter couldn’t hold onto a coherent thought long enough to think about what could be causing this.
Trembling, Peter wrapped himself into a tangled blanket burrito, trying to conserve heat, tears running down his face. He didn’t want to be dead.
“Yeah, Karen. Call T’ny,” Peter slurred. As soon as the words left his lips, there was the click of the card key unlocking the door.
“Kid?” Tony called from the doorway. “Everything okay? I’m getting an alert from Karen on my phone hereー”
Peter retched hard as the smell of greasy fast food drifted through the hotel room, effectively cutting his mentor off. Tony swore and rushed towards the sound.
Peter was somewhat angled towards the toilet, but his blanket burrito did not provide much room for movement so he kind of threw up...everywhere.
Tony kneeled down behind him and rubbed his back until he stopped puking.
“Jeez, kiddo? This still car sickness? Or did you eat something?” Tony said. His eyes were dark with concern as he carefully extracted Peter from his intricate blanket roll, strategically avoiding the mess.
“No,” Peter mumbled. “‘M ice. Ice cream. Ice cube. Dead. Low.” Peter lost his train of thought as he tried to get the words across. He was dead.
Tony’s brow furrowed.
“FRI, temperature report.”
“Peter has an elevated temperature of 39.4 degrees Celsius. Fluids and rest are suggested.” Peter looked up at Tony with teary eyes, hoping he would understand now. He was frozen. An inhuman temperature. A corpse. Tony had to see why this was so wrong.
“Buddy,” Tony said slowly, “You’re sick.”
“No!” Peter said more urgently. “I’m hyp’thermic.”
“Trust me, you are the opposite of hypothermic right now, Pete.” Peter had the feeling he was missing something. But his head was so foggy...he couldn’t think.
“Karen said...too low.” Peter was trying to explain what had happened, but the words were getting jumbled on the way from his brain to his mouth. “It’s…Canada. Cold. I’m becoming Canada.”
Tony made an odd face that Peter probably would’ve laughed at if he wasn’t convinced he was actively freezing to death. It kind of looked like he was sucking on a lemon.
“You...you’re what?” Tony spluttered.
Peter passed out.
---------
For the first time today, Peter woke up of his own accord.
He opened his eyes and stretched his arms, but froze when he saw his hands, fuzzy memories flooding his head. Tony was at his side in an instant, and Peter startled, not having noticed the man in the room previously.
“How are you feeling?” Tony asked, pressing the back of his hand to Peter’s forehead. The action caught Peter by surprise, it was oddly mundane for Iron Man, yet comforting all the same.
“Um,” Peter flexed his fingers a few times and pushed himself into a sitting position. “Not that bad, honestly.” Tony pulled his hand away.
“Your fever is way down, which is good. It means the peppermint is almost all the way out of your system.” Peter blinked, trying to figure out if he had heard him right. His head was still moving kind of slow.
“The what?”
“Peppermint. Apparently, there are some negative effects to your Spidery-DNA that we haven’t explored yet. I called Bruce after you passed out, and with FRIDAY’s help, we connected the dots. It’s why you were sleeping so much in the car, your body was trying to protect itself. Then, once the threat was gone, you crashed. And your fever spiked really high trying to get it all out of your system.” Tony gave Peter a pointed look. “Except you seemed to think your body temp had dropped.”
Peter blushed a deep red as the memory rushed back to him. He buried his face in his hands.
“I didn’t realize Karen would switch to Celsius when we crossed the border,” he mumbled from his hands.
“Yeah, I kinda got that when you were deliriously going on about hypothermia, and then when you mentioned you were becoming Canada. Right before, you know. Passing the fuck out.” Peter smiled sheepishly.
“Surprised you didn’t take me right back to New York,” he noted.
“I was pretty close to calling a suit,” Tony admitted. “Especially when FRIDAY said she recognized a toxin in your system. Imagine my surprise when I found out that this was not some elaborate plan to bring down Spider-Man but in fact the air freshener I had just gotten freshly installed in my car.” Tony looked guilty, and Peter felt kinda bad he had ruined the first part of their trip. It sucked that this had happened while they were on vacation so far from home. Wait.
“Ohhhhh,” Peter breathed in realization. Tony narrowed his eyes.
“Excuse me, what do you mean ‘ohhhhh’? What did you do?”
“Nothing...I just-earlier I had a weird feeling getting in your car. I thought it was just anxiety.”
Tony ran a hand down his face.
“God, kid. You’re going to be the death of me.” Peter grinned.
“But you love me.” Tony ran a hand through Peter’s hair.
“Yeah, I do.”