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He stared.
The kangaroo stared back at him.
It stood in the corner on its hind legs like kangaroos do, licking its paws and rubbing them over its head and ears to clean itself, kind of like a cat. Peter didn’t know they did that.
“What are you looking at?”
Peter rolled his head sloppily to the side where Tony sat in a chair by his bed, the place he’d been camped out ever since Peter had gotten sick yesterday.
“The kangaroo.” He mumbled and looked back over at it. It still stood there, staring at him.
“The what now?” Tony asked, and Peter didn’t understand why he sounded like he was on high alert. The kangaroo was cute. It wasn’t going to hurt them.
“Peter, what did you say?” Tony prodded when he didn’t answer, too busy intently studying the kangaroo. But Tony had used his full first name instead of a nickname, which he rarely did anymore. Only when he was in trouble or Tony was worried. Peter didn’t understand why he’d be either in this situation, but regardless, he figured he should answer.
“The kangaroo.” He repeated. The kangaroo gave a little hop before cocking its head to the side, watching him.
“Uh huh and where is this kangaroo?”
“He’s right there in the corner.” He pointed. “Can’t you see him?” Peter didn’t know how he knew the animal was a ‘he’, but he just seemed to know.
“And what’s he doing?” Tony’s voice had taken on that high pitch quality it got when he was panicking and trying not to show it.
“He’s staring at me.” He mumbled and his eyes closed. He was really tired. “Don’t worry. He won’t hurt us.”
“Pepper!” Tony called.
“Yes?” She asked, sounding annoyed at the way she’d been beckoned. Peter didn’t waste the energy opening his eyes to see her expression even though he always kind of got a kick out of how Tony and Pepper interacted. He coughed, turning his head into his pillow to muffle it. His chest ached. Pneumonia was no joke.
“Can you call Bruce? The kid’s seeing kangaroos.” Tony said and a second later Peter felt him place a hand over his forehead. It felt nice. Cool and soothing. “And he feels like he’s on fire.”
“What?”
“You heard me. He’s seeing kangaroos. He just told me they’re in the corner.”
“I’ll…call Bruce.” Pepper agreed. “But maybe you should check his temperature.”
“Right. Good idea.”
Peter heard her step out. “One kangaroo.” He mumbled.
“What?” Tony asked, distracted. Peter could hear him moving stuff around on his nightstand, probably looking for the thermometer.
“There’s only one kangaroo. Not kangaroos. One.” He didn’t know why he had to explain it. Couldn’t Tony see it himself? Although the man did need glasses and refused to admit it, which Peter found ironic since Tony wore glasses all the time, but he straight out refused to put on a pair with prescription lenses. The other day Peter had caught him holding his tablet all the way out to the end of his arms trying to read something, but Tony had denied he was having any trouble reading, just that he like the aesthetics better that way. Pepper had practically died laughing on the couch next to him.
“Right. One kangaroo. My mistake. And is this kangaroo, uh, still there?” Tony asked. Yep, he definitely needed glasses.
Peter groaned. He didn’t want to open his eyes. He wanted to slip back into dreamland to escape the pain in his head, his throat, and his chest. But Tony had asked, and Peter had a hard time refusing him. He cracked his eyes open, and sure enough, the kangaroo was still standing there, chilling in the corner.
“He’s still there.” He affirmed and let his eyelids slip shut again.
“All right. Open up.” Tony ordered.
Peter complied and the thermometer slipped under his tongue. It felt like this was the hundredth time he’d done this. He’d protested at the beginning because he thought Tony should have some hands-free state of the art thermometer, but apparently Tony didn’t like using those because they weren’t accurate enough. Which meant Peter had to subject himself to this periodic torture. Tony was such a worry wart. Spiderman wasn’t going to get taken out by a simple pneumonia.
He’d almost fallen asleep again when the thermometer beeped and brought him back to awareness, irking him.
Tony took the stupid thing out of his mouth and let out a low whistle. “You’ve got quite the temperature there Pete.”
He hummed in acknowledgement but didn’t care. He just wanted to sleep.
“Bruce says to check his temperature.” Pepper said, having just come back. “He thinks it’s probably from the fever.
“Yeah he’s got a doozy of one right now.” Tony said.
He must’ve shown her the display on the thermometer because the next moment Pepper said, “Oh wow.”
“Can you grab me some of his super Advil? Hopefully that’ll help.”
“Sure.” Pepper left again and Peter heard Tony get up as well, but he headed in the direction of the bathroom, not out the door, so Peter didn’t open his eyes or question it.
Tony came back after a minute or so and sat down. A couple seconds later something wet and cold landed across his forehead. It took him an embarrassingly long time to figure out it was a washcloth. He hummed his approval. It felt nice.
Pepper returned a moment later. “Here.”
“Thanks honey.”
“Do you need anything else?”
“No, I think we’re good. How’s Morgan?”
“She’s fine. Watching her fourth Disney movie of the day. I’ve definitely let her overdo it with the screen time. Don’t tell the parent police.”
Tony snorted and Peter heard Pepper give him short peck before leaving. The pill bottle rattled as Tony opened it.
“I’ve got something that should help you feel better Pete.” Tony said.
“Sleep.” He protested. That would make him feel better, but they kept insisting on harassing him.
“Take this and then you can sleep.”
He sighed but didn’t fight when Tony helped him sit up. He put the pill in his mouth and drank the water Tony had given him to chase it down. He handed the glass back and Tony lowered him back down against the invitingly soft pillow.
“Get some rest kid.”
That was one order from Tony he had no intention of disobeying. As he finally fell asleep, he wondered if his new kangaroo friend would still be there when he woke up.
Something tickled his nose. He scrunched it up and it went away, but a few seconds later it returned. Light. Fluffy. Tickling. He brought a hand up to bat it away this time, but it didn’t help. It kept coming back. He groaned. So annoying. He cracked his eyes open and saw something pink. He blinked a couple times. A feather. Morgan’s feather from one of her Disney play quills. He followed the feather to a hand, up an arm, to see Morgan’s smiling face.
“Hi.” She giggled once their eyes met.
He couldn’t help but smile back. She had that effect on everyone.
“Daddy!” She screamed the next second and Peter jumped. Ouch. She had a good set of lungs on her. “Petey’s up!”
“He woke up or you woke him up?” Tony asked a second later, arms crossed as he leaned in the doorway, obviously taking in the scene before him and putting all the pieces together.
Morgan shrugged, holding her arms out with her palms up in an ‘I don’t know’ gesture. “He’s up.” She repeated.
“Uh huh.” Tony said skeptically. “Why don’t you go help Mommy in the kitchen?”
“But—”
Tony raised his eyebrows and even Peter knew that look meant not to push. “Go.”
Morgan huffed and whined, “Fine.”
Peter stifled his laugh as she practically stomped out, making her displeasure clear. Once she was gone, Tony rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“You know she’s a little you.” Peter said as he smiled.
“You sound like Pepper.”
Peter’s smile widened.
“Believe me, I’m aware.” Tony added, coming in to sit down in the empty chair by his bed. He leaned over and rested a hand on his forehead, checking his temperature for a few seconds before leaning back. “Your fever’s gone. How are you feeling?”
He shrugged. “Ok.” Not great but not terrible. He thought it was a fair assessment.
“Do you see anything over there?” Tony pointed toward the corner of the room.
Peter followed his finger but all he saw was an empty corner. “No. Why?” Was he supposed to notice something?
“No more kangaroos?”
“What?” He frowned.
“You don’t remember?”
He wracked his brain to try to figure out why Tony was talking about kangaroos but he couldn’t. He shook his head.
“The last time you were awake you were seeing kangaroos. Sorry. A kangaroo. Singular. You wanted to make sure I knew that.”
Peter scrunched his face. “You’re messing with me.”
“I’m not!” Tony was adamant. “You had a pretty high fever, and according to Bruce, apparently that can make you hallucinate.”
“Huh. Weird.” He covered his mouth and let out a series of hacking coughs.
“Take it easy.” Tony soothed, helping him sit up in the middle of his fit. As soon as it stopped, he handed him a glass of water. Peter took it and drained it greedily. He didn’t realize how thirsty he was until the cool water touched his lips and soothed the razors in his throat on the way down.
“Thanks.” He said as Tony took the empty glass from him and helped him lay back down so he was flat on his back again. Peter watched as he set the glass back on the nightstand, still churning over the words in his mind.
“But why a kangaroo?” He asked, hoarse from all the coughing.
“I don’t know. You tell me. Been watching a lot of Crocodile Dundee lately?”
Peter huffed out a short laugh. “No.”
“You have a burning desire to visit Australia?”
“No.” He’d like to someday, but he definitely wouldn’t call it a burning desire.
He had no idea why his mind had conjured a kangaroo. If anything, he thought he would've hallucinated something do with May. Even though it’d been over a year since he’d come back from the snap only to discover May had died while he’d been gone, not a day had gone by where he hadn’t thought about her and missed her.
He took in a sharp breath when a memory came to him, one that had to do with May…and kangaroos. She’d taken him to the zoo once when he’d been younger and there’d been a kangaroo exhibit, and he remembered May had told him kangaroos were her favorite animal.
“What?” Tony asked.
“I just remembered something.” He said quietly.
Tony waited for him to continue.
Peter looked up at him and gave him a small smile. “May’s favorite animal was the kangaroo.”
“Really?”
Peter nodded.
“Well how about that.” Tony watched him with a careful smile, ready to be there for whatever he might need, like the rock he’d been ever since he’d taken Peter in to come live with them. But unlike in the beginning of his grief, it’d been long enough now that he could mention May without falling apart. And maybe there was a reason he’d seen the kangaroo. Maybe it meant something more. Or represented something more. The idea comforted him.
“Yeah.” Peter glanced back to the corner with a soft smile. “How about that.”