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As Peter walked through the sliding doors into Tony’s lab on Friday afternoon he sighed in welcome relief. He couldn’t think of a better way to kick off a much needed weekend than by spending time in his absolute favorite place. “Hi, Mr. Stark. I’m here,” he called out over the ruckus and then immediately dropped his overloaded backpack beside his desk.
“Hey, Kid. How was school?” Tony instantly asked from where he sat across the large room.
“Long,” Peter replied as he ran a tried hand through his hair. He’d had a headache forming at his temples for the majority of the day, and it was starting to spread down the back of his neck. “The whole week has been long actually,” he added as an afterthought. He’d been up late every night bouncing between diligently studying for three major tests, helping Ned through his latest breakup and, of course, patrolling. It felt as though he’d been running on all cylinders for days and he supposed it was finally starting to catch up with him.
Rather than pulling out his homework as he normally would, Peter went straight to work on a project he’d started earlier in the week. He was finally in the prototype phase, and that meant working with his hands rather than reading a book or staring at a glaring screen. But with his head throbbing as it was, he lacked his ordinary level of motivation and ended up spending the next hour simply building gearboxes and stripping wires for future use. The task was tediously mind numbing, which was fine with him. Because the longer he worked the more his head hurt and to make matters worse, his neck and shoulders had gone completely stiff.
He sighed deeply, stretched his arms and rotated his neck in an attempt to loosen his muscles, but all he managed to do was knock his tools off of the table. He flinched when the metal hit the decorative tile and then stared at them blankly. He knew he needed to pick them up. Tony maintained very few rules. However, not leaving stuff in the middle of the floor was a big one. Yet, the mere thought of leaning over caused the throbbing in his head to amplify.
“You doing okay over there, Pete?” Tony asked and Peter started slightly.
“Yeah. I’m fine, Mr. Stark. Just- dropped my stuff,” he replied, deciding that he must be significantly more tired than he’d thought. He’d not meant to completely blank out like that.
Tony raised an eyebrow and gestured towards the ground. “Well, are you planning on picking it back up?” he asked, not unkindly but Peter blushed all the same.
“Yeah. I’ve got it. Sorry,” he sheepishly apologized before bending over to collect the fallen tools. The movement was expectedly terrible, and he had to grit his teeth to prevent himself from whining. The pain that he had been in his temples had poured behind his eyes, creating enough pressure to make his stomach churn. And when he sat back up, the change in position was enough to make his vision swim. He had to blink a few times to bring everything back into focus. He hoped Tony wouldn’t notice that anything was off but of course he did. He always did and was already looking at him with concern.
“Are you feeling okay, Buddy?” the man asked, already traversing the room with an outstretched hand.
Peter hummed in the positive while successfully dodging his mentor’s attempt to evaluate him for a fever by hastily ducking into the lab’s small break room. The plan was to search the mini-fridge for some variety of caffeinated soda. He was sincerely hoping that would be enough to make the headache a bit more bearable. He was disappointed when he opened it up and found nothing more than a few bottles of water and a couple of cans of ginger ale. With a deep sigh he closed the door back and eyed the half filled coffee pot with mild disgust. Outside of the occasional, extra sweet latte, he didn’t particularly care for it. “I think I’m going to run upstairs to grab a Coke, if that’s okay,” he finally spoke, knowing the fridge in the penthouse kitchen was always stocked with it.
“Of course it is,”Tony returned with a smile. Then after some thought, “Actually, can you bring me one too?”
With a pleasant nod of his head, Peter started towards the private elevator and rode it to the very top of the building. He started in the kitchen as planned, grabbed two cans of Coke and then started back through the living room with the intention of returning to the lab. However, as he walked past the overstuffed couch that sat in the middle of the room, he could practically hear it calling his name. ‘Just for a minute ,’ he told himself as he placed the drinks on the table and sat down. But one minute quickly turned into five and before he knew it, he was allowing his head to fall onto one of the pillows while his body sunk into the cushions.
Down in the lab, Tony sat at his work bench pulling wires from a damaged gauntlet while waiting for Peter to return. Though it wasn’t until he’d satisfactorily completed the task that he realized how long his young mentee had been missing. He twisted in his seat, looking around the room to make sure he’d not missed the kid's return. But that didn’t seem to be the case, leading him to ask, “Hey, FRIDAY? Where’s the kid?”
“Mr. Parker entered the penthouse at four-eighteen and has not moved from that location since,” the AI returned.
Tony glanced at his watch, his brows creasing with genuine concern. Apparently he’d been gone longer than he’d thought. It was already nearing five. “Is he okay?” he asked but before FRIDAY could respond, he was already pushing his chair back. “Actually, scratch that. I’ll go check on him myself. Thanks FRI.”
A few scant minutes later Tony was cautiously entering the penthouse. He looked around as he entered and didn’t see or hear the kid anywhere. The kitchen was empty, as was the teenager’s bedroom and bathroom. And he was just about to ask FRIDAY if she was sure Peter was there, when he noticed a familiar tuft of brown hair just visible from behind the couch. “Pete?” he whispered as he closed the distance between them but there wasn't any reply. The kid was sound asleep with his knees pulled up towards his chest and his arms tucked under his chin.
Chuckling lightly, Tony pulled a blanket out of the hall closet and draped it over Peter’s tense frame. Then decided to take advantage of his stationary position. He gently threading his fingers through the kid's hair before allowing his palm to fall flat against his forehead. He was genuinely surprised when the boy didn’t feel particularly warm. Though he did look decidedly uncomfortable.
“You’re not sneaky and I’m not sick,” Peter drowsily mumbled while languidly pushing Tony’s hand off of his forehead.
“Yeah?” Tony questioned with a deep laugh. “Then why are you sleeping on my couch instead of messing around in my lab?”
Peter rubbed his eyes but didn’t bother to sit up. “I’m tired and my head hurts. Didn’t mean to fall asleep,” he said, then glancing towards the coffee table. “Sorry about your drink, Mr. Stark. It’s, uh- I set it on the table there.”
“I’m not worried about the drink, Buddy. You want me to get you something for your headache?” Tony asked softly, as he watched the kid continue to grind the heels of his palms against his tightly closed eyes.
“Maybe- maybe a heating pad or hot water bottle or something?” Peter belatedly requested. “It’s like- it’s like my whole neck hurts too. And my shoulders are super tight.”
“You didn't get hurt on patrol, did you? I didn’t get any reports,” Tony asked, his concern shifting from worrying the kid was sick to worrying that he was injured instead. It wouldn’t be the first time. However, when Peter carefully shook his head, swore that he’d not turned off any of his suit’s notification systems, he sighed sympathetically. “Tension then. We can work with that.”
It didn’t take long for Tony to find the hot water bottle that Pepper kept beneath the bathroom counter. Then he hurried down the hall towards the first aid kit that he kept stocked with medication that had been synthesized just for Peter. Once he had everything together, he returned to the kid, urged him to sit up and handed him the tablets along with a bottle of water.
“Thanks, Mr. Stark,” Peter said once he’d swallowed the medication down.
“It’s what I’m here for, Kiddo,” Tony returned with a smile and then gestured towards the couch’s unoccupied cushion. “Can I sit here?” Peter nodded his head, and he took a seat, pulling the kid down so that his head was resting on a pillow beside him. From there he began gently rubbing the boy’s neck. He started at the base of his skull, then pinched the sides of his neck and dug his fingers into the knots at the tops of his shoulders. Then he worked his way back up, gently prodding various points along Peter’s head and around his temples.
“Feels nice,” Peter sighed, and Tony could feel the kid practically melting beneath his hands.
“Yeah well, I’ve had my share of tension headaches,” he said, momentarily switching his ministrations from massaging the kid’s head to scratching it. “You should go back to sleep. That’ll help too and when you wake up, the pain meds will have kicked in.”
Peter hummed in response and then cracked one eye open, turning his head just enough to look Tony in the eye. “And we can order Thai?” he asked.
“We can order whatever you want, Kid,” Tony replied, laughing with the kid scooted up so that his head was on his lap rather than the pillow. Though he didn’t protest. He simply adjusted the water bottle so that it was laying across the back of Peter’s neck. And then, since he was apparently not going anywhere, he went back to absentmindedly kneading the teenager’s tense muscles.
He tried using his other hand to flip through his phone. Maybe send a few messages or look some things up but, with time, he found himself growing lethargic. It seemed that between the kid’s soft rhythmic snores and the warm weight of his head resting upon his thigh, dozing off himself was going to be inevitable. But not before asking FRIDAY to order them copious amounts of Thai food to be delivered the moment they woke up.