Chapter Text
"Jesus Christ, darlin', you look like roadkill dragged backwards through a woodchipper."
Peter blinked up at Harley’s voice, realizing he’d been staring at the same line of code for—he checked the clock—forty-three minutes. His head felt stuffed with cotton, his fingers stiff from typing.
The lab’s fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, far too bright. "M'fine," he muttered, rubbing his eyes. "Just gotta… finish this."
Harley leaned against the workbench, arms crossed, his usual easy smile gone. "Uh-huh. And when’s the last time you slept? Or ate?" His southern drawl sharpened with concern.
Peter hesitated. He’d been living in the Tower for weeks now, burying himself in projects—repairs for Tony, upgrades for the suit, anything to keep his hands moving and his brain too busy to wander.
Sleep came in patches when his body gave out. Food was… optional. "I had a coffee," he offered weakly.
Harley’s eyebrows shot up. "A coffee? That ain’t food, sweetheart, that’s just sad." He reached out, pressing the back of his hand to Peter’s forehead before Peter could duck away. "Christ, you’re burnin’ up. How long you been runnin’ on fumes like this?"
Peter tried to shrug, but the motion made his vision swim. "Dunno. Few days?" The admission came out hoarse, and he winced at how pathetic it sounded.
He hadn’t meant to let it get this bad—just one more tweak to the suit’s stabilizing algorithm, one more patrol to clear his head, one more hour awake to outrun the quiet ache of May’s absence. But now the exhaustion hit him like a freight train, sudden and undeniable.
The lab door hissed open, and Tony’s voice cut through the static in Peter’s brain. "Kid, if you’re still working on that—" He stopped mid-sentence, taking in the scene: Harley’s tight grip on Peter’s shoulder, Peter’s pale face, the way his hands trembled against the keyboard. "Oh, for fuck’s sake," Tony muttered, striding forward. "FRIDAY, kill the screens. Pep’s gonna murder me if I let you keel over in my lab."
The holograms blinked out, plunging the room into abrupt dimness. Peter made a weak noise of protest, but Harley was already hauling him up by the elbow, his grip firm and unyielding. "Nope. We’re done here. You’re goin’ horizontal, darlin’, even if I gotta carry you."
Peter's knees buckled as soon as Harley tried to steer him toward the lab's exit, his vision tunneling into grayscale static. He felt Harley's arm snake around his waist just in time to keep him from faceplanting into a rack of spare repulsor parts.
"Whoa there—easy, easy." Harley's voice was closer now, warm against Peter's temple. "Tony, little help?"
Metal clattered as Tony abandoned whatever he'd been tinkering with. A calloused hand pressed against Peter's clammy forehead. "Kid, you're at Chernobyl levels of fever. FRIDAY, scan him—full diagnostics."
The AI's voice hummed overhead. "Core temperature at 103.2 degrees Fahrenheit. Severe dehydration. Adrenaline and cortisol levels suggest approximately 72 hours without REM sleep."
Peter swayed against Harley’s side, the edges of his vision blurring into a nauseating swirl of lab equipment and too-bright ceiling lights. He could feel Harley’s fingers digging into his ribs just shy of painful—anchoring, grounding.
“M’fine,” he mumbled again, but the words slurred together like syrup. His own voice sounded underwater.
Tony’s face swam into view, his usual sarcasm replaced by something tight and worried. “Yeah, no, you’re not. You’re delirious.” He snapped his fingers twice in front of Peter’s face. “Kid, look at me. How many fingers am I holding up?”
Peter squinted. “Uh… three?”
“It’s two,” Tony said flatly. He exchanged a glance with Harley. “Alright, medical bay. Now.”
Harley didn't wait for Peter to protest again—he just hooked an arm under Peter's knees and scooped him up like a bride, his other arm bracing against Peter's clammy back. The sudden movement made Peter's stomach lurch, his head flopping weakly against Harley's shoulder.
"Easy there, darlin'," Harley murmured, his breath warm against Peter's temple. The southern lilt in his voice was softer now, almost tender. "I gotcha."
Tony was already holding the lab door open with his hip, one hand tapping furiously at his StarkPhone. "Pepper, we've got a code Spider-Baby in the east corridor. Prep the medbay—fever's at 103, dehydration, probable sleep deprivation." A pause. "No, I don't know how he hid it this long—kid's got the self-preservation instincts of a lemming."
Peter groaned as Harley adjusted his grip, the motion sending a fresh wave of dizziness through him. The hallway lights streaked past in smears of gold and white, too bright, too fast. He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his face into the crook of Harley's neck where the smell of motor oil and faint cologne anchored him.
The antiseptic sting of the medbay hit Peter's nose before he even opened his eyes. Cold vinyl pressed against his back as Harley deposited him onto the exam table with surprising gentleness, his hands lingering for half a second longer than necessary against Peter's shoulder blades.
"Easy does it," Harley murmured, thumb brushing over the jut of Peter's collarbone before stepping back to make room for Pepper, who swooped in with a thermometer and a frown that could wilt flowers.
"Peter Benjamin Parker," she said, and oh, that tone meant business—the same one she used when Tony stayed up for seventy-two hours straight inventing something apocalyptic. "We talked about this. Remember? After the last time you worked yourself into a fever?"
Peter blinked up at the ceiling tiles, which were doing a concerning little waltz above him. "I... might've forgotten that talk," he admitted weakly.
Pepper sighed, sliding the thermometer into Peter’s mouth with a practiced motion. “You’re lucky Harley found you before you passed out in a pile of wiring,” she said, her voice softening just enough to take the edge off. The thermometer beeped, and she grimaced at the reading. “103.4 now. Tony, grab the IV fluids—left cabinet, second shelf.”
Tony moved before she’d finished speaking, his usual quipping replaced by brisk efficiency. He tossed a bag of saline to Harley, who caught it one-handed, already rolling up Peter’s sleeve with his free hand. Peter barely flinched at the needle’s pinch—too out of it to care, his limbs heavy as lead.
“You’re a damn mess, you know that?” Harley muttered, but his fingers were gentle as he smoothed the medical tape over the IV site. His thumb lingered on the inside of Peter’s wrist, right over the thready pulse. “Scarin’ me half to death.”
Peter blinked slowly up at him, Harley’s face swimming in and out of focus. The overhead lights haloed his tousled blond hair, turning the edges gold. “S’rry,” he slurred, the word sticking to the roof of his dry mouth.
Harley's expression crumpled for half a second before he schooled it back into something stern. "Don't you 'sorry' me, Parker. Just—just breathe, alright?" His palm settled warm against Peter's chest, right over the arc reactor scar Tony's spare shirt couldn't quite hide. The steady pressure grounded Peter more than he'd admit.
Tony reappeared with an armful of blankets, dumping them unceremoniously onto the medbay cot. "Alright, Spiderling, here's the deal—you're officially benched. No lab, no patrol, no 'just one more line of code' until FRIDAY says your vitals are back in the non-zombie range."
He shook out a weighted blanket—the kind Peter usually stole from the common room—with more force than necessary. "And before you argue, remember I invented stubbornness. You're outclassed."
Peter opened his mouth to protest, but Pepper cut him off by pressing a cold compress to his forehead. The sudden chill made him gasp, his traitorous body immediately leaning into the relief.
"You're staying right here," she said, her tone leaving no room for argument. She smoothed a hand over his sweat-damp hair, maternal in a way that made Peter's throat tighten. "Harley, honey, can you grab the electrolyte mix from the fridge? The blue one."
Harley hesitated, his fingers twitching like he wanted to keep contact, but he nodded and ducked out. The second the door hissed shut, Tony crouched beside the cot, his voice dropping low. "Kid. Look at me."
When Peter managed to focus, Tony's face was closer than expected, his dark eyes uncharacteristically serious. "This isn't just about today. You've been running yourself ragged since—" He cut himself off, jaw working. "Point is, this stops now. Understood?"
Peter's breath hitched at Tony's intensity, the truth of those words sinking in deeper than any fever ever could. He gave a weak nod, fingers twisting in the thin medbay sheets. "Yeah. Okay."
Tony exhaled through his nose, shoulders relaxing just a fraction. "Good." His calloused palm settled on Peter's forehead again, pushing back sweat-damp curls with a gentleness that didn't match his usual sharp edges. "Now shut those puppy-dog eyes before I start charging you for my stellar bedside manner."
The joke landed flat, but Peter huffed something resembling a laugh anyway, eyelids already drooping. The cold compress helped, and the IV was starting to take the edge off the bone-deep ache—but it was Tony's fingers carding slowly through his hair that finally unraveled the last of his resistance. Not teasing, not perfunctory, just steady and present in a way that made Peter's chest ache differently.
"You're gonna be okay, kid," Tony murmured, so quiet Peter almost missed it. His thumb brushed Peter's temple where a migraine pulsed. "Just sleep."
The world narrowed to the slow drag of Tony’s fingers through his hair, blunt nails scratching lightly against Peter’s scalp in a rhythm that felt deliberate, practiced. Peter’s eyelids fluttered, each blink stretching longer than the last, the medbay’s sterile brightness fracturing into hazy streaks.
He tried to mumble something—gratitude, maybe, or another half-hearted protest—but his tongue sat thick and useless in his mouth. Tony’s hand stilled for a second, thumb pressing gently at the tense spot behind Peter’s ear.
“Nope. No more talking,” Tony said, voice low. The words vibrated through Peter’s skull, warm and grounding. “You’re on mandatory silence until further notice. Consider it your punishment for scaring ten years off my life.”
Peter wanted to argue—wanted to crack some dumb joke about Tony’s rapidly graying temples—but exhaustion hit him like a wave, sudden and overwhelming. The last thing he registered was the weight of the blanket settling over his shoulders, and Tony’s hand, still tangled in his curls, not pulling away even as Peter’s breathing evened out.
The world didn’t so much fade as collapse inward, darkness swallowing the edges of his vision until there was nothing left but the quiet certainty of fingers in his hair, and the distant, familiar hum of repulsor tech.