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Boosted immune system, my ass, May thought, as she did everything in her power not to burn the soup on the stove. She could burn water without trying, but she’d be damned if she messed up a staple sick food when the teenager in the other room needed almost five times the daily recommended calories to maintain himself. So far, he’d been able to manage half his usual breakfast and not much else, the food sitting too heavy in the bottom of his stomach, but thankfully he hadn’t made a mad dash to the bathroom just yet. She dreaded to think what would happen if he didn’t eat anything at all.
Peter had assured her that with his new and improved immune system, he wouldn’t get sick again, and admittedly, it didn’t take much convincing. He didn’t need his inhaler anymore, his allergy prescriptions went unfulfilled, and his glasses sat on his dresser as decoration more than anything else. She didn’t pretend to understand all the science that explained everything, so she took his word for it, and when he said he was going to keep Ned company whilst he was bedbound with the flu, she didn’t think much of it. Surely this healing factor he boasted about wouldn’t be beaten by something as simple as the flu.
Yet here she was trying to make enough soup to feed the apartment building she lived in. She debated calling Tony. He understood all the sciency stuff, but he wasn’t a biologist nor any form of medical doctor that they so sorely needed.
It wouldn’t be so bad if Peter just stayed in bed and let sickness run its course, but he hadn’t changed much in that aspect. He acted like staying still for more than five minutes would kill him. She kept having to pop her head into his room and make sure he was still in bed. So far, she’d found him trying to work, but all he’d managed was nonsensical notes, and he did attempt to get to his suit, but she shut that down fast.
She could admit that she’d taken his sudden uptick in health for granted. It’d been nice not to spend every other weekend with the back of her hand pressed against his forehead or stocking up on tissues so often she could find a coupon for them in every jacket and pair of pants she owned. If you bumped into her a year ago, she would’ve dropped at least half a pack of throat soothers, a bottle of ibuprofen and some sort of herbal concoction her coworker swore by.
If a flu could still affect him, what else could? All those cuts and bruises he’d come home with had vanished by the next time she saw him, even when he wasn’t eating enough to heal with full strength, but what about the deeper injuries? The ones people shouldn’t bounce back from. She thought back to seeing the news footage of the plane crash. All that fire and chaos. She didn’t know then that he was Spider-Man- what if he really hurt himself and didn’t tell her? God, he could’ve bled out, and she’d be none the wiser until she went to check on him before work.
Maybe he did have a titanium immune system but didn’t eat enough to support it. He’d been rather cagey about the matter, and if he wasn’t such a blabbermouth, that probably would’ve been another thing she’d never know until she found out for herself. Even then, it’d taken calling Tony to get an actual number. She did her best to make calorie-dense meals, but she could only do so much on a shoestring budget. Peter said he was getting extra meals through school and helping local businesses, but she wasn’t confident he regularly hit his recommended maintenance.
The smell of burning shook her from her thoughts, and she scrambled to take the large pot off the heat with a curse on her lips.
“May?” Peter’s croaky voice called.
“It’s fine! I saved it!” she called back. She heard the floorboards creak. “Get back in bed!” They creaked again, but nothing else followed. She sighed and ran her hands through her hair. If his metabolism was so high, she thought as she ladled out the burnt chunks of broth, did that mean regular painkillers worked? She really should’ve asked more follow-up questions.
“Peter?” she began as she walked into his bedroom, trying to juggle two bowls of soup. He tried to get up to help, but her glare kept him glued to his spot. “I think we’re gonna have to talk.” She set the bowls down on his crowded bedside table and wished he’d been ravenous enough to snatch them up right away. Instead, he sent them a weary look. He should be lunging for it. It couldn’t be good for him to go without his appetite, but she could only speculate.
“‘Bout what?” he asked sheepishly.
“You’re not in trouble.” Knowing him, he was already going through everything he’d done wrong since eight until now. “It’s just about this whole spider DNA business,” she explained as she sat down on the edge of his bed.
The old mattress squeaked underneath the additional weight. Was it good for him to sleep on it anymore when he was basically all muscle? They couldn’t exactly afford a brand new memory foam mattress, but she might be able to find a half-decent one knocking around.
“I really did think I’d be fine seeing Ned,” he insisted. “He’s been sick before, and I’ve been fine.”
“I’m not questioning that. I’m worried that we might’ve been a little whilly-nilly-”
“Whilly-nilly?”
“-about the whole metabolism part.”
“What about it?”
“It’s gonna take you a lot of food to maintain this, Peter. Like a serious amount of calorie-dense food that I’m not really sure how to provide.” His eyes went wide for a moment, and she instantly knew he was taking this the wrong way.
“I can get a job.”
“No, baby, you can’t. Between school, Spider-Man and your internship, you’d have no time to sleep, and I’m already worried about the eating bit; don’t get me started on how much sleep you actually need.”
His guilty expression made her stomach twist. Late night after late night was taking its toll on him, so much so that any free time he had to spare was spent napping wherever he crashed first. Lack of sleep wasn’t great for anyone, but it had to be especially detrimental to him. She thought about how driving sleep-deprived was similar to driving under the influence, fearing how that could apply to his swinging, but chose to save that battle for another day.
“What I’m trying to say is I never asked the sort of follow-ups I should’ve, like what type of diet we can put you on or if you need more painkillers than a regular person or if you even can take more without overdosing. I know you tell me you’re eating just fine, but I also know you, and you could be just saying that.” She reached out to gently brush his sweaty curls away from his forehead. His temperature wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but she couldn’t help pressing the back of her hand against his skin to quickly check. “I just want to make sure you’re healthy, Pete.”
“I am healthy. This is just a blip,” he insisted.
“You’re sweating buckets.”
“I’m burning the sickness out.” She raised an unamused eyebrow. “I’m more of a chemistry guy, but a fever is just your body cooking the virus out.”
“What if it cooks your brain? Your body heals, sure, but what if it freaks out and tries to heal too much? What if I need to give you medicine but nothing works?”
“Call Mr Stark.”
“What if he’s not available?”
“He will be.”
“Will he? Peter, the man took away your suit knowing full well it wouldn’t stop you-”
“It was one time!”
“One time is enough for me to want some sort of backup plan. I want a plan A through Z. What if something happens to Tony? He might not be Iron Man as much anymore, but he’s a public figure! We’re nobody in comparison; do you expect me to storm into his building asking for help and somehow not end up being thrown out by security?”
“You said I wasn’t in trouble, but it’s kinda starting to feel like I am.”
“You aren’t. Trust me, you aren’t. I’m worried. I don’t want to think about what would happen if the worst happened and I couldn’t do anything.”
He dipped his head away as he chewed on his bottom lip. This isn’t a good time, she reprimanded herself. He was sick for the first time in ages, and here she was asking all the hard-hitting questions he didn’t like to answer at the best of times. She sighed and got up. Peter wasn’t going to die right this second, and the flu would at least bench Spider-Man tonight (she’d make sure of it).
“I don’t need answers right this second, but I do need them. If that means we all have to sit down and talk about it, then we will. I know I’ve been busy lately, but you’re always my priority.”
“I know, May. I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for. I think we both sorta assumed the best, and it’s come to bite us in the ass. When you feel better, we’ll pick this back up. Until then, try to finish these off. You need your energy.”
“I’ll try.” She smiled softly.
“That’s all I ask. Shout if you need me. Do not get out of this bed.”
May collapsed bonelessly onto the couch and put her arm over her eyes. She loved Peter to bits, but she really didn’t sign up for this. Maybe this was payback for being able to skip the baby years. In exchange for sleep regression and changing diapers, she gets a metabolism that’s impossible to keep on top of and drug resistance to boot. Win some, lose some, she supposed.
Then there was basically co-parenting with a tech billionaire she barely knew. She hoped he was a good influence, but she couldn’t be sure. It was difficult to sort from what was the public persona and what was the actual person. Peter took a shine to him, but he always did like fixing broken things. That was rude, but thankfully Peter didn’t have telepathy…she thought he didn’t anyway.
If they were going to co-parent, as much as it terrified her to think of it that way, then he could certainly pitch into the pot. She didn’t want tonnes of money. It’d only go to make her feel like some sort of charity case so he could get a write-off on taxes, but she did expect something in return. At least some grocery money.
Beyond the monetary side, she prayed he had some sort of healthcare in place for Peter. Surely being on a team with Captain America and The Hulk gave you some half-decent links to doctors ready to handle abnormal biologies. She certainly didn’t have any, and she knew damn well their insurance wouldn’t cover any specialised care of that nature when it’d been a pain in the ass to get Peter’s his inhalers.
Tony’s number sat in her phone. She’d only called it three times. The first to scream at him for aiding and abetting her teenage nephew in vigilante justice, and the second to scream at him further after Peter gave her more information about Germany and the events of homecoming. She still didn’t think she had the full story on that one, but even the edited version had her blood boiling. The third was what gave her a more accurate overview of Peter’s new dietary needs. She was half tempted to call him again, but she didn’t know where to start, and it felt like a conversation she shouldn’t have in Peter’s earshot.
Something creaked.
“Stop getting out of bed!” she demanded, finally losing her patience. She sat up to glower at the hallway, but it was missing a certain superpowered teen. Her eyebrows knitted together as she inspected the space for any sign of Peter but found nothing. She could’ve sworn it sounded like he’d been right behind her. By all means, he should be standing there with a deer-in-the-headlights look as if he were surprised to be told the same thing she’d told him every time he got up.
A sniffle drew her attention to the ceiling where a very pale Peter Parker, now messily dressed in casual clothes rather than the worn pyjamas she’d just seen him in, stared down at her, bewildered.
“Get off the roof!”
“But-”
“But nothing! Bed. Now.”
“I can fix it!”
“Are you sneaking out to find the cure for the flu?” she asked incredulously.
“No, I mean-” he stopped and unstuck one of his hands to rub at his forehead. “Mr Stark has stuff that’ll help.”
“You’re not swinging all the way to wherever the hell he’s living now.”
“I’ll get the bus.”
“Peter, you’re sneaking out through the front door instead of your damn bedroom window. You’re clearly not thinking straight. Let me call him-”
”No, no, no, don’t call him.”
“...What did he do?”
“Nothing!”
"What did you do?"
"Also nothing!"
“Then why can’t I call him?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Well, get off the roof and tell it to me. Better yet, go to bed and tell me there.”
“But-”
“Peter Benjamin Parker, I am so close to losing it. Do you know how much soup I’ve burned today?” His eyes darted off. Right, super senses. “Bed.”
“But May-”
“One.”
“I’m sixteen! You can’t do a countdown on me.”
“Two.”
“Seriously?”
“Three. See what happens at five.”
“May.”
“Four.”
“I’m going, I’m going,” he grumbled under his breath as he crawled away. How it hadn’t made him feel nauseous to be upside down for that long was a mystery likely solved by the spider bite. She wished she could squish that thing.
“So help me, if your fever is even less than a degree higher than it was before,” she warned, hoping to thwart any further escape attempts. She waited until she heard a soft thud before getting up with a groan. Fuck that spider.
“So?” May prompted, folding her arms across her chest. Thankfully, Peter had heeded her warning and was sitting in bed by the time she made her way to his bedroom. His cheeks were redder, but that was probably from being upside down. Other than that, it seemed like his failed escape attempt hadn’t been too detrimental to his recovery.
“Before you get mad again, I want to emphasise that I’m sick, so you have to be at least a little bit nicer to me.”
“Not sick enough to not sneak out,” she muttered. “I’ll hear you out, then decide.”
“Fair enough,” he sighed. “Mr Stark gave me a few painkillers Captain America used to take and told me to see how I go with them. If they worked great, if they didn’t, then we’d work on changing them. He also gave me the nutrition bars they developed for an enhanced metabolism.”
“Okay, where’s the bit for me to be mad about?”
“Well, the painkillers work, but uhm, not like crazily work. Like it works for an hour and then it kinda stops? So I thought maybe you just take it every hour or so, but no, it’s supposed to last as long as regular painkillers. I meant to say something, I really did, I just forgot, and he never reminded me, so I took more to even it out, but now I don’t have any more.”
“Right,” she said, her voice strained. “And the nutrition bars?”
“They taste really bad, but it would’ve been so rude to say, 'Hey, these bars you got me are super gross, so I’ll starve, thanks,’ so I just didn’t say anything. I have two packs stashed in the closet. It’s fine though; they have 2030 or something on them.”
“So you are starving?”
“No, no…I don’t think so?”
“That’s not a thinking matter. You are, or you aren’t!”
“It’s not like I track my calories.”
“You should be! What else are you keeping from me?”
“I haven’t kept anything from you! I just forgot to say. I- I don’t like worrying you with it, and I have it handled most of the time. It’s just been a little hard lately because there hasn’t been any school, so I can’t get the lunch there, and I’ve been a lot busier as Spider-Man, so I don’t always have time to grab something from the vendors, and sometimes if I wait a while, the hunger goes away, so I don’t remember to get something-”
“Wait, how does this relate to you sneaking out?”
“I figured if I had the painkillers, you’d feel better about having something on hand in case this is like the super flu, and maybe whilst I was there I could mention the bars. I’m so serious, May, they’re awful. It’s so bland but also weirdly salty, and the texture is like silly putty. When I first had it, I thought Mr Stark gave me Play-Doh.”
“They can’t be that bad.”
“They can! I get Cap lived through the Depression and World War Two, but c’mon.” May laughed despite herself. Of course he’d rather eat his body weight in pizzas and hot dogs than suffer through that. Hell, she might do the same if she were in his shoes.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll get Tony to drop off the painkillers, and I’ll mention the bars, but once it’s all sorted out, you have to eat them.”
“I don’t wanna sound ungrateful,” he muttered guiltily.
“And I don’t want you to go hungry anymore. I don’t want you to get sick when you don’t need to. Okay?” He sighed but nodded all the same.
“Okay.”
“Good. Now where did you put those bars again? I have to try it.”
After one bite, she was ready to accuse Tony of poisoning her kid.