Outnumbered

Chapter 7

It's Saturday morning, but it might as well be a Monday, Peter thinks, because halfway through a bowl of oatmeal at the kitchen island, Tony and May walk in together. May's giving a sheepish smile, but Tony has his arms crossed against his chest.

As if things could get any worse than they were last weekend at States.

"What?" Peter asks, playing dumb even though he knows exactly what's up.

Support group.

The one he's supposed to be leaving for in less than an hour. Only he hasn't showered yet, spent the last hour watching cartoons with Morgan with the hope that Tony would forget.

But now May is here, and he's feeling a little stupid for assuming it would be any different.

He takes another spoonful because he needs to cover the insulin he's just taken with carbs and mentally prepares himself for another lecture.

It's always another lecture.

Change your lancet. Use an alcohol swab. Pre-bolus. Make sure you have everything before you leave the house. Charge your phone. Listen to your body. Plan ahead for that test before lunch so that you don't go low. Make sure you're at least 160 before exercise. And, most recently, we need to get your A1C down.

Blah blah blah.

Even with his lows, his A1C, which measures the average of his blood sugar levels over the past three months, is 9.5. That means he's spending too much time in the mid-200s. It tends to get high at night, after dinner, and stay there.

"Ideally, it should be seven or lower," Bruce had explained in Peter's appointment this week. "I know we're only a couple of months in, but if we don't get this under control, especially with your Spidey metabolism–"

"I know, I know. Blindness, loss of limbs. You don't have to keep reminding me," Peter had mumbled.

It's not so much that Peter doesn't want to face reality; it's that he doesn't know how. Not when this is still brand new and these complications won't happen for years to come even if things continue to stay the same.

Some days, this doesn't feel real. He wakes up and has that split second of bliss before he remembers.

Right now, though, it's a little too real.

Peter cuts the tension in the room with some sarcasm and a small laugh. "This feels a lot like an intervention."

Tony's jaw is set, but instead of angry, he looks sincerely concerned. "Deflecting with humor doesn't magically make this all disappear, kiddo. We need to start dealing with this."

Peter huffs, incredulous. "Worse? How could this possibly get any worse?! I'm superhuman, yet my immune system went haywire and attacked my own body! I was in a coma for two days only to wake up and find that I'm stuck with an incurable disease forever! I prick my fingers and inject myself with insulin and rely on devices to keep me alive 24/7! My life is a numbers game now! The carbs in a banana, what Dexcom says my blood sugar is, the micro units I bolus, my A1C! Over and over and over with no breaks! And then," he yells, tears pricking his eyes, "everyone is on me about how I'm...how I'm handling this, or not handling this, and so I finally admit that this is hard, and your answer is that I have to go talk to strangers about everything! How could this possibly get any worse, Tony?!"

He wants so much for May to open her arms up and wrap them around him, shield him from the pain that he can't even begin to describe. The pain that he pushes down every time it comes screaming to the surface when he loses another thing because of this stupid disease. But she doesn't, and Peter is afraid that if he lifts his eyes to meet hers, he might never stop crying.