Air I Breathe

Chapter 3

Chapter 3
Monday, December 23

"Hey Pete, you ready to get up?" Tony's asking with a yawn, but all the teen can manage from his place propped against the pillows and covered in his duvet is a groan. Pepper's let both of them sleep in some, is off finishing last-minute holiday shopping for gifts and ingredients for their Christmas Day dinner. Peter's been home for a full day now, has spent most of that time sleeping, Tony waking him every four hours to do a treatment, take some pills, and coax him into a lapse around the residence to get the mucus to loosen. Pepper's made it her mission to get him to eat, but he's barely managed toast, clear soup, and ginger ale due to the antibiotics. They're not out of the woods yet, Tony thinks, but it's starting to feel like they're maybe half-way there. "Gonna switch you over to the oxygen and get you up and moving, okay?"

He's already grabbed the tubing when he hears Peter answer, "No. Feeling...worse. Wanna keep the...the," a hand coming up to touch his nose.

"C-PAP?"

"Y-yeah."

Tony's suddenly on edge. "FRIDAY, vitals, please."

"Feels like I'm b-breathing...underwater," Peter's saying as FRIDAY drones in the background. He begins to cough, the rattling in his lungs audible, and Tony's instantly grabbing for the small garbage can beside Peter's nightstand.

"Gotta sit up, Pete," Tony is saying as he pulls his slender frame up and away from the pillows, Peter coughing up and spitting out gob after gob of dark green mucus into the can between his legs. His weakened muscles shudder with each cough and then each inhale, the sudden ferocity of the coughing spell throwing him into an all-out panic.

"M'drowning," Peter manages weakly between a cough and gasp, his hand pushing away the tissue Tony's trying to hold up to his mouth.

"There's been a sudden drop in Peter's blood oxygen level," FRIDAY reports, and Tony feels time slow as he watches Peter fight for air.

"FRIDAY, get Bruce up here, now! Send him all of Peter's vitals from the last ten minutes." He switches him from the C-PAP to the oxygen because somewhere in his brain he's convinced that it's what's causing the issue, but Peter's still choking even after he gets a few short inhales of the oxygen and Tony can't get the dreadful rattling coming from Peter's lungs to stop.

"Dr. Banner has been alerted. Calculating his ETA."

Peter reaches blindly for Tony, his hand absently landing on his upper arm, squeezing it with utter panic. He's convinced he's drowning, that the fluid in his lungs has turned to cement, that he's going to die right here in Iron Man's arms in Avengers Tower. He's scared, like really really scared, because it's happening, it's really happening. What transpired in MedBay just two days ago and seemed like the end of the world at the time was so much easier than this, he thinks.

"I've got you, kid," Tony says as he holds him up, trying not to let Peter see how terrified he genuinely feels. "I've got you. I know it's really hard to breathe right now. Just do your best for me, okay?"

Peter tries to nod, but his shoulders are locked, his chest muscles straining, each breath hitching as he works to get the old air out and new air in.

"Dr. Banner's ETA is 8 minutes, sir," FRIDAY updates.

"Damnit, FRIDAY, that's not fast enough! I need him here now!" Tony yells forcefully as he twists open two albuterol nebules with his teeth and squirts them into the medicine cup of the nebulizer.

"Tony? What's happening?" Bruce's harried voice fills Peter's bedroom through FRIDAY's relay system. It sounds like he's running, his own, soft pants contrasting with the heavy thuds of his footfalls.