Air I Breathe

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Friday, January 17

"You've gotta wait until you hear-"

"-2 clicks, I know." Peter takes a breath before he pushes the pen down against his thigh and hears the first click, and at first he thinks everything is fine, that he can't even feel the needle, but then he does, and there's the sound of the liquid being injected and a searing pain in his thigh that just keeps expanding, and all that he can think to say is "Ow! Ow! This fucking hurts!" He hisses as it continues and looks up at the ceiling, closing his eyes to brace for the last few seconds. "Fuck!" Finally, finally, he hears the second click, but he's too scared to pull the pen away. He can feel Tony's hand wrap around his and lift it away, looks down just in time to see blood pooling. Tony's got a tissue on it in an instant and a band-aid waiting.

An Iron Man band aid.

Tony covers the injection site with the band-aid and begins to clean up the wrappers, and Peter's suddenly wondering how he's going to do this every single week, how he's going to psych himself up to jab himself in the leg with this pen that feels more like a knife. He bites his lip and tries not to cry because he wants to seem brave, wants Tony to think that he's having some kind of positive impression on him and how he's dealing with all of this. He can't move, can't breathe, is afraid to blink.

"Peter?"

"I'm okay."

"Can't lie to me, kid. I see straight through it."

"I know you want to say, "That wasn't so bad now, was it?" and I'm supposed to sit here and say it was fine b-but it's not, and I just wish that this wasn't happening." Peter sniffles and wipes his nose with his sleeve, tears streaming down his cheeks and into his lap. "And it fuck-sorry-freaking hurt so badly. And you bought me these silly Iron Man band-aids and I can't tell if it's making everything better or worse."

"You can say fuck, you know," Tony offers. "I'm not Steve, who believes that all swearing earns you a one-way ticket to Hell."

Peter lets out a small laugh. "In that case, that really fucking hurt."

Rubbing Peter's back in small, soothing circles, Tony adds, "Not going to lie, it definitely seemed like it did. I'm sorry, Underoos. It's okay to admit that this is hard."

"You never admit when things are hard, though." He sniffles, wipes his face again. "You just...work through them."

"Well, if you call anti-social narcissistic behaviors coupled with insomnia and anxiety 'working through difficult things,' then I think you might not have the best role model, kid."

Peter sniffles and looks up at Tony. "What are you talking about? You're the best, Tony."

"A lot of people might disagree with you on that. Actually, not might, would."

"But look at where you are now. You've got your new tower, the Avengers, Pepper." Peter wants to add and me, but stops himself. He doesn't feel like an asset right now. Not even close. Tony isn't well, has the Stark Industries exec board breathing down his neck about their contracts with Grumman, and now with all of this autoimmune stuff, Peter's not sure how much longer Tony can keep doing this, this 'taking care of Peter' thing. He knows Aunt May is trying, but it's been hard with her new job. In truth, he's grown kind of happy at the Tower with Pepper and Tony. He likes that Tony's his emergency contact when May's away, that he's the one who showed up after he blacked out in front of his entire chem class and stuck with him when he wasn't exactly easy to deal with, that he's becoming the father figure he's didn't even know he was longing for after Ben died.