Air I Breathe

Chapter 26

ONE MONTH LATER

Monday, April 6

Things feel normal.

Normal-ish.

As normal as they could be after being intubated, Peter guesses.

He's back to school. Decathlon. Internship. Patrols. The Avengers.

But there's also the treatments, inhalers, steroids, and appointments. The things that let him do the things from Before, make him feel Peter-ish.

He's still not convinced he'll ever be fully used to this.

Sure, he's in a routine now, but that hasn't exactly made it easier.

He'd had to hold back tears a few minutes ago when FRIDAY sent him an orange zone alert for wheezing and dropping oxygen levels.

So much for feeling proud to be back to team trainings, the ones Tony isn't even back to yet since his surgery.

There's a knock at Peter's door a moment before it opens. "Just checking in," Tony says.

"I'm okay," Peter assures him, holding his nebulizer mouthpiece up before flipping the 'on' switch. "Was just about to start on...some chem homework. My lungs have...shitty timing."

"FRIDAY has you in the orange zone," Tony explains, holding his phone up.

"I know. Got the same alert."

"You want company?" Tony asks, and Peter can tell that he's itching to make sure Peter is actually as okay as he says he is.

Peter doesn't want to admit it, because this isn't anything like being in MedBay or the nightmare that was being on a ventilator, but that orange alert has his heart pounding. He wonders if FRIDAY's registered it yet, if Tony's gotten an alert for that, too. He hadn't felt tight or wheezy at first, since he'd been working on an essay and was distracted, but after the alert had popped up, he'd felt it, struggled to get across the room and fumbled with a box of nebules to get a new pack out.

"Y-yeah," he says, putting the mouthpiece between his lips.

"Been getting a real kick out of your Spiderman Instagram posts," Tony says with a smile as he takes a seat beside Peter on the bed.

Peter nods, closes his eyes because the medicine isn't working yet and his heart is still racing from the unexpected alert. Tony's just trying to change the subject, and Peter wants to appreciate it, but he'd rather his lungs weren't doing their thing right now.

"I think it's really great that you're taking the time to post pictures about Spiderman living with asthma to encourage other kids, make them feel less alone in all of this. I know it's not easy to put it out there."

Peter nods again, eyes still closed.

"You're not okay. I can tell."

"I...I just thought things would be...better by now. Like...Steve called me a warrior during team training earlier, but I'm...I'm not winning this?"

"Can I let you in on a secret?" Tony asks softly, a hand on Peter's shoulder.

Peter takes a deep breath of the medicine and nods.

"Not everything can be won, Underoos."

And Peter's known that this whole time, has been fighting against his asthma with the hope that if he does everything he's supposed to, it will become a little less intense, a lot more manageable, but here he is, constantly assessing and reevaluating his next move to take deeper breaths, lessen the wheezing, keep FRIDAY from alerting like she just did.