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“But, Ned, the semester just started!” Peter hissed into his phone. “Yet my brain is fried and I don’t even know why. All I do know is that a two-day weekend isn’t enough.” He’d returned to school after winter break ready to jump right in and had been doing great. Then out of nowhere, his ability to focus had disappeared, and forcing himself to go to school every day had become difficult. “I just- I need a break, Man.”
“Just tell your parents that you need an extra day, Dude,” Ned replied as if that was the most logical thing in the world. “Like a mental health day or something. I’m sure they would understand.”
Peter sighed and ran a hand down his face. “If I tell them that I need a break they aren’t going to give me an extra day off from school, they’re going to tell me not to patrol for a while and I need to be Spider-man, Ned. I need to be able to have that outlet to move and climb- it’s literally in my DNA,” he attempted to explain, growing frustrated the longer he spoke. He just- didn't want to go to school and knowing there was no way out of it was making his stomach twist. “I just need one extra day at home, watching movies and eating ice cream or something,” he wistfully stated, leaning back onto his pillows and fidgeting with one of the action figures that lived on his bedside table.
“And you really don’t think that they would let you take a day like that?” Ned skeptically inquired.
“They’re always telling me that I need to ‘balance’ patrolling with ‘life’ and if I tell them that I’m overwhelmed, they’ll automatically assume that Spider-man is the problem and either make me cut back or take it away altogether,” Peter returned without hesitation. He’d taken exactly two breaks from patrolling since he’d taken on the alter-ego. The first one had been right after he’d come to live with the Stark-Rogers’ and even though it had been two whole weeks, it hadn't been so bad. He’d been exhausted, adjusting to a new home and recovering physically. Then there had been the time that he’d been grounded for three days after trying to sneak out one night and that had nearly killed him. A break from Spider-man would cause more stress than it prevented and that was the last thing he needed. He just didn’t think he would ever be able to get his parents to believe that.
“Well,” Ned thoughtfully replied. “What if you were sick?”
The line went quiet for a few seconds while Peter allowed that question to run through his head. His parents, Tony, in particular, tended to be overprotective and it was reasonable to assume that they would insist on him staying home from school if they believed he was sick. “Ned, you are an absolute genius!” he said, having already decided that it wouldn't be terribly difficult to convince the two men that he wasn’t feeling well. He just needed to choose his symptoms carefully.
Once dinner had been cleaned up Peter sat down in his favorite chair wrapped up in a blanket. He made a point of staying quieter than usual and waited for the first Breaking Bad rerun to end before plopping down between his parents on the couch. “I think I’m going to go ahead and go to bed,” he said, pulling the throw more tightly around his shoulders and leaning a little into Tony’s side.
“It’s only eight-thirty,” Steve said, checking and double-checking the large clock on the wall. Even on a school night, the kid was typically up until eleven.
“I know but I’m really tired,” Peter replied while rubbing one of his eyes with the heel of his hand.
Tony awkwardly reached around to place the back of his hand on the teenager's forehead and frowned. He didn’t feel any warmer than usual and took a moment to consider that perhaps Peter really was just exhausted. It was Sunday and the kid had spent the weekend alternating between patrolling and spending what was probably a little too much time in the lab. “Alright, well, I guess if you’re tired then bed is the best place for you,” he gave in, patting the boy on the back as he sluggishly stood up. “Goodnight, Buddy. Love you.”
Peter leaned over to hug both of his fathers and then turned towards the stairs smiling. He’d made it past step one of his plan and had successfully planted a little seed of concern. And with any luck, that would help the next day go much more smoothly. Then he flipped his lamp off and turned on a small flashlight so that he could safely finish reading the last few chapters of ‘The Color of Magic’ under the blankets without his dad or his papa realizing that he was still awake.
“Dad? I don’t feel so good,” Peter mumbled as he walked into the kitchen the next morning.
“Yeah?” Tony said, bringing his brows together in thought and, once again rested his palm on the kid’s forehead. “You don’t feel warm. What’s going on?” he asked after giving his husband a quick glance.
Peter coughed lightly and reached up to massage his temples. “My head hurts and my throat, a little bit. And I’m just sort of tired and achy, I guess,” he said, closing his eyes for a few seconds hoping to make it appear more believable. When he opened them back up he could see his dad looking at his Papa with an expression that he couldn’t quite decipher. But part of him was certain that he was about to be called out on his ruse.
“Do you need to stay home from school, Champ? I can call you out for the day,” Steve offered, not really breaking eye contact with his husband.
Peter pretended to give it some thought and then went to sit down at the bar so he could bury his head in his arms. He didn’t want to risk either of the men catching him smiling. “Yeah. That’s probably a good idea, thanks, Papa,” he finally replied with a long-drawn-out sigh.
After hurriedly sending out a few texts, Tony walked around the bar and placed his hands onto Peter’s slumped shoulders. “And good news, you won’t have to be here all by yourself,” he happily announced. “My meeting was canceled and there’s nothing in the lab that requires my immediate attention.”
With a knowing smile, Steve pulled his phone out of his pocket as well. “Huh, turns out I’m not really needed at the VA today either so unless there’s a call to assemble, I guess we’ll all be home. That’s nice, huh, Peter?”
“Um, yeah. Sure. It’s great,” Peter replied, unsure about how great it actually was. But he figured that even though he was more than likely not going to be able to binge on frozen pizza and Oreo's all day, it was still better than going to school. Especially since he had a room full of things to keep him entertained. “I’m going to eat some breakfast and go back to bed, I guess,” he proclaimed. Though his actual intention was to go to his room and curl up with the second Discworld book, followed by a few YouTube videos just to start the day.
“Nope,” Tony clipped, pointing towards the wide-open living room. “You’re going to make yourself at home on the couch and Papa and I will make sure you get whatever you need.”
Peter lifted his head up, his eyebrows stitched together with confusion. “But my bed-”
“-Is all the way upstairs,” Steve interjected. “If you’re down here we can keep an eye on you. Make sure we don’t need to call in Dr. Cho.”
At that point, Peter’s heart began to speed up just a touch as he internally panicked. This was not how the day was supposed to go. Tony was supposed to be busy with SI stuff and Steve was supposed to be at the VA, leaving him free to do whatever he wanted to do until closer to dinner. He swallowed hard and looked between his parents. “Uh, sure, I guess that makes sense,” he said with a weak smile and before he knew what was happening he was sitting on the couch with a glass of orange juice and a bowl of oatmeal on a tray.
“Can I please turn on the TV? I’m bored,” Peter complained from his nest on the couch not quite two hours later. After scrapping the last few bites of his bland breakfast into his mouth, his juice had been refilled and he'd been ordered to rest. He’d been alternating between staring at the ceiling and looking out the windows ever since.
“You’re sick, you’re supposed to be asleep. And the television isn’t going to help with a headache,” Tony said from across the room, never even bothering to look up from the laptop he was pouring over. “And before you ask, no phone either.”
Peter huffed and sat up, causing the copious amounts of blankets that had been piled on top of him to fall into his lap. He shivered a little as the air conditioning hit his exposed arms. Not because he was really cold so much as the sudden burst of cool air had been in such contrast to the heat that had been building up beneath the layers.
“Do you need another blanket?” Steve asked as he walked back into the room. “Some more juice or water?”
“I’m fine, Papa. I have enough blankets already and, trust me, I’ve had plenty to drink,” Peter replied, flopping back down onto the couch, with his hands stretched up over his head. He'd already been to the bathroom several times and even though it was a welcomed break from laying on the couch, he was tired of it. Then again, he was tired of a lot of things at the moment.
Steve smiled and sat down beside his son and patted his leg. “Just want to make sure you're comfortable,” he said, ignoring Tony, who he could see holding back a smile in his peripheral.
“I would be more comfortable if you would let me go to my room,” Peter grumbled before giving his Papa his best pleading eyes. “Can I at least read a book?”
“That’s not any better for a headache than the television is,” Steve said softly. “How about I turn on some music instead?”
Knowing he didn’t actually have much of a say in it, Peter shrugged his shoulders, and then Steve asked FRIDAY to play some sort of soft jazz that was probably from the nineteen-forties. They weren't even three tracks in before he was ready to bury his head under the pillows and hope for suffocation. It was awful. So awful that he would have happily traded it in for Tony’s obnoxiously loud Led Zeppelin or whatever it was that he liked to blare in the lab while they worked. “I’m hungry,” he declared out of nowhere, anything to cover up the thrumming of the music.
“I’ll make you some soup,” Steve said even though they were still over half an hour from a typical lunchtime. “It’ll be good for your throat.”
Peter sighed and turned his head towards his Papa. “You know what else would be good for my throat?” he asked, leaving no room for an answer, “-Ice cream.”
“I’m not sure ice cream is such a good idea. You could be coming down with the flu and I don’t want to upset your stomach,” Steve said, already wandering into the kitchen to pull together what he needed to make a simple soup.
Peter lay on the couch fidgeting relentlessly with the blankets, rearranging the pillows, and releasing several sighs, while Steve stood in the kitchen humming along to the music. He was eventually handed a large bowl of broth, sparsely filled with noodles and tiny bits of carrot, and ate it fairly quickly. He was just about to attempt to bargain for a juice pop to go on top of it when he saw his dad pull out the tablet that he tended to use to mess with the Iron Man suit designs from home. “What are you working on? Can I see?” he asked, craning his neck to try and get a look at what his dad was pulling up.
“Nope, no screens,” Tony replied, moving the tablet so that there was no way for the kid to see anything and smiled just over the top of it.
With a small grunt of frustration, Peter tried to stand up but Tony had gotten up at the same time and was there just in time to ease him back down. “Ah, come on! My head feels better! I can watch you work!” he strained.
Tony hummed a neutral response and pointed an accusatory finger in his kid’s direction. “You should be resting. Roll over and go to sleep,” he commanded before patting his son on the shoulder and returning to the chair across the room.
Peter did as he was asked and closed his eyes, deciding that he might be just bored enough to fall asleep. But rather than drifting off, he found himself thinking about school. He wondered what was missing, who Ned was partnering up within chemistry, what MJ was wearing and, as his stomach growled, what they were serving for lunch. Thirty more minutes passed before he rolled onto his back and blew a disgruntled breath out through his nose.
“You doing okay, Buddy?” Tony asked, crossing the distance between them so that he could run his fingers through the boy’s hair.
“Just can’t fall asleep,” Peter mumbled, leaning into his dad’s hand as he watched his Papa enter the room.
“Want me to rub your back? My ma used to do that for me when I wasn’t feeling well,” Steve asked.
“That’s okay, Papa. I’m good,” Peter returned even though he was definitely not good. He was bored out of his mind, the music was still grating on his nerves despite the low volume and soup was hardly a filling lunch when you had an enhanced metabolism. His stomach was starting to gnaw at him in a way that it hadn’t done in months but he knew there was going to be no talking the men into anything heavier unless he gave in and conceded that he had been faking it the whole time. For a few seconds, he chewed on his lip and weighed his options before ultimately deciding that it was time to come clean. “Hey, um, guys?” he hesitantly spoke.
“Hmm?” Tony questioned, giving the kid his full attention.
Peter took a breath and looked between his parents, who were both hovering around him. “I’m, uh, I’m not really sick,” he finally managed to admit.
“Oh, we know, Kiddo,” Tony said with a smirk, chuckling lowly when the kid abruptly sat up with wide eyes and a gaping mouth.
“You knew the whole time?” Peter asked because based on his parents' coddling, he thought he’d been doing an okay job of pretending to be sick.
“Of course, we did, Peter,” Steve said with a barely concealed grin. “Because we know you and you would have never outright admitted to not feeling well let alone agreed to miss school without a fuss.”
Peter blinked stupidly between his dad and his papa while his brain momentarily stalled. “Then why did you let me get away with it!” he squawked as soon as his thoughts came back online. Though he was unimpressed by the amused looks that both of his parents were sending him.
“Because we figured there had to be a reason for you to want to skip school and hoped that at some point, we’d be able to make you crack and fill us in on what that reason was,” Tony self-assuredly replied. “So, what was it, Ferris Bueller? Didn’t study for a test, forget to finish your homework? Girl trouble?” he questioned with mirth, then paused with an analytical quirk of his brow. “Boy trouble?”
“No! It’s nothing like that!” Peter frantically replied but it quickly fizzled down to pure helplessness. “I just- I needed a break.”
“You know, you could have just said that,” Tony said, rolling his eyes, ever so slightly. However, he did hate the underlying implication that his kid hadn’t felt safe enough to share that kind of information with them and was eager to correct that. “We don’t mind if you need to take a day off from school here and there. You have good grades and missing a day every now and again isn’t likely to change that. You’re allowed to need a break sometimes, Kiddo.”
Peter stared down at his lap because that was certainly not the response he’d been expecting and it had made him feel guilty. “I was worried that if I told you that I was stressing out a little bit that you would make me stop patrolling and I need to patrol, Dad. I need to,” he strained in a desperate attempt to explain to the man why he’d done what he’d done.
“Always looking out for the little guy,” Tony murmured, offering his son a soft smile.
“It’s not just that, Dad. I mean it is that, but it’s not just that,” Peter mumbled, leaning back on the cushions and criss-crossing his legs under the blankets.
“What do you mean, Champ?” Steve asked, with a curious tilt of his head.
“I- well, it’s my powers,” Peter vaguely explained. “If I don’t use them then I start to get- I don’t know- antsy.”
“Care to elaborate on that a little bit there, Kiddo?” Tony asked, taking a seat on one side of the kid while Steve took up the other.
With a deep breath, Peter leaned into his dad and began to tug at a loose string on the hem of his t-shirt. “I’m built to climb and swing and move. When I go too long without doing those things it makes me feel anxious? Restless? I can’t explain it but it’s like I’m holding back a part of myself when I’m not allowed to be Spider-man.”
The room grew quiet for a few seconds, no one knowing quite how to reply but it was Tony who finally broke the silence. “You know you are Spider-man, right? Your powers don’t come from the suit.”
“Yeah but- it’s weird. Right? Being able to climb walls and jump up all of the stairs at once as just me?” Peter tentatively questioned.
“You can do that?” Steve asked with uninhibited amazement. He’d seen the kid in the suit and knew he was extremely strong, fast, and acrobatic but he’d never considered the exact parameters of the kid’s abilities. To leap from the bottom floor to the top was at least twelve feet and that wasn’t taking into account any compensation for the incline.
Peter blushed at the question. “Probably? I’ve never actually tried,” he admitted. However, he had occasionally jumped over the back fence at school so he assumed that he could.
“Well, I for one would love to see that,” Tony offhandedly remarked but he was more interested in making sure that his kid could feel more at home in his own home. “But seriously, Pete- you live here and we are well aware of your spidery-ness. You climbing the wall to reach the top shelf in the pantry or doing backflips across the living room isn't going to faze us.”
“Cool,” Peter returned with a stiff nod of his head. He’d never really considered using his powers around the house. The idea made him a little bit nervous but at the same time, knowing that he could, was actually comforting.
“Very cool,” Tony agreed with a flourish of his hand. “Now let’s talk about you trying to lie to us about being sick.”
Peter nervously licked his lips before curving them into an uncomfortable frown. “Not cool?”
“So not cool,” Tony blandly replied. “Don’t lie to us, Buddy. We can’t help you if you lie to us.”
“I’m sorry,” Peter mumbled, turning his head towards the floor in order to avoid meeting either of his parents assessing gazes. But when he felt a hand land gently on the back of his neck he looked up and sighed.
“Next time, just tell us that you need a break and we can talk about it, okay, Champ?” Steve said gently.
“But to be clear, there might be times when we recommend that said break comes in the form of taking some time off from patrolling. But we would never ask you to ignore your instincts,” Tony added with seriousness before breaking into a teasing upturn of his lips. “Just, maybe no web-shooters in the house.”
Peter grinned widely. “Aww! Come on, Dad! That would be so awesome!” he shouted, pulling his lip between his teeth and giddily mimicking the motions of shooting a web with his hand.
“You know what else would be awesome? Eating something besides soup,” Tony chuckled, pulling his kid towards him and ruffling his already mused curls. “And since you're not sick anymore, maybe we should go out for some cheeseburgers.”
“Yes!” Peter exclaimed, throwing a fist into the air and then turning towards Steve. “Are you coming to Papa?”
“And miss a chance to be with my two favorite people? Not a chance,” Steve scoffed. “But first, how about we put away all of these blankets.”
Peter laughed and helped put away the blankets before going to change out of his pajamas, making a point of leaping up all of the stairs at once as he did so. After their late lunch out, they came home and piled up together on the couch to watch movies and the night ended with giant bowls of ice cream being eaten on the couch.
As he sat contentedly between his parents, Peter decided that even though the day had started out a bit rocky it had still ended up being exactly what he'd needed. An extra day to relax followed by a far more bearable four-day school week. And if he ended up crawling across the ceiling the next morning on his way to the front door, well, that was just a bonus. And true to their word, neither Tony nor Steve even batted an eye.