Chapter Text
1 – he doesn’t like to tell people about it… for some reason
Peter is acting a little off today.
Harley notices it immediately—because, for one, he is both the son of a genius, as well as a certified genius himself; but, secondly, in the month and a half that he’s been a student at Midtown, he thinks he’s gotten pretty close with the guy. Like, Harley knows a lot about him for such a short amount of time. They get along really well, and if it weren’t for the two of them meeting, Harley wouldn’t have been introduced to Ned and Michelle, both of whom are also super cool people that he’s happy to be friends with.
Though, none of that is the point, of course. The point is that Harley got to school this morning, he stopped by his locker, and then he ambled down the hall to wait by Peter’s like he always does, but when Peter showed up, instead of offering a greeting or smiling, or even just acknowledging the fact that Harley was there in the slightest—he barely glanced at him, grabbed his books, and walked away.
See, there are a couple of layers to this.
One of them is the simple fact that Harley isn’t used to being ignored or overlooked. He is a Stark, after all, and, while his parents have done an incredible job at keeping him a humble kid and made sure he didn’t turn into one of the spoiled rich kids that he sees walk these halls every day, he still has never been blatantly talked down to or has had anyone treat him in a way that’s made him feel so blatantly insecure. But this? This is exactly that. It’s a first, for sure, but Harley can feel the uncertainty bubbling in his gut just thinking back on it—wondering, anxiously, if he might have done something wrong, pondering over various reasons for why Peter would have ignored him like that, each scenario more outlandish than the last. The fact that he’s never been in a real school before and this is his first time having friends that haven’t been introduced to him through his family doesn’t seem to be helping his case very much.
The second layer, though, is that something is clearly wrong. As in, with Peter.
As in, the guy looks… not so hot, to put it lightly.
Part of Harley thinks that Peter might have genuinely not realized he was standing there, because the dude’s eyes were so glazed over and out of focus that it’s kind of miraculous that he was walking down the hall without falling over every other step. There had been a pale sort of shine to his complexion, almost waxy. His hands were shaking. And, as Harley looks over at him now, waiting for the bell to signal the end of class and the start of their lunch period, he notes that Peter only looks worse.
More pale. More shaky. More out of focus.
Sure, Harley is still kind of fighting his anxiety about if it was intentional, if he could have done something to deserve being ignored—but the logical part of his brain has realized the truth. And the truth is that Peter is sick. Or… something along those lines. Unwell might be the best word to use.
Yeah, he thinks, watching as the bell rings and Peter struggles to slowly shove his papers into his backpack, blearily blinking down at the thing like it’s a foreign object. Definitely unwell.
Figuring that standing by and doing nothing is just a form of cruel and unusual punishment (for him or for Peter, he can’t decide), Harley makes his way over and kneels down, taking the papers from Peter’s hands and putting them in his bag himself, zipping it up afterward. He stands, Peter’s bag in his hands, and watches with a grimace pulling at his lips as Peter sluggishly looks up at him and blinks.
“Dude,” Harley says. “What the hell?”
Peter parts his lips, but it looks like he forgets how to use his tongue, a crease forming between his brows as he seems to ponder it over, before blinking again and responding with, “Um… What?”
“You’re—” Harley gestures vaguely at him with one hand, the other still holding Peter’s backpack by one of the straps. Peter follows his gesture and looks down at himself, then up again, confused. Harley sighs, feeling both exasperated and entirely lost on what he should do. “You’re sick,” he states. “Or high. I don’t know, but it’s something.”
“Uh.” Peter’s eyebrows shoot up—his skin is nearly as white as a sheet of paper—and he manages to rasp out what might be a laugh if he were any semblance of his normal self. “Not high. Or sick. It’s fine.”
Harley glares at him. “You’re shaking.”
Peter looks back down and watches his hands as they tremble. “Cold,” he offers weakly.
“You’re a horrible liar,” Harley tells him. “Get up. It’s lunch and I’m either going to take you to our table or to see the nurse. I’ll decide which one it is depending on if you can walk straight.”
With a halfhearted huff that ends up sounding almost like a wheeze, Peter pushes at the surface of his desk and gets to his feet. For a moment he just stands there, swaying slightly, before sucking in a sharp breath and nodding. “I’m fine,” he states, withdrawing his hands and stepping around to Harley’s side. He reaches for his bag, but Harley pulls it out of his reach before he can try to grab it.
“That didn’t look even remotely fine,” Harley says. “If I’m letting you skip out on the nurse for now, then the least I can do is carry your stupid bag since you look like you’re about to fall over. C’mon.”
“Rude,” Peter murmurs, but ambles down the hall with Harley without any complaints, looking a little uneasy on his feet and even reaching out at one point to grab onto the back of Harley's sweatshirt, but otherwise he makes it in one piece, following over to where Ned and Michelle are waiting for them at their usual table. They’re both looking over already as Harley and Peter approach—Ned looking blatantly concerned while Michelle has more of a pinched, curious expression. “Hey,” Peter murmurs as he sits.
Harley places both of their bags on the bench and looks at Peter expectantly. “Are you not eating?”
Again, like they’re reliving the same moment from five minutes prior, Peter raises his head and looks at Harley with a lethargic blink, though there’s a little more clarity in his eyes when he says, “What?”
“Lunch,” Harley explains. “We’re at lunch. It’s lunchtime, when you bring something from home or get in the lunch line, and get food, and then you eat. You’re clearly some kinda sick, and not putting anything in your system isn’t gonna help your case much. Do you have food, or are you getting a school lunch?”
“Uh—” Peter grimaces, brings up a shaky hand to rub at his eyes, and then puffs out a sigh. There’s a little bit of green starting to fade in under his pale complexion, and his features are becoming a bit more pinched like he’s starting to get nauseous. “I, um—I have—I’ve got my own. Uh…” The first attempt to reach for his bag is a complete miss, hand waving through the air a few inches away—he sighs again, this time more resigned, and then goes slower, more careful, and manages to grab it and pull it closer. Just as slowly, he zips open the front pocket and pulls out a tied-up plastic bag. Harley keeps standing, watching with Ned and Michelle as Peter uses all of his focus to try and untie the bag.
After a solid minute, Harley huffs and grabs the bag himself, untying it and instinctively peering inside as he goes to hand it back, freezing instantly with his face twisting up. “What—What the hell is this?!”
Frowning again—though, this time, Peter looks entirely cognizant of the situation, a mixture of embarrassment and something defensive flashing in his eyes—he grumbles out, “My lunch.”
“This is a cheese stick,” Harley says. “And a low-sugar yogurt. With no spoon, by the way.”
Peter averts his eyes, shrugging. “It’s my lunch,” he says again. “I’m—limited, right now. Um… I mean, like, money-wise, and also—also, uh—carb intake. Trying to… keep it low.”
Confused, Harley looks Peter up and down—at the way his wrists are small enough to have his fingers overlap if he were to wrap his hands around them, at how frail he seems right now, still shaking, a sheen of sweat over his forehead, one arm wrapped around his stomach and a disgruntled sort of look painted over his face. “You,” Harley says slowly. “You are trying to keep it low on carbs. Stick boy.”
“Dude,” Ned says, looking borderline angry, giving Harley a look that, in Harley’s eyes, makes no sense, because none of this makes any sense to him. Peter is some kind of sick and needs to eat, and, with him being sick, the light foods he has packed are probably a good idea, especially with him looking queasy, but it’s kind of the principal of the matter, isn’t it? The fact that Peter, who could do with gaining some weight, is kind of on the unhealthy side of twig-ish, is limiting his carb intake? That doesn’t add up.
“Sorry,” Harley says anyway, because he doesn’t get it, sure, but that doesn’t mean he’s not somehow crossing a line or saying something that might be making him the asshole. “I’m just confused.”
Michelle, who has been watching the whole thing, always quiet and observing, usually finding the answer long before anyone else can figure it out themselves, let alone before it can be vocalized—she hums suddenly, a look of understanding crossing over her face. “He doesn’t know,” she says. “About you.”
This last part is aimed at Peter, who’s already looking down at the table with something vicious on his features, though Harley can’t quite tell if it’s viciously angry or viciously sad. “No,” he grits out.
“What do I not know?” Harley asks—before his brain reminds him that his nosiness isn’t a necessity, and he winces when his question makes him sound like the entitled kind of rich kid that his parents specifically raised him not to be. He sits down next to Peter, though there are a few feet between them on the bench, and tries again. “You don’t have to tell me, but I’m confused, and you look sick, so I’m also worried, and if whatever it is I don’t know is why you look sick then I’d like to know if that’s okay.”
The simmering borderline anger has vanished from Ned’s features now, replaced by a soft sort of support as he peers at Peter. Michelle is just looking now, clearly content to have said her piece and waiting to see if anyone needs her further—she seems uninterested most of the time, but there was once when some kid named Brad tripped Peter in the hall, and Harley saw a protective side of Michelle that’s scarier than anything he’s ever seen before, so he knows it’s just her resting look, not an actual lack of interest or lack of caring. Peter is still staring at the table, blinking harshly. Quietly, he says, “I hate this.”
Harley’s even more confused, and definitely more worried. He scoots closer. “What do you hate?”
So, here’s another layer.
He’s never been to a real school before this year, and he’s never made friends on his own before, either, not without his parents introducing them through their friends—but he has two little sisters, and Harley is good at comforting people because he’s the one that comforts them when their parents can’t. Which, to be fair, isn’t all that often, because they have the best parents around, in Harley’s humble opinion, but every once in a while, a kid doesn’t need their parent—they need space from their parent and someone else to step in, and Harley’s proud to say that his little sister’s always come to him when they don’t want to go to their dads. Sure, Morgan is literally a toddler, but still, this is kind of familiar, the whole, like, being a comforting presence thing, even though the rest of it isn’t.
“This,” Peter spits—angry, suddenly, and then slumped over and tired a moment later. He puffs out yet another sigh and looks up at Ned. “Do you still have the extra stuff in your backpack?”
“Yeah!” Ned is immediately on the move, turns to his bag and rifles through it, pulls out—
A chocolate bar. Huh. The confusion keeps growing stronger, but Harley’s not going to keep pushing for an answer, though he’s really, really hoping someone’s going to give him one anyway. Peter reaches out, his hand still visibly shaking, and grabs the bar of chocolate with the smallest of smiles, a barely-there twitch of his lips—struggles, for a few silent seconds, before using his teeth to tear open the wrapper. He breaks off a row and takes a square, all the while staring back down at the table. Harley’s trying not to stare at him, but he’s not all too sure where else to look—he’s just about to tear his eyes away when Peter finally speaks again, almost too soft to be heard in the noisy lunchroom. “So,” he starts, “I had a checkup after school yesterday. Miss Julia is still the best, but, uh—I could tell she was… not all that happy. Like, with my numbers, you know? They’re not down enough yet, even though I’ve been trying—”
Peter cuts off with a sharp inhale, eyes closing. He finishes off the row of his chocolate bar and grabs another one without looking, then lets his lashes part once more, seemingly calmed down.
“Anyway,” he goes on. “Basically, we had to bring up my carb ratio again, and raise my long-acting.”
He stops there as if he’s offered all the explanation he needs to—and, judging by the understanding that falls over both Ned’s and Michelle’s faces, it is, but Harley’s still not in the loop quite yet. “Um…”
“I’m diabetic,” Peter adds, even more quiet when he says it. He looks the same way he does when Brad turns the corner—like he’s waiting for something harsh, already ducking his head to hide his reaction.
“Oh,” Harley says. Admittedly, he doesn’t know much about that—it’s not something that’s come up, and he’s not taking AP Biology until next year (he’s only planning to take it to prove to Bruce that he can ace it without asking for help even once) and he’s pretty sure that’s something that’s getting covered in that class. Or he heard someone in that class mention something about diabetes in the hall the other day while walking by, and kind of assumed, but that’s not very solid evidence, in all fairness. Not knowing what else to say and feeling like asking what being diabetic means, exactly, will make him sound way too stupid for a certifiable genius, he instead asks, “So, then, how does changing your carb ratio and your long-acting make you all—” he gestures vaguely at Peter, intentionally keeping his question kind of open-ended, like he might actually know what he’s talking about, at least to an extent.
Which, to be fair, he’s definitely going to know by tomorrow, because if there’s anything he can guarantee as a Stark, it’s that he has a funny ability of dedicating his mind to one specific thing and becoming an expert in that one thing before sunrise the following day. So, he’s not necessarily lying, he’s just talking about something that he’s planning to learn about as soon as he gets home.
And he thinks it’s a good idea, asking the way he asks, because Peter looks up at him like he’s a whole different person. Like he’s never met someone who didn’t make a joke at his expense or ask a billion basic questions, or whatever other past experiences he may have had. So, point for Harley, maybe.
“Miss Julia—uh, my endocrinologist—she says,” Peter tells him, already perking up, just the slightest bit. He keeps eating the chocolate while he talks. The color is starting the return to his face. Harley realizes that he can breathe a little bit easier, all of a sudden, when he notices that little fact. “She says that my body kind of overreacts to sudden changes in insulin levels. I think she dumbs it down for me, even though I’m definitely smart enough to understand it all, but it’s alright. Basically, it’s like—like, every time my insulin intake is upped, my body is oversensitive to the added insulin and my blood sugar is constantly going low, even though I’m not doing anything else different. It’s only the first couple weeks, usually, and going low gives me a reason to snack more, but—still. Not fun, ‘especially the first day.”
It’s almost a little bit like whiplash, Harley thinks, how suddenly Peter seems to go from the lethargic, sad-looking, kind of angry version of himself that he was mere moments ago, to this… almost normal acting version. Or maybe just the normal that Harley is used to, because this is the only version Harley’s seen before today.
But it’s probably good that Harley’s starting to learn more. Especially the medical stuff, so that he can find out how he can help next time this happens, like how Ned had the chocolate bar in his bag.
“So, you feel better now, then?” Harley double-checks, despite the obvious.
“Until my blood sugar tanks again,” Peter answers. “Which will probably happen in an hour or so, since I have to give myself my insulin when I eat that yogurt, but I have some more low supplies in my locker, I think. I just forgot to grab it before second period and if I tried to grab them before third then I’d be late, and Miss Anderson is definitely going to give me detention if I’m late again, and I knew it wasn’t, like, deadly low, so…”
He shrugs. Michelle rolls her eyes, and Ned lets out a sigh, saying, “I know I can’t do more than carry the stuff to help you, but it makes me nervous when you say stuff like that, man. Like, what the hell?”
Harley tries not to let his features give away the fact that his heart is suddenly racing, because—
Did Peter just say deadly?
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So, here’s a fun fact—it’s not actually all that hard to die when you have diabetes.
Which is, like, super fun, right?
Harley is peering at his laptop screen through his glasses, forehead leaning into the palm of his left hand, elbow resting on the surface of his desk while his pen hovers over the notebook that he’s decided to dedicate to all of this. Which, when he first decided to do that, he had thought it was going to be a waste of half a notebook, because, surely, there’s no way being diabetic—type one, apparently, because there’s more than one type, and he had to text Peter to ask him and had tried to play it off like he figured as much but wanted to double check because he had just realized that Peter had never specified; pretty smooth on Harley’s part, he thinks—would mean that there’s enough information to fill an entire notebook, right? But he was an idiot to assume that, because holy fucking shit. Like, holy shit.
There’s a lot. A whole lot. And it’s actually pretty interesting to learn about until he suddenly jolts with the reminder that every single thing that he’s learning applies to the very first friend that he’s ever made on his own, and then it becomes very anxiety-inducing for the following twenty minutes, until the spiral of new information becomes distracting enough that it becomes interesting again—until the next random reminder makes him jolt once more. It’s a vicious cycle, really, that he would not recommend.
He finds out about ketoacidosis, what it means, and how dangerous it is. Also, hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia are easy to guess by simply looking at the damn words, but it’s a lot easier to just call them low blood sugar and high blood sugar, and it’s pretty fascinating to find out the exact science behind how human bodies metabolize foods and what insulin does—the key analogy (metaphor?) is probably the best one he reads that explains it well. As in, insulin is the key that unlocks and opens up cells like a door, letting carbs be processed into energy. Without the insulin, nothing is processed. As in, what comes in, goes straight out. As in, a person without insulin can eat and drink all day, but their body is still being deprived of all the food and water that it needs. It’s probably why Peter is so thin—his insulin dose is being upped ‘cause his sugar levels are high, and his sugar levels being high and him needing more insulin means that at least part of what he puts in his body isn’t being processed like it should, so the stored up muscle and stored up fat in Peter’s body is being burned up for energy in place of it.
Well, in theory, of course—Harley doesn’t know Peter’s actual medical situation. He doesn’t know when he got diagnosed, or how it went down, so he could very easily be off the mark. All he can do for now is make educated guesses, though he also spends a good thirty minutes reading through various people's diagnosis stories while anxiously biting at his nails. Reading up on diabetic comas and how concerningly frequent they apparently are is a terrifying thing—he has to take a break from it, actually, and goes to get a snack, of which he checks the carb count. Another fun fact: there are thirty carbs in five Trolli gummy worms, and it doesn’t say how many gummy worms are in the full pack, so he’d have to count them out himself to know, and that’s kind of stupid and not fair and he wants to call Trolli and tell them to fix it.
He polishes off his bag of gummy worms and wonders how many carbs it was all together, and then he picks up his pen, stretches his neck, and gets back to work, not caring about the time or the fact that he has school in the morning. He has a lot more to learn, and he won’t rest until he’s learned it all.
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“Alright,” Peter says. “Now you’re the one who looks sick.”
Harley squints at him, frowning. “You’re pale again.”
Letting out a laugh, Peter shakes his head, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. He holds up the yogurt in his hands—one that isn’t low sugar, with a plastic spoon sticking out. “I’m fixing it already.”
“Oh, good.” Harley’s shoulders relax—when did they even tense up?—and he smiles. “I’m not sick, though. I just stayed up pretty late doing some research. Which, by the way, I have to make a confession before I feel really, really guilty about it.” Immediately, Peter looks suspicious, eyes narrowing a bit, grabbing his plastic spoon and taking a slow and cautious bite of his yogurt. Harley takes a deep breath, and then sorrowfully admits, “I know I made it sound like I already knew about what diabetes is yesterday, but I actually didn’t. Like, at all. But the only reason I made it sound like I did is because I was already planning to learn about it as soon as you said you had it, and you looked like you were expecting me to react badly or something, so I figured that, since I was gonna learn about it as soon as possible anyway and me sounding like I already knew might make you feel better, then it would be okay!”
Peter keeps looking at him for a second, and then snorts, loud and unabashed, having to drop his spoon in his yogurt to bring the newly freed hand up to his mouth, probably worried about the yogurt he has yet to swallow coming out as he struggles to keep in a bout of laughter. His swallow is audible, and then his hand drops, and he snorts again, laughing shamelessly. “Oh my god,” he says between chortles. “Harley, it was so obvious that you were faking it! You looked clueless the entire time I was talking!”
The thing is, Harley’s been raised by a billionaire who, despite keeping him mostly out of the spotlight, still taught him how to keep his composure just in case a situation ever arises that it might come in handy. Despite him being literally trained to be able to keep a straight face and show no reaction to things, Harley can’t help but flush in embarrassment, stammering and stumbling over his words for a moment before letting out a huff, throwing out his hands and exclaiming, “Why’d you let me do that, then?!”
“It was sweet!” Peter tells him, still chuckling, but his grin stretches ear to ear, wide and genuine. Though he had been a bit pale upon Harley’s arrival, his blood sugar is already rising, apparently, ‘cause the paleness is already starting to go away—aided, no doubt, by the laughing fit bringing a bit of red to the apples of his cheeks. Harley can’t find it in himself to be even remotely upset. “Like, you were trying so hard. How cute was that, man? I couldn’t just say to your face that I could tell you were lying to me.”
“You definitely could have,” Harley grumbles, even though he’s also smiling, just a little bit. “Maybe then I could have just asked you to tell me how it all works instead of filling my notebook with a bunch of facts and shit like I’m planning to do some sort of college-level essay on it. Which, by the way, I could totally do now, ‘cause I think I learned literally every possible thing that I could. I’m an expert now. Or as much of an expert as I can be without actually having or experiencing it. You’re lucky I like you.”
Peter’s a little shit who reaches forward and pinches Harley’s cheek. “Aw,” he coos. “You care so much.”
Harley swats his hand away, rolling his eyes. “Unfortunately,” he says. “Now eat your stupid yogurt.”
“What’s wrong with my yogurt?”
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Another fun fact: Harley really does care.
Like... Like. A whole fuckin’ lot.
2 – even good changes can have bad results
The first time Harley notices it is also the first time Peter comes over to the tower.
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“Don’t be weird,” he says, hands propped up on his hips, glare settled on his dad as the man stirs a pot of pasta sauce. A really large pot of pasta sauce, matter of fact. It’s like he’s planning to feed fifteen people, but Harley has to admit that seven is kind of a lot, so he doesn’t comment on it. “I’m serious.”
Tony rolls his eyes, throwing Harley an incredulous look. “I get it,” he responds, a laugh mixed in with his words. “You gave us the whole lecture last night, Harley. He’s your first best friend. We’ll be on our best behavior.”
“I know they will,” Harley agrees, flinging a hand out to indicate the rest of their family that currently aren't in the kitchen with them. “It’s you I’m worried about. You flirt with adults as a joke, and I’m worried you’re going to flirt with his aunt and they’re going to think that you’re being serious and it’ll make them uncomfortable, and if that happens then I’m going to cry, ‘cause if Peter doesn’t like it here then he might never want to come over again and then my first proper friendship will be ruined.”
“Oh my god,” Tony says, exasperated. “I always forget how dramatic you are. And it’s my fault. You got it from me.”
Harley stares at him expectantly.
Tony rolls his eyes again. “Fine,” he relents. “I promise not to flirt with his aunt.”
Satisfied, Harley nods. “Good,” he says before spinning around to leave the room, planning to have a stern talking with Morgan about not throwing spaghetti onto his friend or his friend's aunt—she may not even be a year old yet, but he swears she’s smarter than the rest of them already—before stopping and looking back, eyes narrowed. “You remembered to keep track of the carb count, right?”
“Jarvis is keeping track for me,” Tony assures.
“An exact measurement unit will be provided as well, Young Sir,” Jarvis says.
Harley relaxes, relieved. “Thanks,” he breathes, finally feeling like this might actually go some semblance of okay. Like, he didn’t think it was gonna go horrible—his family is pretty cool, after all, and he’s pretty proud of them—but they’re also, like, famous, and sometimes people have an expectation of how they should act, and when they don’t meet that expectation, it scares them away. Harley doesn’t want his first proper best friend to be scared away. He might actually die.
Plus, he pulled an all-nighter to learn about Peter’s illness, and it’d suck to have all that information go to waste, even if it was also interesting to learn about. He learned it all for a reason, damn it.
“Alright, Morgs,” he says, picking up his baby sister and carrying her over to her highchair at the dining room table. The Parker’s should be here any minute and dinner is almost done, so he figures it’ll be productive to have this talk with her while getting her buckled in. “I need you to listen closely, okay?”
She blows a raspberry at him, but her eyes are attentive. He thinks that means she’s listening.
He nods. “Good. So, here’s the deal—”
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Even though Harley warned them, his dads still do a—thankfully subtle—double take when Peter pulls out a vial and a syringe. Harley shoots them a glare, then recites how many carbs there are on Peter’s plate proudly, having made sure to ask Jarvis beforehand and going as far as to write it on a sticky note and hide it under his napkin, just to make sure he didn’t forget. Peter does the math quickly in his head, brows furrowed, then squints at the syringe as he very, very slowly draws out his insulin.
Conversation has picked up around them, so no one else is paying attention—Olivia is making sure Morgan doesn’t make too much of a mess, and May is chatting pleasantly with Tony and Rhodey, so it’s just Peter and Harley who are aware of the fact that Peter is taking a lot longer to do this than he usually does.
“Uh.” Harley keeps his voice low, not wanting to draw anyone’s attention. “Pete?”
Peter sighs, shaking his head. “Sorry, just—I don’t know. I think I need new glasses or something.”
“Oh,” Harley says, looking between the pinched look on Peter's face and the way he keeps redoing his attempt at withdrawing the insulin. Thankfully, the table isn’t all too big, despite repeated expectations that Harley's heard from people in the past, and it’s shaped like a square, so they’re the only ones that are sitting on this side. No one else can see the fact Peter hasn’t even given himself his injection yet. Not that Harley’s dads would realize that taking this long is abnormal, but May would definitely catch on real quick. “Do you need help?”
“No, I—” Peter squints a moment longer, then, apparently satisfied, tucks his insulin back into his kit and is quick in giving himself the injection. He looks up, like he’s assuming that everyone’s been watching the whole time, then relaxes when he realizes that no one else seems to have noticed.
Harley is still looking at him, frowning in thought. “So, like, your eyesight—”
Peter picks up his fork, syringe tucked away and kit shoved under his thigh for the time being. “Is getting worse,” he finishes, taking a bite. He chews for a moment, looks pleased by what he’s eating, then turns to Harley. “It’s not uncommon, and I guess my dad had really bad eyesight, too, and it seemed to get worse when he was about my age, so it’s probably partially genetic. Plus, with my blood sugar being so high for so long before I got diagnosed, it makes sense for there to be some kind of side effect. It’s not a big deal. May said she’ll schedule an eye exam for me as soon as possible.”
It’s not that Harley doesn’t believe that Peter’s telling the truth, but, in complete honesty, he’s pretty damn observant, and he seems to pay a lot more attention to Peter than he does to most other things and definitely most other people. So, Harley would have noticed the gradual kind of shift that usually comes from someone’s eyesight getting a little bit worse, but just a few days ago, it seemed totally fine. This feels like too quick of a change—but what does he know?
He bites his tongue for now and eats his food, focusing on making the evening a good one.
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He shouldn’t have bitten his tongue.
At first, Peter doesn’t seem all that concerned—like he did at dinner, he dismisses it as just needing an updated glasses prescription and calls it a day. But it’s like, with every day that passes, it gets worse. And that’s not an exaggeration, either. It’s literally a day-by-day thing. On Monday, Peter walks the halls at school fairly normally, maybe squinting more to read the board but otherwise alright. On Tuesday, he frowns when trying to follow along while taking notes, but he’s still able to keep up. Wednesday is about the same, he’s just a little bit slower, and then a little slower on Thursday, and slower still on Friday. Harley doesn’t get to see him over the weekend, but the next week is worse, and the week after that Peter struggles to maneuver down the halls. Harley wants to ask about it, but when he gets to school on Monday, about three weeks after the topic of Peter’s eyesight was first brought to Harley’s attention, Peter doesn’t show up, and Harley has a feeling he knows why, so he kind of gets impulsive.
As in, he waits by Peter’s locker, planted in that spot until first period starts, and then he marches right out the front door, the Parker’s address plugged into his phone, following the directions it gives him.
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Peter isn’t looking at him.
Okay, well, correction—Peter is trying to look at him, but he can’t seem to get it exactly right. Harley is standing just a few feet away from him, shifting his weight from foot to foot, clutching the straps of his backpack anxiously, and Peter is squinting at him like he can’t tell who’s standing there. Harley swallows roughly and cautiously prompts, “Peter?”
“It’s fine,” is Peter’s instant response, averting his unfocused gaze downward, fingers fiddling in his lap as he sits cross-legged on the bottom bunk in his room. Harley isn’t sure if he’s saying it to convince Harley or himself, but he just swallows and nods, even though Peter isn’t looking and can’t see him, and maybe still wouldn’t be able to see him even if he were looking. “I just, uh—the elevator’s broken, and with my vision kind of… getting, y’know, a lot worse really quickly, um—May called the school to tell them I won’t be coming this week and had my eye exam moved up to this Friday. So, I should get new glasses soon, and then it’ll be—um. It’ll be fine. Probably. Definitely.”
There’s a bruise on his cheek and a scrape on his elbow. Harley sucks in a breath. “Did you fall?”
Peter doesn’t respond for a minute, until: “Elevator’s broken, so…”
“Oh my god, you fell down the stairs,” Harley breathes, feeling somewhere between hysteric and manic at the thought of it—picturing, in his head, Peter, with his eyes as unfocused as they are now, struggling to blink through whatever sort of haze he’s been seeing through for weeks now, maybe looking down at the steps, maybe trusting his instincts to get it right, and then tripping, or slipping, or—
Peter sighs. “I just slid down a couple of ‘em. May was right behind me, so it’s not like I was alone or anything, and at least we aren’t in our old building that had the concrete steps. Just wooden ones.”
Shaking his head, Harley steps forward, hesitating for only a moment before dropping his backpack on the floor and sitting beside Peter. “Alright,” he says. “I don’t know why you’re insisting on acting like it’s all good and dandy, but if I’m freaking out right now, then I can’t even imagine how you’re feeling. If you don’t want to talk about it, or if you—I don’t know, if you really aren’t worried and I’m just being overbearing and paranoid because you’re literally my first and my closest friend, then just tell me and I’ll try to calm down, but—but, if you’re afraid, or stressed, or anything, you don’t have to hide it for my sake. This is scaring me. I’m scared. And I left school to come here because I want to be here for you.”
For a long, drawn-out moment, there’s a heavy sort of silence, broken only by the sound of May moving around in the kitchen. Peter is fiddling with the frayed out strands coming from a hole in the right knee of his pajama pants, lips thinning as he presses them together, before puffing out another sigh, this one heavier as he brings up a hand and puts it over his eyes. “I just…” he trails off. “Going blind is like—a thing. For people with diabetes. It happens, enough that diabetics have to have special diabetic eye exams once a year to check for eye issues, and it’s even more likely if a diabetic's blood sugar is always high, and—and I don’t even know how long my blood sugar was high before I was diagnosed, and we’ve been working on bringing my levels down, but it’s like every time I get them in range for a week, I have two weeks where they aren’t, and it’s not like there’s anything I can do about it now, but what if I’m going blind?”
Harley stays quiet and listens as Peter takes in a slightly shuddering breath.
“I don’t… I don’t want to go blind,” Peter whispers, and then he hunches over and cries.
The thing is, Harley has known Peter Parker for about three and a half months now. Which, really, isn’t a whole lot of time, in retrospect—but in Harley’s mind, he thinks Peter Parker is probably his favorite person in the entire world outside of his immediate family, and he’s done everything in his power to make this fact clear. By being a good friend, and showing that he trusts Peter (more than he probably should for such a short time, but they’re fifteen, and he can’t place why, but he’s so damn sure that this, that the two of them, will be something kind of like forever), and trying to make it clear that Peter can trust him, and they’ve been making their way down this path—slowly but surely opening up these doors, allowing one another to see behind the jokes and the smiles and the good days, because it isn’t always good days, and the bad days can get really bad, and Harley wants to be here to help Peter with his, just like he knows Peter wants to be there to help Harley on his bad days, too.
And this is a bad day, the first one that Harley is really, properly here for, so he doesn’t hesitate to show that he can handle it, that he wants to handle it, that he’s committed to being best friends with Peter Parker and everything that Peter Parker is. He reaches out and pulls Peter towards him and feels both horribly sad and horribly relieved when Peter actually moves his arms to wind them around Harley’s shoulders and clings to him, nose pressing into the side of his neck and muffled cries barely held back.
“You’ll survive this,” Harley tells him, short and simple—even though his words waver and his hands shake, and he thinks he might be crying just as much as Peter is. “Just like you’ve survived everything else. And if you go blind, you’ll learn to live with it, and be happy, and it’ll end up being okay. But you don’t know for sure yet, alright? So, just—just, be scared, that’s okay, and let it out, and when you think you’re ready, I’m gonna need to borrow some sweatpants ‘cause we’re gonna have a lazy day today.”
“I—” Peter chokes on something, and then dissolves completely, hiccupping harsh and choked off as he curls his knees up into his chest, wedges them up between himself and Harley, somehow, and even though it’s a little bit uncomfortable, Harley doesn’t complain or try to move him in any way. Just lets it happen and hugs him however he needs to be hugged and lets him cry and thinks:
i promise i’m staying right here. for now, forever—however long you want me.
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There are green beans on his plate. He loves green beans.
He can’t stomach the thought of them tonight.
“I want to go with Peter to his eye exam,” he tells the room—not a person, specifically. Just in general. It isn’t a question, either, because he isn’t sure if it’s even possible to make happen. Just something he wants to do, because he can’t get the image out of his head, can’t stop hearing the fear in Peter’s voice.
When he looks up, Rhodey is looking at him. His sisters are gone and Tony is nowhere to be seen. He’s been sitting here longer than he thought, then—pushing his food back and forth, deep in thought, long enough that one of his dads is getting his younger sisters ready for bed, while he still sits here. And Rhodey, head tilted to the side, just responds with, “Alright. Why do you want to do that?”
Harley presses his lips together, brows furrowed. “’Cause… I—I wanna be there for him, I guess.”
“You can be there for him after,” Rhodey says. “Why do you want to go with him to the actual exam?”
This is something that Rhodey is quite good at—among millions of other things, just like Tony is good at millions of things, but they both have their strengths as parents that the other isn’t quite as strong at. Rhodey is good at narrowing down reasoning, at getting down to the root of the problem with a patience that Tony sometimes isn’t able to maintain for quite as long. Tony is the problem fixer, while Rhodey is the problem finder. Harley shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he murmurs. “I just—I—I know he doesn’t have a whole lot of support, like, uh—like—May, and Ned, and MJ, and me, and that’s it, and…”
Rhodey nods at him, encouraging him to go on, to keep following this train of thought that he’s on.
“And,” Harley continues slowly, unsure yet determined all the same. “I… I think it’ll show that I’m really in this, y’know? Like, I—I know that Ned and MJ are his best friends, obviously, and I’m not trying to say that I’m suddenly better friends with him than they are, but I… I just think that—that, since I’m new to being his friend, if I go with him and I’m there for him, it’ll show that I really do care and that I'm committed to being his best friend, too, even when bad and scary things are happening. Plus, I don’t think there’s a point in me going to school that day when I’ll just be checking my phone until someone either tells me how it went or I can go to his apartment to find out myself.”
The ends of Rhodey’s lips twitch up, just slightly. “You get that kind of honesty from your father,” he muses. “The kind where you say that you aren’t going to do the thing you’re supposed to do. But the rest of that? All me. And I have to talk to him first, and May, obviously, but if they’re both okay with it, then I have no problem with you going. Just remember—” he leans forward, just a bit. “This isn’t your life that might be changing, okay? It’s scary for you, and it might get overwhelming, and that’s fine, but if you want to go with him to his appointment then you need to make sure you’re ready to let it only be about him.”
Harley sits up straighter, squares his shoulders, and nods. “I know,” he says.
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So, eye exam rooms aren’t really made to hold three people plus an optometrist. It’s kind of a tight squeeze, especially since Harley refuses to move from one of Peter’s sides. Or, at the very least, he refuses to move far enough away to have to let go of his hand, because he had offered to let Peter hold it while navigating the parking lot after Peter had bumped into a few too many cars, and he hasn’t let go since, so Harley doesn’t plan to, either. The optometrist—well, no, it isn’t the optometrist yet, but the nurse, or are they nurses? do they have different titles? the people who come in before the optometrist to make sure you’re ready for the optometrist like a nurse does at a doctor’s appointment—seems a bit confused by this, but she doesn’t try to make Harley move or leave the room, so it’s alright.
And then it isn’t alright.
The nurse (Harley’s just going to go with nurse to make it easier in his mind; her nametag says Tammy) is going through the basic steps that always happen before an eye exam and is just going to shine a light in Peter’s eyes to check the backs of them when she falters. It’s not for long—barely noticeable, really, if not for Harley overanalyzing every single second of her body language—before she goes to look at the next eye, then checks one more time in each, before stepping back with a semi-forced smile.
Judging by how pale Peter is, Harley isn’t the only one who’s noticed, even as Tammy the eye nurse claps lightly and says a cheerful, “Alright! Well, that should be good. I’ll go get Dr. Owens for you, okay?”
“Thank you,” May says kindly, but Harley is preoccupied because Peter is squeezing Harley’s hand so hard that he might actually be breaking it. Not that Harley’s complaining—bones heal, it’s whatever, Peter deserves to let the stress out right about now—but he is concerned. “Hey,” he says. “You okay?”
Stupid question, really. Peter’s lower lip wobbles. He’s looking in the vague direction of the wall, where the seeing eye chart is, and seems to be gazing longingly at the top row. “I’m going blind,” he mumbles, voice a garbled-out mess that gets pushed out with a humorless sort of laugh. “That’s it.”
Harley doesn’t know the best way to respond. “Well,” he tries. “You don’t know anything for sure yet. If you are, though, then we’ll make it work. If not, I’m going to laugh at you for being wrong.”
“Asshole,” Peter says, laughing again—a bit of a real one this time, which is all that Harley wanted, but it doesn’t take long before his semi-real laugh tapers off into quiet sniffles and the occasional hiccup, shoulders shaking with silent sobs. May moves over to his other side quickly, pulls her into his chest and looks a clueless sort of heartbroken. Peter turns into her, weeping.
Harley holds Peter’s hand in a firm grip, hoping it provides something solid to rely on.
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When all is said and done, Dr. Owens laughs something incredulous and sympathetic and almost relieved for Peter’s sake. “Well,” she says. “That’s rare, but nothing that we can’t fix.”
Peter damn near cries again, and Harley almost joins him.
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So. Acute Onset Diabetic Cataracts. That’s a thing.
Harley has his nifty Know Everything About Peter’s Health Condition(s?) notebook out, pen in hand and glasses on. The main lights to his room are off, but he’s got a wax melt on that melts the wax with a little light bulb providing some nice warm lighting, and a custom-built lamp on his desk set to the lowest setting so that he can still see what he’s writing without his eyes being bombarded by too much light.
Eyes. Fucking eyes, man.
What he’s got so far is that acute conditions, in the medical field, are severe and sudden in onset. And onset, in the medical field, is the initial existence or symptoms of a disease. So, acute onset, put together like that in the medical field, means that the event in question has to occur spontaneously with basically no warning in advance. Which, in this case, feels pretty damn accurate, because Peter thought he just needed new glasses but now he’s legally blind until he can get his cataract surgeries done.
It’s also moments like these that remind Harley of the fact that he was raised by two rich dads in a rich family who has a medical team on standby, because May isn’t even sure if their insurance will cover one cataract surgery, let alone two, and if this were happening to Harley he’d probably already be in recovery right now, drinking juice boxes and watching TV.
But that’s not the point. At least, it isn’t the point right now.
Right now, he’s learning about this. Cataracts. Diabetics with cataracts, specifically. Except there isn’t a whole lot to learn, really—it isn’t unheard of, but it isn’t common, either. It’s especially less common for a fifteen-year-old kid, and Harley thinks that whatever higher power that’s potentially out there targeting Peter needs to come out and have a talk, but other than that, it’s not like Harley can pull an all-nighter doing a bunch of research like he did before, filling page after page.
When it comes down to it, based on his research and what Dr. Owens said, this is what he’s got:
Peter went who knows how long as an undiagnosed diabetic where his body got used to his blood sugar being who knows how high. Even if his sugar levels aren’t perfect now, usually above the average target goal, they still dropped significantly in a relatively short time, and, as anyone with a basic understanding of human physiology knows, super sudden changes can have detrimental effects on a body, even if the changes are technically good.
As in, Peter brought his blood sugar down too fast, his body got confused, or overwhelmed, or something. Even though he improved his health, he’s been rewarded with cataracts.
Harley writes bullshit at the bottom of the page.
He underlines it four times and calls it a night.
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Before Harley can bring it up, Tony does it himself, inviting May and Peter over for dinner one night—a rarity for Peter to leave his apartment with him being legally blind right now—and waiting until everyone’s taken exactly one bite before saying, “So, I talked to our medical team.”
“Oh my god,” Rhodey sighs, rolling his eyes. “Don’t just drop it on them, Tones.”
“Wh—” Tony splutters, looking offended. “I didn’t drop it on them! If I was dropping it on them, I’d just say, hey, we’re gonna have Peter do his surgeries here, free of charge, but that’s not what I said!”
Rhodey gives him a pointed look. “Tony.”
Although Harley is elated to hear that the idea he was planning to suggest is already on the table, he has to admit that this delivery is not ideal, watching as the realization crosses his dad's face before glancing nervously over at the Parker’s. May looks shocked, Peter frozen with a bite of salad poised in the air. “Well,” Tony says. “Now I dropped it on them.” He points at Rhodey. “And I blame you for it.”
“Wait a second.” May holds up a hand, the other curled around her fork so tight that her knuckles are white. There’s a furrow to her brows, a firm, thinned-out line where her lips press together, something emotional yet overwhelmingly wary in her eyes. “Why are you… What’s the catch here?”
“There's no catch,” Rhodey assures her. “We think you two are great and deserve the medical treatment that you need, insurance be damned. Plus, I think it’s clear our boys aren’t planning to stop being friends, and in our family, we make a point to do what we can to help the people we care about, and that includes the two of you.”
Peter shakes his head slowly, eyes glazed over—literally, cataracts so thick that they’re visible to the naked eye, like a film of something foggy on an early morning—and unfocused. “That’s too much,” he murmurs, looking a bit overwhelmed. “I mean, I—I just—I don’t know. That’s just… I…” He stops, puffing out something stuck between a sigh, a laugh, and what could be a dry sob. Morgan mashes her hands on the tray of her highchair, filling in the short gap of silence, until eventually he settles on saying, “I can’t ask for that."
“It’s an offer,” Tony points out. He then points to himself. “I also have billions of dollars. Literally.”
Rhodey muffles, “Jesus Christ,” into his cup as he gets a drink of water.
Harley can’t help but grin.
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After the first surgery, they think it’s okay until it isn’t, because apparently Peter doesn’t need as much anesthetic as he was given, and the first few hours are absolute hell. Of course, Harley is there for it all, helping as they try to get Peter to eat crackers, checking his blood sugar, and getting him to sip at some juice because his levels keep wanting to crash like a goddamn freight train.
But he comes to life again, eventually. He takes a nap, wakes up, and blinks with clarity.
Well, half clarity.
“Holy shit,” he says, grinning at Harley dopily, left eye looking normal and in focus. “I can see you.”
Harley covers his right eye with the palm of his hand and asks, “Is this how you’re feeling right now?”
Peter glares at him, but it’s worth the way he laughs.
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They give him less of the anesthetic for his second surgery, so it’s better. Just enough to make him loopy and out of it without the sickness and all the bad things that came with the first one. Peter murmurs incoherently for a long time, nonsensical strings of words that don’t make sentences when put together, scraps of sound that connect the pieces of completely different puzzles, not quite fitting. May is getting food ready for Peter to munch on, so it’s just Harley sitting with him for now.
“You’re an asshole,” Harley tells him seriously. “And I think caring about you is going to be very scary sometimes.”
Peter reaches a hand out to him with bleary—yet clear, absolutely and completely clear—eyes, obviously having not heard what Harley said, blinking at him in some kind of confusion. “Wha’?”
Harley sighs, takes Peter’s hand in his, and says, “If you go blind again, I’ll kick your ass.”
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Dear Fifteen-Year-Old Harley,
There is, in fact, a way for vision to get all wonky again post-cataract surgery. It's a super fun thing called posterior capsular opacification, though it can also be referred to as a secondary cataract. Basically, cataracts are cloudy patches that form on a person's natural lend in their eyes, so to have them treated, those lenses are then surgically removed and replaced with an intraocular lens, aka an IOL, which are clear and will restore the vision of the person having the surgery. This is when the secondary cataract comes in.
Don't panic! I mean, you probably will anyway, because I'm literally you and I had multiple anxiety spirals when Peter's vision started getting fuzzy again, but let me explain, okay? Secondary cataracts are not the return of the cataracts that had been there. Cataracts can't form on artificial lenses, which is what the IOL's are. Secondary cataracts are only called secondary cataracts because they can make vision fuzzy and are a pretty common complication after having cataract surgery. It can develop as early as a few months after the surgery is done, or it can form years later. Of course, with Peter's luck, it took longer--long enough for all of us to jump to conclusions and panic over nothing. Basically, the real lenses are taken out and the IOL's are put in, but the capsules in the eyes that the original lenses were in stay the same. Secondary cataracts are basically just cloudy patches that form on the capsule as part of the healing process. Thankfully, there's no serious surgery needed to fix them, just a super fast laser treatment that takes literally, like, not even five minutes, so it's a quick and easy fix!
Still, it would have been nice to have this one written down before freaking out over nothing. Hopefully you handle the whole ordeal better than I did.
Sincerely,
Twenty-One-Year-Old Harley
P.S. There's also a thing called floaters. They're considered debris from the laser treatment, and sometimes additiona surgery can be utilized to get rid of them, but Peter actually got kind of lucky on that one. He has floaters, but they're not frequent and they're not big. Pete says that it's like a bug flying in front of his face at random intervals. Sometimes he doesn't notice them for weeks at a time because of how little they impact him. That's a good thing, obviously, but the reason I'm saying this now is because it still makes me jump when he suddenly tries to swat at a fly that isn't there, so maybe a little bit of a heads up will make it easier for you.