21

Chapter 21: stress is overrated but here we are

Notes:

1) Early update because my exams happen in a week and a bit and I want to update before I disappear :(

2) Check out my MCU x USM crossover! bruised being, healing heart

3) Enjoy the chapter and leave a kudos and comment!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

His head throbbed as someone shook him to consciousness, their voice muttering frantically as something -foil- rustled on his left side. Ned's voice finally filtered through his mushy brain and he squinted, weakly pressing his lips together as he forced himself to wake up.

Ned's living room lights were dimmed and there was something soft propping his head up -a cushion?- as he realised he was lying against the sofa. When had he been dragged here?

"Ned…why am I here?" He mumbled, glancing to the side to see his water bottle and a discarded pile of protein bars by his knee.

Ned was by his side, worry lines on his forehead showing as he fussed over him. He handed him an unwrapped protein bar, handing it to him with a trembling hand that he did not dare comment on.

Guilt pressed onto his chest as he realised he had caused Ned to worry even though he didn't fully remember why. All he could recall was feeling weak before somehow ending up on the floor as darkness closed in on his vision.

"Dude," Ned replied as concern and mild anger ran through his voice. "You collapsed in the dining room. When was the last time you ate?"

Tensing as he tried to stop his body from curling in on itself, partially because he was too weak to and partially because he didn't want to worry Ned any more than he had, he ate some of the protein bar before replying. Was he trying to stall the inevitable? Yes.

"I ate this morning," he replied weakly as Ned gave him a questioning look as if to say, 'do you think I'm stupid?'.

"And what did you eat?"

He swallowed another bite. "An apple."

"When was the last time you ate a full meal for your metabolism?"

He paused, finally thinking through the past few days. Wednesday had been spent eating whatever leftovers there were and an apple and a protein bar after he had returned from patrol. Thursday had been very hectic after he had woken up late after a bad patrol and he had forgotten to bring anything with him. Lab weekend had been cancelled since Tony had a trip to some conference in London so he had eaten some leftover pizza after going to Delmar's.

"Uh…" He hesitated. "Maybe Tuesday?"

Ned's shoulders sagged at his reply before he handed him his water bottle and another unwrapped protein bar. "How many extra shifts has May taken?"

"A lot. I don't think I've seen her return home since Thursday." Ned frowned as Peter practically demolished his next protein bar before drinking something and relaxing as his stomach felt full for the first time in a few days.

"Is she going to be back tonight?"

"Probably not. I think she texted me earlier saying she would be home tomorrow afternoon."

Ned sighed. "Okay, you're staying here tonight."

"What?" He struggled to sit upright as his eyes widened. "No, it's fine. I'll be okay by tomorrow!"

"You literally collapsed a few minutes ago!" Ned exclaimed as he gestured in the direction of the dining room. "You're not gonna take the bus or train after what happened with the warehouse and I don't want you to walk home if you can barely stand. And don't think I'm above calling Tony if you won't listen to me."

He hated when Ned fretted over him. Not because he didn't like his friend's concern -it was heart-warming considering how much shit they had been through- but because he had done something bad and was the cause of Ned's stress.

Sometimes he couldn't help how he managed his exam stress and it resulted in bad habits he hadn't learned to push out.

The threat to call Tony…Ned would follow through with it. If it came between his wants and his health, Ned would choose his health because he was probably being a 'self-sacrificing idiot' or something along the lines of that.

He didn't want Tony to fret over him any more than he was already, especially after the aftermath of the fight with Dmitri. It had taken him a couple of days to stop coughing and getting dizzy spells and one of them had occurred in the lab. It wasn't a pleasant experience to say the least.

He groaned, pulling himself up after he slid against the sofa before reluctantly nodding. "Fine, I'll stay. Lola is fine with it?"

Net snorted. "She loves it when you stay over, she'll have no problem with it."

After dragging himself onto the sofa, he allowed himself to curl into the corner and doze off, exhaustion from the day tempting him to sleep while his body absorbed the influx of nutrients the protein bars provided.

Maybe he needed to dial everything back. Defeating multiple criminals with high level technology who wanted to kill him was no small feat but he hadn't taken much of a break and had driven himself into the ground with all of the responsibility. Not that he would stop patrolling – that would be stupid.

But there was only so much he can do in the time he had and running himself ragged would not be the greatest idea. Michelle would tell him the same thing and Ned's frustrated aura told him enough.

Drifting in and out of consciousness was nice. Warmth surrounded him and at some point he woke up with something soft -a blanket- covering him which he knew hadn't been on him before.

The rest of the night went by in a sleepy haze after Ned had woken him up to eat some soup before sending him upstairs to change and fall asleep in the blow up bed.

Exams had passed in a blur of stress and sleep deprivation -he had taken a long nap once he had come back home on his final day- but he had made it to the summer holidays relatively unscathed. Internship days continued and he and Tony moved onto playing around with nanobots in the lab to see what else they could apply the new technology.

Tadashi had been implemented into the medbay after Helen Cho had approved the use of the AI and he had spent an afternoon watching Helen use Tadashi for assistance in surgery whilst Tony had been on a conference call.

He couldn't believe the AI he had adapted had been used for something other than his suit! He was pretty sure Tony had asked FRIDAY to take a picture of him grinning from ear to ear after Helen had finished her surgery successfully.

"Hey kid," Tony said as he finished uploading Karen to one of the databases. He had realised he didn't have access to her in any of the suits he made in the future, specifically the one he made when he fought Beck, and had wanted to keep her with him in the future.

"Yeah?" He replied before he opened his water bottle and drank some water.

"What do you think about going to Wakanda?"

He almost did a spit take, his heart skipping a beat as he choked on water and turned to face Tony.

"Huh? Like going to Wakanda where the royal family is and seeing advanced their tech is-" he rambled, barely catching Tony's fond smile.

"Yeah, all of that jazz. I've been invited by King T'Challa to settle a few business matters and wondered if you'd want to come with me."

"Holy shit, of course!" He exclaimed, his face finally cooling down after choking. He would get to see Wakanda, one of the most exclusive places on Earth even after it had revealed itself to the world. The place that had vibranium in excess and used it for technological advancements that Western society hadn't caught up to yet!

Wait, would he get the chance to meet Princess Shuri? He knew she was smart, definitely smarter than him and probably smarter than Tony, and headed the majority of Wakanda's scientific endeavours. Some speculation on Reddit suggested she was a massive memelord but he wasn't sure about that.

Wait…his and Stephen's plan to get the Mind stone extracted safely from Vision's head could happen! They didn't have to wait until everything was falling apart and with luck they could persuade the Royal Family to store the Mind stone somewhere secure in Wakanda. T'Challa had been one of Tony's allies during the battle at the airport, maybe he would understand and help?

"Wait, would May be okay with it?" He asked, flashes of his slightly illegal trip to Berlin in his mind. May had gone on a whole tirade once she had realised what the true purpose of his trip was after she had found out his identity. Lots of yelling ensued and he had narrowly avoided her screaming at Tony over the phone, even if it was a very understandable reaction. Billionaires don't usually take teenagers out of the country to fight a personal battle.

"Don't worry about it, I asked her and had everything sorted out. Think of it as a a holiday." Tony smirked as Peter practically jumped out of his seat and bounced over to the billionaire.

He mindlessly hugged Tony, his heart racing from excitement as his 'thank you's merged with rambling went on about what could be in Wakanda since he had never been before. What would the architecture be like? How did they integrate technology into their everyday lives? What kind of goods did they sell except from vibranium?

He froze when Tony voluntarily embraced him for the first time in years.

Warmth enveloped him and he swallowed the lump in his throat. Receiving the comfort he craved the most from the person who had been out of reach for years filled one of the chasms in his heart. It wasn't one of the pats on the shoulder or back or one of the side hugs Tony used whenever he tried to comfort him when he was in medbay. It was a genuine embrace.

"We're there now?" He mumbled, the embarrassing moment in the car coming to his mind.

"We're there now," Tony softly confirmed.

Sprinting into the Sanctum, he skidded to a stop when he saw the Cloak of Levitation floating in the kitchen, one of its ends pouring a carton of milk into a mug -hey, it was the one he bought Stephen for Christmas!- before it levitated to the side.

"I need some sort of bingo for the weird stuff I see," he mumbled as he made his way to the kitchen.

Stephen stirred his coffee with a spoon before placing it in the sink and turning to face Peter, raising an eyebrow at his disturbed expression.

"What?" Stephen asked as he sipped his coffee. "Cloak is in a helpful mood."

"Isn't it always?"

"It's a very dedicated garment," Stephen replied as Cloak settled on his shoulders, billowing proudly as he strolled towards Peter. "I have good news and I have bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?"

"The bad news?"

"The Collector refused to move the Reality Stone somewhere safer than wherever he's displaying it and currently it's not morally sound for me to steal it."

"There's a morally sound time to steal?" He asked incredulously. "Imagine me telling that to one of the thieves on patrol! I'd sound crazy."

Stephen looked at him exasperatedly. "Do you want the good news or are you going to continue talking?" He shut his mouth. "The good news is that the Nova Corps have taken my warning seriously and have increased security around Xandar to prevent the Power Stone from being taken."

He hoped the Nova Corps were good space protectors. Thanos had fought a telekinetic witch and the God of Thunder twice and still won. Still, they needed all the help they could get and it sounded like they could delay Thanos coming to Earth for a few months.

"I have some more good news then," he said. "Tony has a trip for Wakanda scheduled in two weeks and asked if I wanted to go with him."

"I'm assuming you said yes?"

"Of course! Wakanda is so much more technologically advanced than here and Princess Shuri is one of the smartest people in the world!" He cut himself off when he realised he was going off topic. "We can get the Mind Stone out of Vision's forehead and get it somewhere safe."

"I'm going to have to intervene, aren't I?" Stephen sighed as Peter sheepishly nodded.

"There's no way I'm meant to know about Thanos or the Infinity Stones. You're gonna have to take charge and tell Tony what needs to be done if anything's gonna happen."

If anything was going to go ahead then they would need to contact Wanda and Vision since they were in Europe. It would be one thing to get Vision and Tony to agree to remove the Mind Stone from his head, it would be another to keep him around. Going to Wakanda would let him keep an eye on things and the last thing he wanted was for Tony to leave him in America.

"If…if Tony says he wants me to stay here instead of going to Wakanda," he started. "Help me stay? I want to be there to keep an eye on things."

"Hey, kid, we'll cross that bridge when it comes to it. Besides, the procedure is unlikely to affect you so you should be able to stay in Wakanda, even if you're not in the room where it happens," Stephen reassured him.

He hoped he was right.

"Also…I started thinking about what happened on Titan and part of the reason why we failed was because Quill lost his cool when he found out his friend was killed," he said as Stephen levitated to another room. Jogging to catch up with him, he continued. "So shouldn't we warn him and his friend…her name was Gamora, right?"

Stephen nodded. "While it would be a good idea to warn them, even if the ones we met were idiots," he muttered the second part of this sentence but Peter huffed amusedly. "It would be better if we get the Mind Stone out of Vision's head before we inform any more people. Stark will be one of the first to find out as well as King T'Challa, Princess Shuri and whoever else is involved with the procedure. He'll want to meddle with the outcome of some events and I doubt those from Wakanda would want to sit by idly."

Right, he was rushing ahead with everything because he hadn't quelled his growing anxiety. He was growing antsier by the day even though they had just under year to get things done.

"Okay, one step at a time." He breathed out. "So how are we going to tell Tony?"

Stephen smirked. "I'm sure we'll figure out a way."

Notes:

Tysm for all ur comments relating to Wakanda on the last chapter! It might take me a bit longer to write the Wakanda chapters so pls bear w me on that.

Seeing everyone's comments literally makes my week and I try to incorporate anything I see in the comments into the store if can!

How do you think Wanda and Peter would interact?

Anything you want to see happen on Peter's birthday?