Outnumbered

Chapter 16

"I don't know," Peter said, sniffling. "This time it feels different. And I know this has been really hard for everyone. Like...I get that. And I feel that. All of the time."

"What do you mean?"

He made eye contact, tried not to cry as he said it. "May, it's really hard to be honest about everything when everyone is telling you how brave or strong you are. Especially when you're terrified and feeling like you can't make even a single mistake. It's constant and unpredictable and overwhelming, a-and-" He bursts into tears again before he can finish. "I've been trying so hard, but it just keeps getting harder!" His voice was hoarse, breaths shudders as the emotions swelled in his chest. "I wish I could just...let it all out...without anyone being m-mad! But I can't!"

She rubbed his back again. "Baby, you can always tell me how you're feeling. I will never, ever be angry at you for being honest, especially about anything diabetes-related."

She thought back to the night she realized Peter had been sneaking out. May had spent the evening calling every hospital and police station across New York City, and it had taken everything in her not to completely lose it on Peter when he'd shown up at their door so late at night in bright pink Hello Kitty pajama pants smelling like garbage.

Part of her had been beyond relieved that he was home and safe.

And the other half was angry enough to overshadow that.

But she'd held back, because she'd remembered her own parents yelling at her when she needed them most. May Parker could give tough love. It was her superpower. But she also knew when someone needed the exact opposite.

And watching Peter go through everything that comes with a type one diabetes diagnosis the last few months? It was arguably the second hardest thing she'd ever had to do.

She'd been the first to have an inkling that something was wrong.

Peter had been asleep on the couch when she'd gotten home from work one evening, and by the paleness of his skin alone, she could swear he had a fever, was coming down with something, but when she'd pressed a hand to his forehead and then followed-up with a thermometer, she'd found that he was running at a perfect 98.6. He'd swatted her away and burrowed deeper beneath his blanket.

He was eating, drinking, and going to school, so she'd chalked the tiredness up to stress and factored in cold and flu season. To be honest, she was too tired herself between work and wedding planning to allow herself to dive into a full-on panic.

May Parker does not panic.

But then Happy had texted while she was at the hospital the next day about Peter drinking enough water lately to drain the Central Park lake, and May's heart had nearly stopped. He's starting to get a little thin, Happy had added. Call me crazy, but this isn't his metabolism. You think he's got mono, maybe?

Excessive thirst. Fatigue. Weight loss; he had lost a bit of weight despite his typically outrageous appetite, hadn't he?

That afternoon, she brought home a blood glucose meter from work and found the courage to prick Peter's finger.

"Tony," she cried into the phone a few minutes later. Her hand was covering her flushed face, heart racing as she tried to make sense of what had just happened. "Tony, it's Peter."

"May? What's wrong?"

"I borrowed a meter from work and just tested his blood sugar. It read HIGH."

"And?"

"Is Bruce in the Tower?"

"Not following, May."

"Tony," she said, closing her eyes and taking a deep, calming breath that failed to calm the fire of panic that had been growing inside of her since the meter had beeped. "His blood sugar is too high for the meter to read."