Just in Case

Peter hadn’t said a word for the entire drive back from the lake house.

May gripped the wheel, hard, with one hand, keeping the other firmly clasped with his.

She didn’t know what to think, especially coming back for five years in somebody else’s house, all of her belongings stuffed in a storage unit along with her career and her future.

Even looking at the roads was disorienting, with different exit numbers and new buildings replacing the ones that had turned to rubble in the years of crisis. 

May wanted to crawl into her bed (the one at a motel because she no longer had a house), turn all the lights off, and never emerge. 

She glanced at Peter, his eyes uncharacteristically empty as he watched the trees go by.

He had watched his mentor, his father, die in his arms.

Another to add to the list, she thought bitterly, squeezing his hand a little bit tighter as she remembered the weeks it took to wash her husband's blood out of his sweater.

It took him years to wear sweaters again. May had a feeling it would be just as long, if not longer until Peter could go back to that lake. 

May was angry.

She was tired and pissed at the world with all the energy left in her body for taking her nephew, her child away from the world for five years.

For taking yet another father away from him.

For making him see atrocities May couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

May didn’t know what to do to make him happy again. She wasn’t sure anyone did.

That night, she supervised him to make sure he actually ate something (a sandwich from the grocery store, not his favorite but all she had to give), and turned on the tv to play old reruns of cartoons while they sat on the tattered couch.

(He had a nasty habit of forgetting to take care of himself, and his fast metabolism when his brain was miles away.)

She brushed her teeth beside him, fluffed his pillow for him, and kissed him on the forehead before turning to her own mattress, her shoulders sagging in the dark. 

She felt around for the table to put her glasses down on and froze when she heard a small, quick intake of breath. 

“Peter?” She was tempted to turn the light on, but she waited. Counted down from ten, then moved to stand.

There was another inhale, and she paused.

“…May?” His voice was incredibly small, and May didn’t know if she had the strength to answer with an even tone.

Goddamnit, she would try. “Yeah, sweetheart?” Her voice was light, and she squeezed her eyes shut while she heard him shift up.

“Can…can you sleep over here? I…just for tonight,” She felt her heart crack a little, and she tried to breathe deeply a few times, forcing the tears back behind her eyelids.

His voice was so very small, and she was suddenly reminded of the first night he spent with them after his parents died. 

Ben was sitting by his bedside, and May had left to get him a glass of water, fumbling with the storybooks on the coffee table before creeping her way back down the hall.

Peter had been silent the entire day, only speaking when spoken to, and when he did it was short a clipped response.

She wasn’t sure what was going on inside his head. She didn’t even know if he could comprehend his own grief, slowly sinking into the fact that he would never see his mother or father again. Ben was methodically smoothing the sheets, talking out loud about anything and everything.

When Peter shook his head at the offer of a bedtime story, May set the glass of water down, kissed his forehead, and watched as Ben did the same.

He stood, and they both awkwardly moved around each other, turning off the lights and prepping to leave the room.

Quietly, from the darkness, the only brightness coming from the tiny little moon nightlight tucked next to the dresser in his room, Peter’s voice appeared. He’d asked if they would stay—in the same tone of voice as he had just done—until he fell asleep.

May knew her husband was wiping his tears away when he settled down next to Peter, pulling the boy to his chest, staying quiet and still as he clung to his button-up shirt.

May sat with her back touching the wall, running her hand up and down his back until his breath evened out. 

At that time, she thought getting Peter through that loss would be the worst thing they would have to go through.

Then, during spring nearly a decade later, her husband died in his arms.

The silence was soul-shattering, and she stayed with him every night, sometimes the two of them drifting off on the couch.

The only words he had spoken, even once he’d gone back to school, had been during those nights, asking if she would stay.

“Of course,” She found her voice through the lump in her throat like she’d done every single time he’d asked before. 

She tucked her feet in under the covers, shifting around so she was holding him, his arms finding their way to cling to her hand. “Just until I fall asleep,” He whispered, his whole body tensing as he inhaled again, trying to hold in the sobs.

“I’ll stay,” She promised him, feeling her own eyes get wet, her face hot with the emotions she didn’t want to show.

She had to be strong. She had to make sure he could have someone to hold onto. 

A week passed, every night the same.

Peter was more talkative than he had been during every other loss, speaking in soft and short sentences to fill the silence whenever it got too loud.

He had spoken with Ned and his other friend, Michelle, on the phone, each of them too busy with their own families and the five years they’d missed seeing each other face to face.

Ned was crying the entire time they’d spoken, she could hear it through the phone. Peter had a blank look on his face, his voice betraying the stoic expression he’d forced on himself. 

During the second week, once they’d found a more stable living situation, and moved all of their stuff from the storage unit into the new apartment, she’d heard him crying in the bathroom.

It was painfully short intakes of breath, followed by the most gut-wrenching emotion leaving his mouth. May had gone out for groceries.

She wondered how many other times Peter had cried in the few moments she’d stepped out. How many times he cried alone.

Right before a month had passed, and Peter had begun to move with more purpose, a few more words shining through the dull haze that had seemed to cover him since the funeral, May had been called away for the night for a shift.

Peter had forced her to go, insistent that she didn’t need to stay. Not for him. It would be better to get things back to normal, he had said, picking his way through a box of old shirts, sorting them into piles to put away in the closet. She used to go to night shifts all the time, he coaxed, and she had no fight left in her body to argue. She made sure he knew about the frozen pizza in the freezer, asking him to text her when the laundry was done so he could put it in the dryer.

“May?” He stopped her at the door, his whole body tense as his voice slipped through the tight line of his lips. 

She watched him carefully, looking over his downturned eyes and hunched shoulders. “Peter?” She asked, preparing to drop her bag and go to him.

Before she could make the decision to call out and spend the entire night watching Star Wars with him, he stepped forward, falling into her arms.

She fit them under his back neatly, pressing her nose to the top of his head.

He wasn’t shaking now, but his hands dug into her shoulders with the force of his grip. 

She tried to lighten the mood. “What’s this for?” She brought a hand to rub up and down his back, her feet moving ever so slightly when they began to sway.

He pressed his face deeper into her shirt, then pulled away, wiping his face quickly and turning so she didn’t see how red his eyes had gotten. 

“Just,” He breathed in, slowly, his torso following the movement with a small, dramatic movement. “Just in case,” He managed, and she felt her heart clench. 

“If you need anything ,” She began, the sentence she’d used at least ten times that day hanging in the air.

“I’ll call,” He said, picking his head up and facing her.

He was smiling, she realized, the first real smile she’d seen in months.

In years, technically .

It was small, and it seemed almost as if his mouth wasn’t quite used to it either, lopsidedly lifting the corners of his mouth.

“Or text,” He wiped his nose against his sleeve, tucking his hands beneath his armpits in one smooth motion. “Or send a messenger bird. Or all three,” 

She felt herself smile back, pressure building behind her eyes and pricking at her nose. “I think just a phone call will do,” 

“I dunno…I think you’re underestimating my bird taming abilities,” 

“And what if I am?” 

“Don’t come crying to me when there’s a disturbance at your workplace from ‘too many loving messages from your nephew’,” His smile turned sharp, playful. “And by messages I mean many, many birds,” 

She shook her head at him, swinging her keys between her fingers and turning towards the door. “And we wouldn’t want that,” 

She heard him scoff. “Maybe you wouldn’t,”

He was going to be okay, she told herself, looking back to say one last ‘I larb you,’.

He was always okay—even if it took a few more weeks to get him to smile fully; with his teeth.

That’s what they did, they got back up, even when it meant she had to suffer through a few more dinosaur jokes. She was tough, too.

Just a bit weaker than her superpowered son.

But only a little.