wake up
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15 — 4:10 PM
Norman Osborn created Oscorp LLP nearly a decade ago, shortly after his wife died. If the world vowed that Norman would be unhappy, then he wouldn’t be happy—but he would be powerful. Rich. Respected. Feared.
So alongside several attorneys just as ruthless as he was, Norman Osborn founded the largest law firm in New York, a major international law firm that people knew across the globe. It rose quickly, as he and the other founders weren’t focused on morality or on justice—but on money. And now it has dozens of office all around the world, makes billions of dollars annually, and employs thousands of attorneys. And it’s his. All his.
Norman likes money. Money is power. And Thaddeus Ross—he sure has a lot of it. And Norman thinks that Quentin Beck is a idiot with anger issues, Norman’s getting paid.
And Quentin Beck looks like shit.
Believe it or not, Norman Osborn has been Quentin Beck’s lawyer before, before Oscorp—a sex crime case where Beck got off scot-free. A teenage boy, if he remembers correctly. Fourteen, fifteen, something like that. There've been a couple more since then, according to Beck’s file. An incident at Stark Industries with a middle school program. Another incident at a workplace after that. And finally one that got him registered as a sex offender.
Funny how things like this work out.
So here they are again, ten years later, and Beck’s in the exact same spot, just with a torn-up face and handcuffed to a hospital bed instead of to a table in a police station.
“Beck,” Norman says, stepping into the hospital room.
“Osborn.”
“Good to see you again.”
Beck flexes his wrist against the cuffs, wiggling them, the chains clunking. “Can’t say the same.”
“Hm.” Norman gets out his equipment: tape recorder, laptop, Beck’s file. “Thought you were going to disappear after that last kid.”
Beck licks his teeth. They’re ice-white, hauntingly so, like someone carved them out of plaster. “That was the plan.”
“And now you’re registered?”
Beck glares at him. “Haven’t you read my file?”
Norman raises his brow in affirmation, as though to say: Sure did. And it spoke for itself. “Can’t be within five hundred feet of a school, can’t work with kids, can’t be within two hundred feet of a Stark Industries building, that’s an interesting one—“”
“The kid there was a fucking tease,” he said. “Overreacted, got security fucking called on me, that little bitch.”
“How old was that one?” Norman’s already seen the file, but it’s fun—this game—and he wants to hear Beck say it so he knows how much shit he’s in.
Beck growls, “Fourteen.”
“Right,” says Norman, typing on his laptop. “So, at least three official reports of sex crimes against minors—“
“Only one stuck,” he snaps.
Right. This one here, the most recent one—2017, caught with a fifteen-year-old prostitute—paid a fine, did no time, required to register, probation for a year, no other issues.
“Is that why you needed the new job? From our…mutual friend?”
“Obviously,” he snaps. “I’ve been out of work since they put me on the fucking registry.”
Norman raises his brow, “Doesn’t look good for you, Beck.”
He scoffs. “Don’t you think I fucking know that?”
“Not enough to plead guilty, apparently.”
The man’s eyes flash, and he slaps the pen out of Osborn’s hand. “I already told him—I’m not pleading.”
Calmly, Osborn picks it back up. “Careful, Beck,” he says. “Not a lot of people on your side anymore.”
A nurse opens the door. An older woman, bigger with grayed roots. Scrubs. She moves to the side of the bed without a word. “Did they tell you?” Beck laughs. “They’ve got me under lock and key. Won’t let anyone under thirty work my room—like I’m a fucking serial killer. Like, I’m not Dahmer, there’s no need to treat me like a criminal.”
The nurse’s eyes flick up to Beck—a flash of something—and then back down, where she’s opening a drawer, pulling out plastic-bagged syringes and tubing.
“What are you doing this time?” he asks.
“Bandage change,” she says rigidly. She takes his arm, and he jerks it against the cuffs, away from her.
“Not again,” he said, “They changed it out an hour ago, bitch.”
“It’s looking a little infected,” she says coldly. “Gotta change it.”
Norman looks down at his hand. Not a spot of redness, not even a glimpse of pus or swelling.
She takes his hand, unwrapping and unwrapping and then she presses her thumb down into the open wound. “Ow!” he snaps. “Watch it!”
She holds his arm fast, though, and with Beck under some mild sedatives and handcuffed to the bed, this woman’s got his hand held tight. “Just checking for tenderness,” she says, with that same coldness. “Be still.”
Beck bares those white teeth.
She presses down again, in that same hand, pressing into the sutures— “Gah! Fuck you!”
“Have to check for infection.” That nurse looks impassive, and she keeps going. “More antibiotics,” she says. She sticks Beck’s hand with several syringes, each movement harsh, and at each one he winces. Then she rewraps his hand, in violent jerks of cloth— “Ow! God, you bitch!” and tapes it down flat.
Then the nurse snaps off her gloves, gives one hard look to Beck, then to Norman, and then leaves as quick as she came.
Norman clears his throat and continues, “I’ve gone through the evidence—they’ve got a lot on you, Beck.”
“I’m aware,” the man says.
“And your phone, too,” he says. “How the hell did they get your phone?”
Beck grumbles to himself, something unintelligible.
“You weren’t using a burner?”
He shrugs. “Ro—uh, our friend kept telling me to, and I…just never switched.”
He shakes his head. This moron.
“I thought we wouldn’t get caught!”
So not only is Beck dangerous, but he’s delusional. When your employees are a bunch of dopeheads and tweakers, you’re gonna get caught. “Well, you have been. And I’m telling you that you have to plead guilty. You will never, ever win a case against this boy.”
Beck huffs through his scarred mouth, shifting again, that handcuff clinking.
“I’m serious, Beck. Do you know how much evidence they have piled against you? You fucked the kid so much that they’re considering charges of sex trafficking, Beck. Sex trafficking.”
Beck smiles. “I don’t have to win,” he says. “Kid’s fucking enhanced. Law of collateral. If we can get him to drop the charges, then I’m good to go. They’ve got me on—what, racketeering? We can whittle that one down to a year, less.”
“War of attrition,” echoes Osborn. Beck wants to go to court—until Peter Parker is too mentally exhausted to stand trial.
“Yep,” says Beck, looking smug. “Have you met the kid? He’s about as emotionally stable as a hooker in church. We ask him a couple questions—shake him up a bit—and he drops the charges.”
“You wanna wear him down. That’s… Beck—that’s not such a bad idea. Get the kid so fired up on the stand that he goes wild, breaks down—”
Beck nods, grinning. “Or perjures himself.”
“And either he or the courts will drop the charges.” Osborn nods. “This is good, Beck. This is really good.”
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 16 — 10:39 AM
They’ve come up with a knocking system for Peter’s door, and that seems to help. Announce who’s coming in, wait for a response, and then slowly enter before closing the door behind them.
And now Pepper knocks patiently, hears a voice on the other side, and then enters. Tony is talking to Peter—there are some sheets of paper on the bed, a coloring book and an array of crayons. Cassie’s got several of them on the floor and is making a drawing of a large man—Peter is holding a crayon and not doing anything with it, blinking down at the paper. “Hey,” she says.
Tony turns a little to face her. “Hey,” he says, almost surprised.
They’ve been spending less and less time together since Peter got better. She understands, of course, but still. “I’ve got a, uh. Appointment.”
“Appointment,” he says. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” she says. “Not here—a hospital a couple blocks down. There’s a good obstetrician there. Delivered, uh, Clint’s kids.”
“I forgot,” he says quietly, glancing down. “How did I…”
“You’ve got a lot on your mind,” she says, her eyes flicking to Peter and back. The kid still looks rough. She doesn’t know why she thought he’d just heal up quickly, be back to his normal self in a week or two—the kid’s not gonna look like himself ever again. His scars are vicious and darker than the rest of him, marring most of his open skin. Maybe Cho could put him in that cradle of hers, regenerate some of his skin. His bruising had disappeared, but it only served to make Peter even paler, disappearing among his white sheets. He’s still skinny, an anorexic gauntness to him, his hair long like an addict’s.
(She hates to think it, she does, but Peter was an addict. Temporarily. They’d had to wean him off those supersoldier sedatives. He’d gone through withdrawal.)
“I get it if you don’t want to—“”
“I want to,” he says. “I just…”
Right. Peter.
On the floor, Maggie Paxton says, “I’ll be here. They’ll be fine for a couple hours—go.”
So Tony says some things to Peter—but the kid’s gone into one of his dissociative states, blinking wearily at them both without responding, still holding that crayon in his mutilated hand. Tony murmurs a couple more things to him, and Peter nods a little, swaying where he sits, staring down at the crayon in his hand like he’s never seen one before.
And then Tony stands up and comes with her.
They’re less worried about this witness killer now that the Sandman is locked up, but they’re still enormously careful. Happy drives the SUV with the tinted windows, and Rhodey tags along as extra protection, dressed in a smaller version of his War Machine suit.
Dr. Cho gives him a cane for the walking portion, but there’s not much of it. They take an elevator straight through—a back elevator that Pepper somehow has access to. Near the top floor: the obstetrician’s office.
The doctor there is a bald man with a mustache, middle-aged with a pleasant demeanor. “You missed your last appointment,” the doctor says. “You okay? How’s our little fighter?”
Pepper nods, feeling more relaxed now that she’s here. “Good,” she says. “We’re good.”
“Any new symptoms? Is the nausea a bit better?”
They do this for a while, back and forth, mentioning things that Tony hasn’t even thought about in a long time. Braxton-Hicks. Morning sickness. Heartburn.
Soon, the doctor introduces himself to Tony, too, as Dr. Kapoor, speaking to him like he would any father in a doctor’s office.
Tony realizes then with shocking clarity: this guy doesn’t know who he is. Pepper Potts hasn’t been seen with Tony Stark in months. With his hair and beard long, he’sunrecognizable. He’s just a guy who forgot to shave. “Hi,” he says, and the doctor does a double take. His voice must’ve given him away.
Dr. Kapoor clearly is not interested in the fame or reputation of either of them, because he quickly helps Pepper onto the table and fetches the ultrasound specialist for the procedure.
The doctor puts some more goo on Pepper’s belly, spreading it. The procedure is quick, the specialist pulling up a black-and-white image of her belly—and there it is, settled sideways in her belly, its little legs curled up, its head round. It’s moving, too, pushing its arms against its face, squirming like it’s uncomfortable. When she looks over at Tony, his face is completely slack, his eyes wide with this saddened awe, his hands still at his sides. He looks like he wants to touch the screen, like he wants to bury himself in the ultrasound.
“It’s about three pounds now,” says the doctor. “Looks perfectly healthy, tests have all come back perfect.”
Good. Healthy. Everything’s good.
“And the sex? You still want to wait?”
Pepper falters then, still lying on her back with the goo spread shiny across her pregnant belly. “Uh,” she says, and then she swallows, turning a bit so she can meet Tony’s eyes. “Do you want to know?”
He blinks at her. “I thought you were…waiting.”
“I was,” she says. “I don’t know why, but… It feels a little better. With you here.”
Tony sits down then in the chair; his leg is twitching. The cane is propped up beside him, and that blue circle in his chest glows faintly. “You wanna know?” he asks.
“Yeah,” she says. “I do.”
“Okay,” Tony says, squinting a little at her, strangely disbelieving. “Then yeah, I do, too.”.
They spend some time after the procedure in the room as Pepper redresses, wiping the goo from her stomach and readjusting her shirt.
“I spent a long time really angry with you,” she says quietly, rebuttoning her top. “And I know it’s not your fault, it’s just…hard…to let go.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
But Pepper just shakes her head. “You have nothing to apologize for. You didn’t… Charlie Keene did this. I should be blaming him—but in my head, I just—I default, I don’t know. I keep forgetting, and blaming you. And now you have Peter, so…”
“Pepper—“ he tries.
She sniffles. “It’s just—I thought I was going to have to do this alone. My baby, your baby, all alone, Tony. I have spent so much of this pregnancy, since I found out, really, believing that you abandoned me because you wanted to.” She winces, and now she’s putting on her shoes, fitting her loafers over her feet and adjusting them. Her ankles are a little swollen. “And I don’t know about together,” she says, “but I’m gonna have this baby, and I'm gonna have this baby here, at the Tower, Tony. and I… You know me. I’m all or nothing, and when you hit me…”
“I’m sorry,” he says, the words automatic at this point.
“…I know,” she says, “and it’s okay, sweetheart, just… It’s not easy to let go of that. I gave up on you five months ago, Tony. I just… I need you to promise you won’t go again.”
“I promise,” he says, “not for anything.”
“I don’t expect you to be this baby’s father, Tony. Not the way you are with Peter—not that you’re his father, just—“ She sighs, blinking up at the ceiling. “You know what I mean.”
He does.
“Just…you two have been through a lot together. More than most. That kind of bond doesn’t come by blood alone.”
He’s not sure he could ever fathom the kind of bond he has with Peter now. He doesn’t like to think about it much—the circumstances—so right now, he’s just doing his best to stay by the kid’s side and make him feel safe.
“And you have Peter now,” she says. “and he’s your priority.”
“He is,” he says. Without question.
“And this baby?” Pepper says. “She’s my priority.”
Tony nods wearily.
“Until it comes, I’ll help you with Peter as much as I can. He’ll be my priority, but. When the baby does come…” She grimaces. “She’ll be my number one priority, Tony. Please understand that.”
“Pepper—“
“And I know you’ll do your best to try,” she says, “but I know that right now, Peter’s the only…” She waves vaguely.
He is. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“It’s okay,” she says back, and she’s still wincing, giving him that look of apologetic exhaustion. “Just, I don’t think we’re in a good place to have something like… Something like we used to. It’s been a long time, and…”
He just nods again; there’s not much to say.
“I think it might be better like this,” he says. “A break. I don’t think I could do anything else.”
Pepper grimaces. “I know I was hard on you,” she says. “In there. I said some things…”
Tony Stark just shakes his head. His hair has gotten healthier since Rhodey cut it, but it’s still much longer than he’s used to—shaggy and full. “It’s okay,” he says. “You didn’t know.”
Neither of them knew, really. Tony didn’t know she was pregnant; Pepper didn’t know he was being forced to watch Peter’s torture.
“Let’s just get through these next couple of weeks, okay?” she says. “Get through that first hearing, get Peter and Cassie out of the Medbay, and then we’ll… I don’t know, reconvene.”
“Reconvene,” he says, and his eyebrow cocks in this terribly exhausted way. He’s trying to give off his best Tony Stark aura, but he’s too tired to do much banter. “An appointment with the famous Pepper Potts?”
“The one and only,” she says softly. “And for now… Co-parenting.”
He nods. “Co-parenting,” he says back.
Pepper smiles a little.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 — 12:08 AM
On Monday, they try to get the kids to play with some of the toys together—but it’s really difficult to get Peter to accept any kind of gift without going completely out of it and slipping back into his head, so Sarah Wilson went back through the reports to try to find something useful. “I’ve got it,” Sarah says. “I’ve got it.”
“McDonald’s?” Pepper echoes.
Sarah nods. “Apparently, they used to have a supply of toys in the bunker. McDonald’s toys. Came with their food, and they were allowed to keep them. I think… This could work.”
It's much like the tin-can-breakfast situation. they bring in some Happy Meal boxes, put some toys inside—stuffed ones, mostly, zoo animals and dinosaurs and rag dolls. Things that Alexis suggests might be good for some play therapy.
And the kids accept them like it’s nothing, taking the boxes and prying it open.
So now they’re playing on the bed—or, Cassie’s playing on the bed, mostly. She’s got a Captain America action figure in one hand. Peter just sits behind her, arm looped around her waist, legs extended around her, holding her close in case something happens.
When Tony looks back at the bed, the Happy Meal box is gone.
And Peter’s chewing something.
It’s not a mealtime—it’s not a mealtime. Helen and the psychiatrists have very strict rules about when and what the kids can eat. Every morning: breakfast at eight o’clock, mid-morning snack at ten, lunch at twelve-thirty, snack at three, dinner at six-thirty, evening snack at ten. It’s not a mealtime, so what is he…
Then Tony spots the red-and-yellow box somewhere behind them, tucked under a pillow, a shot of bright red under white-covered pillows. He watches then as Peter absentmindedly tears off another piece of cardboard, barely bigger than a quarter, and he puts it onto his tongue and closes his mouth. He can see the kid’s tongue moving in his cheek, and then he starts to chew.
It startles him at first—he’s eating cardboard. He’s eating cardboard.
The first feeling that enters him is confusion, then mild disgust at the thought, then just horror. Because very, very slowly, Tony starts to understand.
Tony doesn’t know that feeling—starvation—and he never will. But Peter… That was all he experienced in there. All day, every day, Peter was hungry. Starved. Losing muscle and fat until there was barely anything left. Skin hanging on bone. It stands to reason, then, that Peter Parker would’ve found anything just to fill his stomach. Even if it meant something inedible—like cardboard, even.
So as Peter pulls off another piece of cardboard from the red-and-yellow box, Tony asks gently, barely leaning forward, trying not to startle him, “You hungry, Pete?”
The kid’s not very talkative today. Peter blinks at him, looking extraordinarily tired, and looks down at the piece of torn cardboard in his hand. It’s about the size of a baby carrot, a flat piece of red-painted cardboard. He blinks at it once, curling his hand around it, and looks back at Tony. Peter just looks so humiliated, like he’s been stripped naked, like Tony’s about to ridicule him or laugh in his face. His mouth downturning, his cheeks going tense, his eyebrows flattening downward.
“It’s okay if you are,” he says, “it’s almost lunchtime, so…”
Peter stares emptily at the cardboard, still not saying another word.
There’s a whiteboard in Peter’s hospital room, one posted right next to the door. It reads everything they’re gonna have at mealtimes, any appointments, any doctor’s visits, anything with a particular time. Sarah said it was supposed to help Peter predict who was coming and when, but Tony doesn’t think it’s done much good. “I think it’s pasta today,” Tony says, reading off the middle of the whiteboard. He points, and Peter’s eyes don’t follow. “Mac and cheese, how does that sound? Looks like… applesauce, too, and some grilled chicken.”
For someone who was starved for five months, Peter is never excited about food. More often than not, the kid avoids the food, sometimes refusing to eat it until everyone’s gone from the room, eating it rapidly and then tossing the can like it was never even full.
Peter just gazes down at that piece of cardboard in his hand. But somehow, horribly, Peter’s looking at it like it’s a fucking red apple instead of a piece of garbage.
If he tries to eat it again, Tony might have to stop him—surely that can’t be good for his stomach. “Please don’t,” he says quietly. “That’s not good for you, Pete, you know it’s not.”
Peter doesn’t even look at him—he just closes his fingers around the cardboard, hiding it in his palm like it’s a fucking stolen piece of candy.
“Please,” Tony says again. “I promise you’ll get to eat. Fifteen minutes, that’s all. Then you can eat as much as you want.” Again, not exactly true—Helen’s very strict on how much both kids get. She also mentioned that people who have starved for a long time have little understanding of when they’re hungry and when they’re not—their bodies telling them they’re full on nearly nothing, as their minds telling them to take whatever they can get. “Just fifteen more minutes.”
Peter just looks at him then, eyes scanning his face, hair dangling dark in front of his eyes, his jaw going tense. His eyes flick to the door, and then back to Tony. And barely, just barely, the kid nods. “Legos?” the kid mouths, his voice croaky.
He’s asking for something. Pete’s asking for something.
It’s the only thing that manages to calm him well now, something he ties enough to before that he doesn’t seem to question it when it’s put in front of him. He never touches it—never—but he loves to watch Tony do it, click the pieces together, form something new. “Yeah,” Tony says, his chest clenching. “Of course, Pete. Whatever you want.”
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 — 5:53 PM
Happy has been keeping strict tabs on Peter’s friends since he last saw them.
Although they ended on poor terms—Happy refusing to tell them what happened to their friend—they still text him constantly with their questions. He remembers Peter used to call it spamming. “Sorry for spamming you, Happy!” he’d say before he delved into a twenty-minute-long story about a little old lady and her grocery run that he’d already texted Happy in full detail.
Peter was always such a talkative kid. Such a blabbermouth that Happy could never get him to shut up; he was always telling stories about whatever he’d done that day, whether it was a chemistry test or a patrol or even May’s cooking.
And now, they can barely get Peter to say anything at all; coaxing sentences from him is like pulling teeth. He hasn’t said anything about the five months he was missing. He hasn’t said anything about Quentin Beck, about Charlie Keene, about his aunt May. Nothing except the occasional yes or no or I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please—
It’s not like he needs to say much, anyway—they all get the idea. The evidence of what happened is written all over him.
It won’t be long before Ned and MJ know—there are a couple photos somehow floating around the Internet—one of Tony carrying Peter in the forest, one of the empty bunker, one of Quentin Beck lying bloody on the floor of a jail cell.
They’re smart kids. Tech-savvy. There’s no way they haven’t connected some of those dots.
So, despite his better judgment, Happy Hogan travels to Queens to visit the kids. He knows where they are, having tracked their phones to Ned’s house, and he finds them there, home alone—when he says who he is to the locked door, the kids open the door immediately. “About time,” says MJ, but the phrase is without harshness. There’s something in her voice—grief, maybe. “How is he?”
Happy swallows, ignoring her question. “Can I come in?”
Ned’s grandma is gone for the evening, so it’s just the kids—odd circumstances, a middle-aged man alone with a couple teenagers—but honestly, he’s done weirder for Peter Parker. Ned makes him a cup of tea, MJ scowls at him the whole time, and then they sit down in the kitchen together.
Ned’s a little too quiet; like Peter, he used to be much more talkative. “We saw the photo,” the kid asks quietly, moving his hair away from his eye with his hand. “The one…with Peter.”
“We’re not as stupid as you think we are,” adds the girl. “We figured it out—he was taken, right? And Tony Stark was involved, too. And the guys from the news—the Stark Seven. They took him? Right?”
Happy can only imagine what the kids’ rooms look like: nothing short of a investigation, probably, police reports and media photos pinned up on the walls, red string tied between them like a web.
“It’s all over the news, too. What happened.”
Happy knows that, too. Everyone knows about the kid, although not by name—how an underage staff member of Stark Industries was tortured by drug addicts for five months. They don’t know exactly why, and they don’t know exactly how, but they do have that one photo: of Tony Stark, shaggy-bearded and skinny, cradling what looks like a corpse out in the New Hampshire mountains—a pale, scarred-over creature of a boy, dressed in a black jumpsuit and bruised beyond recognition.
“That was him, right?” asks Ned, and his voice sounds like it’s been stripped raw. “Peter?”
There’s an ache in Happy’s throat, like a physical pain. “Yes,” he says carefully, and MJ makes this sound like she’s been punched in the stomach.
MJ was always the conspiracy theorist of the three—the one who never believed anything until it was laid out in front of her. Cold, hard facts. Of course she wouldn’t believe it was Peter. She’d believe anything else before it was Peter.
“He’s not…” tries Happy. “...well right now. Physically, he’s doing a lot better, he’s not in any danger, but… He’s not doing well. I can’t tell you any more than that, so…” He rubs his hand over the back of his neck, and sweat sticks to his palm. “...please don’t ask.”
Both kids nod, exchanging dejected looks with each other.
“He liked the Legos,” Happy says, looking just to Ned this time. Happy was the one who picked them up at the front desk, all labeled and packaged like Christmas presents, Ned’s handwriting scribbled all over them with titles of movies Happy had never seen: The Empire Strikes Back, The Last Jedi, Rogue One, A Phantom Menace… “That was a good plan.”
Ned’s eyes shine with something like tears. “He did?”
“Does he need anything else?” demands MJ, now over here sullen silence and back to how-do-I-fix-this. “My mom’s a nurse, she could—”
“He’s being treated at the Medbay,” Happy assures the girl. “He’s getting the best medical treatment possible.”
“So when can we see him?”
“I don’t know,” Happy says honestly. “He’s not in a good place right now.”
“But he’s okay?” asks Ned. “He’s…safe?”
“He’s safe,” says Happy, as truthfully as he can manage. “He’s…getting better.”
That relaxes them both, at least a little bit, and for a couple moments MJ vanishes into Ned’s room and comes out hauling a massive tote bag reading Midtown School of Science and Technology on one side. “Here,” she says, thrusting it out to him with both arms. “For Peter.”
Happy’s still Director of Security, so he checks it, obviously, for anything dangerous; MJ and Ned watch as he does. A couple of MJ’s sweaters. Some books. A friendship bracelet. Even a pack of flash cards bound in a rubber band. “He likes those,” MJ says, brushing her curly brown hair out of her face. “Periodic table. He can recite them all in order, if you ask.”
Happy doubts Peter can recite anything right now.
A couple more things, too. Several tupperwares of Filipino foods, probably from Ned’s family: purple yam cookies and steamed rice cakes, flan and spring rolls, chicken adobo and vegetable stew. And then a couple care package-y items: scented soaps and fuzzy socks. A package of double-stuf oreos.
“Which one did he do?” asks the boy.
Happy doesn’t have the heart to tell him that his best friend’s so psychologically messed up that he can’t even build the things by himself. So he says, “Uh, the big walking one.”
“The AT-AT,” says the boy, with this wistful look. “The Empire Strikes Back. He likes that one.”
“I can get more Legos,” Ned says quickly. “I’ve been working at Mr. Delmar’s, you know, Peter’s old job. Been saving up.”
“I think he’s okay for now,” Happy says gently.