When his parents died, Ben was always the one that sat with him after nightmares. There hadn’t been any ritual to it – no hot chocolate, no late night story – just Ben, warm and safe and present. “Peter Piper,” he’d whisper, one eye cracked open, or “Peter Rabbit” or “Peter Pan,” and Peter would sniffle and say, “Parker.”
“Ah,” Ben would sigh, like he was only just remembering, and sit up to carry him back to his room. “Back to sleep then, Peter Parker.”
He said it every time, but he never made Peter let go before he was ready. Once, he remembers waking up to the rumble of Ben’s voice under his ear and May squeezing into the sliver of space left on the couch, laughing under her breath. The memory’s old, soft and fuzzy – each rush of air into Ben’s lungs lifting him up and up and up into the sunlight.
--
It takes three hours for the stitches he’d popped to stop burning. His sweatshirt (quasi-stolen from a half crushed street stand), itches against the back of his neck where the blood has dried stiff and tacky. There will be a scar – hopefully low enough he won’t have to think of a dumb story for it.
--
Five hours into waiting for their (new) flight home, he stutters an excuse about finding something to eat and limps off. Ned catches him after a few steps, shooting him worried glances. “Dude,” he hisses once they’re out of sight of Mr. Harrington, “Is this like, last April, with the bodega, or ?”
“What? No!” He makes a face – he really should eat though. His metabolism still sneaks up on him sometimes, and the last thing he needed to do was faint in the middle of Heathrow. “That wasn’t even last April anymore.”
“Whatever,” Ned says and pulls him to a stop, “are you okay?” Peter’s ribs are throbbing and the probability of him having a concussion moved past statistics into certainty approximately two collisions with a wall ago. EDITH’s glasses are burning a hole in his pocket.
“I’m fine,” he says, and tries to ignore the patient, don’t-lie-to-me face Ned is wearing. He sighs, quietly, and turns to keep walking and Peter’s resolve shreds like wet paper. “Will be, I will be fine.” They fall into step again and idly, Peter wonders if EDITH could somehow get him the money to buy a sandwich. He shies away from the thought almost at once. “I pulled my hamstring,” he says, and doesn’t mention when. “Mr. – we couldn’t figure out exactly how much quicker I heal, but my muscles are a lot faster. I need to keep stretching it out.”
“Oh,” Ned says.
“I could also eat,” Peter says, picking at the scabs on his knuckles. “I’m fine.”
“You almost died.” He swallows and looks up at the long, arcing ceiling of the airport.
“So did you,” and MJ and Happy and and and… They were already living on borrowed time. How many more near misses did they get? “I just want you guys to be safe,” he says, the truth of it hot and tight in the back of his throat.
“Okay,” Ned says, skittish, and Peter realizes that he’s crying at the same time Ned pulls him into a hug. “We’re going to be okay.” The airport is crowded – full of bruised and frightened tourists trying to get home – and they blend right in. Ned shuffles them out of the middle of the hallway and Peter focuses very hard on trying to keep his breathing even around the pressure in his sinuses.
“I don’t know if I can keep doing this,” he says silently, and tries to believe Ned when he says it’s going to be okay.
--
Twenty some hours after Peter told EDITH to shut down the drones, May ushers him into the car and fusses over the bruise that’s fading on his cheekbone. He’d meant to look back, to get one last glimpse of MJ and Ned, but then May had pulled him into a hug and his brain had descended into a comfortable static of home, alive, safe. It may also have to do with the concussion.
“How are you feeling?” She asks, pulling out onto the road.
“I’m…” fine, is right there, on the tip of his tongue, but he can’t force it out. May, when she’d allowed him to keep being Spiderman, had given him three rules: one, his grades had to stay the same; two, he could only patrol two nights during the week; and three, he wouldn’t lie to her about any of it. He hasn’t always been very good about number three, maybe that’s part of the problem. “Pretty bad,” he says, and feels the outline of EDITH in his pocket. “I pulled a hamstring, couple of cuts Happy stitched.” He sighs, tilts his head back against the headrest. There’s a stain on the roof of the car, probably from him. “Some broken ribs.”
“Peter,” May says, low and hurt, and pats his knee. He swallows; his eyelids are made of iron, so he closes them.
“A concussion,” he mumbles. May swears, softly, as she merges onto the parkway.
“Thank you for telling me,” she says, but Peter’s asleep before he can say anything back.
--
There was a moment, in Berlin, where he thought it was over. His hands slid, bloody, over the smooth metal of the train and he thought, I’m not going to stick. The wind screamed around him and his brain went quiet, still. It felt like… well, it didn’t do any good to dwell on it. His fingers found purchase and he pulled himself clear. He barely remembered collapsing against the window, the lights going out as he blinked.
--
Peter wakes up in his own bed, sheets half kicked off, and the closet door still open from when he was packing. It takes him a moment to realize that May banging around in the kitchen is what woke him up. He takes a deep breath, realizes his ribs are definitely still broken, and sits up before he can think about it too much.
“Shit,” he says, and wraps a blanket around his shoulders. Whoever decided the human body could be both starving and nauseous at the same time owes him a refund. He shuffles into the living room. “May -” He blinks, Mrs. Stark is still sitting on their couch. “Mrs. Stark?”
“Good morning, Peter,” she says, and May walks in with coffee. “Did you sleep well?”
“What – uhm, yes. Thank you?” He pinches his bicep, but it’s not just dreaming he has to worry about is it? Nothing feels wrong, but no one’s trying to kill him yet either. He needs to…
“Pepper brought the doctor by to see you,” May says, jolting him out of thoughts. She’s standing in front of him now and reaches out to rub at his shoulder. “You’re going to make it.”
“I wasn’t dying,” he says, making a face, Jesus. She smiles at him, proud of her joke, even if there’s a tightness around her eyes he doesn’t like.
“You are looking a little peaky though – what do you want to eat?”
“Toast?” She frowns. “Eggs and toast?” Eggs are a safe choice right? People are always eating them when they’re hungover.
“Okay,” she says, and bundles him onto the couch before he can protest. Mrs. Stark – Pepper? – smiles at him over the rim of her mug.
“She missed you.” It’s not the phrasing Peter expects. Do May and Mrs. Stark… talk? Are they friends? The thing with Happy is weird enough – he’s not sure he can handle May being friends with Mrs. Stark. When had that even happened? He looks down at the coffee table and…
“Those are mine.” He jerks his head up and realizes he doesn’t know Mrs. Stark well enough to find out if she’s an illusion. The world blurs. “EDITH -”
“EDITH, turn off.” He can’t hear anything over the pounding in his head, doesn’t know if it worked. He doesn’t… “Peter, the suit Tony gave you had the Baby Monitor Protocol on it. You named your AI Karen. You left Tony a voicemail three weeks ago. This is real.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know…” He’s on the floor, now, his hands so tight on his blanket he thinks he torn a seam. It was such a stupid, childish thing to do, leaving a voicemail for a dead man. But a little girl had gotten the drone she’d built (and painted with bright green nail polish) stuck in a tree and he’d gotten it down for her. She’d been alone and stubborn and smart and Mr. Stark would have liked her, was all. He wanted him to know.
“It’s okay,” Mrs. Stark says.
“I messed up,” he says, pressing his face to his knees. His ribs are throbbing. “In Europe.”
“You’re allowed to make mistakes.”
“He – Mr. Stark, trusted me.”
“Peter, look at me.” Despite everything, Ben and May raised him to have manners, so he does. She’s kneeling on the floor beside him, as poised as ever. “If Tony had tried to give Morgan a weapon – let alone control over a billion dollar defense network – before she asked for it, before talking to me, I would have killed him. I love him, I married him, but that doesn’t mean he was always right.”
“I want to help,” he says, small, and remembers the crushing weight of knowing all of London was counting on him. He’s not ready for that. “Does she listen to you?” Mrs. Stark smiles, a little mischievous.
“Almost all of Tony’s systems do.”
“Could you…” He takes a deep breath and reaches out to grab the glasses. “Could you hang on to them for me? Until I’m ready?” If I’m ever ready. Dropping them into her palm feels right, hard in a way handing them over the Mysterio hadn’t been.
“They’re yours when you want them,” she says, and presses a kiss to his cheek. “Don’t be a stranger.”
He’s not sure how long he sits there, but eventually his leg goes numb and he climbs back onto the couch. May, red eyed, emerges from the kitchen sometime after that. “I burned the first batch,” she says, handing over the still steaming eggs.
“Eavesdropper,” he says without any heat. She sniffles and wraps an arm around his shoulder.
“Ben would be so proud of you,” she says, fierce, and presses a kiss to his hair. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” he says, only a little wobbly, and shoves some eggs into his mouth before their whole morning turns into a wash.
--
(Relief – that’s what he felt on the train. Pure, bone deep relief.)
--
May takes his suits until Dr. Hernandez (ex-Shield medical, now on the Stark’s private payroll) gives him a clean bill of health. In all honesty, Peter’s kind of grateful. He spends two days lying around the apartment replaying all of Lego Star Wars and debating with Ned which Lego set they should buy next. On the third day, his ribs settle for protesting every other time he moves, so he calls MJ and asks if she wants to watch a movie or something.
“Sure,” she says, some kind of music playing in the background. “Your place?”
“Uh, sure!” He eyes the dirty dishes stacked on the couch and how the living room definitely looks like he hasn’t left it in the last two days. “In an hour?”
“I’m picking the movie,” she says and hangs up. Thirty seconds later she texts him address? and he grins. He’s beginning to think he might not be the only one off balance when they talk.
The doorbell buzzes as he’s throwing the last of his socks into his room and brushing his teeth. Thankfully, being Spiderman prepared him for quick action so he’s only a little out of breath when he yanks the door open.
“Hey,” he says and tries not to stare as her lips curl into a grin.
“Toothpaste,” she says, tapping at her cheek, and he resists the urge to bang his head against the door. More head trauma was strictly forbidden until next Tuesday at earliest. He steps back to let her inside, scrubbing at his face, and tries to ignore the way his ears are burning.
“You like me,” his mouth says without permission when he shuts the door and they’re left standing too close in the hallway. “I mean – you knew, already, about well, me. Being a loser.” God, Peter, shut up. “And you kissed me!” She blinks, watching him the same way she always has, like he’s a particularly interesting riddle.
“Might do it again,” she says and wanders deeper into their apartment when that fries what remains of his brain cells. “How do you feel about government conspiracies?” I like how you look when you talk about them, he thinks, but luckily manages to keep that to himself.
“There’s a website run by people who think Spiderman is a failed shapeshifter experiment by SHIELD,” he offers instead. She looks up from where she’s skimming through their motley collection of books and Blu-rays and old records May refuses to get rid of.
“Werespider?”
“…Yes, actually.”
“You never know,” she says, deadpan, but her eyes are bright. He wants to kiss her and the feeling does something funny to his chest, his ribs aching. She almost died. “Peter?”
“Sorry,” he says, refocusing on the here and now. Her hair’s coming out of her pony tail and falling around her face, slightly frizzy with humidity. Outside, someone lays on their horn. They’re here; they’re alive; and he might get to kiss MJ before May comes home and embarrasses the shit out of him. He breathes. It’s okay – it’s good. “Popcorn?”
“Definitely.”
--
Morgan Stark has her father’s eyes, the beginning of his crooked grin, and a cheerful disregard for following directions. All of which Peter learns when he knocks on the back door of the Stark Mansion.
“Who are you?” she asks over the sound of FRIDAY’s protests and some kind of alarm. “Friiiiiday, ‘s fine,” she says before he can answer and beckons him inside. “You said you knew him.”
“Little miss -”
“I’ve got her, FRIDAY,” Mrs. Stark says, sweeping in. “Hi Peter. Morgan, you know you’re not supposed to open the door by yourself.”
“FRIDAY said he was on the treehouse list.” Whatever that means, Mrs. Stark remains unmoved; Morgan wilts. “Sorry, mom.”
“This is your freebie,” she says, throwing a conspiratorial look at Peter, and ushers her towards the hallway. “Go tell Doc we’ve got a patient for him.”
“She’s…” He clears his throat. “Cute. A cute kid. Sorry to bother you guys.” She shakes her head, gesturing him forward.
“You’re here for an appointment. Technically, we’re bothering you.” He frowns and she laughs, a bright and easy sound. “I meant what I said, Peter. You’re welcome anytime.”
“Thanks,” he says and mercifully they reach the medical wing before he has to come up with anything else to say. Morgan’s nowhere to be seen, but Dr. H pops his head out of his office as the door swings shut behind him.
“Peter! How’re you?”
“Better,” he says, and starts to twist just to prove he can. Dr. H, who has clearly spent too much time around superheroes, clucks and catches his arm.
“Don’t be stupid – April’s in the back. I’ll meet you in x-ray.”
It’s almost three hours before they let him go – still bickering about his telomeres – with a (mostly) clean bill of health and a stack of physical therapy exercises. He texts an update to May and gets a string of praise hand emojis in response followed by spidercise doesn’t count as low impact.
please don’t, he replies and tucks his phone into his pocket. The back of his neck itches and turns around to find Morgan staring at him.
“Are you sick?” she asks, scuffing at the floor with her sneakers.
“No, I got hurt.” He smiles. “But I’m almost better.”
“Oh,” she says, squinting up at him. “I got a rip last week.” Sure enough, when she holds her hand out for inspection there’s a Thor bandage on her palm.
“Ouch,” he says, scrunching his face up. “How’d that happen?”
“Monkey bars,” she sighs in a way she’d clearly picked up from… He never actually saw them together, Morgan and Mr. Stark. The first time he’d seen Morgan had been at the funeral, tiny and withdrawn. “You can see.” He blinks and finds her watching him.
“Okay,” he says, not entirely sure what he’s agreeing to, and isn’t surprised at all when she grabs his hand to tug him along. A forceful bunch, the Starks. She pulls him into a room with vaulted ceilings, big windows, and… He has to stifle a laugh sob against the back of his hand. Of course Mr. Stark would build his daughter an Avengers themed playground in what had probably once been a ballroom.
“You can probably make it all the way across,” she says, eyeing him up thoughtfully. Peter eyes her back.
“I could probably do it carrying you,” he says, swallowing laughter.
“Prove it.”
--
Later, Mrs. Stark sends him what has to be the security footage from the ballroom – he would have felt someone watching. The video is from the tail end of him trying to teach Morgan how to do a handstand, when she’d made him demonstrate again just to shove him over, laughing her head off. Thanks, her message says.
anytime, he sends, then: she’s a good kid.
Adding you to the babysitter list, no take backs.
He twists his phone in his hands, trying to pick apart the feeling in his stomach. It’s…good, solid and heavy and warm. He sends the video to May.
tried to avoid impact, but she came out of nowhere
Peter-tingle malfunction?
U G H
--
June fades into the sticky heat of July and May relinquishes the Spiderman suits back into his care. He’s more conflicted about it than he thought he would be – excitement and fear and nauseating anxiety swirling in his gut. spiderman is back, he texts Ned and waits long enough to decline his offer to “ride along”. It’s not quite ten on a Saturday – he wants to talk to people.
“I’m going out!” he yells to May and her “be careful” follows him out the window into the muggy embrace of the sun. He jumps a few buildings over before leaping into his first swing, the wind rushing past his ears. A group of middle schooler’s whoop, waving up at him, and he waves back, flipping into his next arc. Halfway to the bridge, he stops to catch his breath, dangling his legs off a building.
“’iderman!” There’s two kids looking up at him and when he leaps down they cheer. The older one, maybe nine, recovers first. “Walk us to swim lessons?”
“Uh, sure!”
“Moooom – Spiderman’s taking us to the pool!”
“Kyle, I told you to – oh.”
“Good morning, ma’am.” He grins. “Friendly neighborhood Spiderman, at your service.”
“Okay then.” She smiles, a little disbelieving, and hands him the bags. “Off we go.”
It’s only four blocks to the pool and he takes a picture with the kids…and most of their class…and a fair few of the staff before he tells them he has to go, running off down the street. His web catches with a solid thwack, and he laughs, pulling himself up. Queens is bright and raucous under his feet and something under his skin settles for the first time since London.
MJ texts him a link to Twitter later that night, prefacing it with this is so wholesome i threw up a little. It’s a picture of him standing in the middle of a giant group hug with all the kids from the pool on the sidewalk. He grins, adjusting the ice on his ankle, and presses the button to call her.
“What?”
“You thought the picture was bad – I sprained my ankle baby talking a dog on a balcony today.”
“What?” she repeats, but he can hear the delight in her voice.
“Completely misjudged the distance between buildings, went over the railing by a foot.” He throws his arm over his forehead and grins so hard it hurts. “It was a baby corgi, so really none of it was my fault.”
--
It’s not that simple, of course. Mysterio had gone and dug his fingers into Peter’s softest parts, had spun fear out of the resulting bleed. He has nightmares about the Bridge, about Ned and Happy and MJ gunned down, about the rotted out Iron Man armor, and about Ben, bleeding out on the sidewalk.
After the Vulture, he’d spent weeks waking up gasping for breath, feeling the pile of rubble crushing his lungs. He traded sleep for patrolling, looking for someone to fight, until sleep came deep and dreamless. Now, he texts Ned or MJ or crawls out onto the roof to call Mr. Stark’s voicemail. Sometimes, he puts on the suit and walks people home. It’s nothing earth shattering, but it keeps the guilt and terror in his head quiet. Doing his civic duty – that’s what Ben would call it. He finds he likes the weight of it.
--
“Peter, baby, wake up.” He catches May’s wrist before she can touch him, choking on a sob. She twists her fingers until they’re holding hands instead. “Shhhh, you’re alright.” It takes him a moment to place the fact that it’s late evening – that he fell asleep on the couch. Fuck. He takes a stuttering inhale and leans against her hip.
“Sorry,” he says, “I’m sorry.” She strokes his hair and doesn’t say anything until he’s done crying.
“Ben said you apologized when you were a kid too,” she says, squeezing his hand. “You’d wake him up and sorry would be the first thing out of your mouth.”
“I don’t remember,” he says, voice cracking on it.
“I had to keep reminding myself, when I first found out, that you’ve never liked asking people for things,” she says and there’s a little wobble in her voice. “I thought Spiderman is what you were asking for, that that was what you wanted. But Peter…” She takes a deep breath and Peter’s pretty sure he’s holding onto her so tight it probably hurts. “Baby, you don’t owe anyone this. Peter Parker doesn’t need Spiderman to be a force for good.”
“I don’t know,” he says, can’t tell if she can even understand him past the snot and the fabric of her tshirt. “I just want to help people.”
“I know,” she says, and rubs at the back of his neck. “Can I show you something?” He nods and she laughs, a little wet. “You have to let go of me.” Oh, right. The whole thing almost collapses to another round of tears when she gets a good look at his face, but he ducks his head to scrub at his eyes and the moment passes. He feels, rather than sees, her sit down next to him.
“We’re never speaking of this,” he mutters, tucking his chin over her shoulder as she opens up her phone. She just pats his knee and opens up her texts with… “You text Mrs. Stark?”
“Peter.” The not now is heavily implied. He sniffles dramatically in her ear. “Here,” she says, opening up a link. “Pepper has someone keep an eye on mentions of Spiderman in social media.” She holds up a hand before he can say anything. “Don’t start, Tony did the same thing.”
“Fine,” he says, and focuses back on her phone. It’s a Twitter hashtag: #justlikespidey. The first tweet is some college kids detangling a kite from a tree; the second is a lady walking some tourists to the Met. May hands it over to him after a minute and lets him scroll. The tag’s only a few hours old, a mix of people talking about their encounters with him and their own good deeds, and a lot of them have a #friendlyneighborhood too.
“I think, I maybe need to talk to someone,” he says, when his eyes are too blurry to keep reading.
“Done,” May says, not even pretending to not be thrilled.
“I like,” he waves the phone around, “being this guy. But I…” He chews on his lip, feeling out the words. “I want to be ready, too. For the really big stuff.”
“Peter Benjamin Parker,” she says, kissing the top of his head. “How did we get so lucky with you?”
--
Hey, Mr. Stark, it’s Peter. I’m heading back to school tomorrow and Mrs. Stark has already made me promise to watch Morgan once a month when they’re in town. She’s a good kid – although I’m already a little afraid of when she meets MJ. I’m not sure there’s a building in New York that will protect me from their teasing.
Anyway, I have… I’ve been going to therapy – May is delighted – and my therapist thinks… I need to tell you that you were wrong. I’m not the next Iron Man and you were wrong to put that on me.
[sharp crackling]
Shit, sorry. I just, I miss you. Every day.
…
I’ll be a smartass in physics for you tomorrow or something – goodnight.
[September 9th, 2019. 12:35am]