Comes Great Responsibility
Much to Tony’s surprise, it took far less time than he anticipated to finish his week-long project after leaving the hospitality of the good King in Wakanda. Granted, he had blueprints and schematics to help guide him along the way — not to mention, he pulled three all-nighters in a fit of mania to get the damn thing completed.
That much was unintentional, though Pepper refused to believe as much. It was just how he rolled; always shining brightest when neck-deep in his latest invention.
Walking down the halls of the compound, Tony glanced at the object he carried in his hand — heavier than he expected, at that — and he resisted a halfhearted chuckle. It wasn’t so much an invention as it was a re-invention.
Still.
As he made his way to the common lounge, he couldn’t help but feel grateful to have the task off his back. His agenda was only growing by the day, especially with the wedding right around the corner — and sure, he was partially at fault for that, but what could he say. Put him under pressure and he’d come out shining like a diamond.
The window walls caught the setting sun from outside and reflected off the object settled against his hip, bouncing with each step that he took. Tony briefly gave it one last glance as he rounded a corner.
Shine like a diamond. Shine like a star. Both worked in this instance.
“Not bad…” a voice from the kitchen slowed Tony’s footsteps, until he came to a complete stop at the doorway. “But...missing something.”
The obnoxiously loud slurp that followed wasn’t the reason for the look that crossed his face. It could’ve been — the slurp was obnoxiously loud. But it wasn’t the reason.
“Salt, perhaps?”
Tony arched an eyebrow so high it may as well have reached Director Hill’s office on the top floor of the compound.
“No, Vis, no salt,” Wanda’s admonishment came with a soft chuckle, followed by a small slurp of her own. “Solyanka is rich soup. Heavy. Meat flavors broth with salt. Maybe…”
Tony gently set the object in his hand off to the side, letting it lean against the wall outside of the kitchen. No sooner after that did he point a sharp, stern finger inside where the two occupants hovered over the stove.
“Intruder!” he shouted, tamely, with absolutely no bite to his volume.
Wanda and Vision turned to look at him just the same, with flat expressions that spoke of their disinterest to his presence. Wanda more so than Vision — Tony had no idea how to discern Vision’s expression.
The lack of red on his face was more than enough to try and comprehend. Expressions would have to wait.
“Maximoff, how could you?” Tony teased, strolling into the kitchen with his finger wagging listlessly at the young girl ahead of him. “You leave Vis for a few weeks and you’re already shacking up with another man? Tsk tsk.”
With only the kitchen island separating them, Tony gave Vision a long once-over. The button-up sweater vest was strange, sure, but not nearly as strange as the blond hair that covered his head. Or the pale white skin that made him look, well...human.
“Are you a man?” Tony cocked his head to the side with narrowed eyes following suit.
Wanda opted not to engage in the conversation by instead taking another sip from the pot of soup resting on the kitchen island, slowly bringing the ladle to her lips without ever breaking eye-contact with Tony.
He noticed. Wanda’s stare always had a piercing effect to it, no different than how the moon could cut through a cloudy night with its fierce radiance. She never did speak much; always reserved, always quiet. It wasn’t until Peter came around that he finally saw her crack through that hard and rigid shell, if only a little bit.
Maybe if Vision wasn’t suddenly tall-handsome-boy-band-picture-perfect, Tony would’ve given the stare a second thought.
“I believe you are speaking of my appearance?” Vision asked, infuriatingly calm despite the fact his skin was no longer red, and his head was no longer bald, and the yellow stone embedded to his forehead failed to be seen.
Tony’s expression managed to say all of that. He considered that an impressive feat, seeing as his eyebrow only slightly twitched and his head stayed inclined to the side.
For what it was worth, Vision heard the unspoken. “Do you like it?”
Tony looked to Wanda, who was still staring at him — he tried to get a read on her expression, but gave up halfway into the already lackadaisical attempt — before looking back at Vision, slowly straightening his head with an even slower nod to follow.
“It, uh…” Tony clucked his tongue. “It suits you.”
Tony figured that was the right thing to say. Neither of the two were giving him much indication to go off of, and ‘compliments to give your fellow witch team member’s android boyfriend’ wasn’t exactly in his wide-range of skills.
It just another chapter he’d need to include in his ever-growing book titled ‘How to Raise Your Novice Superhero Kid’ that he joked about writing with May, but seriously considered more days than not.
“In my spare time I’ve come to learn more about this stone of mine,” Vision started to say, languidly lifting a finger to his forehead despite the fact only pale skin covered the area he gestured to. “Combined with Wanda’s help...and with the addition of her powers, I was able to adapt to this form.”
Tony quirked an eyebrow, a growing smirk pulling at his lips as he watched Wanda, once again, take a small sip from the pot of soup.
“Using that chaos magic for something good, huh?” he asked, almost too quiet to hear.
Wanda heard, no different than he noticed the way she stared. Her only response was to place the ladle back in the pot of soup and turn around to the stove. Wordlessly, she rummaged the spice cabinet placed too high for her to reach without standing on her tippy-toes.
For a moment, the only sound in the kitchen came from Wanda as she sorted through the spices. It wouldn’t stay quiet for much longer — Tony had been living in the compound long enough to know the team members not living on a farm in Iowa would be flocking through the communal kitchen the moment they realized the cafeteria had nothing good to offer for dinner.
Tony was pretty sure he smelt pot roast on his way out of his workshop. Which meant Sam would be hightailing it to the communal kitchen any minute now in an attempt to cook ‘something that we all can actually digest.’ In the process, he’d end up making enough food for not just the whole team, but leftovers that would last for days.
That was becoming as timeless as Tony losing track of time in his workshop.
But it wasn’t forgoing the peace and quiet that he was worried about. No, Tony could always retreat back to one of his many workshops if he really wanted that — after all, his agenda was still pages long, and his next project was already brewing in his head.
It was kind of hard not to keep his wheels turning, having left Wakanda with a goody bag full of ‘to do’s’ and ‘to get done’s.’
Watching Wanda compare two spice bottles, with one in each hand, Tony knew it was the opportunity he was worried about losing. He didn’t know how the girl always managed to stay so hidden, but he figured it was better to take the chance now while it — and she — was in front of him.
“Vis,” Tony cleared his throat roughly as he waved ahead, “give us the room, will ya?”
Wanda silently arched an eyebrow at Tony’s request, both spice bottles no longer drawing her attention as she watched Vision slowly depart from the kitchen — though not before giving her the slightest gesture of affection along the way.
It was barely discernible from a distance, but Tony noticed the glow of yellow that brightened on his forehead. It was the most ‘Vision’ he’d seen from the android, who otherwise now looked completely human.
That was, without a doubt about it, going to take a while to get used to.
The silence hung around long after Vision left.
Plopping his hip against the kitchen island, Tony resisted the urge to sigh by instead tapping a closed fist against the counter top. His knuckles rap-pat-patted against the granite with no rhyme or rhythm, all the while he stared off at nothing in particular.
The coffee pot may have needed cleaning, but it didn’t catch his attention. The sink had a few dishes stacked inside, but it wasn’t what occupied his mind. He stared at them both all the same, even as the words finally found their way past his lips.
“I was coming to do the same thing.”
Tony worked his jaw fiercely, as if the admission needed forced out with a strength not even he could scrounger up. He could feel Wanda’s stare on him no different than before, but this time, his head dropped low to avoid the gaze.
“If you hadn’t…” Tony cleared his throat with a hard sniff to follow. “I would’ve.”
Wakanda may have been a week behind them, and another week further back from the night that they nearly lost their lives — but the clarification wasn’t needed.
They both knew what Tony meant.
Across the kitchen island and near the cabinets, Wanda gently set the two spice bottles aside — so slowly, and so gingerly, they barely made a sound when placed on the counter. Yet in the silence that followed, the little bit of noise could’ve been the same sonic pulse that nearly ripped Cap to shreds and damn well should’ve done the same to Tony.
The same sonic pulse that defeated the monster neither of them intended to bring to existence, but grief controlled their actions in ways their mind could never make sense of.
Tony all but forced his gaze away from the trivialness that his eyes wandered towards — the coffee pot would be cleaned at another time, and the dishes would be dealt with later, but what mattered now was the girl across from him.
And she looked at him, even as he couldn’t do the same.
“I didn’t have much of a childhood growing up, you know,” Tony said, his knuckles resuming the nonsensical tapping on the kitchen island. No rhythm, no rhyme. Just sound to fill the empty space between them. “Not in the same sense as you, not comparing apples to oranges here, berries and lamb chops is more like it — you know, don’t take that the wrong way, it’s not comparison, it’s — I’m trying to make a point here, and that being —”
Tony slammed his lips shut and looked to the skylight above them, barely holding back the groan that swelled in his throat. It didn’t matter how many years he ticked off the calendar; some things about him were just never going to change.
Pepper knew exactly how to get him to the point; always able to cut short his digression before he got too far off track. May Parker knew how to listen patiently and intervene when she finally understood, saving him the embarrassment of fumbling around his nerves.
Because showing emotion wasn’t his thing, it wasn’t something he did.
Wanda was just a kid. Barely in her twenties. She had no clue how to navigate him, no different than he failed to navigate her.
Tony’s knuckles began to ache as he kept rap-pat-patting on the granite counter top.
“What I’m trying to say here is I...I get it.” Tony was still looking at the skylight when he spoke. “I’ve been harsh on you. Treating you like a tabloid story ready to break as opposed to an...an actual person trying to live their life.” His hand gestured ahead at what he assumed was Wanda’s general direction — his wrist flopped as if there was no bone holding his hand in place; his eyes staying distant and looking anywhere but at her. “You have the right to have a life. Go, party, have fun — god knows I did during my hay day.”
Tony let his head drop down, his eyes catching sight of the pot on the kitchen island. There was still a slight boil to the liquid inside, and thick vapors of steam wafted into the air without a lid to keep it in place.
If only to occupy his hands, Tony reached for the ladle and gave the soup a good stir.
“Forget what Captain Mom says, make terrible decisions with your free time. Be a kid, for crying out loud.” Tony dropped the ladle no sooner than he picked it up, pursing his lips to the side as he did. “If SHIELD has a problem with that, they can take it up with me. Hell, at this point, giving Fury a piece of my mind is a past-time. Might as well make it a national holiday.”
Without anything in his close proximity to fiddle with, Tony quickly stuffed his hands deep underneath his armpits. Even there, his fingers tapped close to his chest, the anxiety he couldn’t quite get rid of finding a release in whatever way it could.
Wanda was still staring at him — he could feel her gaze without ever looking at her. Despite how much he wanted to believe differently, he was sure her powers had no part in that.
The girl never needed magical abilities to see into people’s heads. Tony didn’t know her ins and outs, but he figured she had that gift long before Strucker and the stone gave it to her.
“Just…” Tony had to clear his throat a few times before continuing. “Be careful around Peter. They see him with you and they start putting two and two together — boy from Spider-Man’s neighborhood hanging out the Scarlet Witch?”
With a heavy head that made his shoulders ache, Tony finally looked to Wanda. An arched eyebrow followed the pause that lingered — just for a moment, just long enough to make a point.
He broke the tension with a smirk too small to be considered anything but a muscular twitch.
“The kid wants a little secret identity,” Tony drawled out. “Lets give him that much. Capisce?”
If Wanda acknowledged him, it wasn’t with words.
There was no point in looking away now that Tony finally caught her gaze. It wouldn’t do him any good to look at the dirty coffee pot, or the sink full of dishes. Neither would’ve provoked what he said next.
“I know you care about him.” Tony slowly unfolded his arms, letting both hands rest palm-down on the kitchen island. He leaned forward, enough that the steam from the pot could warm the skin on his face. “And...well, I know you don’t have many people left in your life.”
It didn’t matter how uncomfortable the topic made him; Tony didn’t get a chance to look away.
Wanda did first.
Slowly, with careful movements, Tony slid the pot of soup to the side — just far enough away that it wasn’t blocking his view of Wanda, and vice versa.
“You should also know that we’re here for you.” For what it was worth, Tony tried to smile. He had no idea if it resembled anything close to a smile, and Wanda was too busy looking off to the side to even pay it any attention. But the effort was there. “And...I know you and I aren’t two peas in a pod, but...I’m around. If you need someone.”
Wanda dipped her head low and out of sight, until her chin was resting on the cardigan-covered skin where her shoulder was. Tony couldn’t make out her expression, but he had a gut feeling that even if he saw her face, he wouldn’t have been able to decipher it anyway.
Maybe he was at fault for that; maybe he just didn’t try hard enough with her.
It was strange. Some days, Sokovia felt like eons ago. Other times, it felt like yesterday. The last year alone had been a whirlwind of events that he struggled to keep track of. And while it was inevitable that some things would slip through the cracks along the way — hell, it wasn’t until he personally took the reins and made the ceremony arrangements that Pepper finally bit the bullet and agreed to get married next month — there were also some things that he simply overlooked.
Wanda had been with them for some years now. It was Tony’s fault alone that he didn’t get to know her better.
Like many other things, he was ready for that to change.
Slowly, but surely, Wanda returned her gaze to him — not a stare, just a look. And the smile, as small as it was, gave Tony hope that she felt the same way.
“You’re so quiet,” Tony found the words tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them.
Wanda arched an eyebrow in response.
“You talk a lot,” she finally spoke, with the humor to her tone enriching her accent.
Tony gave a soft smirk. “Touché.”
Leaving both spice bottles behind, Wanda re-approached the kitchen island with footsteps almost too quiet to hear. No sooner than she got there and her hand went for the ladle in the pot, giving the soup a good sir and wafting the steam further in the air.
With one smooth motion, Wanda lifted the spoon from inside, wordlessly gesturing it to Tony.
He leaned forward, taking a sip just the same.
Tony swirled the soup in his mouth for a good second, swishing it side to side as he let the taste register on his tongue.
“Cayenne pepper,” he eventually said, at the same time pointing a finger at the cabinet behind her.
Wanda’s smile grew larger. She was already halfway to the spice rack when Tony managed to beat her to it, snatching three additional bottles along the way.
“Here, let me show you something.” Tony tossed her one of the spice bottles as he made his way back to the pot of soup. “Listen close — I don’t repeat myself.”
It was nothing short of a miracle that Peter made it home from school in time. Between detention, staying late to talk with Principal Morita — not to mention Ned and MJ, and then the train running behind schedule — he swore he wouldn’t have a minute between grabbing his overnight bags and jumping into Happy’s car.
Peter looked at his phone while running up the stairs of the apartment complex, bypassing the elevator in favor of speed. Perfect — there was just enough time left for him to scarf something down before he headed upstate.
Which was good, because he was starving.
“Hey, May!” Peter swung the front door open at the same exact time he swung his backpack onto the couch up ahead, followed by his keys to the nearest table — all the while he shrugged off his jacket. “Is dinner ready yet? I’m going to eat and pack!”
Peter tossed the jacket onto the floor as he simultaneously kicked off his shoes, hopping on one leg as worked to take off his other sneaker.
“Already did!”
Peter didn’t turn around to face the voice. He’d just thrown open the door to his bedroom when May hollered from behind.
“Oh —” Looking straight ahead, his brows furrowed as he caught sight of his dufflebag and suitcase placed on the bottom bunk bed. The sheets and blankets were neatly tucked in, with the pillows tidily stacked at the head.
Neither were like that when he left for school this morning. He remembered his bed being so rumpled that half the fitted sheet wasn’t even on the mattress anymore. And two of the pillow cases had fallen off his old, lumpy pillows. A mess he promised he’d clean up before leaving for the weekend, but in hindsight might have been an empty promise with his current time restraints.
None of that mess was to be seen now.
“You already packed for me?” It wasn’t so much a question as it was a statement. Peter felt the tug on his lips at the same time he felt footsteps come from behind — light enough on the carpet that he could tell May was walking barefoot.
“Got you a pack of new socks, too,” she said, wiping both her hands dry with a bright yellow dishtowel. No sooner after that did she whip the rag humorously against Peter’s shoulder. “That one pair had a hole bigger than the heel, Peter. We’re not destitute, you can ask for new clothes.”
Peter ducked his head with a low chuckle, all as he made his way inside the bedroom. He left the bags untouched — heading right for the dresser against the wall, dropping down to his knees so he could reach the very bottom shelf.
“Yeah...I kept forgetting,” Peter sheepishly admitted, throwing May an innocent look along the way. “Thanks.”
She rolled her eyes as she turned back around, the dishtowel swung over her shoulder as she returned to the kitchen.
“Oh, before I forget,” May started to say, her voice dwindling as Peter dug into the bottom shelf of his dresser drawer. His face grimaced tightly as his hand blindly sorted through the belongings there — computer parts and old internet modems covered the item he’d stashed away. “I’ve gotta work overnight at the shelter. Dylan called out again and no one else could cover the shift.”
Peter paused, making a face slightly different from his previous grimace as he looked up from the drawer — old cables in one hand, and the other pushing past a stack of blank CD’s.
“You should really fire this guy, May!” Peter raised his voice as he somewhat-shouted from his bedroom to the kitchen. “Didn’t he, like, nearly poison everyone last month when he used bleach in the dishwashers?”
A clatter echoed the kitchen as May fumbled inside the cabinets — the ones high up that required her to use a stool. But she never did use a stool, and it always resulted in a racket of noise as she tried to reach high up where her fingers barely grazed the top shelf.
“He’s not my best employee, no!” she also somewhat-shouted back to offset the distance. “But good help is hard to come by and we’re taking who we can get!”
Peter was only half listening to May as he rummaged through the depths of his dresser drawer. For a split second that he swore caused his heart to skip a beat, Peter began to wonder if he’d forgotten where he placed —
Ah, nope. There it was.
Retrieving it from the bottom of the drawer, he smoothed out the cloth wrap that covered the item. The wrapping paper replacement still smelt like wet, dirty goats — a new, but equally weird grimace replaced the last. Peter hoped that was just because of his enhanced senses and not because it actually still smelt like wet, dirty goats.
He was still smoothing out the edges when he walked back into the living room, still staring at the object in his hands when the enthusiastic sound of clapping hands startled him back to awareness.
“Now come, sit!” May insisted, clapping wildly before gesturing to the couch — throwing herself down so quickly the cushions bounced when she sat down. “You have time before Happy picks you up! I’ve barely seen you since you got back from Wakanda.” May patted firmly on the empty cushion next to her. “Talk to me, tell me everything that’s going on.”
Peter smiled as he lowered himself down to the sofa — May’s excitement was always contagious, and her never-dwindling enthusiasm for his life, in all aspects, flourished a warm feeling in his chest.
It made him all the more excited to say things like, “I’m definitely going to homecoming with MJ.”
May’s squeal could’ve ripped the ozone layer in two.
“You are!?” May barely waited a fraction of a second before yanking Peter forward into a hug, squeezing and rocking him so hard they both nearly fell off the couch. “Oh, that’s fantastic, Peter! Oh, you two are going to look so freaking adorable together —!”
“May!” Peter laughed into May’s shoulder, forcing her to still them both before they toppled to the floor and broke the coffee table along the way.
Peter really didn’t need that added to the list of home belongings he’s accidentally broken. He’d be more than content if the kitchen sink remained the worst thing to suffer from his still-ever-surprising-super-strength.
“This time — our place.” May pulled away from the hug as quickly as she spoke, her index finger poking relentlessly at Peter’s collarbone. “I want her to come here, I want to take the photos. I’ll make sure I’m off that night — backup coverage for the backup call out for Dylan’s inevitable call out. Cross my heart, I promise.”
Peter nodded, unable to keep his smile from growing as May’s grin did the same thing. Her smile pulled so tightly across her face that her glasses bunched up on the bridge of her nose. She pulled him into one more big hug; brief but tighter than the last.
“I’m so happy for you,” May gushed, giving a loudly exaggerated peck on his cheek before pulling away for good.
Peter ran the back of his hand across his face, smearing away her wet mark with his knuckles as his smile slowly, but steadily, began to drop a bit.
“I, uhm…” he cleared his throat, timidly, looking into the kitchen if only to avoid looking at his aunt. “I also met with Principal Morita. After school.”
May raised both her eyebrows.
“Oh?” The dishtowel began to slip down her shoulder and she reached for it, putting it back in place.
Peter delayed on any immediate response; the pot on the stove made gurgling noises that filled the place of any words he would’ve said. The sauce inside splashed in little bits, and he watched as it splattered the lid that covered the top, keeping the contents inside where it all belonged.
“He’s doing a lot better,” Peter finally settled on saying, a nod following suit. And he kept nodding, the bounce of his head speaking more to his nerves than anything else.
He never tore his eyes away from the stove, not even as he spoke.
May smiled at him, all the same time.
“That’s so great,” she said — genuinely, relief coating her tone. She leaned forward on the sofa, pressing her balled fist into Peter’s knee to get his attention. “How’d it feel? Talking to him?”
Even with May tapping him back to reality, Peter took a second before looking away from the kitchen. The burners still blazed with a reddish-orange color, and the pot still splashed sauce inside where it simmered to a boil, but it didn’t require anyone’s immediate attention. May was ‘babysitting dinner’ as she’d always call it. Keeping an eye on it while it cooked for itself.
Peter looked to his lap before looking back up at May.
“I...I still feel bad. About what happened,” he admitted. The nodding stopped, and instead he cleared his throat to get the next words out. “But, you know...staying guilty doesn’t fix things. I’m going to do better. Next time. This time? Present time. Not to say that in the future I won’t — either way. I’m going to do —”
“I know you are, tough guy,” May seamlessly interrupted him, opening her balled fist to lay her hand down on Peter’s knee, squeezing the jean material and the flesh beneath it. “You’re a good kid. Your mistakes don’t change that.”
Peter craned his head around, looking to his hip where the smelly-goat-cloth-covered-item sat on the couch. He went to pick it up, only to simply hold it in his hand.
It weight absolutely nothing to Peter, but lifting it was suddenly an impossible task. So he stared at it instead.
“I know I’ve said it like, sixteen thousand times so far...but...I’m really sorry,” Peter began, so quiet that the neighbors dog almost overtook his voice — shrill barking came from across the hall and easily leaked into their apartment. “For treating you that way. For scaring you.”
The neighbors Maltese was definitely louder than that last part.
Nonetheless, Peter was pretty sure May heard him. The expression on her face confirmed as much when he finally forced himself to look back at her.
He also had to force himself to ease the grip he had on the cloth-wrapped-item. He didn’t care how many backpack straps he ripped in two, there was no way he’d forgive himself if he broke this.
Peter threw his head back around, looking at it one last time.
“I wanted to give this to you when we first got back, but...I got…” Peter trailed off, a frown pulling harshly at his face. He shook it off. “I dunno. I got stuck in my head overthinking it, or something. Mr. Stark’s always telling me not to do that.”
Biting the bullet, Peter grabbed the object and twisted around on the couch, practically shoving it right at May.
“Here.”
He did shove it right at May — she startled back, the item so close that it nearly rammed right into her stomach. Luckily, she reached out for it before any harm could be done; taking the rectangle sized plank from Peter with cautious speed.
“What is this?” she asked, both curious and confused all in one go.
Peter sucked in his lips to the point where they disappeared somewhere inside his mouth.
May took that as ‘find out for yourself.’
The cloth that encased the item was heavier than both the material of her shirt and Peter’s combined. It was tied off with a thin, braided rope; frayed from top to bottom, tied in an unfamiliar bow that May easily pulled apart.
“Oh my gosh,” May breathed out, uncovering the item one fold at a time, until the cloth was completely unwrapped and she was able to lift the item off her lap. “Peter, this is beautiful.”
The little light still remaining from outside shined in through the living room windows, casting off the canvas that May held in the air. She turned it over in her hands to get a complete look, viewing it from front and back.
The portrait caught the sunset and reflected colors that both May and Peter swore they’d never seen before.
“Wakanda?” May turned to face him, her one hand pressing against her chest as the other kept the item in the air. “You got this in Wakanda?”
Peter gave a tight-lipped smile and a brisk nod. At the same time, May ran her fingers across the length of the portrait — the wooden canvas was smooth and sanded, and chiseled in many places that were embedded with twine. It was art that used only natures material for its paint. Hand crafted, with a design that would catch anyone’s eye.
May kept her gaze locked on it, even as Peter spoke.
“Before we left, they let me tour the city — well, I kinda begged to see the city, and Mr. Stark wasn’t cool with it at first but Shuri tagged along and King T’Challa even spent time with us and — anyway, there was this super small jewelry shop in their marketplace, ran by this woman and her daughter — I can’t remember their names but they were so friendly.” The only reason Peter paused was to take in a breath of air. “Everyone there was so nice, May, it was so cool, you would’ve loved it.”
As Peter rambled, May briefly gave him her attention — with her eyebrow arched, and a tug pulling at her lips.
“Anyway,” Peter caught on. So much for promising to slow down when he talked. “I saw this and told them, you know, it was really pretty. And they told me it had this meaning behind it — that-that all the details mean something.”
Nervously, Peter scooted closer to May on the sofa. What little distance between them no longer existed as Peter pointed to the bottom of the portrait — a slack of wood that had been polished and fashioned into something more.
“The, uh — the twine part, here, it represents roots.” Peter’s finger slid from the bottom towards the center. “And the disconnect in the middle, right there, its about — uhm, it’s-it’s about loss. And the way that this separate piece here comes in,” his finger followed the path he spoke of, “and wraps around the broken twine, it, uhm...its about how...another person, uh, comes in and...and takes-takes over the role that was left behind.”
As quickly as Peter scooted close to May, he pulled himself away — just a bounce backward on the cushion, enough space so they could both breathe fresh air, free of the residual goat fur that was permanently embedded in the material of the cloth.
His fingers, suddenly idle without a task to keep him occupied, clasped together as he closed his hands and squeezed tight.
“The mother and daughter who owned the shop, they were…” Peter stuttered over his words, in all the ways he usually did when nervous — just never when he was around May. “Uhm, the-the daughter was adopted. By her aunt. Her mother...her biological mother...passed away when she was a kid.” Peter cleared his throat, more than once. “Actually, her, uh – her aunt wasn’t even her aunt as in like, her mother’s sister. She was, uhm...married into it.” Peter forced a laugh — a very forced, and very nervous laugh. “We had a lot in common, we talked a lot — I can’t believe I don’t remember her name. Like, of all things to have in common —”
“Peter,” May gently interrupted.
With a sheepish smile, Peter looked back down at the portrait in May’s lap, some of the frayed rope having fallen to the ground — he’d remember to pick those up before either of them vacuumed over it and it resulted in another broken vacuum.
“I uhm, I don’t know if I’ve…”
Peter felt his voice give out. He tried clearing his throat, but it did nothing the second time around.
As May continued to study the piece of art, he fell quiet.
The strings of twine, looped in through chiseled sections of real wood from real trees of Wakanda, stood out to Peter — in both literal sense of how the art was forged, and how the story of its origin reflected back in the craft.
He wanted to look at May when he spoke. Yet the heat on his cheeks was too much to look anywhere but at the art, and her hands gripping it.
“I don’t know...if I’ve ever, actually...if I’ve ever actually told you this, May, but…” Peter couldn’t keep his foot from tapping on the floor. His socks beat against the carpet in a frantic, nervous pattern. “Thank you, for...for being that mom...to me.”
A hand laid firmly down on his knee, the same one bouncing hard enough to shake his whole leg off his body. Peter snapped his head over to May, no later than the moment her hand touched down.
“I promise I’m going to do better,” he swore, talking right over anything she had planned to say. May’s mouth closed shut, but her hand stayed on his leg. “I swear, this won’t happen again. I’ll do better — I’ll be better. I promise.”
May reached forward immediately, wrapping one arm firmly around his back and pulling him into a tight embrace.
“Peter…” she let out, so close to his ear that she had to move away and let his head rest in the tuck of her neck. One hand carded into his hair and stayed there. “You are so good. You are so good, here and now — you’re a good kid, Peter.”
Pulling him away, May laid both her hands down against each shoulder of his, her smile as wet as her eyes had quickly become.
“And your Ben would be so proud of you,” she had to whisper, but not by intent. Her words choked and she smiled the sound away.
Peter did her a favor and smiled in return. He didn’t need to argue her solace — he allowed her reassurance to be as contagious as her enthusiasm. Allowing her words of encouragement to spread towards him, even if he didn’t have all it took to believe in them that very moment.
He’d allow himself to believe it, slowly, as time went on. Day by day, sometimes second by second.
He’d get there.
With everyone’s help, Peter had no doubt he’d get there.
May sniffed, loudly, as she turned back to the piece of art in her hands.
“How much did this cost?” she suddenly asked, her smirk betraying the genuinity to her question.
Peter gaped, humorously. “You said we’re not destitute —!”
“Tony bought it, didn’t he?”
Damn. Peter pulled a face, all sass and no bite as May’s expression spoke so proudly of her bull-shit detector.
“It’s totally okay, I’m totally gunna pay him back,” Peter immediately defended, one arm outstretched as if that bettered his excuse. “And besides, the Wakanda dollar is much different than the American dollar, it goes in like — opposite ways. I think. Maybe.”
May’s laugh came with an eye-roll that dried the tears swimming in her eyes, and she adjusted her glasses with a quick flick to each side so she could brush away what remained; keeping one hand firm on the wooden canvas as she did, not letting go even as the cloth fell to the floor and the twine laid across her bare-feet.
“Just let me know how much it was and we’ll pay him back,” May said, all between lighthearted chuckles and a shake of her head.
“No!” Peter whined with a smile. “You can’t pay for your own gift, May! That’s why I didn’t buy Mr. St—”
Peter didn’t lose his voice. It was a force-stop, the words getting stuck in his throat — literally choking off before they could escape.
His well-timed cough didn’t erase what he said. May heard it, and shot him a look the moment she did.
It impressed Peter how she could say everything with her lips sealed shut. He really needed to learn that trick from her — though he imagined the Spider-Man mask would render it pointless.
Peter threw his hand behind his neck, rubbing at the nape until it felt sore. “I was actually gunna buy him something...but then it just felt weird having him pay for his own gift. And I...I don’t know. It’s nothing. Anyway.”
“Something like this?” May asked, ignoring his attempt to brush off the subject as she pointed to the portrait in her lap.
Peter answered that question by looking away, his eyes latching onto nothing in particular as they roamed the living room. He almost forgot the stove-top still had a pot of sauce on the burner until he caught a glimpse of the red-covered lid. A few streams of condensation from the heat spilled out from inside, and sizzled as it touched the stove, but the sauce remained otherwise fine. Simmering at a steady pace as the oven timer counted down to whatever cooked inside.
And May still stared at him, and still pointed to the wooden canvas in her lap; with twine that smelt like farm animals embedded inside the sleek polish of real timber — and each piece of twine laced together in a way that spoke of connection regardless to its original roots.
“I’m...I’m sorry for getting mad about you telling Mr. Stark everything,” Peter said, all in one breath. His fingers began drumming incessantly on his knee — he never could stay still. “I guess I was just...I dunno. Embarrassed at him knowing those things.”
May’s gentle, well meaning scoff was enough to tear his gaze away from the kitchen. Peter furrowed his brows at the sound, right at the same time that she skyrocketed her eyebrows with downright humorous disbelief.
“Knowing what things?” she asked, incredulously. “That you’re human?”
Peter pursed his lips — not really angry, not really even frustrated. Just…
“I dunno, I didn’t…”
He didn’t know.
Peter didn’t know exactly what all of this meant, and figuring it out wasn’t coming easy to him.
Or maybe it was, and the accepting part was what he’d gotten hung up on.
“I didn’t want him knowing about...you know. My mistakes.”
That much wasn’t a lie. Peter had never wanted Mr. Stark to see him like that. To see him as weak, as somebody who was helpless. Somebody who couldn’t protect others, let alone protect himself.
He always wanted to make Mr. Stark proud. And maybe he didn’t realize it at first — maybe this was the first time he’d ever truly realized it — but everything after the bunker made him feel…
Weak. And helpless. And like somebody who couldn’t protect others, let alone protect himself.
Peter frowned as he came to that realization.
Meanwhile, May repeated him, “You didn’t want him knowing about your mistakes—”
“Shut up, May,” Peter grumbled at her attempt at humor. Her laugh only further irritated him.
“Kiddo...Peter,” May started to say, the light airiness to her voice bleeding any tension away from them both. “This whole thing with Tony? The whole ‘Stark Internship’, the whole Avengers preliminary pre-requisitions on the weekends?” May’s laugh slowly faded away. Her smile lessened, but didn’t disappear. It simply morphed into something else. “This isn’t happening because I thought having Stark around would prevent you from making mistakes. We did it because you need someone there to teach you what to do after making those mistakes.”
The heat on Peter’s cheeks returned, but it wasn’t the same as before. He turned his head away, where the burn of shame couldn’t be seen on his face.
May didn’t let it stop her from continuing on.
“It’s okay to be human, Peter,” she stressed. “And Tony knows you’re human. He knows all the icky, nasty stuff that comes with it.”
May leaned back into the couch, at the same time tilting her chin low where Peter couldn’t completely avoid her. She patted him on his knee — three firm smacks that rose over the neighbors dog and its obnoxious yips.
The entire time, Peter kept his eyes locked to the floor.
“And knowing all that...he still decided to stick around,” she reminded him, her lips pursing to the side after the fact. “Think about that the next time you want to exclude him from the bad parts of your life.”
A long, shrill BEEP came from the kitchen — the noise set to its loudest volume, strictly due to past experiences.
May used Peter’s knee as a foothold when she stood up, walking towards the kitchen only to stop right behind the couch. With Peter facing forward, she leaned over the back, resting her chin there right next to Peter’s face.
“You know, he barely left your side after he got you back,” May mentioned, gently knocking the side of her forehead against his temple. When that didn’t earn a smile from him, May reached around and wrapped her arm around his neck — never squeezing, but holding him firm nonetheless. “From that...that bunker nonsense? That man didn’t step aside until he knew for sure that you’d be okay.” May pressed her nose into the crown of Peter’s hair, and he grabbed onto her forearm, squeezing the hold she had on him. Her mouth was closest to his ear when she spoke again. “That reminded me a lot of Ben.”
Peter increased the squeeze on her arm. Right at the time, the stove’s timer went off again, just as shrill as the last.
“Oh, will you —!” May spewed out a few nonsensical curse words as she relented her hold on Peter, her bare-feet pitter-patting into the kitchen where she shut off the timer and began to stir the contents inside the pot.
For a moment, all Peter heard was May as she slurped on the sauce and threw in a few extra, last minute spices. That, combined with the shrill barks of Milky the Maltese and the Johnson’s in 3.B playing M.A.S.H, were the only sounds that leaked into Peter’s ears.
Everything else, sans some honking traffic from outside, was quiet.
Peter let his eyes travel to the bathroom door, lingering there for a second that felt too long. The noise — or rather, the lack of noise — hadn’t been there since he returned earlier in the week. He vaguely remembered May saying she’d gotten the landlord to fix the pipes. But with everything that happened recently, he’d honestly forgotten all about it.
Until now.
May came walking back to the living room with a different rag thrown over her shoulder — the residual sauce on her forearms indicating a mess that soiled the other dishtowel — and Peter watched her as she returned to the couch. Though he wasn’t really paying attention the whole time.
His thoughts were caught up in the memory of what happened after ‘that bunker nonsense’, as May dubbed it. How — like she said — he almost never woke up without Mr. Stark at his side.
How Mr. Stark was always present in his recovery, and tenfold after the fact.
The road trip, the training, the ever-persistent need to be involved — even if Peter absolutely didn’t want him to be.
The symbiote. The efforts put into helping him, even when he pushed help away. And — Peter blinked too many times to count, still unable to fully wrap his head around the whole resurrection ordeal — it all traced back to ‘that bunker nonsense.’
It was the second realization Peter came to, silently — with no audible statement to follow. It was information he stored away, hoping it would help him figure out — or finally accept — what he’d gotten so hung up on.
“I think a part of me…” Peter’s thoughts leaked out before his mouth even knew it was speaking. He quickly shook his head. “Never mind. It’s stupid.”
May plopped onto the sofa and flapped the dishtowel at Peter.
“Try me.”
Peter cursed his inability to keep his mouth shut. Mr. Stark had once joked that he wanted to add a mute feature inside his mask — some days, Peter couldn’t deny supporting the add-on of that function.
“I think...I may have. I dunno.” Peter blew a hard breath through his cheeks, puffing them out until they were five times their normal size. He didn’t resume speaking until all the air had vacated his lungs. “I think I felt like I was...replacing Ben with Mr. Stark.”
A clap of hands was absolutely not what Peter was expecting.
“That’s good!” May cheered.
The look he threw May nearly had her doubled over. She held back her laugh with a visible bite of her tongue, and reached for Peter’s bicep, gripping it with colored nails that pressed into his skin.
“Sweetie," May drawled out, the lines on her face pulling with a flood of sympathy that warmed the room. “Ben’s not here anymore. He’s here —” May moved her hand to his chest, her index finger tapping firmly in the middle. “But he’s not here.” She let her hand drop no sooner after, with a frown that followed suit.
Peter brought his own hand to his chest, laying a fist there as if he could feel the presence of his uncle beneath his flesh and bone.
And yet the ache still lingered, not much different than the night the man passed away.
And Peter blinked frantically, fighting to ease the burn that began to swell in his eyes.
“And trust me when I say he would not want you living in the past.” May forced her lips upward as she saw the sheen pool around his eyes. “Ben wanted nothing but the best for you. It wouldn’t matter who played that role in your life, so long as someone was there to do it. Someone good.” May’s smile became more genuine as the seconds passed. “Someone like Tony.”
Peter looked away, unable to keep the smile off his face even as he diverted his attention from May. He flicked his thumb across his nose, sniffling a few times to free the building emotion from his chest.
“Ben hated billionaires,” Peter returned his gaze to her with a joke.
May leveled him a look.
“And millionaires,” she dryly stated. “He was a blue collar guy, Peter, what do you expect?”
Peter laughed, flicking at his nose one more time as the sound of his own chuckles was too wet for his liking. He couldn’t help it; Ben was always a hard subject to bring up, even around people like May.
Time may have separated him from that night, but talking about things made it feel like it happened yesterday. And just when Peter thought it was getting easier, suddenly, he felt right back at square one. Like all the thoughts he struggled with regarding Mr. Stark re-opened a wound he hadn’t realized was slowly healing on its own.
He knew May was right. Deep down, logically, Peter knew he wasn’t replacing Ben. The shoes were being filled, but it wasn’t replacing his uncle.
His uncle had to leave those shoes behind. At fault of no one but the shooters, out of anyone’s control.
Peter would grapple with that reality for the rest of his life, but he’d come to accept it.
And with that acceptance, maybe he could let someone else in.
“Do you think he would’ve liked Mr. Stark?” Peter turned to ask May, a quirk of his lips telling her he already knew the answer.
May’s snort proved as much to be true. “At first? Hell no.”
Peter let himself laugh — loudly, at that.
“Yeah,” Peter’s laughs turned into chuckles, and he shook his head for good measure. “You kinda didn’t like him, either.”
Nothing, not even sentient parasites, could make him forget how May reacted when she first found out about things — specifically Tony’s involvement in his ‘extracurricular activities.’ Peter wasn’t too sure which topped the embarrassment chart — when the Avengers made him de-mask and discovered his identity, and his age in the process —
Or May screaming at Tony Stark while he was locked away in his bedroom, grounded for an infinite amount of time that ended up being six weeks, turned to three, turned to two with good behavior.
May’s smile softened, no different than Peter’s laughs died down. She slapped the back of her hand against his shoulder, jokingly and lovingly all at the same time.
“You always see the potential in people, you know,” she began to say. “You always see the good in them, even when others can’t. And I think we can both say that Tony isn’t the same person he was at the beginning of this year.”
Peter didn’t think there was any words in the English dictionary that described just how much of an understatement that was.
“Yeah…” he just narrowly held back a huff — one that easily would’ve overtaken the shrill BEEP sounding from the stove. “That’s for sure.”
As May quickly retreated to the kitchen to turn off the timer — again — Peter looked ahead to his bedroom door. It was still wide open, with both his bags set on his bed; packed and ready to spend the weekend upstate at the compound.
Next weekend was his off weekend, back on schedule after everything with Wakanda. And it was homecoming, anyway. Which meant he’d been in Queens.
Which also meant if Peter wanted to get any of this Mr. Stark stuff sorted out, anytime soon — the next two days were his chance.
So lost in thought, Peter didn’t see May return to the living room. She reached down to the sofa and retrieved the portrait, the weight lifting off the cushions and mildly startling him.
“What would you have gotten him?” she asked, her back turned to him as she walked towards the nearest bookshelf. When silence followed her question, she craned head around to face Peter. “You said you didn’t want him buying his own gift. What would you have gotten him?”
Delicately and carefully, May set the wooden art on the top of the bookshelf, pushing some other home décor items aside to make room for it. She had to stand on her toes to get there, but it settled in nice. Catching what light came through the windows and adding a gleam to the polished timber.
She stepped back with both hands on her hips, eyeing it from where she stood. Right as Peter gestured ahead to the same item she admired.
“Uh...the, uh. The same thing, actually,” Peter timidly answered.
May quickly twisted around, still with both hands pressed firmly to her hips, and an added arch to her eyebrow along the way.
Peter looked away. This time, though, he couldn’t identify the heat to his cheeks. He just waited until it passed.
May — seer of all — caught it.
“Whatever happened in Wakanda must’ve really put you two through the ringer,” she casually noted, with a hint to her tone that Peter didn’t care to reflect on.
He simply nodded his head instead. “It was...something else.”
May removed both hands from her hips, folding them across her chest as her chin tilted low — and then even lower after that.
“You guys aren’t ever gunna tell me, are you?”
“Never.” Peter frantically shook his head, not even letting a fraction of a beat separate his response from her question. “You’d freak out so bad.”
May pulled a face and huffed. “I don’t freak —!”
Peter gave her a look.
May backed down.
“Yeah, okay, fair enough,” she muttered, grabbing the dishtowel off her shoulder and waving it at him in surrender — all as she made her way back towards the kitchen. “Keep your little Africa secrets, have your little inside story. But know that I’m open ears if you ever want to spill the beans.”
Peter managed to stop May before she left the living room completely — just narrowly, and he had to flip around on the couch to get her attention.
“Maybe, if —” Peter’s knees pressed against the back of the couch as he turned to face May. She stopped, turning slightly at the hip to do the same. “If, instead...you know, you’d be okay with it...I could talk a bit...about what happened...” A hard swallow broke his sentence apart. “Down in the bunker.”
Peter gripped the back of the sofa cushions so tightly, he knew that a second more and it would burst into a bunch of loose cotton and ripped fabric. Yet he couldn’t unclench his grip, his fingers seemingly locked in position and the grasp only growing tighter.
“I don’t remember much,” his admittance came with another hard swallow and a deep furrow of his brow. It was all he could do to keep his eyes on May, not allowing himself to look away this time. “But...I think talking about it...might help. A bit. Maybe.”
He tried to shrug to make the suggestion come off as casual. But there was no denying that May saw right through him.
She always did. Seer of all.
That was the thing about her. It was something Peter knew long before he knew things about himself.
May was observant — always observant, always able to see things long before most people could. It was a huge reason he was so relieved when she discovered his secret — it wasn’t as if he could keep it hidden from her for very long. It was also a trait of hers he admired, and would do anything to share in.
Because, Peter realized a third thing in the duration of their talk — the timer on the stove was broke, but May insisted it wasn’t a problem. The dishwasher had been broken for years, but May said she preferred to hand wash dishes anyway. The window to her bedroom didn’t seal correctly, but she patched it up herself in a way that made due.
May didn’t run to the landlord to get things fixed. She always found a way around the problem.
The bathroom sink was fixed within two weeks of Peter telling her.
May was observant. Peter knew now, that she knew all along. And was just waiting for him to approach her first.
May walked the few steps it was back to the couch — three to four at max, and gently laid both her hands ontop of his. With one fluid motion, she leaned down and gave him a peck on the forehead.
“I am always here to listen, Peter,” May easily said, one hand cupping his cheek while the other stayed over-top his hand. It didn’t squeeze or hold, just sat there. A reminder of her unwavering support in Peter’s life — always present, even when he didn’t realize it. “I larb you and love you.” May’s smile twisted into a smirk. “Double whammy, find someone to top that."
Peter’s smile came at the same time his muscles relaxed.
“Thanks, May,” he managed, the grin on his face pulling so hard it almost made it difficult to speak. But the couch was thankful for the release of pressure from his hands, and the cushions fluffed back to a cottony-bounce when he let go.
May gave his cheek one pat before letting go as well, removing the touch in favor of turning back to the kitchen. The stove timer went off one last time and she hurried to silence it, with a few choice words muttered under her breath along the way.
Peter didn’t know what it was about that moment that made him see it; the moment May stepped aside, it was suddenly very obvious.
“Hey, May?” he asked, suddenly, the two syllables somehow turning into ten.
May swung the dishtowel off her shoulder as she let out an audible, “Hm?”
Smoke flowed from the oven as she bent over and retrieved the dish inside, with a few coughs following suit. Peter didn’t have it in him to make a joke about the burnt dinner — and that said a lot. His head cocked so far to the side, he could feel his earlobe graze the back of the sofa.
The assembly line of potted plants decorating the kitchen counter top suddenly stood out like a sour thumb. He had to blink a few times to make sure he wasn’t imagining things.
“Can I ask a really weird question?” What Peter wanted to say was ‘yo, uh, what the hell?’ but he figured this was a better approach.
“What’s that?” May turned around, wiping her hands with the dishrag before tossing it aside.
Peter flickered his eyes from the plants, back to May, back to the plants — seriously, this wasn’t weird for her?
“When did you start collecting hydrangeas?” Peter innocently pointed to the flowers up ahead, his confusion showing all the way down to the way his index finger gestured at the many, many potted plans. He didn’t think it was possible for a single finger to express emotion, but it did. And he’d die on that hill.
Because May didn’t do plants. Just like she didn’t do home-cooked meals. The smoke still leaking from the oven backed that up, and the wilting hydrangeas didn’t have much of a leg to stand on, either.
May immediately spun to face the plants in question. And when she looked back at Peter, his eyebrow had arched so high it could’ve reached up to the Johnson’s in 3.B.
“Oh. Mhm. Well...I...okay…” May sighed hard enough for her shoulders to rattle. “Okay, it’s time I come clean — oh, hush!”
The timer on the stove let out another shrill BEEP and May hastily turned on her heels to shut it off— not that she hadn’t made attempts already. Her finger pressed hard on the button, and then again, and then again — the timer was faulty and they both knew the stove needed replaced a while ago.
But with a few pushes, it finally shut off. And when May turned back to Peter, half the assembly line of potted plants blocked her from seeing him — and vice versa.
“Come clean…” Peter leaned a little further over the back of the sofa to catch her face. “About your...plant collection?”
The hydrangeas suddenly looked as guilty as May did. Or maybe Peter was just putting emotion to inanimate objects when there weren’t any.
“It’s not a plan coll —” The shrill BEEP that followed had May stomping her bare-feet against the kitchen tiles. “Oh, for the love of —!”
“You gotta hit it four times really fast,” Peter laughed — knowing full well that laughing at May when she was angry could also mean a death sentence, but he couldn’t help himself. “Like, super fast, like —”
Peter didn’t need to say anything else. May had already spun around, pressing at the stove button so hard and so fast it probably should’ve broken the timer even more —if that were at all possible. She did it way more than four times, not stopping until Peter lost count around thirteen.
When she turned back around, she was a little less angry than before. And definitely looked guilty — Peter wasn’t putting emotion to that. He could tell.
May took a deep breath in before slowly — very slowly admitting,
“I’ve...been...seeing somebody.”
Only silence came in response. Even Milky the Maltese had gone quiet — though judging from the door that slammed shut, Peter assumed it was because the neighbors finally took him out for a walk.
Peter let that pause be the time he needed to take in the information.
And then an added pause, for good measure.
“You have?”
He realized a second too late that May’s face had taken on a heat no different than the stove-top burners — he recognized that look of shame. It was the same look he’d see in the mirror. Peter may not have shared any genes with her, but they’d been living together long enough that some things were just inadvertently passed down.
“May, that’s – that’s awesome!” Peter was quick to ease the burden off her shoulders. He was already off the sofa and halfway to the kitchen. “That’s so cool, that’s —!”
“It’s Hogan,” May spoke so quickly, the two words almost morphed together into one.
Peter stopped in his tracks. Actually, he slipped halfway into the kitchen, his socks sliding on the tiles and the counter being the only thing to preventing him from kissing the floor.
His face wouldn’t have been the only thing to hit the ground — Peter barely reached out in time to stop a pot of hydrangeas from falling off the counter-top in his haste to regain balance.
In his defense, there were so many of them. Peter just now noticed that the mail normally piled up by the broken dishwasher had been relocated to the top of the fridge to make room for the plants.
“Hogan who?” he asked, simultaneously pushing the pot further away from him, where it wasn’t at risk of toppling over and smashing into pieces. It’d just be one of the many objects to add to the ever-growing list of ‘Things At Home That Peter Accidentally Broke But Totally Didn’t Mean To I Swear May I’m Sorry.’
May grabbed the pot from him, as if sensing the same concern.
“Happy,” she clarified, gently setting the wilting flowers ontop of the dishwasher they never used. “I’ve been...Happy and I have been seeing each other.”
As May adjusted the hydrangea leaves in vain — they were far more brown at this point than whatever color they originally bloomed as — Peter watched her, wordlessly.
He wasn’t sure if his face had gone blank, or morphed into a newly discovered variety of confusion that could be named after him.
He settled on somewhere in-between.
“Seeing each other?” Peter asked, clearing his throat to rid the squeak that wouldn’t go away. “Seeing each other like…‘Hey May, just here to pick Peter up, gunna take him upstate, gotta run, traffic’s bad on I95, bye.’ Or like…”
Even Peter’s best attempt at mocking Happy’s voice failed to produce any laughs — both from himself, and from May. She continued to look at him, with the same heat of shame lingering on her face.
Only, it had quickly morphed from stop-top burner orange and right to sauce-simmering-in-the-pot red.
Peter looked to the assembly line of potted plants, sans the one May had relocated further into the kitchen.
“Oh,” he let out.
Oh.
Oh.
“Happy?” Peter paused, turning his eyes away from the plants and back to May. “You?” Peter paused, again. “You and Happy?”
It didn’t matter that the apartment was comfortably cool and the window was open to let in fresh air — May suddenly hugged herself so tightly, it was as if the temperature had dropped down to the negatives.
“I should’ve told you sooner,” May started, squeezing herself in a way Peter knew had nothing to do with the thermostat. “I shouldn’t have kept it from you, I just — I just assumed it was a fling and that it wouldn’t last and —”
“How long?” Peter asked, only to hurry up and say, “Like — I’m not upset! Oh god, I’m totally not upset, I’m just…” No different than wrangling the emotions of how Mr. Stark changed, Peter didn’t know how to feel about this either. So he settled on the knowledge of what he could know. “How long?”
May looked down to the floor, where her big toe rubbed at the stain on the kitchen tile. The bright green mark came from years ago, dating back to when Peter and Ned tried to melt down eight bags of gummy worms in May’s casserole dish. No amount of magic eraser brought it up, and Peter didn’t know why May thought her toe could suddenly fix the damage.
“Spring,” she answered, quietly.
The stain remained, but Peter suddenly understood the distraction.
“Oh,” he said, again, this time without intending to. “Huh.”
Peter watched as May’s chipped toenail scratched at the floor — not that he was actually watching, not that he was even remotely paying attention.
No, he was suddenly recounting the last few months as if he could remember every finer detail that he thought he was being observant to, but very clearly hadn’t been. First the changes to Mr. Stark, then MJ, now Happy and May — jeeze, what else was he clueless to?
Damn. He really thought he was getting better at being observant.
“Are you okay with it?”
The question had his head skyrocketing back to May, so fast it should’ve broken his neck.
“Am I okay —?” Peter managed to hold back a laugh and smiled instead, brighter than any watt of electricity could offer. “May...I just want you to be happy.”
Careful not to let his socks slip on the kitchen tile this time, Peter quickly made his way around the counter, closing the distance with May. His backside plopped against the dishwasher and his hands dug deep into his jean pockets.
“And if Happy makes you happy, then…” Peter shrugged so hard his shoulders met jawline. Even so, his smile remained ear-to-ear. “That makes me happy, too.”
May blushed — Peter was also familiar with that kind of heat to her cheeks.
He saw it often with Ben.
“Hey,” Peter started to say, wrapping one arm around May and pulling her close into a side-hug. He waited a second before saying, “He’s not...you know…an awful guy.”
“Hey, now!” May pulled away with an expression that contorted every muscle on her face.
“I mean,” Peter kept going, “your taste in men is certainly questionable but—”
“Excuse me!” May all but pushed him away, her toothy grin deceiving her false anger. “You are insufferable — you know that, right?”
Peter was mid-laugh when his face suddenly dropped, a more comical tone overlapping the confusion that followed.
“Wait a second…” he drawled, pursing his lips to the side with narrowed eyes to follow. “Are you really going to work tonight, or was that a cover-up story for —?”
“I’m going to work!” May didn’t waste a second in grabbing the dirty, soiled dishtowel and slapping him across the face with it. “You are so nosy!”
She didn’t stop flapping the rag in his face until Peter finally reached out for it, taking it from her before he accidental inhaled residual sauce she’d cleaned up earlier.
“It was a fair question!” Peter laughed, going to lean against the dishwasher again, but not before pulling his phone out of his back pocket. He barely needed to look at the screen as he hastily, and somewhat carelessly, accessed his text messages. “Should I give you both the room when he comes to pick me up? Does he know you’re a plant killer and can’t even keep a succulent alive?”
“I swear to God, Peter —!” May had her back turned to him, pouring the pot of sauce into the casserole dish she’d retrieved from the oven. All the while, she huffed hard enough to blow away the smoke that still leaked from the oven.
Peter hit ‘send’ on his phone no sooner than he asked, “Hey, can he switch out from flowers to chocolates? Specifically those like, boxes of chocolate that you only eat one flavor out of? That way I can reap the benefits of this relationship — ackKK !”
Peter caught the pot thrown his way, strictly sticky hands and spider-sense assisted.
Red sauce splattered on his face and across his shirt — May didn’t look the least bit bothered by the mess.
Peter feigned offense.
“Child abuse!”
May’s only response was to stick her tongue out and return to the slightly-smoky dish sitting ontop the stove.
Peter chuckled as he put the pot in the sink and threw the dishtowel aside, though not before using it to smear away the bits of red sauce that painted his face and — oh, gross, he was pretty sure some got inside his nose.
That smelt weird. And familiar.
Familiarly weird.
Smacking his lips to get a taste, Peter found himself asking, “What’s for dinner?”
May barely gave him a glance over her shoulder.
“Meatloaf.”
If stomach’s could talk, Peter was pretty sure his just invented a whole new slew of bad words.
"Mayyyyyy,” Peter drawled out, turning a single syllable word into five. He threw his head back and whined, with the loudest groan known to mankind. “Really?”
Peter narrowly dodged another dishtowel thrown his way.
