6 or 51 for the prompt thing? :) Congrats on fifty followers!! 🎉
Thanks hun!! <3 I meant to make these short but alas, 800 words later.
“Baby, please tell me you can explain why there is a hole through the window.”
“Peter? Peter Parker!” May calls as she enters the apartment, keys clattering noisily as she drops them on the rickety side table by the front door. The apartment is unusually quiet - Peter should definitely be home by now. May pulls her hair out of the tight topknot she’s had it in for most of the day with a gentle groan of relief, fingers combing through the tangled strands.
Where is that boy? May thinks, toeing off her shoes and padding into the kitchen. One look at the state of the fridge has her nose in a scrunch - empty, damn, she was going to go shopping yesterday but she’d completely forgotten…
Work was a lot, sometimes. She didn’t used to have to take such long shifts, with Ben and her both working…they weren’t super secure, sure, with the way New York rent was, but they were comfortable. Reasonably modest; not without worries, but with a decent chunk of savings squirreled away for a rainy day.
But then Ben passed, and the bills piled up. Burial fees, time off from work, a psychiatrist for Peter talk to - all of it was necessary, and fine, but then there was a nail in her tire, and suddenly it wasn’t fine. She hadn’t even realized how carefully she’d been walking the tightrope until she was staring at the hundred dollar difference between fine and not fine.
So she started taking third shifts, getting paid more to work later than she’d like to with a high school age kid waiting for her at home. Or, well, she’d thought he was waiting for her at home. When she’d seen Peter standing there in that damned suit, her first thought had been, why didn’t I see this?
The answer, of course, was that she hadn’t been home to see it. Her second, guilty thought, was, am I a bad parent for not seeing it?
Things were good now, though; better, without secrets between them. That awful day where Peter had come home in Hello Kitty pajamas, of all things, after she’d been out of her mind with worry - eyes red-rimmed, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, telling her half-truths to hide the enormity he was struggling under; she never wanted that to happen to them again.
“Peter?” May calls again, snatching their well-worn pizza menu from the corner of the kitchen counter where they tucked various odds and ends. “Peter, are you home?”
May pushes open the door to Peter’s room with little trepidation - after finding out her nephew fought vigilante crime after school when he should be in robotics club, there was little that could scare her - but the sight on the other side of the door did manage to stop her in her tracks.
Peter was flat on his back, in his boxers, skin an angry pink like he’d been scrubbing it. Or, well, someone had, because Ned was poised over him, red-handed, with a sponge. The expressions on their faces were identically shocked, which should be impossible, considering Peter could hear her heartbeat in the next room (or so it had been explained to her).
“Baby,” May started slowly, when neither of the boys offered an explanation. “Please tell me you can explain why there’s a hole through the window.”
Because that was the other part of it - there was a baseball-sized hole in Peter’s window, spindly cracks zigzagging away from the point of impact. Literally nothing was adding up here.
(But at least Peter wasn’t bleeding, the little voice in the back of May’s brain noted with relief.)
Ned and Peter turn to each other, having some sort of desperate conversation with their eyes, before both of them turn back to her and start to explain, talking over the other. And, of course, with wildly contradicting stories.
“Peter joined the baseball team - “
“I was just - the baseball team? Ned - “
May just waves the pizza flyer. “You know what? I’m good.”
“Wha-huh?” Peter blinks at her owlishly, confusion creeping over his expression. “You’re good?”
“Yup.” May pops the ‘p’ in her sentence, turning to go back down the hall. “Put on some clothes before dinner, please.”
“Dude, what?” She could hear Ned stage-whispering to Peter, who just groans softly and thunks his head against the carpet.
May opens her phone, clicking on the contacts. She begrudgingly saved Tony’s number on her favorites list after the first few months - he’s earned his spot there by now, though. Her heart still gives a little tug when she sees Ben’s name at the top (how long was it before she disconnected his number? How many times had she called the line, letting his phone buzz on her comforter, just to hear his voicemail?)
“Hey, Tony,” May flicks open the pizza menu. “What do you like on your pizza?”
