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May Reilly is 24 when she first meets Ben Parker.
She is young, freshly done with school– finally–, both a bachelors and masters degree tucked under her belt, and ready to change the world.
She’s just moved from her parents house in Boston to Brooklyn to start at the nonprofit she applied to while still in school. She spends a week mapping out her routine– the train she will take, the bodega she will stop by, the coffee she will order. She stops by Saks Fifth Ave and buys a heavy wool overcoat she definitely can’t afford. She’ll make up for the purchase soon enough, she tells herself, adding a new handbag to the tab she’s refusing to think about.
The first day on the job, May wears her new coat, her binder and glasses and everything else she needs in her bag. The world feels like it's here for her to take charge of. She feels successful– adult– and oh so lucky.
Then she meets Ben.
At 5’7, May is the same height as Ben. She first notices when he bumps into her outside the bodega that has become a part of her daily life. The cheap black coffee she is holding spills onto her new coat, but she barely realizes it. She’s staring straight into the eyes of the man who is blushing, his own coffee staining his blue button-down.
“I am so sorry,” he says, reaching out to her– to blot away the coffee? Grab her hand? But at the last minute, he jerks away as though he’s been shocked. Surprised, May takes a step back. “Shoot,” he continues, gesturing at the both of them. “What a mess I’ve made. Please, how can I make it up to you?”
May is still staring, a little caught off guard. The man, flustered and obviously anxious, has grabbed a bunch of wrinkled napkins from his pants pocket and is earnestly holding them out to her.
“This coat was five hundred dollars,” May hears herself saying, but she’s pretty sure she is blushing as well.
“Well shit.”
They stare at each other some more. May takes the napkins. “Don’t worry about it. Luckily I just started a new job.”
The stranger laughs, short and embarrassed, like he can’t believe his luck. “Well. That's good timing then.” He gestures vaguely at her coat. “Still, I feel terrible. Let me– at least let me buy you another coffee. Or breakfast. Or dry cleaning?”
May considers him. Like her, he has round glasses that are perched at the end of his nose. His sleeves are rolled up, the cuffs darkened with coffee. He looks like a librarian, or like someone who fixes things for a living. Gentle. Kind. Strong.
“Dry cleaning,” she finally decides. “And coffee. Black.”
His face brightens, immediate and unguarded. “Done. I’m Ben.”
“May.”
They step into the bodega together, the bell above the door ringing cheerfully. May is probably going to be late to work, but she doesn’t care. She’s curious despite herself.
Ben pays without complaint. He doesn’t ask her about her new job, if she’s just moved to the city, if she has a boyfriend, just hands the coffee to her. Pushes his glasses up his nose. For another moment, they stand there, awkwardly, as though waiting for permission to leave.
Ben speaks first. “Same time tomorrow?”
May smiles.“You planning on spilling coffee on me again?”
“Not if I can help it. I’ll be careful next time.”
Over the course of the next few weeks, between coffee dates at the bodega and the occasional dinner, May learns that Ben Parker is an electrician. He’s 2 years older than her, and has an apartment in Queens. Like her, he’s a voracious reader, and can’t cook for the life of him.
“Why do you come all the way to Brooklyn for some coffee?” She questions over Pad Kee Mao. They’re in a Thai restaurant not far from her apartment, a place she stumbled by and quickly became a regular at.
“It was close to a job I had at the time,” Ben says, pushing his glasses up his nose. He has sauce on his chin.
“At the time? Where are you working now?”
Ben flushes, a habit of his. “Long Island.”
May stares at him. “That’s an hour away,” she says incredulously. “Surely you could get coffee closer by.”
He shrugs. “I guess. But I like the company that comes with the coffee in Brooklyn.”
This time, it’s May’s turn to flush.
The recession hits 5 years after they meet, and the nonprofit May fought so hard for a position at, lets her go. The brown coat hangs heavy in her closet, a mocking reminder of all she thought she had figured out, as she packs her belongings, preparing to move in with Ben. This promise of adulthood, of a shining future, May thinks sardonically, it’s all just a lie.
The suggestion to move in together had come from him before she even lost her job. At least the expense of commuting from Brooklyn to Queens would no longer be a problem, she thinks, staring at the empty shell of her first token of adulthood. Here’s to new beginnings.
They get married September 29, 2008.
May’s dress brushes her ankles, silk cool against her skin. Ben is her something blue, dressed in a blue button-down not unlike the one he’d stained when they first met. Just as she’s planned, the wedding is small and intimate; her family flying up from Boston, her college roommate joining them alongside Ben’s union partners. Ben’s parents are long dead, but his brother and sister-in-law attend, bringing their son, Peter. Laughter bounced off the walls as the record spun its scratchy magic, and for a moment, May felt untouchable, as if nothing– no recession, no debt– could touch them.
Three weeks after the wedding, Richard and Mary fly out to Florida to visit Mary’s parents. They’re only meant to be gone for the weekend, so May, who only knows Peter through occasional dinners with the Parkers, and her wedding, is hesitant to take him in at first. She’s never been good with kids. She generally tries to avoid her nieces and nephews, who are infantile and snotty and have a tendency to knock over her trinkets collected from her trips to India and Spain.
But Peter is quiet and kind, and his eyes follow May with a kind of curiosity that catches her off guard. In true Parker fashion, he is awkward and shy, wearing glasses that are too large for him, and a brain that seems too smart for a seven-year-old. She finds herself smiling at his questions, even correcting him gently when he mispronounces words, and she realizes with surprise that she somehow enjoys it– this little weekend invasion of her carefully ordered life.
May had just tucked Peter in, smoothing the blanket around his small shoulders, before flicking the light off. The apartment was quiet, save for the hum of the radiator and creaking footsteps of an upstairs neighbor, and May is shutting the door quietly behind her when she sees Ben. He stands frozen, eyes wide, staring past her. Her heart jolts in her chest.
“Honey?” She asks, stepping closer. Ben doesn’t respond though, and she notices he’s trembling uncontrollably. In one sudden, horrifying motion, his face drains of all color, he collapses. May rushes forward to catch him, her hands shaking as she pulls him close.
“Ben… What’s wrong?” She whispers, panic clawing up her throat.
His voice was ragged, barely a breath. “They’re… Richard, he’s– the plane… It crashed.”
The world stills. May’s ears ring with the words. They’re dead. They’re dead. They’re dead.
May Parker is 29 when she adopts a child.
Children were never part of the plan, she thinks, stepping over a toy in the living room. She feels guilty as soon as the thought arises, and immediately pushes it out of her mind.
The sunlight is streaming through the blinds, catching dust motes that dance lazily in the air. She kneels to pick up the toy, a plastic figurine of Iron Man. It’s small, but the weight in her hands is oddly comforting, a tangible reminder that this is her life now.
In the months after Richard and Mary’s deaths, the shared funeral, the adoption process, May has almost been on autopilot. The only thing she can focus on is making sure the kid, and Ben, are okay. But here, in the peace of her home, it finally hits her: she doesn’t have a plan for all of this. May has never wanted to be a mother. She’d seen what it did to her own mother and sisters– how it stripped away their autonomy, turning them into caretakers who cooked and cleaned for everyone else. May’s fist clenches around the toy. She isn’t ready for this. She wanted to change the world. How is she supposed to raise a child? How is she supposed to take on his endless questions, his childish grief, his late-night homework and scraped knees?
A soft noise from the kitchen makes her glance up. Peter is humming to himself as he pulls out a chair, attempting to reach a cabinet above the counter. Unclenching Iron Man, she finds herself smiling, heart tightening in a way she didn’t expect.
Looking at Peter, so earnest, so innocent, so bright, as though his life hasn’t been permanently changed, she feels an urge to protect him. His parents are dead, she reminds herself. I’m not a part of his plan either.
“Peter,” she calls gently. “Why don’t we get breakfast with Uncle Ben, at the cafe down the street?”
His face lights up with that shy, clever smile of his, and just like that, May knows: she’ll figure it out. Somehow, she always does.
Sometime after Richard and Mary die, May and Ben are lying in bed together, holding each other close. Enough time has passed for Ben to talk about his brother without tearing up, so that’s what they’re doing: Ben is sharing story after story about Richard, a sad smile on his face. May listens raptly, hoping it’s enough to comfort him.
“He’s the one who came up with the term ‘Parker Luck,’” Ben says, chuckling to himself.
“‘Parker Luck?’”
Ben hums. “He made it up after our parents died. House fire. He said it was just like the Parkers to orphan their children; our dad was an orphan too.”
May feels a little horrified. “Oh my god,” she says, at a loss for words. Unsure what else to do, she draws him closer to her.
“Richard was always the angry one between the two of us,” he continues. “He always looked for something to blame. Bad luck killed our parents. Our grandfather. But I never thought that was the point.” He shifts closer, voice low. “I figured if bad things were going to happen anyway, then all that really mattered was what we did after.”
May thinks of Peter, of choosing to stay when every part of her screamed to leave, to flee the child-sized burden dumped on her lap. She thinks of losing her job, and marrying Ben. She thinks of that dream she had when she first moved to New York, the dream of changing the world and helping people.
“I almost…” She trails off, unsure if she should continue. Ben waits, patient as ever. “I almost didn’t want to.” The words “take in Peter” hang in the air, unspoken.
It’s Ben’s turn to pull her closer. “But you did anyway.”
Ben is a better parent than May could ever be. His patience is unrelenting, and he takes his nephew's sudden propensity for tantrums in stride. It’s 2010, and Peter has finally decided to grieve his parents.
“I don’t want to!” He screeches, stomping his foot on the ground.
May and Ben have spent the last 10 minutes trying to convince him to take a family picture at the photo-op without the Iron Man mask Ben bought at the beginning of the Stark Expo, but Peter is irritable and refuses. The vendor who sold the mask to them had mistaken Peter for their child, and he’s refused to take it off ever since.
“You aren’t my parents,” he says stubbornly. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
May is not one to have a quick temper, but she can’t help the annoyance that rises in her with that statement. “Oy gevalt, child,” she says, huffing out a breath. “Who has been raising you for the past two years, then? Wolves?”
But Ben steps in before she can say anything particularly sarcastic or cruel, and crouches down to make eye contact with the black eyes of the plastic mask. “I understand you don’t want to take the mask off, and we’re sorry for pushing,” he says gently. “We aren’t trying to take the place of your parents either. Whether you like it or not though, me and Aunt May are still your family. We can never replace Mom and Dad, and we know that. We just want a nice family photo together, is that okay?” Peter pauses, and May prays that the tantrum is over. He nods, and slides the mask off.
“Just one,” he insists.
They take the photo. The mask is back on just as soon as it's off, and as May and Ben hand over a few bills to the photographer for a copy, May hears the shattering of glass, and an engine, and then everything all goes to shit.
In the chaos, May loses Peter. She sees him at the last second, mask still on, hand raised up in a childish imitation of Iron Man, towards a drone. Ben sees him the same time she does, and runs to him– and May screams– and Iron Man swoops in at the last second, blasting the drone away.
Ben swoops Peter up in his arms, and May runs over, and they’re hugging, and she can feel Ben fighting to steady his breathing, and she thinks to herself, we’re your family kid. We’re all you got, and you’re all we’ve got.
May Parker is 36 when she becomes a widow.
It’s been 7 years since she married Ben Parker and adopted his nephew, accepting her fate as a member of the Parker family. After the cop leaves the hospital room, the only thing she can think of is that late-night conversation with Ben all those years ago. Parker Luck has struck again, she thinks, and then feels inexplicably sick and rushes to the bathroom to vomit.
Peter had been moody in the weeks leading up to it all. Shouting, slamming his door, all the works of an angsty teenager. It had escalated tonight, with Ben raising his voice for the first time in the near decade she had known him. Peter, just as surprised as him, had spun on his feet and fled the apartment. Ben had taken a deep breath to collect himself, and turned to May, unsteady on his feet.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her surprise. “I always promised myself I wouldn’t– I never meant to yell.”
May had chuckled and hugged him. “You’re only human. Peter’s been shouting for the past month, who can blame you?”
Ben had hugged her back, and then pulled away. “I’m going to go find Pete,” he said. “Be back in a few.” And May nodded, locked the door behind him, and grabbed a pint of ice cream from the freezer to wait.
Neither Ben nor Peter walked through the door for hours, though, and she had just started to worry, when she got the call around ten. At the first ring, she thought it was Ben, calling to explain what was taking so long. But then she’d seen the strange number, and a feeling of dread began to creep up inside her.
She’d rushed to the hospital as fast as she could, calling a taxi and tipping extra for him to skip the lights. But by the time she’d arrived, Ben was dead, and Peter was talking to a cop, and he was covered in blood– Ben’s blood– and she couldn’t help the noise that escaped her as she took in the scene. This time, she was falling, but Ben wasn’t there to catch her– he would never be there to catch her, and Peter was gripping her with surprising strength, and Ben was dead.
She requests to see his body before they take him to the morgue. He is laying on a gurney, and the sheet that was placed over him has been pulled back to reveal his pale face. May can hardly breathe, but still, she forces herself to look. His glasses are broken. It’s all she can focus on, and she gently pulls them from his face.
Never again will he push them up his nose, she realizes. A habit she had so come to associate with Ben, and later Peter, now just a memory. She pockets the glasses and leaves the room, fighting the tears rising in her eyes.
May knows Peter is sneaking out at night. She can hear his window sliding open when he leaves, around 9 each time, and when he returns hours later. She doesn’t say anything to dissuade him, though. She stays in bed, and she stays awake until she hears him clamoring back into the apartment. She can’t sleep until he’s back.
Every morning, she stands in the kitchen before him, unsure if she should bring it up. And every morning, Peter downs a bowl of cereal– though recently he’s been eating two or three– and looks up at her with such vulnerability, such hope, that she chickens out. At fourteen, he has somehow maintained his childish innocence, even after losing his parents, his uncle, his footing in the world. How can she step into Ben’s shoes? He was always the disciplinarian, fair and firm. May’s job was to support Ben, not work beside him. She has no idea how to tell him he can’t keep sneaking out.
One morning, before Peter is headed to school– he’s just gotten accepted into Midtown Tech for high school, with scholarships, and she couldn’t be more proud– she tries to channel her inner Ben and sits down with Peter at the table. “Peter,” she starts, and her voice, to her surprise, sounds firm, rather than frail, as she’d expected. “I know you’re sneaking out.”
Peter freezes, one hand holding his spoon of Lucky Charms still in the air, and looks at her. He’s guarded, she can tell. On the defense.
“I know I can’t tell you to stop,” she says. Like hell I can’t, she thinks to herself. If this doesn’t work I’m putting locks on every window in this place. “But I’m worried sick. I just lost Ben, and I don’t know what I would do if I lost you too. Please, can you just stay home?”
“Okay, Aunt May.” She glances at him. He looks resigned, as tired as she feels. “I don’t want you to worry about me.”
She smiles then, and ruffles his hair. “I’m your aunt,” she says. “It’s my job to worry. I’d just like to not have a heart attack before I’m 50.”
Peter nods, but later that night, she hears him open the window, and climb out. He doesn’t come back until after midnight.
May is doing her best. She still can’t cook, and she’d be damned if she were to ever spend the rest of her life giving up her nights and weekends to laundry and PTA meetings, but still. She tries to fashion herself into some kind of hybrid mother-father figure in the absence of Ben, Richard, and Mary.
She’s working at another nonprofit now, known as F.E.A.S.T., doing administrative work. She’s pulled out her old, worn brown wool coat to wear again. No longer does it seem to symbolize hope to her, she realizes. It’s just a damn coat.
Peter goes to school, gets good enough grades (May is sure he could do better if he focused, but she’s aware it's hard to focus after his uncle has died in his arms, so she doesn't mention it), and even joins an extracurricular. He’s still sneaking out, but he’s been coming home earlier than usual. On paper, May is doing amazing as a single parent. Her mom even says so, bringing it up over the phone one night. May has just spent the last 30 minutes complaining about rent being tight, and she knows her mother has informed her father, who probably filled out the check as she spoke.
“You’re doing an amazing job sweetheart,” her mom says. “I don’t think I could ever raise someone else's child.” And May gets angry at that, cursing and hanging up before she can explain what she's feeling. That Peter isn’t just someone’s kid she’s been forced to raise. That she isn’t some poor single mother in distress.
I chose him! She thinks to herself. He is my kid. No one else’s, and as she thinks that she realizes it’s true. She and Peter are the last Parker’s there are.
May is having a normal enough day. She’s done at F.E.A.S.T. early, before Peter’s out of school, and decides to pick up some food on the way home. She’s just stepped inside and placed the grocery bags on the counter, when she gets a knock on the door. There’s Donnie Hathaway playing on her record player, the song she had her first dance to with Ben at her wedding, and she’s humming along as she opens the door.
May drops the jar of peanut butter she was holding.
Standing before her is none other than Tony Stark. The billionaire playboy genius or whatever he calls himself, Iron Man, is standing in the hallway of her apartment complex.
“Hi there,” he says breezily, as though they’re old friends. “I’m here about your nephew, Peter Parker?”
May is pretty sure her mouth is gaping open and she looks like a fish, but she nods her head and opens the door to let him in. “Sure, sure,” she says, scooping the jar up so he can enter. She’ll deal with the mess later.
Stark surveys the apartment with the air of someone who is entirely out of their normal habitat. May bristles a little at that. Sure, Ben’s little Queen’s flat is probably nothing compared to Stark’s glass penthouse in Manhattan, but this is still her home. But just as quickly as May notices Stark's judging eyes, he looks at her with a look of graceful acceptance.
“What a beautiful home you’ve got here. And, forgive me because this is entirely inappropriate, but are you single? You are absolutely stunning.”
Stunned, May laughs. “I’m widowed,” she responds. Stark seems cowed at that, and gestures to the couch. “So sorry for your loss. May I?”
Rushing over herself to accommodate the billionaire who has turned up at her doorstep, May nods hurriedly. “Yes, yes! Of course!” Stark sits down. Unsure what to do, May retreats into the kitchen. “Can I get you anything?” She calls out.
“Oh no, I’m fine,” he replies dismissively, but nonetheless, she returns with a plate of walnut loaf she made the night before. She’s not entirely sure it's actually edible, but her mother had taught her to always treat her guests.
Stark takes a bite, to be polite she's sure, and starts talking. He explains that Peter has applied to a grant, something– the September Foundation?-- she’s never heard of before, and has been accepted. May feels the pride bubbling up inside her, and she grins jubilantly. “This is incredible!” She exclaims. “I can’t believe he didn’t tell me about this.”
They hear the rustling of keys at the door, and Peter enters.
“Hey May,” he calls out, going into the dining room.
“Hey!” She says, unable to hide the glee in her voice. “How was school today?”
Peter sounds distracted as he responds. “Okay. There's this crazy car parked outside…”
He’s entered the living room and is staring at Tony Stark, appearing just as shocked as May feels.
“Oh, Mr. Parker,” Stark says in greeting. Peter looks at May frantically. She raises her eyebrows and mouths, what the fuck!
Stark re-explains the grant situation, and May can’t help herself from cutting in.
“You didn’t even tell me about the grant," she says. "You didn’t tell me anything, what's up with that? You keeping secrets from me now?” But she's too excited for it to come out as anything other than teasing, and May is teasing. Her kid is going to be working with the Tony Stark.
Stark says something about her being hot for an aunt, and she laughs again, and the next thing she knows, Peter is being whisked off for a week away at the Stark Internship Retreat.
She isn’t used to having the apartment to herself. For the first few nights Peter is gone, she forces herself to stay awake, anticipating his return home through the window. But before she knows it, she’s drifting off to sleep. She dreams of Ben, and even though it’s been 9 months since he died, she realizes with horror that his face is starting to blur around the edges, as though her memories of him are fading.
Since Peter started his internship with Tony Stark, he’s been… different. May can’t quite put her finger on what’s changed. He’s stressed, distracted– always on edge. She isn’t sure when he stopped wearing his glasses, but he has. She misses them, for the selfish reason that he reminds her so much of Ben when he wears them. More than that, he’s always on the phone, always slipping out before dinner, never answering when May called.
May isn’t sure what's changed, but she doesn’t like it.
About a year into Peter’s internship, his friend Ned comes over, hauling along a massive LEGO contraption with him. It’s something Star Wars related. She helps him shuffle it into Peter’s room so he can wait for him to come home, and goes to the kitchen. She’s been on a cooking kick recently. She’s nearly 40, it's time she learned how to cook.
She just had to wave the smoke from the deployed fire detector in dismay, admitting defeat, when she hears a deafening crash from Peter’s room. She walks in on him and Ned, and there is a surprising lack of clothes involved. The whole scene is so ridiculous May can't help but laugh at the two boys, and Peter flushes, looking embarrassed, but young again. That’s what's been off, she realizes. He seems so much older now.
May takes Peter to get Thai for dinner. He’s sulking, which is apparently his new normal now. In a last ditch effort to cheer him up, May decides to annoy him.
“Whats the matter? I thought you loved Thai. Is it too larby? Not larby enough?” Peter says nothing, looking down at the table and picking at his food.
“How many times do I have to say “larb” before you talk to me?” Gesticulating, she continues. “You know I larb you.”
Peter looks up, and admits the internship is stressing him out.
May feels annoyed. She could have said that much. “The Stark Internship," she starts. "I have to tell you, not a fan of that Tony Stark. You’re distracted all the time. He’s got you in your head. What does he have you doing?" She pauses, thinking. "You need to use your instincts.”
But Peter isn’t listening, he’s paying attention to the news on the TV behind her. His eyes are glued to the screen, which is focused on Spiderman saving people from an attack at a bodega. May says something about staying far away from danger, and Peter agrees reluctantly, but she can tell he’s barely paying attention. She looks at him, and he seems so earnest, she smiles at him despite herself.
“May.”
“Hm?” She asks, picking a noodle off his plate.
“I need a new backpack.”
She raises her hand to her ear. “What?”
“I need a new backpack.” He seems bashful, and May can’t even be mad, even though that's the fifth one she’s had to replace now.
Peter had joined Academic Decathlon last year, at May’s request, and by the grace of god, had seemed to enjoy it. That’s how she finds herself helping him pack a duffle bag for an AcaDec trip to Washington D.C., and before he leaves she makes him promise to call often.
But then the news lights up at work with chaos at the Washington Monument, and May freezes in horror. At first, she thinks Spiderman, who appears at the last moment, is to blame, but then he flies down from the building carrying Ned, and May can only pray he’s managed to rescue her kid as well.
Peter comes back from D.C. more stressed than ever, and May can’t help it. She’s almost at her breaking point, because she’s never seen him like this, not even right after Ben died. He gets put in detention, and then skips it, and May can’t even recognize who her kid is anymore.
May sees Spiderman on TV as a ferry is attacked and torn apart, and when she checks her phone, it's almost 6pm, and Peter still isn’t home from school. When he finally returns later that night, she’s besides herself. She knows she should be like Ben, level headed and calm, but she can’t help herself.
“I’ve been calling you all day. You didn’t answer your phone. You can’t do that! Then this ferry thing happens? I called five police stations. Five. I called five of your friends. I called Ned's mother. You know what that's like I–”
Peter cuts her off. “I'm fine. May, I'm okay. Honestly, just relax. I'm fine.”
But May has been frantic since she saw the ferry accident and realized she hadn’t heard from Peter all day.
Angrily, she looks at Peter. “Cut the bullshit,” she snaps, heart racing. “I know you left detention. I know you left the hotel room in Washington. I know you sneak out of this house every night. That's not fine.” Her voice starts to raise as she becomes more frantic, waving her hands around. “Peter, you have to tell me what's going on. Just lay it out. It's just me and you.”
To her surprise, he doesn’t deny her, or storm off. Instead, he sinks into a chair at the table and starts to cry. “I lost the Stark Internship.”
Oh no. May is shaking her head, and gathering him into her arms, before she can say, “What happened?”
But Peter is shaking his head, and stammering, and May doesn’t know what to do.
“It’s okay,” she says, willing it to be so. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
Peter cries, and May holds him, grateful he’s alive.
There are ups and downs to parenting, just like any other aspect of life. Peter comes home from school one day, bouncing off the walls, and she smiles. It’s good to see him acting like a kid again. He’s taking a girl out to the school dance, and she teaches him how to dance. They watch a YouTube video on how to tie a tie, and Peter is smiling when he says, “I wish Uncle Ben were here.”
May, who has been standing behind him and dancing, pauses. “Me too,” she says.
The dance comes and goes. Peter comes home bruised and scraped, and she worriedly tends to his wounds, fearing the worst, but he says something about tripping down the stairs at school and May is forced to nod along even though she can clearly see he’s lying.
But time passes, and Peter is about to be a junior in high school, and the seeds of hope in her chest, a feeling she hasn’t felt in such a long time, start to grow. Peter seems fine. And one day, he comes in while she's kneading out homemade pasta, and she goes to his room to greet him, hoping to see him smile. But instead of Peter, that Spiderman guy she keeps seeing on the news is there, standing in his room. Before she can say anything, he pulls off her mask, and May freezes. Her heart skips a beat.
The man under the mask is Peter. Her Peter.
Before she can help it, her mouth is opening. “What the fuck,” she exclaims, and Peter whirls around.
“May,” he exhales. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“I– what the fuck,” she blurts out again, stepping closer, her voice a mix of shock and disbelief.
“I’m Spiderman,” he admits quietly, the weight of the words sinking between them.
May doesn’t move. “And you’ve been doing… all this?” she asks, gesturing vaguely at the mask, the suit. “Fighting? Saving people? Dealing with the Avengers?”
Peter nods, hesitating. “I didn’t want to lie to you, but–”
May cuts him off, shaking her head, half-laughing, half-sobbing. She sinks down onto the chair at his desk and looks up at him. “You have to stop. Please.”
He looks down, silent.
“You… you’re just a kid. You can’t do this. This is insane.”
His voice is quiet as he responds. “But I have been doing it.”
And with a growing horror, May realizes that he won’t stop. Spiderman has been around for two years now– since around the time Ben died, she thinks. She stares at him, searching for the kid she’s known for all these years, the boy she tucked into bed when he was young, the boy she’s stayed up with for nights worrying about. She sees him now, older, stronger, looking much too tired for a sixteen year old kid.
“I… I need to think,” she says, resigned. She stands up. “You’re not going anywhere until I’ve come to a decision. Got it?”
Peter nods.
May Parker is 38 when she realizes life is so much more fucking complicated than she could have ever expected.
She gave up on long-term planning and dreams of changing the world a long time ago, some time between gaining guardianship of Peter and losing her husband, but still despite everything, she’s always held out on the hope that she’ll be able to figure out anything life throws at her.
But this…? Peter, her nephew, is a crime-fighting vigilante, who apparently took down an alien weapons dealer and God knows what else? May can barely wrap her head around it. She wants to shut it down, force him to stop, protect him. But deep down, she knows that he’ll still find a way to continue.
Days pass, and with each night that comes, May holds the pillow that Ben used close to her. “Why can’t you be here?” she asks aloud. “You would know what to do.”
There is, of course, no response.
May is staring at Peter, who is sitting morosely on the couch, texting his friends on his phone. The sun is setting outside, and the apartment is full with a warm, orange light.
“Peter,” she says.
“Yeah?” he turns to her.
“I…” Her voice trails off, and she’s unsure what to say next. She tries to think of Ben, what Ben would do, but she’s not entirely sure what he would do. This isn’t the typical situation you picture your husband in, she thinks to herself.
“I’ve been thinking,” Peter volunteers before she can speak again. “You’re right. I should stop. It’s not my responsibility, May.”
“No.” The word is out before she’s fully registered what she's saying, and Peter looks surprised as she continues. “No, listen to me. Peter, you have a gift.” She sits next to him, placing her hand on his shoulder. “You have power. And with great power, there must also come great responsibility.” She sounds almost pleading, but she looks into his eyes, and hopes he understands.
Peter nods, dazed. “But, May–”
May cuts him off again. “Look at all the good you’ve done so far, Peter. You have already been living by this. Your uncle… Your Uncle Ben once told me. Bad things are going to happen anyway, so all that really matters is what we do after.” She smiles. “And you’re doing a pretty damn good job.”
Peter blinks back tears. “Uh… Can I- can I go out on patrol?” he sniffs, swallowing and looking away.
May nods. “But you better call me while you’re out. And you’ll have a curfew from now on,” she says, smiling through her own tears at Peter's resistance.
And as she lets him go once more into the night, May smiles to herself, knowing she had done her best. And god, she could only pray that was enough.
May Parker will die at 43, or 38, depending on who you ask about the Blip.
She will die in the arms of her nephew, in the ruins of her ex-boyfriend's home. She will feel the blood slowly seeping out of her, a horrifying sensation, and she will feel the dizziness brought on from what she assumes is a traumatic brain injury. She will reassure Peter of his responsibility, hear him crying out apologies, and slowly fade away. Parker Luck, she supposes.
But for now, she will sit by the television with her phone’s ringer on, a pint of ice cream in her hand, while she waits anxiously for her nephew to come home. And when he does, she will hug him. She will throw things at him, joking about his “Peter Tingle,” even when he begs her not to, because May is not Ben. She is emotional and probably jokes around too much and snaps too much and okay, maybe she does have a temper. But for now, she is alive, and so for as long as Peter Parker was out there saving the world, May Parker would be here, watching the door, counting the minutes, and loving him hard enough to let him go.