AN: Originally, the prospect of exploring this was my frustration over the idea that MJ could leave him because that part of the film where he goes, "My wife and I split up," with Peter in defeat, headfirst signing those divorce papers with MJ in the back made me realize, it was Peter who initiated it and not MJ. I'll probably have to explore that in another writing exercise. I just wanted to give these two a break and explore the "You're like me!" idea. All comments and criticisms are welcome! My tumblr is finnicksghost.
Peter B. Parker has never been that afraid. Amidst the chaos that seems to be constantly attracted towards his life, nothing has ever made him this kind-of afraid. Well, it used to, but then he had forgotten what that was like so he's not like that kind of afraid, afraid.
His spider sense is going off in different ways. A low throbbing to a mental ticking bomb; he shrugs it off as if he would to a buzzing bee. Tonight will be a long night. This, he is sure of.
MJ is in a great amount of pain, the nurses are whizzing past to and fro and he could still hear the orchestra of screaming newborns down by the hall that he had to go through before reaching his wife's side.
So many times in his life, he's fought for at least 23 years for countless of lives, and he's probably seen it all. But he has never been that afraid.
Well not like this kind of afraid.
He grabs a chair; and sits beside her as a contraction pushes through. She's already in a hospital gown, and her legs are spread out, with an occasional nurse coming in to check. How the fuck is she going to push a human being out of there?
"Hey tiger," she greets him with the weary dimpled smile as he pulls back her sweat mangled hair. He gives her a reassuring smile, "Hey MJ."
It's been a year and a half since the multiverse collided. One long long night with a group of Spider people. One moment of realization with Miles Morales and a week of prepping himself to see her, hoping she'll still be there (she was, to his relief) and another 6 months of working it out, after.
There was therapy, of course. A financial advisor, a shitload of documents to look over and occasional job interviews MJ had helped him prepare for. He does free-lancing for a bunch of events from time to time and surprisingly he finds a small amount of joy in it.
They were going to take things slowly as they said. A small dinner every now and then. A new film to see, maybe a walk to the park when MJ gets off work early. Maybe a few recklessness aside when she's in the mood, which was a regular occurrence than he'd like to admit.
It was nice up until another 6 or so months later when he comes back from a late patrol sometime at 2 am and finds her patiently waiting in his apartment. He tries not to grimace at the small wound on his side from a knife fight and focuses instead on MJ's worried face.
"Hey," he greets, as he takes off his mask. He leans over to kiss her cheek, which she receives. There's a tense moment where he suspects MJ has something serious to say before she distracts herself when sees the small wound by his side and she automatically gets to work.
10 minutes later, he's half-naked at the bed, with MJ carefully stitching and cleaning up the wound, without a word.
"You ok?" he asks.
"Peter, I think I'm pregnant" she starts. She can feel his body tense, for a moment before he starts laughing and turns to her, before he goes, "Are you sure?"
She gives him a tired look before he stops laughing and his mouth goes dry. "Oh," he says. His voice suddenly small.
He watches the peeled off wallpaper as MJ stitches his wounds. He tries to remember the last time he was dumb enough not to use protection but he supposes it's useless now. Instead, he focuses on her hands against his skin. It's a feeling he's grown home into and constantly misses. Those warm and caring hands.
"How far along?" he breaks the gnawing silence.
"I don't know, a month I guess?" she replies. He can sense the anxiety in her voice.
"I've already booked an appointment tomorrow," The statement hangs in on itself before he realizes that this is what she's come here for.
When he looks back, there's uncertain fear on her eyes and he knows it's reflected on his own. MJ likes to mask it a lot with her smile but he's known her long enough that when those blue eyes dim and her hands get flimsy, she's afraid.
The old Peter Parker would make an excuse about another job interview he won't likely show up to or some sort of Spider-sense bs but that was something terrible fathers-to-be did and he was and will not be of the sort.
Will he?
"I'll go with you," he decides.
She lets go of the breath she's holding in and surprises him with an embrace hard enough to remind him of his own squeezing heart.
He sits outside the clinic in its lemon coloured cushions. Counts the seconds, the minutes, the number of couples coming to and fro. Opens the magazine with the glowing photoshopped moms and perfect nuclear family to go through and flips through its pages. There are happy couples, of course, and he recognizes the dad he had saved from a mugging the other night. This dad is excitedly reassuring his partner about the baby and talks about the color palette he's already planned for the nursery. His partner nods willingly; had probably gone through the same conversation topic countless of times. He catches Peter's eyes and shares a kindred look as if to say "love, right?"
He gives a nervous friendly smile in reply.
The door to a clinic opens and MJ comes out, a light bounce on her step. She gives him a tight joyful hug without looking up. And that's when he knows.
She grabs his arm excitedly when she tells him what the doctor says.
She's 8 weeks far along. It's healthy and has a steady heartbeat. MJ jokes about how there aren't any signs of some sort of spider power just yet but that thought lodges inside his brain like a bullet and he spends the rest of the day wondering what kind of genetically fucked up irresponsible person would do this to someone like MJ?
Outside the clinic, the summer air greets them and for a moment he allows himself to feel some sort of happiness about it.
But he thinks about Miles' terrified face when he came rushing in after discovering about his uncle's alter-ego. That boy had barely had a day to figure out what to do with what he's given and he's already been followed by a bunch of killers, his uncle, angry grad students and Aunt May's ex(-scientist). He discards the potential "what-ifs" flogging into his mind but they are replaced by a bigger one.
MJ squeezes his hand tightly, to bring him back and reassure him. "You OK, tiger?" she asks.
"I'm fine," he says.
He tries not to think of what would happen if his kid was in the same situation as Miles was back then and the possibility of him not being around to see through it.
Later when he comes back from a late night scuffle with the Vulture, and he thinks she's asleep, he greets her with a soft kiss before turning into his side. She turns and wraps her arms around him and whispers, "I never wanted anyone else's baby but yours."
He tries not to disappoint MJ with the thought of another spider person she has to worry about every night. Tries not to cry at the possibility of fucking up as a father. Instead he lets out a soft chuckle, still not facing her, "You're gonna be a great mom, MJ."
He doesn't always know how but MJ probably has her own Parker sense because she holds him tighter, presses a kiss on the skin of his shoulder and tells him softly, "You're gonna be a great dad, Peter"
He shrinks. He doesn't want a kid waiting up disappointed over an absent father. He doesn't want to watch some version of him and MJ caught up in a villain's arms.
"What if I fuck up?" he asks in the dark. "Like I did back then?"
He recalls Miles' disappointed face back at the Spider den a year or so ago, and with himself on not being able to do anything about it. He's 13 years old. 2 years younger than he was when got Spiderpowers. This kid in MJ probably had them already before she/he is out and it's freaking him out.
"You aren't gonna fuck up." she reassures.
She makes him turn to her side, lifts his chin up to meet her eyes. "Hey," she holds his face into her hands and drills it into his head. "Peter. You, aren't gonna fuck up."
Peter breaks down a bit. And she holds him close. "Because I'm going to make sure you won't," she says. And he laughs in-between tears.
"And whatever's going to happen, we're in it together."
The therapist told him that maybe the deep-seated fear comes from losing his parents at a young age, and watching his Uncle Ben die. No shit, he thinks. He doesn't object or even add the whole other Spider-gig factor. But she re-assures him that he's not alone in this. Parenthood can be frightening, but that's what we're (she and MJ) are here for.
So he takes the prescripted meds, heads down to the pharmacy and tries not to think of himself as a disappointment.
His phone vibrates and there's a text from Miles. Peni and Miguel had set up a stable form of communication between all universes and occasionally one of them would invite the others over for a little get-together to catch up. The other month it was supporting Gwen's band on a beach festival.
MILES MORALES: Hey, man! Hope you & MJ r doing fine! How's the baby? Is it even out yet?
MILES MORALES: Anyway, thought you'd like to come over to help me take a photo with this new art I'm working on!
He laughs at the photo of Ganke and Miles posing in front of a blank wall.
He remembers eating popsicles down at the beach with Miles as Noir, Ham and Peni are out in the crowd cheering on the band. It's a new hit, but the music is a bit too loud for ears. They watch in amusement as Noir gets crowd surfed to the front.
Miles re-assures him that he'll be a great dad. "You're a great teacher Pete. And that baby's gonna be the luckiest spider out of all of us." He pauses to finish his popsicle as Peter sighs.
"Well, here's hoping it's not MY luck that kid's inheriting." he jokes.
Miles gives him an odd look before continuing, "Yeah, but y'know? Even by then, your kid's gonna be lucky. Cause they're gonna grow up with a lot of spider people to help with the spider-thing. Just like you guys were there for me back then."
And it touches some locked compartment in his heart when he remembers that Miles has faith in him when nobody else had. Even at the lowest of lows, Miles Morales had and will always believe in him. It just takes a while to sift through.
They all hug him afterwards when it's time to go home, but it's Miles hug that he starts welcoming that deep-seated fear.
It's nice to know he's not alone as a Spider-person. That there are countless other genetically fucked up spider-people like him dealing with all the chaotic tantrums the universe throws back at them. Maybe…it will be nice to not be the only one in his universe.
He's about to type out a reply when his spider-sense goes off and a surge of adrenaline bursts through as he starts running towards it.
She is in excruciating pain and he doesn't know what to fucking do.
The doctor says she's not dilated yet and he can feel his spider-sense going off like a full-blown migraine.
"I'm here," he says.
"I'm here. I'm here. I'm here." He says, over and over like a mantra. Like a prayer. He doesn't know if it's the heat of the moment or the hormones but the words that come out of her breaks his heart a little.
"Are you gonna leave again?" she asks in between tears as he mentally kicks himself in the head over and over.
"I won't ever leave you again," he reassures her. He cups her cheek in with his hand, gives her a soft kiss on the lips and meets her blue eyes, determined to follow through whatever's in store for them.
"We're in this together," he reminds her.
She tears up, "You're not supposed to be cute and dorky right now," she says, her voice thick with emotion.
Peter laughs before another contraction catches them off guard. It's a very very painful one. And it's enough to make MJ bite into Peter's arm hard enough to make him scream.
Afterwards, while they're bandaging his arm with the baby out and cleaned, with MJ safe and in recovery; he allows himself to breathe. He pulls out his phone where there are countless missed messages and 2 unknown calls (albeit from some other universe).
He would text the spider group how it went as he shifts through the missed group messages where Miles had already sent a photo of the interdimensional shenanigans and ridiculous news headlines which Peni counters with her universe's most ridiculous headlines. The exchange forays into a part that makes his head hurt as he reaches the very last bunch of them, where Gwen is talking about a band tour she's in with her friends and Noir and Ham are arguing about an egg cream recipe.
He's about to start typing before he remembers. He pulls up an old number and decides to break the news to her first.
But of course, it's not HIS Aunt May. In essence, it IS still her. Still, the same woman who held him when he cried after his parents left, who held his hand across the table when he needed it, who fixed him his favourite cereal in the mornings after a rough night. Even if it was some other perfect version of him. He assumes, all sorts of version of him, an Aunt May was there.
And he does miss HIS Aunt May sometimes, talks to her grave when he gets upset, or buys flowers on random days just to see her. He dials the Aunt May of Miles' universe.
"Hey Aunt May, it's…Peter...with the B." he clarifies. The dial tone goes on as he continues, "Y'know. From the other dimension. I'm in the hospital and-"
There's a nervous pause as it goes to voice mail.
"We—" he takes a breath, replays the past 4-6 hours in his head before hearing their baby crying out amidst the stinging bite mark in his arm, allows himself to laugh in spite of it all, "It's a girl."
She is very very small and pink. The nurse hands her over to MJ and Peter tries his best to avoid looking into the kid's face and focuses on her tiny feet before MJ pulls her closer to her chest.
The blanket she's wrapped into shifts as she squirms closer. MJ holds her delicately, nuzzling the small patch of red hair.
She has MJ's face. That distinct lips forming into a smile, her nose, and her chin. This is good, he thinks. He doesn't have to see himself in this kid. She's a carbon copy of MJ with what little bit he had to contribute.
"Look at that, it's like you photosynthesized yourself!" he quips softly. MJ rolls her eyes, still hoping some sort of Peter's face is in her face.
Barely-a-day old Parker proves him wrong because when she opens those eyes, MJ gives out a delighted gasp and stares at him excitedly.
They are brown.
Brown eyes carefully peeking up at her parents. It takes his breath away for a moment before the sound of a muffled surprised sob betrays him. He tries to hide it by kissing MJ's hair and pulling her close. A surge of fear, love, joy riding and rising through.
MJ pulls him closer, one hand cradling the new infant, the other holding Peter, as he composes himself.
"She has your eyes," she says smugly, as he peppers in soft kisses on his wife's head. And back on her damp cheeks. They laugh.
Quietly and still on the verge of tears himself, he traces a finger over those soft damp cheeks, while her small brown eyes still trained on him, familiarising themselves with his; a molding of sorts takes place and he doesn't even have to wonder.
He's already expected it, but this time with a sense of pride and joy, a deep-seated fear mingled with love love love.
He will do everything he can to make sure she grows up in a safe world. And it doesn't feel hard at all, now that he thinks about it. It's so simple now. He can feel his heart squeeze as the tiny baby stares at him recognizing the familiar wavelengths running through his head.
Of course. She's like him.
"She's like us." He corrects himself.
"The best of us," MJ agrees.