Chapter 7 – Lonely Days
It wasn't every day that you came home to a hazmat team in your living room, but May had come to expect a little drama when raising a teenager. Peter had a gift for special levels of drama, but with his bright red and blue suit out of commission she had hoped for a break. May checked her phone again, just to make sure she hadn't missed a call or text explaining what was going on. She could see Ned across the room being scanned by a device, but she couldn't see Peter anywhere. "Okay, someone needs to tell me what is going on here, right now."
"Ms. Parker, this way. We're going to do a quick scan and then we need to get you and Mr. Leeds in for a full workup. Your nephew contracted an exotic bug the other night and the Avengers are handling the situation."
"Oh, no, don't come anywhere near me, buddy." May gestured for the man and his impractical yellow suit to stay back. She tapped the contact in her pone labeled Douche. "Stark, if you don't answer this call." When the call connected, May didn't wait around for greetings. "Where is my nephew? Is he sick? I swear this is the last straw. So help me, if this is something related to 'you know what', I will take Peter and move to Idaho where there aren't any buildings to swing from and the criminals steal cows."
"I doubt the criminals in Idaho steal cows, potatoes maybe," Tony offered dryly.
"Bite me, Ironman." May was squeezing the phone so tight, it was a wonder it didn't break. "Is Peter okay? What's happening?"
"Peter's with me, upstate. Let the team get you up here and you can see him. You let me get him better and I'll help you house hunt in Idaho, okay? Your nephew has no sense of self preservation. It's frustrating."
"Tell me something I don't already know." May lowered the phone, scared and angry and ready to head north. She turned to the closest suited man. "What are you waiting for? Scan me if you need to so we can go."
It wasn't that Bruce didn't know that he was signing up for more than just a freelance job when he agreed to help Tony. He knew there would be personal things to work through. Leaving his friend wasn't the primary goal when he dropped off the radar, but Bruce knew that's how Tony would take it. For a billionaire, he could be as insecure as anyone else sometimes.
Bruce didn't look up from the footage he was reviewing when Tony flew in and stepped out of his armor. "So, can I assume you caught the big bad Siren since this place went up to defcon one a few minutes ago? I'd like to see it. It came out of the anomaly on Benham, right?"
"Yeah, we have a bigger issue right now. You need to help me; it's vaguely related to the Benham Street anomaly and you're under contract for that. I know you're more of a nuclear physicist, but I may have played a role in getting a teenager eaten by a parasite. Said parasite may or may not be controlling him, and I need to help him before his aunt arrives and kills me."
"Do you ever have simple problems? Parking ticket? Hang nail? I have nail clippers, you know." Bruce paused the computer program and stepped away from the desk. "Is the other one a parasitic infection as well? Show me the patients."
Together, Tony and Bruce observed Happy's interrogation of Peter from the video feed. After watching the kid morph briefly into gruesome monster, Bruce whistled. "So is this aunt coming in a few weeks?"
"Tonight," Tony said. His legs had gone weak, and he had sunk into a chair at some point while the parasite was morphing and snapping its jaws.
"Yeah, you're not fixing that tonight. I have quite a few contacts in the world of extreme medicine and biology. I'll make you a list."
Ensconced in an Avengers pilotless plane and headed for the actual Avengers compound, Ned felt no joy or excitement. He had walked May through everything he knew, beginning to end but he hadn't told her the worst part, that he knew Peter needed help and he hadn't called for hours, not until things had gotten very bad. "I'm sorry, May. I knew Peter was not himself, and he told me enough that I should have just called someone even though he didn't want me to. He could have had help hours sooner."
"Ned, you called for help. I doubt whether a few hours here or there would have made a great deal of difference in what's happening. So stop beating yourself up." May took Ned's hand and squeezed it. "If your mom finds out you were exposed to a dangerous parasite and had to fly to the Avengers headquarters for a check up, she will never let you stay over again."
"Oh I've been texting her. As long as I'm home by ten tonight, she'll never know anything happened." Ned blushed a bit at admitting to lying to his mom. "Don't tell her, please? I know It's bad to lie to your guardians but this kind of thing could expose Peter's secret."
"What you tell your mom is between you and her," May said. "I won't get in the middle of it."
Tony Stark met their plane. He was quick to talk through everything that had happened, what they knew and what they were doing to fix it. "So it's going to take a little time to assemble the specialists and bribe a few not to report the situation back to their chain of command, but with any luck Peter will be home for New Year's."
Completely shocking Tony, May didn't shout at him or blame him for what happened to Peter. She let the doctors continue with their exam and didn't say a word for several long beats. "Thank you, Mr. Stark for everything you're doing for Peter. We are very lucky that you're able and willing to help."
Tony made a confused face but didn't argue. "You're welcome." He had expected her to call him out for not fixing Benham Street before it started spewing dangerous extraterrestrial parasites at the very least.
"Can I see him?" May asked.
"Sure as soon as the doctor clears you we'll head down." Tony gave her a ridiculous thumbs up. "You're really not angry with me for this?"
"You didn't put him in this position, not this time," May said. "I gave him permission to put that suit back on and put himself in danger. This one is on me.
6 months later
Taking a car upstate to the Avengers facility three times a week should have been well out of her budget, but May sat in the back of a new-smelling fancy car with nothing to do but think. The car and the monetary windfall that let her take so much time off work were entirely Tony Stark's doing. She had wanted to refuse the charity, but he had been adamant that it was a courtesy and back-pay for the work Peter had done on his behalf. At the end of the day, she didn't have a choice. She would rather eat glass than take charity from anyone. For Peter she'd eat glass, take charity; she'd cut off her own arm if it would help him get better.
Walking up the stairs and around to the front entrance, May waited through security and submitted to a biometric scan of her hand and eyes. She would have to pass through three more check points to get to sub level eleven, but most of the time Tony or Happy met her part way and let her bypass the rest. Today she waited through all three stations.
Her first stop was always lab one. She turned on the intercom and she talked to the pitiful creature trapped inside. It didn't like men and she was one of the few women who visited this place. "Hi Lily, it's May again. I dropped by the day care where your little one spends his days. Lewis is getting big, so tall. I know he misses his mom. I baked some double chocolate chip cookies, half for you and half for Peter. They should make it through security sometime today."
Lily wasn't wearing her angry, frightening hungry face today. A waif in a hospital gown with big lost, sad eyes, she placed a hand on the glass between her and May. "Help me."
"They're trying. Be strong, okay?" May touched the glass over Lily's hand and switched off the intercom. Visiting Lily was so much easier. The parasite hadn't left enough of her humanity to make things confusing most days.
Lab two painted a different picture. No longer an empty, sterile work space, it had filled with the clutter of a child's room over the last six months. Books and clothes and a partially completed 3D puzzle filled the space. A beat up old radio played into the intercom, retro 90's rock. May turned off the radio but left the intercom on.
"May! You came back." Peter didn't just walk to the glass, he basically bounced over in a graceful flipping motion that defied human reflexes. Perched like a bird on the small ledge along the reinforced window, he grinned at her. "Did you bring me schoolwork again? It's so boring in here that I've been looking forward to something new to work on. Is Ned okay? And MJ, is she mad at me over the decathlon? I missed her first meet as captain. Are you okay? You look tired. It's a long drive, I know."
"I did bring school work, and cookies too. They're back in the security scanners. They'll get it to you sometime today, I'm sure." The doctors thought it was best to keep stimulating his mind and letting him learn as though it was Peter doing the work. They theorized that Peter would probably retain the information if they ever got him clear of the parasite.
May couldn't make herself look him in the eyes because it hurt too much. Tony liked to call it a Peter impersonation, but it was too accurate. It wore Peter's face and used his expressions. When Tony offered her a room upstairs, May turned down the opportunity. Three visits a week was almost more than she could stand as it was. "Ned misses Peter and MJ hasn't come around lately. As for old Aunt May, I'm just fine, worried is all."
"I love you."
May had to close her eyes and count to ten before she could talk. "I love, Peter. And you're a nice enough parasite, but I'd like to talk to my nephew if you can make that happen."
"You're sort of talking to Peter? He isn't erased. He's here." May turned away, but not before he saw that she was crying. "Oh God, I'm sorry. There are about a million dormant memories in here, Gray's memories. I'll go in and try to wake some up again. It might work this time? Maybe there's a way to unwind us? I don't know. I only know what Peter and Gray knew and Gray was a baby and Peter, well he knew a lot but not about what Gray was. Please don't cry, May."
"I need to go wash my face." May twisted the radio back on and walked briskly out of the room. In the lavatory, she locked herself in the first stall and cried like she did almost every visit. This was so much worse than losing Peter's parents or even Ben. Usually you buried your dead and mourned and moved on. Peter was eaten by a parasite and now that parasite wanted to be family in his place. It was horrible and nauseating and then there was the goddamn hope. Maybe they could fix it and get Peter back? Stark was adamant that he hadn't yet begun to fight, but they were six months in and hadn't made any progress at all.
May wiped her nose and eyes and rinsed her face off at the sink. She wasn't wearing much makeup, after over fifty visits with what was left of her nephew she knew better than to bother.
Rather than head back in for some more torture with what remained of Peter, May took the elevator back upstairs and suffered through the security stations to get to Tony's lab. She pushed the button that would alert him that he had a visitor and she settled onto a sofa to wait. If he wasn't here or wasn't willing to talk, F.R.I.D.A.Y. would have said something by now.
It wasn't Tony Stark that came out to see her, but the rumpled, quiet Dr. Banner. She had met him a handful of times over the months she had been visiting and she knew he was involved peripherally with Peter's case. "Dr. Banner, I take it Stark isn't available?"
"He's not, but it's for the best of reasons. We have a new strategy. Peter's symbiont..."
"Parasite," May cut him off. "I'd appreciate you not using words that imply anything positive was done to my nephew."
"Sorry, so the parasite has been very bored. Peter is too bright for us to give him any technology in there." Bruce held his hands up in mock surrender, knowing May didn't like it when people used Peter's name when talking about the parasite controlling him. "If Peter could turn an iPod into a tool, so can the parasite. Happy set the radio up at the intercom to help with the boredom ages ago. Well the parasite reported that it experienced discomfort even disruption with some of Tony's more metal inspired music. We've experimented with the sonic sensitivity and we're going to try to free Lily Frazier later this evening. If it works for her, we'll try to help Peter with it. We're trying with Ms. Frazier first because from what we can tell, she's dying. If we don't get her clear very soon, we won't get many more opportunities."
May's hands flew over her mouth, blocking the first real smile she'd sported since Peter was taken over. "Death metal, is going to save them? Are you kidding?"
"It may fail horribly, but it's the best idea any of us have had in a while, so we're hopeful." Bruce smiled faintly.
"Hope is a four letter word. You shouldn't use it around desperate women unless you mean it." May hugged Dr. Banner tight. "Can I watch?"
"I'll see what I can do."
Happy had professed more than once that he didn't know what he would do without his job for Mr. Stark, but in the last few weeks he had actually booted up a word processor and revised his resume. Babysitting Peter Parker and Gray was becoming too emotionally confusing. The kid, Peter, deserved better than to become snack food for some weird sentient parasite. He didn't deserve to be erased and revised into a new being, but Happy was having a hard time hating the thing that had replaced him. There was too much of Peter in it. Sliding the goods that May had brought for Peter into the triple locking system that would safely transfer them to lab one, Happy turned to tell the symbiont that his stuff was on the way, but the kid was curled up on his bed and his shoulders were shaking with silent sobs.
Normally it was preternatural how aware the kid was of his surroundings and people coming and going in the antechamber, but he hadn't noticed Happy. Resolutely, he turned off the radio. "Kid, you okay in there?"
Like he had been caught at something shameful, the kid quickly wiped his eyes and plastered what might normally pass for a bright smile on. "Hey no, I'm fine. Just processing things."
"Yeah, May visited. She brought cookies and some schoolwork for you. They should be coming through the lock system momentarily." Happy settled at the desk next to the intercom, determined to talk some of the tension out of the kid's shoulders. "You have a good visit with May?"
"No, I didn't." The tears had welled up but he blinked them back. "Peter knew they would be angry, that they might even hate me, but he was sure we could handle it, that I would be good enough to make things okay.
"It seemed so simple to them both. Gray loved Peter from the beginning. Peter was so passionate and bright and certain, but still so empathetic and so breakable. Gray wanted to be a guardian with him to help him protect his city and his people, especially his family. He wanted to make him stronger.
"I was so happy to be them together. Did you know, I actually cuddled Ned that first night? I knew it wasn't socially normal, but he's soft and warm and one of my people, the ones I love. It really freaked him out.
"Peter was wrong, I can't handle the hatred, and we can't protect anything from a cage. I wish I could give them back what they want, just slough off the part of me that's offensive but I don't know if that's possible and I definitely don't know how." He had come forward all the way to the glass, resting his hands palm out and leaning his forehead forward so that his breath fogged the surface.
"You helped though, right? It was your idea to use sonic disruption to break the partial bond-thing on the other symbiont. You might have saved Lily Frazier's life." Happy shrugged. "It's not capturing the Vulture and saving a few billion dollars' worth of property, but it will mean the world to that woman and her family if it works out."
"They'll try it on me if it works on her." Peter met Happy's gaze for a long moment and he visibly relaxed at whatever he saw there. "It'll be okay if it works on us both. Then I'll have saved their Peter and maybe they'll forgive me for taking him away."
"This is a messed up conversation, kid, and I'm not discussing it anymore. I want to know if you've figured out your name yet. If nothing else, I need to know what to put on the headstone since you're planning your own funeral. Are you still leaning toward Venom? It's a statement name but maybe a bit out there for everyday use?"
Accepting Happy's topic change with some relief, he shrugged. "Yeah, I couldn't go to school and ask the teachers to call me Venom. Maybe it could be my code name for Gray's scary faces. You know?"
"Maybe. What's really wrong with the name Parker? You need a last name in human society, then you add a first name to suit your personality."
"Like you Happy." The kid grinned, a more genuine smile. "I still don't know what to pick. There are too many options."
"Let's make a list." Happy pulled out a pen and paper and wrote Peter, Parker, Gray and Venom at the top. He look up expectantly. "Come on, get creative with this. What have you considered?"
For nearly two hours, Happy chatted and compiled the list for Peter/Gray and when he was done, he knew that he wasn't going to resign not even if this nightmare dragged on forever. Somehow he had become the only person in the kid's life that didn't outright hate him, and the kid knew it.
Even a parasite didn't deserve to be that alone.