FFH: Right After the Midcredits Scene

What the what the what the what the what the WHAT THE

Peter leaped off the light-post seconds after Jameson dropped his bombshell (please please please let people not believe him), launched a web at the nearest billboard, and pulled himself in a frenzy towards the slip of an alleyway that was so conveniently located nearby.

If he had had the mental capacity or desire to comprehend what was going on around him, he would have heard the flurry of excited voices; he would have seen the pointing fingers; he would have heard MJ's concerned "Spiderman!". As it were, the webslinger was mostly just conscious of the nausea in his stomach and the vicious barrage of thoughts Jameson's (freaking untimely!) revelation had unleashed.

Peter made it about ten blocks away from the original lightpost before he finally slowed down and settled down beside a dumpster in a tense crouch. Behind the mask, his breath heaved and his eyes were squeezed shut (as if that would make this all go away).

"Peter," Karen's voice came over the speakers in his suit suddenly. "Your heart-rate and rate of respiration has increased significantly. It appears that you are suffering from a panic attack. Would you like me to call Aunt May?"

Peter pressed his back against the wall and groaned aloud.

Aunt May.

Of course.

He needed to get back to her. Quickly.

"No, Karen. I need...I need..."

The mask was suddenly far, far too stifling. With barely a thought, the teen ripped it off his face and lowered it to his lap as a crumpled mass of red and white and black. Still trembling, with sweat darkening the roots of his hair, he rested his head against the wall as well. The twisting in his gut had turned in shards of anxiety that stabbed his gut in a way he felt all the way down to his toes.

He saw again Mysterio's face—an actor to the end. He saw how cleverly he had played the whole thing out, turning himself into a martyr and crushing Peter's chances of settling back into any kind of normal rhythm.

He saw his own dorky face staring back at him on a billboard and thousands and thousands of people across the city seeing it, too.

And yearbook pictures never looked good anyway—talk about adding insult to...well, more insults.

It took a few minutes, but the teenager finally managed to get into somewhat of a better mindset (maybe it had something to do with the tricks Mr. Stark had taught him about panic attacks).

He felt his heart rate begin to slow and his lungs begin to expand, mercifully, once more. That only opened the floodgates of worry over May to open, of course. Peter slowly stood up and slipped the mask back on.

Peter frowned and slowly opened his clenched fists again. It was surprising how much his fingers stung as the banished blood returned to them once more. He cleared his throat.

"Call Aunt May, Karen. Please." (He sounded like a kid just then, so why did he feel so far from being one?)

"Yes, Peter."

Karen's voice didn't comfort him as much as it usually did.

As it turned out, sneaking the last thirty blocks or so back to his apartment did Peter some good—maybe.

At any rate, it gave him time to think.

There was no putting the cat back in the box now. Inevitably, people were going to figure out where he lived. Mr. Stark had put a lot of walls around Peter's personal information early on in the days of their interaction, so he knew ("hoped" would probably be more accurate, knowing his track record) he had at least a little bit of time before someone came to investigate.

There was also the little problem of school. He thought of Flash and his affinity for all things Spiderman (admiration, really, which he had tried to think a lot about when the other teenager verbally abused him at school). He thought of his teachers, Betty, Ned, of course, and MJ. He thought of how the heck he was going to people to go back to school and walk the halls without a lot of unwelcome eyes staring at him (was he a celebrity!?). He was a Junior now and was so close to graduating...

And that wasn't even taking into account his actual career as a webslinger.

Peter felt the panic begin to close in on him again, and it was only through great effort and for the blessed fact that his stomach growled quite loudly that he managed to wrench his thoughts back into submission (not for long, though because-)

The thing that really put a lump in Peter's throat was the question of who (paparazzi? Tabloid writers? Criminals? Aliens?) would show up looking for him...and who would find out about May. And Ned. And MJ. And—

Nope. He couldn't focus on that now. Peter peeled off of the shadowed side of the wall he had been scuttling across and dropped to his feet silently, feeling for all the world like the spider he had named himself after. In more ways than one, too.

His apartment was within view, and, thankfully no one was there. Though that included May, unfortunately. He had talked to her and found out she hadn't heard the news yet, but he knew she would soon. He had just asked her to come back to the apartment—sooner rather than later. She had agreed with no small amount of worry, which was good because if she had stayed and her coworkers discovered the secret first then she was going to get bombarded with questions and all sorts of things she didn't need. Not that she needed any of this, of course, but still...that was beside the point.

When Peter had stripped off his suit and was back in his normal "civilian" clothing, he checked the streets. He wasted no time in sprinting to the door once he was satisfied that they were clear.

Not long after he had shut himself in his room and sunk numbly onto his mattress, he heard the keys jangle in the door, heavy footsteps (not May's enter the room), a familiar voice.

"Hey, Pete. You in here yet?"

Peter scrubbed his hands viciously through his hair just to release some of his nervous energy and then poked his head of the door. It was Happy. Just as he had expected.

"Hey, Happy," he said (a little too weakly for his liking).

The older man stared at him with an expression that bordered on I'm-fed-up-with-life-and-people-and-really-just-wanna-go-home. Peter understood the sentiment, though he didn't miss the slightly quirked eyebrows that broadcasted Happy's anxiety. Or, for that matter, the bright red T-shirt he was wearing.

"Uh...Happy? You know you're not wearing a suit, right?"

Peter wasn't sure why he had said it. It just kind of slipped out, but now that it had, he was curious—maybe a little disturbed, too. Those khaki shorts revealed one of the most blinding sights he had never wished to see. Also, his mind really just wanted to get away from worrying about the world crashing and burning right now.

"No, kid. Thanks for the heads up."

Peter stared at Happy, still numb and fighting a losing battle with his sanity (this was it, wasn't it? He was officially going to be insane). And before he could control it, there was something warm and wet and painfully familiar welling up into his eyes.

Happy's eyebrows dropped immediately and then he was shaking his head.

"Nope, not now, kid. We aren't doing this. A tulip field on another continent is one thing, but not here, in your apartment, safe. You hear me?"

Peter pulled in a deep breath and quickly swiped a finger under each eye. The wetness retreated. Slightly. He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

Happy let out a long sigh and then eased himself down into a chair before looking at Peter again earnestly (like he had in the plane in the Netherlands).

"This isn't the end of the world. Things like this are bound to happen, especially when the enhanced superhuman hero whatever happens to be a teenager—"

Peter looked down quickly. Of course he should have been more careful with—

"And I don't mean that in any kind of spiteful way, either. But you go to a public high school and ****! You have the kind of face that makes people like Quentin Beck think they can step all over you."

Peter sniffed, chasing away the last of the unbidden tears, and looked back up again.

"All I'm saying is that—"

May happened to burst into the door at just that moment, making Happy nearly jump out of his skin and causing Peter to once again doubt that his enhanced senses had ever begun to work again. She could have probably been heard tramping up the stairs from a block away.

She went straight to him and gently placed her hands on either side of her face, her eyes bright, promising tears of her own. Now, Peter knew he couldn't deal with that.

Stay calm stay calm stay calm smile smile smile sTaY cAlM...

"So, you, uh, heard the news, then?"

May frowned and then pulled her nephew into a tight hug, and Peter couldn't help but feel how much smaller and weaker she seemed than when he had hugged her the day of the alien invasion and his trip to space and the dust and then...somehow he still forgot, sometimes, that she had lived five years without him, thinking he was dead, grieving him as dead. This was what he hated.

How hard was it for the universe to give Peter and May Parker a break? Just one?

(Pretty hard, apparently).

Peter pulled out of the hug and put one of his hands over hers.

"I'm OK, May. I promise."

"I know, I know. Of course you are..."

Her eyes flickered, and she squeezed his hand, as if reassuring herself that he was here, flesh and blood, back after so much time away.

"But I'm not."

Peter's heart broke all over again on those three words.

"Pepper said she could manage the situation minimally from where she's at...combing databases, rewriting a little history here, tweaking a couple of things there..." Happy shrugged, letting his hands fall back onto the armrests of the chair.

"Ultimately, though, something more drastic is going to have to be done."

May sat beside Peter on the couch facing Peter, gripping his hands tightly and staring at Happy tight-lipped. She still seemed to be trembling.

"He's not going to be safe here, is he?"

Both Peter and Happy knew May wasn't looking for an answer. She knew the answer already(not that Peter was ever safe as Spiderman, but May didn't need to hear that right now).

"So what do you suggest?" Peter asked, once again finding that the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. This time, they came with something of a bite that he had definitely not intended.

Happy eyed him, let out another sigh.

"Honestly, Pete, I really don't know. You're not as high-profile as Iron Man was, so you won't need to worry about anything too crazy. But you've also made some enemies as a webslinger, and being mobbed by the paparazzi isn't exactly as fun as you would expect under the circumstances. I think it really just depends on what you want."

Peter let his gaze fall back onto the floor and swallowed.

How did he keep getting into situations like this? (He kept messing up, right? He should have known Beck was going to pull something, even when he was...dying).

He looked back at May, still pale and silent beside him. She looked older, especially right now. And...was that...gray creeping into her temples? Peter stood up a little too quickly and began to pace in front of the two adults.

"What about S.H.I.E.L.D.? Will they try anything? The government...are they still going to try to do something with anyone who comes out as...a superhero or something? And what about MJ and Ned? Aunt May?"

He paused and glanced out the window, where the passing flash of a car had snagged his peripheral vision. Happy snorted at him.

"I don't know. S.H.I.E.L.D's a wild card since the Blip's happened. The government's practically in shambles. I think your biggest threat is still the press. I know Pepper can handle that."

Peter laced his hands behind his head, stretched out his arms, continued to pace.

There was something bothering him about this whole situation, and he couldn't quite put his finger on it. It had something to do with the fact that this all seemed so dramatic, that it was still his fault, that once again he was making a decision that could potentially influence whether or not the lives of those he cared about were in danger.

And yet there was something more, too.

Happy suddenly stood up. He held up his phone, which was vibrating with an incoming call: Pepper Potts.

"Here we go. I'll be back in a second," Happy said. Both May and Peter nodded, and the man stepped out on the front porch with the phone to his ear.

Peter turned to May. She was still staring straight ahead, as if dazed.

"May, what do you think we should do?"

There was a moment of silence before the woman suddenly and resolutely turned her eyes to him. Her voice wasn't shaky, but it wasn't truly stable when she answered.

"I think we need to get away from here. From all of it."

Peter blinked at her, his body rigid, his mind racing. May stood up, and her eyes were filling with tears again (noMaypleasedon'tcrypleasepleaseplease).

"Peter," she said, her voice truly wavering now. "I lost you five years ago. Five years ago."

Peter looked down, trying hard not to imagine the pain May must have felt. She had lost her husband, her brother-in-law, her sister-in-law, both her parents at an earlier age than most (and even her nephew). May walked slowly to him and forced him to meet her eyes (he almost couldn't do it).

"I love you, Peter Parker, and I swear I have always tried to let you be what you needed to be. If that meant trips across the country or an internship with Tony Stark or even late-night excursions across the streets of New York...by God, Peter, I was going to make sure you could grow up to be the man I know you can be...and are!"

Flashes of Ben's face, of Ben on the street the night he was—

Some of the many times he had crawled into the apartment through his window bruised and bloodied, biting into his cheeks to keep from waking May up and letting her know-

Hours in the lab with Ton—Mr. Stark—learning and cracking stupid puns and designing tech-

All of these things paraded through his mind, a cruel slideshow.

When, in all of it, had he truly stopped to think about how May must have felt? Had she felt abandoned? Scared to death that her nephew—raised like the son she could never have had—wouldn't make it home and she wouldn't even know what had happened to him? Did she cry? Stay up at night, wondering, thinking, fearing?

How often had he considered this?

(Never enough for what she did for him).

"May, I'm so sorry...I know I should have-"

May stopped him, holding up a hand with an almost fierce look.

"No. Don't even begin with that ********. I just told you that I let you do that because I thought it was best—and maybe a part of me still does. But Peter, you're sixteen. You should have an entire life ahead of you, and I should be there to help you through it in any way I possibly can. Don't tell me that you don't want a normal life!"

Peter nodded, the aching lump of lead embedded in his throat growing heavier and harder to ignore by the second.

"OK. So, here's what I have to say: we Parkers need a break, and I just don't think we're going to get that here, right now, after what just happened. Kapiche?"

Peter gulped. His aching throat just got tighter.

When he finally managed to catch her earnest gaze again, though, she had the kind of smile he hadn't realized he had been missing for the past couple of months, after things had begun to level out somewhat: her smile.

Happy knocked right before he could say anything, and then he had opened the door and stuck his head in.

"Good news: Pepper's found you a getaway place to lay low for a while."

May flashed a glance, eyebrows up, at Peter, and then she swung her attention back to Happy.

"And?"

"It's the Barton farm, down in Missouri. Tons of security, located far enough away nobody's gonna think to look for you there. Pepper guarantees it'll be the best place to go until we can figure a long-term solution to this mess."

Peter tried to hide the way his stomach had dropped at the mention of Missouri, the way anxiety had reared its head in his belly once more at the name "Barton" because May...May looked so excited.

She looked back at him, and her smile was back.

"What do you think, Pete?" she said, quietly. "You're always telling me you want to be a little more..." here his Aunt did a weird little dance-wiggle with her arms and her hips. "You know, spontaneous."

Peter laughed despite himself, and then grinned a little broader at the look of utter confusion gracing Happy's normally bear-like solemnity.

In accordance with his pattern of late, the words slipped out before he had the chance to digest them completely:

"Sure."

After that, everything clicked into place, and Peter felt like some other crucial part of the earth had just shifted out from underneath him. Looking at May smiling and laughing at Happy's fashion choices as they packed their bags ("I was about to go on vacation in the Bahamas when the kid's news broke") and seeing the way her posture seemed so much more open (as if a longtime weight had been removed) and her eyes seemed so much brighter...

Well, Peter couldn't help but think that maybe this was the right choice after all.

To the country they went (and away from MJ and Ned and—)

He was Peter Freaking Parker! What could possibly go wrong out there, away from all the buildings and bad guys and newspeople?

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey, guys! First of all, I just want to say thank you to everyone who stopped by and read this. This is, technically, my second fanfiction (and my first serial one, so...), and I'm kind of struggling with writing Peter and May and Happy like I want to. Also, the formatting is kind of weird and I'm trying to figure that out and stuff. And...DISCLAIMER: I haven't written in a while, so I'm super rusty and stuff and oops sorry but eh whatever. I am VERY TIRED RIGHT NOW AHHH HA. Regardless, this is definitely going to be a WIP. :D

Anywayy...just as kind of an overview for what's coming up and some notes: For one, this is set in an AU where May was not blipped and also, as this might become important later, where Shuri (yes, T'Challa's sister) was not blipped and instead became Queen in the wake of all the dusting ;)

Oh, and eventually I'm also hoping to get in some Shuri (somehow), some Ned, some MJ, some little Morgan, lots of country shenanigans with Clint's kids and quite possibly horses, and, of course, lots of feels, character development, and healing for poor Peter. He really can't catch a break, can he?

So yeah. Please feel free to leave feedback (especially because I'm experimenting with my writing style and really want to know if it works and ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE), tell me what you like or don't like, and, most of all, enjoy the ride! :)

Talk to you all later (I was tempted to say y'all because, hey, it's tHe SoUtH, but I decided against it. I'm sorry...XD)