anon prompted: Ooohh how about 10 + spiderfam (I'm thinking mainly the kids like annie and may but I'm flexible)
A/N: I think, anon, you're the first person to ever prompt me with Spiderfam and I am forever in your debt 3 Mayday was my first hardcore love of comics and I wanted to write with her so I tweaked some of the canon so that some of her abilities came into being before puberty/her major unveiling as Spider-Girl
Disclaimer: Spider-Man, Spider-Girl, and associated characters are the creative property of Marvel Comics.
Crackle Boom
May had been sleeping in her own room for nearly five years.
At first, Peter hated it. He would wander from their bedroom into hers throughout the night, slightly off-balance and still new to his prosthetic, pushing against the walls and furniture each step of the way. Then he'd watch her from the doorway and feel every solitary instinct primed to protect her. To keep her safe.
Even as a baby, Mayday proved to be fiercely independent. She got that from MJ, of course.
She was crawling early, walking early, teething early.
For reasons utterly beyond Peter's comprehension, his baby girl was on the fast track to growing up. Each day she was more beautiful, more articulate, more passionate.
And, so often, it felt like beyond those things, she was fearless.
If anyone asked May if she needed help, the little girl was determined to say no.
She never asked for help, never asked for accommodations. She was bullheaded and never gave up.
Peter took credit for that part.
So it was surprising, if not completely shocking when one summer night he woke from his sleep to a familiar cry.
"Daddy!"
Immediately, Peter was tense. Every muscle in his body snapped forward into action.
He would have leaped straight out of the bed had it not been for Mary Jane's patience and soothing. Without rolling over or opening her eyes, she reached out and placed a firm hand on Peter's chest.
"It's probably a nightmare, Peter," she said softly.
As always, she grounded him, brought him back down to reality.
They were home — the same, safe home that Peter had grown up in his whole life in Forest Hills. It had been years since he was Spider-Man, let alone since any of his former foes came after him or the ones he loved.
There was a phantom ache below his right knee, the pressure dull and unmoving. It told him it was raining long before he heard the familiar patter on the roof and window.
Evening his breaths, Peter looked down at his wife's hand and reached up, clasping both of his own hands over hers. He kept her against his chest for just a moment longer, wondering if she knew his heart was calming down again all because of her.
"Daddy!"
"I'm going to check on her," Peter determined, reaching over to the nightstand where his prosthetic rested.
"Of course you are," MJ mumbled, already drifting off as her hand snaked its way back to her side.
Peter walked through the darkness of the house, more steady on his legs than he once was but still keeping a flat palm on the walls where he feasibly could. He was halfway to May's room when the thunder boomed outside.
He could make out the soft gasp of May in her bedroom, and suddenly the picture was all coming together.
"Mayday?" Peter called gently, pushing her door open just a bit, enough to get a picture of the eight-year-old's room.
Against the very faint lights peeking through her window, May was sitting up in her bed, sheets and comforter pulled up to her chin as she looked toward the window. She wasn't trembling, but she was still nervous enough to be biting her lip.
"May?" Peter called again, just before she flinched and cowered from the window.
"Daddy!" May cried out again, making Peter's chest feel like it was in a vice grip.
"Honey," Peter attempted to soothe. He put away pretense and walked straight into the room. By the time he reached her bed, he was scooting onto it to sit.
Instinctively, May folded up against him, curling into his side and burying her face against his ribs.
Once again, every fiber of Peter's being was assured that he would do positively anything for his little girl. A leg was nothing for the sake of her safety and security. And the fact that she was scared even for an instant felt like he had marked a failure in that somewhere somehow.
"May, sweetheart," Peter continued. "I'm here. Daddy's here. What's the problem?"
Thunder boomed and May finally broke into shivers against him.
Peter smiled down at her, affectionately threading his fingers through her coarse brown locks. There was no denying where May got her hair from — it was pure Parker, tangling easy and ready to stand on end. Peter was near his forties and he still hadn't found the best way to work it.
"Come on, Mayday," he said, his affection weaved into his every word, "it's just a little thunderstorm. Those never scared you before."
She shook her head, her forehead a little damp against Peter's skin. She sucked in a few breaths tightly together — huff, huff, huff — and didn't exhale.
"Alright, let's put an end to that," Peter said softly, gently shifting himself onto the bed more and pulling his leg over the corner. He could feel the catch of his prosthetic against the frame but ignored it for the moment. His arms swept up May and he cradled her against him as he laid back on the bed. He kept her close and kept her secure.
Mayday was pliable, seemingly comforted by Peter's security.
The moment May was comfortably against his chest, Peter leaned to the side and reached with one arm to unhook his leg and guide the unfeeling plastic up onto the bed. It dropped to the bed with a thud and Peter let it remain. He had more important matters to attend to.
"Okay, kiddo, you're shaking like a leaf," he said, using his right hand to brush some hair from May's face.
Tear tracks had made cool, wet splotches across May's cheeks. Peter hated that, and immediately tried to rub them away with his thumb after he unstuck the loose hairs from them. "May, baby, what's wrong? It's just a storm."
"I know when it's coming," she mumbles against his chest. "It hurts my head."
Confused, Peter tilted his head to the side. "What hurts your head?" he asked.
Before she could answer, an apparent chill went down May's spine and left her trembling with new fervor. In the back of Peter's own spine, he felt a vague tingle, but nothing that would have really gotten his attention otherwise.
A moment later, lightning crackled outside the window followed by a shaking boom. It was enough to make Peter glance away from his daughter and toward the window, but May did not react as much. She trembled more acutely just before it.
Quietly, deep down, a notion — a scientific proposal — came to Peter about the connection. But he buried it quickly. It was too painful to think about at that moment. Every instinct in Peter was honed into protecting his family, and especially his little Mayday. The idea that he could give her something so dangerous and life-changing was beyond what his heart could take for one sleepy, stormy night.
Still, he liked to fall back on science. It comforted him. And he liked to think it comforted May, too.
"You know, spiders talk to each other through vibrations," Peter informed her.
Surprised by the topic, May looked at Peter's face curiously, then scrunched up her nose in confusion. "Huh?"
Smirking, Peter wrapped his arms around her and began to shimmy them both, shaking her little body enough to get a giggle of surprise. "When your body shakes, or when the neighbors play music so loud it makes the walls move? We call those vibrations," he explained.
"D-Daddy, y-you're v-vibrating-ing me-me!" May giggled excitedly, the fear temporarily gone from her eyes.
"Sure am," he laughed back. He stopped shaking them and the bed both and held her firmly to his chest. "Spiders don't have mouths like ours, they can't make voices and talk like we do. So they have to talk in other ways. So they make vibrations." He brought up one of his hands and began walking his fingers up May's back and onto her head. "So they use their toes to make little tiny vibrations. And that's how they talk to each other."
May shivers under Peter's hand, but it is not the full-body tremble she had before. It's full of giggles and amusement. "Ew, daddy! You're spider-talking!"
Grinning ear-to-ear, Peter used his hand to bop May on the nose. "You don't know the half of it, kiddo."
Once May seemed more settled, Peter took his hands and began rubbing soothing circles into her back, rubbing her tiny shoulders and watching as she leaned into him with complete faith and trust.
"I think," he continued, more softly, "when storms are bad and close, you can feel them vibrating. Even before the crack of lightning or the boom of thunder, you can feel storms in your bones sometimes. I know I do. But they don't have to be scary. You just need to remind yourself that it'll be okay. That you'll be safe."
"Because of daddy," May murmured against him, her eyes closed and her body flattening against Peter's.
Peter ached with love as he looked down at her. "Because of daddy," he agreed.
The dull tremble at the back of Peter's spine sounded off, and he couldn't help but notice how May trembled again. But she didn't stir, her breathing soft and matched to Peter's own.
Lightning crackled then, after a few seconds, thunder boomed.
The storm was moving away.
Shutting his own eyes, Peter felt relieved and contemplative. Another storm for his family down, and he couldn't have been happier.