He definitely should have called backup.

Peter flipped over a busted packing crate just in time to avoid another round of bullets. He crouched behind it for a few seconds, panting, as he considered what he had to do next.

The few guys who'd somehow found him on the roof were webbed up and incapacitated at the moment, but they had alerted Camaro Dudes, who were the ones currently pursuing him as he sprinted and flipped around the metal jungle gym that was the pier—much to their chagrin, of course. Peter probably would have been able to take them even with the guns, but he was trying to delay any more direct confrontation at the moment because he needed to draw them away from the front of the pier.

If the deal was still on and Peter's carelessness hadn't somehow been enough to spook these people, then that's still presumably where the captives were going to end up. The last thing he needed to do was draw a bunch of innocents directly into the line of fire. It had been hard enough trying to figure out this deal in the first place—who knows when or if he'd get another chance to do something about it again.

But if he could get these guys farther up the pier and then restrain them, he might be able to swoop down on the traffickers who had yet to arrive before they even realized their buddies weren't there to welcome him.

Or at least that's the plan his sleep-deprived brain scrambled to come up with as he steeled himself to sprint farther back into the shipping crate maze.

He'd work the details out on the fly.

"You know it's dangerous to be wearing a red shirt in your line of business, right?" Peter yelled as he popped out from behind the crate and shot a web at the nearest guy—who happened to be wearing the aforementioned red shirt.

"Red shirts are always the first ones to go down!"

Peter grinned, though his Star Trek reference was sadly lost and ignored by the pair he was up against.

Oh well. He wasn't the biggest Star Trek fan anyway—Star Wars was so much better.

Peter jerked Red Shirt's gun from his hand and dodged a few wayward shots from his companion before giving him the same treatment as his unfortunately clad companion. Both guns now clattered harmlessly to the ground, and Peter shrugged at the two cursing men even as he noted the location of the weapons just in case they wanted to try anything else.

They were already moving, faces contorted into masks of anger and frustration and one of them brandishing a knife he had seemingly pulled from thin air, when Peter started sprinting towards them himself.

He had this.

Probably.

It wasn't like it was weird that the guys he'd taken down so far didn't act liked trained professionals in the least—that they hadn't even acted surprised to see him here.

Right?

Betty and Ned were looking for MJ when she fully entered the lobby.

"You good?" Betty asked, eyebrows dipped.

MJ offered her a reassuring smile and nodded. She was much better actually, and her plan had definitely taken on a more concrete shape by this point. It was going to be part vengeance on the school system and (a much bigger) part helping-Peter-walk-the-line, really, but no one had to know that. And it wasn't like she wasn't going to try doing things in a more civilized manner first anyway.

"It's highly unlikely Peter is going to make it here in time," MJ said when they had pulled together in a corner of the lobby, completely enveloped by the buzz and movement of the swelling crowd—and a shifting, nauseating mixture of perfumes, cholognes, and good old-fashioned body odor.

Ned straightened up at her words, glanced around in a manner that was definitely more conspicuous than it needed to be, and then leaned in to whisper.

"You mean S-p-i-d-e-r-m-a-n is definitely out, you know, kicking—"

"I'm pretty sure everyone here knows how to spell, Babe," Betty interjected almost apologetically.

Ned shrugged sheepishly and looked at MJ, who smirked.

"Yeah, he's busy. I don't know for how long, but May's making sure he's got backup, so don't worry."

Ned and Betty both nodded, and now it was MJ's turn to glance around them.

"We're drawing too much attention huddled together like this, though," she whispered. "Let's go back to our hallway."

MJ was amused by her friends' reactions once she laid out their plan.

Ned, at least, was enthusiastic. His eyes had physically lit up when she explained his role in the plan, and by the time she said he could actually choose the song himself, he was practically vibrating with eagerness.

"Dude," he said, voice dripping with awe. "You don't know how long I've wanted to do something like this. High school has not been like in the movies—except for you guys. You guys are great."

MJ snorted a dry laugh. At least she wasn't the only one who seemed to have a bone to pick with the public education system of New York.

Betty, on the other hand, was a little more hesitant. MJ couldn't entirely blame her, but her balking did make her a little nervous. Betty's part of the plan was arguably the part that needed to be executed the most convincingly. If she wasn't all in, things might fall apart.

"You mean…so I'm actually going to act act? Like, tears and everything?"

"He is your uncle, Betty. And I know you're a good actress, so…you'll do great," MJ assured the other girl, though her words sparked some doubt in her own mind. How long had it been since she'd seen Betty "act act," as she'd put it? Eighth grade? Seventh, maybe?

Betty bit her lip, ignoring the obvious surprise in Ned's expression as he looked over at her. Apparently, it had been longer than she thought if Ned hadn't even known Betty was something of a low-key thespian. MJ hadn't even really gotten to know Betty that well until the past year, but she had remembered that much.

"And you're sure this is the only way we can do this?" Betty asked, her voice somehow sounding even more unsure than before.

MJ sighed and looked down at her feet.

"I'm going to talk to Principal Morita first, remember? I'll give you the signal if that fails. This is the contingency plan, if you will."

Betty frowned, and MJ was trying to come up with something that would really help convince the other girl when Ned filled the silence.

"We're only doing it because Peter deserves to be here too, right? I mean, it's kind of dangerous and maybe a little bit cool and hopefully we can't get, like, expelled right before we get our diplomas, but…it is for Peter. I know he wants to be here just as much as we do. And he would be here if…you know…he wasn't out saving people and stuff."

MJ immediately felt Betty's resistance crumble and shot Ned a sideways glance she hoped conveyed her gratitude. It was true. None of them would never dream of causing this much drama if it weren't for Peter's predicament, especially on the night they were supposed to be set free from these concrete halls of socially stratified adolescence.

But Peter deserved perhaps more than any of them the chance to walk onto that stage and get his diploma.

Even if it was just a stupid piece of paper, MJ thought, it was nevertheless an important piece of paper from the perspective of society at large. Sometimes that did count for something.

MJ sucked in a breath and held up her hand.

"Okay. All in agreement, say aye," she said.

Ned immediately raised his own hand and looked solemnly at his two friends.

"Aye."

They looked at Betty, and she only hesitated for a few moments more before raising her own hand. She still looked nervous, but there was a new resolve in her expression and posture. She was willing to do it too, despite her misgivings—for Peter.

"Aye," Betty said quietly.

MJ couldn't repress a grin as she added her assent, effectively binding them in an agreement to carry out their plot no matter the cost.

For Peter.

"Aye."

May drove as quickly through traffic as she dared.

The evening was flattening and turning smog-tainted gray between the skyscrapers and trim office buildings of the city, so she knew true nightfall wasn't long in coming. Which meant that Peter might be out fighting criminals in the dark, potentially without any kind of trained backup.

She bit her lip and checked her mirrors before flipping on her blinker and swerving into the other lane of traffic.

Her touching conversation with MJ at the school had only confirmed everything May had been thinking since Peter had left the apartment—and a lot of things she had been thinking long before then too.

MJ was intuitive.

And she was sweet and compassionate and smart and she was most definitely good for Peter in ways May felt none of them truly understood yet. But she was also hurting, and May knew that her and Peter were going to have a lot of things to confess and work out together before all was said and done, before they had a family or even got beyond the puppy love haze that was so obvious in their every interaction.

Because they were definitely going to stick together, those two. She could feel it in her bones.

May smiled even as she laid into her horn to warn off a red car who was getting a little too close for comfort. She stopped at the traffic light and propped one arm up on her left window, venturing further into her reflections.

She was going back to the apartment first to try and figure out where and why Peter had found it necessary to leave so quickly. Like she had admitted to MJ, he hadn't exactly been the most open with her about Spiderman stuff since they'd all come back from the Blip.

And she understood that to a point—just like she understood that something about him had fundamentally changed since he'd been to space and since he'd been to London. He'd seen at least two people whom he'd looked up to in some form or fashion die in front of him, for crying out loud—how could he not have changed?

It was wrong, May thought as her eyes filled with hot, unexpected tears. It was wrong that any kid should have to witness what Peter witnessed. But her nephew—the child she tried to pour herself into like he was her own son? It seemed especially wrong for him to have witnessed something so horrible because he was…well, he was Peter.

He was the little boy she'd woken up for night after night when she was barely an adult herself, the one who had bad dreams and just wanted someone to hold him because his parents weren't there to do it anymore.

He was the little boy who liked way too much syrup on his pancakes and who got to talking so fast when he was excited about something that even breathing became something she had to physically remind him to do before he passed out.

He was the little boy who loved everyone and everything around him—who held his arms out so wide for the world and its people even though he'd been hurt time and time again by their answering words and actions.

May wiped at her eyes again, a fierce, tangled knot of pride and sorrow and joy and love winding tighter and tighter in her chest with every memory she reviewed in her head. She turned onto the avenue their apartment was on and sped up to fifteen miles above the speed limit. The orange sun, nestling underneath the horizon for the night, dazzled her eyes as it threw out its last farewells.

Peter had changed. He was still that little boy she'd loved so fiercely for so long, but at the same time he wasn't really a little boy anymore. He was a young man—a sweet, compassionate, strong, and committed young man.

Gone were all the soft edges of the innocence and naivete he had somehow clung to despite the death of his parents and Ben's passing. Even through all of that—through becoming Spiderman, even—the Peter she'd known had still been a kid.

Now, when she talked to him or looked over at him when he was lost in thought, there was a set to his jaw and a gleam in his eyes that had only been there in the past year or so. He spent more time than ever keeping up with the news or patrolling the city when he had a chance. Rather than withdraw from the responsibilities of Spiderman, it seemed to her that he had only embraced them more than ever before—he didn't just help the elderly load groceries into their car or hunt down lost pets. He still did that, of course, but he also stopped bank heists, communicated with the police about bribery and extortion crimes he'd somehow gotten wind of, and worked on dismantling the network of drug and trafficking rings that riddled the city.

May slid into a parking space that was mercifully close to the apartment door and got out of the car, digging through her purse for the door key as she walked.

She understood why Peter had withdrawn from sharing as many details with her about Spiderman as he had in the days following her initial discovery of his alter ego—it was in his nature to avoid causing worry or to talk about himself more than was absolutely necessary—but that didn't mean she didn't do her own research and keep up with his activities as much as she could anyway.

And after tonight, maybe a little more prying might be in order after all.

Wasn't that what she had implied MJ needed to do?

But wasn't MJ in a much different position than her—wasn't Peter getting to the point where he was relying less and less on her as his caretaker and guardian and more and more on the peers and friends he surrounded himself with?

May slid the key into the door and let out a breathless chuckle at her thoughts.

"Okay, May, slow down. One thing at a time," she murmured out loud.

She flipped on the lights as she entered and immediately headed to Peter's room, where the door was still ajar. She glanced at her phone.

"5:38. Graduation starts at 6:00. We still have time," she muttered to herself. Hopefully, MJ's plan would be enough to delay graduation so Peter could make it in time. She had a sneaking suspicion it would be. That girl could probably do anything she put her mind to, just like her Pete.

For the next few minutes, May tried unsuccessfully to make sense of the papers and maps Peter had spread out all over his desk. There were at least three different notepads—one of which looked as if it were supposed to be used exclusively for some ancient history class—and each one had hastily scribbled notes with names of people or places May had never even heard of. There was a map of New York's subway system, a map of the various piers and harbors scattered around Manhattan, and clippings from several different newspapers detailing the disappearance of several locals—mostly young adults.

It seemed that he had been doing intensive research into what looked suspiciously like some kind of kidnapping or trafficking operation, and May was now more convinced than ever that he'd gotten in over his head. Young man or not, he still had a tendency to get into situations he wasn't entirely prepared for.

Of course, that tendency never seemed to disappear entirely in the Parker bunch, did it?

That being said, her next order of business was to make sure he had the backup he needed.

May sat there for a few minutes, heart racing, staring at the weird string of numbers and letters Peter had written repeatedly in different forms and with different assigned possible meanings. She was getting desperate trying to think of what she could do when she remembered something—or someone, rather, she should have thought of a long time ago.

"You're losing your touch, Parker," May breathed with a light grin. She pulled out her phone and tapped one of the "Frequently Contacted" numbers from her contacts.

It didn't ring twice before he picked up.

"Hey."

"Hey," May said, a genuine smile in her voice. "I know you're getting ready for the graduation, but I have a favor to ask—for Pete."

She could hear some rustling on the other end of the line as Happy presumably adjusted himself or his surroundings to hear her better.

"Shoot," he said, his voice significantly more business-like than it had been when he'd answered her call.

May swept all of Peter's notes and maps into her purse and strode briskly out of the apartment, not even taking the time to lock it as she juggled her phone and overflowing purse.

"I need you to figure out and deliver an anonymous tip to the police ASAP."

There was the faintest trace of a sigh on Happy's end but May knew it came from a genuinely good place.

"I'm guessing 'figure out' means you don't actually know what the tip is yet, right?"

"Yep," May said, popping the 'p.' She turned her key in the ignition.

"Piece of cake," Happy grumbled in response, and it didn't sound like it was going to be a piece of cake at all.

If there was one thing May Parker knew at the moment, however, it was that she could count on Happy. He would do it for Peter.

And maybe a little bit for her too, if she was being honest.

But that was a topic for another time.

A/N: Hey, guys! This should be the last of the angst-heavy chapters - I predict lighthearted shenanigans and happiness until the very end of the fic, which might have a very light sprinkling of angst (that will get almost immediately swallowed up by more positive things so it's okay Also, I'm going on vacation this next week, so this will probably be the last chapter I post until early July. As such, happy early Independence Day if you're in America, and I hope ALL of you enjoy these first few weeks of true summer. :)

Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you thought - good or bad - if you have the time!

"Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others."
~Philippians 2: 1-4