October. Mary Parker's counted down the days, drew a big red 'X' on every day that this day might come. Still, she isn't sure she can believe it.
She's going to be a mother. She and Richard are going to have a son.
It's hard finding the words for that feeling—that dread, that excitement, all the harrowing 'maybes' of parenthood. Mary's never been one for profundity or poetics; leaving all that up to Richard was a lot easier than ever trying to articulate her feelings in a way that could be understood. The man could make calculus sound beautiful, for God's sake.
Mary hopes her son takes after him. It was a little embarrassing to realize in the days and weeks and too-long months leading up to today that she doesn't want her boy to turn out like her. When she first met Richard, before everything, before life really started, she thought the world was out to get her. It made her tough, yet counterproductively brittle and brimming with adolescent rage. And, despite herself, she still cracks under enough pressure. Richard's such a softer, easier sort of man—so much less acerbic, with so much love in his heart.
Not that her boy—their boy—necessarily should turn out any sort of way. They'll love him no less. But, if she had to state a preference, she'd rather he not end up the tumbling boulder of rage she was in her youth. Alas, they'd have to find out for themselves. In due time.
All that aside, finding the words was still difficult for her even after all the screaming and the birthing and Richard crying like a baby. So when they put that red-faced, wrinkly, slightly damp newborn in her arms and she tries to tell whose nose he inherited through half-lidded eyes, all she can really say is,
"Peter."
Here's a little thing too few people know about May Parker: she's got a wild side.
It's something she learned about herself years ago, but she can never quite stay still too long. Domesticating her's a fool's game, and her Ben learned that quickly enough. So even when they get their little house in Forest Hills and he trades in his guitar for a wrench set, he makes sure they've got enough entertainment in their lives so that she doesn't drive off in the car for Vegas. Again.
There's a bit of her that feels guilty about it. Ben didn't seem a man who'd bend the rules and well-established patterns of his life for a lady. When they first met, she believed was the sort to settle down with a pretty, if dumb, lady, have three kids he'd probably abuse, try to curb the wartime PTSD with drinks and die quietly in a bar somewhere.
Oh, how she'd slap herself then. Ben's a wonderful man. A beautiful man. More than she thinks she deserves.
Years into their relationship, after that hot and heady period when the wrinkles and white strands of hair become all too apparent, kids are brought up briefly and the matter is settled with a resounding no. Ben didn't want kids and May couldn't chain herself to another human being that'll hate her for twenty years. Any amount of baby fever would be satiated with Ben's sweet little brother's boy; babysitting was like trial parenting, right?
And, speaking of, May's about to meet the little man in mere moments. Now, she didn't think babies were all they were cracked up to be—parents were too drunk with love to realize the sniveling, smelly money sinks were kind of miserable to be around half the time—but she can't say she isn't a little excited. It's another member of the family, afterall. Plus, 'Aunt May' has a sort of ring to it.
So when she sees old Mary and little Richie pull into the driveway in that drab family van Ben's going to make so many jokes about, she rushes to the door, swings it open, spies the freshly popped little scamp and, with more enthusiasm than she expected, just says,
"Peter!"
Ben Parker's not ready to be a father. He just isn't. No matter how much May encourages him or Philip tells him he should just toughen up, Ben is certain he's going to mess just about everything up.
His father, the first Peter Parker, wasn't necessarily a bad one. Just one of too many men changed by the second World War; something had, in those fields and blasted trenches, carved up a space in his heart and filled it with something dreadful. The man tried to be there for him and Richard, but could never quite achieve the closeness a father should. The brothers never held it against him. They admired the man for all he was, and all he tried to be.
Call Ben crazy, but when Richie told him they were having kids, it was sort of infuriating.
Not even just from a financial perspective—because those meager government grants and Mary's odd jobs certainly weren't going to be able to give the kid everything those two, bless their hearts, wanted to give him—but simply because Ben was sure he'd mess it up, too. Richard was always so ambitious, but always so afraid of the future. With every big decision, every stride forward in his career, he came to Ben first. Everything except for this. For creating life.
And now Richard's gone. His brother's dead and there's a four year old boy whose father isn't coming back and Ben doesn't know what to do.
God forgive him, Ben would have told him not to. To put it off until they had the money and time to even raise a kid. Does that make him a bad person?
He sees Peter, today's Peter, the Peter he loves with all his heart but whose heart he knows he's going to break, sitting there scribbling something onto a sheet May gave him with a crayon he snaked from his kindergarten class. Something beyond Ben's understanding, probably.
The boy's so smart, just like old Richie. He wishes that weren't the case, because that just means that Peter'll understand it so much more vividly than he should.
So he sighs, straightens up like his drill instructor taught him to, and calls,
"Peter."
Mary Jane Watson's obsessed. And God help her, she hates it.
Not that Peter's the most attractive guy around, or the nicest guy in the world, or even the most tolerable half the time; there's just something about Peter Parker that sort of gets to her—makes her head spin and her eyes cross in agitation and equal parts concern. She could make an itemized list of contradictions he practically personifies.
And then there's the costume.
Honestly? She dug it at first. The whole superhero thing. Granted, Peter getting those powers must have caused more headaches for her than she thought possible; between having to cover for him at school or even those early days where he started getting detention more often and being too busy to help her cram for Chemistry, she swears she's going to be suffering from some kind of heart problem from it all. But it was cool. At first. At least it was just kind of cool.
But then he started getting bruises. And scars. And then he had a panic attack at school because his 'spider-sense' or whatever went off for like, two seconds, and he thought a supervillain found out his identity but it just turned out to be a friggin' gas leak. And, just, ugh.
She wishes he'd go back. Honestly. That funny little twerp with the glasses and the comebacks that earned him black eyes was a lot more fun to hang around. Now it's all theories on how a man made of bees could possibly be made of bees and talking about all the ways he almost dies in one night. Because that's fun, Peter! Talking about all your brushes with death to your sorta-kinda girlfriend is just so awesome! Doesn't at all exacerbate her anxiety. Nope.
She certainly isn't going to lie awake tonight wondering if you're dead in a trash can somewhere in Brooklyn because you fought the Hyena Guy for too long while she was pissing around on her old phone that her stupid dad won't just freaking replace because they don't have any money because he spends it all on useless crap because he hates his life and everything sucks and—
Ugh. She's just going to pack up and leave all this garbage one day. Mary Jane Watson: runaway. Not like she needs anyone else that won't give her anything she can use.
Oh God, she can't be this harsh. She knows he hated everything he was then and now he just thinks he's so much more. He's helping people and that makes him happy. But it's killing him. She knows it. Everyone kind of just knows it even if they have no idea he's Spider-Man.
There's just something intense about the way he commits to these things. The way he'll make the world sound and feel so much simpler than it is, while understanding the gravity of the situation better than anyone else. A quality of emotion she just can't really find in anyone else their age, and one that conflicts with all that teen angst that plagues them and all their classmates.
She finds him sat on the bench they always meet, giggling as Flash's coach tears the guy a new one and the midday sun hangs overhead. He looks like anyone else in the moment, honestly. Like nothing special. Another face among the throngs of kids with dim futures in this pedagogical hellscape.
But she knows better. So she puts on a smile and gets his attention by simply saying,
"Peter!"
Harry's having a hard time.
No, no, that's a lie. He's a rich kid. Life was never supposed to be hard. Things are supposed to be easy. Need a friend? Open up your wallet just a little bit—show'em all those pretty Ben Franklin's and ride off in your limousine being driven by your dad's manservant and just wait for them to come to you. Slick back your hair and get all the best products and you're golden, man. Biggest guy in town with the deepest pockets at just fifteen.
But, well, not the smartest guy around. At all, really. Not smart at all.
Now, Dad got him the best tutors back then and they just sort of gave up. Which is fine. Whatever. Make donations, flash some money around and your kid gets ahead. That's America, baby. But that only works to a point and, well, Harry wasn't going to get through school at Brooklyn Tech with his performance no matter how much cash his dad could throw at them.
So, he ends up at a crappy little public school in Queens where his pops can forget about him most days, and all is just kind of okay in the world.
Well, not okay for Harry. Harry's still struggling. Words just don't read well to him and numbers? Those are practically a different language to him. Like, Spanish or something.
Which he's, you know, also failing.
Miserably.
This doesn't really make Dad all that happy.
But hey, everyone else loves him. He's got a girlfriend who's never seen cars as expensive as the ones he takes to school, a firm relationship with the football team; parties aren't really a problem. Friendships never have been. It's just that his grades are all a C or lower and, well, his teacher keeps talking about this special education crap that his dad's manservant writes down so Dad can probably ignore it later and they also keep asking questions he can't answer like 'how have you not gotten help for this before?' or the old classic 'where's your father been?' and, honestly.
Honestly Harry just wants to underage drink and drive and make his dad's life miserable half the time. Probably throw in some hard drugs, too, just for the cherry on top.
Wouldn't that be awful PR for Oscorp? The headlines would be frame-worthy: "Oscorp Heir, Found Dead of Overdose!" Now wouldn't that make Dad just seethe.
But Harry knows that won't work. That'll just validate Dad's opinion that he's a worthless freaking parasite and, no! Harry won't have that. He just won't.
So he turns to the smartest guy he's heard about. The one Flash always talks crap about but never makes eye contact with anymore. The guy with the really, really bad haircut.
You know the one.
The redhead who always hangs out with him for God knows what reason's a bit iffy when he asks her what his address is. When he pulls up to that funny looking yellow house in Queens, he doesn't really know what to expect. All he's heard is that this Parker guy's a weirdo. And is probably on roids. Both things Harry intends to find out.
So he knocks on the front door, greets the five-foot-three kid with an ingratiating smile, and practically shouts,
"Peter!"
A/N: Hullo. Wrote this up in the space of about two hours because, while there've been some delays with Chapter 3 because January has been absolutely kicking my ass lately, I did not want to just let it sit. The third chapter is about 2/3 of the way done-ish, so it shouldn't be too long, after which we'll get right onto Chapter 4 as well as some forward plotting stuff. Playing it by ear as it were. It's like, the most fun way to do stuff I think.
This bit's all set in Peter's old world, just as a bit of insight into what these characters were like then, and we hope it better informs the kind of Peter we're going for. We also hope you enjoyed reading and, if there're any comments concerns or questions regarding any of this, please leave a review. I respond to like 7 in every 10 when I get the chance.
Thanks.
