On the evening of Sunday, August 9, 2009, May Parker returned home from work only to see the sitter camped out in her nephew's doorway, apparently engaged in a power struggle with her seven-almost-eight-year-old nephew regarding his aversion to bedtime. It was a recent development, within the last few weeks, and it was starting to grate on her last nerve.

She sighed. "Again?" she intoned, and the sitter, Stephen, nodded.

"I tried, Mrs. Parker, he just won't budge."

It sounded about right. May nodded. "Okay. I believe you. Thanks for trying, you can go on home, now. Ben'll settle with you tomorrow. That okay?"

Stephen smiled affably. "Am I invited to the party?"

May laughed a little. "Ah. Sorry. Day after tomorrow?" She nodded her head in the direction of Peter's room. "The tiny dictator has spoken. Family only party. Sorry."

"That sounds fine, Mrs. Parker," Stephen shrugged. "G'night. And…good luck."

And then he left, closing the door softly behind him., allowing May to let the silence of his departure settle for a moment, as the apartment was just…quiet. She performed the mechanics of her get-home routine without thinking; she locked the door, deposited her keys and purse on the counter, kicked off her heels, and opened the fridge, finding a place to put the bottle of wine she'd picked up at the corner bodega. She closed the blinds, straightened the chairs and considered the medicine cabinet, plucking out a bottle of Midol and popping the cap, dry-swallowing two tablets and patting the fridge door reassuringly. There was a bubble bath and a glass of wine in her future. Very soon.

If she could get the child to go to sleep.

And then she took a breath before walking toward Peter's room, ready to take her turn.

Peter himself was sitting on his bed in the corner of the room, cross-legged atop his covers, a rather large book resting in his lap. His room was awash in light: he'd unearthed a nightlight from when he was small, he had his overhead light turned on, and his star globe was switched on, though it was nigh useless if all the other lights were on: you couldn't see the pinpricks of constellations it displayed on the ceiling unless it was dark.

The room itself was neat, which meant he'd at least listened when she'd asked him to clean his room while she was gone. His laundry hamper was full, again, and his curly hair was damp, which meant he'd showered recently.

May knocked on the door frame before entering, and Peter didn't move. He continued to read the book in his lap in a studied sort of defiance she hated to see. May pulled a too-small desk chair from Pete's desk and sat it next to the bed, taking a seat to avoid kneeling on the floor in her pantyhose. "Hey, Petey," she said softly, trying not to let her disappointment into her voice.

"I'm not tired," he said immediately in lieu of reply. He said it tiredly and grumpily. Like a tired child who needed to go to bed.

May nodded, keeping her observations to herself, for now. "Oh. Okay," she said instead, keeping her voice light. "Well, do you mind having a chat with me about it?"

Peter didn't answer. His eyes didn't leave his textbook. Then, abruptly, he closed the book, pushing it off his lap, offering it to May. He then shifted position, uncrossing his legs and scooting himself against the corner his bed occupied, leaning on the two walls, pulling his bedcovers over his legs.

May took the grudging victory for what it was. "Thank you," she said, groaning a little as she shifted the book from her lap onto the desk behind her.

The mild theatrics didn't even earn her a smile.

She wasn't deterred.

"Pete, honey, why don't you want to go to sleep?" she asked softly. She leaned her head down closer to the bed, trying to catch his eye, because Peter had drawn his knees to his chest and was resting his forehead on them, hiding behind the tented comforter.

"I said I'm not tired," Pete said from behind his knees, voice muffled.

May didn't let her frustration arise, mainly because concern had started to rise higher.

Because this was familiar.

When Peter had first come to live with them, after his parents died, he would do this. He would hide under his blankets because he didn't know what else to do. Their grief counsellor had offered that Pete's emotions were too much for him to handle. He had been designated 'gifted' a few years ago, which offered a little insight to it; his emotional maturity hadn't caught up to his intellectual maturity, and the dissonance left him confused, and the confusion made him angry.

So in addition to not knowing what the hell she was doing anyway, because her and Ben didn't have kids, she also got to try and figure out the difference between regular acting out, acting out because of grief, or acting out because of that maturity gap due to his giftedness.

Ben had joined the army right out of high school. May had taken a few classes at the community college, but that was it. Neither of them even had a college degree. So they had just...tried to muddle through the best they could.

And really, once Peter had been given the tools he needed – namely some words to express his feelings, and some coping skills to appropriately deal with them – he had made lots of progress.

Which was why it was so weird. This stuff, this…this not listening, this arguing this…defiance—this was behavior she would have expected of him…four years ago. Not now. Not when he'd learned better. Peter was so clever and sweet and good. Which made this stuff he was pulling…more than frustrating, it was almost akin to betrayal.

Ben had started working nights about a month ago—a summer construction job in a neighborhood that had him endlessly sanding, painting, and nailing frames into place. And it wasn't bad pay, but May worried that maybe Ben's absence –and notable change in routine – was a contributing factor in the change in Peter's behavior. The timing couldn't be a coincidence. The first blow-up in behavior they'd seen was…around the 4th of July. He'd come home sick after a sleepover he'd been really excited about, and then refused to take part in any of the plans they'd made for the holiday. No fireworks, no parade, when they'd tried to talk with him about it, he'd shut down completely until they said they'd let it go.

May reached a hand across the bed, not really surprised when Peter pulled away. He was already communicating in everything except words that he wanted to be left alone. His arms emerged to encircle his knees, his head still buried so she couldn't see his face.

"Hey, truce," May said, lifting her hands, though she wasn't sure he could see her. "I just want to talk. Okay?"

Nothing happened for a beat.

Then Peter shifted slightly, so that May could see his eyes. He still had his glasses on, and they were smudged beyond belief.

"Okay," May said again, offering a small smile, acknowledging his cooperation. "If you wanna tell me you're not tired, I can accept that. But..." she paused, wondering how to go about this conversation.

She decided to appeal to his logic. It usually worked well for him.

"I'm not trying to make you upset," she said as a disclaimer, making sure her tone of voice was still calm. "I just wanted to point out some observations."

Peter didn't do anything to encourage her. But he was still listening. Still looking at her.

"Okay," May continued. "Well, I can observe that, in spite of what you're saying, you're still a young boy. Kids usually need more sleep than adults. Did you know seven-almost-eight year olds need something between 9 and 12 hours of sleep?"

Peter shook his head, and May nodded.

"It's true. Google it."

Peter…he didn't smile. But he seemed to relax a fraction. May decided to continue with her logical appeal, going along with her observations. "I observed that you cleaned your room like I asked you to," she started, smiling. "Thanks for that, bud. I wanted to make sure you had a clean room so we wouldn't have to worry about it tomorrow. Wouldn't wanna spend your birthday doing chores."

And…Peter frowned, and shrank back a little. Back into his arms. "I hadda get new sheets," he mumbled, a blush staining his cheeks.

May let confusion furrow her features. "New sheets?" And then it clicked. "You…had another accident, baby?"

"I didn't mean to," Peter wailed, and he buried his face back in his knees.

May frowned, and sighed, pulling a hair tie from her wrist and raking her hair back from her forehead. She performed the mechanics of an inelegant bun atop her head, loose enough that it wouldn't make her headache any worse, but tight enough that it wouldn't just fall out. Ben teased her, said it looked like it belonged in a Dr. Seuss book, which had prompted Peter to call it a 'Who-bun.'

She took another deep breath, bringing her hands up to her temples. It was late. She had cramps. She wanted to take out her contacts. She wanted her pills to have kicked in already. (She wanted a nice glass of wine and a bubble bath.)

She didn't want to be shaming her nephew for having an accident the night before his birthday.

"I also observed that you have it all taken care of. Or did Stephen do it?" May said, hoping to coax him back out of hiding.

"His name's not 'Stephen,' it's 'Skip,'" Peter corrected her, and he did bring his face back out of his knees. "He said sheets are easy to clean, and not to worry."

And the way Peter said it…struck May. He didn't sound like the thing was reassuring.

"Well, he was right," May said, smiling. "Laundry is easy, bucko. So. All that observation tells me…you're totally ready for bed, kid. You have a big day tomorrow, you need the sleep. Logically, it's the next step that should be taken. Unless…there's something I've missed?"

Peter's face was still visible, and he bit his lip absently.

Ah. So there was something.

May tried not to hold her breath or indicate in any way that she was desperate for him to tell her what was wrong. She didn't want to scare him out of saying.

"I don't…wanna sleep," Peter muttered. He rubbed his eyes tiredly. "'t's scary."

May took in his admission with a slow nod.

Well. Shit.

"Petey…how's it scary?" she asked, instead of assuming. Peter was driven by science questions. She couldn't lead him by saying she assumed it was nightmares, though she did. He needed to provide her with data. It comforted him. It clarified things for him, to turn his emotions into data.

Peter didn't answer right away, though. He turned his head away, not hiding it, but…resting it on his arms, atop his knees. His fingers plucked at a loose thread on his comforter.

May hesitantly leaned forward, leveraging herself off the small chair and onto the bed. She moved slowly, trying to make sure Peter knew what she intended. She lifted her arm. An invitation for him to sit by her.

Peter uncurled himself from his ball and melted against her side, and a piece of normalcy was restored. Here he was. Here was her Pete. She hesitantly moved to card her fingers through his damp, fluffy hair, and he not only allowed it, but he removed his glasses, offering them to her so he could lean more fully into her, and use her as a human pillow.

"Poor tired kiddo," May said softly. "I can see it. I can hear it, in the tone of your voice. I can feel it in my bones." She punctuated the last, spreading the fingers of the hand not in Pete's hair over her heart, where she usually intuited her soul to reside. She wished she felt soft cotton under her fingers, but she was still in her nice outfit from work, a secondhand polyester overshirt with cheetah-print that she'd worn over a black tee-shirt and leggings, offset by a long necklace with scattered groupings of beading, which jostled, when she brought her hand to her chest.

It was the necklace that drew Peter's attention, hands reaching for the beads so he could play with them, wrapping them around his fingers and twisting the beads around the cord.

"Kiddo. Petey-pie. You're tired. It's bedtime. What can we do to make it not scary?" she asked, slowly telegraphing an intention to kiss the top of his head.

Peter allowed it. And May claimed the victory. And the kiss.

"I don't wanna dream," Peter said at last, not looking at her; rather, he focused intently on the beads he'd wrapped around and around his small fingers. May opted to unclasp the necklace rather than stay hunched over, and almost missed when Pete spoke again, very softly. "I dream…bad stuff."

May nodded with apparent sage wisdom that she couldn't actually draw from. "I wouldn't want to sleep if I dreamt about bad stuff," she said, and she was being honest. She'd worked nights in a diner when she'd first married Ben. She still had nightmares sometimes about a few of the customers she'd had to handle—drunk and handsy, or else high and paranoid. She hadn't even been there in person—just heard about it—for the infamous shift when one of the regulars had been off their rocker batshit and ended up getting one of the girls with a knife, wrist to elbow. More than fifty stitches to fix the cut, which had missed a few more critical veins, thank God.

May was no stranger to nightmares, and neither was Ben, who could tell stories about his stint in the Army, and, she knew, he had some other stories that he didn't tell.

Peter looked up at her when she didn't say anything for a stretch. He was deep in thought with his big brain. He rubbed his eyes, which looked smaller, without his glasses.

May sat up straighter. "Pete…do you know why we're afraid, sometimes?"

Peter seemed surprised. And then thoughtful again. Usually he was the one who asked the 'why' questions. And he had about a billion of them. "Why we're afraid?" he asked, and May nodded. He was clarifying. He wanted to give a thoughtful answer.

"Why we're afraid," May repeated. He was driven by logic. Most of the time. Maybe she'd just picked the wrong angle. "Why, scientifically, do we get afraid?"

"If…if I was afraid of something…I'd know to get away from it," Peter said slowly.

May smiled. "That's exactly right. Or, if you were in the road, and a car horn honked. You would be afraid, but you'd be able to know you can't cross the street yet, because it's not safe. The fear helps us stay safe."

Peter was deep in thought, now, eyes locked on May. "Being afraid…helps us stay safe?"

May nodded. "It's a big word, when we feel that—that feeling that makes your heart beat faster. You know it?"

Peter narrowed his eyes. He thought.

May closed her mouth. Pete wanted the time to process and try his hand at the answer.

"Uh-generalin?" Pete said slowly, locking eyes with May, wanting validation.

"Say again, honey?" she said, and Pete spoke up.

"Ah-gen-rah-lin."

"Ah-gen—adrenaline," May repeated, correcting his pronunciation. "That's—babe, that's absolutely right! Oh my God, how'd you get so smart?" May squeezed Peter close. "Mmm. If you feel scared, baby, it's okay to say so. Your body knows when it feels threatened. So. Thank you, Petey-pie, for telling me why you didn't want to sleep. What do you think we can do to fix it so you don't dream of bad stuff?"

"Could…think of good stuff," Peter muttered, and he looked up at her. "I can pick what to do tomorrow? The…the whole day?"

May smiled. "Well, it's your birthday, sir. I'd say that entitles you to picking what you want to do the whole day. We could go out and see a movie, we could invite – ooh, we could have Stephen over, if you wanted?"

Peter shook his head, surprising May.

"Just. Just you. And Uncle Ben. Just. Just us."

May nodded. "Okay, then. Just us."

And. Oh, that boy's smile. When he really smiled, unguarded: Pure sunshine. This boy. Her heart. "Aww, Pete. There you are! I sure have missed that smile," she murmured, allowing herself a yawn, which, being contagious, spread to Pete. "I'm awful sorry you get scary dreams, Petey-pie," she whispered even softer. "You want me to turn your light off?" She started to disentangle herself from Pete's grasp, and he allowed it, sinking into his pillows.

"Jus' the big one," he clarified, and May obeyed, leaving his night light and star globe alone.

"Night night, kiddo," she said gently at the door when she was relatively certain he was ready to drop off.

"G'night Aunty May," he murmured, offering another yawn and shifting to get more comfortable in his bed.

And May took the victory. She should only wish that a ten-minute conversation fixed all of her woes.

But it didn't stop her making two phone calls. One to Ben, to check in with him and assure him that she got home. (She talked to his machine, since he was around an echoing property of power tools and other construction, he took it upon himself to make sure he wore the proper safety gear, which for him included a powerful set of ear-protecting, noise-cancelling headphones.)

And one to Sarah, Peter's grief counsellor. (She got the machine there, too, but had expected it, since it was so late at night and a Sunday, besides.)

Maybe Pete's recent behavior was regular childhood drama. Or gifted drama. Or rebellion drama, since he missed the routine of having Ben there, in the evenings. But maybe it wasn't.

May wanted to make sure.

Much later, when everything at last came to light, May had her bitter vindication that she'd been right. But the victory rang hollow, then.

Because she couldn't help but note that the odd behaviors had started after the 4th of July of that year: the year Peter turned eight.

He wouldn't tell them what had transpired until much later. Closer to his tenth birthday.

The fact that she'd been right – that there had been a reason for the turn in his behavior—didn't seem something worth celebrating.

-o-

AUTHOR'S NOTE

I finally got this around to being happier with it. There were so many drafts, guys. So many. Dozens. Before I was brow-beaten and decided it was Good Enough (TM)

I also re-uploaded chapter 4 to fix Tony's part. Because the scene I had there now, in real canon, takes place a week later, and I wasn't having that nonsense, especially because I agree to the change of making it later in the first place. So there's new content there, if you wanna check it out! I'm going to try working out a writing schedule. Not sure how it's going to work. I have come to the realization I am kind of...avoidant? In several areas of my life? And my own writing is apparently one of them. So to battle this, I want to make it a habit to try and have something to post...more often than I have been lately. Maybe every other month. Maybe oftener, as I can. :)

I'm not dead! Please to be poking me if you fear my imminent demise. :D

~Angeladex