WHO: Ben Reilly & Peter Parker (94) WHEN: Before the weekend started WHERE: Parker house! WHAT: Ben breaks Peter's brain a little. Twice. WARNINGS: Teenager doofs
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Ben had plans for a weekend away for awhile now. The exact when just hadn’t solidified yet. But Aracely no longer needed a guardian. Pete and the kids seemed like they were settled in enough. School was still out. He could jet off for a full weekend. And what better time to do that then when the town had gone all looney tuney. The only piece that needed to be taken care of was, well, the pets. Or more the one pet that couldn’t spend all his time in a pokeball. He had a list of possibilities to watch Forest over the weekend, but luckily Pete agreed. Plus, hey, May getting to have a pooch to distract her for a few days was a good thing, right? And what better dog that one used to dealing with him, Loki, and Aracely. Plus… well, he had a lot of ideas in regards to this weekend, including when they got back, and as much as he trusted others, he trusted Pete the most for this task.
Putting the bag with the dog’s food, bowls, and just stuff down, he ran a hand through his hair as he raised an eyebrow at Peter. “So, you think you’re ready for this mission of utmost importance? I mean, there’s so much danger. You get one minute off of his feeding schedule and the sad looks. They’ll put any pout of May’s to shame,” he joked.
“What’s one more kinda drooly member of the household, right?” Peter asked, giving the wriggly toddler in his arms a skeptical look. Benjy let loose a small giggle and incidentally blew a bubble from the corner of his mouth. “Don’t worry, you’re still cuter than the dog,” he told his son with a smile, instinctively wiping away the dribble with a thumb. There wasn’t any such thing as clean hands these days. He’d accepted that after May had been born.
“And one more face trying to get me to make pancakes for every meal. Sorry, Forest, but you’re not breaking me down. I had years to build this whole rep up.” That one was directed to the dog, who was already sniffing the bag with expectation of getting something right now. There was a glance Peter sent at Ben. “I got this. You go have a party up north. Just bring me back a bagel, okay?”
“You’re a stronger man than me,” Ben joked, but then that was the difference of uncle versus father. He was allowed a little bit of wiggle room, especially when he’d been across a country and relying on airplanes for travel. When visiting was a treat in itself, it was far too easy to just add on some extra spoiling too. “And don’t worry. You’ll get bagels. Plural. Maybe even enough to last a week. And maybe even a proper pizza for your troubles. Especially considering…”
He wiggled his hands at Peter to hand Benjy on over. “I might have another favor to ask that drooly, grabby hands should not have a say in.”
“Not half as strong as MJ,” Peter replied, offering a small shrug. “And definitely not half as able to self-control anything if we’re talking a dozen bagels and a pie to go. You’d make May’s week for that one, maybe even enough for her to stop bringing up those missed birthdays.”
Taking the cue, Peter lifted the small boy towards his uncle. Benjy responded in kind by reaching out those drooly, grabby hands and taking a fist full of Ben’s shirt. When you’re under the age of 5, the world is your napkin.
“What’s the other favor?” Peter asked, head tilted just a bit -- his eyes narrowing a hint, as well.
Ben snorted in amusement as he easily took Benjy and settled him in his hip. “Oh, now that she knows she can wrap me even more around her finger with that, she’ll never truly stop bringing it up,” he pointed out. “But maybe we could plan a trip up to the city with just the three of us. Find a sitter for Sir Benjamin here and take in a Mets game maybe?”
Puffing a raspberry against Benjy’s cheek to get a giggle and a distraction, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box to pass over to Pete while small hands were busy with pushing at his face and shirt. “Before you drop Forest off, could you tie this good and tight to his collar? If it doesn’t work out, I maybe can find a sleight of hand moment later, so don’t stress too much.” He made a face. “Just don’t lose it. It took me forever to pick out.”
“Oh, I think it’s about time May gets to experience full embarrassment of her dad in public. Mets game? Sign us up, Ben. You know where I stand on that,” Peter returned, flashing one of those winning Parker smiles. “Or sit. Listen, even if it’s bleachers…”
But there was a box being held out to him, and Peter’s eyes tracked down to it. He took it and his brow crinkled with curiosity. It looked like a ring box. He’d know. MJ’s ring had come in one just like this. There was a searching look turned up to Ben because, really, this was something only Ben would have an answer for. “Your… favorite skipping stone, obviously?” he ventured.
Ben let out a laugh as he shook his head. “I know you’re just doing that joking thing we do, but I swear my heart rate jumped at just the thought of you skipping that across some lake. You felt that jolt, didn’t you, Benj?” At the coo and giggle from the small child in his arms, he nodded in satisfaction. “See. He’s with me on this one and I know he’s an expert on hearts skipping a beat.”
But he got the searching joke. He did. After all, this sort of thing never really came up back home. Marriage? The family life? That was Pete’s thing. Sure, he’d dated, maybe a bit too much, but none of that ever got far. The closest he even got to the idea of a ring was some big old ‘we’ll see’ when their dates could consist of more than weekly catch-up visits through a piece of glass. So yeah, a bit of a surprise, right?
A soft smile tilted his lips as he shrugged and bounced Benjy on his hip. “It feels like the time, y’know? Never really thought about it, but now…. feels right.”
It wasn’t that this was clear out of left field, but Peter stood on the spot for a moment, just holding the box and giving his brother a look. He knew that Ben and Loki went back months -- enough months to become years. He knew that. And it wasn’t like their lives had been any kind of normal since a spider bite, so Peter couldn’t pin it on this being outside usual patterns. It was just that in a very basic overview of the situation… well, it was hard to shake some concern when someone said they intended to marry a trickster god and former villain. But Peter knew this was the point he had to trust Ben.
Peter’s eyes returned to the box, which he popped up quickly to make sure there was actually a ring inside. Yep. It glinted in the daylight before he snapped it shut again.
“So… first of all… wow.” Peter blew out a breath, blinking a few times while he processed the moment. “Second of all…” He stopped, looking over at Ben. “You know I got your back.”
“Wow is a good way to sum it up,” Ben said with an understanding smile. “If you’d told me ‘bout this a year-” He pressed his lips together in a quick grimace. Ok, no, that wasn’t right. If someone told him about this a year ago, he’d have just been glad that Loki was back and obviously remembered if things had progressed this far. “ -two years ago, I would’ve called you crazy and had that same look. It’s…”
He shook his head as he gave a shrug. “It sounds weird, but it works. So, thanks, Pete. Because, trust me, I get it. There are still some days I wake up and it’s like ‘wow, me and Loki, that’s a thing and I want to make it for however long forever is’ and knowing there’s plenty who’d tell me I’m stupid for it, but…” He shrugged again, a smirk tilting his lips. “I’ve never been good about just going along with other people’s judgements ‘bout people. I trust and love him. That’s what matters.”
“Hey, I can get it. You got stranded in another world and… sometimes that changes things so that when a trickster god comes calling…” Peter gave Ben a modest shrug. In truth, he couldn’t totally get it, but 2 years was nothing to scoff at. And he’d seen that far-off look on Ben’s face when thinking about Loki. Ben seemed at peace here.
“Yeah, of course I’ll help, Ben. You let me know when Forest needs to make an appearance, and I’ll rig up his collar.” The box was pocketed, and Peter reached out to give his son’s hair a quick ruffle. “May’s gonna be thrilled. I don’t know if I should worry that she took to Loki, but she’s her own little embodiment of chaos half the time. At least when she’s not napping.”
Ben shook his head as he chuckled at Peter’s wording. “Man, you have no idea. I know we can’t really control this whole universe hopping thing, but sometimes I have to wonder about his timing. Just rolled right in at the right time and right situation. I thought it’d just be a full moon thing and he’d get bored eventually, but…” He shrugged. “We ended up having a lot in common.”
Reaching out, he clapped his free hand on Pete’s shoulder. “Don’t be too worried about that. Loki’s just got a way with kids.” He snorted. “As long as they don’t snot on him.”
“Oh, right. The full moon,” Peter echoed. His eyes sauntered to the side, then back to Ben as Ben’s hand fell atop his shoulder. “The full moon because everyone knows that spiders get twitchy according to the lunar phase. Yeah, gotcha.”
“C’mon, Pete, we know the whole spider twitchiness is just a full 24/7, no schedule thing, but let me tell you, adding in werewolf twitchiness really doesn’t hel-” Ben started, his mind just running on autopilot and leaning into the babble and joking and not taking in the words until most of the sentence was over. When it did, he just ended the sentence with an awkward P pop as he went back over the events since Peter had gotten here. “Um… did I do the telling of that?”
Suddenly, the ring box in Peter’s pocket felt like a distant dream. It was hard to tell if Ben was joking or not, but the backtrack and the look of alarm that was visible on his brother’s face seemed to say it wasn’t.
“The telling of what? What’s this about werewolves? Are we about to get into some kinda Monty Python routine? Where wolves? There wolves?” There was an uncertainty to Peter’s voice as he continued, and then there was a slightly nervous laugh. Werewolves.
Ben made a face, his hand going up to awkwardly run through his hair. Man, this was his life, wasn’t it? If he hadn’t remembered to mention one thing it was another. And it wasn’t like this could part of his life could be easily googled. He offered Peter a sheepish smile as he pointed a finger at himself.
“Here wolf,” he said before rolling his eyes. “Man, that doesn’t work nearly as well, does it? Where and there, yeah sure, but no here has to go and be different unless you toss a weird accent on it…”
“Ben,” Peter cut in, his own expression morphing into something worried now. “What are you talking about? Pretend I don’t get a single thing about what you just said… mostly because I don’t.”
Ben snapped his mouth shut and took a deep breath through his nose to center his thoughts a bit instead of letting them go tangenting out more than they already had. “Ok. Ok… uh, context… The first place a lot of us landed, the Mouth Weather people mention, there was a fight that happened. One of the locals made himself a werewolf army and attacked where we lived and-” He frowned as he shifted Benjy’s weight so he could pull out his shirt collar enough to so the edge of the nasty bite scar on his shoulder. “- so, uh, I’m a werewolf. Hence…” He waved a hand at himself. “Here wolf.”
There was a moment of silence that sort of hung off the end of Ben’s explanation. Benjy broke it up slightly with a gurgle or two, but all Peter could do was stare at Ben.
Then, after a long few seconds, Peter started to nod. “Okay. Okay. You’re a werewolf. With spider powers. Who is going to ask a trickster Norse god to marry him. You know what? That’s cool. Anything else? Like, hey, the band-aid is torn off on those. If you wanna share anything else, you should probably do it now. Because oh my god, Ben, you can’t just not mention certain things.” A hand was rubbed over Peter’s eyes because, really, this was just the sort of moment when you needed to take a deep breath and wonder what else you may have missed.
Ben threw a hand up in the air in exasperation. “I forget ok! There’s been a lot and people come and go so often, it just…” He let out an aggravated sigh as his head tilted back to look at the ceiling. “I should just write up business cards with bullet points. Ben Reilly. Clone, Spider-Man, werewolf, fiance to Loki, no not that Loki. Man, I think that’s all of it.” His brow furrowed. “I hope that’s all of it…. Unless we include ‘yes I know what happened to me’. That’s probably a good one considering how Kaine always reacts whenever he comes through…”
Glancing over at Pete, his expression softened a little. “But, hey, for share time, I have the best brother in the world. In case that hasn’t been mentioned.”
Peter’s hand remained raised over his eyes a little longer. His mind was spinning its gears, trying to process and file away all the new information. Obviously Ben had processed it all himself already, which… helped. It did. And it wasn’t overlooked that Ben had found outlets and someone who supported him through, well, full moons, apparently.
The hand finally lowered. Peter framed Ben in his focus once more. “You,” he started, shaking his head slightly. “You’re always gonna worry me, you know that?” But it wasn’t an accusation. Honestly, Ben could probably say the same at Peter. They both knew the score.
Peter looped his arm around his brother next. Little Benjy was lassoed into the hug as well. “You tell me you’re fine, Ben. That’s all I need to hear.”
Ben chuckled softly as he wrapped his free arm around Peter. “Yeah, yeah, goes both ways,” he said, a little note of sadness in the words considering, well, he was the one who kept throwing himself into the type of situations that would lead to worry. “And I’m always gonna feel bad ‘bout adding to your gray hairs.” He snorted. “Although I might have you beat now.”
He leaned into the hug, although crookedly so as not to smoosh Benjy too much. “I’m fine, Pete. Normal people fine, even, not just our fine.” He leaned back to get a better look at Pete. “I’m safe too, Pete. Got some pills for it so that I’m in control, so if you want to make sure I’m telling the truth, you can call Loki and stop on by during the full moons if you want.”
Peter was nodding again. Understanding this time. It was a lot to absorb on the spot, but he’d have time to break it down a little more later.
“No, it’s -- listen, I don’t have a spider sense anymore, but I can see you’re… y’know, you’re happy. And you don’t look like what Harry Potter made me think a werewolf would look like, which is good. If you say you have a system, then I hear you. I mean, I’m totally gonna scream into a pillow when you leave, but…” Peter held out his arms to retake his son. He offered Ben a small smile. “Go. Go on your vacation, leave Forest to me, and… seriously, don’t come back with any other crazy stories. There’s a quota. You’re up to the quota. No more. None.”
“To be fair, I don’t think Harry Potter ever took spider-constitution into the equation for werewolves,” Ben pointed out as he handed his nephew back over to Pete. The Loki dye job obviously helped with some of that too considering, well, he hadn’t actually realized just how gray he’d even gone until those months when Loki had disappeared. And then there was the months where somehow full moons were put on pause, but… better to not break Peter’s brain more with all that world hopping. “And offer still stands if your curiosity gets the better of you. Doesn’t have to be this month either.”
He shook his head as he walked over to where Forest has settled to ruffle the dog’s fur in farwell. “Ok, well, I’ll try and make sure New York knows it’s not allowed to do any crazy stuff. I don’t know if it’ll listen, but…” He smirked. “I’ll try my best. After all, gotta get some of that quota open for whatever you’ll come up with for the bachelor party.”