May Parker (aunt_may) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2020-10-23 12:26:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, may parker, peter parker (spider-man) |
Log: Peter & May
Who: Peter & May Parker
What: Reuniting
When: Tuesday/backdated to her arrival.
Where: Airport
Rating/Warnings: PG at most.
Status: Completed via gdoc.
May felt bittersweet toward leaving New York. It was, after all, the only home she’d ever known. It was where she grew up, met Ben, and raised her nephew. Still, she needed a fresh start. Ben’s passing was hard on her and the empty nest didn’t help. She didn’t regret urging Peter to move in with his Uncle Steve and Aunt Peggy, but she did miss him. It just made sense that she’d eventually make the move too.
She lugged her heavy suitcase through the airport, keeping her eyes peeled for Peter. It had been too many months since she last saw him in person. Video chatting just didn’t cut it. She wanted to hug him and kiss his cheek and tell him she loved him.
Peter had a sign that he was holding above his head, perched on the railing right outside the arrivals gate. Anyone else might have fallen but recently, since the emergence of his dream abilities, his balance had become remarkable. Along with a lot of other things. The loud airport was a challenge: Peter’s senses had been dialled up to eleven and so trying to push past the overwhelming noise and focus on what he was doing was hard, but for May he would do anything.
He spotted her first, waving his sign dramatically over his head and then, when he was sure she’d seen him, dropping down and rolling it up as he (gently) pushed his way through the assembled people to throw himself at her as soon as she was close enough to the dotted line where arrivals met the main building. He flung his arms around her neck and hid his face against her shoulder and hugged her as tightly as he dared.
May laughed at the sign. That was Peter alright. She sped up her pace, meeting him as he flung himself against her. She hugged him tightly and kissed his cheek. “Baby, I’ve missed you,” she admitted. “It is so good to hold you again.” She didn’t care if she was the embarrassing aunt right then. She missed her bonus kid.
Peter let her squeeze him as tightly as she wanted. Before, he would have complained, and realised a moment too late that he wasn’t doing that, so let out a half-hearted “Maaaaay, I can’t breathe,” even though he was clearly fine. He’d caught a bus with his bare hands. He was fine being hugged by his aunt.
“I missed you too,” he admitted, though, squeezing her gently again before extracting himself. “But now you’re here. Let me- hang on.” He picked up the handle of her bag before she could. “Let me at least pull your luggage.” Was it heavy? He had no idea. He’d stopped a bus with his hands. How was he supposed to tell May?
“Such a gentleman,” she praised. She still only half-believed she was seeing him in the flesh; she was so used to seeing him over a computer screen! She took a moment just to watch him take the suitcase, pride and love washing over her. She shook her head. She was being ridiculous. They were together and now they’d have plenty of time to catch up. “Tell me, honey, what has been happening? How is school?”
“School’s- uh, yeah, it’s okay. It was pretty hard towards the end of last year before the holidays, because of the whole… moving in the middle of the semester thing. But Uncle Steve and Aunt Peggy were great at helping me not just, like, die of exhaustion. Which has been a thing, let me tell you. I don’t know why I thought doing a double major was a good idea, but they have a different way of teaching out here and some of my credits didn’t transfer across properly so I had to pick up another subject
“But it’s fine!” Peter said quickly, “I’ve made some new friends and I have some study partners. You’ll really like Blossom, she’s fun. We aren’t doing the same subjects but it’s nice to just study with someone. We hang out at her place and eat pizza so I’m not constantly underfoot at home. But, like, we got a switch and now Aunt Peggy has an island on Animal Crossing.”
He blinked, ramble coming to an abrupt halt. “Oh my god I didn’t even ask! How was your flight?”
Luckily she had practice following Peter’s rambles or she may have been lost. Instead, she just grinned and outright laughed when he mentioned Peggy was playing Animal Crossing. She was just glad he was making friends and not completely overdoing it with school. She’d have to thank Steve and Peggy for that.
“Oh, it was fine. No screaming babies, thankfully. Honestly, I’m just glad I found a job out here. I missed you too much, kiddo.”
“I missed you too,” Peter said honestly, thoroughly relieved that she was here. He knew that part of his separation anxiety issues were from the loss of his parents, and then the loss of Ben, and coming out here had been a great idea at the time but- He’d started worrying a lot about May being on her own, of something happening to her back in New York.
It was likely something could happen here. Maybe more likely, but he hoped that if he was at least here too, she would be safe. There were a lot of superheroes here, a lot of people who would be able to save her if something went wrong, or if more monsters appeared.
He leaned to the side, hooked his arm around hers and rested his head on her shoulder.
“I think you’ll like it here. There’s a load of nice beaches, and I’ve found a good handful of Italian restaurants that won’t make you want to go into the kitchen and shout at the chef.”
May laughed. “I’ll take you to one as soon as I’m settled,” she promised. “I found a nice little apartment. They showed me over Zoom. I hope you like it.”
“Really?” Peter asked, a little thrown off. He wasn’t sure why, but he’d assumed that somehow May would be coming to live with Aunt Peggy and Uncle Steve and him. The place wasn’t really big enough for another adult, but the thought genuinely hadn’t occurred to Peter that she’d be living somewhere else. He blinked a couple of times and then nodded, shaking himself out of his thoughts and smiling. “Yeah, I’m sure I’ll love it, May.”
“What do you say you come help me unpack a little? We’ll order pizza and I’ll fill you in on everything back home.” She was in no rush to say goodbye to her kid.
“Yeah, that works. Both Aunt Peggy and Uncle Steve are working tonight so that’ll save them worrying about what to feed me.” Peter grinned, tugging her suitcase along as they walked towards the exit. “Oh- uh- what’s your cellphone battery at? If it’s below sixty percent let me call the uber.”
She pulled her phone out and checked the percentage. “Fifty,” she said. “Is sixty the magic number?” She teased as they exited the airport.
Peter rolled his eyes and pulled his own phone out, “You’ll have to put the address in,” he told her, handing it over so that May could put the address of her new place in as their destination. “But no, it- like if your phone’s at a lower percentage battery, all the cab companies that use apps charge you more based on how low your battery is. I’m working on trying to find the code that’ll let people circumvent it. It’s annoying.”
May dutifully filled in her address and handed the phone back to Peter. “You are so smart, kiddo. Savvy too.” She grinned and pinched his cheek. “This is why I need you around, honey.”
Peter dutifully swiped at her hand and gave a token protestation but honestly he’d missed her. His phone buzzed to give him the car details, and he stood her suitcase up, pushing the handle down so he could lift it into the back of the cab when it arrived. He knew he needed to remember to at least make it look like it was heavy: he didn’t want to give anything away to her just yet. She needed to settle in first, right? Settle in and then he could freak her out with the ‘by the way I’m a superhero in my dreams and now also a superhero here and weird shi- stuff happens all the time please don’t make us move back to New York’.
“One day I’ll get all three of you completely technologically literate,” he teased, bumping her shoulder with his.
It felt good to have her back, Peter didn’t have much family but having all the important people in the same place? He couldn’t beat that.