Chapter Text
Normally, May and Peter had date nights on Thursdays. He’d always make sure to take some time off patrol, and she’d get Thai takeout, and they’d sit in front of the TV watching soaps and gossiping and just living.
This Thursday, they’re in the hospital.
The doctor’s scrubs are a faint teal and her name badge reads ‘DR. OWENS’ in big, blocky, sanitary letters. She sits on the examination stool with crossed legs and kind eyes when she tells them the news.
“It’s a tumor. Benign, but- It’s not good. Scans showed that it’s wedged underneath your renal artery, and is impeding blood flow into your kidneys. Your body isn’t filtering blood correctly- If we don’t remove it, you’ll have to stay on dialysis your entire life.”
Peter can feel her shaking through the parchment on the bench. May reaches for his hand and he grabs it, squeezing tight as she asks, “How much would it cost to remove?”
The doctor gives her a sympathetic look before checking the number. “For a surgery invasive as this, and stretched thin as we are… At least eighty thousand. Another twenty for the recovery period.”
Immediately he knows they can’t afford it. They barely manage to survive on what they have anyway- Scraping together one hundred thousand dollars is such a remote impossibility that the first thing he starts doing is trying to think of other ways- He and Mr. Stark haven’t talked in nearly six months, not since Toomes’s trial. May lost her job in the paternity ward after passing out in the middle of a delivery, which meant no insurance. They could try and pay it off in the long term, but that would mean they would both be working near constantly, something she couldn’t handle after recovering from a major surgery and he couldn’t fit into his already overloaded schedule.
“I know this is… Hard. Very hard,” says Owens, “But we can start you on dialysis right away, May, and keep it in control until we have something figured out-“
Peter speaks up, giving the doctor a wide-eyed mix of desperation and fear. “How long do we have? Until it gets more dangerous, I mean.”
Until she could die lays unspoken in the air, like a stick of dynamite hanging from cobwebs.
Dr. Owens points the same sympathetic look at him, now, expression twisted in trying to dig up the right answer from the depths of her medical knowledge. “It depends on whether it continues to grow or not, and how soon we start dialysis, but about two or three months. Blood toxicity is a dangerous game to play, especially when we don’t know how heavily the artery is being restricted. We should take action as soon as possible.”
They sat in the car for twenty minutes after leaving, drowning in the type of silence that only happens when something really horrible is going on. She grips his hand again, and he squeezes it, ideas and scenarios and horrible, awful things shaking through his head like ball bearings down a lead pipe.
“Honey, are you okay?”
May’s tone cuts through the rattle, quiet but full of that concern and love she pulls off perfectly every time.
Peter gives her a forced smile, running his thumb over hers. “Yeah. Fine. Just thinking.”
She narrows her eyes. “I know that look in your eyes, Peter. That’s your ‘I’m gonna be a hero’ look. Please don’t tell me you’re planning to rob the Fed or something, because-“
“May, I think I could get us the money, okay? It wouldn’t really be legal or moral, but I could get it, and we could pay for the surgery and the recovery, I think. Maybe.”
A different look hits him this time, the ‘you’re being a self-sacrificing moron’ one. “You’re not breaking the law for me, Peter. I won’t let you.”
He stares down at his beaten-up Converse and keeps rubbing her hand. “I could do it, and I could get away with it. I just-“
“No. That’s final.”
May leans over the center console and pulls Peter into an awkward hug, tucking his head into the hollow of her collarbone. He closes his eyes and breathes in her minty perfume, trying not to cry.
“You promise me you’re not going to go and do something stupid like start a pirating website, okay? We’ll get through this, kiddo. You don’t have to worry about anything.”
Peter snorts at the joke and keeps breathing, trying to calm down. He knows this isn’t like the time he had to work ten hours a day to replace the bumper he wrecked on one of their parking lot practice sessions, or when she worked double shifts at the hospital to send him to Space Camp in seventh grade. Those things were all manageable and a little smaller and no one was going to die if things didn’t work out, but this is different. Now, if they don’t figure out how to make it work, then Peter will be alone. The last familial connection he had to the planet would be severed, and the Parker name would be left to him. And he totally couldn’t handle the stress of that.
“Hey. You wanna get Thai?”
Peter nodded into her neck, pulling away and buckling himself in. He didn’t notice that there were tears in his eyes until he felt the wet splashes on his balled fists, and he wiped them away quickly, staring straight ahead. May kissed his forehead before putting their junky old station wagon into gear and pulling into traffic, trying hard to ignore the way her hands were still trembling on the steering wheel.
Ⴟ
They get curry and sticky rice pudding and eat it on the fire escape, Peter a little shocked (and irrationally offended, if he’s being honest,) that New York keeps on bustling on in the late Spring sun, May occasionally glancing at him with concern. He’s kind of just shoveling the food into his mouth at this point, not really eating, so the sound of plastic scraping against styrofoam startles him. He puts the empty container down and looks out at the fixedly declining glow on the horizon, knees tucked to his chest.
“You wanna talk, kiddo?”
She nudges his knee with her spoon, giving him Look #3, the ‘talk to me because I love you’ one.
Peter shrugs, playing with the frayed edge of his jeans. “You’re dying, May. I don’t know what we can really talk about, y’know?”
May responds with a snort. “Pfft. You think anything can take me out, Peter? After all the shit we’ve had to go through?”
She pulls him into a side hug, rubbing his shoulders, and he takes the moment to breath in her perfume again, because a titanic weight settles on his chest when he thinks of forgetting that smell for good.
“This’ll suck, Pete. But we’ll find a way. We always do. It’s the Parker Way.”
They stay like that for the rest of the waning afternoon and into the night, only slipping back into the warmth of their apartment when the streetlights blink on and Queens begins to slip into it’s evening shudders, the gestalt of bustling city life burning down to embers.
Ⴟ
Part of living the Parker Way is living with the Parker Luck. That’s why the first dialysis appointment is on a Thursday.
It’s probably the strangest environment Peter’s ever been in. They’re surrounded by a ramshackle assembly of sixty-somethings that drift precariously between zonking out and scribbling down the answer to their crossword, cancer patients (because the hospital is so poorly funded that chemo and dialysis happens in the same room), and the other type of cancer patients that are super lively and badass. It still feels like he’s living in a dream, and even though it’s a perfect afternoon and Peter could be patrolling, which May has been prodding him to do for the past hour (of a four-hour treatment), he refuses to leave. After all, he’s currently kicking total ass at Monopoly, and leaving a stack of cash big enough to fund his imaginary pet cemetery remake (he’s a fan, alright? Don’t judge,) would be criminal.
He also doesn’t want to leave May alone.
“Lord, who the hell taught you to play this good?” She whines, forking over another 500 after landing on Park Place, which is coated in houses and hotels because they don’t play by the normal rules, and settles back into her cushy seat.
Peter just grins manically and puts the phony bill atop the rest of his chaotic pile, moving his piece forward (a Darth Vader Lego minifigure, because they lost all the actual pieces a long, long time ago) and handing her the dice. “You know how anal Ben was about Monopoly. I learned from the unofficial Coney Island champion, May.”
She laughs in that angel’s hair way she usually does, sliding her own Lego figurine (a Frankensteinian amalgamation of Luke Skywalker’s torso, Harry Potter’s head, and Chewey’s legs) along the tiles. “I’ll concede that point. Still, you could take it easy on me. I’m just a sick, frail old woman, after all.”
“You’re not old, you’re seasoned. There’s a difference. Plus, I gotta keep you on your toes. Constant stress is good for you.”
May snorts, swiping a strand of hair from her eye. “Don’t I know it. Surprised I’ve got a tumor instead of a stomach ulcer.”
They banter back and forth like that for a while, trying to stave off the scent of chemical sanitization and overall unpleasant aura bombarding them constantly. After what seems like an eternity (and way too many wins for his ego), a nurse comes in and slowly pries the dialysis machine’s tendrils from May’s veins, and the scene is way too reminiscent of an Alien movie for Peter not to wince.
It’s still sunny when they leave, harsh glints bouncing off car windshields and sticky heat soaking into them like syrup into Saturday morning pancakes. When they finally make it to the car, she turns to him and squints, giving him Look #4, ‘I don’t want any special treatment from you’, which is usually only reserved for the weird guy at Prachya Thai that always gives them free food. “I know you think you’ve got to stick to me like a puppy, hun, but it’s a beautiful day out. You should be patrolling. Or at least posing for pictures, or something. Don’t want the Bugle thinking you’re dead.”
She must sense his hesitancy, because she narrows her eyes even further, pupils barely peeking out from cinched lids and gaze pointed enough to pierce concrete. “You’re only going to go if I make you, aren’t you?”
Peter sighs, shrugging. “I just don’t want to leave you alone, May. I already spend so much time at school and stuff, and with all this tumor business, I’m not sure if you should be-“
“Peter. Honey. I love you, but you’re a little neurotic sometimes. I will be fine,” She puts the car into gear and pulls onto the street, both hands on the steering wheel. “Plus, you’ll get springy and weird if you don’t go out. That’ll kill me even quicker.”
“Don’t joke about that, May, please.”
He drums a finger against his knee before relenting. “Fine. I’ll go. But I won’t stay out for long, okay? I wanna be home before dark. We can watch a movie or something.”
May agrees with a hum, eyes fixed on the road. Quietly, she’s smiling.
Ⴟ
Peter crawls through his window under the cover of pitch darkness, feeling a little guilty for not making his way home sooner. The rapidly approaching summer heat left him coated in sticky sweat, and he just drags himself through the shower like a half-dead sewer rat before shuffling into their living room.
He can see May’s haphazard bun while rounding the corner, and Ferris Bueller on the TV, paused mid-Rooney mauling, a cup of likely cold tea sitting on the coffee table. Peter shakes her shoulder gently, trying not to startle her too much.
She slumps over like a bag of water, thumping dully on the couch cushions.
Peter has his phone in his hand and is dialing 911 before he actually realizes he’s doing it, the operator’s voice tearing him out of the soundless, lifeless void his head is currently jammed in.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“Uh- My, uh, my aunt- She’s passed out, um-“ Peter stammers, scrambling to her side to feel for a pulse. It’s there, soft, and too thread to comfort him, but it’s there. “She has a pulse. I need an ambulance.”
He gives her their address and sits cross-legged next to May, idly stroking her hair while his ears start to ring in an uncontrollable cacophony of silence. He’s confused- They did what Dr. Owens said, right? She got her blood squeezed through that god-awful crème-colored machine, sat there pretending everything was going to be okay for three hours while they were literally surrounded by death, trying to drown out the grinding motors and sloshing of blood with jokes and banter. If they did what they were supposed to, why was May-
Peter nearly stuck to the ceiling when the EMT slammed her fist on the door, announcing the ambulance’s arrival. “Emergency services! Are both residents conscious and able to open this door?”
He padded over and undid the locks languidly, like he was swimming through syrup and mud, blinking at the woman and her partner as they barged straight into the kitchen before spotting May splayed on the couch, eyes closed and skin swapped to pallor from its normal soft olive, hair messy and sticking up all over the place from Peter’s ministrations. The pair’s paramedic, tall and lanky with soft hazel eyes and violently orange hair spiked in the way only the early 2000’s could teach, started the examination, his partner turning to Peter with a clipboard in hand.
“Hun, I’m gonna need to ask you some questions,” She said, standing to face him. He’d moved across the room without even realizing it, like he was magnetized to the scene in front of him and couldn’t escape the pull. He nodded and gave her his attention.
“Any past history of smoking, drug abuse, alcoholism?”
Peter shook his head, arms snaking around his torso and squeezing his ribs. “She- Has this tumor under her kidney. It’s messing with her blood flow. We went to dialysis earlier today.”
The EMT nodded and passes the information along to her colleague, who finishes clipping an oxygen monitor to May’s finger and stands. “It looks like she had a minor heart attack. Might’ve been stress on her heart from the treatment,” He grabs a gurney from where he laid it, settling it next to the couch. “We’re gonna take her to Presbyterian. Do you have anyone to call?”
Peter shakes his head, and the medics share a look of mild pity, the kind he’s used to getting from his whole ‘total orphan minus the aunt’ deal. They offer him a ride in the ambulance, and he takes it, because God knows that they’re going to be paying $12,000 for the ten-minute ride, and his ears ring the entire time. His head is swimming, like he’s concussed but aware of everything that’s happening around him, painfully aware, and before he knows it Dr. Owens is crouched in front of him and grabbing his hand because he’s digging blunt fingernails into the trashy plastic seat in the hospital’s waiting room.
Idly, he wonders why the chairs in places where people are waiting to hear if their loved ones are dying are always so goddam uncomfortable.
“Peter, honey? Did you hear me?”
He snaps out of that train of thought, reality seeping back into his body. It’s nauseating. “N-No. Sorry. What?”
Owens gives him a sympathetic look, clasping his hand between both of hers. “Your aunt is okay. She had a cardiac arrythmia from the stress put on her heart by dialysis. We’ll all talk about what that means later, but for right now, she’s awake, and wants to see you.”
It takes Peter a few seconds to fully recalibrate, pulling his hand from hers and standing. She seems to understand his silence, and gently squeezes his shoulder before guiding them to the stairs and up a few floors, winding through hallways and doors and skimming past nurses pushing carts until they reach May’s room, and he still doesn’t even realize they moved at all until he’s there.
He should really stop doing that. He’s gonna walk straight into traffic on accident if it keeps happening.
Owens guides him to May’s bedside and leaves, promising to come back and talk later. Peter slips his knobby, rough hand underneath his aunt’s, feeling an odd sense of relief when he feels her soft skin and smells her minty perfume and just feels her, all May-like and comforting. She strokes the back of his hand with her thumb, and Peter climbs into the bed next to her, burrowing into the crook of her neck like it’s the last available hibernation spot and he’ll die without her warmth and protection.
“Key, kiddo,” She says, pulling her hand free from where it’s pinned beneath Peter’s hip and winding it around his shoulders. Sorry for that scare.”
He shakes his head, curly hair tickling her nose. “S’ not your fault, May. You can’t control your heart.”
It’s like she can read his thoughts, because she ruffles his hair and frowns softly. “You can’t control it either, honey.”
At the tilt of his head, she snorts, gently pulling knots loose in his mop of a hairdo. “Don’t act like I can’t read your thoughts, Pete. I can feel guilt radiating off of you.”
Peter shakes out a tiny, miniscule, breathy laugh, pressing his face deeper into May’s neck. “Sorry. I just- Y’know. If I had been there, I could’ve done more.”
“Psh. From what, a heart attack? Contrary to what your big brain might think up, hon, you can’t make my heart suddenly work better,” says May, pressing a finger to his lips when he opens to them to protest, shaking her head with a laugh. “I love you, kid, but sometimes I think you’ve gone even more coo-coo for Cocopuffs than I have.”
They both chuckle a little, and Peter almost starts to feel better when Owens returns with a somber face and crossed arms.
“Here’s the deal,” She begins, pulling over a rolling stool. “I scheduled you for four hours of treatment to clear out a buildup of junk in your blood from the few weeks before your diagnoses. I didn’t stop to consider that your heart might be struggling to maintain bloodflow-“ Peter narrows his eyes at that, a little peeved that the doctor in charge of May’s wellbeing made an oopsie that could’ve killed her- “And the dialysis machine pumping newly refined blood back into your system was just too much for it to handle.”
May nods, face in a neutral, calculating sort of expression, the kind she put on while doing taxes or balancing checks. “Okay. What’s that mean?”
Owens fiddles with the collar of her scrubs. “We’ll have to reduce your treatments to about two hours and put you on blood thinners. Probably space the appointments out longer than I would like, but I want to play this pretty safe until a cardiologist can give your heart a better look.”
Peter’s looking at her from under May’s hair, now, and clears his throat, trying to get the lump out of it. “What’s- What does the timeline look like? Does spacing the treatments out more mean the surgery is going to have to happen sooner, or?”
“We’ll have to monitor her progress over the course of a few weeks to figure that out,” She replies, still fiddling with her scrubs. “Like I said, this is- Pretty dangerous territory. Until the surgery happens, May’s body is going to have to constantly battle to keep itself running, which won’t be easy. I’ll make sure to keep you guys updated, so it’s a little easier to manage. For now, I want you to stay overnight, so I can make sure there’s no other complications or weird rhythms with your heart. After that, you’re free to head home, and I’ll call you to schedule the next treatment then. Sound good?”
Peter almost snorts, because no, it doesn’t sound good, because May is dying, but his aunt nods and Owens leaves, giving them a moment to try and figure out what the hell to do.
He speaks first, pulling back from her neck. “May, we- Can’t afford that surgery. I know we can’t, and you know, too. Not without any income. We’ll be stuck in debt for the rest of our lives if we try.”
“I know, I know,” Her eyebrows knit together in that way Ben’s used to, and he wonders if he got it from her or vice versa, because he’s thrown through a loop at how contemplative and serious she looks. May is normally- Breezy. Light, and happy, and quirky. She’s not boring or predictable, and that’s what Peter loves more than anything, She’s like a comfort blanket that turns into a scattered collection of confetti swirling in one of those air chamber things you see at Chuck E. Cheese. Perfectly caring when she knows you need it but absolutely riotous every other moment of the day. “Whatever happens, Peter, you cannot do something stupid for me, okay? Don’t go quitting school and getting four jobs or something.”
Peter does snort this time, because he knows she knows that he would do that in a second if it would make even remotely enough money to save her life. “Don’t worry. No noble acts from me. Nosirry.”
They both laugh at that.
May pulls him close with one arm, her other limited by an IV drip and wires, and presses his head to hers. “I love you, kid, you know that? More than anything.”
He nods, feeling tiny and weightless, wrapping arms around her shoulders and squeezing. “I love you too, May. So much.”
He whispers it again and again when she falls asleep, curling deeper into her side, and cries, because he’s afraid of never being able to say it to her again.
Ⴟ
Something Peter has always loved about Queens is its makeshift feel. Like it’s stitched together from all the people dwelling in it, making up some messy but beautiful patchwork quilt of crumbling, graffiti-covered brick, family-owned food carts, and homey bodegas, personifying the American melting pot. However, an unfortunate byproduct of such cultural alloying is the inevitability of underfunding, gentrification, and poverty.
That’s the only reason he can think of for Queen’s Detention Facility keeping around the 1990s-style prisoner booths- One of which he’s sat at, parallel to Adrian Toomes, leant close to the thin barrier of acrylic that stands between him and the man who nearly shattered his spinal column into several hundred tiny, irreparable pieces.
The Vulture has fixed him with a gaze accurate to his namesake, like he’s just waiting until the inevitable collapse to strike. Peter returns his own, and tries to keep from breaking it, because if there’s one thing he doesn’t want to embody right now, it’s fear. He can’t afford it.
“So. My aunt is dying.”
Toomes starts, his scrutinizing expression slipping to confusion. “Ah. And you’re here… Why? For a chat? Biscuits and tea, Pedro?”
Peter lets his lips slip into a grimace, digging blunt fingernails into the cement beneath his hands. “I need money, to- Pay for her surgery. To save her live,” He tries to keep the mild tremor out of his voice, but is failing, and it makes him sound far more childlike than he’s aiming for. “She had a heart attack a few days ago. That alone is going to make us live on Kraft easy-mac and ramen for the next few months, we just,” Peter sighs, and tries to dig his look into Toomes, vying for some kind of fairness, some modicum of decency hidden beneath layers of cruel indifference. “We can’t afford it. I’ll do whatever it takes. But I need a lot of money, and I need it fast.”
The man shifts in his seat before leaning forward, resting his chin on a balled fist. “You know, Petey, I didn’t peg you as the type to betray a rigid moral backbone. What’s the jam, huh? You trying to dig up the rest of my contacts, sort out the last of my messes?”
“No. I don’t- Mr. Stark and Damage Control deals with that, I think. Hunting down the weapons,” Says Peter, fighting every nerve in his body so he doesn’t lean back, away from the plexiglass, trying to look strong and ready. He knows he’s failing, but it’s an effort, nonetheless. “I know there’s more stuff out there, more guys with the gear you’re selling. I had to knock a guy with anti-grav gloves off the side of the Chase Bank on 31st the other day. I doubt you want them out there, right?”
Toomes looks like he’s considering, now, thinking about the potential. “I only got transferred here because of your testimony, Parker. If I do what you’re asking, I could get punted out for good, which means I’d be even further from my home, and my family. I don’t like the risk.”
Peter shifts closer, now, nose nearly pressed on the barrier. “I understand, I do, but we need this- My aunt needs this money, man. She’s gonna die without it, and soon. I’ll round up the weapons, I’ll store them wherever, I,” He rubs his eyes, suddenly feeling so damn tired, so weighed down and languid, everything beginning to seep into his bones like resin. “Just. Please. Anything. I’ll do anything.”
“How much?”
They lock eyes for a moment, and it almost feels like Toomes understands some of it, the desperation and anger. “How much what?” Peter says dumbly, dropping his gaze to the cubicle’s cement sill.
“Time. How much time does your aunt have?”
He shrugs, unsure. “The doctors don’t know. Depending on how well the dialysis works, a month, maybe a little more. Her heart is under a lot of stress, though. It’s volatile.”
Toomes nods, sniffing as he thinks. “I’ll pay you give grand for every guy you round up with my stuff. You store it in my warehouse, I’ll get someone to check it’s there and authentic. Only cash, wherever you want me to get it dropped.”
Peter stiffens a bit, because he honestly wasn’t expecting him to actually say yes. “Wow, uh- How many do you think there are?”
A snort. “Plenty. Stark hasn’t been very… Involved, with Damage Control. They’re doing a shitty job at getting the last of my product collected, and there’s still people circulating it. Probably a quarter of a million’s worth in New York state, maybe a third of that just here in the burrows.”
A quarter of a million. That’s financial solvency. More money that Peter’s seen in his whole life, or been offered the chance of getting, at least. He can feel the money signs taking place of his pupils and the visceral greed speeding into his bloodstream, and he stamps it out, because this is for May. Anything more than what they need would go somewhere that needed it.
If he’s going to break the law, he might as well try to be altruistic about it.
“I’ll take the deal. Just send me the warehouse info and I’ll have the first guy there by tomorrow, at the latest,” Peter pushes a piece of paper into the little sharing drawer thing, and Toomes takes it, tucking the slip into his uniform. “That’s the number for my phone. Just leave the money wherever the warehouse is, and I’ll collect it after the dropoff.”
They share one last look before he stands, phone still in hand. “And thank you. I- I didn’t know where else to go.”
The Vulture gives him a nod, somewhere between acknowledgement and understanding. Peter leaves the prison feeling like he’s going to vomit, but also like he finally, finally has a say in something. He doesn’t know how long it’s going to take before he’ll be able to accept what he’s doing; It’s wrong, and he knows it, but its May. His May, loving and kind and the only thing keeping him tethered to the ground. This plan has to work.
He has to save her.