Chapter Text
00
At four in the afternoon, the sun was still bright. Peter suggested they walk home.
Maggie walked between them, holding Peter’s hand on one side and Jean’s on the other. Her headphones hung around her neck. Her rabbit was clipped to the side of her backpack, swinging back and forth.
She listened as she walked. Boats on the river, cars on the bridge, a flock of pigeons overhead. The path was paved with concrete that had been baking in the sun all day, and it was warm under her feet.
Then she stopped.
“What’s wrong?” Jean asked.
“There’s an ugly noise.”
Peter and Jean exchanged a look.
A second later, Peter’s free hand went to the back of his neck. His Peter tingle was buzzing.
Two blocks away, an armored truck lay flipped over, all four wheels in the air.
The back had been torn open down the middle, and money bags were scattered everywhere. A huge gray figure, taller than the truck, stood beside it with his back to them, stuffing the bags one by one into a canvas sack. There was a horn on his head.
“Rhino.” Peter was already moving, pulling his mask out of his pocket. “Jean, take her—“
“I know.”
Peter ducked into an alley and shrugged off his jacket. The suit was underneath. He pulled on the mask, leapt onto a streetlight, and fired two lines of web that stuck to Rhino’s back.
“Hey!” he called from midair. “Have you heard of this thing called online banking?”
Rhino turned and glared at Spider-Man. “You again, you little bug!”
He lowered his head. His feet dug in. The concrete cracked beneath him.
He charged at Peter.
Peter figured he knew this old enemy well. He threw out layer after layer of webbing to slow Rhino down, then shot one more line straight across his eyes.
Rhino lost his bearings. He gritted his teeth, decided to go by sound, and threw everything he had into his signature charge.
Straight toward Maggie and Jean.
Super strength and super senses or not, Maggie was still a kid. Faced with something that huge coming at her that fast, she froze.
Jean didn’t.
Maggie saw the air in front of her bend, like a road shimmering in midsummer heat. It was Jean’s telekinetic shield. Maggie had seen it before. It was thick and steady. Bullets stopped dead in the air when they hit it.
Rhino slammed into the shield and stuck there, his feet scrabbling at the ground like a truck with its wheels stuck in the mud.
Then the shield flickered.
It flickered again.
Jean glanced down at her own hand and swore under her breath. “Seriously? Now?”
The shield vanished.
At the last second, Jean shoved Maggie out of the way.
Luckily, the shield had already slowed Rhino down, so Jean didn’t go flying. She just stumbled back several steps, tripped over a loose money bag, and landed butt-first in the back of the armored truck.
The money bags were soft.
The inside of the truck was not.
Thunk.
Maggie heard it. It was a dull sound, like someone knocking hard on a door.
A corner of the pile of money bags collapsed. A few bundles of cash slid down and landed in Jean’s lap. Jean sat there with the back of her head against the wall of the truck, very clearly not by choice.
Only then did Maggie realize she’d been holding her breath.
Rhino overshot, plowed headfirst into a row of bikes on the curb, and was now trying to pull himself free of the metal rack.
Peter wasn’t looking at him anymore.
Peter landed beside Jean and crouched down, sliding one hand between the back of her head and the wall of the truck, cushioning it gently.
“Jean.”
“...Hm?”
“How many fingers?”
“...Three?”
“What’s the date today?”
“...You check your watch.”
“Who am I?”
“You want me to yell Spider-Man’s real name in broad daylight and then slap a hand over my mouth?” Jean rolled her eyes.
A short laugh came from under the mask.
She shook her head to clear it and looked at him. “Your hand’s shaking.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
Maggie listened to Uncle Peter’s voice. It was flat, as flat as someone reading a grocery list.
But Maggie had never heard a heart beat that fast.
Rhino climbed out of the pile of bikes, one still hanging around his neck. He wiped a hand across his face, shook off the bike and the webbing, and dug his feet into the ground again.
Peter stood up. He turned around and didn’t say a word.
Rhino charged. Peter didn’t dodge. He jumped, firing two lines at once. One caught Rhino across the eyes again. The other stuck to the bridge pier behind him. Using Rhino’s own momentum, Peter pulled the line taut in midair.
The charge snapped short. Rhino’s whole body tipped backward and slammed into the ground.
He tried to get up. A third line wrapped around his legs, a fourth around his arms. A fifth. A sixth.
“Hey, hey, wait a sec!” Rhino yelled from under the webbing. “She tripped by herself! That doesn’t count as me—“
The seventh line sealed his mouth shut.
Maggie stood there holding her rabbit. It must have fallen off her backpack, but she didn’t remember picking it up.
Uncle Peter always talked a lot when he fought bad guys. Now, suddenly, he’d gone quiet.
It was a little creepy.
Sirens came from the direction of the bridge. Jean braced herself on the money bags and tried to stand. A bundle of cash slid off her knee. Peter was already back at her side, one hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t move.”
“I’m fine.”
“Then don’t move anyway.”
Maggie looked down and saw that she’d squashed one of her rabbit’s ears flat.
The hospital hallway was long, and the lights were very white.
Jean walked in on her own. She insisted on walking by herself, so Peter could only keep a hand hovering behind her back just in case.
She got onto the bed by herself, answered the doctor’s questions by herself, and then fell asleep by herself.
A nurse brought a chair over for Maggie and set it in a corner of the hallway for her to wait. Maggie sat down. Curiosity and worry about Aunt Jean told her it was time to use her super hearing.
She heard someone coughing in the next bed, someone pushing a cart on the floor above, a machine somewhere beeping every two seconds. She concentrated, and finally she heard Dr. Christine Palmer behind one of the doors, talking to Peter, along with Aunt Jean’s not-especially-quiet snoring.
“...concussion...”
Maggie didn’t know that word.
After a while, a nurse passing by noticed her and crouched down to ask if she wanted some water. Maggie shook her head and asked, “What does concussion mean?”
The nurse paused, then smiled. Her voice was very gentle.
“It means she bumped her head, sweetie. The doctor’s going to take good care of her.”
Maggie nodded and gave the nurse a slightly forced smile.
Behind the door, Dr. Palmer kept going, talking fast, in words that were hard to follow.
“CT...” “...already ran a test...” “...so we can’t...”
Then the doctor said another word Maggie didn’t know.
Before Maggie could ask the nurse about it, she heard Uncle Peter’s heartbeat take off in the silence. It had already been fast. Now it was faster, so fast she couldn’t count it.
“...so we’ll skip the imaging today and just observe,” Dr. Palmer said. “Once she’s home, some headache, vomiting, and confusion is normal, but if it gets severe, come back right away. And at this stage, if there’s any bleeding at all, come back right away too.”
Headache. Vomiting. Confusion. Bleeding. Come back right away.
Maggie said it over once in her head, to make sure she had it.
The door opened.
Uncle Peter came out. He didn’t look Maggie’s way. He walked to the other end of the hallway, all the way to the end.
Then the footsteps stopped.
She heard a palm press flat against the wall.
She heard him breathing. Very slow, very long, like he was counting each breath in and each breath out.
Then the footsteps turned around, and Peter walked over and crouched in front of her. His face looked the same as always.
“She’s okay,” he said. “She bumped her head. The doctor says she’ll be better in a few days.”
Maggie looked at him.
“Okay,” she said.
Peter patted her head. His hand was still shaking a little.
Twenty minutes later, Kate showed up with two milkshakes, her hair a mess, like she’d run the whole way there.
“How’s Jean?”
“Bumped her head. She’s fine,” Peter said. “Can you take Maggie downstairs for a bit?”
Kate glanced at him, didn’t ask any questions, and pushed one of the milkshakes into Maggie’s hands.
The cafeteria downstairs was loud. Trays clattering, the coffee machine going, a table next to them arguing about who was paying. Kate talked the whole time. She talked about how she’d run out of arrows again today, about how Rhino was already on the news, about how she’d bet anything Jean was going to make Peter piggyback her home.
For the first time, Maggie thought a little noise was nice.
She drank her milkshake and didn’t listen to what was happening upstairs.
The taxi pulled up in front of their building.
Jean said she could walk. Peter didn’t say anything. He just held out his arms.
Jean looked at him for a moment and decided to accept her fate.
Peter scooped her up bridal-style.
The doorman in the lobby glanced up at them and gave a knowing smile. Peter smiled back. Jean covered her face with both hands and declined to comment.
Kate lost the bet. It was a carry, not a piggyback, Maggie thought.
The elevator doors opened. Peter stepped in, careful not to bump Jean against anything. Maggie followed and stood in the corner.
“I can walk, you know.” Jean rested her head against Peter’s collarbone. Her voice was lazy.
“I know.”
“You don’t have to carry me.”
"I know." Peter grinned. "Remind you of the first time you fainted in my arms?"
"You're the reason I fainted, and you have the nerve to bring it up?!" Jean turned bright red and tugged on his ear.
Maggie hugged her rabbit and stood in the corner without saying a word.
Jean's heartbeat had sped up too. Uncle Peter's had been fast the whole time.
August 15.
Today a big guy was stealing money. He had a horn on his head. Uncle Peter said his name is Rhino.
He charged at me. Aunt Jean got in front of me.
Aunt Jean fell down and hit her head.
The sound was really dull. I kind of can’t forget it.
The doctor said she’ll be okay.
The doctor also said if there's hedake, vomitting, confushun, or bleeding, we have to go back right away.
I wrote it down.
01
When Maggie got up, the bathroom door was closed and the faucet was running.
But Jean wasn’t washing anything. The water was going straight down the drain. Under the sound of the water, Jean was retching.
Maggie stood outside the bathroom door holding her rabbit and listened for a while.
Peter poked his head out of the kitchen. He was holding a thin pamphlet with a drawing of a head on the cover.
“Concussions do that,” he said. “Dr. Palmer said so.”
“For how long?”
Peter flipped through the pamphlet.
“A few days.”
Maggie nodded.
In the bathroom, the water shut off. Jean opened the door, looking a little pale, and stopped short when she saw the two of them standing there.
“...Are you two waiting in line?”
At breakfast, Jean noticed something different about the apartment.
Each of the four corners of the coffee table had a clear plastic corner guard on it. So did the dining table. So did the TV stand.
Peter had bought those corner guards when Maggie first came to stay. After Maggie demonstrated her strength, he’d peeled the rest of them off and put them away in a drawer.
Now they were back.
“Peter.”
“Hm?”
“You think I’m going to walk into a table?” Jean did not look pleased.
“Yesterday you walked into an armored truck.” Peter sat down next to her and put a slice of toast on her plate. The crusts were already cut off. There was a glass of milk to go with it.
Jean huffed, picked up the toast, and leaned against his shoulder.
Peter didn’t move. He let her lean on him and reached an arm around to stroke her hair.
Maggie heard Uncle Peter’s and Aunt Jean’s heartbeats slow down. She thought that was a good sign.
At lunch, Peter made sandwiches again.
Maggie finished hers and pushed the plate back.
Peter sat across from her, trying to act casual. “How was it?”
Maggie gave it serious thought.
“Forty-two.”
Peter’s eyes lit up.
“Forty-two?”
“Out of a hundred.”
“I know it’s out of a hundred!” Peter turned around. “Jean! Forty-two! Last time it was nine!”
Jean didn’t answer.
Jean wasn’t at the table anymore. Her plate was still there, her sandwich untouched, her chair pushed halfway back. Maggie could hear her at the end of the hallway. She’d opened a window and was breathing very hard.
Peter’s smile froze on his face.
“She didn’t eat any of it,” Maggie said.
“She doesn’t have much of an appetite,” Peter said. He went back to flipping through the pamphlet. “Hitting your head does that.”
Maggie nodded and wrote something down in her journal.
By the afternoon of the third day, Jean was a lot better.
She wasn’t throwing up anymore. She sat on the couch grading papers for the Institute, humming as she worked. Peter sat beside her, pretending to read, glancing at her every two minutes.
Jean held out a hand and performed a classic bit of telekinetic fetching on the glass on the coffee table.
The glass made it halfway, then tipped.
Water splashed on the rug. Jean reached out with her other hand and caught the glass before it hit the floor.
Maggie stood in the living room doorway, looking at the wet spot on the rug.
Jessica had told her about Aunt Jean’s powers. She said Aunt Jean was one of the strongest Omelette-level mutants or something like that, and that her telekinesis could do almost anything, from moving mountains to doing the dishes.
Maggie had seen Jean take apart four handguns in midair, every piece lined up in a neat row. She’d seen Jean make freshly washed bowls fly up and spin themselves dry, splashing water all over Peter. She’d seen Jean wave a hand and make a door close by itself, with exactly the right amount of force to look fake-mad.
But in just a few days, she had also seen Jean’s unbreakable shield suddenly disappear, and now she’d seen Jean spill a glass of water.
“My control could use some work lately.” Jean smiled, set the glass back on the coffee table by hand, and went back to grading.
As if it didn’t matter at all.
Maggie listened to Uncle Peter again. He was still reading. But a heartbeat that had just sped up couldn’t lie.
He didn’t say anything.
Maggie realized she didn’t know how to describe this feeling yet, this mix of surprise and worry and guilt.
That night, Maggie went to bed early.
She was used to the way Peter and Jean whispered by now. They probably knew that lowering their voices didn’t do much against Maggie, but they kept up the time-honored tradition of late-night whispering anyway.
“...The thing,” Peter said. “Let’s wait a few days.”
“Mm.”
“Until she’s not so worried.”
“Mm.”
Maggie didn’t know what “the thing” was, but she trusted Aunt Jean and Uncle Peter to know what they were doing.
She closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep with the meditation her dad had taught her.
August 18.
Aunt Jean has been throwing up every morning. Uncle Peter says hitting your head does that.
The doctor said she’ll be better in a few days. Today is the third day.
Uncle Peter’s sandwich got a forty-two, but Aunt Jean didn’t eat it.
Aunt Jean used her powers to get some water and the water spilled.
She says she’s fine.
I hope she really is.
02
In the morning, Jean threw up again.
Peter was washing dishes at the sink. Maggie walked over and stood on her toes to look up at him.
“The doctor said only a few days.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Today is already the sixth day.”
Peter paused. “...Everybody heals at a different speed.”
“She threw up again this morning.”
“I know. She’s getting better.”
“Your heart sped up.”
Peter didn’t answer. He turned on the faucet, picked up a bowl, and started washing it.
He had already washed that bowl.
Maggie went back to her room, opened her journal, and drew a question mark after “The doctor said she’ll be better in a few days.”
She remembered last month in the stairwell, when she’d squeezed Uncle Peter’s hand with a ten. He’d said it didn’t hurt, but his heart had sped up. It must have hurt a lot.
When grown-ups’ hearts speed up and they say they’re fine, it means they’re holding it in.
Aunt Jean was hurt worse than they said. They didn’t want to tell her.
Fine.
She turned to a new page and wrote:
Aunt Jean Recovery Plan
- Don’t let Aunt Jean do any work.
- Make Aunt Jean eat healthy food.
- Help Aunt Jean do the things she wants to do.
- Hug her once every day.
Don’t cry.Don’t cry in front of her.
The plan went into effect that same morning.
Jean reached for a glass. Maggie got there first and grabbed it. The glass cracked.
Jean went to open the balcony door. Maggie rushed over to open it for her. The doorknob came loose.
Jean picked up a basket of dirty laundry. Maggie took the whole thing from her and jogged it over to the washing machine. The laundry basket turned into an oval. The washing machine lid flew up and hit the ceiling.
Jean looked at the lid lying on the floor. “Maggie, you’ve been such a big help today! Want to take a little break?”
“It’s okay, I’m not tired!”
Peter swooped in. “No, no, no, I can tell you’re tired! Come on, Uncle Peter’s going to reward you with a super exciting episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!” He wrapped her up in two very determined arms and carried her over to the couch.
Maggie tried to wriggle free, but she found she couldn’t budge Uncle Peter’s arms at all.
Uncle Peter might be even stronger than Mom. That was her last thought before the great Mickey Mouse sucked her in.
Dinner was made under Maggie’s supervision. No salt, no oil, just a pot of vegetables boiled in plain water, because she’d heard that was the healthiest.
Peter had one spoonful, got up, took a Coke out of the fridge, drank half of it, sat back down, and for the first time in years, put on the brave smile he used to wear after finishing Aunt May’s meatloaf.
“What score?” Maggie decided to ask Aunt Jean.
“Ninety.”
Peter’s head jerked up.
Jean ignored him. She finished her bowl spoonful by spoonful, then served herself another.
Maggie listened to her heartbeat. It didn’t speed up. Aunt Jean really did think the soup was good.
Maggie looked at the few pale, overboiled carrot slices floating in the soup.
Aunt Jean must be really, really sick.
On the evening of the seventh day, Maggie sat down on the couch, set her rabbit between the two of them, and straightened it.
“Aunt Jean, is there anything you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t done yet?”
Jean remembered what the parenting book said about open-ended questions: when a child starts a deep conversation on her own, it means she’s starting to trust you.
Jean sat up a little straighter.
“I want Peter to learn to turn his socks right side out before he puts them in the laundry basket, instead of just tossing them in inside out.”
From the kitchen came Peter’s voice: “I can hear you.”
“I know,” Jean said. “And I want the doors in this house to go a whole month without breaking.”
Maggie looked down at her hands.
Jean’s voice got a little softer. “On your first day here, you asked if it was just the two of us living here. I want this home to be a little livelier.”
Maggie wrote down all three things, one by one, then gave Jean a hug. Today’s hug.
Jean hugged her back and silently gave the conversation full marks.
August 23.
I helped Aunt Jean a lot these past few days. I also made Uncle Peter make a plain soup.
She had two bowls and said ninety, and she wasn’t lying. She must be really sick.
She wants Uncle Peter to turn his socks right side out before he puts them in the laundry basket, she wants the doors not to break for a month, and she wants the house to be livelier. I wrote it all down.
I hugged Aunt Jean once every day.
I didn’t cry in front of her.
03
On the morning of the ninth day, Peter was in a very good mood.
He hummed as he fried eggs. Halfway through, he turned to look at Jean.
“The doctor said you’d be back to normal activity in about a week.”
“I know,” Jean said, without looking up from her book.
“Today’s already day nine.”
“You’ve really been keeping track, huh.” Jean turned a page, a hint of a smile on her face.
Maggie looked at Peter, then at Jean.
“What’s normal activity?”
“Uh... cleaning!”
Maggie looked a little puzzled but more or less accepted it. “I thought you were going to fight again.”
Peter, mid-flip, nearly lost the egg.
Jean laughed out loud, got up, and headed for the bathroom.
A little while later, in the bathroom, Jean’s heartbeat suddenly jumped.
“Peter.” Her voice came through the door, and it didn’t sound right. “Come here for a sec.”
The spatula fell into the pan.
The two of them went to the hospital again. Kate got an emergency summons to come play video games with Maggie.
When they came back, Peter was holding a folded piece of paper. He put it away very solemnly in the top drawer.
“Everything’s normal,” Jean said. “Nothing to worry about.”
Peter’s eyes were glazed. He agreed mechanically.
Kate was a little confused by the two of them, but they immediately fobbed her off with a perfectly synchronized “We’ll explain later.”
From that day on, Peter got really weird.
He stopped sleeping at night and sat in the living room reading, the books piling higher and higher beside the couch. The breakage rate of his training equipment shot through the roof; the punching bag alone sprang a leak three times. He took showers at one in the morning, cold ones. Maggie could hear him standing under the water, letting out a very, very long sigh.
Jean lay on the couch with her feet in his lap. Peter looked at her foot for a while, then got up and said he needed some fresh air on the balcony.
Maggie remembered what Yelena had said last month at Kate’s place: when Uncle Peter and Aunt Jean wanted to fight, they needed her out of the house.
Uncle Peter looks like he really wants to fight.
At dinner on the tenth day, Maggie put down her fork.
“I could go sleep over at Kate’s.”
Peter looked up. His eyes lit up.
“That’s okay,” Jean said.
Peter’s eyes went dark again.
“You guys could fight,” Maggie said.
“...Really, it’s okay.” Jean looked down at her soup.
Peter’s heart sped up for a moment, then slowed down again, like a balloon somebody had poked a hole in.
Maggie looked at Jean.
Aunt Jean can’t even fight anymore.
On the news on the eleventh night, Spider-Man had wrapped a guy who’d tried to rob a convenience store into a big white ball and hung him from a streetlight. The cops stood underneath, with no idea where to even start.
Ten minutes later, Kate called to give him a hard time. Peter was chopping vegetables in the kitchen with her on speaker.
“You wrapped him up like a spider getting ready for winter.”
“He had a weapon.”
“It was a tiny fruit knife. It couldn’t even get through Captain America’s suit.”
“Still a blade.”
“Peter,” Kate said seriously. “Have you been kind of on edge lately? When was the last time you two—“
Peter took her off speaker.
Maggie could still hear it from the living room. She didn’t really understand the word Kate said next. But she understood Uncle Peter’s heartbeat. He was annoyed, and he was scared.
Aunt Jean must be getting worse.
That night at bedtime, Maggie hugged her rabbit and didn’t let Peter read her a story.
“Uncle Peter. If someone’s gone, do they get forgotten?”
Peter realized the summer was almost over. In a few days, she’d be going home.
“No,” he said. “Even if you’re not together anymore, you don’t forget.”
“You won’t forget either?”
Peter patted her head.
“I’ll never forget.”
Maggie nodded and wrote that down in her journal.
Peter went back to the bedroom. Maggie heard Jean ask what he and Maggie had been talking about, and then Peter’s voice:
“A friendly conversation about saying goodbye.”
“Peter.”
Then Jean didn’t say anything else.
In the middle of the night, Maggie got up for a drink of water and walked past their bedroom door.
The two of them were still awake. They were whispering, a habit they’d picked up since she came to stay.
“You took another cold shower today,” Jean said.
“It’s hot out.”
“Peter.”
“...I’m fine.”
A pause.
“Do you think she’s figured it out?” Jean asked.
“I don’t know,” Peter said. “She’s been watching you a lot lately.”
“Should we just tell her?”
“It’s still too early. The doctor said things aren’t stable yet.” Peter’s voice dropped even lower. “...What if there’s more bleeding?”
“Then we go straight to the hospital. The doctor said so.”
Another silence.
“Let’s wait for her to ask,” Jean said. “If she wants to know, she’ll ask.”
“Mm.”
Maggie stood outside the door holding her empty glass.
They were worried she’d find out.
She already had.
Aunt Jean really had been bleeding. And they’d gone to the hospital.
She tiptoed back to her room.
She lay in bed, listening through the wall.
Aunt Jean’s heartbeat was slow, but not quite steady.
Maggie closed her eyes and listened a little longer. It felt like Aunt Jean’s heartbeat had gotten messy, like it had lost its steady rhythm. There was some extra noise in it, like a radio that wasn’t tuned right.
She’d never heard anything like it before.
Maggie hugged her rabbit a little tighter.
August 26.
Aunt Jean and Uncle Peter went to the hospital again. She said everything’s normal. I’m not so sure.
Uncle Peter takes cold showers in the middle of the night. He really wants to fight. I said I could go to Kate’s, and Aunt Jean said no. Aunt Jean can’t fight anymore.
Uncle Peter said he’ll never forget Aunt Jean.
I heard them say if there’s more bleeding, they’ll go to the hospital.
They’re worried I’ll find out.
I already know.
I won’t let them know I know.
04
Let’s rewind to the day it happened.
After her exam, Jean fell asleep.
When Dr. Palmer came in with the test results, she glanced at the bed and lowered her voice.
“Let her sleep. Mild concussion. Sleeping is fine.”
When Dr. Palmer said “concussion,” Peter was ready.
On the way from the armored truck to the hospital, he’d already run through every possible consequence of a concussion three times.
But Dr. Palmer’s second word was a complete ambush.
Pregnant.
One of the finest minds in New York crashed on the spot.
Dr. Palmer went on: no imaging today, just observation, what to watch for at home, when to come back right away.
Finally, she glanced at Jean, still asleep.
“When she wakes up, why don’t you tell her?”
Peter nodded numbly.
Dr. Palmer left. It was just Peter and Jean in the room.
Peter looked at Jean.
She was fast asleep, one hand resting on top of the blanket. Her adorable snoring, as always, should have been reassuring.
He stood up, walked out of the room, all the way to the end of the hallway, and braced one hand on the wall so his legs wouldn’t give out.
He faced the wall and silently mouthed the words.
I’m going to be a dad.
Peter stayed by the wall a little longer, breathing slowly in, slowly out, until he thought his face looked normal. Then he walked back and crouched down in front of Maggie.
“She’s okay. She bumped her head. The doctor says she’ll be better in a few days.”
After Kate took Maggie downstairs, Peter went back to the room, pulled up a chair, and sat by the bed.
He took out his phone, searched “pregnancy,” then immediately closed it, as if someone might see. He opened it again, searched “mutant pregnancy,” read a few studies and explainer articles, and closed it. He opened it once more and searched “mutant spider-man pregnancy.” This time all he got was a handful of fanfics by who knows who. He looked at the summaries and the tags and decided it was probably better not to click, considering the pregnant one in them didn’t seem to be the mutant.
Then Jean stirred and opened her eyes.
“...How long was I out?”
“Half an hour, maybe,” Peter said. “You’re okay, it’s a mild concussion, the doctor says rest for a few days, you’ll be back to normal activity in about a week, no CT today, just observation at home, headaches and throwing up are normal, only come back if it gets bad. And there’s one more thing, which is also good, really good actually, at least I think so, you might need a minute to process it, I’m still processing it myself, I processed it in the hallway for a while, but I didn’t finish—“
“Peter.”
Peter stopped and took a deep breath.
“You’re pregnant.”
Jean blinked.
“...Who?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“Do I have another wife?”
Jean stared at Peter for a moment.
“I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean, think? I don’t!” Peter declared solemnly.
Jean didn’t say anything. She looked down at her hands, as if something had finally clicked.
“Jessica told me her strength would cut out sometimes when she was pregnant. That’s why my powers have been glitching! And the glass that morning. I thought it was because I’d overdone it the night before.”
Peter’s face went red. Then his eyes drifted upward, and his lips started moving silently.
“Don’t do the math,” Jean said.
“August first.”
“I said don’t do the math.” Jean grabbed his hand and laced their fingers together.
They both started laughing. Halfway through, Jean winced at the pain in the back of her head, then kept laughing, and kept laughing until her eyes were wet.
Peter leaned down to kiss her but stopped halfway, hovering in midair, like he was trying to work out which part of her was safe.
“I hit the back of my head,” Jean said, “not my mouth.”
So he kissed her.
The door opened. Dr. Palmer stood in the doorway and took one look.
“Looks like you’ve already told her. I’ll come back in five minutes.” She turned and closed the door.
“Make it ten,” they said in unison, the moment they came up for air.
Before they went home, they held a very short meeting in the hospital room.
It was too early; the doctor said to wait for a follow-up. Besides, Maggie had been scared half to death today. Better not to give her something else to process on the same day. And they didn’t know how to explain it to her yet.
“Let’s wait a few days,” Jean said.
“Let’s wait a few days,” Peter said. “But there’s a problem. She can hear everything. We can’t say the word at home.”
“Which word?”
“...Any of them.”
“So what do we say?”
Peter thought about it. “‘The thing.’”
“You’re sure that’s not more suspicious?”
“I’m New York’s number one masked vigilante. I’m a professional at keeping secrets.”
“So professional the whole world forgot who you are,” Jean said. “That’s not exactly your accomplishment.”
Peter decided not to respond to that.
“Anyway, give it a little while and she’ll probably hear it herself. That kid can hear the lady next door not wanting to go to her mother-in-law’s.”
“Reasonable assumption.” Jean nodded.
Jean’s concussion cleared up by the fourth day.
After that, all the throwing up, the sleepiness, the lack of appetite, was something else entirely.
The pamphlet in Peter’s hand with the head on the cover was actually two pamphlets. Dr. Palmer had given him Concussion Care at Home and Your First Trimester, and he’d stapled them together with the first one facing out.
Once Maggie’s Aunt Jean Recovery Plan went into effect, the main casualties were the furniture and Peter.
A cracked glass, a loose doorknob, a dent in the ceiling from the washing machine lid. Peter calculated that at this rate, by the weekend the apartment would be down to its load-bearing walls. So he used a trick from the parenting books: distraction.
He held Maggie on the couch through ten episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
Jean took a full afternoon nap in the bedroom. It was the best sleep she’d had all week.
Peter now knew the theme song better than the Spider-Man theme song.
That pot of boiled vegetables was the first meal Jean had kept down in over a week.
So when she said ninety, she meant it. She actually thought ninety was a little low.
The next day, she asked for another pot.
The day after that, another.
For the sake of family harmony, Peter ate every pot with her. By the third night, he’d stashed a few cheeseburgers behind the dryer in the laundry room, and every time he finished his soup, he’d excuse himself to go see if the laundry was dry.
Jean knew. She ate her soup, watched Peter get up for the fourth time to “check on the laundry,” and thought this family was just about perfect.
On the ninth day, Jean found a tiny bit of blood in the bathroom.
On the way to the hospital, they held hands in the cab, fingers laced, and didn’t say a word. The OB that Dr. Palmer referred them to did an ultrasound, took one look, and said: very common, everything’s normal.
That folded piece of paper was the ultrasound picture.
The two of them looked at it for a long time. On a black background was a small, grayish-white shape.
“It looks like a bean.”
“It is a bean,” Jean corrected.
Then the doctor brought up one more thing.
“I’d recommend holding off on intercourse until your next checkup.”
“When’s the next checkup?” Peter asked.
“End of September.”
Peter’s heart sank.
From that day on, Jean discovered a new form of entertainment.
She wandered around the living room in nothing but one of Peter’s old T-shirts. She curled up on the couch and put her feet in his lap, then watched him stare at her foot, watched him get up, watched him announce he needed some fresh air on the balcony.
She counted. He went out to the balcony six times in one day.
On the tenth night, he took two cold showers. The second one was at one in the morning. He stood under the water for a long time and let out a very long sigh. Jean listened from bed and wondered whether she should warm him up when he got back, then realized that would only start a vicious cycle, and couldn’t help laughing.
At dinner, Maggie put down her fork and said, “I could go sleep over at Kate’s.” For one full second, Peter forgot all about doctor’s orders.
His eyes lit up.
Jean kicked him under the table.
“That’s okay.”
“You guys could fight,” Maggie said.
Peter choked on his soup.
The guy with the fruit knife had only wanted to rob a convenience store’s register.
He had no idea that the Spider-Man on duty that night had already taken four cold showers.
He was wrapped into a white ball and hung from a streetlight for forty minutes. The fire department finally had to cut him down with the Jaws of Life. Rumor has it the first thing he said when he got out of the ball was, “I want to turn myself in. Just don’t lock me up anywhere in New York.”
After Peter hung up on Kate, he got a text:
Good luck. With your self-control, give it two weeks and you’ll have all of Queens webbed up.
That night at bedtime, Maggie asked him if people get forgotten when they’re gone.
Peter thought: Summer’s almost over. She’s going home. She’s afraid we’ll forget her.
He almost burst into tears on the spot.
“I’ll never forget,” he said.
Back in the bedroom, Jean asked what he and Maggie had talked about.
“A friendly conversation about saying goodbye.”
“Peter.”
Then Jean didn’t say anything else.
Because she was crying. Pregnancy hormones, plus an eight-year-old going home, plus Peter saying “I’ll never forget.” All three together, and Jean buried her face in his T-shirt and soaked a big patch of it.
“I can’t believe I’m crying over this,” she said.
“Two days ago you cried over a bean.”
“That’s our bean!”
“Which is why I cried too.”
Peter held her, his chin resting on the top of her head, patting her back gently, and started humming “Running Up That Hill,” her favorite.
In the middle of the night, the two of them were whispering in the bedroom.
...
“Do you think she’s figured it out?”
They meant the bean. Maggie had been watching Jean a lot lately, hugging her all the time, staring at her. Peter and Jean both thought she’d probably picked up on something and just hadn’t figured out how to ask yet.
“Let’s wait for her to ask,” Jean said. “If she wants to know, she’ll ask.”
“Mm.”
Very quiet footsteps moved away from the door. Neither of them noticed.
“And when she does, I can use these!” Peter reached into the nightstand drawer and pulled out a small stack of index cards.
Jean sat up, took the cards, and turned on the bedside lamp.
Card one: Maggie, do you know what a family is?
Card two: Sometimes, families get bigger.
Card three: Like if your rabbit had a little baby rabbit—
Jean stopped there.
“Rabbits can’t make baby rabbits on their own, Peter.”
“It’s a metaphor.”
“She’s going to ask where the baby rabbit came from.”
Peter fell silent.
“Which draft is this?”
“The third,” Peter said. “The first two just didn’t work.”
Jean looked at him, at this father-to-be who’d made three drafts of index cards just to talk to a kid, and the cards slipped out of her hand onto the bed.
Their lips didn’t part for a very long time.
“What the doctor said was no that,” she said, breathless, then pointed at her own lips. “She didn’t say no this.”
Peter kept his eyes shut and didn’t dare move a muscle.
Jean had never looked inside Maggie’s head.
Of course she knew that the purple scumbag who’d ruined Jessica’s life had powers nothing like hers. Hers were harmless, painless, no side effects. Even the one person who’d ever boasted she’d never get inside their head had ended up wrapped around her finger. But a promise to Jessica was a promise. More than once, Maggie had stood in the doorway staring at her, and all Jean would have had to do was reach out the lightest bit to know what the kid was thinking. She held back every time.
She had a pretty good idea anyway. That kid could hear everything. She must have heard. That kid hugged her once a day, made her soup, asked if she had any wishes, like she was desperately trying to prove she was useful in this house.
She must be scared. Scared that once the baby came, she wouldn’t be welcome here anymore.
“When Matt and Jessica get back,” Jean said, “we’ll tell her together. We’ll tell her there will always be a room for her here.”
“Then where does the baby go?”
“The storage room.”
“My Lego collection is in there! And the Death Star we built together! Ugh, speaking of which, I still feel bad about Ned...”
“Okay, okay, fine. Then we’ll take over your workshop.”
“That’s more like it... wait!” Peter realized something was off.
“Objection overruled.” Jean started humming the song too.
On the night of the fifteenth day, the two of them lay in bed.
“Matt and Jessica get back tomorrow night,” Jean said.
“Mm.”
“After dinner, we’ll tell her together.”
“Mm. I’ve got the fourth draft done.”
“No rabbits this time?”
“No rabbits.”
Jean laughed, rolled over, and settled into his arms.
“Nothing’s going to go wrong,” Peter said.
Out in the hall, Maggie had her ear pressed to their door, counting Jean’s heartbeats.
05
“...So, like if your rabbit had a little baby rabbit—“
“I thought there weren’t any rabbits this time?” Jean was sitting against the headboard with a mug of warm milk.
“I put it back in.” Peter stood at the foot of the bed, clutching the fourth draft, which was almost identical to the first. “Without a metaphor, she won’t get it.”
“She’s eight, not four.”
“Then how would you say it?”
Jean thought about it. “‘Maggie, I’m pregnant.’”
Peter waited. “...And then?”
“There is no and then.”
“Then why did I write four drafts?”
“Because you’re cute when you’re nervous and writing drafts.”
Peter pouting was pretty cute too. He tossed the cards on the bed, climbed up, lay down next to her, and buried his face in her shoulder.
“What if Maggie doesn’t get it?”
Jean set down her mug, turned, took his face in her hands, and kissed him.
“Then you read her the fourth draft and put her to sleep.”
Peter laughed and leaned in for another kiss. Jean stopped him with one finger on his lips.
“The doctor said—“
“I know what the doctor said.” Peter rolled onto his back, stared at the ceiling, and let out a long sigh. “Thirty more days.”
“Almost there, almost there.” Jean patted his head like she was comforting a lonely puppy.
Next door, Maggie closed her door and called Kate.
“Kate, can you come over tonight? Bring Yelena. And a cake.”
“What’s the occasion?”
Maggie thought about it.
“Um... it’s a goodbye day.”
There was a short silence on the other end. Kate’s voice went soft.
“...Okay. We’ll be there at seven.”
Kate hung up and thought, Last day of summer. What a thoughtful kid.
She went to the bakery, ordered a cake, and had them write on it: Maggie, we’ll miss you!
At seven, Kate walked in carrying the cake, with Yelena behind her holding a giant bag of chips.
There was already a big sheet of paper taped to the living room wall, with words Maggie had spent all afternoon drawing: Aunt Jean, you will live forever in our hearts.
Kate looked at the wall, then at the cake in her hands.
“Oh, we made a sign too...” She looked again. “...Is that right?”
Jean and Peter came out of the bedroom just then.
Yelena ripped open the chips. “So who is dying?”
“Yelena!”
“I did not write it.” Yelena pointed at the wall. “She did.”
Everyone looked at Maggie.
Maggie stood in the middle of the living room holding her rabbit. She looked like she’d prepared a lot to say and was squeezing it out a little at a time.
“You don’t have to pretend anymore, Aunt Jean.”
“Pretend what?”
“I already know. You said it was too early. You said to wait for me to ask.” Maggie took a deep breath. “I’m asking now.”
Jean crouched down and looked at her. “Okay. Ask.”
“How long do you have?”
Jean froze. She looked back at Peter.
Peter, completely blindsided, answered on reflex, and with total honesty:
“...About eight months?”
Kate gasped. “Eight months?!”
Yelena nodded. “That is quite long.”
Maggie bit her lip, trying hard not to cry. “After summer’s over, can I still come see you?”
Jean looked at her, and something in her head finally clicked into place.
“Maggie,” she said slowly, “do you think I’m—“
Thunk.
Someone knocked.
Then the door fell over.
Jessica stood in the doorway, fist still raised, a giant suitcase behind her.
She looked down at the door on the floor.
“...I knocked.”
“Weren’t you supposed to get here at nine?” Peter said.
“Flight was early.” Jessica stepped over the door and came in. She saw the sign on the wall. She saw the cake in Kate’s hands. She saw Jean crouched on the floor with red-rimmed eyes, and Maggie standing in front of her with eyes even redder. And, of course, Peter at a total loss and Yelena enjoying the show.
“What did I miss?”
Nobody answered.
Matt came in behind her, took two steps, and stopped. He tilted his head and thought for a moment.
“Can someone tell me,” he said, “why there are eight heartbeats in here?”
“There are only seven of us,” Yelena said.
“I know.”
“That’s noise,” Maggie said, her voice still a little hoarse. “In Aunt Jean’s heartbeat.”
Matt crouched down toward his daughter.
“It’s not noise. Listen again. Is it faster than all the other heartbeats?”
Maggie closed her eyes.
“...Yeah.”
“Does it sound like a really tiny person running?”
Maggie listened a little longer.
“Yeah.”
“When you were in your mom’s belly,” Matt said, “that’s how you ran too.”
Maggie opened her eyes and looked at Jean.
“...A baby?”
Jean smiled, and the tears finally spilled over. “A baby.”
Kate’s legs gave out and she sat down on the couch. “So eight months is—“
“The due date,” Peter said.
“So nobody is dying?” Yelena asked.
“No!”
Yelena looked at the chips in her hand, a little disappointed. “Then I brought all of these for nothing.”
“Then why didn’t you just tell me?” Maggie asked.
Peter picked up the stack of cards from the counter. “We were going to tell you tonight. I wrote—“
Jessica pulled the cards out of his hand, flipped to the first one, and read it out in a completely flat voice:
“‘Maggie, do you know what a family is?’”
She looked up at Peter.
“Which draft?”
“...The fourth.”
Jessica set the cards down on the shoe cabinet.
“More effort than Matt,” she said. “He only wrote one draft when he proposed.”
“Your husband is a really good lawyer.” Matt put an arm around Jessica and kissed her hair. “One draft was enough.”
Maggie pressed her ear to Jean’s belly and listened for a long time. Then she looked up.
“How did it get there?”
Peter looked at Jean. Jean looked at Peter.
Jessica sat down on the couch and crossed her legs. “Go on. I want to hear this too.”
Maggie waited, saw that nobody was answering, and decided to figure it out herself.
“Was it when I went to Kate’s? The time you guys fought?”
“Fought?” Yelena said. “Oh, that time.”
“Yelena!!” said Kate.
Jessica slowly turned her head and looked at Peter.
“...I changed my mind,” she said. “I don’t want to hear it.”
Matt coughed a few times. It was a very consistent cough.
Jean bent down to pick up the cards that had fallen on the floor. The one at the bottom was different from the others.
Jean,
The parenting books say to explain “family” in words a kid can understand.
I tried a bunch of times, and I couldn’t get it right.
Because my answer is too simple:
Home is waking up every morning with you next to me.
And now there’s going to be one more.
I don’t know how to be a dad yet, but I know who I want to learn with.
Love you.
—Peter
P.S. I can turn my socks right side out now.
She finished reading and looked up at Peter.
Peter’s ears went red. “That one... that one wasn’t for Maggie.”
“Obviously.”
“I was going to—“
The rest of the sentence got lost in a kiss.
Seriously, do these two ever stop kissing?!
Kate whistled. Maggie covered her rabbit’s eyes.
Jessica watched them with no expression at all.
“We flew nine hours to come home,” she said, “for this?”
“At least you get to see it.” Matt smiled.
At ten, Kate and Yelena left with the rest of the cake.
The door was still lying on the floor.
Jessica looked at it and rolled up her sleeves. “Where’s the toolbox?”
“Storage room,” Peter said. He was curled up on the couch with Jean’s head in his lap, massaging her temples with one hand and feeding her grapes with the other.
“You’re not going to help?”
“The doctor said she needs rest.”
“And you?”
“I’m helping her rest.”
“It’s your door.”
“And who knocked it down?”
Jessica, outplayed, grabbed Matt by the arm and dragged him into the storage room. The door shut very loudly.
Finding the toolbox took forty minutes.
On the couch, Peter and Jean exchanged a look and sighed. Peter put down the grapes and waved Maggie over for a story.
The door wasn’t fixed until one in the morning.
In the bedroom, the lights were off. Jean’s head rested on Peter’s arm.
“That card,” she said. “When did you write it?”
“With the first draft,” Peter said. “I rewrote Maggie’s three times after that, but that one never changed.”
“What about the P.S.?”
“...The P.S. I added yesterday.”
Jean moved closer into his arms. “I love you too.”
Peter rested his chin on the top of her head and glanced at the clock on the nightstand.
“It’s past midnight,” he said quietly. “Twenty-nine more days.”
“Counting won’t make it go faster.”
“Then I’ll tell a story. That’ll make the time go faster.” Peter scooted down and brought his face close to her belly. “Once upon a time, there was a spider—“
Jean laughed and ran her fingers through his hair.
Maggie’s voice came from next door. “Don’t close the door. I want to listen to the baby.”
Jean raised a hand to nudge the door open a crack with her telekinesis. The door wobbled, then banged against the wall.
“...Still recovering.” Jean stuck out her tongue.
In the living room, Matt had a pillow pressed over his face.
“I can hear it too.”
“Deal with it,” Jessica said.
“Parker’s telling Jean’s belly a bedtime story. Ten minutes in, and the spider still hasn’t left the house.”
“We spent two months in Europe with noise every single night, and I never heard you complain.”
Matt moved the pillow aside a little and smiled. “We had better things to do back then.”
Jessica glared at him, then remembered that glaring had absolutely no effect on Matt.
She got up, went to Maggie’s room, grabbed a pair of headphones, and put them on his head. Then she pushed the left earcup up, so that ear faced Maggie’s room.
“Scoot over.”
“This couch doesn’t fit two people.”
“The bed at that hotel in Vienna was narrower. You didn’t complain.”
Matt scooted over. Jessica squeezed in and lay down with her back to him. His arm settled over her waist.
“Sleep.”
“Mm.”
A little while later.
“Jessica.”
“I said sleep. Are you deaf?” Jessica turned around and kissed him.
August 31.
Aunt Jean isn’t sick. She has a baby in her belly. Eight more months.
I listened for a long time. It runs really fast.
Mom knocked today. The door broke anyway.
Mom and Dad went to the storage room to find the toolbox, and it took a really long time. I think they were fighting in there too, because when they came out, Dad’s buttons were done up wrong. I couldn’t tell who won.
Tomorrow I’m going home with Mom and Dad.
I asked Aunt Jean if I can still come back. Aunt Jean said there will always be a room for me here. Uncle Peter said the baby gets his workshop. His heart sounded a little sad when he said it.
When Mom gave me this notebook, she said if there’s stuff you don’t want to tell people, try telling the paper.
This summer, I told the paper a lot.
Next time, I want to just tell them.
The End