Chapter Text
There's an almost brutal difference between the little boy who came to live with her and the one standing in front of her who is trying negotiate his way out of going to urgent care.
“Your wrist is broken.”
“It's not,” Peter says, wincing when he tries to lift up the half-gallon of milk from the fridge. “Dammit!”
“We're going. Get out of the suit and into something normal. You need to see someone.”
Peter breathes, eyes screwed shut before he opens them and nods, limping into his bedroom to change.
To her credit, May waits until the door is shut before she dry heaves into the sink.
She isn't mad that he didn't tell her. It's...a secret to end all secrets, sort of. And she can understand why he wouldn't. She was fifteen once, too. What she's mad about is sort of beyond the both of them. She's mad at this culture of heroes, she's mad at whatever seems to keep bringing them back –
She's mad at Tony Stark, and that's the one part that's really hard to wrap her brain around. Tony Stark was sitting in her living room, and she was...charmed, of course. She was enraptured and amazing and wowed and starstruck – and then her nephew was gone in a whirlwind and there was something in Berlin and every time she thinks that she watched that happen and Peter was there –
“May?”
She's breathing in shallow gasps into the metal basin of the sink, and she feels Peter's hand – gentle, careful, soft, sweet – on her shoulder. “Hey, I promise it's just a sprain.”
May turns to him, in his jeans and t-shirt, the ice pack on his wrist. She nods. “Alright. I'll wrap it and get you some Tylenol. You want pancakes?”
“Sure.” He pauses. “I...heal a little faster, you know.”
“I didn't know.”
“Well, yeah, I mean–”
“Maybe I'll just order takeout.”
He swallows. “Okay.”
May –
This is going to sound crazy, I know it. But I've left a few clues here. It's hard to say out loud, and honestly, I never wanted to put you and Ben in this position, but – there's something I need you to know, and you're both clever enough to solve this one. I don't want anyone besides the two of you to figure it out, so if you do, or if you decide not to follow up on it, just burn this stuff, okay?
And, whatever you do, don't tell Peter.
I love you. I miss you, wherever I am.
Mary
What Mary Parker had left behind had confused May for a while. It'd taken her some time to really look at it, and back then, she and Ben were just trying to make ends meet, and trying to make sure no one took Peter away. It was all touch and go until he was maybe eight or nine, and Ben finally finished law school, and they could actually make a living.
There were just a few clues – Wednesday, 8 PM, Saratoga Room. A room key, a cocktail napkin with a phone number scrawled across it, a pamphlet for a conference, one where Mary had given a keynote when she and Ben's brother Richard were working on some crazy project or another.
On that Wednesday of the conference, at 8 PM, Tony Stark had given a keynote speech of his own for the electrical engineering portion of the conference.
May hadn't really quite understood what it meant at the time. Not until the last part of it fell into the floor as she was leafing through it all again, probably a year before Ben died.
If Peter needs anything, find his father.
May held the conference pamphlet and the note in her hands, looked between the two, and felt...lost.
Stark moves the Avengers upstate. It's not a long drive, and she can do it this weekend, while Peter is out of town with the decathlon team til Sunday night. So she packs some snacks, she packs all of Mary's clues, and she starts driving. When she finally get there, she has to haggle with a guard for twenty minutes before he agrees to call Stark and ask if he happens to know a May Parker. Thirty seconds later, she's being escorted into the building.
It's another thirty minutes before Tony shows up, after she's been fed and watered, essentially. He's followed by a tall woman in heels and a business casual black dress who is having a conversation on the phone in broken French. May stands abruptly to meet them.
“Aunt May, don't get so formal on us.”
“Don't call her aunt,” the woman says, settling onto a sofa. May recognizes Pepper Potts now – she was the woman Stark proposed to at the press conference a few months back, before May found out about Peter.
“Can you believe she's Parker's aunt?”
“Tony.”
“What? I'm assuming she gets it all the time.” He looks at her. “I'm also assuming you know about Peter, if you're all the way up here.”
“Tony.”
“It's been a few months,” May says. She twists her fingers in her lap. “I...I don't know why I came all the way up here. I guess I could have just...asked Peter for your number.”
“But Peter doesn't know you're here,” Tony says.
“No. I...this was my decision. There's something I need to discuss with you. It's sensitive, and I'm not sure you're fiance should really...be here.” She looks apologetically at Pepper.
“She can be here.”
May sighs. “Well. It's your choice, I guess.” She clears her throat. “You know, I...thought about coming here and just slapping you. I thought I might be bold enough to do it. You took my nephew to Berlin, you put him in an incredibly dangerous situation, you gave him that suit–” And now the anger is coming back, full bloom, and she feels her cheeks grow hot and her hands start to shake. “He was there, he was on that ferry, he was on that beach when your plane crashed.” May looks up. “I can't believe that every single part of this comes back to you, and I don't have the guts to lay a single hand on you.”
“One free slap,” Tony offers sheepishly. To his credit, he looks...ashamed. “I knew it wasn't the best choice, but I needed your nephew, and he...rose to the challenge.”
“Of course he did,” May snaps. “He's a damn Parker. They're always getting themselves in over their heads and doing things everyone else says they shouldn't do.” Pepper hands her a tissue. “Sorry. Thank you.”
“So why are you here?” Tony asks. “You didn't drive up from Queens just to give me a piece or you mind, or whatever.” He leans forward. “What's up, May?”
She looks at him. “I know you know who Peter's parents are.”
Tony's expression falters for a moment before he nods. “I do. Brilliant scientists. We're worse off in the world without them.”
“We are. For a lot of reasons.” She reaches into her purse and pulls out the gallon ziploc where she'd shoved all of Mary's clues. “Do you remember Mary most of all?” She pulls out a photo. Peter's almost the spitting image of her, save a few odd traits here and there. “She gave a key note, almost sixteen years ago, at a conference in Pennsylvania.” May pulls out the napkin. “I think she met you there.”
Across from her on the couch, Potts visibly stiffens, and May wonders at which point in the conversation she expected this to happen. There's no way she's the first one to come here, to try and tell Tony Stark in front of the woman he's engaged to that her nephew is probably Tony's –
“Green dress, lemondrop martini,” Tony says quietly. “Mary Fitzgerald was a brilliant geneticist. I listened to her speech.” He looks at May. “Why are you here?”
“She told me that if Peter needed something, I should find you. I suppose I'm sort of doing things in reverse, but...” She closes her eyes. “I think Peter might be your son.”
Pepper reaches for the cocktail napkin. “What makes you certain?”
“Nothing,” May confesses. “I said think. I can't be sure. I only...Peter was born nine months after this conference. Why would Mary ask me to find you, just for Peter's sake? She never mentioned you to us, she never said anything about you, that she even knew you. I can't imagine she'd make this up, she was honest, she was decent.”
“I don't doubt that,” Tony says quietly. “But this isn't something I can just...take at face value.”
“Then test it.” May gathers her things. “I apologize for disrupting your day, and if I made you uncomfortable,” she says, looking at Pepper. “But Peter's going through a lot right now. He's...he's been stronger than I ever asked him to be, especially after we lost Ben. I don't think he ever quite processed it. And I think he's...well he really admires you, Mr. Stark.”
“I asked him not to.”
May laughs. “Is Peter your first teenager?”
“Point taken.”
She shakes her head. “You shouldn't sell yourself too short, Mr. Stark. I'm sure there's something to admire underneath all that armor.”