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The first day Peter is lost in space with Tony and a small posse of evil aliens, May tries not to worry. He's been doing okay being Spiderman and keeping his grades up, and the new suit plus freaky spider powers mean injuries are kept to a minimum. Also, fun fact - May was also a rebellious teenager once, and many of her wildest adventures took place in the eighties with a young Tony Stark, who at the time, had a lot of fast cars and no one to show them off to. One could say that getting into trouble with Tony is almost a genetic predisposition. It also means that, even though it's probably stupid, May trusts Tony. Tony's a good guy beneath all the bullshit, and Peter's so clearly in want of a father figure right now.
So while May would of course prefer Peter that return to his days of band and quiz team, if he's determined to fight crime, she's glad it's with Tony looking over his shoulder. Tony has been to space on the back of a nuclear missile. He's been tortured by insurgents in the desert. And each time, Tony came back fine. Therefore, May clings to her belief that it's okay if Peter misses their monthly Taco Tuesday dinner this time, because Tony is going to bring Peter back, whole and healthy.
The first two mornings Peter is gone, she calls the school to tell them Peter has the flu. On the third day, May is in a staff meeting, doing her HR lady thing and leading a presentation on this year's benefits program (spoiler: your insurance will cost more and we're giving you less). She has the unwelcome job of telling a young woman that yes, if she takes more than 12 weeks of maternity leave, her job is no longer protected by federal law and she might be let go.
May is trying not to look away from the expression of betrayal in her eyes when the woman just...goes up in smoke. Except it's not quite smoke. It's a substance reminiscent of that soft, powdery ash at the bottom of a charcoal grill once the last embers have died away. It floats away at the slightest suggestion, getting lost in everyone's hair and clinging to their clothes. May reflexively flinches away from what used to be the mailroom clerk as pieces of him go floating by, too.
Jonetta from accounting reaches out toward the now-empty seat next to her, like she's expecting its former occupant to reappear at any moment. For a few seconds, the room is utterly silent. The world holds its breath.
"Dan?" Jonetta asks, her voice wavery and small.
Then the screaming starts.
Worrying is now May's full-time job. It's been impossible to get any information out of the school, since all the senior administrative staff have vanished as well. She joins a Facebook group started by some of the remaining parents to post updates on whether any of their children have been seen. There haven't been any sightings since it was created, but that hasn't stopped everyone from posting their preferred conspiracy theory of the day. Between that and the ongoing fights between the parents who just lost one child and those who lost all of them, it puts May on edge even more than she already is. She leaves the group when Jason's dad tells her she's not a real mother anyway, then goes full scorched earth and just blocks them all.
May overturns the hall closet looking for the emergency pack of cigarettes she is positive were stashed in there once upon a time. It turns out she forgot that she smoked them all when Ben died. She puts a credit card and a couple twenties in her pocket, shoves her feet into a pair of scuffed sneakers, and sets off for the nearest corner store. The wind keeps blowing'her hair into her face, and there's a sharp bite to the air announcing the oncoming winter. The streets are eerily quiet. She hunches her shoulders and walks faster.
The usual musty smell of the place is more pronounced than usual, and the odor of Raid, unwashed beverage coolers and 20 years of dust sits heavy in her nose. CNN is still playing on the little TV mounted to the wall above the register. No one knows what happened, but everyone in the government is "looking into it".
The whole place is empty save for a diminutive woman methodically raiding one of the fridges. She's making careful towers of Chobani and frozen dinners, then loading them into one of those sturdy plastic bags people always have on the Chinatown buses.
"Get the passion fruit one," May suggests. "It's the best."
The woman's mouth twists into a sour expression. "My auntie loves them, but it gives her the runs so we don't keep them around. But you know what? Fuck it. Maybe if she has the runs, they won't take her too if they come back."
May's heart beats painfully in her chest. Why should she get to keep someone when May has no one? She offers up a tight-lipped smile, the best she can do, then lets herself behind the counter to commandeer a carton of Virginia Slims. She's about to grab a king size Twix, too, but a bizarroland wave of guilt washes over her. She likes the owner. He has two teenage daughters, one of which was the object of Peter's affection for a good six months when he was twelve. She should only take what she needs - and yes, she really fucking needs those cigarettes.
May takes the service stairs up to the roof of her building that night and lights up with shaking hands. Once it's burned down to nothing more than the filter and a glowing orange tip, she stubs it out and smokes three more in quick succession. Her throat feels like it's been rubbed down with sandpaper; she really should find some other kind of coping mechanism.
May keeps her eyes trained on the skyline the whole time she's up there, watching for any signs of Peter. She calls Tony three times and winds up leaving three voicemails. When she heads to bed that night, May sleeps beneath every quilt in the apartment so she can leave all the windows open. Peter likes coming in the windows.
Sal Delmonico next door had arthritis in his back and couldn't get around too easily. May has the keys to his place so she can check in on him from time to time. This time when she steps over the threshold, she sees a jar of Smucker's grape jelly laying open on the floor, a butter knife next to it in a mess of congealed purple goo. The TV is blaring, and May freezes when she sees that it's Tony onscreen, giving a live interview from his offices in Manhattan. Explaining the whole Thanos thing. He says nothing about Peter in particular, and hesitates to talk about the Avengers at all. Not that the interviewer really cares all that much about one kid in a spider suit when half the population has just vanished without a trace.
May hopes that wherever Sal is, he's not in pain anymore. She says a quick prayer for his eternal soul, then takes his car keys from their spot by the phone. She needs to get to Tony so he can tell her where Peter is, and there's no fucking way she's getting on the subway in all this mess.
Sal's got a big old boat of a Buick that he keeps parked around the corner. It has a full tank of gas. May puts a switchblade in her pocket and stuffs a bookbag with cash, a bottle of water, and a couple stale protein bars Peter left in the back of a cupboard. She puts the key in the ignition and sets off toward Manhattan, making sure to leave her own apartment unlocked in case Peter comes home. There's a good chance her stuff will get looted, but what does it matter anymore?
Traffic is a shitshow the whole way there. Everyone in New York is doing the same thing she is, trying to find their lost loved ones. The streets are littered with wrecked vehicles that the city is slowly working to clear away, which means an hour's worth of detours. The air smells smokey and sour, just one of the many fun surprises you get when every factory over the river in New Jersey instantaneously loses half of its staff. Every shop window bears hastily-printed posters of the missing. Have you seen Faye, Erhu, or Deepa? Marisol and Gary, have they been here lately? Do you think they'll come home soon?
There's a conspicuous lack of security at the Stark Industries office tower that day. The theatre-sized digital screen behind the front desk sits silent and dark. A receptionist is on the phone; he puts up a hand in a silent request to May that she wait a second. May paces back and forth on the shiny floor. Tony has to know where Peter is, and he's going to tell her if she has to beat it out of him.
"No, Stark Industries technology is not responsible for the disappearances, " the receptionist says into the receiver. "No, Mr. Stark would not like to make a comment, there's a statement on our Facebook page." The tone of his voice suggests he's had this conversation multiple times. His right arm is in a cast, and there's a livid bruise on his cheekbone. His gaze wanders around the room, never focusing on anything. May gets the feeling that he might disappear at any moment, too.
May grows impatient and tries an elevator, but the buttons are apparently locked to anyone without a keycard. She just barely holds back from kicking the door. Hospitals are operating at maximum capacity, and the last thing May wants is to be stuck in the ER for 18 hours with a broken foot.
She pulls out her phone to text Tony.
In the lobby of your midtown office. I know you're here I saw u on TV so come the fuck down or I'm coming up. Don't try me
The receptionist wraps up his first call, then swears under his breath and scrambles to pick up a line blinking bright red. He stumbles over a few yeses before hanging up.
"Mr. Stark is waiting for you," he says.
"What floor?" May asks.
"Oh - don't worry about that. The system will take you where you need to go."
May is creeped out by that, just a little, although it's a very Tony kind of move. The elevator comes relatively quickly, and just as May steps inside there's someone else stepping off off the elevator adjacent. When May turns around, she catches sight of a leggy redhead in violent black stilettos and a white suit looking back at her. May recognizes her as Chief Executive Fiancée --her face was on the cover of People magazine a few months back. May's forgotten her name, though. She thinks it was some kind of spice thing. Ginger, or Rosemary perhaps. The woman startles for a moment, but when she looks like she's about to try and say something, May just jabs at the button to close the doors. A frown flashes across her face. May should feel guilty, but she's not in the mood to talk.
The elevator doors slide black to reveal not the office that May expected, but a floor whose purpose is clearly residential. Dishes from at least three meals sit on a coffee table, crusted over and untouched. A gigantic TV is on but muted; the screen split to show six different stations with captions running beneath. They're not saying anything that May hasn't already figured out, which is that no one has any idea what the fuck should be done to fix any of this.
Tony himself is camped out on a leather sectional. The authoritative figure he cut during the interview has disappeared, replaced by an exhausted-looking shell of his usual self clad in jeans with frayed hems and a white t-shirt. A splotchy coffee stain sits right over the glow of the blue thing attached to his chest; it supposedly houses the Iron Man suit. May learned that particular factoid from TMZ. He's clicking away on a laptop and talking on the phone to someone, but stumbles to his feet as May approaches.
"I gotta call you back." He abruptly hangs up on whomever he was talking to and tosses the phone away without looking. "May," Tony says, with feeling. Now that she's closer, she can see that he hasn't shaved in a while. His cheeks are peppered by stubble. Tony digs his fingers into the back of the couch, the leather creaking beneath his grip.
"Where's Peter?" May spins around in a circle. The apartment is pretty sparse by billionaire standards. There's a ton of space but not much else, so it reminds her of an oversized hotel room. She gets the impression that Tony and his fiancée don't stay here often. Other than the living area, there's a small kitchen with a dining table big enough to seat six, and an open door leading to a bedroom. The entire apartment is visible from the living area, and yet, no sign of Peter. "Come on, Tony. Don't be cute."
Tony clears his throat, and that's when May realizes he's visibly trying to blink back tears, something she hasn't seen since Tony's Dad missed his college graduation. May and Rhodey were there, and so was Tony's mother, but they all knew the most important person didn't bother to show.
"I wanted to tell you in person, but the fucking government has me on house arrest."
"Tell me what?" May crosses her arms over her chest."Did he get hurt? Is there a private hospital floor somewhere that I missed?"
Tony inhales wetly and shakes his head. "He was so brave, May. He saved all our asses. More than once. Fought harder than anyone. But it, ah…." his mouth works open and shut. "It took him. I'm so, so sorry, you have no idea how much I--"
The few strands of hope May was holding onto snap. She gives up on standing upright and has to brace herself on her knees. Soon even that takes too much effort, and she allows herself to crumple to the floor. Her stomach rolls, cold and oily. It's hard to breathe. Tony's still talking, but everything is muffled, like her brain has lost the ability to process sound. "You told me you'd take care of him. He was a little boy, Tony, he was my little boy. I trusted you to keep him safe."
Tony follows her to the floor and places a hand on her back, then goes ahead and puts an arm around her shoulders, tucking her in close. May wants to push him away, to put her hands around his throat until that stupid smug face of his goes cold and slack, but she already feels so very alone in the world. So instead she leans into the shelter and warmth offered by his body. And for the first time since Peter missed dinner last Tuesday, May breaks down and cries.