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MJ's hair is a bundle of curls. Out of her hair band it is a wild lion's mane of brown, tickling the bridge of her nose and framing her face.
Her fingers trail nonsensical patterns in the sheen of mist colouring the window, as she lazily presses herself to the door.
"We should've stayed in the city," Peter murmurs, staring out the spot he has wiped clean with the sleeve of his sweater.
Heavy rain pelts against tarred over roads, that their swift-moving car swallows beneath steady wheels, sings its chaotic-melodic song.
Orange trees, turned deep brown by thick droplets, rise and stretch into the far distance.
His chin rests in the cup of his hand. A soft sigh escapes him from the well of his lungs.
"Did I get stuck with the three grumpiest teenagers in the world, or did I hit the jackpot?" May asks, as cheerful as when they had packed the car and set off that morning. "Come on, duckies, turn those frowns upside down."
Absently, Ned clicks his phone on and off— the pale yellow background lighting his lap for the space of seconds before flashing away.
"No offense, Miss Parker," MJ straightens in the front seat and says, "But when you said we'd be camping out for the week, I expected... not to drown."
May lets out a gentle laugh, not a hint of teasing or malice in the sound. "It's not camping," she says, tapping her fingers against the curve of the steering wheel. "It's a cabin in the woods. It's cabinning."
"And no offense from me, Miss Parker," Ned chimes in, leaning into the front of the car, "But I watched that movie, and I know what to expect."
Under her breath, a soft tsk! follows the playful roll of her eyes, the sweet shake of her head.
The sign all three of them have taken to mean that she is officially exhausted by their behaviour.
May fiddles with the radio's dial. A muted smile blossoms on her lips at the rum-and-whiskey voice that fills the confines of the small car.
"Sinatra." Her voice is a storm of wistfulness, it dances on the edge of her every word. "Nothing is better than Sinatra, especially during the rain. Just wait 'til we get to the cabin. We'll light a fire in the fireplace, pour a glass of wine— Well, not wine for you. Maybe hot chocolate."
For a moment their laughs— MJ's dry chuckle, May and Ned's feathery guffaws, Peter's delicate giggle— are a choral which drowns out the music.
MJ pulls her knees to her chest. She swallows a yawn. "Whose cabin is it, anyway?"
"My Uncle Ben's," Peter explains quickly, moving around in his seat. He sometimes forgets that MJ hasn't been around them as much as she is now, forgets that she hasn't driven this drive a hundred different times with him and Ned and the rest of Peter's family. "He's been in Europe for about a year now. The three of us used to go out to the cabin every few months... but we haven't been there since he's been gone."
A soft silence falls over the car. MJ fiddles with the strap of her seat-belt, Ned with his cellphone, Peter with the book he stuffed in the bottom of his bag.
"It's where we got married." May breaks quietly. "Long before it was considered legal."
✴️
He dozes off somewhere between a large green welcoming sign and a restaurant with apple-styled wind chimes hanging from the porch ceiling.
"They're so cute when they're sleeping." Half-asleep, the hushed words reach Peter as if through a wall of fog and smoke.
Somewhere between the green welcoming sign and that strange restaurant, MJ had tumbled into the cramped back of the car. It is where she lies now.
She falls against Peter, squashes him comfortably in the warmth between her and Ned's bodies.
An elbow juts out and pokes Peter in the side, as if the talking from outside had disturbed her.
"That's the only time they're cute anymore."
Peter mumbles under his breath, something unintelligible and barely audible. He snuggles in closer to Ned, buries his head into the crook of the other boy's neck and tickles at his skin.
"Who's that?" The voice breaks through Peter's sleeping mind, the question not directed at him but working to just rouse him all the same.
"MJ. Peter and Ned's friend from school." His Aunt May's voice. "You're going to love her."
The moving of bags, May and Ben's easy chatter, the doors opening and closing— it stirs the three teenagers from the depths of their sleep.
The sudden slam of the trunk falling shut startles them wide awake.
"We're here...?" MJ mumbles. Disoriented, she stares out the window and wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand.
Peter nods, almost as disoriented. "Yeah."
Stumbling from the car, damp leaves crackle under their matching heavy shoes.
Autumn surrounds them. Fire on the trees, a muted companion to the sky as the first fingers of sunset began to take ahold. The rain, clear for the moment, has left the ground speckled with raindrops and dressed in a plethora of puddles.
It is tempting, the want that Peter has to throw off his shoes and run around carelessly the yard.
"This place is still so awesome." Ned runs the sleep out of his eyes and says. That same awe Peter always feels when he looks at the forest that grows around them and is the cabin's backyard, when he looks at the cabin itself, is without shame in Ned's speech.
MJ toes at a crack in the pavement. "It's not bad, I guess."
The front door creaks open. Ominously, like the creaking open of a door in a horror film.
A familiar figure, a familiar set of brown eyes, a familiar face and a familiar smile.
"Uncle Ben!" Peter yells excitedly.
He jumps in place, bounces on the tips of his toes, before bounding across the short distance and up the low flight of stairs. In a flash he is standing in front of Ben, his arms thrown around his uncle's neck.
His tongue is a knot, his words too easily tripped upon. "You came back— Aunt May didn't say you were coming back— You still have another year in Switzerland—"
Twelve months can change a person a lot, Peter thinks. Leave them very torturously unrecognizable.
The shoulder length hair that Ben had taken pride in is now a careful mess of shorn sides and short brown curls. Wrinkles gather around his mouth and line his forehead.
"I missed you both too much," Ben says. He holds Peter at an arms length, takes him in as if he is studying him for anything that could have changed in the months passed.
When Ben smiles, the wrinkles around his eyes crinkle into a community of folds, and Peter instantly feels like he can breathe again. He remembers being younger, remembers that game he would play to get his Uncle Ben to smile or laugh, just for a moment to run a finger over the crow's feet embedded in his skin.
Seeing it now, settles Peter with a sense of relief.
Ben pulls Peter in for another hug and Peter lets him. "We missed you, too, Uncle Ben." Peter's words are muffled by the round of the shoulder his face is pressed into. "Are you... Are you staying this time? For good?"
"Yeah, kiddo, for good," Ben assures Peter softly.
Pulling out of the embrace, an arm slings over Peter's shoulder and keeping Peter to his side, Ben lowers his voice conspiratorially. He waves at Peter and MJ, standing awkwardly and close together at the end of the driver. "My lovely May tells me you're in a bit of a relationship," Ben teases. "Care to explain."
He nudges Peter gently. Barks out a laugh at the sound of Peter's ripped groan.