Chapter Text
"Bye May! I’m heading to school, I love you” Peter calls out, grabbing an apple as he leaves his small two-bedroom apartment in Queens. It’s small, but it’s home and it’s cozy, the place he’s called home since the age of four.
"Bye Peter, I love you too" Aunt May calls out as the door swings closed.
Peter makes the train on time and takes a seat, putting his earphones on pulling out his chemistry textbook to cram in just a little more study before the test this afternoon. Peters train pulls up at his stop, waving a quick thanks to the driver, he runs down to the stairs towards school, ready to start his day.
"Peter!" someone calls out as soon as Peter walks through the school doors.
"Ned!" Peter greets his best friend doing their handshake.
"Want to come over after school? I finally saved up enough money to get the Kessel Run Millennium Falcon Lego set! you can probably even sleep over because it’s Friday" Ned says excitedly.
"I’m sorry Ned, Mr Stark wants me to go over and work on some stuff with him," Peter says apologetically. "I'll ask May about next weekend okay?" he quickly adds, as he sees Ned's face fall with disappointment.
It's not like he doesn't want to hang out with Ned. It's just, he doesn't a lot of time these days. School, homework, decathlon, his “internship” *cough Spider-Man cough* as well as helping Tony Stark with things here and there. Peter barely has time to get the 4 hours sleep he gets (most nights).
"Yes!" Ned yells grinning again, Peter grins back as they make their way to the first class of the day.
"Hey, happy!" Peter greets the ironically named driver as he gets into the car. "Hi," Happy says sounding bored as he pulls off the curb, driving towards the Avengers tower. (After the whole plane crash incident Tony decided not to sell the tower, claiming it to be too much effort. Happy, however, taunts Peter "Stark wanted to keep an eye on you, the farther away Tony is the harder it will be to keep you out of trouble").
"We did this awesome experiment today in chemistry Happy!" Peter tells Happy excitedly before he starts rambling about the experiment they did in class.
"That’s great kid," Happy says half-heartedly, as he puts up the screen divider in the car, separating the two, preventing further conversation.
Peter gets out his physics book, taking advantage of the half-hour drive to get a head start on his homework.
“Thanks a bunch, Happy,” Peter says, grabbing his bag and getting out the car.
"Welcome back Peter" Friday greets as he enters.
"Hi Friday, how are you today?"
"I am functioning well today Peter, how are you?".
"I'm Great thanks for asking" he replies making his way to the workshop.
"Hey Mr Stark" Peter calls, putting his bag into the corner of the room. "Hey, kid" Tony greets "ready to get started?". Peter grins nodding "hell yes! so ready!", he answers, bouncing over to Tony. "Language" Tony scolds jokingly, grinning at Peters confused face "It's an inside joke". "Really, can I know, please Mr Stark!" Peter begs, rocking back and forth on his heels. "Sorry kid, maybe if you said yes to being an Avenger, you could know the secrets" Tony teases, smugly. "But, it….it was a test" Peter replied frowning. "I know, just messing with you kid you are way too easy to rile up" Tony remarks, ruffling his hair.
"I'm not easy to rile up, you're easy to rile up" Peter mutters, under his breath as he follows Tony.
Peter is ready and raring to continue working on his web-shooter cartridges, he and Tony are going to see if they could design them hold more web fluid. The two work in silence, however, it's soon interrupted by Peters' stomach growling loudly.
"Sorry" he quickly apologizes, as heat rushes to his face in embarrassment.
Since the Spider bite, he is ALWAYS hungry, even after he has eaten a meal, it doesn’t take long until he starts feeling a slight pang of hunger. Peter hates it, most of the time can just ignore it but sometimes, after a particularly busy night of patrol or skipping breakfast because they simply don't have of food at home, Peter is so hungry, he can barely concentrate.
"I should probably get going," Peter says, checking the time seeing that it was 6 pm.
"May is going to be home for dinner tonight and we are going to eat together" he explains, grabbing his bag.
"Have a nice weekend Mr Stark" Peter calls over his shoulder, waving goodbye.
"See you Peter" his mentor replies, not looking up from his workbench.
"I'm home!" Peter shouts as he walks through the door.
"Hi honey," Aunt May says, coming out from the kitchen looking a little dishevelled.
He walks over, greeting her with a big hug. Aunt Mays hugs are the best, they are warm, comforting and she always hugs you like she hasn't seen you in years.
"Need a hand?" Peter asks, walking over the stovetop to take the lid off the boiling over pasta.
"No, no is okay, you've been at school and your internship today. sit and rest" She says, kissing the top of Peter's head.
"You had work today" he answers back, stirring the pasta sauce.
"I love you," she says, bringing him in for another infamous hug.
"I love you too May" he answers pressing his face into her shoulder.
"Whoops," she says, pulling back as the smoke detector goes off.
She starts fanning the screaming alarm with a tea towel until it shuts up. Peter puts the living room fan on, opening up the kitchen window as May pulls out burnt garlic bread from the oven, smiling at Peter sheepishly.
"I like it crispy" he replies, shrugging in an attempt to make her feel better, as she starts scraping off the burnt bits into the bin, frustrated.
May and Peter both know that she's not the best cook in the world, but neither of them ever says anything. May chooses not to say anything because she's a little embarrassed but Peter, he doesn't say anything because she always puts so much effort into making home-cooked meals, that makes them special, burnt or not.
Yes, sometimes the food is a little mismatched, but the food is food. The fact of it being overcooked or undercooked doesn't bother him. Mostly thanks to his increase in appetite. When cooking they try and use everything in the house before they go grocery shopping. Money is tight, bills don't pay themselves and food is expensive. They sit down at the kitchen table to eat their spaghetti, usually, Peter concentrates on pacing himself when he eats but he has been none stop all day.
"Someone's hungry," May says, smiling at Peter as he takes his last mouthful.
"Yeah I had a busy day, I guess it caught up with me, sorry May" Peter apologizes, laughing.
"Are you still hungry? you can have some of mine, I'm getting pretty full" May lies.
"Nah, I'm stuffed" Peter lies back, smiling as she looks at him before slowly nodding, continuing to tell him about her day.
Peter tells her what he did in school in return, laughing hard when he tells her how he made Ned laugh so hard at lunchtime, milk shot out his nose. Peter also asked May about going over Ned's next weekend which she agreed to. They sat and talked for a few hours, talking for another hour while they washed and dried the dishes. The reason it took so long is as they spent half an hour laughing, throwing water and soap at each other. May showered and went to bed, working early mornings this weekend.
Peter wishes her a good night before heading to his room, closing the door, quickly putting on his suit before crawling out his window ready for a night of patrol.