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After Peter’s funeral, May’s phone rang nonstop. Every call blurred together, the reporters’ questions repeating over and over.
Did you know your nephew was Spider-Man?
You raised Mr. Parker since he was a teenager. Did he always want to fight crime?
Did the death of your husband, Benjamin Parker, have anything to do with Peter’s decision to wear the mask?
Some people think Spider-Man was a vigilante. Now he’s being regaled as a hero. Anything you want to say to address that?
I’m so sorry for your family’s loss. If you have a moment, might I be able to ask you a few questions about your nephew, Peter Parker?
May used the same response every time. “Thank you for your condolences,” she told the voice on the other end of the line. “I have already given my statements to the press. Please allow my family to grieve in peace.”
And then she hung up.
Mary Jane was better at dealing with the public than May was. Peter’s wife was calm, composed, and used to being in the spotlight, even while her heart shattered into a million pieces. Even now, dressed in mourning black in May’s quaint living room, she sat poised like a queen. “Next time, just direct the calls to me,” MJ said, patting May’s hand. “I’ll handle them for you.”
“I appreciate the thought, but you already have your hands full.” May smiled for the younger woman, but it didn’t light up her eyes. “I can handle a few phone calls from whippersnappers who don’t know any better.”
“And you also have all of this.” MJ gestured her head towards the backyard and the shed on the edge of the property. “You guard Peter’s legacy here. I’ll handle the press.” She glanced at her phone. “Speaking of, I should go. I have a meeting with Wilson Fisk this evening.”
May’s face soured. “That man’s not worth a second of your time, MJ. You know that.”
“He wants to host a benefit in Peter’s honor,” MJ said. Standing up, she straightened her skirt. “It seems like the least we can do to honor his memory. Fisk is unsavory at best, but I can play nice for an evening.”
“I guess one of us has to.” May got up and gave her a hug. “I’m only a call away if you need anything.”
MJ chuckled. “Will you rescue me if the party goes on too long?”
“With spiderwebs and everything,” May promised. It could have been a joke, but it wasn’t. Peter lived on through them, now. May would do her best to remember that.
With MJ gone, the emptiness of the house echoed. May lived here for the last twenty years, ever since Ben died, and she never felt as alone as she did right now. Peter’s smile would never brighten the room, and his laugh wouldn’t fill the walls. She had recordings of him, just like she did of Ben, but it wasn’t the same.
She went through the motions of making herself a cup of chamomile tea. It was getting late, and if she hoped to sleep tonight, she would want something comforting beforehand. Not that there was much comfort in grief, but routine helped. Then she stepped out the back door and approached the shed.
Only two people had access: May and Peter. MJ knew of it, and she’d been here with them, but she never came without Peter. Nor had she asked to since Peter’s death. Poor MJ was bombarded with enough reminders of her late husband. May would not subject the poor girl to more reminders of her husband’s double life. Instead, May would bear this burden alone.
Lights came to life as the elevator descended. Different uniforms were on display along the far wall, ones Peter used and retired over the years alongside new prototypes in various stages of development. A wide desk covered the opposite side. One half was filled with monitors, hacked into the city’s satellites in order to observe all parts of Queens. The rest served as a workstation with two chairs - one with better cushioning than the other - with tools and electronics ready to go.
All that was missing was Peter himself.
May didn’t dwell on that now. She took a seat at the comfy chair, the one Peter insisted she have down here. Next to the monitors sat a picture of MJ. She was Peter’s love and his life. He did what he could to protect MJ, and the city along with it, and it cost him his life.
Tears pricked behind May’s eyes. She focused on dunking her tea bag into her mug before taking it out, throwing it away in the wastebasket beneath the table. Her tears would not bring Peter back. She’d cried so much for her nephew already.
But just like Ben, Peter still lived on. May could almost feel him in the room around her, as if she’d just arrived early and Peter was running late. Spider-Man made the world a better place. He would be remembered as a hero.
Sighing, she looked over the last project she and Peter started together: a new set of webslingers. Peter’s old ones worked fine, but May designed a new web fluid she’d been eager to try. Most people assumed Spider-Man made all his own gear - or that his webs were some kind of supernatural ability. It was good old fashioned science, the kind May loved.
This technology would still serve a purpose somewhere. May didn’t know how yet, but it seemed wrong to leave it unfinished. Perhaps another superhero would take up Peter’s mantle now that he was gone.
And no one would suspect Peter’s quiet, widowed aunt to be the one behind all of his cool gear.
She sipped at her tea and set the mug aside. Time to go to work.
Technology always put May’s mind at ease. Something either worked as expected or it didn’t, and she always learned something new from her failures. Just because she wasn’t as active in the scientific community anymore didn’t mean she didn’t have the skills.
When Ben died, May stepped down from her position with Alchemex Labs, choosing instead to focus on raising Peter. Her colleagues - Liv Octavius, especially - told her she was throwing her life away. She would always be proud of the man her nephew became.
Now she would guard his legacy for the rest of her days.
May spread her tools out in front of her, fastening a new band to each web slinger. The last set had been too small for Peter, so it had to go. The only sounds within the lair were the soft clinking of her screwdriver against metal.
Then one of the monitors behind her beeped. Once, twice, three times, until it became an insistent blaring.
“Oh, shush,” May murmured, getting up from her seat. Sometimes the neighbor’s dog escaped and set off the proximity alarm. She and Peter used to joke about it.
She tapped a few buttons, shutting off the alarm and bringing up the security cameras around her yard.
Nothing looked amiss.
May frowned and checked again. Perhaps something was wrong with the security system? On another monitor, she ran a systems check, just to be sure. A minute later, results came back.
Everything was working just as it should.
She studied the footage again. There, on the edge of the screen, was a flicker of something, like a dark cloak fluttering in the wind.
Sucking in a breath, May steadied herself. It wasn’t the first time someone tried to attack the house. No one had ever gotten into the lair, and no one ever would. Peter might not be here to protect her, which meant May would have to do it herself.
With a few clicks, every computer in the lair shut down. May grabbed her tea with one hand and her baseball bat with another. Years of living in the city had her keeping one by each entrance, just so she’d have something. Peter used to laugh at it. “You’re never going to need that,” he’d tell her. “Not with your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man around.”
Dousing the lights, she took the elevator up, heart pounding in her ears.
The backyard was empty. May locked the shed door behind her, glancing around. She tightened her grip, expecting an attack.
Nothing came. She crossed the small yard and went inside, securing the back door too. Everything inside the house was just as she left it. Setting down her tea on the kitchen counter, she made her way throughout the house, checking each room. Still nothing.
May sighed. Instead of working on the web slingers, she’d have to overhaul the security system instead. Not exactly how she wished to spend her evening, but it was better than wallowing in grief. And if the reporters figured out how to contact her, then soon enough Peter’s enemies might, too.
The sharp knock on her front door startled her. May dropped the baseball bat. When she didn’t answer immediately, someone knocked again.
Retrieving the bat, she crept towards the door. A third knock came. May checked the peephole, but she couldn’t see anyone there.
Would reporters stoop so low as to come to her home? Weren’t the phone calls bad enough? Bringing the bat into position, she opened the door a crack. “Hello?” May called. “Is someone there?”
“Jeez, lady! Do you greet everyone who knocks on your door with a baseball bat? I bet you don’t get many visitors.”
May edged the door open further - and was greeted by a pig.
A cartoon pig, to be exact, dressed in a red and blue Spider-Man costume. She blinked, and the image remained. Maybe, in her grief, she was starting to imagine things, but she hadn’t thought she was that far gone.
The pig put his hands on his hips. “Well, since you seem to have forgotten your manners I’ll just have to remember mine.” He held out a hand. “I’m Peter Porker.”
“Peter... Porker.” She’d officially lost it. She was calling her doctor in the morning and making an appointment to check for dementia.
His face softened. “We heard what happened to your Peter and well, we think it has something to do with what happened to us.”
“Us?” May asked.
Something creaked from behind the bushes. A robot emerged, with a giant sphere for a torso and spindly legs like a spider. It, too, was covered in shades of red and blue. The top popped open, and a young Japanese girl jumped out. “Konichiwa!” she said. “I’m Peni Parker.”
May stared at them both. Lots of crazy things happened in the city since Peter became Spider-Man, but he always made a point to keep them away from May’s home. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“We’re still figuring it out ourselves,” another deep voice said from above. May looked up, seeing another figure in black, cape billowing in some unseen wind. He was perched on her roof, eyes glowing white beneath a black fedora.
“And who are you? Mr. Wayne, I presume?” Peter grew up on the old Batman comics. This guy had the look down to a tee.
The man leaped off the roof and landed beside the small girl. “I don’t know a Wayne,” he said. “I’m Peter Parker.”
“Peter’s dead.” His voice was too deep, but she heard something she recognized there. A hint of Peter’s irrelevance, like this man would joke like her Peter once did. May closed her eyes and shook her head.
“We know,” the pig said. “It’s a long story, but we can explain. Roll tape!”
He waved his hand, and a miniature movie screen appeared by his head. Before May could ask what he was doing, he launched into his explanation. “See, here’s how it happened. I was fighting the bad guys, and I won of course.” On the screen, an animated pig ran down a hallway and in and out of doors, chasing a scientist. “And then something happened to my outlines - you don’t need to see that!” He twirled a finger, like he was fast forwarding the footage. “Ah! Yes! Here!”
The image glitched. All the colors skipped and blurred together into a mini tornado above the pig’s head. “This,” he pointed to the anomaly, “is how we got here.”
“We’re all Spider-Men,” the one in black said. “From another dimension. Three different ones, actually.”
As if on cue, all three of them glitched, just the same as in the pig’s little movie. Peni gasped and fell to her knees. The pig clutched his head. The man in black grimaced.
There were other dimensions. That much didn’t surprise her, giving what she knew from her research days. But to have other Spider-Men here meant a wire was crossed somewhere. May wasn’t able to fix that on her own, not with the equipment she had down in the lair.
But she might be able to help the three in front of her now. Sighing, she held her front door open. “Well, you’re not going to find your way home standing in my front yard,” she said, gesturing for them to get inside. Her neighbors weren’t watching, which was good. She wasn’t sure how she’d explain a cartoon pig, a girl with a giant robot, and a ghostly man in her driveway. “Do any of you want something to eat?”
“I don’t suppose you know how to make a proper egg cream, do you?” the older Peter asked. May shook her head. “Worth a try.”
Perhaps this wasn’t about learning to move on after Peter’s death. May had always helped Spider-Man from behind the scenes, never drawing attention to herself. Every Spider-Man needed an Aunt May, and now she had three random Spider-People who needed her help.
She made the other Peter a cup of tea and gave the last Diet Coke her Peter left in her fridge to Peni. May didn’t know exactly what Peter Porker could eat, though he mentioned hot dogs. And pie. And ice cream.
And they told her stories of the worlds they came from. Of a Peter who would fight Nazis in 1930s New York, or that Peni lived in the New York of the future. Peter Porker jumped on her kitchen table, but he got down with one look from May.
She saw hints of her nephew in each one of them, and they were completely different at the same time. Each one of them mentioned having an Aunt May in one form or another. That thought had her smiling.
May had a role in Peter’s story, in every dimension. Her place wasn’t in the spotlight. It was here, offering these new heroes sanctuary while they worked on a plan to find the super-collider that brought them into this dimension. It was just as MJ said at Peter’s funeral: anyone could wear the mask.
These three already did. Now it was just a matter of getting them home in one piece.