Chapter Text
Peter sinks further into the couch in the waiting room, hiding his face behind one of the complimentary magazines sitting on the coffee table, knee bouncing consistently after downing a bitter cup of coffee. He knows he looks out of place—the couple beside him casting occasional glances, squinting, whispering, and returning to practicing lines as if that’s what they’ve been doing this whole time. He lowers the magazine, scrubs a hand over his jaw, embarrassed yet aware that he can’t act casual or normal or calm when this isn’t even his audition.
Absently twisting the ring on his finger, he abandons the Better Homes and Gardens magazine altogether and takes out his phone, scrolls through his texts—responding to Ned about the potential molecular makeup of a force field if they were to ever create one, and to his aunt about still having a presumptive celebratory dinner.
Just as his text almost delivers and ultimately fails due to the poor internet connection, the back door creaks open and she steps out, script clutched to her chest. He immediately stands up, phone slipping through his fingers in his haste, but he catches it quickly and shoves it in his pocket.
“How did it go? How did you do?” he asks, bombarding her with questions, to which she responds with a snort. It’s not an answer, but the dewiness in her eyes feels like one, and his heart sinks. “Aw, jeez. MJ...look, it’s a growing experience, right? You’ve taken something from your past auditions, and you’ll take something from this one too. Those directors...they don’t know what they’re missing.”
He does however think he needs to text May to cancel whatever dinner they had planned to celebrate because it’ll feel like a kick while she might—possibly—already be down.
“Peter,” Michelle says, lips starting to curl into an amused, happy grin. “I got the part.”
“You got the part?”
“I got the part!” she repeats with a laugh, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, and he wraps his arms around her waist, lifting her, spinning her, papers flying everywhere. The couple on the couch gives them an annoyed look as if asking them to stop, but he thinks no, we’re good. we’re celebrating. she deserves this.
“I can’t believe you let me go on like that. You got the part,” Peter says in awe, but he’s in no way shocked. He kisses the shell of her ear, brushes away a wisp of hair that’s fallen out of her bun, and tells her he loves her. She knows. He just never gets tired of saying it.
“Are you ready to go home?” she asks, but he gives her a grin, presses his lips to the side of her head, flinging one arm around her neck.
“We’ve got a pit stop. May’s expecting us...May and her signature green bean casserole that she made just for this occasion,” he tells her, and she smiles warmly into the collar of her jacket. They walk out together, and it’s raining, almost downpouring, but the feeling of cold water splashing on his face tempers the heat that has risen to his cheeks in the half hour he’d been sitting inside an oven of a building.
Michelle laughs, tilts her head up so that raindrops slide down her face, and if she were to cry happy tears right in this moment, he’d never be able to tell. She grabs his other hand so that their rings clink together, and they duck into a nearby bodega that’s selling flowers.
Scrounging up a few loose dollars, Peter buys her a black dahlia to commemorate the day, and they sit on a bench inside while waiting for the rain to slow, Michelle twirling the stem between her fingers with the smallest smile on his face that tells him she adores it.
There are days it feels like he loves her so much that he can’t breathe, days when news like this breaks, and it always hits him twice over that this is their reality—a reality that’s a reminder they can still experience good things. It’s days like these that counteract all the nights he’s laid awake, unable to shake the feeling of paranoia and fear that he’s not really living this life, still trapped in the moments he’d spent years ago in hiding and dreaming of what could’ve been.
But Michelle’s always there, in every reality, and he doesn’t think—no, he knows he doesn’t deserve her, not even half of the time. Yet she never leaves, and it gives him the chance to try to make up for it every day and hope that it’s enough.
“Hey, the rain has slowed,” she says, tugs him up by the hand until they’re both standing, and he places a hand by the small of her back, leans in and lowers his voice.
“How about a quick swing?”
Michelle wrinkles her nose, and he’s about to laugh it off because he was only joking, but then she nods—a rarity for her. Her fear of heights typically leaves them ground-bound, although he gets it, and it’s probably his own fault—tossing her in the air with no warning when he took her on their first swing. She called him a dick, and he agreed.
“I’ll allow it this time, but only this one time,” she tells him, and he grins before finding some secluded area outside where he can discreetly stash his clothes, suit underneath. He wishes he could say he wore it as frequently as he does for the right reasons, which would make him seem like he’s more prepared than he is if an emergency were to happen at any time.
But the people who know him would simply call him paranoid, and he very much is, looking around every corner like something’s going to pop out of nowhere and attack. His wife always tells him to relax, that they’re okay and they’re safe. He just can’t shake the feeling that they’re being watched every now and then. Maybe that has everything to do with the aftermath of eight years ago, but he doesn’t want to think about it.
“Hey there, pretty lady,” Peter says as casually as he can, leaning against a pole as Michelle exits from the bodega. She looks up at the sun, squints and shields her eyes, before looking back at him. “Care for a little pick-me-up?”
“Spidey taxi service. What a treat,” she drawls with a tone as good as dead, and he rolls his eyes underneath the mask, which she can clearly sense if her snort of amusement is any indication. “Good thing I like the driver.”
“Up and at ‘em, ma’am, I don’t get paid to flirt,” he replies with a stupid, little wink that makes her laugh. Very worth the embarrassment. She jumps onto his back, arms going around his neck as if she’s trying to strangle him. His voice comes out choked. “Comfortable?”
“No, you’ve got very pointy shoulder blades.”
“Shut up about my shoulder blades.” He launches them into the air, her shriek immediately piercing his eardrums even under the mask, but he thinks her death grip is very impressive if not a little dangerous. They fly past Skyline Tower, swing through Flushing, and go by a few apartment buildings along the way, one of which he recognizes after a certain someone shouts at him, practically jumping up from the rooftop.
“Hey, Spidey!”
Peter twists his body slightly to wave as they swing past, and he says to Michelle, “You remember Miles, right? May and I volunteer with him at FEAST—woah! Flock of birds!”
It’s too late to try to dodge or swerve, so he just closes his eyes and hopes for the best, knowing he can apologize after the fact. Yet somehow they come out on the other side completely untouched, not a single feather tangled in Michelle’s hair he finds when they land on the fire escape of May’s apartment. He frowns, knowing he’s skilled but not that skilled—not enough to have avoided every single one.
“I am never—never doing that again,” Michelle grumbles breathlessly, shaking her head as she yanks up the window and crawls in. He follows suit, the two of them stumbling headfirst into the guest room that once had once been his, the old comforter and bedsheets still as familiar as they were years ago. “One star rating.”
“Oh, come on. That was at least a three,” Peter laughs, pulling off his mask and pushing away whatever uneasiness he’d previously felt with the lightheartedness she’s bringing to the table. “You, my love, are simply implacable.”
“Or maybe you, my darling , simply can’t please me in the way you want to,” she replies with a smirk, patting his cheek in condolence, and he huffs out a petulant sigh. “Especially not when swinging like that results in flowers like this.”
When she lifts what was once the fully-bloomed black dahlia up to his face, his heart sinks when he sees all that’s left is a thick green stem. “Oh, MJ. All the petals...I’m so sorry. I’ll buy you another one. Unless—I don’t know...you happen to like it like this?”
“Some things I do like better broken,” Michelle hums, her eyes meeting his as she twirls the petal-less stem between her thumb and forefinger. She lifts it up to her nose as if to smell it but her smile is wry and significant. “Flowers aren’t one of them.”
“Noted. I’ll make it up to you,” he promises, rising onto his toes to give her a kiss.
“Even if you can’t, I’ll love you all the same.” And while she says it in a joking way, teasing, referring only to this situation, the expression she’s wearing is more than enough to tell him she means it in every other way as well. He blinks, feeling a familiar prickle in his eyes, but before he can act on his feelings, she backs out of his reach. “I’m going to head out and see May—the whole reason we came over, by the way. We can’t hide in your old bedroom forever.”
“You used to like doing that with me, you know!” Peter calls out after Michelle, her laugh ringing out in the hallway. He smiles at the ground before he turns to leave the room as well, his gaze falling on the barren green stem she’d placed in the vase on the dresser along the way.
The sight of it makes his heart sink just a little further, knowing that what she deserves is so much more than what he’s truly giving her.
“I don’t know, May, it still kind of feels like I’m dreaming, you know? Like, I got the part, but did I really get it, or did they just...?” Michelle stirs her fork around in the casserole, head propped up with one hand, and his aunt reaches across the table, rubbing her arm in a soothing manner.
“I hope you’re not doubting yourself now, hon. Those directors chose you because they saw the talent in you—the talent we’ve known about for ages,” May encourages with a gentle, reassuring smile that makes her laugh just a little, flustered. “You should be so proud of yourself. All I ask is that when you have your first opening show, you get me front row seats so that I can cheer the loudest.”
“May’s right,” Peter speaks up, nudging his wife’s foot under the table, and she looks at him with an expression he wouldn’t be able to read if he didn’t know her as well as he does. “She’s always right. You deserve this so much, and even if she’s the one cheering you on the loudest, I’ll be the one throwing roses at your feet.”
“We share a bank account, Parker. Don’t you dare spend any money on roses,” Michelle says with a small laugh, her head tilted and a smile barely concealed underneath her fingers. He grins at his plate, feeling the warmth curling up inside him that takes the form of contentment, and he thinks that this is the best night they’ve had in weeks.
It’s just him, two of his favorite people, and a hot meal that could truly be considered subpar but isn’t because his aunt made it specifically for them. Even if he didn’t get to have moments like this very often just a few years ago, he’s glad he’s able to have them now.
“Do either of you want anything?” Peter asks as he stands up, about to pour himself some more water, but then his phone rings with a call from Ned. He realizes with guilt that he’d never responded to his text earlier after the first one had failed, so he excuses himself from the table and heads into the living room to answer.
Their conversation is only a continuation of the text thread they’d started previously, but this time they make a decision. They’re going to try to design a force field—just for fun—and if it works, then even better. It could be another means of protecting his family if needed.
“It’ll be like being in a bubble,” Ned chirps, already moving on to the possibility of siphoning the necessary tools they need from Stark Industries, if only there were someone who’d be able to sneak in, but Peter’s still caught on his first sentence, frowning.
“Have you ever been trapped inside a bubble?” he asks slowly, his mind wandering to places he rarely likes to think about. The idea of being trapped in general sends a shiver through his body. Months of isolation was almost like a bubble itself, but as much as it was for his own protection, it didn’t feel that way. He felt cut off. “What if it feels like...a prison?”
“Peter, listen, the best part about making our own force fields is that we’re the ones in control. Doesn’t that make you feel better? Knowing that there’s no one else pulling the strings from the outside?” He makes a convincing argument, truly. But everything else that comes with the idea of a force field is starting to weigh in on him, and he doesn’t know if he can make a logical argument for or against it right now.
“I’ll have to think about it, Ned.” Peter takes a deep breath, pushing a hand through his hair. “Do you mind if I call you back? Or call you...tomorrow.”
He hangs up without saying goodbye and shakes his head, knowing that it’s such a little thing but it feels so big. He remembers too easily the feeling of being trapped, of not knowing what was real and what wasn’t, as if it just happened yesterday. Those feelings go hand in hand. Neither of them have been kind to him.
Peter walks into his old bedroom in the far back to take some space for himself, hearing May and Michelle’s voices until he closes the door. Sitting on the bed, he rests his head in his hands, massaging his temple. It happened eight years ago—he’s twenty-five. But even after all this time has passed, he feels nowhere near as grounded as he should in his life right now. Sometimes, he barely even feels present.
After rubbing his eyes with enough vigor to make them hurt, Peter stands back up to go out again. He passes the suit hanging in the closet, the shoes they’d kicked off near the door, the vase on the dresser. That vase. He stops, and he goes back to look at it again.
There, soaking in the water, sits a fully-bloomed black dahlia with its petals beautifully intact. He swallows and his mouth feels dry as he reaches out to touch it. The petals are there, solid underneath his fingertips, but it had just been a stem before—he’s sure of it.
May must’ve replaced the flower. She probably had some for the occasion. It’s as simple as that.
Peter feels like he emotionally works himself up on purpose sometimes, and tonight is supposed to be a break. It’s supposed to be about Michelle. He walks back out into the kitchen and finds them washing dishes together, talking and laughing about the conversations May and Michelle’s Aunt Anna have had lately. Gossipy stories, he’s sure.
He comes up behind his wife and wraps his arms around her waist, pressing his nose against the bare of her shoulder. She twists her head slightly to look at him, a soft smile on her face, but that slowly drops into something of concern.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” He holds her tighter, brushing his lips against the nape of her neck. She feels warm and solid and real —that’s all that really matters to him right now. “I love you.”