Work Text:
Felicia shook her head lightly, her eyes narrowed. “What?”
“I met him a few years ago,” Peter confessed, his hands dropping on her shoulders, holding them tight. “He posed as a police officer, said Black Cat had stolen a really important painting back when he was still active and he needed help retrieving it.”
Felicia didn’t say anything, so Peter continued.
“He said he had a lead but didn’t want to alarm the police, so he asked me to bring the painting to him. It was the last bit of Hardy’s legacy, he said, and… he asked me to look out for you.” He smiled small. “I had no idea it was him until then.”
“That’s all?” Felicia asked softly.
“I went to the precinct from which he said he was, only to be told that there’s no Detective Mackey. I tried calling him, he eventually picked up and… yeah, he just tried to make me keep it a secret, for your sake.”
“And why… why are you telling me now? If you’ve known for so long?”
Peter looked into her gunmetal blue eyes, the bits of gray around the iris and that one popped vein that was there as long as he had known her. They were pooling with tears, and Felicia was blinking rapidly to hide it.
“Because I didn’t know if it would do any good but… I trust you,” he said, squeezing her shoulders. He leaned in and placed a warm kiss on her cheek. “And you deserve to know. I’m sorry I kept it from you for so long but I was afraid that Walt…”
Felicia gulped. “I… I can’t believe he did that. Pretending to be dead and then approaches Spider-Man just to get a painting?” Her voice was level, despite her flushed face. “I mourned for him. I went to his funeral. I…” She sighed. “I used to have brown hair, you know.” A bitter laugh escaped her lips. “I was just fifteen, and I cried so much, I waited so many nights for him to at least give me a sign that he’s out there and not really dead only to receive silence. I was so sad that…” Felicia gestured around her head. “It took less than a week. It was a few strands and then next thing I knew, I woke up with a full head of gray hair.”
Peter wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close to him, the ache in his heart growing the more he saw Felicia hurting. He planted a kiss on top of her head. “Fel, I’m sorry.”
“He… he…” A tear ran down her cheek but she didn’t bother to wipe it away. “He left me. And he never bothered to check on me. But he couldn’t let go of a damned painting.”
Peter was at loss for words, so he just held Felicia tighter in his arms as she leaned on his shoulder, crying in silence. All he could do was whisper that everything was going to be okay and that they weren’t going to make the same mistakes as he did. As he felt Felicia’s shaky form against him, he couldn’t help but wish he could confront that old man, make him treat his daughter right, even after all this time. He knew Felicia didn’t need it, but he wished he could fix it for her.
“Look at what you accomplished without him,” Peter muttered, his forehead pressed against hers. “You grew up to be an amazing woman, you’re smart and kind and- and you created the most precious little human in the entire world, all by yourself.”
Felicia blinked. “And I messed with every single gang just to get his attention.” She let out a breath. “Some part of me always hoped he was out there, and that he would show up if I really needed him. Or if I managed a good steal.”
Peter smiled. “It’s okay. It’s in the past.”
Felicia pulled away and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “You’re right. Thank you for telling me, but it makes no difference. In fact, I wish he was dead for real. “
Peter opened his mouth to say something, but changed his mind. They both knew she didn’t mean it, but an old, deep wound had just popped open again, and healing would take time.
The familiar pitter patter of Walt’s feet echoed through the living room, instantly softening Felicia’s face.
“Mum?” the little kid asked, his eyebrows twisted in a frown. “You okay?”
Felicia nodded as she picked him up, placing him on her lap. “Of course, bug. How was school?”
Walter grinned, his baby teeth on full display. “We made fae no angels.”
Peter couldn’t resist pinching his son’s cheek, and a smile was the only answer when Felicia glanced over at him with a raised brow.
“Fake snow angels,” he explained. “As in, him and Rosie just laid down and moved arms and legs. That’s all.”
“Okay,” Felicia replied, dragging the “o”. She turned her attention back to Walter. “Are you hungry?”
The kid thought about it for a moment before feverishly nodding.
Felicia was about to get up, but Peter stopped her. “I got it,” he said. “Is PB&J okay?”
“Yes!” Walter replied with a victorious smile.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter wasn’t planning on sleeping with Felicia, but after an exhausting patrol he just laid down on her bed to catch his breath and then never got up again. He was half-asleep when she helped him out of his suit and into a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt that was a little too small for him but comfy nonetheless, and then tucked him under the covers.
He was absolutely sure he voiced severely incoherent sentences until he fell asleep again, but he didn’t mind. Felicia always teased him about it, and sometimes she recorded him and let him listen in the morning. His cheeks turned red from embarrassment while Felicia laughed so much she teared up.
When he woke up, he wished Felicia’s tears were from laughing too much.
But it wasn’t the case, and his heart sunk to his stomach seeing her rosey cheeks covered in the salty liquid, her eyes squeezed tight, her head in her hands.
How could I sleep through that? he thought, hating that he seemed to be out the times Felicia needed him the most.
Peter scooted closer and wrapped his arms around her but made sure to give her enough space to breathe. She blindly reached for his hand, and she laced their fingers together, and Peter stayed there and looked at her, hoping the proximity might magically take away some pain. Not that Felicia needed it, she could get over just about anything, but it hurt him so much when she was sad. He desperately wanted to do something to pull her out of it, but he was aware that bottling up emotions never lead anywhere good. So he did the only thing he could do: be there for her.
Felicia rubbed away her tears with one hand, still holding Peter’s with the other. “I don’t even know why I’m crying. God, this is weird. Sorry for waking you up.”
Peter shrugged. “It’s alright. You know me, I don’t ever get my eight hours. My body can’t remember what that’s like.”
Felicia smiled. “That’s probably why you make all those stupid decisions.”
“Eh, I think I’ve made a few good ones.”
She brought Peter’s hand to her lips, and pressed them against it, leaving a soft kiss. “Like?”
Peter could feel his heart banging against his chest, ready to escape his ribcage. He had missed these moments more than he could put into words. He fell so easily back in how it was before, so easily it almost felt like he never left. Almost.
“Like… having Walter.”
Felicia nodded. “Yeah, that was a good one. Wait, you didn’t decide that. That just happened and you’re happy it did.”
Peter smiled and fell back on the mattress. “I definitely am happy. But it didn’t just happen. You… you did all the work, all by yourself.” He bit the inside of his cheek. “How was it?”
Felicia tilted her head to the side. “How was what?”
“Pfft, I don’t know… the whole process I guess.”
Felicia laid down next to him, her lips forming her signature playful smirk. “Okay, first you have to have sex, but it has to be when you’re on the ovulating phase of your menstrual cycle, and you have to be careful not to be careful.”
Peter chuckled. “Uh-huh. You don’t say.”
“Yeah, and then you wait for like nine months to push a whole living thing out of your body, which hurts like a bitch, by the way, and then your brain will delete all that just so you will be willing to do it again sometime.”
Peter didn’t say anything. Felicia sighed.
“It was… frustrating, at first. I was extremely conflicted, I… It wasn’t looking good no matter what I chose. We were broken up and even if we weren’t, we were far too young for it and… and we had way too many people on our tails to also raise a baby.”
Peter sucked in his lips. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Felicia made a face. “Pete, I couldn’t wrap my head around it myself. I couldn’t even think of coming to you with it. Besides, I had decided that leaving you out of it would be for the best. Fifty per cent off bad guys after us. And… I had seen you with Red,” she admitted, her voice going down a notch. “It didn’t exactly inspire me to run to you.”
Peter didn’t hate his time with MJ. They weren’t the best of couples, but she was a dear friend to him, despite their current distance. Now that he knew what he was missing, however, he felt terrible.
“I’m sorry.”
Felicia groaned. “That’s why I don’t like talking about it. It’s not your fault that your spider sense didn’t tell you your ex is pregnant or… whatever. You’re here now and it’s all that matters.”
Peter desperately wanted to believe that. He knew that statistically he would spend way more time with Walter than the time he lost, but a part of him felt nostalgic for all the things he missed. His first words, his first steps, his first laugh, his first breath.
“Catch me up a little bit,” he said softly. “How was it before Walt was born? Because I’ve heard horror stories of pregnancies that are so bad that the women just… throw up all day until the baby is out.”
Felicia squinted at him. “It was alright, actually. That’s probably why I didn’t realize I was pregnant until I was two months in already.”
“Oh my God, that gave you like… seven months to prepare.”
She whistled. “Look at you and your Math skills.”
Peter rolled his eyes. “And uh… how was Walt? Did he kick a lot? Did he give you weird cravings?”
Felicia tried to hide a smile, but her dimples gave it away. “He did. I can’t even think of how many books I read the nights I waited for him to stop so I could sleep. And my poor bladder. And my poor stomach. I don’t know what was going on in my head but I was eating chips with whipped cream non-stop.”
Peter’s face lit up. “Hey, I used to eat that, too.”
Felicia quirked up an eyebrow.
“It was good, wasn’t it?” Peter insisted. “I just… saw the bag of chips. And when I went to grab it, a can of whipped cream stared at me, demanding I take it with me. Boy am I glad I did.”
Felicia’s nose scrunched. “Ew. At least my hormones were messed up when I did that.” She sighed. “So… There’s this one time I freaked out when I went to the doctor.”
Peter frowned. “What was going on?”
“She said Walt was growing really fast and I thought oh my God, what if it is a weird side-effect from Peter’s weird DNA? and I kept asking her about growth curves and where does Walt fit in them and if he’s unnaturally big for that stage. She thought I was nuts.” Her face clouded. “Pete, stop with the guilt again, okay?” She took his hands in hers and planted a kiss on his lips, which felt like a breath of fresh air to Peter. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
“I should have been there,” he whispered. “I wish I was there.”
Felicia sat up a little, opened the drawer in the bedside table and turned back to him with a few photographs in her hands. Peter closed the space between them and Felicia wrapped an arm around him, his face nestled between her chest and her shoulder as they went through the photos.
“I’m not sure when was this, sometime in the second trimester I think,” she said, her thumb brushing over the blue-black ultra sound. “They all look the same to me.”
Peter chuckled.
The next picture was of Felicia. She was practically glowing, sitting cross legged on the couch, a slice of pizza in hand.
“You were so beautiful,” Peter murmured.
“I threw up not much later after the picture was taken, so…” Felicia flipped through the next photo, which was a lot like the previous one, except Walter was there, holding his own slice. “It was my mum’s idea.”
Peter’s lips stretched into a grin. “That has to be the best before and after.”
“We could retake it, if you want.”
Peter looked up at Felicia with a quizzical look.
“So you can be in it,” she explained.
He sat up straighter and placed his hands on either side of her head, then peppered her face with kisses, smiling as she scrunched her nose.
They went back to sleep not much later, taking advantage of the little time they had before they had to wake up for the day. Peter fell asleep to the sound of Felicia’s heartbeat, and it somehow made up for the best lullaby in the world.