Archive of Our Own ^beta

The worse part of her boy's new job, in May's opinion, wasn't the hours. Although she really hated sitting up nights wondering when he would be home and if he was okay, she and Ben had raised Peter well. He was the living legacy to her brother-in-law, and it seemed that he finally understood that those with power had a responsibility to use it wisely.

No, the part she hated most about Peter's job was the part he brought home with him in the form of scrapes and bruises and the weight of the secret in his eyes.

She could still remember clearly when she'd realized that the Spider-Man that had cropped up in the news shortly after Ben's murder was her nephew. May had wondered over Peter's reaction to the news that the police had an arrest order for the masked vigilante (their words, not hers), but had passed it off at the time as just a teenage thing. True, she had denied it, but May Parker did indeed remember being young and stupid, and decided to give Peter the space he needed.

But that evening, when the news stations had all been tuned to the progress of the Lizard rampaging towards Oscorp and the news helicopters caught footage of the injured Spider-Man trying to make his way to the building before the monster, May had known.

She and Ben had raised that boy from the time he was four years old. She knew how her boy walked and talked, and how in the past several weeks since Ben's death he had become secretive and determined all in the same breath, and knew. She knew without any clouds of doubt in her mind that her Peter was the same man trying to pull himself up a building, favoring one leg from an earlier injury, determined to get to Oscorp and stop the Lizard from hurting anyone else.

May had found herself pleading silently Ben, please, if you're watching, help our boy. Keep him safe, please oh please.

She'd nearly cried when the newscaster came back, somewhat flabbergasted, to announce that every construction crane between Spider-Man's (Peter's) current position and Oscorp had repositioned to give the hero a clear, easy route to his destination. She had wept when they reported that the Lizard had been stopped, an anti-toxin had been released that countered the effects of the chemical the Lizard had been spreading all over Manhattan during his rampage, and one officer had died during the battle that had occurred.

And then when Peter had returned home that night, after all that had happened, he hadn't said a word. All he'd done was give her that crooked little smile of his, the one he always used when he thought he might be in trouble, and pulled those stupid eggs out of his bag. May couldn't help herself; here was her boy, battered and bruised from fighting to save the entire city from a fate she couldn't even begin to imagine, and he'd stopped on his way home to pick up her eggs. She pulled him into the hug she knew he needed right now, and let him keep his secret.

But it didn't really matter whether Peter told her that he was Spider-Man or not. May knew that her boy was doing the right thing, using his powers in a way that would benefit others and protect those who couldn't protect themselves. She knew that he'd probably gain some enemies along the way, just as she knew he would gain friends and colleagues as well. She was waiting for Peter to bring home that lovely girl (what was her name? Gwen?) for dinner some evening soon, but she wouldn't push the issue.

What she would do, however, was continue to wait up for her boy to come home after his night job, bruised and battered and suffering from the weight of his responsibilities, and be his Aunt May. She would continue to protect him from those things that she could, take care of him because he needed her to do so, and let him take care of the city.

She knew all about responsibility; she was a mother-of-sorts, after all.