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When Mayday said her first words, it seemed like every universe knew it. Miguel woke up from a power nap to an avalanche of excited messages from Peter, sent out to everyone who would receive them.
Mayday said mama!
I can’t get her to say dada. We’ll get there.
As Miguel scrolled through the messages, both from Peter and others giving their congratulations, a bittersweet feeling curled in his chest. He was happy for Peter, and glad to see Mayday reaching important milestones, but so did he also remember his own girl. She had said the same word after much gentle prompting, the word stumbling forth from an unexperienced mouth as she sat in his wife’s arms. The sweet joy of that moment, from a single word, had taken Miguel’s breath away, and it remained affixed in his mind as he read through the messages.
The very same day, Peter came roaring into Miguel’s office with Mayday in tow, both of them all smiles. “Did you see my messages?”
“I skimmed them,” Miguel said, feigning disinterest, though he could not keep his eyes away from Mayday’s beaming face. She looked so pleased with herself, like she knew what she had accomplished.
“Way to be supportive,” Peter grumped. “I’ll just show you.”
Before Miguel could get a word in, Peter’s phone was shoved in his face, playing the promised video. Through the shaky image, MJ could be seen holding Mayday, with some more of Peter’s ridiculous baby talk coming from behind the camera.
“Alright, honey! Say ‘mama’ again!”
It took some coaxing, but sure enough, Mayday leaned towards MJ’s face, pulling at her hair as she chirped, “Mama!” followed by a string of gibberish.
Miguel swallowed the uncomfortable tightness that threatened to constrict his voice when Peter pulled the phone away. So much like his own. “That’s good.”
“I know, right?” Peter turned himself, letting Mayday crawl onto his shoulders as she sought out Miguel. He extended an arm, letting her shimmy across it like a bridge until she reached his shoulders.
“Good job,” Miguel said, steadying her with one hand. “Soon you can say ‘mi papa es un dolor’ for me.”
Peter narrowed his eyes. “I may have only taken high school Spanish, but I know when I’m being insulted.”
Miguel kept a straight face, gently tapping Mayday on the nose to make her laugh. “Maybe not, maybe so.”
It was then that an idea entered Peter’s mind, a terrible, stupid idea that could very well result in a premature death for him. But as he watched the hard creases of Miguel’s face soften with Mayday’s laughter, he knew he had to try it.
He arranged for Miles to come over the following day, and when Miles heard the idea, he said, “You might die, or it might be really good. I’d say it’s about fifty-fifty.”
Peter just grinned. “I’ve worked with worse odds.”
And so the plan began, hidden from Miguel. It would be a little difficult to accomplish without him knowing, but as Mayday grew in her speech abilities, it would eventually come to fruition in some form or another.
A couple of weeks after Mayday’s first word, she finally gave Peter the “dada” he wanted. He may have cried a little bit, but he was unashamed. Though Miguel pretended to be aloof and distant, he kept tabs on her developments. When no one but Lyla was watching, he tried to coax a few words out of her, mostly “spider” and “mija”. However, multi-syllable words that were not repetitive was still something she had yet to conquer. The closest she came was the “mi” in “mija”, but that was enough to make something seize inside Miguel’s chest.
All the while, the plan continued behind Miguel’s back. Mayday’s lexicon of syllables and sounds continued to evolve over the course of a couple of months, and she began to understand the association between words and people. Finally, Peter was able to get the word he wanted from her, or a childish variation of it, and then it came down to making her understand who to properly associate it with. That was a harder thing to do, because he did not necessarily want to be in Miguel’s presence when Mayday gave voice to the word. He understood that Miguel exhibited a certain vulnerability in Mayday’s presence, and he wanted to let him have it freely in that moment. Also, he was still unsure if Miguel would kill him once he figured it out.
Mayday knew when they were going to see Miguel. She recognized his name at the very least, though it also had to do with her Spider-Sense. Peter began voluntarily letting her seek out Miguel on her own, so he could try to impress the word choice from his plan upon her without being overheard. There were many failed attempts, Mayday’s mind still learning to put word and person together. It took time patience, but eventually the day came when Peter’s plan finally yielded results.
Miguel heard the pitter-patter of tiny socked feet haphazardly tracing a path across the floor of his office. However, he did not turn to look, keeping his eyes fixed on the screens in front of him even as the footsteps fumbled closer. His lack of immediate attention was part of a silly little song and dance that had developed: he pretended not to notice that Mayday was coming, giving her the satisfaction of “surprising” him. He didn’t think much of his acting abilities, but the kid seemed to buy it.
The beginnings of a smile threatened his focused composure when he heard the small, determined vocalizations of Mayday trying to make her way to him. He turned his head just enough to see her in his periphery, verifying that she was not actually in need of his help. She had momentarily lost her balance, but she managed to push off the floor with her hands, rising to her feet once more.
Mayday remained unaware that Miguel was watching her, his attention too surreptitious for her to pick up on. She trundled along, fixed on the towering figure in front of her, and suddenly a new word clicked in her mind.
Miguel continued to feign ignorance even as the footsteps arrived beside his chair. He always waited until she grabbed him to finally “notice” her, and this time was no different. Little fingers stuck themselves to his leg, and he opened his mouth to speak some ridiculous attempt at seeming surprised, but she beat him to it with a vocalization of her own.
“Titi!” she proclaimed.
Miguel went still, all pretenses of silliness forgotten as his mind tried to make sense of what he heard. Surely she wasn’t trying to…
Displeased that she was not receiving the normal amount of attention, Mayday began scaling Miguel’s leg. “Titi!” she shouted. “Ti Mi!”
It had to be. Miguel finally looked down at her as she pulled herself onto his knee, and she beamed as she realized he had finally noticed her. He suddenly found it very hard to form words, gently wrapping his hands around her.
“Who taught you that?” His voice quivered unreasonably, no matter how hard he tried to steady it. “How’d you learn that, mija?”
Mayday just giggled, glad to be the center of attention as he lifted her into his arms. “Titi!”
From a spot just outside Miguel’s office, Peter heard the whole exchange take place, mentally cheering his victory when Mayday finally uttered her variation on “tio”. Upon hearing the strangled note on Miguel’s voice, he peeked around the corner, wondering if it had been an overstep after all. Miguel was face to face with Mayday, a whole host of emotions written in his expression that Peter had never seen on him, but he knew just the same. Bittersweet joy coupled with tremulant hope, the feeling that good things could come after long suffering.
Miguel brought Mayday close into a tight embrace. Mayday let out a chirp, surprised by the action, but Miguel barely heard. Something stung behind his eyes, and he let his head drop, soft red curls brushing against his cheek. The half-formed words rang loud in his mind, over and over again in the small, sweet voice.
Tio Miguel. Uncle Miguel.
For a moment, he was a decade in the past, when his daughter had first begun to speak. Once more, he wondered at how such a little word, such a simple utterance, could bring about such feeling. He didn’t even care how she had learned it as much as the innocent and trusting affection behind it.
He held his breath for fear something more than an exhale would come forth, something rawer and deeper, something he had not let out in a long time. He held it until his lungs burned, and when he finally let it out, it came shaky and restricted as he sought to keep anything else from spilling out.
Peter stole away silently when he saw this, feeling like observing further would be an intrusion. He wasn’t sure yet what the ramifications would be, but he was sure he had done something worthwhile.
“Ti…” Mayday said in Miguel’s ear, growing restless from being held. She started pulling herself from his grasp, unaware of his volatile emotions. He released her, letting her clamber onto his shoulders.
“Sorry,” He took a deep breath, rubbing away the excess fluid that had collected in the corners of his eyes. “You’re doing a good job, kid. You’ll be a Spanish speaker in no time.”
Mayday grinned, patting his cheek. He was happy; she could see it. “Titi!”
A smile, shaky but genuine, curved his lips in response. “Yeah, if you insist.”
Miles knew the plan had finally been successful before Peter even said anything, spotting his smile from a good distance away. “Did she say it?”
“She did! I’m so proud of her.” Peter sat down next to Miles on the oblong beam, letting his legs dangle off. “She’s still missing a syllable, but she’ll get the whole thing eventually.”
Miles smiled, having made his fair share of attempts at getting the entire word out of Mayday with no success. “And how’d Miguel take it?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Peter admitted, “but he didn’t immediately come looking for me, so I count that as a win.”
“Don’t implicate me if he kills you. I’ve got a lot more life left to live.”
“You little—”
Peter got his answer to Miguel’s reaction later when he went to check on Mayday. It had been a couple of hours, but neither Miguel nor Lyla had called him, as had become customary when Mayday was in need of something they could not provide. Though he didn’t need to check on Mayday, the curiosity was too much for him to resist, and as he approached Miguel’s office, he heard something that made him smile.
“Tio, mija. Ti-o,” Miguel’s voice said gently.
“Titi!” Mayday insisted.
“Ti-o.”
“Titi!”
A sigh, bordering on a laugh, then, “Okay, fine.”
Peter decided to announce his presence before he entered the room, calling, “Miguel?”
The shift in Miguel’s tone almost made him laugh as he was met with a very serious, “Parker.”
Peter stepped into the office, sighting Mayday seated comfortably on Miguel’s desk in front of the man himself. She grinned wider when she spotted him, calling, “Dada!”
“Hi, honey!” Peter approached the pair. Miguel’s expression betrayed nothing as Mayday tumbled over him to reach Peter, who easily took her into his arms. “I didn’t hear anything from you, so I guess she wasn’t that much trouble?”
“Not this time.” Miguel watched Mayday clamber over Peter in a similar manner. The power of such a small word, not even spoken correctly, continued to astound him. It was not the same as his daughter, for nothing ever could be, but it was breathtakingly, shatteringly close.
Peter paused for a moment, but when Miguel said nothing more, he started trying to wrangle Mayday off his shoulders. “Thanks for keeping her entertained for a while. MJ will probably be home soon, so I can take her back…”
“Parker.”
The slight sharpness in Miguel’s tone made Peter wince internally. Here it was, the moment of truth. “Yeah?”
Miguel fixed him with a piercing gaze. “Who taught Mayday that word?”
“What word?” It was stupid to pretend ignorance, but Peter couldn't help but try it.
“You know which one.”
Peter sighed, gathering Mayday into his arms. “It was me…and Miles.”
“I thought so.” Miguel hesitated, the sharpness fading with his next question. “…Why?”
“Well, I thought it might be…good?” The last word came out as a wincing suggestion. He saw the frown on Miguel’s face, and rambled on before he could stop himself. “She loves you a lot, and I can see you love her, so—”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Miguel interrupted, startled by the implication.
“What, you think I’m gonna be upset that you care about my kid?”
Miguel opened his mouth, then closed it. He could not bring himself to admit any breadth of feeling for Mayday, for the vulnerability was too great, too shattering, too close to what once was.
“If you don’t want to accept the title, then now’s the time to tell me. I’ll understand, and if Mayday doesn’t hear it, she’ll probably forget about it.”
Miguel’s eyes flicked to the squirming Mayday, who was looking between the two of them with interest, as though she was trying to understand the discussion. She had seemed so pleased, so happy, and he didn’t want her to forget. It was not the same, but…
“It’s fine,” he said at last.
Peter’s grin returned. “You accept the title?”
Miguel rolled his eyes, running a hand down his face as he droned, “Yes, I accept the title.”
“You hear that?” Peter bounced Mayday in his arms. “You have a tio now!”
Miguel snorted as he fumbled the pronunciation, but any exasperation was short-lived. Mayday laughed in response to Peter’s happiness, the sound melting all negativity away. “Just don’t go behind my back anymore.”
“Deal. I should actually take her home. It’s getting close to naptime.”
Miguel shrugged nonchalantly, though Mayday’s absence always made him feel a little empty. “I won’t stop you.”
“Say bye-bye to Tio Miguel!”
Mayday looked at Miguel and smiled, letting out a string of babble that ultimately resulted in, “Bwai, titi!”
It was so fleeting that Peter almost missed it, but it was there for a moment, a flash of fangs and a crinkling of the eyes as Miguel smiled back, his response soft. “Bye, mija.”
Miles’ phone dinged, and he picked it up, grinning at the message waiting for him.
Tio Miguel is a go! How does Tio Miles sound?