Chapter Text
May meets Johnny Storm in the worst possible way: she catches him early one Saturday morning, trying to creep out of her bathroom and back into Peter’s room. “This isn’t--we weren’t--” he says, and makes a concerningly ambiguous gesture. “I mean, Ms. Parker, hi, good morning.”
“For the love of God, please stop talking,” says May.
Honestly, the strangest thing is that Peter is home at all. Whatever he and Johnny have been doing with their time, they tend to stick around Midtown, near Peter’s school and the Baxter Building. They’ve been dating six weeks, Peter is still dodging her offers to have Johnny over for dinner, and yet--here he is, using May’s bathroom.
“I should just go home,” he says. “Sorry I startled you.”
“No, no, stay,” says May, too polite for her own good. “I was going to make myself breakfast anyway.”
Johnny considers this. “I can do eggs?”
They’re in the kitchen before May wakes up enough to notice that Johnny actually is fully dressed, in a shirt and dark jeans that are crumpled up like he slept in them. His sneakers, immaculate blue suede with gold leather flames, probably cost more than her rent. “Be honest. Do I want to know what happened last night?”
Johnny shrugs. “We had plans, but Pete texted me he was ‘held up,’ which could be anything from bus bunching to serial killers. He said to meet him here, but he just climbed in the window like an hour ago. And fell asleep.”
“But he seemed okay?” She has to ask; Peter tells Johnny things he doesn’t tell her.
“He seemed okay.”
“You could have waited in the living room, you know.”
“I was scared of meeting you,” Johnny admits. “So much for that, right?”
May laughs, startled. “What did Peter tell you about me?”
“Nothing bad! That’s the thing. You have, like, veto power. If you don’t like me--goodbye.”
“Yeah, you say that, but you weren’t around right after I found out about Spider-Man. This place was a war zone. It was awful.”
Johnny pauses in the middle of cracking eggs into a bowl. “You tried to make him stop?”
“I tried to make him stop,” says May. “And my God, I have never seen him so angry. For weeks he wouldn’t talk to me, and then he sat me down and said, ‘Look, the thing is, you can’t make me stop.’ And he was right, I couldn’t.”
“This--isn’t like that.”
“No, so I gave him a hard time for maybe a week and then let it go. I just want him to be happy, and it seems like he is.”
“He should be,” says Johnny, and flushes, looking surprised by his own vehemence. “He tries to carry so much--he should be happy.”
May waves a spatula at him. “See, you’re fine, you can stay. Trust me, you are by far the least of my concerns in his life.”
It’s hours more until Peter makes an appearance, wandering down the hall in his costume tights and a Mets hoodie that says THOR on the back. Color coordination is not, as far as May can tell, one of his superpowers. “Torch,” he says sleepily. “What are you doing here?”
Johnny waves from his end of the couch. “Hi, it’s me? Your boyfriend? You may remember me from the time you blew off a date and then climbed in your window at six AM, fell on top of me, and immediately started snoring.”
“I don’t snore,” says Peter. “What if I said it was a kitten in a tree?”
“Where was the tree? Wakanda?” Johnny sighs theatrically. “The romance is dead. Not that there’s any romance, Ms. Parker. How dare you touch me--hey!”
Peter smacks a kiss on his cheek and then registers, too late, the presence of May. And her phone. “No,” he says, horrified. “May, no, come on.”
“What? It’s not like your costume is showing.” May surveys her photo. “See, it’s cute.”
Johnny sits up and grabs for the phone. “Can I see?”
“Oh my God, you bonded,” says Peter. “My life is over.”
“Well, I left you waffles in the oven, but--” May shrugs. “If your life’s over, I’m happy to eat them all myself.”
“Aw, not even fresh?”
“No fresh waffles for people who flake on dates,” says May, and goes to take a shower while they hash it out.
When she comes back the waffles are on a plate on the coffee table, barely touched; Johnny’s fast asleep, curled into Peter’s side, head on his shoulder. Peter smiles sheepishly at her.
“He was here all night waiting for you,” May whispers. Her phone is, regrettably, out of reach.
“I know. He’s so--” Johnny shifts and grumbles; Peter goes still, looking stricken. “I’m gonna make it up to him, May, I swear.”
He’s turning seventeen next week, which should have given her enough time to brace for this kind of thing, and yet May feels lost. God, she hopes she did okay at raising this person, whoever he is. “Lucky for you he likes you, huh?”
“Yeah,” says Peter, almost inaudible. His fingers curl protectively into the hem of Johnny’s shirt. “Lucky me.”