desiderium | m. o'hara

thirty-two

TW: mentions of death

  "Y/n! Y/n, you gotta watch this! It's amazing!"

  I glance up from my laptop and do a double take just as Peter, donning a classic pink robe, comes barrelling into the station with a giggling Mayday strapped in her baby bjorn. Her bright red curls bounce with each step her overexcited dad makes. Beside me and previously engaged in his studies, Pavitr sends them a questioning look.

  Flummoxed by their abrupt appearance, my gaze follows Peter as he races to the side of the station and slips his baby out of her seat. My confusion grows when he places her against the metal wall. And then it snaps into disbelief when Peter releases her and she stays there, suspended in the air like Mayday is the epicentre upon which gravity revolves around.

  "Oh!" Pavitr comments. His eyes grow twice as wide at the baby hanging off the side of a wall. "... that's cool."

  Peter turns to us with an elated laugh and holds out his arms in triumph. "She's a Spidey!"

  I stand from my seat as my shock settles in. Mayday starts attempting to crawl and falls onto her belly with a loud, shrieking laugh. This is a scene straight from a horror movie.

  "Peter, what the hell."

  "Great, right?" Peter proudly gushes. He plants his fists on his hips and watches as his daughter rolls about in her clumsy infancy. I have five heart attacks. "She's gonna grow up to be just like Miles, I can feel it - it's that seventh sense of mine."

  "Miles?" Pavitr asks. "Is he another Spider-Man?"

  "Pete, this is freaking me out," I confess, and wring my hands that want to snatch the curly-haired tot from the wall. "Can you please get your baby down?"

  Peter points at Pavitr. "Yes," he answers. He turns to me. "She's fine, Y/n, look at her! We've been playing like this for hours before coming here. Where's Miguel? I wanna show him - oh, he'll die."

  Now that the surprise is over, Pavitr slumps into his seat and buries his head back into his mountain of textbooks. Apparently, the station is a quiet spot and I'm a quiet study buddy, which are two things equally hard to come by in Mumbattan, according to the young Spidey.

  I take a tentative seat in my chair and watch Mayday wearily. "He's on a mission with Ben and Charlie."

  "Ah. Oh, well." Peter crosses his arms and watches Mayday wiggle about with a beam. "Whatcha workin' on there, Pav?"

  "Particle masses," Pavitr answers with a sigh. He taps his pen on the underside of his chin. "I'm stuck working out what equation to use to calculate."

  "Have you tried the Koide formula? It's all theoretical but it could be a good starting point."

His eyes widen. "I haven't!" He starts scrawling in his notebook with renewed vigour. Peter chortles endearingly when Mayday sucks on the the blue day pass around her wrist.

I turn back to my laptop with a smile. "Nerds."

  Comfortable silence returns to the station, broken only by Peter's occasional cooing and Mayday's babbles. I remind myself to the fact that, soon, I won't be here everyday. I'll be back to my mundane office with my mundane workmates - where I should belong, where I have for years. But now I feel as though I'm stretched somewhere between the two.

  Not exactly a Spidey, but part of the club nonetheless.

  Jess hovers, dipping in and out of patrols and portals and taking command of the platform of screens with Lyla at her side. She'd happily accepted to take up a fair share of Miguel's HQ work so he doesn't run himself ragged, with the rest of the responsibilities divvied out equally between a few of the longer-standing members that she considers responsible enough.