Accidents Happen

Chapter Twenty-Nine-That Was Family

It's the Monday of the second week of March: spring break. And it was also moving day.

The day Michelle officially moves in with her boyfriend and her daughter's grand-something. Peter, May, and Amara were all Michelle's room, packing her things. Katherine and Franklin had to work, to their dismay. And Michelle tried to help, but being a little over three weeks away from giving birth, she couldn't do much. So she mostly sat on her bed and watched, waiting until they would have to take her bed apart.

The trio had already packed up her desk, most of her clothes (which they were just folding and putting in boxes since it wasn't a long-distance move), and her small bookshelf. She was leaving most of her furniture with her family, but was taking her bed, her shelf, Amara's small desk (she was getting Michelle's old one), and her mirror.

May had so graciously sacrificed the Parker's master bedroom to the couple, since they would have three people living in the room. She was taking Peter's old one, which wasn't small exactly, but was smaller than the master. Peter's hunk-of-junk bunk beds were being tossed to the curb, and May would bring her bed into her new room, Michelle's belonging in their bedroom.

May and Peter had thrown out the beds and moved the woman's queen-size bed into Peter's old room the previous night. They also already moved Peter's desk into the corner of his new room, and put a white crib in the opposite corner. They had all gone crib-shopping the week after Valentine's Day, and the Parker aunt-and-nephew had stared at the directions for an hour the day before, trying to figure out how to put it together before finally opening up YouTube.

"You're taking this, right?" Amara asked, holding up the pregnancy tests in the display frame she had given Michelle three months ago.

Michelle nodded. "Of course. I wouldn't dream of leaving it behind, don't worry."

After a few minutes of silence, Peter began another conversation. "So Amara, when do I get to meet this new boyfriend of yours? The girl shrugged and went back to packing. "And also, I know I'm not your brother, but if you end up pregnant at sixteen, I'll kill him."

Amara rolled her eyes. "Don't worry, I'm responsible. More so than you guys, apparently."

Michelle groaned, face-palming. "Are we really having this conversation now?"

The younger girl smiled sinisterly. "Absolutely."

Eventually it grew time for them to take Michelle's bed apart, so she pulled a kitchen chair into a now empty corner of the room and watched, feeling useless. "I can't wait to get this thing out of me."

May sighed loudly, putting a wooden foot of the bed in a box. "I always regretted not having kids of my own. Well, maybe not after I got Peter, he was a real handful." Peter laughed, nodding. "But the actual 'being pregnant' part was something I was not sad to miss."

"Lucky you," Michelle laughed, rolling her eyes. It took the trio another fifteen minutes to finish taking the bed apart, and then they were done packing. Now, they could start moving things to the u-haul. As they did so, Michelle sat on the living room couch, striking up a ten-second conversation with whoever was walking by at the moment.

After twenty minutes, the trailer was finally loaded, and Michelle walked back to her bedroom to say goodbye, of sorts. Of course, it's not like she was never coming back, but this was very possibly the last moment the room would ever be 'hers', and she would miss it. A lot of crazy things happened in that room. She got pregnant, found out she was pregnant, and scheduled her first sonogram all in that room. All in the middle of those periwinkle blue walls.

She would miss her old life. The innocence of childhood and the intelligence that comes with growing up. But she had to move on. She had to guide her own child through the painful labyrinth that is life. She had to be a mother. And god, she hoped she didn't screw it up. She hadn't been joking when she said that on new year's eve.

Then she walked down to the car with the rest of the group, and they finally left. After the drive to Peter's house, which was excruciating because Amara made them listen to Taylor Swift, they all hopped out again and May, Amara, and Peter began unloading the trailer. Once again, Michelle just watched from a seat in the kitchen as they passed by every three minutes or so, tapping her foot anxiously.

Since they wanted the room to be a surprise, they didn't even let her watch them put it together. She heard the sounds of the hammer from the kitchen though, and every few minutes she could hear Amara yell 'shit!', and she would roll her eyes and wonder where Amara learned her language. It certainly wasn't her, she was always careful not to cuss in front of sister, at least most of the time. Maybe it was Liam.

She was so bored, she let her mind wander to various topics such as this for the next three hours, eventually getting up and grabbing a personal-size bag of cheetos from the pantry. Then she sat back down and scrolled through her phone as she ate, listening to the commotion coming from a few rooms away.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Peter came out to get her. "I've been sent to escort you to your chambers," he said in a British accent, holding out his hand for her to take. Michelle rolled her eyes as she stood up and pushed her chair in.

"Why are you talking like that?"

Peter sighed. "For dramatic emphasis. Just c'mon." He grabbed her hand and pulled her to the bedroom, covering her eyes as they entered the hallway. This worked for about two seconds, until he accidentally ran her into a wall, and she pulled his hands off quickly. "Sorry," he offered.

Michelle just laughed. "You're an absolute disaster, Peter Benjamin Parker. I hope our daughter takes after me."

That reminded Peter that he still, even after all those months, texts, and times he'd seen Tony in person, he had never asked Michelle about the tests. And it seemed awfully late now... maybe he just never would. I mean, they were going to find out soon anyway, right?

Michelle pushed the door open, and stopped when she saw the room. A lot about it was the same: the wall color, the standing lamp in the corner, the mirror hanging on the closet door, etc. But there was a lot about it that was different as well. The queen size bed was square in the middle of the room, up against the wall. In the corner to the left, there was the crib and chest for the baby's clothes. To the right was Amara's old small desk and Peter's small desk. They had hung the pregnancy tests next to the door, where they were visible from the bed. They had also framed all of Peter's sonogram photos in a multi-photo frame and hung them above the crib. It was perfect, and Michelle felt a tear tug on her eye.

"Aww, is someone crying?" Peter asked, laughing a little bit.

Michelle wiped the tears from her eyes. "Shut it, loser," she said before pulling him into a side hug, which was really the only kind of hug she could give at that point. Then she hugged May, and lastly Amara.

"Do you like it?" the eighth-grader asked as they pulled away from the hug.

"I love it. Thank you so much, May."

May scoffed and pulled the girl in for another hug. "Oh, it's nothing, MJ. You're family. This is what family does."

The family had changed meanings a lot for Michelle since July. It used to just mean her parents and Amara. Then Peter was really the only one she accepted into her circle. But then she let in Ned and May, and she realized that family doesn't mean the people that you're related to, or who you live in the same house as. She had a new definition for the word.

Fam·i·ly /ˈfam(ə)lē/

A group of people that don't give a shit how messed up they are, because they've got each other. A group of people that genuinely care, love, and look out for one another. A group of people with an unbreakable bond, no matter what the fuck life throws at them.

Yeah. That was family.