Throwing Caution to the Wind

Chapter 11

When Peter woke up the next day, he awoke to the smell of pancakes bacon and eggs. He spent a few minutes laying there on his bed enjoying the smell of breakfast before braving the cold and heading down the towards it.  He found May flipping (or rather trying to) a pancake. But it looked like she had forgotten to grease the pan. Oh well, he found that of they were the perfect amount of burnt, that I actually tasted better. Though after he told her that, he could've sworn that May started burning the pancakes more often. Oh well, they tasted good.

"Hi sweetie, are you feeling better after last night?" He nodded sheepishly. He shouldn't be breaking down like that. He was 14. But May seemed to sense his thoughts.

"There's nothing wrong with crying the way you did last night. In fact, I would rather that happen then you bottling it up. Of you do bottle it up, one day your gonna explode. It's like when you open a pop bottle. You twist open the cap just a little and wait for the excess gas to escape before opening all the way. If you didn't let it escape, it would come all at once and there's no way you can control it, all you can do is wait for it to make its great escape and hope that the clean up isn't too bad" she said turning off the stove to give him a hug.

"Thanks May, I love you" he really was grateful that even though he didn't really have a mother, he had a mom in every sense of the word.

Saturday had long since been declared Parkerday. Since Peter had first come into May and Ben's costudy. It always changed what they were doing, but lately with Ben gone, they usually only got 1 or 2 Saturdays free a month, so they found something easy fun and low prep to do. So every Saturday that May had free, they had their routine. Wake up, breakfast and Peter favorite part: fill up a wicker basket with sandwiches, a thermos of soup and head off to Central Park for a picnic. But they cheated and bought sandwiches from Delmar's.

Once they finished making the soup (broccoli cheddar was the soup de jour) they went to Delmar's to pick up 4 sandwiches. After that they went to catch the subway.

Along the way, Peter told May more about what had gone on with Boonton. May wasn't happy and told him that he needed to tell her these things as they were happening so she could be there for him.

The park was beautiful. Under the late September sun it shone like a brand new coin.

The afternoon was good. And by the end of it, Peter felt refreshed and ready to tackle the upcoming week.

When they got to their street the sun had started to set and the evening chill had set in. They pulled there sweaters closer and they hurried down the block.

Once they made it inside they Peter out the popcorn in the pot and May set up the movie. They ended up watching Jurassic Park.

*******

On Monday, Peter texted Ned that he had something to tell him and wanted to meet him at his locker. When he finally got there, he wanted to get it over with fast. So he told him quickly and quietly as he was grabbing his things. Ned looked shocked at first, then sympathetic.

"At least you're getting a real internship now" he said in consolation.

"Yeah, at least I have that.

At lunch he took his time getting lunch not wanting to see MJ's "I told you so" face. But he knew once he put his fruit cup on his lunch tray, that that time was coming a lot faster than he would like. Eventually he sat down but he found MJ are looking at him with sympathy. He was confused for a while 2 seconds until he saw Ned's guilty face. He glared at him and he just shrugged.

"I know you didn't really want to tell her so I told her for you" he said by way of explanation.

Peter sighed internally, it was true, he didn't realize want to tell her. But he also didn't want MJ seeing him as someone who needed their hand held. He wanted to impress her. Wait, why did he want to do that. 'Because she doesn't seem like someone who gets impresses easily' said a voice in his head. There was a stronger louder voice that told him something different but he chose to ignore that.

Lunch went well after that. MJ and Ned told him he could pick the movie for the next Friday since the had both bailed.

After school he went patrolling again. It felt good. Swinging around the city focusing on other people helped him forget the entirely of last week's fiasco. Until it happened.

Ned had left to do his homework so he decided to take a quick break. He was in a rooftop, which seemed to be the best place to truly take a break. Until lately it seemed.

He watched as Ironman flew below the building with a white flag sticking from up his helmet.

"TinCan, are we calling a truce on the whole spider hunt. Maybe you realized your mistake in trying to catch me and are here to make amends" he said all this with bite behind the words not expecting anything.

"Actually, yes. I've done some looking. Read police reports, watched the news, had an actual look at The Web, that fan blog that's dedicated to you. And, now listen closely because I've only ever said this one other time in my life, but, I was wrong about you. You're a decent guy. And I would actually like to call a truce."

Peter was speechless. He said that all sarcastically. He was about to hold out his hand to shake on it when he thought of something.

"Is this a trap, if I agree, is there some loophole that's gonna get me arrested. If I shake on it, will you pull a fast one" he asked.

Tony took off the faceplate and looked at him, really looked at him.

"Spidey, listen, I know I started out my attacking you, and that's on me. And if you agree, it's more of a moral thing. I let you keep your secret identity on the small clause that if something ever happens that we need you for, you come give us a hand. And that doesn't mean fighting aliens next time they come to New York. But that could just be getting civilians to safety while we just do some defense before we get to the offense, or of yoir interested, maybe the odd Avenger mission. What do you say?" He held out his hand to shake.

Peter thought it over, and realized that it was a pretty good deal. In fact Tony was the only person losing something. He didn't get his identity.

He stuck out his hand and gave it a few quick pumps. Then his faceplate came down again and the white flag retracted. Peter was worried for a sec that he would try something, but he ended up flying up and waving.

All in all, it wasn't that bad of a Monday.