X

Peter hated driving in New York.

People in his home city were loud, rude, and there were way too many of them. Plus, everyone seemed to be following entirely different sets of traffic laws, and Peter wasn't comfortable with any of them. This particular day, his mind wasn't exactly on the road, either, which wasn't helping. A cacophony of honking erupted because a pedestrian was crossing the sidewalk, and his irritation grew.

"This would probably go faster if I walked, too," Peter muttered to himself.

At least he was headed somewhere that always proved to be a great distraction. The following day was Mother's Day, which meant Harley was in town and had already met up with Morgan. Peter had a very good reason to be late; not that they would see it that way, especially given how Peter wasn't about to tell them in the first place.

As though on cue, a text from Harley popped up on the screen embedded into the car's dashboard.

whats taking you so long

And then, before Peter had a chance to reply, another one.

Morgans fingers are almost fully stapled to her toes

Peter pulled an incredulous expression at the words and decided against texting back. He was pretty sure Harley was joking, but on the off chance he wasn't, Peter would rather find out in person.

Another outpouring of honking sounded, and this time, Peter couldn't even identify the incredible non-reason reason for it. He was checking his rearview mirror, having forgotten about the balloon bouquet he was carrying in the back – which obscured his vision – when his phone rang.

Peter huffed, turned back around, and immediately answered the call. He'd half-expected it to be Harley or Morgan, so his attention was fully diverted from the road and the balloons when he read the caller ID.

"Pepper, hi."

"Hi, honey," Pepper greeted back. "How are you? Anything new?"

For some reason, Peter balked at this simple question. "New? No, nothing. Nothing new, there's- I haven't- don't have anything new to share. What's up with you?"

There was a short silence. "Okay," Pepper replied, amused. "I will take you at your word. Nothing's up with me, I was just calling because I know what day it is tomorrow, which means I know what day it is today."

Peter relaxed fractionally. "Oh, yeah? You know I'm under a strict NDA. Seriously, Morgan made me sign something. I can't tell you anything."

"My daughter's eccentricities aside, I only wanted to know where you're doing your- preparations this year." Pepper's voice had become more guarded and hesitant now. "Because if it's at the lake-house again-"

For Morgan, Peter and Harley, Father's Day really sucked. But Mother's Day was their favorite day of the year, so they accidentally made it a thing. The three of them had a tradition – every year, they made it a point to meet up and provide their mothers with the fruits of their most imaginative, least reasonable ideas for what consisted a fun bonding activity. And every year, it got crazier – more supplies, longer tasks, a larger stock of Morgan's 'work snacks' – at this point, it was required that preparations be done a full day in advance.

For the greater part of the past ten years, they'd used Morgan's house as their home-base. Pepper had even been willing to clear out for the day, if the end result was that she would get pampered. The problem was that they weren't the best at cleaning up after themselves. Harley tended to consider this a point of pride, Morgan usually pretended not to know where the Dorito bags littering the floor had come from, and Peter always preferred to clear out before his soul withered by hand of Pepper's chastisement.

So now, Peter was receiving a preemptive phone-call instead. His soul was rotting already.

"Uh, no- no," he assured immediately, right back to flustered. "Your house is safe. Morgan rented a place this year."

There was a relieved sigh from the other end of the line. Peter's blush intensified. "Good. Don't get me wrong, you're all sweethearts for doing this, but-"

"Yup," Peter interrupted again, grimacing. "I got it. I know, we make- a mess of things."

"That's certainly a way to put it," Pepper said noncommittally. "Oh – hold on, Peter, I'm handing over the phone."

"To whom?" he asked confusedly.

There was some rustling, some hissing, and then a familiar voice called out, "Peter – I've been hearing some things about you today."

"May?" Peter blinked. "You're with Pepper? What for?"

"Comparing war stories," May replied promptly. He snorted. "It's called pre-Mother's-Day gaming. You have your rituals, we have ours."

"Good to know. Just don't get too wasted, you'll need your hand-eye coordination for tomorrow."

May let out an aggravated growl in response to that, which was what Peter was going for, so he grinned. "Peter, I am not a young woman anymore-"

"What are you talking about, you're twenty-six years old."

May let out a huff that reproduced itself full of static on Peter's end. "Just promise me I'll be home by eleven."

"You'll be home by midnight at the latest. Probably. There's a distinct possibility you'll be home by midnight at the latest. It could definitely happen."

May took a moment to answer. "Whatever it is I'm doing at one in the morning instead of sleeping, it better blow my mind."

Peter smiled. "I live to serve."

"Sure, baby. I've gotta go, Pepper was telling me a great story about the time Morgan introduced you to all her little kindergarten friends as her pet tarantula."

"She introduced me as her pet spider-monkey, and you two are evil."

"That's no way to talk to me on Mother's Day."

"Mother's Day is actually tomorrow, but your point is well taken," Peter said solemnly. "Please, continue reveling in my humiliation. D'you know how cruel a bunch of unleashed children can be?"

May laughed. "I'm sure it was devastating, sweetheart. I'll talk to you tomorrow, provided you guys didn't pack the schedule too much. Love you."

"Love you too – bye, May," he chirped. The call disconnected.

Peter finally took a turn that led him away from traffic. He was finally on his way to a good mood when, not five minutes later, his phone rang again. The display on the dashboard showed him a picture of MJ, so he picked up on the first ring.

"Hey, everything okay? Want me to pick up anything? Should I pick you up-?"

MJ's huff on the other end interrupted his increasingly high-pitched rambling. "Okay, first, tone it down, loser – several octaves down, actually. I feel like I'm talking to a five-year-old who somehow learned how to drive. Second – I'm calling to ask if you've met up with your fellow musketeers yet."

Scowling but feeling calmer, Peter drummed his fingers on the steering wheel for two petulant seconds before replying. "I haven't, I'm still stuck in traffic."

"Good, so you haven't told them yet."

"Of course not, and I'm not going to," Peter protested. "I told you I wouldn't."

"Yes, you did, Peter, and you also told me you wouldn't tell Ned, but I'm still getting texts with a link to an Amazon wish list he wants me to take over."

"That is not fair and you know it. I forgot Ned was on the phone with me when you told me."

"Yeah, that kind of is my bad for forgetting I married the both of you."

"Exactly. You really should have seen that coming," Peter admonished, grinning.

"Whatever. Tell him to cut it out before I show him what happens to people who treat me like a girl."

Peter winced. "I will tell him to direct the links to me and me alone, because I am his best friend and I'm hurt he's sending them to you instead."

"Sounds good to me. Hug Morgan for me and tell Harley to take a long walk off a short pier."

"I will give Morgan and Harley all your love," Peter paraphrased, finger hovering over the end-call button. "Love you."

"I love you too. See you at home."

Peter made a final left turn and pulled up to a relatively empty parking lot, eyes set on the building just ahead. The door was slightly open and there was a stapler on the ground, for some reason. He shook his head and grinned a little.

---

I

The first time it had happened, it was before Peter had even mustered the courage to put on the Spider-Man suit again.

(It was early May and the weather was beginning to look really nice, so Peter was in the mood to doze in bed and stare out the window. Ten minutes into his nap, his phone rang from his desk.

Peter hesitated for a second and untangled himself from his bedsheets. Though he'd been ignoring most calls and texts for a while now, instinct told him he should pick up this one – a good thing too, because caller ID informed him he was receiving a call from Ms. Potts. Like he'd been struck by lightening, Peter instantly became wide awake.

When he put the phone to his ear, the voice on the other end wasn't Pepper's. "Hey, Spidey," a little girl greeted.

"Mor-? Morgan – hello." Peter cleared his throat and attempted to sound friendlier. "I mean, hi. How are you?"

"I stole mommy's phone," she confessed. "I had to figure out her passcode, because it used to be my birthday, but now it's daddy's."

Peter turned away from his shelf, where his eyes had accidentally landed on the picture he'd stolen from the lake-house, of him and Tony giving each other bunny ears over the internship certificate. Maybe I should take it down for now, he thought, and was halfway through calculating how long until loss and grief stopped hurting this much when he realized Morgan was still on the line with him. "Right – uh, kiddo, why did you steal your mom's phone to call me again?"

"Because I need your help."

"You do?"

"Tomorrow is Mother's Day."

"Yes, it is," Peter said, smiling a little. "What are you doing for your mom?"

"Well, I have a plan. But I can't do it alone. Last year, daddy helped me. But he can't today. Can you?"

The smile wiped off Peter's face. He heard himself agree without thinking it over much, suddenly willing to bend over backwards and lasso the moon for this little girl.)

"Okay, so, eggs and bacon and a flower on the tray?" Peter suggested quietly. It was four am and Morgan was wearing Iron Man pajamas, looking far more alert than anyone had a right to be at four in the morning. Pepper was either a heavy sleeper or pretending to be asleep, because it couldn't have been very hard to hear the doorbell or their ruckus.

Harley, whose presence had come as a surprise to Peter, was rummaging around the overhead cabinets for pots and pans. Peter had half an eye on him and half a mind to tell him to get down and let the sticky mutant in their company do that part before someone hurt themselves.

He made for the fridge instead, pulling out a cartoon of eggs with Morgan's approval. "We could do pancakes," Harley suggested, producing a frying pan. He got down from the kitchen chair he'd been using as an unstable ladder.

Morgan seemed to find something that was bothering her. "Wait, we're doing it now? Won't it get cold?"

Harley and Peter exchanged a look. "Well, you can't cook by yourself. We'll leave it done for breakfast, your mom won't mind reheating it if she knows you did it."

"You're not coming to help me tomorrow?" Morgan looked upset, and Peter was thrown by that one.

"Uh – I can't let May spend Mother's Day alone, can I?"

"Oh, no, of course not," Morgan agreed, expression clearing at once. "Bring her, Harley's mom is coming too. We'll cook for all three of them."

"It's true," Harley said. "We negotiated for it. I convinced mom to come to the spa and eat rich people food for free. It was a tough one, but we compromised in the end."

Morgan seemed to accept the issue as settled, and beamed at them both before she left to get dressed, presumably with an overwhelmingly pink outfit of her own choosing. Harley took the opportunity provided by her absence to talk to Peter.

"Full disclosure, I was also blindsided by this one a couple of days ago," he said. "Though bribing my mom was easy. Pepper's a saint, she offered up the guest room."

Peter offered him a tight smile. He didn't know Harley at all – from sight, at the funeral, and from all the times Tony had mentioned his name. Harley blipped too, Peter also knew that, but as far as common ground went, it wasn't the best start.

"Yeah, uh – I wasn't exactly about to deny her. After everything."

"Plus, she's fun," Harley pointed out.

"There is that," Peter agreed, warming up to him. He hesitated for a second and then decided Harley was surely as curious as Peter was about the question on the tip of his tongue. "Have you noticed she keeps referring to us as her brothers?"

"It hasn't escaped my attention, no," Harley said amicably. "My guess is Tony was sad about us being gone, and thus told her some sappy stuff. As he does- did."

"Sounds like him." Peter rubbed at his eyes forcefully. "I've never had a sibling."

Harley hummed. "I have a sister. Amy. She wasn't a monster when she was Morgan's age."

"Uh-"

Morgan walked back into the kitchen, then, wrapped in what appeared to be a neon shower curtain. She did a twirl. Harley complimented the piece sincerely and Peter left to text May with a smile on his face that felt genuine for the first time since the funeral.

---

X

When she stepped outside to greet Peter, Morgan's fingers were intact, and so, presumably, were her toes. She grinned at him and threw her arms around his neck for a hug – Peter was convinced she was somehow texting one-handed behind his back. Her braid tickled his nose.

"There's a stapler on the sidewalk," Peter said, voice muffled into her hair.

Morgan pulled back with her face stuck in its best stupidity-pains-me sort of grimace. "Yeah, Harley thought it was the funniest prank. What can you do."

"Evict him?"

"He doesn't live here," Morgan replied regretfully, picking up the stapler.

Peter followed her inside, reaching into his pocket to pull out his wallet. He rummaged around for a moment, using his foot to shut the door behind him, and handed Morgan's golden card back to her.

"I might've overused it, but to be fair, our plans were kind of ambitious this year," he said apologetically. "Sorry."

The lights turned on when Morgan clapped twice, which meant either she or Harley – probably both – had felt the need to mess with this place's electricals. Under the artificial illumination, Peter realized it was a bigger space than the outside appearance suggested. An abnormally tall pile of pillows was pushed against the far wall; Peter almost swore he saw one twitching before realizing he must have a bad case of driver fatigue.

"Oh, what'd you spend, like ten grand?" Morgan asked, unconcernedly digging around her and Harley's belongings in the corner.

In the process of shrugging out of his jacket, Peter nearly choked on thin air. "Ten- No! Seven hundred! Holy shit, Morgan." She gave him a dubious look. "Seven hundred dollars, Morgan. Dollars. Two zeroes."

"Well, if you were trying to blend in with my usual expenditures, you didn't have to worry. Mom doesn't pay that much attention to how I spend my allowance."

Morgan finally produced her wallet, cheered 'aha', put away the card, and rolled everything back into what very clearly was supposed to be a life-sized rat's nest. Peter rolled his eyes and threw his own jacket on top of hers.

"The balloons are in the car. Harley," Peter called, louder, "we could use some help bringing them out."

A muffled voice shouted back in response. Peter could not make out what it was saying or where it was coming from, so he side-eyed Morgan. "Where's Harley?"

Morgan shrugged delicately and swept her braid over her shoulder. "The pillows ate him. I've been planning a rescue operation for the last few minutes, but to be completely honest with you, I've also been working on yesterday's Times' crossword puzzle."

Peter immediately strode toward the pile of pillows, stuck an arm into the place where he'd seen one twitch earlier, and dragged Harley out by his foot. Harley blinked up at him, possibly still adjusting his eyesight, and then smiled.

"Hey, man," he greeted charmingly, immediately straightening and ruffling his own hair. "I lost a needle in there."

Peter offered him a very deadpan look. "You're kidding me."

"No, not today. I really did lose a needle in there."

"And pillow-diving was your best solution?"

"Can't get to plan b without testing plan a, can I?"

"Forget the needle," Peter suggested, exasperated.

"Can't," Morgan piped up, leaning over her elbows from a nearby table. "Someone might sit on it."

Peter huffed and accepted his reality. "How did you even lose a needle in there?"

"Dunno, stuff happens," Harley shrugged.

"I think the needle's hiding," Morgan said. "They don't want to be found."

"They? It's more than one?"

"No, I just don't know what gender needles are."

Peter gave Morgan such an unimpressed look that she actually backed down. "Needles do not have minds of their own," he said slowly. "Unless they're magnetized and sitting on a little pool of water."

"You say that," Harley warned with an air of wisdom that did not suit him, "but they might just be lying in wait. Keeping secrets. And when you finally sit on it – because someone will sit on it – then they prick you in the ass."

Peter stared between Morgan and Harley, dumbfounded. "What the hell is wrong with both of you?"

Morgan slumped and Harley groaned. "We've been looking for the stupid thing for ages," she whined. "I give up."

"I've been looking for the stupid thing for ages," Harley protested. "If anyone's giving up, it's me."

"Right," Peter declared, pulling them both away. "You know what we're gonna do? We're gonna pretend the needle isn't there."

Morgan seemed dubious, though Harley followed Peter's lead willingly. "What if someone sits on it?" she insisted.

"I'll take that chance," Peter replied drily, rolling up his sleeves. "Now, c'mon, we've got a lot of work ahead of us."

---

II

The second Mother's Day of this burgeoning tradition didn't fall on the best of times.

"Pete, your face is all over the television," Morgan informed him cheerfully over the phone.

MJ had her worried eyes set on him as Peter swung away, but stopping to chat with her was not the best idea at the moment. And he really needed to disengage Karen's protocol for automatically answering Pepper's calls when he was in the suit.

"Yes, it is, Morgan," he replied tersely, dropping down on a deserted rooftop to pull his mask up to his nose and hyperventilate. "Is that why you're calling me?"

"No," she said. "Next week is Mother's Day."

"Next week- what?"

"Next week. May twelfth." There was some rustling from Morgan's end. "I think mommy's looking for her phone. She was very upset about the news, her voice is getting really high."

"Yeah, you know, I'm kind of upset myself."

"What? Why?"

Peter couldn't help himself and laughed. "Don't you remember how I said Spider-Man was supposed to be a secret?"

"Well, you didn't think it was gonna be a secret forever, did you? That's not how secrets work."

Peter closed his eyes and tried not to cry. He kept imagining he could hear his name – 'Parker', 'Peter', 'Peter Parker, yes', 'Did he kill him?!' – whispered down among the hubbub and city noise in the street. "Can I please talk to your mom, Morgan?"

Morgan sighed, and Peter thought he heard her opening a door. "Okay. Hope they catch the bad guy who's saying all that mean stuff about you. You'll still be here for Mother's Day, just like last year, right?"

For a long moment, Peter said nothing. Morgan was very obviously waiting on the other end, stubbornly refusing to move until she got an answer. So, for a really short second, he allowed himself to enter a fantasy where, in a week's time, everything would have gone back to normal. The sudden clarity made him realize the thing he wanted the most in the world right then was a hug from May. "Yeah," he said, in an eerily normal voice, "of course I'll be there. Wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Alright," Morgan cheered, and then Pepper was on the phone, frantic and talking a mile a minute about press conferences and lawyers, so Peter's world tipped upside down again.

---

X

"You drove with balloons in the trunk? Is that legal, with how they cover up everything?"

Peter shrugged. The process of removing balloons from the car shouldn't have been this complicated, but apparently, Peter was supposed to have tied them down when he first put them in the trunk. Morgan was outdoing them all in catching the flying escapees, which was kind of an affront to Peter's reflexes. "My rearview mirror is a state of mind. Literally. It's the Spidey-sense."

"Peter-tingle," Morgan corrected immediately, tying another balloon around her wrist. Peter scowled at her.

"Both of those are equally stupid," Harley said. "And I believe you asked for my help, not my slave labor?"

Morgan kissed his cheek and took the opportunity to steal some licorice, a packet of which was being held by Harley, who hadn't caught a single balloon. Possibly because he was holding a bag of candy. It suddenly occurred to Peter that Harley's lack off effort was by design. "Slave labor is what rich people call help."

"Morgan, you're rich people."

"That's how I know."

That was the end of that conversation. Peter, Morgan and Harley minus Harley struggled with the rest of the balloons for a few more minutes, and then Peter shut the trunk fully, mission accomplished. His wrist felt light with the balloons tied around it. Morgan made a show of pointedly tying her larger collection to the door handle, on the inside of the warehouse, which prompted Peter to stick his tongue out at her.

"By the way, Amy's driving mom over tomorrow," Harley said, walking back inside with them. "She said she'll be here at nine, so, knowing my sister, expect them at ten."

Morgan glanced at Peter, who was tying his own balloon strings next to hers. "Did May clear the day?"

"Yeah, this is the tenth time we've done this – she knows the drill by now. She is actually currently doing what seems to be a yearly preparation ritual of her own, with your mom, Morgan."

"Oh yeah?" Morgan said, merry and unconcerned. "They should invite Harley's mom next year."

"They do," Harley interjected. "She couldn't make it today."

Peter was scandalized. "Why am I the last to know about this?"

Harley shrugged. "We pay more attention."

Peter flipped him off, threw himself on a nearby couch, and then realized there was a couch in Morgan's one-day-rent warehouse. "You furbished this place?"

"Am I supposed to live like an animal?" Morgan replied, a tone of voice that made unflattering assertions about Peter's intelligence. Then she grinned. "I'm just kidding, Harley dared me to outspend every previous Mother's Day we've had, combined."

"Harley did what?" Peter asked loudly, at the same time that Harley groaned, "Why would you say that to the fun police?"

"For fun," Morgan revealed in an earnest deadpan. She plopped down by Peter's feet, followed closely by Harley, who sat on Peter's feet until he was kicked off. "Also, shut up, Peter, nobody cares about your humility. Enjoy the expensive leather couch and we'll give it to charity or something tomorrow, if it'll shut you up."

Peter did not deign that with a response, he just glared at her. Unfortunately, Morgan had the benefit of knowing how far her powers of persuasion went, so she just blinked her big brown eyes at him and waited for the inevitable capitulation. Peter looked away with a sigh and the matter was settled in an unspoken way.

Harley was still chewing on his licorice. "It's really cool how you can mind-control him."

"And you. I can mind-control you both." Morgan looked around, stretching, and seemed to wise up to the extent of her purchases, all of a sudden. Her critical eyes lingered on the plasma screen in particular, which, aside from the short break they were currently taking, none of them would get the chance to actually use. "Does it make this less meaningful somehow if we're paying for Mother's Day with mom's money?" she wondered.

Harley threw an arm around her shoulders, stuck some more licorice in her mouth, and shook his head. "Nah, you've been a pain in her behind for too long. That's called love. Pepper will let you get away with anything."

"Honestly, Harley, you fill me with such warm fuzzies when you talk. But you fill me with even warmer fuzzies when you don't."

The last piece of candy disappeared into Peter's mouth before Harley had a chance to notice it had been stolen. Because Peter was busy chewing, it was Harley's turn to declare, throwing the empty wrapper into Peter's face, "We have a lot of work to do, you know? Weren't you in a hurry earlier?"

"Uh-huh. An' you were busy looin' fo' a neel."

"Boys are gross," Morgan said, nose wrinkled. "Peter, close your mouth when you chew."

Peter swallowed and stood up. "You're not my mother."

"Boys are gross."

---

III

When Peter opened his apartment door, Harley beamed at him. "Hi, I'm here for pick-up," he declared brightly.

Peter opened the door wider and gave him an amused look. "Aren't you supposed to be at MIT, building up to your yearly mental breakdown?"

Harley shouldered past him. He was wearing slacks and a hoodie, very manual-labor-ready. "It's Mother's Day. Mental breakdowns are mind-over-body things."

"Yeah, exactly. I'm pretty sure that's the whole problem." Peter closed the door behind him.

"Not today. Today, I'm focused." Harley poked a finger into Peter's chest. "How come you're missing out on our annual tradition?"

Peter stopped smiling. His eyes skittered over to the table that had become his impromptu work station, cluttered with papers and photos of MJ and Ned. "It's not a tradition, it's happened twice."

"And today makes three."

"Today-"

"It's a tradition. Don't disappoint Morgan."

Peter straightened at that. "What?"

"Why do you think I'm here? This little get-together means a lot to her."

Peter was starting to become antsy. "I didn't know it was that important."

"That's why I'm telling you." Harley meandered toward Peter's fridge and picked a can of liquefied sugar. "Sometimes, we're stupid and shit. And I say 'we' so you don't feel alone in your stupidity."

"I've been really busy lately, I'm sorry – MJ's been saying we're spending less time together, too, and I'm kinda feeling-"

"Overwhelmed," Harley supplied. "Yeah, I also graduated high school recently."

Peter exhaled heavily and gestured toward the couch, where he promptly splayed himself. Harley chose to investigate the apartment further instead. "What does Morgan want to do?"

"Not sure yet," Harley said, picking up a picture of nine-year-old Peter with Ben. "She's been really into Steven Universe lately."

"Do you need a fingerprint kit to properly explore the place?" Peter asked, sidetracked, watching Harley pick up Tony's photo next.

"Nope," Harley replied, putting it back down with a slightly more subdued expression. "But I could use the real reason you're 'busy' this year."

"What do you mean?"

Harley cleared a spot on Peter's desk and sat on it. "I know where you go. Afterwards, every year. Pepper always invites everyone over for dinner, but you disappear for hours."

Peter's heart skipped a beat. "I don't disappear."

Harley gave him a sympathetic look, but he wouldn't quite meet Peter's eyes. It made it more awkward than meaningful or comforting. "Yeah, you do. You go visit your mom."

Peter always spent Father's Day visiting three different cemeteries. He visited his dad's grave because it was his most tangible connection to the man, he visited Ben's because it was his last, and he visited Tony's because Peter was a presumptuous little pit of sadness and longing. Also, because Morgan refused to step foot anywhere near the memorial without Peter and Harley, and neither Peter nor Harley were exactly in a position to deny her, seeing as they weren't cold-hearted, insensitive assholes.

(Tony had been cremated, so there wasn't an actual grave. Privately, Peter associated mourning and Tony's loss far more to the lake, on Pepper's property, where the funeral had taken place. But the girls lived there, and though they liked the reminder of his memory close-by, Peter couldn't blame them for separating that grief from what they saw through the window first thing in the morning.

And anyway, the memorial stood so ostentatious and lonely, surrounded by the empty space where the Avengers' compound had once stood, Peter couldn't help calling it a graveyard too. It was for both Tony and Natasha, but Morgan claimed it for the three of them on Father's Day, and Lila tracked down an obscure date for aunt and uncle's day and claimed it for herself and her brothers. All six of them ended up there on the anniversary of the Blip, too, though they usually had to share with a crowd.)

Mother's Day was different, for Peter, but somehow not. Because even though he didn't have Tony or Ben anymore, he still had May; but there was another woman, someone Peter remembered as much as he remembered his father, whose significance in Peter's life merited his attention on Mother's Day.

And Harley was a snoop.

"That's really none of your business."

"I know," Harley said carefully. "Tell me to take a hike if you want to, but- I'm just saying, you don't have to-"

"Kinda do."

"-I was saying, you don't have to go alone," Harley finished. He looked guarded, but determined. "I'm offering to go with you. And Morgan. I'm offering me and Morgan to go with you, to your mom's grave. 'Cause then maybe the end of your Mother's Day will suck a little less."

Harley was halfway to the door, looking prepared to go out on that note, when Peter called him back. "It hasn't sucked. Mother's Day. These past two years, in particular, were really- it hasn't sucked at all."

"See, we're connecting right here. Going places and making friends." Harley grinned at him. "Let's go, Morgan's waiting and she has procured a sowing machine. No idea what for yet, but she's rich and I'm a creative guy."

Peter sighed disapprovingly so he wouldn't laugh. He picked up his phone. "Okay, calm down, I can't just up and disappear for twenty-four hours. I need to call Sam and MJ. And May, obviously. But I'll meet you at the lake-house. And- thanks. Dunno if I'll take you up on it, but I appreciate you offering."

Harley sniffed and opened Peter's front door. He was still holding the soda can. "Pick up snacks, we've got our work cut out for us."

---

X

Early on in the morning, traditionally the part of the day where their already vetoed ideas got floated around again, to be shot down or adopted depending on Morgan's mood, Harley took center-stage and cleared his throat. Peter sort of already knew where this was going.

"Hand-gliding – still definitely off the table, then?"

Morgan sighed, aggravated. "Harley, we have been over this. How is my mom supposed to go hand-gliding in high heels?"

"She could take them off?"

"Take them- Are you even taking this seriously?"

It didn't stop there. Mother's Days always turned out to be the longest twenty-four hours of the year.

---

IV

By midday of their fourth Mother's Day, when Morgan started complaining about hunger and boredom, Peter and Harley were busy trying to figure out the assembly instructions for a single lamp. Morgan wasn't allowed to help, which she had declared an overprotective, unreasonable, downright sexist rule; hence her incessant grumbling and whining. Looking over the indecipherable specs, Peter was starting to wonder if they should maybe ask for her help.

"No. It unscrews the other way."

"You know what? I think I hate you the most when you accidentally quote Harry Potter."

"Why do you see Harry Potter references everywhere?"

"It's just how I'm wired."

Harley threw a screw at Peter's head. It made Morgan laugh so hard that she tipped over and fell off the counter, where she'd been sitting in wait for someone to feed her. Peter scrambled over himself to catch her, but the scare, if anything, only made her giggling more uncontrollable. For his part, Peter kept an unrelenting hold of her and energetically fought the rational part of his brain, which was telling him to let go.

After a little bit, Harley – who had been equally scared – unfroze and started chuckling too. Morgan picked at Peter's fingers. "Unstick yourself," she commanded.

"Maybe in three or four decades, you walking disaster."

It was possible Morgan had checked two out of three. Peter and Harley's unreasonable overprotectiveness had very little to do with her being a girl, though.

---

X

"Peter, what are you doing to that poor table? Who taught you to sand wood?!"

Peter huffed and dropped the sandpaper. Morgan was waving a chisel around, and it was dangerously close to his face. "Google. Sorry, I was raised by a single mom."

"Yeah, we were all raised by single moms, you ain't shit. Harley," Morgan called suddenly, catching sight of Harley tugging a sheet of paper out of the pile. "Lilac is my mom's favorite color, not yours."

"Oh, yeah, that's right. Because my mom's favorite color is-" Harley trailed off hopefully.

Morgan let him suffer for a few seconds before she supplied, "Green."

"I knew that."

"Should he be in charge of arts-n-crafts?" Peter whispered. Harley located a green sheet of paper and promptly wrinkled it.

Morgan bit the inside of her cheek and wrinkled her nose. "It's not like either of us could do any better. Withthe grain, Parker. You sand with the grain."

---

V

"Piñata."

---

X

"The pump for the inflatable fort – can we use that to fill the rest of the balloons?"

"Please don't."

---

VI

While Harley was struggling under his weight in candy, Peter was struck by sudden inspiration.

"Do you think we could set up the piñata early? So we don't have to carry it around?"

"Great idea."

Morgan worked out exactly what the two boys really wanted and was very aggravated by this. "If you just wanted the thing for yourselves, why did we bring it all the way out here?!"

"Hey. You're twelve. That's a piñata. Just be twelve and hit the piñata," Harley reprimanded.

"Oh, right, because it's for me." Morgan crossed her arms. "Keep annoying me and I will pull the twelve-year-old card. And then you won't get to hit my piñata."

"…Harley's just being Harley," Peter protested feebly. "You wouldn't want to hit the piñata. It's- it's- too cute to hit."

"Why should you hit it, then? I wanted to do it last year, but you guys said it was too late to get one. And I do like hitting stuff."

"We know," Harley said, suddenly stern. Peter approved of this change of strategy. "Your mom told us all about it. Who's this kid Diego, and why did he deserve to be punched in the face?"

Morgan scowled, pulling on Peter's bag of candy so he was forced to set it down. She sat on top of it, very primly for a young girl sitting on a bag of candy. "He snitched on me for flipping him off."

"Oh man, being twelve is awesome," Harley muttered.

Peter made a valiant attempt to pretend he had no idea where Morgan had learned such a crude gesture. "Why did you flip him off?"

"Because he called my friend a name."

Harley grinned. Peter decided to probe further, because Harley was clearly letting himself enjoy the story too much. "Why did he do that?"

"Because she punched him."

"So many layers." Harley found some popcorn and sat down beside Morgan, except he sat on the floor instead of on a bag of candy. "Please, keep going."

"Why did she punch him?" Peter elaborated, like pulling teeth.

Morgan finally looked away. "Because he pulled down her stockings."

Peter and Harley exchanged a look. "Your reaction was very appropriate."

"Suitable escalation too."

Cheerfully, Morgan climbed down from the bag. "Good boys. The piñata is all yours."

---

X

"Do not use that pump for the balloons. It was a bad idea."

"No one ever thought otherwise, Morgan."

---

VII

Balancing a very full breakfast tray on one arm – a feat that would have been impossible for anybody else – Peter knocked on May's bedroom door. There was a feeble, sleepy 'enter' in response, so he nudged his way in. The thin sliver of light peeking through the curtains gave the room a lukewarm feel.

"Breakfast in bed?" May grinned, sitting up. "I've come to expect more than this, young man."

"Hey," Peter complained, faux-outraged. "It was made with love. Some people might say the simplicity and effort I put into it makes it the most thoughtful thing I could've done."

May laughed and scooched aside to make room for the tray. "Of course it does. Thank you so much, baby," she said earnestly, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

Peter stole a piece of sliced orange off her plate. "But seriously, though," he said, chewing with his mouth open, for which May swatted his arm, "eat up. You gotta get dressed, there's a limo waiting outside with your name on it. Also Pepper's and Rachel's, but yours first, alphabetically."

May snorted, tucked the orchid Peter had placed on the tray behind her ear, and got up with a piece of toast in hand. "Seven years running. This holiday's better than Christmas."

"Happy Mother's Day," Peter sing-sung, skipping out of the room. Morgan was already asking about his ETA like the timestamp on her text didn't say 8:03. He stretched himself on the couch to wait for May.

"Does MJ know you came to wake me up with breakfast in bed, like you're still a kid and not a grown man with your own apartment?" she called from the bedroom. May abused her knowledge of his enhanced hearing sometimes. "You know, that might have startled me if I didn't know it's Mother's Day."

"She also knows it's Mother's Day, so, no," Peter retorted, and then remembered May didn't have enhanced hearing. The sound of water running informed him she'd gotten into the shower; Peter started to regret getting up at four in the morning.

Pepper, it turned out, had not been the one to rent the limo, and everyone collectively decided not to ask too many questions about how Morgan had gotten it done. Today was a destination Mother's Day; Peter and Harley had only just managed to dissuade Morgan from making breakfast part of the experience.

As the years went by, Peter started to feel like this day was becoming more and more about the preparation than the execution – the increasingly absurd efforts Peter, Harley and Morgan went to in order to make Mother's Day something special. It was now their thing – that they were doing this for their mothers was a fact weirdly relegated to a footnote, an afterthought.

But not year seven. With all of this in mind, Peter had talked the other two into doing something they'd explicitly heard May, Pepper and Harley's mother Rachel say they wanted to do. Morgan was immediately on board, but Harley required negotiation.

("I'm just saying, you don't know they won't want to hit a piñata."

"I actually think I do know that they will not want to hit a piñata."

"Fine. I will hit the piñata."

"That was not even on the table.")

In the end, they'd compromised. Harley's only demand was that he got to take his mom to a gun range, because he liked guns but refused to own one on principle. It was while agreeing to that that Peter officially regretted making Mother's Day about their mothers.

"Dare I ask where we are headed?" Pepper asked, offering Peter and May, who were the last ones inside the limo, a greeting smile. Morgan was curled up beside her, one hand playing with her mother's hair while the other typed away at her phone. Peter had rarely been inside a limo, but it surprised him every time how roomy it could be. Harley was a good two feet away from Morgan, and it wasn't even because he'd tugged at her pigtails this time.

"We are doing an art class," Harley declared as the car began moving, "for all of the arts."

"Pottery, acrylics, graffiti, macaroni," Peter rattled off. "That last one isn't actually on their website, but there's a ton of pasta in the trunk, and I'm hoping."

"We rented out this studio in Queens for the morning," Morgan added. "Peter knows the owner. I don't think they believed me until I paid."

Peter caught May's eye and decided to jog her memory. "That little place you've been talking up for weeks, May."

"We're taking a limo to go two blocks over?" May deadpanned. The grin from earlier that morning hadn't left her face, though.

"Art class is our morning activity," Morgan explained, the picture of thirteen-year-old haughtiness. "There's a much longer commute after lunch. Don't underestimate us."

"We would never," Rachel agreed. "But I must say, sweetie, if you three keep escalating at this pace every year, you'll run out of options by the time we're retired and bored."

"The sky is the limit until I find a way to vacation on the moon," Morgan said, rummaging around the bags next to her. "I have overalls here, by the way, because I know you guys wanna keep those clothes the color they currently are."

The afternoon activity was at Harley's shooting range, but Morgan neglected to share that information until after lunch, when it was far too rude and – more importantly – far too late for Pepper to cancel. From the very start, Peter had wondered about the wisdom of doing target practice with Pepper, who hated guns and violence of any kind, and certainly protested enough on their way there. By the end of the day, when they trudged out of the range – after May hit two shots inside the outer circle, after Rachel hit four, and after Pepper cut six large, dead-center holes into the chest of six different paper men – he was still wondering.

That evening, Morgan goggled at her mother over dinner, like she'd never seen her before. It was hard to tell who was staring more obtrusively – Morgan or all the waiters and patrons sharing a fancy restaurant dining room with two Starks and a known member of the Avengers.

In Peter's immediate vicinity, Morgan won out. "Since when are you a dead-shot?"

Pepper shrugged delicately. "I am sorry to say that this family has a family business. And in this family business, self-defense is an indispensable skill."

Peter and Harley shared an amused look. Morgan's expression only became stormier. "Still doesn't explain how this is the first I'm hearing of it."

"There are still things you don't know about your mother, baby," Pepper teased. Morgan became immediately and predictably outraged, as well as extremely curious.

"Like what?"

Pepper paused halfway through leading a forkful of pasta to her mouth and looked at her daughter. "I was once injected by a drug your father helped develop, and it might have made me immortal."

Peter and Harley sputtered as much as Morgan over that one. May and Rachel merely expressed some polite interest. It took a couple of minutes of Peter trying to stutter out questions beginning with 'wh' for May to place a reassuring hand on his arm.

"Peter, honey, this doesn't even make it to top three on the list of weirdest things I've heard this past year alone. Cool it. We lead strange lives."

"Hear, hear," Harley said bravely. He grabbed an empty cup and went through the motions of a toast. "Happy Mother's Day."

---

X

"That box is going to take up way too much space. Not to mention the weight. We're at capacity at this point, I'm pretty sure."

"Maybe we don't need the box. Only the contents."

"We can't take that stuff into the boat uncovered. You know boats go on water, right? What if it gets wet?"

"We could blow-dry it."

"Peter, you know I love you, but I urge you to think about the logistics of blow-drying confetti, and then come back to me with whatever conclusions you've reached about your brainpower."

---

VIII

"Check it out," Peter said, walking into the kitchen, where Harley was cooking something increasingly burnt. "Customized plates. Kitchen plates, not the Jersey Shore kind."

"You do know Morgan is gonna inherit a bunch of cars with plates that spell out 'STARK'?"

"I try not to think about it."

Peter presented the porcelain pieces in his arms, the top of which was meant for Pepper – her name was spelled out in beautiful calligraphy, surrounded by blooming flowers, all varying shades of blue and red. They were not – according to a giggly, condescending Morgan – for serving food; Peter and Harley didn't really know what else people did with plates, and Morgan's vague answer had only been "for displaying".

Harley nodded approvingly. "This is like- professional-level kindergarten stuff."

"That's our sweet spot." Peter carefully set the fragile porcelain down on the table and followed his nose to the pot on the stove.

Harley swatted him away. "Kitchen's my sole responsibility this year. Who painted those, by the way?" he said, jerking his head toward the plates.

"Morgan's friend Miles. He's really good with a brush." Whatever Harley was hunched over didn't smell or look too appetizing anyway, so Peter took a chair.

Harley cocked his head. "Okay, I know about Riri-"

"Everyone knows about Riri."

"-But who's Miles?"

Peter shrugged. "New friend. Thus two became three."

Harley put down his spatula and turned around, leaning back against the counter with his arms crossed and a frown on his face. "Have you met him? Is he a good kid?"

"Yeah, he's great. Really nerds out with Riri, Morgan's in her element. Roasts them all day long. She loves him."

"Oh, yeah?"

Peter took a bit to catch on to Harley's meaning. "Come on, it's not like that. Not that it would be a bad thing if it were, I like Miles. Besides, I really don't think that's the friend we'll have to worry about. Morgan's got her eye set elsewhere."

Peter's tone conveyed his meaning far more effectively than Harley's had. "Seriously?"

Peter nodded. "She didn't tell me, but I can tell. Tony passed on a whole bunch of his qualities. The good, the bad, the genders he was into."

Harley was laughing. "Gross. So, Riri?"

"Our girl's got it bad. Well, as bad as it gets for a fourteen-year-old."

"Seriously? You've gotta tell me these things!"

"I am!"

"Tell you what things?" Morgan asked, walking into the kitchen with a pile of pamphlets in her arms.

Peter whirled around to face her. He produced an innocent expression that no one would buy and saw Harley do the same. "Nothing. Big brother conspiracies."

Morgan narrowed her eyes at them. "I don't like the sound of that."

"No one does, but reality TV is here to stay."

Morgan booed his joke and his reference – Peter could tell – and approached Harley to see how his work was coming along. "Oof," she blurted out before she could tone down her insensitivity. Peter snorted. "Yeah, we're gonna need- who's got suggestions for non-fast-food places that serve breakfast? Mom and Aunt May are laying off gluten this month, so let's factor that in."

Harley jerked his spoon away from the food, untied his apron, and slammed both on the counter. "I did my best. I quit. Does this mean I can eat what I've already cooked?"

"If you don't, nobody else will," Peter said, words dissolving into laughter by the end of the sentence. Harley did not take that lying down – his hand shot out and hovered over a bowl of grapes for one second, before changing course and fully committing to throwing an actual raw egg right at Peter's head. Peter dodged it with a yelp and it splattered against the wall behind him.

When he turned back to face Harley, Harley was full-on grinning. Morgan was watching the proceedings with her mouth open. "You missed," she pointed out, probably just to see what would happen.

Peter made a decision, nodded firmly once to solidify it, and grabbed a plate full of coal-colored bacon and ham. Both Harley and Morgan took a step back. "What's happening right now?"

"You are at a severe biological, radioactive advantage here," Harley protested, holding onto his carton of eggs more protectively.

Peter carefully picked out a single slice from his bounty. "Don't tell MJ about this."

"Oh, dude, she is fully aware of how immature you are."

Harley dove for cover, so Peter switched targets. Morgan squeaked and shrunk, but it was all in vain – her eyes had barely widened before she suddenly had bacon stuck to her forehead. She picked it off with a murderous look in her eyes, and for a fleeting second, Peter felt the same apprehension he had felt years ago, when her father stepped out of a suit Peter had been sure was empty.

"There's greasy meat on my face, Peter."

Peter shrugged in response and silently awaited his fate. Morgan looked around, found a big bowl that was definitely not empty, and picked it up. Her expression cleared into a wide smirk.

"Just to clarify, are we having a food fight?" she asked as an aside, cautiously excited. "I've never been in a food fight before."

"You haven't?" Harley said, disbelieving. "But you're loaded."

Peter exchanged a weird look with Morgan. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"I dunno, I always assume rich people do whatever they want whenever they want."

Peter cocked his head. "That's a good point."

In retaliation, Morgan pelted them both with wet beans. Peter had no idea why those were even there, seeing as none of them had ever had beans for breakfast, but it was Harley's kitchen. He had better luck evading Morgan's projectiles than Harley did, and even managed to add a second tray full of cheese to his arsenal.

"I still think I have the best weapon," Harley shouted, throwing an egg with impressive accuracy. Peter dodged it, but Morgan caught it on her stomach, which meant her hoodie now resembled that of a bad stand-up comedian after a performance. She squawked again.

"Why am I the only one who's gotten hit yet?!"

Harley looked around. "You and the kitchen."

At the same time that Peter launched a perfectly-aimed piece of cheese into her hoodie (she'd stink until she found it), Harley held up another threatening egg in her direction, and Morgan started spraying everything with large clumps of very dry rice (once meant for their lunch). It was a very effective strategy. Everyone got hit, though the kitchen looked like it had been snowed on, and there were beans on the ceiling. Peter did not know what Harley had done to them to make them stick like that, but they sure weren't edible.

Peter did not care, afterwards, to catalogue just how much food they had wasted, edible or no. He was far too old to have porridge coating his hair, and his voice was hoarse from shouting and laughing. And compared to Morgan and Harley, Peter's condition was by far the best – Morgan in particular was covered in a proper feast from head to toe.

The kitchen was the site of a warzone. Every surface was somehow simultaneously sticky and slippery, from when Harley had started hosing everything down with syrup. Every chair was overturned, having been used for cover, and Peter had no idea how they were ever getting every grain of rice out of all the crevices where they'd somehow ended up. He was only hoping Harley hadn't aimed his eggs anywhere they couldn't just be wiped off. The keyboard on the front door of May's apartment building was still stained after a Halloween egg-throwing incident, some ten years previous.

"Pepper is going to stop offering up her kitchen after this year," Peter said in a moment of sudden clarity.

Morgan snorted, picking egg shells out of her hair. "She did that after we broke the oven four years ago."

Harley started laughing, but Peter was alarmed. "You did not tell me that."

"Yeah. I have no compunctions about lying, and I've never given you a reason to think otherwise."

"Do you wanna clean this up by yourself?" Peter threatened.

Morgan clicked her tongue. "Please. Like you'd ever leave me alone."

---

X

"We already did matching t-shirts five years ago."

"Man, we used to think really small."

"This whole thing started with us cooking lunch, remember?"

"I flew out from Tennessee 'cause you needed help cooking lunch for your mom," Harley laughed in reminiscence.

The day was well into his evening, and all three of them were feeling the effects of their dwindling energy levels. They were cooking – because of course there was a fully serviceable kitchen for them to use there – preparing a picnic of sorts, to be refrigerated, and then unfrozen when appropriate. Morgan, who was usually highly wary of anyone doing anything in her kitchen(s), had entrusted Peter with whisking cake batter, and Harley with peeling a large assortment of fruit. It wasn't doing anything for her assurances, since she was still keeping a close eye on them both.

Peter smiled down at the cake batter in response to Harley's words, and not because the batter looked particularly appetizing. "You bent us to your will by calling us your brothers."

Morgan hummed self-satisfyingly, but Peter heard the air whoosh softly from Harley's lungs. He looked up and found the other man focused on his task. Morgan was on her tip-toes, checking whatever it was she was cooking on her steaming pot; she seemed oblivious.

Peter returned to the batter, now a little curious. He didn't want to read too much into such a minute sigh, but it was in his nature to push and prod and generally make a fuss of things. He knew Harley really well, too, so the suspicion wasn't coming out of nowhere.

"I've kind of always wondered about that, by the way," Peter continued, demurely. "Right from the start, Morgan – you saw us as- well, family. Why?"

He was met with silence. Harley glanced at him furtively and Peter thought he saw a flash of guilt. "Morgan, after the fruit, I'm all wrapped up, right?" he said. "All this work is interfering with my natural propensity for laziness."

It was Peter's turn to give him a look, and now he was fully convinced something was up. Harley had taken to these yearly gatherings with enthusiasm only matched by Morgan, right from the start. It was strange to see him distance himself, dig into pillows to look for a needle, change the subject, and generally act more like a guarded version of the Harley Peter had come to know, on this specific day. Like he was hiding something.

Peter abruptly changed course and decided not to push. He was certainly in no position to accuse anyone of keeping secrets.

Morgan wasn't on the same, page, though.

She ignored Harley's question, intent on answering Peter's, and therefore pushing whatever button of Harley's was sensitive today. "I did have a reason- for saying that. For calling you that," she admitted, and then warned, "It's selfish."

Peter laughed in surprise before he could help himself. "How can it possibly be selfish?"

Morgan took a deep breath and Peter nervously started paying double the amount of attention. "Because if you're anything less than family, and getting you back mattered more than staying with mom and me, then how much did I really matter to him?"

Harley made a strangled sound of the back of his throat and put down the knife he was holding very heavily, accidentally knocking around his bowl of fruit. The table he was working on creaked slightly with the shifting weight. Peter had frozen in the act of weighing a pound of flour, and he hastily pulled the packet away from the scales before he covered any more of the counter in a layer of white powder.

"It's not selfish," Peter reiterated firmly, voice perhaps louder than strictly necessary. Nobody asked who the 'he' referred to.

"Not even a little bit," Harley piled on. "Not even a little bit selfish. Why would you even- have you been thinking like that all this time?"

"Oh, no," Morgan said hastily, looking between the two of them like she regretted saying anything at all. Peter and Harley had both turned their backs on their respective tasks to stare at her by now. "Of course not, you've been in my life as long as I can remember. Whatever I was feeling when it- you're family now regardless of how we got here. Not because of dad, or anything, just- well, because you were there."

"...We're family by virtue of proximity?"

Morgan pursed her lips and threw a handful of salt into her pot, unable to make eye contact. "You're family because of the hours you spend making a huge deal out of Mother's Day with me. Because you call me every single week to check whether the suburbs have gotten any more interesting. Because you dragged me out of that club in Harlem where they were rebooting Magic Mike, except with girls. About which I'm still not entirely sure I'm grateful, to be fair, but at least there weren't photos for mom plus everyone and their creepy uncle to see. Because of all your hypocritical lectures about recklessness and curfews, since I'm usually so wasted during those that I don't even mind how loud you yell. Because you know Riri and Miles' names. You're my brothers by virtue of being my brothers. Now hand me the spatula, I wanna taste that dough."

Peter couldn't see very well on account of his vision having gone blurry with tears, but he pawed around until his hand knocked against a random utensil. When he presented it to her, Morgan said, in a trembling voice, "That is not a spatula," and Peter pulled her into a hug that Harley joined promptly.

A long time ago, Peter had met a little girl whose world had just shifted in ways indelibly interwoven with the life-shattering changes in Peter's own world. The first glimpse he'd caught of her was quick and turbulent, as Peter was part of a delegation sent straight back to Pepper's house after the fact. He understood (because no one had told him) what was happening right away, since Pepper, whose eyes were puffy and red and a dead giveaway for Morgan, set off straight for her daughter.

Morgan's mother picked her up, hid her face in her little girl's hair, and for a tiny pause in time, Morgan made eye contact with Peter. In that moment, Peter knew she understood, too.

They went inside immediately, and he didn't see her again until the funeral. Peter was left standing outside with a party of bruised and beaten warriors – some asking the questions Peter had already worked out by himself, some answering them – and couldn't scrounge up the nerve or will to speak to them. He kept thinking that all he really wanted right then, looking over what Peter had decided was the most beautiful lake he'd ever seen, was for his mother to come pick him up as well.

Harley came next – he introduced himself at the funeral. He didn't talk much and he didn't emote much either, not to Peter's face. Later, when it mattered, when everyone was keeping a moment of silence, Peter didn't look back to check, but he knew he was there, someone whose existence, so far, had been a product of everything Tony had said about him. It was strange to be meeting like this, but Peter wasn't having a very normal week, anyway.

Morgan approached Harley afterwards, first tugging on his sleeve, then on his collar, until he was at her level. She pressed a kiss to his cheek, leaving him a little bewildered, and moved on to Peter. She didn't say anything, at least not to him – just a kiss, and then she returned to her mother's side. Peter didn't take his eyes off her the rest of the day.

That's mostly how it had remained, for the following nearly eleven years. Morgan expressed demanding, unconditional affection, and Peter and Harley watched over her.

In the present day, Morgan wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and pulled away. She kissed both their cheeks like it was second nature, and then shooed them away. "Don't distract me with sappiness," she scolded.

Peter returned to his task and found that focusing on the batter was a superhuman effort. Harley took it upon himself to defuse the situation.

"Speaking of Riri, though-" Harley cleared his throat, but dramatically, so as to hide that what he was really doing was clearing away any sign of tears. "Is there or is there not information you would like to share with us, in our newly-officiated capacity as protective big bros?"

"First, never use the word 'bros' again, and second, who told you and where do they live?" Morgan growled dangerously. It was a really good sign that she'd stabilized, emotionally.

"You can find out anything on social media these days – it's like the wild west, if the wild west had internet."

"I'm well aware, which is why I have never, nor will I ever, own an account on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, or that one where they turn recreational homophobes into anti-vaxxers and nazi sympathizers."

"Facebook?" Peter suggested.

Morgan snapped her fingers. "That's it."

"Fine, Miles told Peter and Peter told me," Harley confessed. Morgan instantly struck Peter with a scathing glower. Harley tried to help. "It's not like we've been regularly discussing your love life."

"We were fully prepared to wait and gossip in secret until you felt comfortable enough to tell us," Peter confirmed. "Sometimes, things that are none of our business become our business, because- well, we're really meddlesome."

Morgan rolled her eyes but snorted, so Peter felt safe at last. "Still – Peter, why the hell are you suddenly so chummy with Miles that you discuss my love life like chattering grandmas?"

Peter pulled a blank mask that he suspected was unconvincing and only served to make him look extremely shifty. "We have common interests."

"Such as?"

"Swings. Arachn- insects. That sort of thing."

Morgan stared at him. Harley looked disbelieving. "You are so bad at this, man. It's some kinda miracle your secret stayed secret as long as it did."

"You know what," Morgan said. Her voice had a new edge to it, guarded and a little fearful. "I don't want to know. Somehow, I get the feeling it'll come out on its own and it's gonna be bad enough without me knowing in advance."

"Listen, Morgan-"

"Nope," she said forcefully. "Just promise me you'll keep him safe."

"Promise," Peter said at once.

"Can't really promise that," Harley muttered. Morgan pretended not to hear him.

"First Riri," she gritted out. "Now Miles. This is great. It's like I didn't have enough to worry about with you alone, Peter."

Harley squeezed her hand and popped a piece of mango into his mouth. "Nothing you can't handle."

---

IX

Morgan was acting off this year. Peter could tell because, where she was normally the most talkative person Peter knew, today, she was quiet and subdued, and hadn't even mentioned Riri once, which was unprecedented. Plus, she kept getting distracted from the task at hand by nothing at all, the most glaring sign she had something else in mind.

Still, Peter waited. Morgan wasn't usually the type to keep things to herself, especially if something was bothering her in any serious way.

"Did Pepper tell you anything was up?" Harley eventually whispered to Peter, having noticed the same thing. Morgan was currently in the process of folding a bunch of towels, a boring activity that she would usually complement with inane chatter. Instead, she just kept lifelessly joining corners and flicking the fabric away with a blank look in eyes.

"No," Peter replied. "But Pepper hasn't seen her in a couple of days. Morgan spent the weekend at Miles', with him and Riri. I picked her up from there."

"Maybe they got into a fight?"

Peter shrugged, just as mystified. "I'll ask her about it over dinner if she doesn't fess up until then."

"I hope she does. She's really bumming me out and it's Mother's Day- eve, I guess."

Peter shook his head. "You have all the tact of a drunk teenager. When she does talk, let me handle it."

Harley saluted him ironically and went back to ironing a bright pink, square piece of fabric.

Morgan didn't say anything particularly troublesome – or otherwise – until Peter asked for her help loading the picnic table onto their truck. She figured out it was a pretext very easily, too, from the way that Peter lifted it entirely on his own while she watched, standing to the side.

Fortunately for Peter, Morgan took the opportunity not to chastise his lack of subtlety but to ask the question that had been weighing on her mind all day. She locked the truck's doors and lingered, eyeing Peter, who eyed her right back.

"When you first started- you were fourteen when you started going out as Spider-Man, right?"

Peter caught the serious note in Morgan's voice and stemmed his nonplussed reaction. "Yeah, I was. Why do you ask?"

"Nobody knew at first, though."

"No. Your father was the first person to know, he figured it out. In retrospect, I wasn't doing a particularly good job of hiding it."

"Posting Youtube videos," Morgan nodded, leaning back against the car. "I have familiarized myself."

Peter mimicked her and knocked his shoulder against hers. "Then Ned caught me. Then May did. Then MJ figured it out too. Then-"

"Right, right-" Morgan interrupted – "When- when MJ and Ned found out, what did she- they do? I mean, how did they react?"

Peter cocked his head. "Why do you ask?"

"I'm just- I'm asking."

Peter frowned slightly. "Okay. Well, Ned thought it was the coolest thing that'd ever happened to him."

And that was all for Morgan, it seemed. She jumped to her feet, in an immediate state of alarm, and started pacing. Peter was startled. "Cool? It is not cool. It's dangerous, reckless, stressful, and stupid. It's all I can think about all day long. Cool?! I haven't had a nightmare-free night in weeks."

"You what? Morgan, slow down. Please. What is this about? What's going on?"

"What's going on is that Riri's trying to get me to develop a serious heart condition, and I don't think that's good for my health, on top of the panic attacks."

Morgan was in tears – that's the main thing Peter registered. He tugged her arms away from her chest, and she uncrossed them, folding herself into his chest with little resistance. She buried her face into his shoulder. Peter's dread grew. Something in his gut was warning him this was far more serious than a spat between friends, and the levity with which he had approached it was inappropriate.

Morgan let out a shuddering sigh. Peter tightened his arms around her. "Morgan," he said quietly, "what did Riri do?"

Morgan pushed herself out of his hold and wiped her tears away. "Do you remember, on my tenth birthday, when I was asking all those questions about dad, and about you, and you explained to me – Spider-Man, Iron Man, the whole stupid hero thing? That- that you have some responsibility, or you feel like you have some responsibility, and you have to step up, and get killed by freefalling on an alien planet, or by crashing a plane or two, or- or by getting burned up from cosmic radiation-"

"Hey, hey, hey," Peter cut her off, somewhat desperately. His ears were ringing weirdly. "Tell me you're not saying what I think you're saying."

"Yeah, Riri's given me a similar speech." Morgan heaved out a breath, clearly from bottling all of this up for far too long. "You know, it really does sound nicer when you two say it."

"Shit," he breathed. His mind had gone blank.

"That sounded nicer when I said it."

But now Peter was just as alarmed as Morgan. "Is she insane? She's fifteen."

She snorted. "Oh, you mean a year older than you were?"

"It's not a joke."

"Yeah, funnily enough, I'm well aware." Morgan's voice was reaching hysterical pitches, because Peter was most definitely not helping the situation. "She's calling herself Ironheart."

Peter opened his mouth, closed it, ran a hand through his hair, and decided there was nothing producing the loud screeching sound he was hearing, nothing except his own brain. Somehow, their surroundings were exactly the same as five minutes previous, when the world was still an undisturbed utopia – the garage was still quiet and dry, and not very ominous at all. He stared at Morgan, unseeing. "I need to make a few calls. She can't – not alone, I need to get the Avengers involved."

Morgan turned around and crossed her arms, generally making a terrible impression of nonchalance. Peter immediately became torn. "Great. You do that."

"I've got this," a new voice said, from behind him. He whirled around and found Harley leaning against the doorframe to the hallway, looking at him. "Go."

Peter didn't hesitate until he'd rounded the corner into Pepper and Morgan's house, phone already in hand. He headed for Morgan's room with an uneven, unhurried step; the picture of the tear-tracks on Morgan's face kept superimposing over the buzzing of his immediate ideas, his damage control plans.

The thing was, even from Morgan's room, Peter could hear every sound in the house. Gerald was outside grazing; the washing machine was finishing its spin cycle; and Morgan and Harley were the only other people in the house, scuttling and murmuring around, down in the garage. Peter shut the door halfway, and then lingered until Harley's voice floated up to him.

"Peter is going to move a bunch of mountains, call a ton of important people, and make all sorts of efforts to stop her, to help her, whatever," he was saying. It wasn't a particularly confidence-inducing tone – Harley sounded bored and unconvinced, more than anything. "And then, he's going to come to the same conclusion Tony came to, about Spider-Man – Riri's going to go her own way and do whatever she wants."

Morgan was plainly as spirited about it as Peter was. "That's helpful."

"Have you talked to her about this?"

"Do screaming matches count as talking?"

"She screamed at you?"

"I screamed at her. I- I can't think straight. Not about this. It's like some trigger, I lose control."

Peter leaned back and his head bumped against the wall. Harley took a while to answer that one. "You've got a choice to make here, right?"

"Do I?"

"You've got a friend, making a decision. A weird one, granted, but nothing you haven't seen before. And your reaction tells her what kind of friend you are."

"What if I don't want to be her friend anymore?"

"If you didn't want to be her friend anymore, you wouldn't be screaming at her. You'd just stop talking to her."

It was Morgan's turn to choose silence. "What if her decisions- affect me?"

"Oh, her decisions absolutely affect you. They're still hers, though. You only get to choose how you react to them."

Morgan sighed very loudly. "Is this the part where I'm supposed to feel bad that I'm terrified for Riri's safety?"

"Nope. You know why I'm here, Morgan?"

"Because you're nosy."

Harley laughed. "If I see you getting involved in drama, I'm going to acquaint myself with the situation. Not gonna sleep on something affecting your life. Because I love you. And because I love drama."

"Love you too. Carry on."

"I'm not here to tell you what to do. You already know what you're going to do, even if you won't admit it to yourself. I'm here to tell you not to feel bad about it when you do it."

"You think I'm going to cut her out of my life?"

"Hell no. You're way too strong to ever do that. You're going to stick by her and we both know it."

"Strong?" Morgan echoed, voice fading.

"You know how people tell you you're your father's daughter, like, all the time?" Harley began, his tone of voice very casual. "But I don't. I've never said that, because I don't buy it. Behind the jokes, and the sass, and the ego and the bravado, what you are, at your core, is every bit the product of your mother's strength."

"When you started talking, I was thinking you were insulting me, and I'm still kind of thinking that."

Harley scoffed. "Like hell you are."

"Okay, I'm not, but I'm still confused."

"Peter doesn't get it." Peter stiffened and wondered if he should stop eavesdropping. He sharpened his senses so he could listen better instead. "Because he is – like them. Like your dad. He might be faced with the same choice Tony had to make, one of these days, and it's you, and MJ, and May, all of you who he'll be counting on to take the brunt of the consequences. That's the kind of strength I'm talking about."

"Like my mom?"

"Like your mom," Harley agreed. "You're way too young to be thinking about this, but seeing as you're way too young to be thinking about half the things you've had to think about in your life, I'm saying it. You're also freaking out, so that kind of pushed me into it."

"That's all well and good," Morgan grit out, "but it's not going to stop me from having a nervous breakdown when I see Riri in that suit."

"You should talk to your mom about this."

Morgan choked out a tearful chuckle. "If my mom thinks for a second that I'm following in her footsteps, she'll freak out worse than me. My whole life, I've watched her grieve for my dad, and you think she'd approve of me boarding a boat that's going in the same direction?"

"Your mother," Harley said quietly, "was the one that pushed your father into helping the Avengers get everyone back. And I know she was the only one who could have convinced him to do it."

Peter heard a sound he knew well – Morgan's breath catching in her throat. "How do you know that?"

"She told me. She understands this better than me or Peter ever could. Talk to her, kid."

There was some distant shuffling. Peter heard the garage door close; when Morgan spoke again, her voice sounded much closer, and the tears seemed gone. "I guess I can think of worse things than turning out like my mother. I can still make jokes, though, right?"

"Do not ever let that sense of humor go to waste."

Morgan chuckled a little. Harley murmured some more words of encouragement. Peter looked down at his phone and closed the door.

Peter doesn't understand.

Harley was right. Peter didn't understand. And maybe it wasn't his place to; ever since he'd become Spider-Man, the list of all the things he had in common with May had only seemed to shrink. Like life was a game, and he had a role, and May and Pepper had a role, and Morgan was choosing their role for herself as well. Harley's advice was solid – on Mother's Day in particular, Morgan needed to seek Pepper's advice. Peter certainly wasn't in any position to do it.

But there was something Peter could do for Riri. He dialed Sam's number and pressed the phone to his ear.

---

X

"Alright, good work all around," Morgan declared, self-satisfied. Her braid had become sweaty and disheveled, so she brushed back a few curled-up strands of hair. "Break time."

"I think we're done," Peter said, surveying the fruits of their labor. "They're gonna lose it tomorrow."

"I'm going to be the favorite child after this," Harley said with certainty. "Not that I wasn't before, but this will really solidify it."

Harley and Morgan tripped and dragged their feet over to the cooler full of provisions, collapsing against the pillows nearby with bottles of water in hand. Peter didn't want to feel left out, so he sat down beside them.

"You know, there's a couch right over there," he pointed out, throwing an arm around Morgan's shoulders, who immediately curled into his chest. "Those are for sitting."

"It's a leather couch," she mumbled, yawning. "That's a couple levels of privilege below mine. Also, I'm too exhausted to stand up."

Harley shifted around restlessly beside them, set down his water bottle, and said, completely out of the blue, "I might be heading out. Of the country, to Europe. Indefinitely."

Morgan woke right up. She straightened her spine so fast Peter thought he heard something crack. "You're what?"

Harley winced. "I've been meaning to tell you all day – all week, actually, and I just…" He trailed off helplessly.

"You're emigrating," Peter clarified, a little stunned.

"Yeah. There's a- research, there's some research being conducted, on the use of swarm tech – nanobots – for identifying foreign objects in the bloodstream. It could be adapted for cancer treatments, or- or, y'know, finding life-threatening micro-shrapnel. They're not looking to me for the bio or AI stuff, but- the mechanics, how to make the bots smaller – viable – they've offered me a really good-"

"Hey," Morgan interrupted. Harley's voice had been rising to higher and higher pitches. "You do realize this is a good thing, yeah?"

"I might not be here next Mother's Day."

"Of course you're gonna be here next Mother's Day," Morgan said aggressively. "Because if you're not, I'm gonna kick your butt. Your boss' butt too, if I have to. Better yet, I'll get mom to kick their butts, that sounds like the sort of project SI would be sniffing around."

Harley coughed skeptically. "As much as I love Pepper, kid, I don't think she's as much of a fan of moral relativism as we are."

"And they say unintentional chivalry is dead, huh?"

"Listen-"

"Shut up, Harley," Morgan scolded, tugging his hand free to twine her fingers with his. She dropped her head on his shoulder. "Relax. It's just a job. Nothing's changing. Apart from your sudden proclivity for keeping secrets-"

"I only did it this one time-"

"MJ's pregnant," Peter blurted out.

Morgan yelped so loudly that the sound of Harley dropping to the side, having lost balance as soon as she twisted around, barely registered in Peter's ears. He was too busy dramatizing the situation further in his own head.

"Oh my god, when did this happen? What's wrong with both of you, start telling me things," Morgan exclaimed, leaning very far into Peter's personal space. "How could she not tell me? We talk every day, I'm her privileged princess. Why have you kept this a secret? How did this happen?"

Peter waited for two seconds and realized Morgan actually wanted an answer for every single one of her rapid-fire questions, so he started rattling them off. "Probably around a couple of months ago, so much, because this is the sort of news you break with some tact, because I wasn't supposed to tell you for another month and because I've only known for seven hours, and I'm not answering that last one now or ever."

Morgan nodded maniacally for a long minute, pulled out her phone, and then said, "Okay, now answer them again, one at a time, because I've already forgotten the questions and the answers."

"Let's just assume the questions were rhetorical," Harley said, grinning. "Congratulations, man."

Peter produced a feeble smile. "Yeah, thank you. I am so dead. Can you guys not tell MJ I told you?"

"Too late," Morgan said, eyes on the screen and texting frantically. "Already sent her a baby emoji and a bunch of exclamation points thirty-seven texts ago. I need to edit my calendar for the next year."

Peter groaned and accepted his fate. "Who knew my wife's pregnancy was a scheduling issue?"

"Organized people, that's who," Morgan retorted, flicking Peter's ear. "By the way, MJ texted back. She asked me to ask you if you think she's stupid enough to believe you weren't gonna tell us after she broke the news to you right before Mother's Day. There's no good answer for that question." Morgan gasped again. "Dude, by this time next year, MJ's gonna be a mom. I'm gonna have to find out what her favorite color is."

"Black," Peter and Harley said at the exact same time.

"Black is not a color, it's what colors look like in the dark."

"This feels like something for you to hash out with MJ," Harley pointed out.

"They do," Peter mumbled. "At least once a month."

Morgan suddenly stilled abruptly. Slowly, she put the phone down. Peter realized that, at least to some extent, the situation was catching up to her. For a second, she looked, to Peter, more like a child than she ever had, even as a toddler. She hadn't been this caught unawares even that day on her porch, when half of her life was sliced away. "Things are changing."

"That's what we were trying to tell you, I think," Harley said gently, exchanging a look with Peter.

Morgan pulled a face. "You're- very bad at this."

"I- don't have the authority to argue that."

"I don't either," Peter said in agreement.

Morgan sighed and laid her head against Peter, this time. "It's okay, you know? I'm not that fragile."

"No, we never thought you were," Peter said hastily. "But that's not-"

"It's okay. I know you guys have been looking out for me my whole life," Morgan said. She locked arms with both Peter and Harley, tugging them closer. "But I'm not a little girl anymore. Change doesn't have to be so bad."

"You're a baby," Peter said stubbornly, kissing the top of her head. "A sixteen-year-old baby."

"No, a baby is what I'm gonna be babysitting in a year's time," Morgan corrected. "Because they need to be taught early."

Peter was feeling slightly nauseous all of a sudden, but not too nauseous to retort. "…Taught what?"

Obviously not interested in answering that, Morgan turned to Harley, who was looking fascinated by the proceedings. "And you – unless they're making you live with monks in your post-modern techy job, I expect you to learn how to make a call. With video. I refuse to live on texts alone."

"But you love texting."

"You know what they say about things you love," Morgan argued. "'Shut up and call me, Harley', they say, and I think it's very wise. And you," she added, turning to Peter; she poked a finger into his chest, "you have a year to get MJ to cough up what her favorite color is. It cannot possibly be that hard."

"You don't know what you're saying."

Morgan's arms tightened around Peter and Harley's. They obligingly shut the hell up.

Peter didn't believe in fate, per se. If there was one thing Tony had taught him, it was that he was the master of his own choices; that he and only he had the power to pick when it came to his fork in the road. But decisions were building blocks – he only saw what he'd created when he was all the way there. So, it wasn't destiny – a series of tasks and hurdles to get to his destination – but the circumstances, the people, the millions of acts and thoughts that shaped who Peter was.

All of it foretold that Peter was supposed to be there, in that moment, with Morgan and Harley, preparing for a Mother's Day that would probably be waylaid by their mothers' refusal to take part in at least half of what they set out to do; that Peter was supposed to watch Morgan grow up on Tony's behalf. So he did. For Tony, for himself, because Peter was a part of Morgan's life and she part of his, and most importantly, because he wanted to.

In the silence that followed, Peter's eyes wandered around until he spotted something silvery, glinting on the floor right next to him. "Look at that," he said, shocked. "It's our missing needle."

Harley clambered over Morgan and Peter to grab it, and then held it up triumphantly. "No more hiding for you, object of ambiguous gender."

"I feel like if you're going to assign genders to inanimate objects, you either have to be European or a weirdo, so please, shut up."

Peter went ignored, predictably. Morgan peered up at the needle Harley was holding up carefully, while he rummaged around for the box where he kept the needle minder. "No more secrecy. And they didn't even bite anyone's ass."

"This is the stupidest metaphor anyone's ever thought of," Peter muttered, but he still followed the needle's movement in Harley's hands with wide eyes, until it was shut away out of sight. "No more secrecy."

"Peeete," Morgan whined, meandering back over and collapsing against Peter with big doe eyes. She waved her phone in his face, and Peter fell into the trap of continuing to listen to her. "MJ won't tell me if it's a boy or a girl."

"I'm not supposed to tell you that."