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“Happy Hanukkah,” Ned said. Peter could hear him typing, presumably pulling up classified medical documents from Mr. Stark’s system about the Diplomatic Space Incident the previous night. “You got…eight days of quarantine.”
“Aunt May is going to kill me,” Peter moaned.
“She’ll have time to calm down,” Ned said, trying to sound helpful. “You really got, like, two weeks. But eight days sounded funnier.”
“I’m quarantined with Captain America and the Winter Soldier for all of the Festival of Lights and then through Christmas,” Peter realized, the hand not desperately clutching the phone to his ear pressed, horrified, over his mouth. “Oh no. Sergeant Barnes is going to kill me.”
“You get out on New Years Day, probably,” Ned agreed. “Chag sameach!”
***
“We’re stuck with Spiderbaby until when?” Bucky demanded, poking incredulously at his phone. “Because of ‘possible alien radiation, pathogens, or other foreign life forms’? What, is Stark afraid the kid is knocked up?”
Steve looked over Bucky’s shoulder to read the email. It wasn’t easy, what with Bucky waving his arms everywhere while he ranted about That Asshole Stark, but Steve was a bona-fide miracle of bioengineering. He could manage. “This looks more like they’re worried he’ll get us knocked up after we let him stay in the guest room once the whole interspecies peace talks finished up. Our reward for not sending him home covered in anxiety and green slime is getting included as ‘secondary contacts’.”
Bucky gave Steve a look like he’d just swallowed a dead mouse. “Wash your mouth out with soap.”
Steve ignored him, peering closer at the email. “It’ll be nice having a kid around for the holidays, even if it’s because an alien threw up on him. Too bad that he won’t be with May, though. Maybe we can do that talkie chat thing?”
Bucky looked back up at Steve. “That talkie chat thing,” he repeated, slowly and with deep disgust.
“Yeah, it’s swell!” Steve chirped, making his eyes wide and guileless. Bucky glared. “You can talk to folks face to face through the television now, Buck! It’s the bee’s knees. A real gas. Nifty-keen. The–”
Bucky shoved Steve away from him with a hand to his face, Steve laughing hard against his metal palm. “I can’t believe I’m stuck in this house with Parker and you for two whole weeks,” Bucky groused, tucking the phone into his back pocket, still holding off Steve. “You’re awful. I’m going to be a murderer again by Christmas.”
“I’ll still love you,” Steve told him, and twisted to get Bucky into a chokehold so he could coo sweet nothings into his ear while Bucky swore into his armpit.
“I’m gonna feed you to Spiderbaby in a latke,” Bucky told his elbow, and flipped him.
***
Peter definitely, totally, absolutely didn’t sulk alone in the Barnes-Rogers’ guest room all day. He was just very busy.
He’d tried everything he could think of to get out of spending two weeks with superheroes who not only listened to the actual, physical radio, but kept it tuned to the Golden Oldies station to ‘keep up with the times’. He’d tried reasoning. He’d tried pleading. When Mr Stark stopped answering his calls and blocked his text messages, he’d tried setting up an email program to send autoplay email attachments of screaming goats from a different spoof email account every ten minutes. He’d finally talked Ned into changing Peter’s medical files, which didn’t help– everyone involved knew what the files were supposed to say, and while Ned could worm his way into the system every so often, he couldn’t really do it without Mr Stark noticing.
They’d gotten a stern call from Ms Potts to their trusted adults about that last one. Peter had a maybe two hour break after May had finished telling him how much she would love both him and his hypothetical alien infection even if she couldn’t eat an entire box of sufganiyot with Peter every day for a week this year, before he got another call telling him that if he gave her a matching alien infection for Hanukkah by breaking quarantine, she was telling everyone at temple about it.
“We only ever go for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur,” he’d complained. “Is it worth being the lady who got an alien parasite just to have Judy and Sharon glare at me twice a year?”
“Absolutely yes,” May had told him.
Mr Stark had finally promised to do some sort of testing after the first five days, and ‘take the results under advisement’ if Peter would just stop bombarding him with memes. It probably meant they’d decide to keep full quarantine anyway no matter what the tests said, but Peter knew it was the best he was going to get, so he’d agreed.
Then he spent the rest of the day sulking. He’d been hanging off the bed upside down playing color games on his phone ever since.
“Hey,” Sergeant Barnes said that evening, knocking on the door jam and poking his head in. “You want sour cream or applesauce?”
“What?” Peter asked blearily. He’d almost found the mistake. Why was it so hard to tell the difference between the reds? Was he colorblind? Was it spider color vision or something? Or was it just a hard level? Probably just a hard level.
“With your latkes,” Barnes clarified, glancing at the pile of clothes Peter had dumped out of the suitcase May had delivered earlier with a pained look. Peter thought it was unfair he was being judged for messiness when he possibly couldn’t even see red. “You usually have sour cream or applesauce?”
Peter blinked. “Both?”
“You tiny philistine,” Barnes said, looking approving for the first time since the quarantine had started. “Sure, we’ll put out both. You ready?”
“Does he need the little hat?” Captain Rogers yelled from the other room. “Ask him if he needs the little hat!”
“You know what a kippah is, Steve,” Sergeant Barnes hollered back. “Quit being an asshole!” He turned back to Peter. “We don’t usually wear ‘em unless we gotta, but we can probably dig one up somewhere if you want.”
“Um, no, it’s okay,” Peter got out. “You made latkes?”
“I mean, no thanks to Steve,” Barnes said. “He made a mess. The entire kitchen is a lake of grease. He better be cleaning it now, instead of eavesdropping!” he added over his shoulder.
“I can multitask!”
“Anyway, put on something you don’t mind the Avengers and everyone your aunt has ever met seeing,” Sergeant Barnes said, retreating. “Steve is definitely going to be taking pictures.”
***
“The Black Widow posted your Very Special Avengers Hanukkah online,” Ned told him over the phone the next morning. “Don’t worry, it’s only the shots that don’t show your face.”
Peter groaned.
“Captain Rogers takes really good photos,” Ned went on, sounding impressed. He was probably scrolling through them as they talked. “He got, like, your reflections in the window, with snow in the background and everything. Did they make good latkes? Your aunt made really good latkes, even if they were a little burned. And I got a half a box of donuts.”
Peter sat up, indignant. “Did you go to my place for the first night without me?”
“Of course I went without you, it’s not like I could go with you. You’re having Quarantine Hanukkah with Captain America and the Winter Soldier.” Ned paused. “Oh man, even just saying that was so cool. Maybe I should have risked space flu and come over there instead. I didn’t even know they were Jewish.”
“Just Sergeant Barnes,” Peter told him, putting in his headphones and scrolling through old people social media to find out exactly which photos had made it online. They were pretty good, he thought, and the latkes had been okay. At least there was that. “He says Captain Rogers is an angry Irish Catholic atheist and in denial about it.”
“Yeah, that would make a lot of sense,” Ned said thoughtfully. “Did they give you anything?”
Peter sighed. “A sock.”
“What?”
“A sock.”
“One sock?”
“I get the other one tonight. Captain Rogers complained for a whole fifteen minutes that Sergeant Barnes ‘ruined the surprise’ by telling me.” Both of them had only smiled wider when Peter had managed a choked ‘thank you’ in response. “I can’t stay here long enough to get another three and a half pairs of socks, Ned. Maybe I’m actually sick? If I’m actually sick, do you think they’ll move me to Stark Tower?”
“Are you sick?” Ned asked cautiously. “Because that would be bad, since, you know. Aliens. Space flu.”
Peter sat back up again. “Wait, maybe I am sick. Oh crap, what if I have space flu? My stomach hurt last night, but I thought it was from eating too much fried stuff. Maybe I can’t see red! What if I really do have alien parasites?”
“Maybe you’ll get lucky, and one of them busts out of your stomach and eats the other sock tonight,” Ned offered.
“Gross, shut up.” Peter typed ‘stomacheqhe sysmptoms colorblindaliens?’ into Google. Google, of course, told him he had cancer, appendicitis, a concussion, or a pregnancy. Not exactly helpful. “Upside, I guess at least we know I’m not having a baby.”
There was a long pause on Ned’s end of the line.
“No.” Peter felt the stomachache making its triumphant return. “What? Come on, Ned.”
“I’m just saying,” Ned said slowly, and Peter could hear him pulling out his own laptop. “Look. I’m just saying. It’s aliens, right? Aliens. Weird stuff happens to you everyday, and it doesn’t seem medically sound that you got superpowers from being bitten by a spider, either. Just maybe don’t rule it out, like. Entirely.”
“No,” Peter repeated firmly. “Don’t do this, Ned. I’m not pregnant.”
***
“What if I’m pregnant?”
“What,” MJ asked.
“I’ll step up, man,” Ned swore.
“I got another sock last night,” Peter added. MJ and Ned had called him together this time, and it was amazing and terrible all at once. “It doesn’t match the first one but maybe I just can’t tell because I’m colorblind. And my stomach hurts again. What if I’m pregnant?”
“Since when are you colorblind?” MJ wanted to know. “You’re not colorblind, we looked at those dot tests in biology and you saw everything plus an extra color no one else could.”
“We’re going to be such awful dads,” Ned said, a little breathless. “You know I’m ride or die. I’ll raise your alien baby with you, man, but we are gonna be awful dads.”
“He’s not pregnant,” MJ said. “Oh my god. Why can’t I make other friends?”
Ned made a considering sound. “I think probably cuz you’re kind of mean?”
“Fair,” MJ said.
“Guys, this is serious.” There was a full length mirror on the door, so Peter stood sideways and tried to see if he looked different. Maybe? Was he pushing his stomach out? But he didn’t want to hold it in and not notice if it was bigger. How much did he usually relax his stomach? Why didn’t he know that? “I read yesterday spiders can have, like. Ten thousand babies. What if I’m pregnant with ten thousand alien babies? That’s too many babies, even with two dads. How do I find out?”
Ned made an ‘I don’t know’ sound. MJ sighed very loudly. “You take a pregnancy test,” she finally said, after making them both wait. “And I’m mad I had to tell you that, since even you two should know, but Peter’s not pregnant.”
“Right, of course!” Peter said, feeling better already now that there was a clear way forward. “A pregnancy test. I just need to take a pregnancy test and find out!”
“You’re not pregnant, Peter.”
“Ned,” Peter said, still staring at his stomach in the mirror. “I need you to send me a pregnancy test for Hanukkah.”
“On it,” Ned assured him. “I’m ordering one as we speak.”
“I’m getting new friends. I’ll figure out how.”
***
“There is a fully automated medical mobile home parked in my driveway,” Sergeant Barnes told Peter on the fifth night. “Stark says you begged him for hours to let it come here and stick us all full of needles.”
“Uh,” said Peter.
“I am going first, because if Steve goes first and I have to sit inside anticipating it after five full days trapped indoors, I’m gonna revert to programming and kill both of you.”
“Okay,” said Peter.
“I’d win again anyway,” said Captain America, who apparently had a death wish.
Barnes gave him a long, slow look, which had no effect whatsoever. He finally gave up and turned back to Peter. “That means I’m probably missing sundown, which means you’re lighting the menorah with Steve tonight.”
“Sure,” Peter agreed, nodding, but then realized what he’d just agreed to. “Wait. Um. We could just skip it? Medical emergency?”
Captain Rogers had tried to join in on the first night by reading the transliterated blessings off the back of the box the candles had come in. It had been physically painful to listen to. Sergeant Barnes had only lasted through the shehecheyanu before he snatched the box out of Rogers’ hands and set it on fire over the sink.
“Of course we won’t skip it.” Captain Rogers put his arm around Peter and crushed him into a Manly Buddy Side Hug. Peter worked on breathing through it. “I can’t wait to share this with you!”
“He’s being an dick, but he actually means it, too,” Sergeant Barnes told Peter. “You’ll survive. This is your own fault anyway.”
“It’s okay, sir,” Peter wheezed, as Barnes abandoned him and headed outside for the mobile clinic. Peter could hear Jarvis saying something welcoming, and Barnes cursing him out in return. “Hanukkah isn’t really one of the big holidays. We can skip one night, it’s not that important.”
“You’re important, Peter,” Captain Rogers said, like a huge asshole, and got a second box of candles out of the cupboard. “This is going to be great.”
***
Bucky Barnes surveyed the damage. Forty-five minutes had been plenty for time for Steve to fuck up Hanukkah, apparently.
“I only just left this house to stand naked in a stainless steel examination room, getting poked in the ass and up the nose by the Jarvis RV looking for alien virus particles,” Bucky said, willing himself not to strangle his husband. He hadn’t even finished buttoning his shirt back up. “And when I come back inside you have set the house on fire.”
“Not the whole house,” Steve said, eyes straying to Bucky’s exposed pectorals until he realized Spiderinfant could see him, then snapping his gaze back to the window blinds. The festive aroma of scorched plastic filled the air. Next to Steve, Peter was pale and silent, but whether it was because he’d almost helped burn down the house or because it was his turn in the Jarvis RV next, Bucky couldn’t tell. “Just the blinds. Hey look, you can even tell which night it is by the number of soot streaks.”
“You need to raise them when you light the menorah, Steve,” Bucky hissed, doing his collar up the rest of the way for the sake of public decency. “Because the menorah is full of candles that are on fire.”
Steve shrugged. “I’m Irish,” he said. “I’m only Jewish-adjacent by marriage. What do I know about menorahs?”
“Not basic physics, apparently.” Bucky pushed Parker to the front door. The kid did not look excited to be checked for parasites, but he wasn’t resisting much. Probably since Steve had traumatized him with his awful Hebrew and pyromania. “You don’t need to be Jewish to understand fire lights other things on fire. And anyway you can be Irish and Jewish, just like you’re Irish and a moron.”
“We were too poor in the tenements for candles,” Steve told Peter, trying to look sad and innocent. “I never had a chance to learn.”
“You’re a fucking liar,” Bucky accused, and Peter apparently chose alien probes over supersoldier marital spats, escaping to the Jarvis RV before he could get caught in their crossfire.
***
“So what did the tests say?” MJ asked him on day seven.
“They didn’t do a pregnancy test,” Peter said around a mouthful of strawberry jelly. He was pretty sure it was red. “I checked.”
One of Mr Stark’s robots had delivered two slightly crushed boxes of sufganiyot from a local bakery, all May’s Hanukkah presents for Peter, and everyone’s medical results earlier that morning. Peter had been overwhelmed missing his aunt and had barricaded himself in the guest room, then wrapped himself up into a blanket lump of sadness and plowed through four and a half donuts before calling MJ since May was at work.
“Not about your imaginary alien baby,” MJ said in that weird, angry, fond tone she got with him sometimes. “The other tests, the legit ones. What did they say?”
“Oh.” Peter took another bite. “Noffing. Dey all said I’mb fine.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full. So you’re going to come home?”
Peter chewed and swallowed. “No. I don’t think Mr Stark actually planned on shortening the quarantine anyway, he just wanted me to stop with the goats. Dr Banner said they don’t know much about the species we were talking with, I guess, so they don’t know how long to quarantine us for? So longer is safer and all.”
MJ made a hmm-ing noise.
“I’m still feeling sick, and I think my waist is getting bigger,” Peter told her, staring at the powdered sugar all over his hands. “Who knows if this jelly is even red?? I’m not ready to be a dad, MJ.”
“Five jelly donuts? On an empty stomach? Plus anxiety? Since, you know, an alien did puke on you.” MJ did not sound concerned. “You’re not pregnant.”
Peter didn’t say anything.
MJ sighed. “Look. You got the pregnancy test from Ned, right? Go pee on the stick. It’ll be ok. You’re not pregnant.”
“Okay,” Peter said in a small voice.
***
Parker was taking an awfully long time in the bathroom.
“You okay in there, kid?” Bucky called through the door. Sleeping after the Jarvis RV needles-and-scans thing the previous night had been iffy, so he’d had a supersoldier amount of coffee that morning with predictable results.
“I’m fine!” Spiderbaby piped back. Bucky sighed. The bathroom across from the kid’s room was bigger, but there was an en suite in his and Steve’s room. No big deal.
Except Spiderman was still in there when Bucky came back after. “Peter?” he asked, knocking again. Shit. He hadn’t really been worried about alien whatever when the quarantine had started– Tony hadn’t been any more manic than usual, and it had seemed like a ‘just in case’ sort of deal. But what if Peter was in there dying of space flu?
Steve came around the corner, looking concerned. Bucky nodded at the closed bathroom door. Steve frowned.
“Peter?” Steve called, in his Calm the Panicking Civilian voice. “Hey. Peter. We’re a little worried, pal. Can you let us in?”
Silence.
“Peter, we’re going to come in on the count of ten if you don’t say anything,” Steve told him, bracing his shoulder on the door. “Kiddo? We just want to make sure you’re safe.”
Still nothing, and Bucky’s stomach was lurching into his throat as Steve started counting. Their eyes met.
On ten, Steve broke the lock and the door splintered open.
Peter was sitting on the toilet lid, eyes glued to something in his hands. He looked up.
They all stared at each other.
“It’s just a covid test!” the kid squeaked, waving a small plastic stick at them frantically. “I’m negative!”
The test had an obvious pee strip, a bright pink cap held in Parker’s other hand, and flowers on the front. The brand name, Maybe Baby, was written in bold cursive along the side.
“That’s…not a covid test,” Bucky said, eyeing it. “Is that the package your buddy mailed you the other day? Why on earth are you taking a pregnancy test?”
“It’s an alien covid test,” the kid insisted, voice a little high pitched, even for him. “It’s like how Superman’s S is really an alien symbol. It just looks like a pregnancy test.”
Steve made a face that Peter could read just as well as Bucky could. The kid slumped.
“It’s a pregnancy test,” he admitted. “I know, it’s stupid, but…aliens, and we all have superpowers, and I have spider DNA, and they can have, like, ten thousand babies, and we’re in quarantine because we could be hosting alien lifeforms, and…” he trailed off. “I’m gonna go back to my room.”
“It’s not stupid,” Steve said softly. “You’re under a lot of stress. You–”
Peter ducked under his arm and into the guest room, shutting the door behind him.
Steve breathed for a minute, staring at the door. Bucky sympathized. “We gotta do something about this,” Steve said when he looked up. “Maybe we can call Bruce, see if we can just sit in the back yard or something. Take a drive and look at the lights somewhere as long as the windows are rolled up. Something.”
“Yeah,” Bucky agreed, pulling out his phone. “We could have May over outside, let him talk to her through the window or…” There was a message on the screen he’d missed. He frowned, unlocking the phone to read it.
It wasn’t a long message. It didn’t have to be.
“Are you fucking kidding me,” Bucky managed, enraged. “Are you fucking…Steve. We’re leaving. Now.”
“Okay,” Steve said immediately. “Where are we going? Should I get Peter?”
“No.” Bucky stomped across the house to the gun safe and swung it open, immediately pulling out three of his biggest rifles. “Let him have some alone time, he needs it. We’re going to Stark Tower, and we’re going to rain shit on Tony Goddamn Stark.”
***
Peter had heard the front door close and the car leave the garage an hour or so ago, but he hadn’t thought much about it. He’d just pulled the covers over his head and tried to hide from the world until the doorbell rang.
He ignored it.
The bell rang again, then several more times, until whoever it was just leaned on it, BONGA-BONGA-BONGA-BONG– “Fine!” He shouted, crawling out from under the blankets. “I’m coming!
“Let’s go,” MJ said when he opened the door, and he nearly forgot his horrible diseased state and hugged her. It was so good to see her. “Ned got his permit last week. He’s in the car. We might crash and die, but quarantine is over. You’re leaving.”
Peter peered around her. Ned waved at him out the window of a rusting blue Kia parked at the curb out front.
Peter almost threw himself towards freedom right then and there, but he hesitated. “I…I want to, I really do. This means a lot to me, thank you so much, but if I really did catch something, I could hurt someone. I could hurt you. I don’t want to be patient zero for the zombie plague and eat you by accident.”
“There’s no zombie plague,” MJ told him. She waited, but when he didn’t move, she sighed and pushed her way past him. “Where’s your stuff?”
“Door on the right,” Peter said automatically, then anxiously trailed after her. “MJ no, you can’t be in here. You’re gonna get quarantined too.”
MJ scoffed and opened his door. She stared at the blast radius he’d managed with a couple week’s worth of belongings, then at him.
Peter had seen her room and he refused to be embarrassed. Much. MJ sighed and dug into the pile, unearthing his suitcase.
“I texted Sergeant Barnes and told him the only reason he had to stand naked in a robot bus with a probe up his butt was because Tony Stark wanted the screaming goats to stop,” MJ said, throwing his clothes into the suitcase. “Dr Banner called the alien diplomats to ask nosy questions about their physiology five minutes after Captain America and the Winter Soldier in full riot gear pulled up in front of the tower and parked in the loading zone, so they didn’t even need to get out of the car. Turns out throwing up goo is gross in the alien’s culture too, but it’s totally sterile. Like urine. Get over here and help me pack your crap, I’m not doing it all.”
Peter just stared at her, letting I got peed on by an alien at a diplomatic function in front of the president on live TV, but at least it was sterile cycle through his head for a minute.
“I said–”
“Right! Okay!” Peter yelped, dropping to the floor to dig tshirts out from under the bed. “So it wasn’t infectious or anything? Why…why didn’t they ask in the first place?”
MJ shrugged. “It was a little like asking them which way they put their dick in their boxers, I guess,” she said, unconcerned. “No one wanted to create an intergalactic incident. But then Sergeant Barnes was probably going to start an intergalactic incident anyway, so Dr Banner decided to risk it. Captain Rogers asked me to come get you as soon as they found out.”
Peter swallowed. “You saved me,” he realized. “MJ. You saved me.”
“Oooooh, I saved you from another week with the same superheroes you hang out with half the time anyway,” MJ snorted, rolling her eyes, but she was almost smiling, and Peter kissed her quickly on the cheek and got everything packed as fast as he possibly could. Webbing was definitely involved.
Ned was at the front door, apparently tired of waiting, and Peter couldn’t help it– he dropped his suitcase and pulled the both of them into a huge, emotional, ‘I’m not pregnant or a zombie’ hug. “You wanna wait until Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes get back?” Ned asked when he finally let go, grinning. MJ looked slightly less grumpy than usual. “To say goodbye or whatever?”
“Absolutely not,” Peter said, picking the luggage back up. “If Sergeant Barnes gets back, he’ll insist on going with us so he can flirt with Aunt May, and then I’ll be stuck with him the rest of the day. No way. We’re leaving now.”
Ned held the door for him with a flourish, and Peter slung the bag over his shoulder and ran like there was an entire army of urine-vomiting aliens at his heels.
***
By sundown on the eighth night, Peter was curled up on the couch with Aunt May by the window, his parent’s menorah with all nine candles lit and flickering cheerfully in the window. Aunt May had her arm around Peter, ruffling his hair like he was a little kid again, and they were almost through the box of sufganiyot already– the throw blanket they were sharing was covered in powdered sugar. Peter's cheeks hurt from smiling so much.
“I missed you, kiddo,” May said. “I’m glad you made it back, even if it’s only for the last night. We should do something special tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Peter agreed, mouth full of donut. “Yeah, that sounds good.”
“I saved you some latkes.” May stretched and brushed crumbs off her shirt before standing up. “They’re not nearly as good microwaved, but I figured…”
“Yeah,” Peter said again, misty eyed. “Please, that sounds amazing.”
May smiled back, a little misty herself, and headed for the kitchen. She didn’t even yell at him when she tripped over the luggage he’d left out, webbing disintegrating and dropping dirty clothes all over the hallway, and Peter was home. He was going to eat Aunt May’s burned, reheated latkes, and they were going to watch terrible movies and eat sufganiyot all night, and tomorrow they were probably going to go to the deli with the huge matzoh balls and–
“Peter,” May said, her voice strained. “What is this?”
Peter turned and froze.
May was standing behind the couch with the latke she’d reheated on a plate in one hand, gently wafting steam around the mound of sour cream and applesauce. In the other, she held a stick of plastic with a bright pink cap. Slowly, her eyes went to the door, where MJ had given him a peck on the cheek when she dropped him off.
Oh no.
Oh no.
“Aunt May it’s not what you–”
“Peter you know I support you–”
“It’s not MJ’s,” Peter swore.
“Not MJ’s?” May demanded, a little wild-eyed. “Exactly who’s pregnancy test is this, Peter?”
“It’s not a pregnancy test!”
Aunt May waved “Maybe Baby” in a significant circle.
“It’s…” Peter swallowed. Steadied. What was a misunderstanding next to being space pregnant with ten thousand spider babies? “It's an alien covid test,” he said confidently.
May squinted at him. “Covid test. Alien.”
“It’s fine, Aunt May, don’t get so worked up,” Peter assured her, standing to take the latke and stuffing half of it in his mouth at once. “I’mb negadiv.”