Overwhelmed- Spider-Man

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The phone clicks as it hangs up, and MJ turns in Peter's direction, a smile growing across her features. "See, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

Peter chuckles dryly. "She took it well. What do I owe ya?"

"How 'bout a date?" She pauses, face flushing. "I mean— not a date date. A friend date."

He smiles.

"I haven't been to Central Park in a while." She informs.

"The park it is." Scooping the empty soup bowl off the counter, Peter dumps it in the sink.

"You also owe me a shower." She gestures emphatically at a door down the hall. "Go. Before you stink up the kitchen anymore."

"Hey, rude!" She laughs, shooing him away.

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Stepping into the living room with sopping wet hair, Peter curls his arms around his faded pajama shirt. MJ watches a movie on the couch, laughing with wide eyes as a little girl pushes a boy with golden-framed glasses across a wooden porch.

"Get out! And don't come back for five to seven days!" The girls slams the door, and Peter tentatively sit on the couch next to MJ.

"Hey, Tiger." He wraps her into a hug, and she groans as his hair soaks into her shirt, leaving a damp streak across the wrinkled surface.

"What're we watching?" He asks, frowning when his voice comes out raspy from underuse.

Seemingly unfazed, she gestures vaguely. "Whatever's on right now. I just turned the TV on."

He nods, curling into the space next to her. The scene shifts, revealing a dimly lit room, the dark wooded panels smothered by delicate petals and leaves. In the centre of the shot, a coffin sits with its lid open, the pale face of an elderly man lying still.

Catching his gaze, MJ fidgets. "Do you want me to change the channel?" Her lips tug into a frown, weighed down with concern. Peter hates when people pity him.

"No! No, it's fine," He assures her. "It's not a big deal." The movie passed on, oblivious to its effects, as an older woman walks in, holding a rose up like a microphone and singing. The rest of the room is not amused.

May's funeral is supposed to be in a few days. He has to approve all the details, but MJ took care of everything. He doesn't know what he would do without her.

The movie passes by in a blur. Despite the main setting being a funeral home and the generally depressing themes, it's a pretty fun movie.

But then the bees. A blonde boy— The one who was shoved across the porch earlier— walks into a swarm of bees. The golden framed glasses drop in slow motion, and Peter gasps. MJ puts the pieces together too, and glances in Peter's direction, eyebrows knitted so close they were almost touching.

She teaches for the remote. "MJ, seriously, don't turn it off." he forces a smile to his face, but the gesture is tense, unnatural.

It's like he's stuck a piece of glass to his face. The smile is brittle and strange-looking, and everyone's bracing themselves for the moment it drops off his face.

Nevertheless, the show continues on. A police officer shows up to the girls house, talking with her dad. He walks up the stairs, opening the door to a small, dimly lit room. A small girl in overalls sits in the corner, shaking small, orange flakes into a fish bowl.

"Hi Vada." He tentatively steps into the room. She glances over at him, giving a quick 'hi' before returning back to the fish.

"What're you doing?" He's trying to make conversation, open the door to break the news about what happened. Peter's had conversations like this before.

"Feeding my fish." She dumps more flakes into his bowl, more than she should reasonably feed it. If it was a real fish, it'd probably die.

"Is that the fish you won at the carnival?" With a sad smile, he walks closer to her.

"Yes." She has to put the fish flakes down, she's killing it.

"He's getting big." The dad sits down, and Peter frowns. The fish might be getting bigger, but he's not going to last much longer. "Vada, come here and sit down for a minute."

She sits on the bed next to him, and tears well up in Peter's eyes, burning the surface as they claw their way up, screaming for attention.

"Vada, something happened to Thomas J. last night." He grabs her hands, and Peter takes a short breath, hiding his face in his hands.

"He stepped on a beehive." Peter cover his ears. The fish swims around off screen. It's probably floating to the bottom of the tank, weighed down from the flakes and struggling for air.

"I told him not to tease those bees." She looks at her dad. "Did he get stung?"

He nods.

"Maybe I should go over and yell at him." He shakes his head, avoiding her gaze.

Why would she think she could go yell at him? Her dad wouldn't be in the room to talk about this if he was all fine and dandy.

It's stupid, the kind of stupid that makes you overfeed your stupid fish until it drowns from the weight of its own stomach.

"No sweetheart, you can't." The music in the background gets louder, a lilting, sad tune of violins that swims through the scene.

She pauses. "Why not?"

Why is she still asking? This conversation wouldn't be happening if he was okay. She's slowing things down, making the whole ordeal more difficult.

Her dad takes a deep breath. "He was allergic to bees."

Her eyes widen slightly, the blue spheres glinting in the window's light. "He's okay, isn't he?"

Of course he's not okay. You can't have an allergic reaction and just be okay.

Peter huffs, and MJ glances over, concern swimming across the surface of her eyes.

"There were just too many of them." Vada frowns, tears swimming in her eyes. Peter's spill out of his face, flopping across his cheeks like an overfed fish, sliding listlessly across the surface.

The TV goes dead, and MJ tosses the remote onto the table, reaching towards him.

"You didn't have to turn it off," He says, but his brittle voice betrays him, hiccuping slightly as the words fall out of his mouth.

"Yes I did." She places her hand on the bottom of his chin, lifting my head to meet her eyes. "Pete, don't hurt yourself to make things easier for me."

"I'm not!" But as the tears pour down his face, They both know he's lying.

Rather than dignify the claim with a real response, MJ soundless runs a hand through Peter's damp hair, pulling him in for a hug.

Neither of them dare to move. A deathly still room, filled with sobs as tears flicker across the couch like static.

It hurts.