Pointe Shoes and Spider Webs

3. Smoothies

"Mayyyy, come on!" Peter jolts up from his bed after receiving a video from her. He runs out of his room and finds his aunt May sitting with her legs up on the couch, an innocent smile on her face.
"What is it, Peter?"
"When did you take this?" He points at his phone. In the video is Peter himself, completely wrapped up in blankets, like a burrito, with just his head and one T-rex-like hand poking out. He's stuffing his face with popcorn as the only thing that actually lights the scene is his laptop. His eyes are glued to the screen and a muffled orchestra plays Tschaikovsky. May smiles.
"Why, last night of course! Didn't think you'd ever watch something like Swan Lake." May gets up swiftly and saunters to the kitchen. "I haven't seen you this invested in a story since you saw Star Wars for the first time when you were eleven."

"May, please delete it," Peter begs, rushing after her. May calmly grabs two large glasses from the cupboard and starts cutting up some fruit.
"Oh, I mean I could, but I was actually planning on sending it to Tony." The fruit goes into the blender with a bit of milk and sugar. She turns it on and the loud whirring of the blades and the motor fill their ears.
"No! No, please don't do that!"
"Whaaat?" She shouts over the white noise. She puts her hand next to her ear, dramatically pretending to try to hear what Peter says.
"Please!" May stops the blender.
"I won't, don't worry," she laughs out loud, but her smile fades and she looks away. Peter spots the light in her eyes dimming a little. "It's just for me. For when you're out there."
"Out there?" Peter leans on the counter with his elbows. "You mean when I'm Spider-Man?" May stops in her tracks.
"It's not just hard for you, you know that right?" May looks at him with a frown on her face. Her eyes find his and the worry in her gaze stabs him through the heart like a dagger.
"I know, I just... I can't not be Spider-Man."
"Of course, Pete. Just... Oh, come here." She pulls him in for a hug and holds him tight. "Just promise me you will always come back." He hugs her back, pressing his forehead in her shoulder. His voice sounds muffled when he talks.
"Promise."

They hold their hug a little big longer until May suddenly lets go of him.
"Oh, shit, the smoothies." She continues preparing the beverages and Peter stares at her. She moves back and forth in the kitchen. The blender whirs some more and Peter ends up with a smoothie in his hand before he even realizes. May puts a little umbrella and a straw in the glass and she then moves on to her own drink. Peter looks down to his smoothie and stirs it with his straw absentmindedly.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be." May rinses the blender jar. "In any case I should be. All I do back here is worry while you are actually helping the world out there."
"Hey, hey, that's not true." Peter puts down his glass and walks over to the sink to take over rinsing the jar. "I should've realized you worry a lot. So that's on me. Also, to what extent is your work with homeless people not helping the world?"
"You kick ass, Pete! Literally!"
"And so do you." Peter smiles sincerely to May.
"Oh, you-" May fake kicks Peter on his ass and throws away the peels and other leftover parts of the fruit she used for the smoothie. Peter finishes washing up the blender jar and puts it back where it belongs. A pleasant silence rests between them as they tidy up the kitchen. "So, what do you want to watch tonight?"
"The girl from the shop told me to watch a few ballets. I was wondering if you'd be up for watching one with me?"
"Don Quichot!"
"The what now?"
"If we're watching ballet, we're watching Don Quichot." May smirks. "The only ballet that keeps me awake is Spanish ballet." Peter laughs.

"Alright!" They make their way to the couch and Peter starts looking for a good quality recording of a Don Quichot ballet online. They get comfortable in their seats, sipping their smoothies. May has her legs tucked in and Peter rests his feet on her lap. The opening music plays when May turns his head to him.
"You keep calling her the 'girl from the shop'. Are you really telling me you spent four hours in that shop with her and you never thought to ask for her name?" Peter's cheeks turn bright red.
"We were too busy talking." Peter runs his hand through his hair and thought back to how she had called him Cinderella and how much that fit the current situation. They spent such a long time together, but when Marie returned to the store, he remembered he had to go see Mr. Stark, so he rushed out. He didn't even know her name. "Apparently she also goes to Madame Touha's."
"She does?"
"Yeah." Peter grins at the TV. Red and orange colours fill the screen and the bright lights turn on as the cast walk on. The warmth emitting from the stage mirrors the pleasant, soft feeling in Peter's chest. "I'm pretty sure I will run into her again."

"Yo, Pete." Ned excitedly fast-walks towards Peter, wiggling his eyebrows. Peter closes his locker and rummages through his backpack, shoving away his Spider-Man mask.
"Hey, Ned!" Peter zips his backpack shut and looks at Ned who is practically bouncing where he stands. "Excited much?"
"I..." Ned looks around to see if anyone else is listening. He inches closes to Peter and Peter leans in too. Ned smiles wide and whispers. "I got the new Lego Star Destroyer." Peter pretends to be blown away by a silent explosion and leans back with his arms wide and a shocked expression on his face.
"Yooo! You serious?"
"Yeah, man! You won't believe the detail on this thing."
"I gotta see it!"
"Got the dentist after school today, so how about tomorrow?" Ned wiggles his eyebrows one at a time now. Peter has to catch himself before he says yes.

"D'ahh, I can't actually do tomorrow."
"Wait, you can't? Why?"
"S- Stark Internship."
"Bad excuse, man. Bad excuse." Ned shakes his head in a disapproving manner.
"It's true, though!" Peter tugs the sleeves of his shirt and bites the inside of his cheek. "In a way." The bell rings and they move to class.
"Elaborate," Ned puts up an accent, which makes Peter chuckle. Ned's the worst at accents.
"I'm doing some, eh..." Come on, Peter. You should be the Master of Excuses at this point. Think of something. Anything!  "Mr. Stark wants me to learn some new skills to help me grow as Spider-Man. And that's going to be my life on Tuesday afternoons from now on."
"Aww, man." Ned drops himself at his desk, but collects himself quickly. "Wednesday then?" Peter thanks the ballet gods that Ned rolled with that.
"Definitely Wednesday!"

The clock is ticking agonizingly slow. English Literature class was never this boring. All Peter can think of is his first ballet class after school and he feels a strange warmth in his chest. He really wants to see her again. He's tried figuring out her name by envisioning her kind smile as she says "Hi, my name is-" and going by a list of options in his head. Abigail? Jessica? What if she has a French name, like Lorraine? No, no, that's not it. He scribbles all the possibilities in his notebook.

He thinks back to how her soft hands felt on his body when she readjusted the leotard. Her laugh when he admitted he knew next to nothing about ballet. The gleam in her eyes when she told him about ballets she finds worth watching as prep. He's watched most of them now, bingeing all weekend. The only one he hasn't seen yet is the Nutcracker; her absolute favourite. He wants to watch that one with her. Maybe, one day. He suddenly remembers his deal with Madame Touha and swears at himself softly. No dating. He couldn't afford to crush on a girl he met once. Who knows, maybe he won't even be in the same class as her. She probably won't even like him back. He's going to ballet class to get better at being Spider-Man, not for a girl. That's the whole reason Madame Touha didn't want him in the first place. He needs to put a stop to the roller coaster doing loops in his stomach, before he slips up.

"Mr. Parker, are you with us?" Peter sits up straight as he hears his name.
"Yes, yes, I am, Mr. Decker." He shuffles his papers. "I am."
"Well, then I'm sure you wouldn't mind telling the class what Edgar Allen Poe meant with the passage I just read."
"Eh..."