Work Text:
“This is going to run up our light bill.” Peter grumbles. His fingers sting when he wrapped the cord around the rail of the fire escape, skin catching on flaking paint. The bitter cold already had his fingers feeling numb and tender, only amplifying the pain further. The smallest scratch feels as though it’s radiating out across his whole hand. Sucking his finger into his mouth doesn’t do much to help either, and glancing over to his wife doesn’t earn him the pity he was hoping for.
All MJ does is offer him a raised brow from where she’s crouched next to him, wrapping her string of lights around the railing. Unsympathetic and as close to shivering as he is.
A dull thud echoes from the window behind them. The small face of their daughter pressed against the glass and fogging it up, brown eyes wide with pure joy and excitement. She had been outside with them, ‘helping’ to string the lights up’, but the cold was too much for her even under all the layers they’d wrapped her in so she had been sent back into the warmth of the apartment to ‘supervise’. Mayday had taken her new job very seriously.
She is still wearing her hat, scarf and gloves, a bundle of mismatching colours, all the pieces collected from various family members and friends. Each item was a part of a different set that May had grown attached to; the bright pink hat from his Aunt May that was stretched to it’s very limits after four straight years of wear and with Mayday’s curls taking after her mother’s - they couldn’t point out the tear in the seams otherwise their daughter would get teary eyed at the thought of losing her favourite hat; the soft, red cashmere scarf from Flash that was all too expensive for their daughter to be owning at this age given how often she’s spilt hot chocolate or juice down it; the sparkling pink gloves that Ned’s mom had knitted for Mayday this year. He and MJ hoped that they might help reduce the amount of trouble Mayday caused with her fingers all contained together but that didn’t seem to be proving true.
Trouble was in Mayday Parker-Watson’s veins. A tribute that she wore proudly.
Six years old, a menace in her own right, and the reason for everything that Peter did. Including stringing enough lights up on their fire escape that it could be mistaken for Times Square.
“Daddy, you missed a bar!” She shouts, tapping the tips of her mittens to the glass in an attempt to point at the railing he’d skipped over.
“Gosh, daddy. Sloppy work. How’s Santa gonna know where to find us?” MJ teases, fighting off a grin when Peter rolls his eyes and unwinds the string of lights to correct his mistake.
“I didn’t know she’d ask us to do this.”
“You told her Santa comes in through the fire escape because we don’t have a chimney. Ours backs onto an alley, of course, she is gonna worry he won’t be able to find us.”
“What else was I meant to say?”
“Magic?!”
Peter has met a couple of magic users in his tenure as Spider-Man and none of them would ever be particularly helpful enough to ensure that Santa made it to their home in time for Christmas morning.
“I don’t know why you trusted the Jewish guy to answer that. Santa was just a guy at the mall to me, always found it creepy that people said he was coming to their homes. It was easier when she was younger, she didn’t ask questions like that, she just accepted the lies we fed her.”
“Ah, the horrors of growing up when they get independent and learn logic.”
“Yeah, yeah. She gets that from you, by the way.”
“What? Common sense?”
“Exactly! So really, this is all your fault.”
MJ’s eyes roll before she chuckles. Her shoulders begin to shake more and more, dissolving into giggles that she fails to hide. It might be cold-induced hysteria but it’s still one of Peter’s favourite sounds.
“We’ll keep them on for thirty minutes while we do night-time routine then on Christmas Eve. She won’t know the difference and we won’t exceed our bill amount… too much.”
“See that’s what I like about you. Smart thinker.” Peter grins, wires spilling over his fingers as he continues to wrap and weave them through the metal bars. “Some might even say you got a lot of common sense.”
When they finish wrapping all the wires around the frame of the stairs, and drag the cord back inside to plug it in, Peter has to admit that there might be something to all this ‘Christmas Magic’. As soon as the lights turn on, immediately beginning their first pre-programmed cycle, Mayday claps her hands in excitement. Her gloves muffle the sound, but she vibrates and squeals happily.
“Santa’s gonna find everyone here. It’s so bright!” She sheers. “The blue’s my favourite. No. the red. No. The green! No! The blue!” Her opinion changes with each flash of the lights, turning her head back to look at them both with eyes so wide and hopeful that Peter wants to call Stark up and see if he’s found a way to bottle up emotions in a healthy capacity. Peter wants to live off this forever.
Their stoop itself is flashing in gaudy green, reds and blues. Despite looking like a fire hazard waiting to happen, there’s something quite beautiful about it. The lights reflect off the brick wall of the apartment block their window faces out to. It causes the puddles in the alley below to sparkle.
“You did good, little bug.” Peter says with a smile. His arm winds around MJ’s waist, pulling her into his side. They did pretty good as well.
MJ’s family do all the corny stuff like walking around the neighbourhoods to see the lights. They make gingerbread houses and have competitions on Christmas eve. They host family parties in the days leading up to Christmas Day. Meanwhile, he and May would volunteer at a shelter and then order takeout and marathon holiday movies.
If Hannukh fell over Christmas then they’d be a little more formal, they’d make more of an attempt to get dressed and actually use their kitchen to make latkes. It was a little less than what they’d do when Ben was alive, but it was their traditional the same.
The difference in their traditions made dividing the holiday season pretty easy. During Hannukah they’d always make time to see May and light the menorah together as a family. In the week before Christmas, they spent nearly every day with MJ’s family. Mayday would be giddy as she was surrounded by her cousins and extended family, getting to indulge on sugar cookies from MJ’s aunts and uncles, and show off all the presents she’d gotten from May during Hannukah. May, of course, was invited to all the Jones-Watson festivities and would join when she could.
On Christmas Eve, they’d gather at MJ’s parents’ place for a full dinner with the family when they’d exchange presents for anyone who couldn’t come the following day. Christmas Day, the three of them would huddle in their apartment, warm and cosy, watching their daughter spin around in circles until they met May for an afternoon at FEAST.
It was a busier period of time than Peter ever expected to have when he was growing up. He never quite realised how quickly families could grow.
Unfortunately, being busy didn’t stop crime from happening and Spider-Man couldn’t get all the days off that their festive calendar demanded. This year, it was Christmas Eve that was lost to the challenges of his alter ego.
Mole Man of all people had decided to disrupt the already erratic holiday timetable of the MTA and cause a raucous over in Hudson Yards. Given how ludicrously priced everything was in that mall, Peter was half tempted to let the guy have this win - it could be his present to the guy.
Sadly, no one else seemed to be in the giving mood and allowing Spider-Man to have this day off. He really needed to look into attaching himself to a team formally. The Fantastic Four and the Avengers apparently got decent office hours since they were leaving it to Spider-Man to sort out.
Instead of spending Christmas Ever with his daughter, his wife, his aunt and his in-laws. Peter spent Christmas Eve chasing mole people and getting himself covered in grime.
Not very holly-jolly at all.
Between the week-long run of events, moving presents around their apartment so that Mayday doesn’t find them and trying to find some time alone with his wife, the fight takes up the last of Peter’s energy. Swinging home, he barely feels like a person. His eyes are heavy and his limbs don’t feel connected to his torso and he has a mental checklist that he needs to tick off back at the apartment before he can go to bed. A part of him aches just thinking about MJ in whatever pyjamas her parents had bought them this year, how warm she’d look and how invited their bed would be…
He didn’t realise how much it’d hurt knowing that he missed out on all that, how important these small traditions had become to him. Swinging through the city with it’s all its decorations and the lights inside people’s homes come with a bittersweet knife twist. He missed his Christmas Eve so they could have theirs.
Classic Parker Luck.
Throwing himself into the alley, mentally preparing himself for his eyesight to adjust to the sudden darkness compared to the bright street. However, he isn’t met with a dark alley and its creaking, rusty fire-escape and the stinky trash on the ground. His usual entrance to the apartment is lit up in red, green, and blue. They fade into one another slowly before switching to a rapid flicker that jumps between each of the colours - sequence six switching to sequence seven.
A few of the bulbs have blown, creating a gap in the lights. The colours still dance and brighten the dark alley. The reflections off the trashcans and the puddles make the whole alley look like it’d been decorated just for him.
The fairy lights that Mayday had demanded they string up for Santa are what welcome him home.
A little bit of his gloom lifts.
Peter expects the lounge to be empty aside from the tree and the twinkling lights that they’ve wrapped around that with a few boxes and presents stuffed under it - Peter had to wrap the last of Mayday’s presents that Ned, Flash and Betty had dropped over.
As expected, the tree is lit up. Baubles and tinsel spread the light out across the room.The star at the top is drooping a little, the pipe cleaners and popsicle stick that Mayday had used to make it not quite strong enough to hold up the layers of paper and glitter that she’d stuck to it.
To his surprise, the lounge is far from empty.
On the couch is MJ with the duvet from their bed hiding her legs and her chin tucked into the sweater of an extremely fluffy fleece. Curled up in her lap is Mayday. One leg is stuck out from under the covers, revealing candy cane-stripped leggings– a sneak peek into those matching pyjama sets.
Peter has to slowly tug off his mask, lifting it from his neck so that he can keep the view in front of him for as long as possible without disturbance and hates that for a few seconds when he finally has to pull it off his head, the sight is blocked from his vision.
His weight shifts, tentatively creeping forward. As he steps, the floorboards creak and MJ stirs, blinking until she focuses on him and starts to smile.
“Hi.” she croaks, accepting the gentle kiss that Peter leans down to offer her. Her skin is sleep-warm, a few lines from the couch cushions carved into her cheek. He peppers them with a few extra kisses.
“Hi.” He whispers back. “She– hoping to see Santa?”
MJ’s hand lifts and smooths over Mayday’s curls before she looks back at him. “No. She was waiting for someone else.”
Peter is warmed through. His bad day slid off his shoulders and his exhaustion vanished, awakened by the sheer amount of love he has for this little girl and the woman holding her. He might have missed other celebrations and will no doubt hear about his absence from his in-laws at a later date but this– this is everything he wanted.
This is enough for him.
Overcome, Peter lends down and kisses MJ again, pulling back after a second to ask with a cheeky smile, “Does this mean I get the milk and cookies?”