The thing about flying is that you eventually have to land.

And the thing about Peter Parker Bad Luck is that every landing is a crash landing.

And the thing about crash landing is that crash landing hurts. In a metaphorical sense, sure, but especially when it’s literal. Like, when he trips over his own two feet as he tries to climb in through the window, lands on the computer chair that he forgot to push back in, slides across his bedroom floor, and is dumped out of the chair and into a crumpled heap at Aunt May’s feet.

“Owww…” Peter groans, squinting up at May through his suit. “Oh! What are you - uh, I thought you’d be asleep. I’m not late! I didn’t break curfew. I - what did I…?”

“Okay, guilty conscience. Slow your roll.”

May looks bemused as she leans down to help him up to his feet, eyes a little wide as she takes in the sight of him in his suit. As well as she’d managed to adjust to the fact that Peter was Spider-Man and that he wouldn’t stop doing his superhero stuff no matter how much she asked, begged, or threatened to ground him until the end of time, she still got a funny look in her eye when Peter had it on and he scrambles to push the button on his watch and let the tech disappear back into its place…

Leaving him without pants. How’s that for thinking fast?

“Gah!” Peter’s voice cracks with embarrassment as he scrambles to his dresser. “May, close your eyes! Turn around! Close your eyes and turn around!”

He assumes that she’s complying because he’s too embarrassed to turn around and look to make sure, pulling out a pair of pajama bottoms and jumping into them. He pulls them up so high that it would make Steve Urkle jealous and then turns around, clearing his throat so that his voice doesn’t crack again.

“Okay, I’m decent.”

“Uh-huh.” May turns around and sits back down on his bed, patting the empty space next to her, indicating that he should join her. And he does, hesitantly. “I think that trouble is, actually, the right word for what you are in. Mostly because trouble was the word that your teacher used six separate times in his email to me about your lying in his class. And beneath that was a really condescending paragraph calling my efficiency as a guardian into question along with the contact information for a child psychologist.”

A chill runs through Peter’s body, every hair standing on end and a queasy feeling twisting his guts into a knot. The email! He’d completely forgotten about the email! He was going to ask Mr. Stark if there was anyway that Friday could hack Aunt May’s computer and delete it before she could see it… but then, pizza took priority.

“I…”

Peter swallows hard and bows his head, his throat suddenly too tight for words. His distress must read loud and clear on his face, too, because Aunt May wraps her arm around his shoulders and pulls him close.

“Oh, honey…” She sighs. “Why didn’t you tell me that this was going on? I would have come to your school if I’d known. You know, vouched for it. Maybe dropped a few F-bombs at that teacher of yours with the condescending typing voice... but I thought everything was fine? We filled out all that paperwork, and they’ve been letting you leave early… Peter, they’ve been letting you leave early, right? You haven’t been lying about that?”

“No!” Peter says, shaking his head earnestly. “They have been. I, I didn’t know they didn’t believe me either. Some of the kids in my class say stuff, but my teachers never did until today. Mr. Harrington said that, that the only reason I wasn’t in trouble was because of the…”

“Sympathy points,” May guesses, her voice soft. “Yeah, I still get those at work believe it or not.”

They sit in silence for a moment, the air suddenly sticky with tension: the unspoken subject of Uncle Ben threatening to grab and trap them into emotions that neither one of them wanted to resurface. Peter grapples with a subject change and lands on nothing so, luckily, May retakes control.

“Well, since you didn’t know this was an on-going debate among your teachers, that takes all of the steam out of the lecture that I had planned for you, so I guess we can just skip to the part where I ask what we should be doing about this. Do I come to school? Maybe pitch hands, as you kids say? I could throw a fit like they do on TV. Do a lot of yelling, play up the drama?”

“Throw,” Peter says, automatically. “It’s throw hands. And no drama necessary! I talked to Mr. Stark today and everything’s gonna be fine. He said that if the principal tries to, you know, punish me for telling the truth that the legal team at Stark Industries will do law stuff on my behalf.”

“Law stuff?” May repeats with a wry grin. “Well, if you’re sure that Mr. Stark can handle it… but don’t count out the drama, yet, because I think I could really sell it with some anguished wailing about how distraught I am that my darling, sweet nephew would be accused of such a heinous act as lying. See how I’m clenching my fist?”

She holds her closed fist close to her heart, expression serious and Peter grins in spite of himself.

“This is how I would do it. Except, I’d be on the ground. Wailing. In anguish. And I’d do that all for you.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Good. Well, now that we got to skip the serious talk and dive right into the funny, why don’t you get out that permission slip for me?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure.”

Peter grabs his backpack where it had been slammed down as a casualty of his graceless entrance into his bedroom and pulls out the slightly wrinkled form with Tony Stark’s name scrawled in large, looping letters. May raises her eyebrows at that and takes the offered pen, holding the paper against the wall so that she can scribble her name out in the smidge of space that had been left for her.

“If I get a phone call about that…”

“Well, Mr. Stark is one of my emergency numbers. He might get the call, instead.”

“Did I agree to that?”

“Uh-huh. We talked about it after your ten hour shift.”

“...I see. Taking advantage of my exhaustion. Sneaky.” She hands him his permission slip back and Peter slips it into his bag, watching as she stands and stretches. “Well, I think this was one of our more fun lectures. There’s leftover takeout in the fridge if you’re still hungry. But I’ve got to hit the hay. I have an early shift which means you are in charge of waking yourself up for school. Please don’t be late. If I have to get another email from that guy, it will be my villain origin story and I’m not ready to take you on in battle.”

She winks at him and then leans down over him to kiss the top of his head.

“Seriously, don’t stay up too late. I larb you, Peter Parker.”

The lump in Peter’s throat isn’t the same lump of shame or embarrassment that he’d had before. It’s a good, overwhelming feeling… and he thinks that he doesn’t appreciate just how lucky he is to have Aunt May as often as he should.

“I larb you too, Aunt May.”

“Good night. I’ll see you tomorrow after school.”

She closes the door behind her and Peter flops down against his bed, staring up at the ceiling and exhaling sharply.

He has the permission slip.

Mr. Stark knows that he’s going to be there, on tour, on Friday.

Aunt May knows, too.

That’s three things he wasn’t expecting to have accomplished by tonight. He’d been anticipating a knot of anxiety in his stomach for keeping a secret and lying by omission… not a pang of fear of what would happen tomorrow when he turned in his permission slip with Tony Stark’s name on it.

His life is so weird.

That takeout in the fridge is calling his name, but exhaustion is calling a little louder and he finds himself dozing off without even wriggling under his covers, falling into a dream about having to a fight a 50-foot tall permission slip that shouts at him in Mr. Harrington’s voice, telling him over and over again that he’s jeopardizing his future.