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The morning had come too early. And even with the curtains drawn, Mayday still couldn’t help but be annoyed with the tiniest bit of light that had still somehow managed to infiltrate the room, and shine directly on her face. Considering that it had practically woken her up? That annoyance already knew no bounds.
Waking up in her childhood room hadn’t been how she’d imagined this Saturday morning going. It hadn’t seemed to change at all since she’d gone off to college and begun to explore the ‘joys’ of dormlife. Opening her eyes to find a well-loved poster of the Backstreet Boys staring back at her was one way to start a morning. And certainly not one she was at all unfamiliar with. And for a moment, it was like she had been transported back in time, to much simpler times.
That cliche had just started to sink its hooks into her before she was brought back to reality by something even more familiar.
“May?” Her mother’s voice came to her through the door, accompanied by a gentle knock. Considering the pressure already pounding at her head, the softness of that knock was appreciated, if not something she was outright thankful for.
“Mmmmmm…” Groaning, May rolled underneath the covers, burying her head deeper into her pillow in hopes of escaping both the light and the reality of being awake with a hangover. Such an escape, however, proved to be impossible.
“Hotshot, I can recognize that kind of groan anywhere. I’ve got coffee downstairs. You’ll feel better with something in your system.” Mary Jane’s voice was followed by the bedroom door opening. Just as her gentle knocking had been an act of mercy, she’d taken the precaution of turning the lights in the hallway off as well. It was a foresight that went far more towards saving her daughter from once again feeling like the world was out to punish her for a night of drinking.
“...and wheatcakes?” Mayday asked, her voice hardly sounding like either of the two words she’d tried to say. Somehow, however, MJ understood them both.
“You’ll have to share them with your father and brother, but I think we can make that happen.” Mayday didn’t miss the amusement in her mother’s voice. But with how even the smallest movement seemed to spark even more pain in her head, there was no way she was going to comment on that.
“I’ll be down in a bit…” Regaining a bit of composure to her voice, May heard the door shut again, this time with the faintest sound of her mother chuckling to go along with it. Head still buried deep in her pillow, she could smell the faint, familiar scent of Felicity’s shampoo still clinging to the pillow-case. Her girlfriend was missing from the bed, making the prospect of staying in longer seem more unappealing with each passing second.
If she was going to nurse a hangover, the least she could get in compensation was a chance to snuggle up to Felicity. Especially considering the drunken night had been her idea. Was she supposed to suffer alone for something that she’d been talked into by her girlfriend?
With a few unintelligible grumbles, May slowly swung her legs over the side of the bed, before pushing the tangled covers and sheets off of herself. The act of getting onto her feet was an effort in itself, and one that took far longer than she would have liked to admit. But after a few more minutes, mostly devoted to making sure she was at least somewhat presentable, she stumbled towards the door, before making her way downstairs to the kitchen.
The aroma of wheatcakes instantly reached her nostrils faster than her stomach could prepare. Within seconds, a faint wave of nausea overtook her hard enough to make her pause halfway down the stairs, her hand clinging to the railing until it finally passed. The feeling instantly summoned up a few bad memories of the night prior. Both before and after she and Felicity had gotten home. Not driving, of course.
Although she wondered…was it still drinking and driving if there was a pair of webshooters involved? On second thought, that was absolutely a discussion she did not want to even consider having with her father. Not in this lifetime or the next.
Making her way into the kitchen, she smiled just a tad at the equally messy head of blonde hair already sitting at the table. Felicity’s fingers were wrapped around the handle of a coffee mug, the warm beverage still leaking steam. As for her girlfriend, her head was laid on her one arm, eyes closed. Clearly, she was having an even rougher morning than Mayday herself was.
Score one for Spider-powers? Did a healing factor work with hangovers?
“Morning, honey.” Looking over her shoulder, Mary Jane smiled as she saw May slide into the open chair next to Felicity. Both her daughter and her girlfriend looked almost like a match for one another, especially in how both were clearly nursing monster hangovers.
“Morning…” Somehow managing to say return the greeting, May nuzzled up to Felicity, inspiring a few murmured words out of the other woman.
“Mornin’ b’by…” Felicity sounded as though she had barely opened her mouth to speak the words, although she did nuzzle back against Mayday in return. Had she not been dealing with her own hangover, Mayday surely would have made some kind of effort to ruffle her girlfriend’s hair. Instead, she settled for nuzzling her head with her own in return.
“Seems you girls had a fun night out. Guess the hangovers aren’t so quite so fun, are they?” MJ asked, gaze still focused on the wheatcakes still being made to perfection. There was an unmistakable tone in her voice. One that Mayday couldn’t have mistaken even if she had tried. And certainly one that made it abundantly clear there was going to be a discussion about this forthcoming. Perhaps not one that would leave either of them in fear, but certainly one that would be constantly in the back of their heads going forward.
For Mayday, it wouldn’t be the first time for such a conversion. In Felicity’s case, however, she had no idea what she was in for.
“We weren’t drinkin’, honest…” Felicity said, lifting her head to offer the excuse, although it hardly made her words sound any less tired.
“Honey, I know it might be hard for you to believe, but I wasn’t born yesterday.” Turning on her heel, MJ arched her brow in the younger woman’s direction. It was far from an angry gaze, by any means, but was instead so uniquely Mary Jane Watson-Parker that it had no issue grabbing Felicity’s attention whatsoever. Such was the power the elder Parker possessed.
“It just kind of…happened.” Rubbing at her eyes, Mayday was already as prepared as she was ever going to be. Even though she had moved to the dorm for the college term, she didn’t hold any illusion that her mother’s word was still law whilst she was underneath this roof. Whether or not she was close to being twenty-one, the last thing she wanted was to try and push her luck any further than it had already been pushed.
“I’ve heard that one before.” Mary Jane answered whilst flipping a few of the wheatcakes over. Again, there was no disputing that she meant every word. After the life she had led, both with and without Peter, experience was all she needed to know an excuse when she heard one. Let alone a bad one.
“It was my fault, Mrs. Parker. I talked her into it.” Resting her head on her arm, Felicity looked like she was only minutes away from losing whatever was left in her stomach. Spotting that fact from a mile away, MJ quickly moved the kitchen’s trash-can to Felicity’s side. Much to the younger woman’s silent gratitude. Having this conversation was already bad enough without thinking about how she might end up yacking over MJ’s kitchen floor.
“And will you be making that same mistake again?” MJ asked, as though the right answer would be payment enough. And in some ways, it would be.
“...maybe?” Or not. The honest answer didn’t have to wait long to receive a particular look from Mary Jane in response. Looking up to see it, Felicity quickly realized the error she had just committed.
“...no, ma’am.”
“Better.” Satisfied, MJ gave Felicity a small kiss on the top of her head, before making her way around to where Mayday was seated.
“And you should have known better, hotshot.” she said, hands gently rubbing her daughter’s shoulders. It was the kind of statement that Mayday knew there was never any kind of proper defense for. All it was missing was some kind of remark about how she wasn’t mad, but rather disappointed. Which was undoubtedly worse in every possible way. Sighing, Mayday nodded, before leaning into her mother’s touch.
The tension that MJ had been able to summon so easily with her voice was just as easily defused by the gentle touch on her daughter’s shoulders.
“I know.” May answered, eyes closing as she physically melted into the way MJ was massaging her shoulders.
“If you knew, then why did you do it?” MJ’s question summoned a hundred images in Mayday’s mind. Her memories of the night prior were, naturally, affected by the number of drinks she and Felicity had indulged in, leaving them fragmented. But almost all of them featured her girlfriend in some way. For better or worse, the night had been fun. There was no use in denying that whatsoever. It was just the aftermath that, so far, had completely sucked.
“I wanted to have fun with my girlfriend, Mom.” It wasn’t a good excuse. Or even truly an excuse at all. But it was the truth, and that seemed like it would mean more than anything else.
“Are you having fun right now?” It was a rhetorical question in the purest sense. Hangover or no hangover, Mayday couldn’t mistake that, even if she had wanted to. As she shook her head, she still felt a tiny bit of anxiety, as if answering the question the right way now somehow in doubt.
“Guess you learned your lesson then.” Leaning down, MJ pressed a small kiss to her daughter’s messy head of brown hair, before moving away to check on the wheatcakes. The latter were ready to come off the pan. But before she took care of them, MJ stopped at the fridge, retrieving two bottles of water and sliding them across the table to both of the younger women.
“Drink. Both of you. You’re dehydrated.” she ordered, already knowing she wouldn’t have to repeat herself. Despite the cup of coffee still sitting in front of her, Felicity nevertheless reached for the bottle and pulled it towards her. Both she and May had only just begun to take a few small sips before two different plates of wheatcakes were carefully placed in front of them.
The sudden smell immediately attacked Felicity’s nostrils, making the nauseous feeling in her stomach all the worse.For a split second, she’d thought of making a dash to the bathroom upstairs, but her body made it clear that wasn’t a possibility. Before she could do anything to combat it, she was leaning over into the trash-can at her side, and emptying the small amount that remained in her stomach.
Were it not for the can at her side, there would have been an entirely different kind of decoration overtaking the Parker family’s kitchen.
Perched beside her, Mayday instinctively took hold of her girlfriend’s hair, and pulled it back gently, ensuring it wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire. The sound of Felicity getting sick wasn’t doing her own stomach any favors, but somehow, she kept herself from joining her in throwing up.
Mary Jane was already on the move once again. Grabbing a rag out of a corner drawer, she made quick work of wetting it and ringing it out, before moving to Felicity’s side. Once it seemed the younger woman was through being sick, MJ carefully offered her the rag,
“Thank…you…” Breathing heavily, Felicity quickly wiped at her mouth, before trying her best to get a hold of herself. She had never been a fan of being sick, and now was no exception. Her eyes watered as she slowly regained her normal rate of breathing, her entire body still seeming to ache from throwing up. Still holding onto her girlfriend’s hair, Mayday gently went to work rubbing her back, slipping her hand underneath Felicity’s shirt in the process. The difference in temperature between that hand and her skin made the latter’s breath hitch stiffen for a moment, before she relaxed.
“Sorry I got sick in your kitchen, Mrs. Parker.” Felicity offered, wiping at her eyes with the other side of the rag.
“Don’t worry about it. At least you got it in the trashcan.” Shaking her head, Mary Jane was about to turn her attention to Mayday when she heard a certain stomping coming down the stairs. Knowing exactly the kind of chaos that her son could unleash on two hungover girls, she moved to the doorway, already intent on intercepting Benjy before he could learn what was going on with his own eyes.
Only catching bits of the conversation happening out in the living room, Mayday was happy to see Felicity slowly turning in her chair, clearly wanting to try and at least take a few bites out of the plate in front of her. Her breathing seemed to have balanced itself out, and despite the way she clearly was far from happy she’d gotten sick, she didn’t seem to be in danger of having it happen again.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a familiar looking design on the shirt her girlfriend was wearing.
“...is that my shirt?” she asked, taking a card out of her mother’s playbook by using a rhetorical question. Looking down at what she was wearing, Felicity needed a moment or two to realize what she’d been asked, in large part due to her hangover.
“Maybe? I picked it up off the floor.” Answering honestly, Felicity reached for the bottle of water she’d left beside the plate, eager to wash her mouth out a bit. Looking back at her, Mayday didn’t need anything more to confirm that it was her shirt. The NSYNC logo had been a dead give away from the start.
In her younger years, she would have balked at the idea of anyone else wearing such a beloved piece of her closet. As it was, however, Felicity was quite possibly the only person she could stand to even think about wearing it. Even if there was now a less than zero chance that her girlfriend had gotten sick over it. Something about how she looked in it, however, made Mayday’s slight annoyance change into something else.
“I am never listening to you again. Just so you know that.” Mayday whispered, knowing that Felicity would be the only one able to hear it. The look that she quickly received was enough to make May flash her a grin that she knew just as well would disarm her lover in as quick a fashion.
“Just for that, I’m keeping the shirt.” Sticking out her tongue to May immediately after her last word, Felicity carefully took another bite of the wheatcakes, still trying to take it slow, lest she get sick again.
Her fingers holding her own fork, May’s grin grew just a bit larger. She was going to get a grin out of her girlfriend, and she knew exactly the way to do it.
“Looks better on you than me anyway.”
Without looking up, she knew there was a grin on Felicity’s face. The small kiss she got on her cheek was just an added bonus. But one that she already knew was going to go a long way to making her feel better. In fact, it already was.