Chapter Text
MJ had commanded acadec practice.
The group of fourteen year olds had gathered in the sports hall as usual to get ready for their regional competition that was upcoming pretty soon now. In the final stages of preparation, Mr Harrington was now leaving them to it. Content to have a nap during his lunch break under the guise of supervising them- the man snored softly in the corner of the hall.
With the competition so close, MJ had organised for a practice every Tuesday and Thursday lunchtime on top of the after school meets of Friday.
It was frankly, exhausting.
They'd had AP Physics before this and Peter had been feeling sick since he'd woken up that morning anyway, now- his body felt like it was on fire. A feeling like excruciating trapped wind radiated through his private parts, and he really really wanted to scream at how painful his abdomen was.
Ned caught Peter's eye, and the pair hid a chuckle as MJ continued her rant about team effort. Flash had complained about the new schedule one too many times it seemed, and MJ had had enough. Now though, they all had to suffer through her lecture.
A particularly harsh cramp wracked its way through Peter's body and he shot up with a pained gasp.
MJ turned irritated brown eyes to him, but he didn't stop to hear what she had to say.
"Parker's pissed himself!!" Flash started laughing at the wet patch the boy had left on his seat as Peter ran to the changing rooms.
MJ scowled at him. "You're on thin ice already." MJ pointed her clipboard at him. "It can happen to anybody if you're desperate, so stop laughing. You might shit yourself next time if you're not careful. I might slip some laxatives into your sacred pre-workout smoothie."
Flash had the decency to look sheepish.
Peter, didn't return from the bathroom.
If there was one thing Flash knew about Parker and Leeds, it was that they were practically twins. They spent most of their time joined at the hip, and Flash could admit in the privacy of his own mind, that he was jealous.
Even at fourteen, Flash knew that his parents were setting him up to take over the company when he came of age. Which he didn't want.
But that didn't matter.
Because stupid Parker, with his flipping fake internship and his loving aunt and everything that Flash could have ever wanted, had never come back from the toilet after pissing himself.
So now, as he and his friends strolled over to the changing rooms to get dressed for phys ed, a part of the teen wondered whether Parker had heard what he'd said and taken it to heart.
It had been a whole thing when Parker had transitioned into a boy. The school had done a whole assembly on acceptance, and Flash had taken care not to dead-name the boy. He was a jerk, but not that much.
Parker got his own cubicle in the boy's changing room, and he was left alone.
Flash made sure of that.
Acadec practice had taken up half of his lunch, so he had met with his commrades at the end of it, and watched Leeds dash away to the changing rooms to check on his friend. They had taken their time to saunter over to get ready for the final double of the day- Coach Wilson finally pushing them to go when the second late bell went off.
Leeds was worriedly pacing by Parker's cubicle, and Flash hung back to listen to what they were saying when Parker let out a loud moan of pain.
The opportunity was too good to miss up.
"Getting off instead of getting to class Parker?" Flash sneered and walked over to Leeds. The Filipino boy glared at him, and Flash felt a twinge of guilt as he heard Parker gasp again.
"If you've got nothing better to do than... ow! Than make fun of me, go away." Parker snapped through the door, before letting out another cry.
"You need to go to the nurse's office." Flash stated, as Ned wrung his hands uselessly beside him.
The rest of the boys from their class filtered into the changing room, and looked over at the pair in front of the locked and closed cubicle door.
"I... I agree with Flash." Leeds stuttered. "They can call May and she can get you to a hospital. You've been looking sick all morning, and this pain isn't right." Ned said.
"May's away at a conference." Peter hissed between his teeth.
"Then they can call... they can call you know, to come and take you. He signed the guardianship forms too, so he can help in a time like this." Leeds said pressing a hand to the door.
Parker didn't reply, and Leeds bit his lip in worry.
Jason and Abe from acadec had joined them now, phys ed forgotten, as Peter let out another cry. Then a stuttered moan, before screaming. Very loudly.
"Get the nurse." Leeds- Ned shouted over Peter's screams, and Jason nodded.
"On it." He said while running out of the room. Coach Wilson had clearly heard the commotion, because he pushed his way through the throng of teenage boys to bang on the door.
"What's going on Parker?" He demanded while looking at Ned. The boy shrugged.
"The nurse is coming, but what's going on?" Coach Wilson banged on the door again.
"I don't know!!" Parker wailed through the door, before going silent. Flash could imagine him biting his lip at the pain. It was something Parker did when he was nervous or worried.
Nurse Meg- a pretty young woman, pushed her way past Flash to knock on the door.
"Peter. It's Nurse Meg. I've left Jason at reception getting your guardian. They should be here in about five minutes. Can I come in to see if I can help you now?"
Flash couldn't help but be intrigued. Parker never complained about anything and he'd seen the boy cut half his finger off in home economics once, without crying. The pain had to be really bad.
Maybe a kidney stone. Or ruptured spleen. He'd heard they could be pretty bad.
"I can't move." Parker whispered.
"Alright." Meg said. "Let's clear the space, and then we can have Coach Wilson open the door from this side."
"You can't see. You can't see!!" Parker sounded agitated now, but was cut off from whatever else he was going to say, by another moan of pain.
"You need medical attention Peter. So I'm going to open the door now. I need to assess whether we need to call for an ambulance or not." Nurse Meg made a move at Coach Wilson and he started ushering the group of interested fourteen year olds out of the door to where the now dressed girls, were waiting for the lesson to start. Flash was the last to leave, Ned insisting that he needed to stay with his friend.
The last thing he saw, before the changing room door closed, was Coach Wilson opening the cubicle with the master key and Parker's pained face streaked with tears from where he was perched on the closed toilet seat.
Something was very wrong indeed.
Peter didn't want them to come in.
He knew that the pain was coming from the part of him that he tried so hard to forget. The part of him that he loved to remind him of every time he visited.
Caressing it.
Hurting it.
Touching it.
When Nurse Meg said they had to come inside, he didn't want her to. Because then she'd ask to have a look down there, and he couldn't take it anymore.
He couldn't deal with her touching it.
He couldn't deal with her looking at it.
Not when it was probably pain remaining from yesterday.
From this morning.
From him.
But they opened the door anyway, and he could see Ned.
Wonderful. Bleeding heart. Pain in the arse, because why did he have to go and tell Jason to call the nurse, Ned.
Ned, who was hovering worried, by the door. Because he was Peter's best friend. Peter's only friend besides MJ.
He could see the other two as well.
Nurse Meg and her kind smile, and kind blue eyes, and Coach Wilson with his harsher smile, but a smile none the less.
She came in, and knelt in front of him, where he was perched on the closed toilet lid puffing and panting as he waited for the inevitable next pain.
And just as she spoke, the wave of tight cramping radiated from his tummy, to his back and then down... down there.
Meg waited for Peter to finish crying again, before trying to talk to him again.
"Can you tell me where the pain is?" She asked.
Peter pointed to his tummy.
"Is it just in your tummy or anywhere else?" she pressed, knowing that there was more to it than that.
Peter looked up at her. Trying to will her to understand without him having to say it. To say the words. To have her look at that place that he hated so much. But of course she needed more than just his tear filled pleading eyes to help her.
He pointed at his crotch with a shaking hand, before curling his fingers into a fist as another pain wracked his body.
He hadn't said it.
But he'd told her now.
Nurse Meg gave Coach Wilson a look, and he knew that they were probably already writing the report for this in their minds.
"Can I give you a look over Peter? Because what you're describing sounds a lot like it could be kidney stones. It might be trapped wind though, if the pain is coming from your crotch. If it is, I have some medicine you can take to help relieve it." Meg suggested.
Peter's face burned at the thought of taking a tablet and then releasing a massive fart that blew the roof off the school. And he could tell Ned had had a similar thought, if the sniggering he was doing behind his hand was anything to go by.
"What will you do?" Peter asked, as Meg washed her hands in the cubicle sink.
"I'll start off with an abdominal palpation. Which is where I'll have you lift up your shirt, and then press my hands into your abdomen so I can feel for any swelling inside." She explained clearly as she dried her hands on some paper towels.
"But you won't put anything inside?" He wanted to clarify. He wasn't sure he was ready for that.
"Not at this stage no." She reassured.
But it might be necessary depending on what I find. Went unsaid.
Peter rolled up his top, and Nurse Meg pressed her warm hands to his belly after he nodded. He watched her face for any indication that she felt anything wrong, but right as she dug the tips of her fingers into his pubic bone, the pain came back. Nurse Meg would definitely be able to feel the way his belly tensed on it's own, and Peter panted harshly through the pain, letting out a low whine as it peaked, before ending and his belly softened again.
As Peter came back to being coherent after that last one, he caught the tail end of what Meg was whispering harshly to the PE teacher. "...ambulance. NOW!!"
He tried to sit up, but the residual ache these pains had left in his bones- had him wanting to cry even more.
Coach Wilson scurried off, and Ned was back to wringing his hand again.
"Alright Peter." Nurse Meg was washing her hands again. "I'm going to send Ned to my office. Take my keys, go into the cupboard that says emergency, then bring all the contents of the tray labelled Number 2. It's green, and you can't miss it. There's a steel trolley, put it on there. Push everything and run back here. You heard me Ned, yes?" She was more hurried in her actions, and thrust the key at Ned, who ran as fast as he could to obey her.
"There. Now the room's cleared, I need to be honest with you." Nurse Meg grabbed Peter's shaky hands in her own warm ones.
"I've felt your tummy, and I felt that pain. And when it ended, I had another quick feel. You've had what is called a cryptic pregnancy Peter, because I can tell that you have no idea that you're even pregnant. The baby's trying to come now. You're in labour, you're having a baby." She explained clearly, no judgement in her eyes.
"I've sent Coach to call an ambulance, and to tell Principle Morita, so they can help you. Ned's gone to get the birthing pack the we keep here at the school, but I hope the ambulance gets here quickly, because we'd really rather not have the baby born on top of this toilet hey?"
Peter, had stopped listening after she said he was having a baby.
Not now.
Not ever.
When Ned reached the nurse's office, he used the key to open the cupboard she'd told him about.
Tray number two was green, and he yanked the whole thing out, put it on the clean trolley before hightailing it back to the changing room.
He'd never sprinted like this before in his life, but he'd cast a quick eye over the contents. The light blue pack had a label on it with the words Birth Pack written in times new roman in large bold black lettering.
He sprinted because Peter needed it.
Because he didn't want to think about the implications of the thing he'd been asked to get.
Because his best friend. His trans friend, was having a baby, and he had no idea why he hadn't told Ned he was pregnant.
They'd sworn to tell each other when they met someone who they would do it with. Peter hadn't even told Ned he'd been with anyone, let alone enough times to get pregnant.
But hey.
Ned was Peter's friend, so he would be with him through this too.
When he pushed the trolley and pack into the cubicle, Peter was sobbing like the world was ending.
Ned guessed it was.
The world they'd all known was ending.
This baby was coming, and it was coming now.
Nurse Meg took the trolley from Ned, and left him to go to Peter.
Ned took his hand.
"She wants. She wants to look. She wants to put... to put inside!!" Peter looked up at Ned from his perch on the toilet seat. Ned could understand where Peter was coming from.
Peter had fought so hard for trans rights in the school. And for the most part, it was a battle he was winning. The toilets were all inclusive, with cubicles in both to allow trans students to use the bathrooms they felt was right for them. And for the most part, it was a new thing that the students were respecting. Peter was a boy. He'd fought to be respected as a boy, and now it must feel like his body was disrespecting him by doing something so inherently female, no-one would take him seriously again.
But Ned would.
Because Ned had stood by Peter through the first fight, and he'd be here for the next and the next and the owwwww!!
Peter squeezed Ned's hand really hard as a new pain- contraction, Nurse Meg had said they were called- radiated through him.
Because he was having a baby.
Meg had taken the trolley, washed her hands again, and opened the pack in the space of time it had taken them to get through the pain.
Ned cast an eye over the blue paper covered tray, and winced at the gleaming sharp instruments she'd laid out. He hoped Peter didn't need those mean looking spoon things.
"Don't go over there. It's a sterile field now, so just stay here." Meg told Ned as she knelt in front of Peter again, and watched as he shook his head emphatically.
"I think you know what I'm going to say now." Nurse Meg sighed as Peter's face crumpled. "I understand that you're a boy, and you are. When the paramedics get here, I'll advocate for you. As long as you're in my care, I won't judge you for your physical anatomy." She stated fiercely. They'd done this song and dance when he'd had to remove his shirt for a burn a couple of years ago. Peter knew Meg, so she hoped he could relax in her care. Although she wasn't sure how relaxed he would be able to be having a baby in the toilet.
Meg took Ned to the side as Peter undressed behind them.
"I hate to say this, but I don't think you should be here for this. It's already going to be hard on him, I''m not sure you need to be traumatised too. However!!" She held a hand up at Ned's sputtering. "However, I know you two are thick as thieves, so I don't think I'll be able to make you leave. I just have to say it for the paperwork. When they asked why you were here, I'll say that you insisted. So I need a verbal decision from you. Leave or stay?"
Ned smiled grimly. "Peter's my friend. I'm not going anywhere."
Nurse Meg nodded, and she watched him return to Peter's side with a thought. Could he be the baby's father? The way they were together, she wouldn't put them past it. She shook herself out of her thoughts as Peter groaned again.
"It hurts!!" Peter called out. Meg turned back from where she'd been putting on her sterile gloves. The contractions were close, about a minute apart now, and the pain seemed to be getting worse from what she could hear from Peter's pained sounds.
She squeezed the sterile lube onto the sterile paper the gloves came in, and dropped herself down onto the floor once again.
"When you're ready, can you lift up your jumper, then place your hands under your hips to bring your pelvis forward for me. Only when you're ready, I'll tell you when I'm going to start."
Peter looked down at her nervously.
"What are you going to do?" He worried his lip.
"I'm going to reach up, and feel your cervix. To see how dilated you are. You need to be ten centimetres to push. You're going to need to push to deliver the baby." Meg explained, while coating her sterile fingers in the lube.
Peter nodded, and Ned watched him gather his courage to lift his jumper up enough for Nurse Meg to do what she needed.
Ned took Peter's head into his hands, let Peter bury his face in his belly when he'd put his hands into the position the nurse had asked for.
"I'm going to touch now..." Nurse Meg started to say, but Peter let out a harsh grunt as another contraction roared through him.
Ned watched the nurse's face, and he wondered what it meant when she frowned slightly before letting her face go neutral again.
"You let me know in your own time when you're ready Peter." She said, and Peter continued to groan into Ned's stomach.
He finally nodded, and Meg once again stated what she was doing, very clearly.
Ned felt Peter jump, and knew whatever was going on didn't feel good.
Peter let out a hoarse cry, and Meg moved backwards suddenly with a soft gasp.
A spattering of clear liquid hit the floor.
"I didn't even get my fingers in very much, but your waters seem to have broken. I am happy to say Peter, that baby wasn't even far up. I can feel the head right here, you're nearly done. You've done so much of this on your own." Meg stood up again. "I think, I need to get you ready. The ambulance isn't going to be here on time."
Ned watched as the nurse brought Peter closer to the edge of his perch. She'd tried to get him to crouch over a pad on the floor, but he was insistent on staying where he was. Nurse Meg let him be. Some battles didn't need to even start, so she went back to her sterile field, bringing a new pair of gloves in a pack over to blue and white incontinence sheets she'd placed on the floor.
As Peter's body contracted again, Ned realised that it was happening, and it was happening now, as Peter let out a strangled cry.
He was pushing.
The door, burst open.
"Sorry!!" Principle Morita exclaimed as Tony Stark ran into the room. Coach Wilson puffing behind them.
Tony pushed past Ned and grabbed Peter's hand.
"I got a call saying you were in trouble. I got a speeding ticket to get here, but I know May's away, so they called me. What's going on kiddo?"
Peter finally felt safe enough to crumble, and crumble he did.
Sobbing into Tony's shirt.
Because even though Nurse Meg was blocking the view, everyone could see his spread legs and his body and his clearly not male anatomy.
"Can we have some privacy please?!" Meg said over Tony's babbling. Principle Morita had the decency to look embarrassed, and and he ushered Coach Wilson out of the toilet.
"Mr Stark. Peter is having a baby. If you continue to be a hindrance, I shall have you leave as well." Nurse Meg put on the new pack of sterile gloves, having washed her hands after removing the old pair.
Tony.
Gawked at her.
"Now, as I was saying, we need you to push now, I can literally see baby's head." She encouraged Peter.
Tony wondered where it had all gone wrong.
Fourteen was rather young for...
But he couldn't even talk. He'd been- encouraged into sexual activity very young.
So, he knew what he needed to do, as Peter screamed through the next contraction.
May was away, so he needed to step up.
Be the father he never had.
Be the father he'd promised he'd be for Peter.
The best dad.
Everything hurt.
Peter didn't understand how people did this willingly.
He didn't know where Tony had come from.
But since he couldn't have May, he was glad for the two other people he felt safe with- being by his side.
His insides were being invaded. His body betraying him.
Because how had he had a whole human being inside him, and he hadn't even noticed?!
He cried out as he tucked his chin to his chest and pushed again.
It was all too much, and he let out the loudest scream yet.
"Okay. Okay!!" Nurse Meg called out. "Slow down, you've reached the widest part of the head so quickly!! Well done. Slow breaths."
Peter released Ned's hand, and dropped it to feel.
There was a foreign thing poking out of him. He could feel where he had stretched, and was stretching.
"You're doing so well." Meg looked up at him.
"I can't do this." He groaned, face twisting in pain.
"Yes you can. You have to." Meg said.
"I can't!!" Peter arched his back as if to get away from the pain, turning his head into Tony's stomach again, and screaming into the soft cotton of his shirt.
"You need to push slow and steady." Meg explained.
Peter shook his head.
He didn't need to do anything.
That's how he'd gotten like this in the first place.
Being told he needed to be a good boy.
That he needed to be quiet, or else May would hate him.
That May would get rid of him if he told, so he needed to let him stay around.
To discipline him.
To teach him.
"I know it hurts Peter. But we don't have adequate monitoring here. I don't know what's going on inside, and this baby needs to be born now. Come on." Nurse Meg said firmly.
"I CAN'T!!" Peter shouted.
"Hey Pete?" Tony finally spoke. "The nurse is trying to help you. You need to listen."
Peter turned tearful eyes back to the woman kneeling in front of him.
"I can't do it." He burst into harsh sobs. "I really can't."
"Yes. You can." Meg said. "You've felt baby. They're right there. You need to push for them. Get them out. I'll be here. Tony will be here. Ned will be here."
Peter looked at Ned, who while scared, sent an encouraging smile at him anyway.
"Okay." He whispered.
"Come on." Meg nodded.
They waited for the next contraction to come, and Peter stared at the ceiling in anticipation of the terrible pain waiting for him.
When the contraction rolled through he pushed hard, gasping as the head popped free.
"Good boy." Meg held the head in her hand.
"What time is it?" She asked.
Ned looked at his watch. "Eleven minutes past one pm." He answered.
"We're waiting for baby to turn, so that the shoulders can come out easier." Meg explained to an exhausted looking Peter, who only moaned in response.
"It's doing it!!" Peter called out as he felt the baby turning.
"Yes they are!!" Meg held the head gently and watched it turn- pleased everything so far was going as it should. Besides the whole unexpected baby thing.
"FUCK!!" Peter shrieked as he pushed with the next contraction.
"FUUUCCCKKKKK!!!!" He screamed. "GET IT THE FUCK OUT OF ME!!!!" He yelled as the first shoulder broke free.
The pain was unbearable.
"OW!! OOOOOWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!" He lurched forward, leaning off the seat in a crouch.
"Holy shit. Holy shit!!" He pushed so hard his face went red, before slumping back on the toilet seat with a massive scream.
Meg hurried forward.
"Get that towel Ned!!" She shouted, and in a flurry of movements, liquid and swearing from Peter, the baby slid into her waiting hands.
"Well done darling!!" Meg laughed looking up at Peter.
"What's the time?" She asked Tony who now had a free hand. "One fourteen." He whispered, shocked.
Ned handed Nurse Meg the towel, and she rubbed the rather blue looking baby's back, vigorously.
"Hello!!" Meg said as the baby sputtered and gasped wetly. "You've given us all quite a surprise!!" She continued to speak to the baby. Ned watched in a daze, as the baby went pink very quickly as it opened its mouth and began to cry.
Meg wrapped the baby up, and then handed them to Peter.
"You gave birth to a bouncing baby boy at one fourteen Peter. Well done. I'm so proud of you."
Peter took his son, and brought him close.
"I'm so sorry." He whispered. "I didn't know about you, and I don't know if I'm happy you're here. But I'm here. I..." He trailed off and looked at the scrunched up face. "I don't know. I don't know." He began to cry again.
Tony watched him with a sad expression. "Could you excuse us for a second please Ned?"
They never did start the lesson.
Flash realised, some ten minutes after Jason had been sent to the nurse to help Peter.
Michelle had paced in front of the changing room door after Ned had barged through with a trolley, and it looked like it had taken her everything not to burst through the doors herself when Peter had started screaming.
Tony Stark had come through, and if that hadn't made Flash feel like he was two feet tall, he didn't know what would. He had been wrong.
Peter had got that internship, and apparently had done such a good job Tony Stark came for him in an emergency.
Flash didn't know what to think, except that Michelle looked ready to burn that door down.
Then, Peter had started screaming really loudly, and then it went quiet.
It had taken ten minutes in total, before Ned came out wringing his hands again, and casting furtive glances at that blasted piece of wood.
Flash made sure to position himself close to the furiously whispering pair. so that he could eavesdrop.
"...a baby!!" Ned was saying hurriedly.
"What?!" Michelle screeched.
"It's a boy." Ned answered.
Flash, fainted.
Principle Morita had come in when the paramedics arrived. It had taken them six minutes to arrive after the call had been made, but the baby had been eager to come.
Nurse Meg had helped Peter deliver the placenta, and Peter had actually thrown up a little when he'd seen it.
But he was sore, shocked and a dad.
"I don't understand!!" Tony had said for the fiftieth time in the last two minutes.
Principle Morita knelt on the now clean floor in front of him. A space Peter was sure had seen more visitors in the last twelve minutes than it had ever had in the sixty years that the school had been around.
"Hey Peter. Cutie you've got there." Morita said softly.
The paramedics had done their bit, and were just waiting for him to be ready to go to the hospital with them.
Baby was healthy.
He was healthy. Physically.
Peter showed Morita the sleeping face, and the man smiled.
"Peter. We would like to know who the father is. We'd like to know so that we can notify their parents and start to help you put a plan in place for this little one."
They'd been asking, and Peter hadn't known what to say.
He stayed quiet, drawing the baby back into his chest.
"For fuck's sake Peter. Just tell us!!" Tony finally snapped. "This is a big shock I know, but we need to help you!!"
Peter looked down at the baby.
His baby.
His son.
It wasn't just him anymore.
He had someone to protect now.
Someone who needed him to be brave.
"May's new boyfriend. Skip?" Peter started to speak. Staring at that perfect face.
Yet untouched by the horrors that life could bring.
He knew at least Tony and Principle Morita knew who Skip was. The school had been notified of the new member of the Parker household when Skip moved in a year ago and the man began to do Peter's prick ups and drop offs. Most importantly. May was in the process of trying to get him guardianship too, because she left Peter with him on nights shift days, rather than dropping him off at the tower.
Peter realised that Tony would be glad to not have to share custody now.
The room had gone silent.
"He's not very nice."