Come on in Said the Spider to the Wasp

Down Time

Two weeks after the Scorpions incident, everyone was upbeat. In fact, a bar-b-que was being held at the Xavier school. Most of the Ultimates were in attendance, including Hawkeye, his girlfriend and his son.

Jan was looking over the insanity that was the Bar-b-que. It turned out that Peter and Bobby were getting along great, and MJ and Bobby were getting along even better.

Logan was relaxing beside Hawkeye and Tony and Natasha. All four were in deck chairs, dressed in bathing suits and sipping cold bottled beer. Jean, Thor, Beast, and Prof. Xavier were all having a rather spirited political discussion, and Scott, Steve, Gwen, Pietro, Kurt, and Wanda were playing Marco-Polo. Jan suddenly realize who was on the unaccounted list.

"Ms. Pym, may I speak with you?" asked May, who had a strange ablility to make a person feel guilty even when they had done nothing wrong. And if they were hiding something, they felt even worse.

"Mrs. Parker," Jan said, a little wary around the woman since Jan and Peter had openly started dating a week ago.

"ahem," Nick said, announcing that he too was in on the discussion.

"hey Nick," Jan said, less worried about him than May.

"Ms. Pym, I understand my nephew cares about you greatly," May started. "And while I have no evidence to show that you don't reciprocate with that much commitment, I am none the less concerned about your relationship."

"I know," Jan said. "The age difference, but it…"

May cut her off. "I don't care about the age difference," when Jan gave her a perplexed look, May explained. "Ben was a good ten years older than me. And my current…" she looked coyly at Nick, "relationship is five years younger than me. It's all just numbers. Peter has been old enough to decide whom he loves and what to do with his body for some time now. He has always been very mature for his age, unlike some men I know," she threw Nick another flirty look. "What concerns me is that you have an interest in my nephew. I guess that's just the mother hen in me. But mark my words Ms. Pym," May leaned very close, so that not even Fury could hear her. "If you break my nephew's heart, I'm the first person you have to deal with and I will make the Hulk seem like Tom Thumb." She leaned back and smiled. "But for some reason I don't foresee that happening."

May leaned forward and hugged Jan genuinely. "I guess I'm trying to say that you have my blessings. Jan was at once both amused, and properly intimidated by May's threat.

"Thank you Aunt May," she said. She wandered back over to Peter and gave him a kiss on the cheek. May followed to give the good news to her nephew.

Steve and Tony came up beside Nick. "So, looks like everybody's hookin' up but you Steve," nick said. "Me an' Natasha are going to my place tonight. Kid over there nabbed Jan. even Nick here found himself a lovely little thing."

Nick shook his head at Tony's cavalier attitude.

"Actually I can honestly say that I don't envy Nick one bit," Steve said with a smile.

"Oh, why?" asked Nick, looking at his friend. "You an' that Red-Head having a little May-November romance?"

Steve shuddered at the idea. "No, no." Steve pointed across the pool to May who was whispering in Peter's ear. "Because someone stronger and faster than me is a bout to find out you've been dating his Aunt."

"FURY!" Peter called, somewhere between really angry, and surprised. Nick looked around. No SHEILD angents in sight. "Um… damn," he said, dropping his bottle of beer and bolting as Peter cleared the pool in one leap.

Everything went pretty normal from there.