Spider-Man:The Other Option

"Okay girls. Off you go."

Bea snaps out of it. She smiles at Peter and shuffles the girls out the door.

Leaving him alone with Skip. "Come sit down," Skip says.

Peter does, apprehensive. Skip sets a plate of fresh fruit and yogurt in front of him. Peter's fingers twitch, but he doesn ' t pick up his spoon, just watches while Skip takes the seat across from him.

"I owe you an apology," says Skip quietly. "No, it's okay. I'm—for what?"

"For last night," says Skip. "I had a little too much to drink, I shouldn't have slept through Lily's nightmare. Thank you for taking care of her until I got there."

Peter is relieved he isn't in trouble, but still, his stomach won't settle. He finds himself fighting the urge to pocket the apples on his plate, and he folds his hands in his lap to still them. "Does that happen a lot?" he says. "I mean, is she okay? I thought… I just wouldn ' t have expected it, I guess. Not from Lily."

Skip sighs. "I try not to talk about it with my boys until I'm sure they're going to fit in," he says. "The girls are in a… sensitive position, and kids can be thoughtless—I don't like to risk triggering their episodes. But I think you deserve an explanation. And I think you've proven you have the girls' best interests at heart." "Did something happen to them?"

Skip nods. " I know you ' re no stranger to the cruelties of the world, Peter, but even so, I don't want to burden you… and on your first day of school…"

"No, it's okay. I mean, it's not okay, but I want to know. I want to help."

Skip smiles, but a little sadly. "You are a helper, aren't you? I'm seeing that more and more." He sighs. The smile disappears. "Peter, those girls come from a very troubled background. Their birth parents were… not equipped, to say the least. Their mother was addicted to heroin, and so the girls were born addicted as well. She abandoned them at the hospital, and for the first few years of their lives they were bounced between family members and foster homes. Sometimes I thank the stars I don't know all the details of what happened to them, but I know enough to say that they were very badly abused by their first homes. They were too young to remember most of it, but Emma has scars on her back in the shape of cigarette burns, and for the first year I had them Lily would scream like she was being tortured any time she saw a man with a beard … things like that leave a mark, even when they don't leave a memory." Peter's hands are shaking.

(Bad things just happen.)

They shouldn't, though. The idea that anyone could do something like that to those girls is sickening.

Skip gives Peter a second to compose himself before he goes on.

"There were a few families before me," he says, "who tried with the girls. Good people. Good intentions. But even though the girls don't really remember what happened to them when they were little, abuse has invisible effects. Their behavior was… well, to put it plainly, Peter, it was nightmarish. Screaming fits, violence, sleeplessness. They would pull their own hair out, attack anyone who tried to stop them. Attack their foster siblings. Attack their foster parents. When the foster program approached me about taking them in, it was an absolute last resort—my focus was on teenage boys, like yourself, and I admit the thought of taking two potentially dangerous young girls was daunting. But I had enough experience with difficult cases at that point, and besides — they had nowhere else to go. Perhaps it sounds strange but I felt it was… my duty, I suppose, to look out for them."

(You gotta look out for yourself, Pedro.)

(That's not right, Felipe. Sometimes you have to look out for other people. Otherwise things like this happen. Otherwise people shoot unarmed men in alleyways and tell kids they can't eat and put cigarettes out on little girls' backs. And then it can't just be about me.

All at once, the embarrassment from last night returns, but this time it is not because he feels like an intruder on a private moment. It is because he was suspicious: suspicious of Skip last night when he hugged Peter; suspicious again when he first heard Lily scream.

(Broken broken broken.)

But it isn't Skip. It's him.

"I'm…," Peter croaks. "God, I' m so sorry."

" No, no, no, I ' m not telling you because I want you to feel bad, Peter. I told you, I want to apologize. The girls and I have done a lot of work in the last two years, but as you can see there's a ways to go. They handle it differently. Emma … well, you see how she is, she doesn't trust anybody except me and Bea. And you now, it seems."

Underneath the shame, a flicker of pride.

"And Lily," Skip goes on. "Lily is a spitfire. You know. But underneath all that spunk… her way of coping is by blocking things out. The nightmares are a result, though I thought we had them mostly under control. Last night was probably my fault, too. I let her have too much birthday cake. Too much sugar. I'm sorry, you must have slept terribly."

Peter shakes his head. "I slept fine," he lies. "I was just worried."

" I know. I meant what I said last night, Peter. You're an excellent kid."

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