Chapter Text
Michelle’s first encounter with Peter Parker was nothing peculiar.
Asthma attack aside.
Midtown is dusty and old—who knows what’s trapped inside its walls? Asbestos? Dead rats? Mold? Sin?
The boy sitting to her left for the entrance exam had the great misfortune of being placed next to a bookshelf, coloured an ugly, chipping turquoise and holding books that looked like they hadn’t been touched in millennia. Every nook is covered in a film of fuzzy white gray.
Twenty minutes in, around the time Michelle reaches question 13 on the mathematics booklet, she hears coughing and turns to see the boy—thin and tiny and wearing some nerdy graphic tee—go alert with panic as his breaths grow shorter and shorter.
He drops his pencil and twists behind him to grab something from his backpack the same time the teacher, reclining on a rolling chair near the whiteboard says, “You do not have access to supplementary materials during the exam; keep your eyes on your own paper or you will be disqualified.”
The boy actually pauses at that, though he looks like he wants to say something judging by the scrunch of frustration in his eyebrows that peek through his growing distress. All that comes out is a hard wheeze and another forceful cough.
It’s no good. His breaths get quicker and he clutches at his chest, eyes getting big and scared. With one last look at the exam proctor at the front, he rushes for his backpack, fingers shaking as he fumbles with the front pocket of his bag.
“Hey!” the teacher shouts, getting up.
Oh my God, chill, Michelle thinks.
"He’s having an asthma attack!"
Expression going from angry to surprised, the teacher takes quick steps to where Michelle is seated, mumbling something that sounds like rapid-fire oh shits.
The zipper slips through his hands three times and by the time he digs out his inhaler, he’s visibly weaker.
Concerned, Michelle slips out of her seat with a screech from pushing her desk legs ahead and crouches next to him. She helps guide the medicine to his mouth, one hand wrapped around his smaller one to hold the inhaler still, the other on one of his bony shoulders. The teacher is by their side a few moments later.
He takes several puffs, frantic at first and then progressively calmer. It takes a full minute of heavy but full breaths for his complexion to return to normal.
Even sitting down, Michelle can guess he’s probably a full head shorter than her. He looks fifty pounds soaking wet, his t-shirt, which says RIP boiling water, you will be mist hanging loose on his small frame.
At this point the remaining students in the class had completely lost focus on the exam. The teacher glances at the out-of-control room of twelve and thirteen-year-olds and sighs.
The first thing that comes out of asthma boy’s mouth once he catches his breath is, “Um, sorry.”
Then, “Uh. Am I disqualified?”
The teacher sighs, louder, massaging their temples. Like they’re dying inside. Like the creak of their fissuring soul, its resonant frequency overlapping perfectly with the screams of prepubescent teenagers.
“No.”
A kid at the other end of the classroom asks (literally shouts at the top of their lungs, and she’s twelve but God are twelve-year-olds ever stupid) what the answer to question 7 is.
“Everyone stay in your seats, eyes on your own papers!”
__
Asthma boy’s name is Peter.
MJ learns this during homeroom roll-call months later during her first day at Midtown, almost not responding to his own name because he’s too preoccupied chattering with the boy next to him—Ned Leeds, she thinks.
For someone with such appallingly bad lungs, it seems that Peter’s voice box mileage is pretty extensive.
__
The scene that greets her at Tower Bridge is an absolute catastrophe. Abandoned cars are strewn along the road, all sporting dented metal skeletons. The smell of spilt gasoline and smoke and melting plastic waft into her nose, heavy and sour. She steps around shattered glass, robots coated in webbing, exoskeletons cracked like they’ve been punched.
She’s halfway across, chest growing heftier with worry when she spots Peter, limping and bloody but alive. The mace slips out of her hands with a clunk and she makes a mad dash towards him.
He doesn’t meet her halfway, favouring one foot over the other, brows scrunched as if trying to figure out if she’s really in front of him.
Her arms wrap around him. Peter mirrors her with a soft exhale, and the muscles under his ruined suit relax under her palms, which still shake as her nerves continue to discharge with urgency, electricity at her fingers.
She hears him sigh against her shoulder.
He sounds exhausted, he looks exhausted, blood drying against his cheekbone and below his nostrils. Grimy, sweaty hair.
She doesn’t know what’s making her pulse go haywire—be it from adrenaline or nervousness—when she pecks him on the lips. Just for a fraction of a second, a ghost of a touch.
From behind her, the overturned car’s fire spreads to its tires. The heat clings to her clothes and radiates outwards, cozy and toasty against the chilly London wind.
Through a half laugh, eyes glimmering with a happiness that drives the doves in her stomach into a frenzy, Peter says, “I really like you.”
They kiss again, longer this time.
And again, bolder. Peter has to go on his toes while MJ tilts her head down. His hand moves hold her right arm, careful, still erring on the side of tentative.
__
At the airport, MJ comes across a gift shop and buys him a tiny spoon. The end of the handle is moulded to look like the Big Ben. Peter laughs like it’s the funniest thing in the world.
__
After the plane touches down in Newark with a jolt, Peter fishes out his phone—a new one with a new number—and takes it off airplane mode to dial his aunt. They exchange see you soons and I love yous before he hangs up and gives MJ a tap on the shoulder.
“Do you need a ride home?” he asks. “May can probably drive you.”
MJ had just been planning to take an Uber; it’s mid-afternoon and her brother is probably swamped in side-projects at work. Offering a ride is both the polite thing to do and an obvious plea to spend another hour together before parting ways.
Well. Nothing dreadful about that.
__
Peter visibly brightens when he spots May trying to talk a parking officer out of giving her a ticket, practically skipping over to wrap her in a hug. His aunt ruffles her nephew’s hair a few times before they pull away and she looks past him to send MJ a grin.
She and Peter have the same smile; front teeth exposed, the space under the eyes puffing up and the sides crinkling before their lips even turn up. At a rough estimate, the wattage is at about a million or so.
MJ waves, a little self-conscious. “Hi, Mrs. Parker.”
“Is it okay if we give MJ a ride home?” Peter asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
Strangely, May bristles, just for a moment.
“Well—” she starts, before pausing and squinting at nothing. Peter tilts his head, confused as he and MJ watch the woman’s face journey—best described as the five stages of grief — before she plasters on a forced smile. “Sure. You’ll both have to sit at the back, though; there’s some cargo sitting at the passenger seat.”
__
“What the fuck?”
“Well, that’s no way to greet someone.”
The cargo, as it turns out, is Tony Stark.
He throws up a peace sign. Peter breathes through his nose and out with his mouth.
MJ has seen some shit and done some shit in the past few days—what’s another potato in the potato stew?
Peter’s demeanor goes from cheerful to spooked so quickly that he’s speechless. He pulls his head out of the car halfway to getting in, looking across to where May is getting into the driver’s seat with no small amount of panic.
May winces but sends Peter a reassuring smile. “He insisted, hon; sorry,” she says, shrugging.
Peter settles into the back of the car, a perfect example of a deer-in-headlights. He struggles to fasten his seatbelt, eyes on the older man riding shotgun while MJ hesitantly enters the car too.
Finally, Tony says, “Hi, Pete. Good trip?”
Peter’s face contorts. “Yes?” Then, “You could have—you could have let me know you were coming.”
“Ohhh, so we are in the business of telling people what we’re doing under conditions where it may be relevant to them? You gotta let me know when you switch gears, Pete — my old man heart doesn’t like big surprises like this.”
Peter’s eyes narrow into half-slits, and he scowls. “I was going to see you this evening.”
“Yeah—well, this just demonstrates that being petty gets you places faster, eh?”
May sighs.
Tony—Tony Stark—shifts his attention to MJ. There’s no shortage of bedazzled tales from reporters or people who encounter celebrities in the deep wild of everyday life, accounts ranging from humanizing to ostentatious descriptions on how larger-than-life they are.
The older man in the passenger seat does, indeed, look like a real person. He’s visibly older than any photo of him circulating the internet — most, if not all of them five years outdated. The hair on the sides of his head is graying and he has prominent crow’s feet flaying out against the skin by his left eye. The other side is mottled, a moon-crater texture of bumpy smooth scar tissue.
Tony arches his head so that the rougher portion of her face is angled out of sight. MJ realizes she’d been staring.
“You must be MJ,” he says. “Peter talks about you a lot.”
Peter loosens slightly at the jab, some of the tension uncoiling, unfurling. “Tony!"
Tony huffs, amused but still visibly subdued.
May starts the car and boards the freeway headed back to New York proper. She asks MJ for her home address while Tony and Peter sit politely in their seats.
This continues for the next ten minutes, no one in the car saying anything at all. Every once in a while MJ looks in Peter’s direction in hopes that he’ll elaborate, but he just fidgets with his phone, not looking up from his lap while Tony props his right arm—a metal prosthetic—on the ridges of the car door and stares out the window, fixated on the wharfs leaking into gray river water. When he gets bored with the view, he starts playing around with the car’s AC and radio dials until May smacks his hand away.
Once they’re out of New Jersey and crossing through Manhattan, the silence gets too unbearable for Peter and he caves.
“Tony, listen,” he says, “Beck was trying to lure you out—I couldn’t contact you—”
“Interesting alibi, kiddo, but you could have at the very least let me know you were safe,” Tony fires back. It’s vehement, but his voice is soft. Tired. “You know, instead of letting me find out your vacation turned SHIELD op through Happy, who, by the way, only told me because I asked.”
“I had it handled.”
A sigh. “I know you did—but that’s not the point.”
They start arguing like MJ and May aren’t in the car with them, Peter finally letting his eyes meet the other man’s own irritated face. MJ’s attention flickers between the two men as they speak in vicious, crabby tones.
Under the annoyance, Tony Stark sounds… protective. Maybe even offended. Or hurt?
“May’s being chill about it—”
His aunt cuts him off. “Oh, no, no, Peter. Darling, you are not using me as fodder.”
“Wh—”
May keeps her attention on the road, but her grip against the wheel remains tight as she turns the cruise control on. “I have raised you since you were five—do you think your compartmentalization habits manifested out of thin air? No, because you’re not the first one in this family to pop your problems into a Ziploc bag and stick it in the freezer for later.”
MJ has to put in real effort to keep her face neutral. That was a laser-guided jab.
“May—”
“So right now, I am very happy to see my nephew in one piece and drive all the way to New Jersey to get him. I have the hot buttered bagels you like,” she says. “And when we get home—then I will be upset.”
“Yeah, Peter—”
“Tony, I am not on Peter’s side, but I am not on yours either.”
“Sorry.”
May sighs, again. There’s a lot of sighing to do in this household, apparently.
“Peter, being a superhero is dangerous and Tony is very sensitive. Tony, Peter is someone who always answers the call, fortunately or unfortunately. That’s why I packed his suit. He also had good reason to hold back on contacting you if he thought you were a target.”
“I could have figured a way around that,” Tony insists.
Peter groans, exasperated. “It’s more than that, though — if I told you, you would have tried to intervene! Beck wanted to use me as bait – there was no way I was going to let that happen —”
“No I wouldn’t.”
“That’s a lie and you know it.”
“Beck was insane, you need to understand that if you were in danger —”
“You need to trust me!” Peter butts in, raising his voice.
They’d been keeping their voices level and low the whole time and the spike in volume almost makes MJ jump. “I wasn’t about to put you in danger because you’re still healing and you have Morgan to worry about now, Tony!”
At the same time Peter realizes he shouted and deflates, shamefaced, Tony lets out a large breath, sinking into his seat.
“I do trust you, Pete,” he says, as calmly and slowly as he seems to be able to manage. “But I — just can’t not worry.”
“I’m fine,” Peter insists. “I’m sorry for yelling.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No — I’m okay now. Really.”
“Keyword: now.”
“I just want you to be safe.”
“I know.”
The images of Peter—favouring one side, red eyes and carmine blood that ran down his cheeks in splotches, the burnt suit, the rancid and hot smoke—flash through her mind. By the time they had gone through security and boarded the plane, Peter was dead to the world and nuzzled against her neck.
There isn’t a trace of those injuries now and the burnt smell that rolled off of him when they held each other is gone, washed away by soap and shampoo.
“I’m not mad at you—just putting that out there to clear the air,” Tony says, before he pauses and through the rear-view mirror MJ sees him frown. “Actually, I am kind of mad and we are definitely going to have a mature, in-depth follow-up discussion in the very near future, but I’m mostly not mad at you.”
Peter groans, throwing his hands up in surrender. “I’ll take it, I guess.”
“I’m all about value deals,” Tony agrees.
Then, like a switch has been flipped, Tony perks up and his demeanor becomes more cheerful. He claps his hands together lightly as if nothing is wrong and as if this isn’t the strangest and most awkward car ride MJ had ever been in.
“Apologies, MJ; that was terribly impolite.”
Not sure how else to respond, MJ shrugs. “Sounds like that conversation couldn’t wait.”
Tony laughs thinly. “I’ll say I wasn’t expecting the extra passenger today,” he says, “but it’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Peter— where are your manners? Introductions.”
Her boyfriend—at least, she’s pretty sure he is—in classic teenager form, buries his face into his palms — a move that makes the older man roll his eyes—before he gestures between her and Tony, grumbling, “This is MJ. MJ, Tony. Tony, MJ.”
“Hi,” Tony says, smiling.
“Hello…?"
The car stops at an intersection and May turns around, sending MJ an apologetic smile. “Everyone,” she says, tone measured, withering, “eat a bagel or so help me God.”
Tony and Peter both shrink.
When the light switches to green, May gives MJ another look. “It’s great to have you here.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Parker.”
It takes another half-hour or so to reach MJ’s place in Forest Hills.
At her driveway, Peter tells May and Tony to stay in the car and exits to get MJ’s backpack and suitcase from the trunk.
As Peter slides her luggage over to her and she accepts the backpack from his hands, she says, “Dude, what?"
Peter grimaces and sags. “Oh my God I’m so sorry about that.”
MJ’s not upset or anything like that—nothing bad happened. Her curiosity is piqued more than anything. “It’s fine—I was just—not expecting that.”
“Still, that was like, so awkward,” he insists. “And we literally started arguing—holy shit I’m so sorry, we’re normally chill I promise.”
“Peter. It’s okay.”
Peter exhales through his nostrils and slumps a little. “This trip was wack beginning to end,” he says.
MJ kisses him on the cheek to make him calm down. “At least we’re being consistent. I’ll see you the day after tomorrow?”
He nods, dopey smile spreading across his face before he leans in again and presses his lips to hers. They’ve kissed more than a couple times now—enough for MJ to figure out that Peter is still timid about how much pressure to apply, each touch featherlight, though gradually getting bolder—but MJ feels butterflies in her stomach whenever they do, nonetheless.
__
Their first date isn’t their eight hours on the plane home from Europe—as nice as that was, as Peter ends up attesting in the future, he’d spent most of the flight knocked out, either dozing off on MJ’s shoulders or half-conscious, shovelling complimentary pretzels down his throat like a hungry raccoon.
So it doesn’t count. It’s more like a pre-game to build some momentum for the actual date, if that’s the right word.
They meet up at Woodhaven station, Peter already waiting at the platform, waving excitedly when he spots her coming down the escalator. Less than an hour later, they’re in an old arcade in Manhattan. The interior smells like a strange combination of mildew and bleach, floor covered in what probably was a once-colourful 80’s style carpet with dried soda stains and general nastiness. The blast of cool air when they enter more than offsets it, though, and they buy tokens from the dispenser at the front as the sweat from their foreheads and backs evaporates away.
There’s an old Space Invaders unit—which MJ quickly remembers is a stressful as fuck game as her defense bunkers crumble.
The barriers fade and she reaches level five, and Peter watches over her shoulder as she maneuvers the joystick to fire at each invader from the bottom row.
“I forgot that the music speeds up as you go,” she mutters. And it is: the four-note loop that sounds like repetitive, low-pitched grunts lends a ridiculous urgency to the game.
She lasts three minutes total. MJ turns back to Peter, who’s grinning like he’s having the time of his life.
Peter, unsurprisingly, is really good at any pretty much every game that involves aiming, so he accumulates a ridiculous number of tickets at the basketball booths. Interestingly, though, MJ murders him at skee-ball; Peter rolls either too forcefully or too light, missing the bullseye rings.
“Woah, mercy,” Peter jokes, pouting as he compares his score with hers, inching closer so that they’re only centimeters apart. The blues and reds and greens that paint his cheek and jaw are the last things she sees before he leans in and her eyes flutter shut.
At their feet, the machine sputters out bright orange tickets.
They kiss for just a second or two and MJ thinks, I could really get used to this.
Later, arms full of ticket strips bunched up sloppily against her chest, she watches Peter contemplate whether give a round on the boxing machine.
“I’m super strong,” he says, “Is it—I don’t know, ethical if I play a strength game?”
“We’re in an arcade, dude. I don’t think it’s that deep.”
Peter concedes at that, slipping his last two tokens into the slot and getting into position. “Fair enough,” he says, and swings.
It doesn’t look like he’s putting much force into it, but the punching bag hits the sensor with a loud thump and ricochets back so quickly that Peter arches back to avoid being punted. Overhead, the booth’s LED sign begins to flicker with a neon red HIGH SCORE!
Her boyfriend whoops and places his fingers under his chin, another fist at his hip. He’s grinning, and through a giggle he says, “I’m swole.”
She laughs. “Okay.”
Once their tickets have been fed into the counter, they make their way over to the prize area, lined top to bottom with tacky novelty toys, all BPA, Styrofoam and garish colours. Peter taps the tip of his nose a few times.
“Dibs out on picking something,” he says. He gestures broadly to the boxes of ugly toys and inflatables pinned to the wall. There’s a bit of everything—a bag of seashells, stress balls, Hot Wheels kits gathering dander on the shelves.
MJ’s a bit partial to the fish-shaped pencil case she skims the inventory, running a finger across the glass before she spots something that makes her stop.
As she calls over the arcade employee across from her and says, “Hi, can I get this one?” Peter shuffles over to peek at her choice.
The employee takes her receipt and deducts the ticket count before handing her the keychain. She dangles it in front of Peter’s face, smiling as his own lips turn up in a grin.
“Oh! It’s so deformed!” he exclaims, looking completely delighted anyway.
The mask is orange and the lens are too triangular – the whole thing is just really sloppily made. If it weren’t for the webbing pattern, MJ would have missed the fact that this sad enamel disaster was supposed to be a Spider-man.
“This is probably your final form,” she says.
“Agreed,” Peter says, reaching over to rub a thumb across the keychain. He grins. “Woah, it’s me,” he adds, “counterfeit me.”
“Fanta-you.”
“It’s so cool that I’m relevant enough to have Walmart versions of myself.”
“Fanta Spider-man definitely doesn’t do your big head justice.”
There are still enough credits left—her and Peter had spent a lot of tokens, so she exchanges the rest for another keychain—a little green man with a banner that says I want to believe. Holding that and the Spider-man keychain, she gestures for him to pick one.
“Ooooh,” Peter says, leaning forward to inspect the two of them. Curiously, he takes out his phone and snaps a picture. “I mean—aliens are totally real and that’s public knowledge at this point—but I still haven’t seen a green bug-eyed one.”
He loops the emerald token around the rest of his keys, and she clips Spider-man to her bag.
“Food?”
“Food.”
__
Peter’s quickly making a reputation for himself as someone who remembers little details. Something about he turned her favourite murder into a romantic gesture and succeeded is… excellent. It’s a little morbid and hence—perfect.
Now, he’s transformed her off-hand comment about espresso, the best things Italians have invented next to boh into a date.
Dork.
Ned frequents this bingsu place with his parents—a white-walled, white-tiled place bathed in fluorescent lighting, each corner sparkling clean — and has raved about how good one of their signatures are: a mountain of shaved ice with a fine layer of cocoa powder, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. On the side, a cup of espresso.
“Ned calls it a deconstructed tiramisu,” Peter says, pouring the coffee over the dish, “but not Italian, I guess.”
MJ gathers a coffee-soaked spoonful with a bit of ice cream and sticks it in her mouth—and yeah. It’s super good. The fact that it’s cold and bringing her internal temperature down from boiling—because God it is hot outside—is just a bonus. When she looks up, Peter is taking a picture of her, and then his fingers start moving in the familiar motion of typing. She squints.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh—uh—gotta give Ned a review, you know,” Peter says, squirming a little. “He wants validation for his choices.”
Sure. That’s why he’s snapping photos.
“Fun fact: people used to think ice cream caused polio because during the summer months because kids kept getting sick. There was like, a witch hunt for ice cream trucks. Frozen milk fat making hapless children resort to the iron lung.”
At that, Peter sets his phone down and his eyes do the smile-crinkle thing that MJ likes. He laughs, giddy, placing his elbows on the table and putting his head between his hands. “I’m on a date with you and learning polio facts,” he says.
“I sure hope that’s what this is.”
“This is so exciting,” he mumbles, mostly to himself, like where he is and what he’s doing is just hitting him. “You’re so pretty.”
“I want to be incorporeal and vaguely threatening.”
He only smiles bigger at that, and it’s contagious, exceptionally hard to try and not follow along. So, she doesn’t.
“You’d be the coolest formless entity out there,” Peter tells her, giving her finger-guns and a wink before sticking another bite of dessert into his mouth. “No one’s gonna do shapeless and transient like you.”
“Now you get it.” Then, “You’re really pretty too.”
Peter’s head dips to hide his grin, but his ears flush.
__
Summer creeps away gradually—they go on their second date a few days later, and MJ learns that she’d literally rather pick up a cockroach and cuddle it than go webslinging again. Peter clearly loves it, doing goofy things like taking mid-swing selfies, so in-tune with the topography around him that he barely has to pay attention. MJ bets the Coney Island pendulum rides feel like being pushed around in a shopping cart to him—but she has a normal tolerance for vertigo, thank you very much.
She starts volunteering at the Queens’ homeless shelter, which Peter’s aunt is currently spearheading, even coming on evenings where Peter isn’t there, occupied with patrolling or just out of the city to spend time with the Starks.
MJ likes May a lot—her voice is smooth and soothing, offsetting the crests and troughs of Peter’s more jittery energy. She’s incredibly kind; many of Peter’s mannerisms are clearly learned behaviours. After their shifts end, May takes her out for a late dinner, just the two of them, and drives her home.
MJ and Peter see each other in person a few times a week and text for the rest, except for the weeklong gap that connects July to August where Peter is called away for Spidery business. The first time they meet up after that, it’s at a group hangout consisting of her and Ned at Peter’s apartment, mindlessly scrolling through Netflix in hopes of finding something interesting enough to watch.
Peter is reclined on one end of the couch. By his fourth yawn, he says, “Sorry, guys. I think I’m still jetlagged as hell.”
(When MJ had asked earlier over video call, he’d motioned vaguely and mentioned something about a human experimentation ring but left it at that.
“Still an ongoing thing,” he’d said, “So I can’t say much.”)
“Dude, where were you?” Ned says as Peter shifts into a more comfortable position, back leaning against MJ’s side and his legs over Ned’s lap.
“Volgograd.”
“Like, Russia?”
Peter hums, nuzzling into the space under MJ’s arm, dipping off again. “Mm. Yeah. And adjacent areas.”
“That’s so cool.”
“Didn’t get shot, so yeah,” Peter slurs, the words blending together, “mad cool.”
Life is weird.
As Peter’s 17th birthday approaches from ‘round the corner, May texts her the details: the party will just be on the day, at the Parker residence. She asks for MJ’s input of how formal dinner should be—a sit-down around the kitchen thing or a pizza around the living room kind of ordeal.
The tenth is a drizzly day, asphalt saturated and darkened with the rain that slides off of MJ’s umbrella as she makes the brief walk from the bus stop to the Parker’s building.
[17:29] Hey buzz me in
Peter [17:30] wahoo youre here!!
[17:30] no need im coming downstairs <3 <3
As she squeezes into the front corridor and collapses her umbrella, shaking away excess drops of water, a silver minivan slides next to the curb with a faint squeal from its tires.
From the tinted windows of the rear and of the car, the silhouette of a little girl comes into focus, button nose and small hand pressed against the glass. Before the car even slows to a complete stop, she forces the door open, bounding out of the car and breaking into a run to brave the rain.
The two front doors of the minivan open simultaneously. Tony Stark and Pepper Potts step out, the man’s eyes following the girl as he shouts, “Don’t do that until mom gets the keys out!"
She screeches to a halt right next to where MJ is standing, clad in a rubber duck-yellow rain jacket and bright red boots. Big doe eyes peer up at her, and she sticks out a hand towards her.
“Hi!” the little girl says. “Peter didn’t tell me that you’re this tall.”
Peter’s mentioned Morgan, shown MJ a few pictures of her from his camera roll—Morgan holding a worm, Morgan picking cherry tomatoes from the garden, Morgan struggling to mix a thick batter as her mom gives her a helping hand.
Oh, God, she’s cuter in real life.
Tony makes his way over with a box that’s probably Peter’s gift in his hands, his wife right behind him. “Hiya, MJ. Pepper—this is MJ.”
Pepper gives a friendly greeting right as Peter materializes from inside the building and pretty much throws the door open.
He gives MJ a quick peck on the cheek before he directs his attention to Morgan, who’s making bleugh noises at the PDA.
“Oh my gosh,” Peter exclaims, making an X shape over his chest with his arms. His mouth opens with pretend, exaggerated shock. “MORGIE.”
With a matching enthusiasm, Morgan hurls herself at him and shouts, “PETEY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY.”
He catches her with ease, breaking into a spin. “Morgie!”
“Petey!”
“MOOR-gie.”
And they go on, and on, and on.
Next to MJ, Tony pipes up, “Can I file a noise complaint even if I don’t live here?”
His wife whacks him lightly on the shoulder.
Hoisting Morgan up as she giggles, her arms wrapping around Peter’s neck, the boy grins at the couple. “Hi,” he chirps.
“Hey, dancing queen.”
Peter rolls his eyes good-naturedly and invites them to all come in.
__
Tony Stark—now more than ever, after the blip—is built up as this mythical figure. The media is still unanimously aboard the Iron Man Love Train once his role in undoing the decimation became clear. It’s not a total 180 from how people used to talk about him—but there’s a marked uptick in admiration, idolatry. The wallpaper of the Midtown art room isn’t visible under all the Iron Man pieces.
Once staples to his brief list of conversation topics and pleas for excused absences, Peter doesn’t really mention an internship or Tony Stark anymore. The world can’t seem to shut up about Iron Man, these days, but Peter is largely quiet about it.
Not bitter, not resentful, or anything in that ballpark. Just quiet, okay with keeping whatever he has close to the chest.
Peter is incandescent as he blows out his candles, purposefully missing a few so Morgan can have a go at it too. May kisses him on the cheek, eliciting a laugh and when she pulls away Tony swoops in to take her place, giving Peter a quick peck on the temple before messing up the boy’s hair.
The sight is downright odd to MJ because she supposes she doesn’t yet know enough to contextualize—and judging by the constant awe radiates from where Ned watches the spectacle, she isn’t the only one.
Like the burning wax on birthday cake, though, it’s inundated with affection and warmth. Fluffy as the whipped cream spread over the pastry, soft as cotton candy and melt-in-your-mouth sweet.
Peter Parker is incredibly loved, and that is no surprise at all.
__
There’s no sunset tonight, big clouds obscuring the entire landscape. The sky gradually grows darker, while the partygoers polish off their food and mingle around the apartment.
Peter and Ned have disappeared off somewhere to break open their new LEGO set, because they’re still massive nerds when Tony takes the seat on the couch next to her, Morgan in tow.
He slides his hands under Morgan’s armpits and lifts her up so that her head is level with MJ’s.
“Look at my child,” he says.
Morgan beams, squirming a bit in her father’s hold. “Miss MJ!”
MJ blinks.
Pepper pops up from behind her and says, “He’s trying to bond.”
Then she’s gone, headed back to the kitchen, making a beeline to the fruit platter abandoned on the counter.
“What she said. Is it working?”
“I don’t… know?” MJ says.
“That’s better than no,” Tony says sagely, sniffing a little.
Morgan finally wriggles free and lands on the carpet with a thunk before squeezing into the gap between MJ and Tony, where the cushions dip.
“Peter’s right,” she says, “you’re super pretty.”
“Thanks, Morgan. You are too.”
Morgan leans in closer to her, prompting MJ to slouch so the girl can whisper closer to her ear. “He says he’s your boyfriend!” she exclaims, like it’s a big secret.
“Morgan was really excited to meet you,” Tony says, “Pete’s been running his mouth for months now and it’s been killing our madam here that she hasn’t been able to meet the mythical crush after hearing so much about her.”
That’s… really sweet. MJ doesn’t know what to say to that.
“By the way—Morgan here still thinks Peter’s cool,” he says, before propping his cheek against his knuckles. “Which is unacceptable. I can’t get through to her, but maybe you can.”
MJ half-expects Peter to burst out of his room and shut things down before this turns into a Peter Parker birthday roast session, but the doorknob doesn’t turn. He’s probably too mesmerised by his and Ned’s in-progress Y-Wing Starfighter, the loser.
She nods and Tony’s goes full Cheshire-cat while Morgan takes it as an invitation to start asking questions.
“Oh! How did you and Peter get together? Did he ask you? He told me he got you a necklace and it broke but you still liked it.”
MJ looks over at Tony. “How much does she know about London?"
The man frowns. “The heavily abridged version, but she knows a bad guy was involved.”
Okay, then, she’ll gloss over the gorier details. Pulling at the chain wound around her neck, she takes out the pendant tucked under her shirt to show to Morgan. She’d managed to stick some of the shards back together with thin layers of super glue, but the fissures are still apparent. It’s nicer that way, though. “He got me this – it’s a dahlia flower.”
“Why is it black?”
“It’s a reference to the black dahlia murder—a young woman was found dead in a parking lot. They never found the culprit.”
It’s probably not appropriate to say that she was bisected at the waist, so she refrains.
Morgan oohs, reaching out to poke at the jewellery. “Did you like it so much that you said yes?”
“Well—he didn’t really ask me,” MJ says, pointing to Happy, who’s mingling with May and Pepper. “Peter used a delivery man because he was too shy.”
Morgan clearly thinks that’s a good answer, and Tony likes it too, because he says, “Hear that, Mo? Petey’s got no guts.”
“I have another question!” Morgan says, raising her hand. “How did you two meet?”
“We go to the same school—Midtown,” MJ says, “so we shared classes, but we met before that.”
Tony speaks up this time. “Oh?”
“Peter and I were scheduled for the same entrance exam together.”
“Wow, a romance for the ages.”
It’s been a month and a half, but the word romance still makes her stomach churn with something like exhilaration. “Definitely,” she adds, “and that’s excluding his asthma attack.”
Morgan gasps. “Is that the sickness that makes it hard to breathe?” she asks, the same time Tony says, “Asthma attack?”
“Yeah—once upon a time, Peter was even tinier than he is now, the size of a literal amoeba—MJ says, demonstrating by making a minuscule gap between her thumb and index finger. “And his lungs malfunctioned sometimes. I guess the Spider-man thing fixed that too.”
Father and daughter are both staring at her, curious, on the metaphorical edges of their seats. Verbal storytelling isn’t her usual preference – she likes the feel of ink on paper, soft, crisp pages and serif fonts that put a soft weight in her hands.
“There I was,” MJ begins, looking Morgan dead in the eyes, injecting some extra enthusiasm into her voice, “at Midtown for the first time — they scheduled the entrance exams to be in the late winter—so it was still really cold outside, and the pathetic furnaces at school were spitting out more filth than warm air. I don’t know if either of you are aware, but Midtown is old; it’s dusty. Literally dead skin everywhere—all sorts of tiny particles. I bet if you ran your hand across the top shelf of any surface, you’d come away with enough fluff to stuff a pillow.”
“Ew,” Morgan says.
“Ew,” she echoes. “Because he had asthma, Peter didn’t take too well to it—not to mention that he was probably a little stressed about the test that would decide his future for the next four years. About a quarter way through, he starts coughing and turns all pink.”
“How pink,” Tony asks.
“Like Hubba Bubba gum. Pepto-Bismol.”
“Oh,” he says, haltingly, “my God.”
Her phone buzzes in her pocket.
Peter [20:17] i can hear u slandering me!! super ears!
[20:18] did u call me an AMOEBA
[20:18] i was 5’1” u Giant
She ignores it.
“So he pretty much started choking, but didn’t even immediately go for his inhaler because he probably forgot it in his backpack and was too nervous about being accused to cheating. I was there, watching him wheeze and sweat. One of my cousins has asthma too—so I caught on pretty quickly, I guess. I ended up holding the inhaler to his face because he got too weak and his hands were shaking too bad to press down on the canister.”
Silence.
“The end.”
Morgan claps, “You saved Petey!”
“That’s—” Tony says, “… so good.”
__
“I cannot believe you told them that. The betrayal,” Peter pouts, after all the guests are gone; she’s staying the night. They’re both at the sink, doing the dishes at 11 p.m. MJ dries while Peter scrubs icing and grease off plates and cutlery.
MJ shrugs. “I’m an honest person,” she says, “it’s not like it didn’t happen.”
“Well, what I would have said is,” he starts, pausing for dramatic effect, “is that you took my breath away.”
The hand holding the dishrag stops. MJ stares at Peter, who’s too busy appreciating his own pun. “Shut up.”
Peter sticks his tongue out.
When they’re done cleaning up and May tells them there’s no last-minute chores, Peter pulls her into a warm hug, buries his face in her neck, but doesn’t do much else.
“Do you like them?” he asks.
“Yeah—they’re, uh, neat. You’re right—Morgan is cute as fuck.”
“That’s awesome. I’m really happy you guys like each other.”
Peter moves robotically to his bed—it’s twin-sized and fully stretched out, MJ’s head pokes the headboard until her toes extend to the other end of the bedframe. On her side, she curls inwards, chin resting against Peter’s hair, lanky arm against his chest. He’s laid out on his back, eyes already closed.
At 12:02 a.m., MJ says, “Happy birthday.”
“Yay, happy birthday to me,” Peter hums, drowsy.
__
MJ’s not good at getting close to people.
As a kid, her parents spent every second doting on her brother—who excelled at everything he did—friends, school, soccer. They wanted her to be the same, but she was just a touch too awkward, a touch too introverted, preferring to tuck herself away with a story.
Granted—they tried, every now and then, but her brother was just so easy—always chipper, always motivated. An everyone wants to go to his birthday party type of kid. Her mom drove MJ to art classes, where she sketched quietly, away from other people, and would give her nudges on the shoulder to say hi to classmates on the first day of school.
She liked being alone—but sometimes she thinks mom and dad took the MJ likes space thing too far, because by the time she was wrapping up middle school dinnertime chats just consisted of Andrew this, Andrew that—Andrew’s team made it to finals, I’m sure he’ll be captain by senior year. Andrew got into Duke! MJ, sweetheart, isn’t that wonderful?
Her brother’s not a bad guy, and her parents hadn’t been either, but MJ grew up feeling like an outsider.
Andrew cries like a baby the first time he sees her again, finding her in the chaos of New York after the blip. They hug for maybe the first time without the pressure of mom and dad’s pestering, and the bitterness begins to ebb away, bit by bit, like old paint, old pains.
From the get-go, Peter and May always put in the effort to pull her into the folds—if she falters, they back off and try again later. She learns that her boyfriend hates all things peppermint and that’s his least favourite part about winter, while his favourite part is that his aunt and uncle used to take him skating. Rinks are chilly, but they’re polished and dust-free; perfect exercise for a little asthmatic boy. She learns that May is a two-in-one: Peter’s mother-figure and one of his best friends. Back in 2010, his Uncle Ben took him to Stark Expo and he got a silly plastic Iron Man mask there before nearly being blown up.
“I feel like that really set the tone for the rest of your life,” MJ says.
“Did it ever.”
He wants to know everything about her—her favourite childhood snacks, the shows she hates, if she’s team milk first or cereal, what keeps her up at night. Senior year, there’s a block Peter has free while she’s in biology, and when she comes out of class, he offers her a cup of coffee and a pastry because she tends to skip breakfast.
Ironically, he also encourages her to sleep more.
It’s really, really good. She comes over to his apartment to study in the dining room and they proofread each other’s stuff for their respective common apps. By September, she finds herself absentmindedly sharing facts about Peter and their dates to her brother, on the rare days that they’re both free and giving the whole Sibling Bonding thing a go.
Better late than never, they both agree.
Sometimes it hits her that he’s Spider-man—it’s a fact, it’s something that she knows, but there are moments where the truth really sinks in and her chest churns a little. It happens when Peter comes to school with a concussion that he swears is gone by the next day. Or when he’s pulling stitches out in his kitchen like it’s routine.
“Do you need to get that checked before you take them out?”
Peter aligns the surgical scissors with the stitches looping through the flesh of his calf. Next to him is a pot of boiled water, where a pair of tweezers still sit. “Nah,” he says, “May taught me the proper way to do it.”
Yesterday, the cut was an ugly gash down his leg and today, it’s nearly gone save for a line of slightly puckered skin and the tiny puncture sites where the sutures had gone in.
Peter catches her staring and smiles. “Hey, don’t worry about it, seriously. I heal fast.”
__
In February, prom is just a month away and Peter is vibrating with excitement about it, eager to offset certain past disaster dances with a good memory, for once.
First semester’s finals had been held in January, so there’s a temporary lull in workload—even some professional development days for school staff that currently leaves MJ and Peter in the middle of a long weekend.
The last school day of the week is a Thursday, and she and Peter catch a movie with Ned before they all hang out at Ned’s house, playing Mario-Kart.
“Ned,” Peter says, “you blue-shell me one more time and I will never speak to you again.”
Ned makes a L-sign with his hand and props it up on his forehead.
The four-day long-weekend coincides with both Tony and Pepper being swamped to their necks in SI paperwork, so Peter and May offer to have Morgan stay over in New York while they regather their bearings. Happy drops Morgan off in Queens Friday afternoon.
The girl convinces Peter to drag MJ out for some ice cream even though it’s February and still chilly outside, though her boyfriend seems to regret the decision when Morgan orders three entire scoops of mint chip.
__
Saturday starts off okay.
They’re out as a trio again, Peter and MJ sandwiching Morgan as they walk around. Tony’s a bit too paranoid to parade Morgan around in one of the most populated places in the country where people can put two-and-two together and realize that the little girl he’s holding hands with is his daughter.
Peter isn’t a familiar face to the public, so they see no issue in letting him take Morgan out for a walk around the city to explore. It’s kind of sunny and not bitingly cold, so Peter piggybacks Morgan out of 86th Street Station and into Central Park while MJ tails them.
They walk through the Great Lawn and pass the MoMA.
It’s around when they reach Upper East Side that Peter suddenly stops walking and gingerly kneels down, patting Morgan a few times to get her off his shoulders.
“Peter?” MJ asks.
Confused, Morgan holds on to Peter’s pant leg while he stares off sea of buildings, still, chest rising and falling slowly.
He closes his eyes, and when they open again, he draws a quick pattern onto the face of his watch and connects his wrists together. It disassembles and flows like liquid mercury, morphing into his webshooters.
Gently, he looks down at Morgan and pushes her towards MJ.
“Something’s wrong—I gotta go,” he tells them. “Momo, go with MJ, okay? Stick with her at all times.”
He fishes out his phone and hands it to MJ.
“Your fingerprint is registered—call Fury or Hill, call Tony—I think it’s bad. Whatever’s happening—it’s bad.”
Hastily, he kisses both of them on the forehead and pulls them into a hug.
“Start running—stay out of sight, blend in—I—I don’t know. Please stay safe.”
Just as Peter sprints away, presumably to get his suit on, a loud explosion reverberates through the entire city.
For a moment, it’s unclear where it came from. Then smoke, dark and ashy, begins to billow out from a maroon-brick building.
A widespread hush blankets the streets, everyone around them stopping in their tracks. Cars, pedestrians, buses.
Seconds go by and the frenzy begins, people yelling, running for cover, whipping out their phones to record. Cracks begin to run through the now-burning building, at least twenty-five stories tall, climbing their way up like blood flowing back to the heart.
With the next beat, it crumbles.