Work Text:
Peter swings away before the spell fully takes hold, like the self-sacrificing idiot he is, though MJ is honestly not sure whether he thinks doing it will spare them somehow or if he’s doing it to spare himself watching the moment they forget everything about him that isn’t just the suit.
Maybe it’s both. It doesn’t matter. They’ve got seconds, maybe, but seconds are still something, and she grabs Ned’s arm because an idea has hit, and she refuses to believe it’s too late.
“We have to forget him,” she says, and Ned nods tearily. “No, listen, but it doesn’t have to stay gone. This spell – we only have to forget him because the spell’s calling everyone who remembers him. Once everyone forgets, it’ll stop calling, and it’ll be safe to remember him again. We just need a, a time capsule for our brains. A time bomb – a memory bomb! But a friendly one.”
Ned is nodding along frantically. “Okay. Yeah! Yeah, so we’ll just – portal up to Dr. Strange and tell him and – “
But they’re out of time. They’re almost out of time, and the last time someone interrupted him –
“You do it,” she blurts out. “You’re magic, you do it.”
“What? No! I couldn’t even close a portal earlier and you want me messing with our brains?”
Her hand’s still wrapped around his wrist, and she lets go now, backing away to give him room. “It’ll be easy! Just wish – just wish that Peter will be here, like you did before. Except in our brains. A day from now, or a week or two.” She smiles with forced confidence that feels at least partially motivated by shock. “It’ll be fine.”
It’s insane. Messing with magic after what happened last time is insane and irresponsible, and asking Ned to do it when he doesn’t know the first thing about it is worse.
Expect nothing and you’ll never be disappointed.
If she accepts nothing right now, then that’s exactly what she’ll get. Nothing except Peter showing up a few days from now, heart in his hands, and her probably assuming he’s a creep.
“Okay,” Ned says, breathing hard. “I just wish I – we – could remember Peter a day or two from now. I just wish we’d remember Peter after he comes back. I just wish – I just wish – “
Light.
Then nothing.
Exactly twenty-four hours later, she jerks up in bed thinking Peter, Peter, Peter.
Exactly twenty-four hours and one minute later, she pauses in the middle of shoving shoes on and wonders what nightmare had driven her out of bed so quickly.
Exactly forty-eight hours later, she uses her one minute of remembrance to furiously text Ned to say, We need to find Peter.
Exactly one minute later, her photos of Peter on the camera roll of her phone are still gone, but her eyes are locked on her own bewildering text.
Exactly one minute after Peter walks out the door of her coffee shop, she drops the donut she’s holding and races out the door.
Ned is huffing along behind her, but she barely notices. She’s too busy frantically scanning the packed New York sidewalk, frantically looking for a familiar face.
The memory doesn’t fade this time, but Peter is long gone.
“What if he doesn’t show up again?” Ned says miserably. “What if that was our one chance, and I messed it up?”
“We messed it up,” she says instantly, pacing in front of the bus stop Ned had finally collapsed into. “We confused the spell together.”
Alright. It was alright. He’d come back. He’d have to. He’d promised he would explain, and he hadn’t explained anything, just stopped and startled and looked at her –
Well, like he was afraid she was thinking he was a creep. And like he needed to protect her.
It was one band-aid. She was fine! It was fine!
And, okay, that other MJ hadn’t been, apparently, and Mrs. May wasn’t – wasn’t –
But that just meant they couldn’t leave Peter alone right now. Where was he even living? Was he going to school? Was he just Spiderman all the time now, constantly?
“Oh,” Ned suddenly, smacking his face. “Oh. I’m an idiot.” He held his hands out and said, “I just really, really wish I could see Peter.”
Nothing happened.
His face drooped. “I guess maybe you need the ring for that.” He patted his pockets in futile hope. “Do you think if we went to Dr. Strange and said that I’m kind of magic that he’d give me one to train with?”
“No,” she said flatly. “But we don’t need magic. We need the man in the chair.”
Ned perked up. “We do?”
“We do,” she said firmly. “Where have there been the most Spiderman sightings?”
She felt a little bad about bribing the landlord into letting them into Peter’s apartment. Mostly, though, she felt very firmly that Peter shouldn’t be living in an apartment where the landlord was breaking so many legal codes.
She told him that when he came swinging in through the window.
She regretted it a moment later when he stumbled, one hand going to a clearly bruised side while the other pulled off his mask to reveal wide, exhausted eyes. “MJ?” he breathed.
“And me!” Ned said, waving from his place in the apartment’s sole chair. It creaked alarmingly.
Peter stumbled forward, and she threw herself off her perch on his bed and tried to take his weight as best she could.
Peter didn’t so much use her as a crutch as collapse into her though. “MJ,” he said again, voice cracking, sounding as if he didn’t dare believe it. “What – how?”
“Oof,” she said, not quite as articulate as she’d been meaning to be. “Here, let’s just – Ned – “
Ned went in for the group hug instead of the crutch support, but at least that split the weight between both of them. “We brought food,” he said, voice shaky. “And Legos. And aspirin. And a laptop so we can hack your way into MIT. And – “
“Whoah, whoah, whoah,” Peter said, half laughing, half sobbing. “Slow down. Just – “ He almost fell this time, and they let him down onto the bed. He was still staring at them like he didn’t dare blink. “I just still can’t believe you guys are here.”
“Well, we are,” she said firmly. “And we’re staying.”
“Staying,” Ned repeated. “Except not here, because we already found like five roaches, and we’ve decided we hate this place, so you’re officially moving into my place. It’ll be like a sleepover!”
“Your grandmother – “ Peter protested weakly.
Ned waved this off. “She’ll love you! Again! We’ll just show her how good you are at cleaning up cobwebs from the ceiling.”
“And if that fails, we’ll hide you at my place,” MJ added. “Though there will probably be more freaking out if we get caught, so we should really try to stay on Ned’s family good side if we can.”
“Right,” Peter said faintly. “Right.”
And he was still looking at them with that bewildered, horrifyingly grateful look, so she threw herself at him again and told herself that she wasn’t crying, she wasn’t.
Even if Peter was, and Ned was, and alright, maybe she was crying, maybe she was, but there was nothing to cry about even though so many things were still awful because at least they were facing the awfulness together now, just like they'd promised.
"I think our next step," she said through sniffles, "should be to sue the Daily Bugle for libel. So we can pay for tuition."
Peter shifted uncomfortably. "Um. Actually. I sort of work there now? As of this morning?"
There was a moment of silence.
"You what."