Chapter Text
It’s so late, and MJ is so tired — physically, mentally, emotionally— but she can’t sleep. Not after that goodbye.
(Not even after the text a little while later, home .)
MJ pulls herself up and out of bed, pads quietly to the kitchen, and her mom is there already. When she sees her, her mom stands and goes to the kettle, fixes two mugs of tea.
“I heard you. On FaceTime,” she says softly. “Figured you might be looking for something out here.”
She nods and sits across from her mom, picks up the mug and just holds it a moment.
“First breakups are hard,” her mom says. “It’s probably going to suck for — a while, at least.”
MJ nods.
“I broke up with him,” she says finally. Takes a sip of tea and feels the tears well up — God, will she ever stop crying?
“I’m sure you had a good reason.”
“Yeah,” she agrees. “He’s not — he didn’t do anything, we’re just — different.”
“You don’t have to explain it to me,” Mom says gently. “As long as you feel like you made the right call. That’s all that matters.”
“I just don’t want you to hate him, or think — I know you don’t like him and—“
“We don’t hate him, honey.”
MJ’s not sure she believes that.
“ You are our baby, you have a whole life ahead of you, and we just didn’t want you to — to let yourself get distracted.”
“I’m not a baby, though. I did— I’ve done everything I was supposed to. Even though we were dating, I still — my grades, college—“
“I know.”
She bites her lip.
“I miss him. I know it was the right thing but what if it’s not? Or— I dunno.”
Her mom considers her a moment. Drinks her tea. Then says:
“I think you’ve had your heart broken, and it’s going to take some time to sort out everything you’re feeling. But just because it’s over now, doesn’t mean it’s over forever. ” She shrugs. “You’re 17 years old. You have a whole life. And maybe one day, he can be part of it again.”
MJ nods.
“I don’t think — for a while, anyway.”
“Yeah.”
“I love him,” she says, voice breaking. Her mom nods and puts her hand over Michelle’s.
“He’s your first love. Those tend to be— to feel like this. But I promise you that one day it won’t.”
MJ tries to think about a future where she can think of Peter and not feel this heartbreak.
Maybe one day.
While she didn’t time it like this, she’s glad that they broke up after prom.
Breaking up at prom, a Friday night, meant that she at least had the weekend to… to try and stop crying anytime she thought of him, stop second guessing whether or not she made a mistake or to text him and invite him over.
She has a few days, is the thing– to get her head back on straight and to figure out a way for her heart to not feel like it’s been scooped out of her chest and wrung out to dry.
(She’s not sure if it will be that easy.)
She ignores the texts from Flash for now, her dad clearly knowing that she broke up with Peter because he and her mom– for the first time for as long as she can remember– both stay at home on Saturday.
“Where are you going today?” She asks, sitting down at the breakfast table.
“Nowhere,” her dad says, MJ’s eyes snapping up. “Thought we’d have a day in.”
MJ grinds her teeth together, looking over to her mom who’s busy making her coffee. MJ sniffs, a congestion headache from the crying that she did the night before as she says, “You don’t have to.”
“We want to,” her dad says gently, smiling at her with a look that makes her feel like she’s a little girl again– waiting for her dad to scoop her up into his arms and put her on his shoulders.
She wants to ask if they can go back to Coney Island, play some cheesy arcade games, and hold his hand as they walk down the pier– wants more than anything to be that little girl again who felt safe and didn’t know about superheroes or Spider-Man or about boys with brown eyes that she felt she could get lost in. Didn’t know what it was like to love someone so much it hurts and to know that it still wasn’t enough.
Her emotions must be written all over face from the way her dad’s eyes soften, reaching a hand out to her as MJ grits her teeth together– forcing herself not to cry again .
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he says and MJ swallows it down, sees her mom move out of the corner of her eye as MJ wipes away at a tear.
“You said it wouldn’t last forever,” she says, not intended as a gotcha but hearing the sting in her own voice, seeing the way that her parents share a look as MJ keeps her eyes locked onto the table. “You were right.”
“I don’t want to be right,” her dad says, MJ looking back up at him and seeing the hurt on his face.
MJ feels the pressure behind her eyes, sniffing again as her mom sits down to her right– leaning forward.
“Why don’t you go and take a shower?” She says gently, MJ nodding.
She knows it’s a way for the two of them to talk about her without her being there but MJ doesn’t really care.
It’s hard to feel much of anything right now.
The weekend passes quicker than she’d like.
Gayle isn’t able to come by but she does call, an offer to beat Peter up that makes her laugh and then cry because it would be so much easier if he was a jerk– would be easier to explain why she broke up with him if she could tell more about a secret that wasn’t hers to tell.
She knows her family means well and she knows that they love her but she doesn’t know how to explain that they’re breaking up not because of high school bullshit but because– because of things that she feels wholly unequipped to handle. Because Peter isn’t going to college next year and it isn’t because he’s aimless or incapable, isn’t because he wants to do something else but it’s because he wants to do something that MJ is realizing is more a part of him than he’d ever let her see.
“If I’m not Spider-Man anymore I’m probably not doing anything.”
It shouldn’t stick in her mind like a loop but it does, over and over and over again in wondering if Peter has some kind of death wish and wondering if she is really capable of handling that.
She’s not , she knows she’s not because she broke up with him and here she is– Monday morning and desperately trying not to look at him during lunch.
(It feels like a failure, somehow– to not be able to handle something like this. She doesn’t know why.
It’s not like she can talk about it with anyone else either.)
“Hey,” a familiar voice says, interrupting her thoughts as she looks up and sees Ned– a shy smile on his face. “You doing– I mean, are you alright?”
“No,” MJ answers honestly, seeing the way Ned’s face falls. “Is he?”
Ned has the decency to not pretend like they both don’t know who she’s talking about as he shakes his head.
“Not really. Um, I know I don’t– I know it’s complicated, but for what it’s worth, I think he really loves you.”
That pains her– pains and soothes, in a way. That Ned Leeds is Peter Parker’s best friend and yet he didn’t share everything that they talked about. At least not yet, feeling a bit more comforted that there were some secrets that were just between the two of them.
“I know,” MJ says softly, that same sense of sadness wrapped around her like a blanket. “I love him too.”
Ned looks confused at that, like he’s not sure how to help fix it– a trait that she can see why he and Peter were such good friends when Flash walks up.
He immediately senses the mood, looking between the two of them before declaring, “Hey Leeds, walk me through the roommate application.”
Ned makes a face, looking over to him. “What?”
“Roommate application. You don’t think I’m going to live with some stranger, do you? We’re living together.”
“No, we’re not ,” Ned argues, Flash pulling him away from MJ all the same time.
She shoots him a grateful look, years of friendship with Flash showing her that this was his way of checking in.
MJ never really had a lot of luck getting close to people and this– this was part of it.
Sometimes she just wanted to sit, by herself, without anyone else– and mope.
Flash just nods before launching into an argument with Ned, pulling him away and serving as a reminder that the two of them were going to be living together in Boston.
There’s an itch in the back of her mind that makes her wonder– for a brief moment– if she’d made a mistake. If she should’ve thought more about going to Harvard so she could live with them, move to California like Gayle had pushed.
But then Peter moves away from his table, feeling like a beacon calling to her and she hates it– hates this feeling like she wants to run away.
Peter looks at her and it feels like prom night all over again, looking at her with a sad smile that makes her want to take it all back.
(Even if she knows she can’t.)
MJ takes a deep breath, forces herself to look away first– head back down to look at her food and to pretend as if she doesn’t feel Peter still staring at her before he walks away.
MJ is ready to graduate.
(If she were a different person, she’d skip the last few days entirely, but she’s too good a student for that. And, stupidly, it feels like hiding would be like letting Peter win, and she can’t – can’t let herself be so affected.)
Peter seems to have a similar idea, because for the first time in months, he is at school everyday. She sees him in the hallways, in the classes they share, in the cafeteria. Without even trying, she notices him always, can’t help but catch him out of the corner of her eye and remember how he’d hold her hand while they walked to class, how he’d kiss her in the library, how he’d rest his hand on her knee while they ate lunch. She almost wishes he’d disappear from school, continue ditching just to give her a chance to get over him, but that feels unfair even as she thinks it.
(Whether his attendance is because of her, or because it’s a condition of him getting to eventually get a diploma, she doesn’t know or care.)
(Lie.)
But graduation is around the corner, and she’s heading into the library to return a book when she bumps into someone – not someone, Peter.
(She knows it’s him before she sees his face, knows from the smell of his soap and the familiar t-shirt he’s wearing, the soft oof as they collide.)
“Sorry, sorry,” he says, hands coming up to steady her, and her heart’s beating out of her chest. They haven’t touched – haven’t been this close – since they broke up in her bedroom.
“It’s fine, I wasn’t looking either.”
Peter lets her go. Shoves his hands in his pockets.
“So, uh. How are– how are you?”
“Okay. You?”
He nods.
“Yeah, yeah. Same.”
She nods.
(It feels unbearably awkward, like it used to when they first became friends, when making him laugh made her blush, when they could barely look at each other or speak. Except now she knows what it feels like to kiss him, knows what his tongue and his hands and – )
“Excited? About graduation?”
And God , she wishes they weren’t doing this, this awkward small talk, this catching up like they didn’t break each other’s hearts 11 days ago.
“Yeah. You?”
MJ grimaces, but Peter’s eyes soften, and he smiles a little.
“I’m excited for you guys. And I’ll still get a diploma, just–”
“Yeah.”
Peter looks down at his shoes.
“Anyway. Sorry for– I wasn’t paying attention and–”
“You’re fine,” she assures him. He meets her eyes, then, big and bright and sad and she knows, somehow, that some part of her is always going to love him. That even when it doesn’t hurt anymore –
She looks at him and she knows in her soul that she’s always going to love Peter Parker. Even just a little bit.
“See you around,” he says, ducking his head and walking past her. She resists the urge to watch him go, and takes a deep breath.
It feels like progress.
“Smile!”
“Are we done yet?” MJ groans. Her dad grins from behind his old camera, and Mom and Gayle are smiling at her with phone raised, and MJ is hot and sweaty and wants to take this stupid cap and gown off and go have the lunch she was promised.
Apparently seventeen more photos stand in her way.
Her mom catches sight of Flash’s parents, and she and Flash are made to pose together, and then they spot Ned and wave him over, Ned and Flash bickering about something ot other related to their dorm, MJ isn’t really paing attention, and lingering at the fringes is Peter.
His hair is messy, and he’s wearing a tie and a wrinkled button up, and May is standing nearby and chatting with Ned’s parents, and MJ catches his eye and he smiles, and she smiles, too.
“If I have to get a picture with Ned then Peter has to be here, too,” Flash grouses.
“Why does Peter have to be in a picture?”
“Because this is all his fault,” Flash teases. “Come on, Parker.”
Peter rolls his eyes at Flash but lets Ned’s parents take a picture of him with Ned, then him with Ned and Flash. Then–
“You two should get a picture.”
Peter’s eyes widen and she feels herself clam up.
“No, we really–”
“Come on. Just one,” her mom says. She looks at her with a I know you don’t understand this but you will .
“Yeah,” Ned agrees.
Peter looks at her, the two of them silently asking if it’s okay, and as much as it still sucks, as much as it still hurts –
It hurts less today. And it’s her high school graduation, and when she looks back on high school, she’s going to think of Peter, because the two are intertwined. And yeah, it might be nice to have this photo to look back on one day. So she nods slightly, and he does, too, and they step towards each other. Peter’s hand wraps around her waist as if on instinct, and he catches himself and she can feel him start to apologize, start to retreat, but she whispers you’re fine , and he relaxes.
And they smile for her parents, for May, for her sister and Ned and Flash, and she turns to look at him and he turns to look at her–
“Good luck.”
“You, too.”
(And maybe – just maybe – she’ll see him again one day.)