Chapter Text
There was…a lot to process. Jemma was in love with him. Jemma’s coworker was named MJ. Jemma was attacked this afternoon. Jemma still didn’t know he was Spider-Man. And the only sleep he was running on was the half hour on the subway this morning where he dozed off on her shoulder.
So, needless to say, Peter was a little withdrawn when they arrived back to Jemma’s apartment.
He...he had to break up with her, right? That was the logical thing to do. All the other Peter’s were in love with people named MJ. And Jemma’s coworker wasn’t hard to look at by any means. If the universe wanted them to be together, Peter was sure feelings would develop naturally. And it would keep Jemma out of more danger. He couldn’t bear to see her in another situation like this afternoon’s.
But he couldn’t just dump her within hours of her dropping the L bomb. That wouldn’t be fair to her. Up until this afternoon, he thought that maybe he was in love with her, too. It was too early to tell, he’d reasoned away before. But apparently it wasn’t too early for Jemma to tell. And she had…awakened something in him. Sparked back to life a long-dormant part of him. When they’d gone back to dinner at May’s so Jemma could do her chart, May had noticed that much. Jemma claimed it was their Air/Fire Mars/Venus combos. Peter and May both knew it was something more than that.
And she knew him so well. And not just from reading his charts, from having been with him a month. Evident as she gently questioned “What’s wrong?” as he sat on the couch, head swimming with these thoughts, even though he hadn’t said anything to indicate he was anything other than just tired.
“Long day.” he gave as a vague answer, tacking on “A lot to process.”
She nodded gently, taking his hand as she quietly said “I get it. I was held at knife point today. It’s been a lot.” she paused, leaning over to kiss his cheek before asking “Do you want to talk about it? Or would you rather be left alone?”
“Alone.” he muttered softly. “I think.”
“Okay.” she gave his hand another squeeze, letting him know “I’m here if you need me.”
Alone. Maybe that was the answer to all of this. He was alone before, after all. Before the spell, before being pulled into the younger Peter Parker’s world. It was lonely, sure, but…
…but…
…BUT-
The older Peter never asked him if he had his MJ. That’s not what he asked. “Do you have someone?”
He didn’t then. He did now. He had someone who, so far, had loved him unconditionally. Even when they playfully argued over Spider-Man’s existence, she never faltered. They made each other happy.
Maybe the initials didn’t matter. Maybe he was just using it as an excuse to hold back, because he still thought he wasn’t ready. Maybe meeting MJ was a strange coincidence. But meeting Jemma…there was no way that was a coincidence. The universe knew they needed meet. She literally fell into his lap. Twice.
He wasn’t entirely sure how long he sat there overthinking the situation. He also wasn’t entirely sure at what point he got up and knocked on the door to her bedroom. The door was open, but given…everything…it still felt best to knock.
“You can come in.” she called, her voice as sweet and mellifluous as ever.
Taking just a few steps in, he scratched at the back of his neck as he asked “Can we talk?”
She nodded, patting a spot next to her on the bed for him to come and sit. He wasn’t even sitting for a full second before she immediately leaned forward, wrapping his arms around him in a hug. “Sorry, do you mind if I just…”
“No, yeah, it’s fine.” he assured her gently.
There was a silence, neither of them really moving with the hug, neither of them really knowing what to say. Peter contemplated bringing a hand up to run through her hair, when he was halted by the sudden shake, the sudden sound of her tears. “I’m sorry.” she muttered amidst her sobs. “What I went through today just really set in and…”
“Shh shh, it’s okay.” he found himself soothing, running his fingers gently up and down her back, slowly increasing pressure, something she’d expressed she liked and found comforting in the past. “It’s okay. I’m here. I got you, okay? I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
And just like that. He answered the question that had been weighing on his mind himself. A subconscious decision was made, he supposed. But as soon as he made the realization, he knew it wasn’t just the right choice. It was the only choice. The way he was fully prepared to break up with someone who had undoubtedly changed him for the better over something as silly as initials…
“Do you need to talk about it?”
“I should probably look into therapy.” she sniffled, laughing a little, face still buried against his chest.
“I meant with me.” he laughed lightly.
“I know.” she let out another small laugh, and then a sigh. “I know. And thank you. I guess I just didn’t really process it in the moment. I was too shocked, and then so much was going on…”
“Trauma takes time to process.” he muttered quietly.
“Thank you for this.” she mumbled softly. “I needed it.”
“I’m serious.” he told her, his voice a little more confident. “I’m going anywhere, okay? You’re stuck with me.”
“Well isn’t that what every woman wants to hear.” she joked sarcastically, pulling herself off of his chest to instead lean up and kiss him.
“Well, maybe not all women.” he teased as they pulled away, sneaking in another kiss as he added “Maybe it’s just you.”
“It better be just me.” she laughed, kissing him again, but then immediately pulling away, having remembered “Oh my god, you came in to talk about something-”
“It’s fine, Jemma. You clearly needed this.” he tried to brush off.
“No, no, you wanted to talk. Let’s talk.” she pressed.
With a sigh, he admitted “I don’t know if that’s the best idea right now. You’re clearly still really shaken up and I don’t wanna…shake things up more…”
“Peter,” she sighed “please stop beating around the bush.”
“It can wait.” he promised. “It’s not time sensitive.”
She didn’t need to know everything, he decided. She didn’t need to know about how hearing the initials MJ sent him into a spiral. She didn’t need to know he questioned the relationship at all. But there were some things she did need to know. Like how he was Spider-Man. That was pretty important. But she had gone through so much today, so much that was so outside of what she normally experienced, that he didn’t want to throw it on her. He would tell her, eventually. But not right now.
She gave in to his refutations, changing the subject. “Can I tell you something?”
“You can tell me anything.” he promised, his voice maybe a little too serious for the conversation at hand, but he still had the whole eventual Spider-Man reveal on his mind.
“Okay,” she took a deep breath. “Do you remember, before we started dating, back when we had just re-ran into each other-”
“When you slipped and almost broke your ankle for the second time since I’d known you?” he interrupted, smirking.
She rolled her eyes, giving him a soft, playful push. “Yes. And you were asking me about your Venus-”
“Gemini, just like my Mars.” he interrupted again, before adding “See, I can be taught! I pay attention!”
“I brought up that I remembered that your Venus and Mars signs were the same.”
“Because you are the world’s sexiest and most competent astrologer.” he praised.
“I was lying.” she confessed. “From that first meeting back in December, I was super crazy into you. And not only did I like, memorize your chart, but the day we met I did a co-chart to see your compatibility and-”
“Damn,” he chuckled. “You really got it bad for me, huh?”
“Considering what I told you this afternoon, I figured that much was a given.” she replied, awkwardly breaking eye contact. “But, um, that is why I wanted to tell you that. Since, you know, the cat is out of the bag now. All bets are off. If you know I’m, you know, in love with you, you deserved to know that, as well.”
“Well, I’m glad you did memorize it.” he smiled genuinely, taking both of her hands in his. “I really needed the push. I have been so, so happy since we’ve been together.”
“But…”
“But what?” he raised an eyebrow.
“I’ve said the L word. Twice now. And you haven’t exactly said it back.” she explained, giving his hands a squeeze as she added “If you’re not ready for that yet, that’s okay. But I’d kinda like you to let me know what page you’re on.”
“That’s…that’s definitely fair.” he conceded, taking a deep breath in. “Jemma, I want to say it back. So bad. But before I can, there’s something I need to tell you.”
With a sad look in her eye and a soft nod, she responded by asking “The Spider-Man thing?”
“What?” he gasped, blinking furiously in confusion. “You…you know about the Spider-Man thing?”
“Yeah.” she nodded, dejectedly adding “I can’t say I’m thrilled about it, but…”
“How…how did you know?!?” he was more confused than angry.
Jemma shrugged. “You made it really obvious.”
“So when you were attacked this afternoon-”
“The man of your dreams rescued me, yeah.” she nodded.
Eyebrows furrowing, Peter lifted his hands up and held them out in front of himself, confused. “Wait, wait, Jemma, what…what Spider-Man thing are you talking about?”
“How you’re in love with him.” she responded as though it was obvious. “You take pictures of him all the time, in that tight fitting spandex. He saved your aunt once. When I met him you couldn’t stop talking about how big and strong he is. Not to mention how weird you were being when you found out about MJ’s crush on him…”
At first, Peter’s eyes widened, and then, he was cradling his head in one of his hands, shaking it with a laugh. “Jemma…no…I’m not…I’m not in love with Spider-Man.”
“You’re not?” she questioned, genuinely confused.
Still laughing, he leaned forward, kissing her tenderly, only pulling back to smirk “Definitely not. That’s a promise.”
Raising an eyebrow curiously, Jemma asked “Wait, so then, what Spider-Man thing were you talking about?”
“Um,” he bit down on his lip. He looked over to his backpack, and then around the room. “Hmm. It’s not the easiest thing to explain. Can I just…show you, maybe?”
Jemma nodded, still not really understanding what was going on.
“You have to promise this stays between us.” he warned, moving off the bed to stand.
“Of course.” she promised, still confused.
He took a long, deep breath. Okay. It was just Jemma. He could do this. She deserved to know. An exhale out of his nose - and then a leap, sticking himself to her ceiling. “I could websling, but your place is kinda small, I don’t want to break anything.”
Jemma sat in pure confusion for several long minutes. “Is…is this a joke?”
Still hanging from the ceiling, he shook his head, instructing “You can open my backpack. Right on top.”
Slowly, Jemma did as she was told. Hands shaking ever so slightly as she unzipped the bag, she opened it to find the Spider-Man costume at the top. “You’re…?”
“The Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, yeah.” he nodded, before tacking on, almost pleading. “Please don’t be mad.”
Silence. An unreadable expression on her face. Peter’s pulse in his ears as he waited for her to say something, anything, feet still not on the ground.
And then…she blinked. Once, twice, three times, over and over, furiously, before finally crying “You let me tell you to your face that Spider-Man’s not real?!?”
“It was kinda funny, actually.” his lips twitched up into a half smile as he dropped back onto the carpet.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” she questioned.
“Well I couldn’t tell you right away, when we first met, and you were just a stranger who’d gotten an incredibly close read on my life. Kinda defeats the whole anonymous superhero thing.” he explained. “And then when we started…ya know…I wanted to tell you. I did. But up until a few hours ago you still thought it was a hoax so it wouldn’t have been the easiest sell…”
“Wait, oh my god, so when I was attacked…”
“Yeah.” he nodded, moving to sit with her again, taking both of her hands in hers. “I was there. And I was so…ridiculously scared. I already…I already lost one girlfriend-”
She let go of his hands to instead cup his face. “But you didn’t lose me. I’m still here.”
“But that’s…that’s just another reason why I didn’t want to tell you. I couldn’t…couldn’t put you in danger the way I did with Gwen. But then you got put into danger anyway.” he let out a sad, dry chuckle that almost sounded more like a hiccup.
“Hey, hey,” she tried to console him. “It’s okay. And I’m glad you told me.”
“That’s why I haven’t been sleeping.” he began rambling. “It’s why you wake up and I’m not there. Why I run late, why I have cuts and bruises and scrapes that weren’t there the day before. When I see or hear trouble…I have to help. It’s what Spider-Man does.”
“Well,” she muttered gently, taking her hands off his face to run down his arms, then back up, ultimately resting them on his chest “I’m glad you do. You saved me today. That doesn’t mean I won’t worry about you, but…”
He leaned forward, kissing her. Slowly, deeply, cradling her face. He pulled just far another away to mutter, his voice surprisingly husky “I’m just glad there are no more secrets.”
“No more secrets.” she agreed, smiling happily, pushing forward to be the one to initiate the kissing this time.
Of course, Peter very eagerly returned the favor, kissing her with passion and fervor. Her bottom lip warm and delightfully plush between his, he kissed her over, and over, and over, each movement melting into each other, their bodies tangling with each other, until he found himself slowly lowering her to lie on the bed, hovering over her. As Jemma’s hands slid from on top of his t-shirt to underneath, Peter found himself feeling a little spicy, taking her bottom lip in between his teeth, giving an elongated, sensual pull. The sharp inhale of a gasp she made was absolute music to his ears.
Breaking the kiss, he smirked, pulling so far away that while she was still lying down, he was sitting up right on top of her. “This is what you want, right?” he taunted, lifting his shirt up and over his head, discarding it messily on her bedroom floor.
“You know me so well.” she practically purred, pulling herself back up to all but pounce on him with another hungry kiss. His own hands now slipping up under her shirt, they both let out an irritated groan when they were interrupted by the sound of Jemma’s phone ringing.
“You need to get that?” he quirked up an eyebrow.
“Just my dad.” she muttered, sending it to voicemail as she set the phone down on the bedside table. “It’s 100% something he could’ve texted instead, I’m sure.”
“If you’re sure…”
“I am.” her voice was confident, but then became more sultry as she questioned “Now, where were we?”
Smiling widely, Peter stole another kiss before offering “I think someone was about to join me in the shirtless club…”
“You seem pretty sure of yourself.” she teased, already undoing the buttons on her blouse.
“I’ve been told I have a very good memory.” he replied, his voice both seductive and playful, smile widening as her shirt joined his in the pile on the floor.
“And yet you always act like it’s the first time you’ve seen me like this.” she smiled wryly.
“Am I not allowed to admire beauty?!?” he cried dramatically, before immediately leaning forward with such a force it knocked them both over, as he lied on top of Jemma once more, kissing down her neck, then her collar bone, slowly kissing down, each kiss longer and more wet than the last, gently cupping one side of her bra with one hand as he delicately pulled down the other…
Another loud ring from her father cut them off once more.
“You should probably get that.” he sighed. “If he’s calling twice it must be important.”
As Peter pulled off of her, Jemma, reluctantly, reached for the phone. “Hey Dad, you’re on speaker.”
“Speaker, who’s there?!?”
“Just my friend Peter.” she answered, readjusting her bra. Peter raised his eyebrows playfully at being described as a ‘friend’, fighting back a chuckle as she added. “Came over for dinner. What’s up?”
“How can you get dinner at a time like this?!?” her father called from the other end of the line.
“Time like what?” she questioned. “Dad, what are you on about?!?”
“Everyone I work with has been sending me news clips from your little adventure this afternoon, Mildred.”
“Sorry, I’d never been held at knife point before, calling my family a thousand miles south didn’t seem like priority at the time.” she rolled her eyes. “I’m fine, by the way.”
“I told you going out to New York by yourself was too dangerous-” he started in on a tirade.
“Dad, I’m fine.” she repeated. “I’m an adult with a job and rent-”
“And you’d be much safer with a job and an apartment back home.” her father continued to argue. “Have you been to a hospital yet-”
“No, I’m fine!” Jemma cried “No need for a hospital-”
“Mildred,” her father started sternly “You can’t be sure you’re fine until you go to a hospital and get checked out-”
“I wasn’t hurt!” she exclaimed. “You got sent the news clips, right? You saw that Spider-Man swung in and handled it?”
“I thought you said Spider-Man was a hoax.”
“I thought he was!” Jemma replied earnestly. “Look, I’m sorry that this is how you had to find out. And I appreciate you worrying about me. But I’m okay. I’m safe. I have a big strong Spider-Man to protect me.” she winked at Peter, causing him to roll his eyes, but bite down on the bottom lip of his fastly growing smile.
“We’re just…worried about you out there on your own. You know, Mildred-”
“Yeah, yeah, if I ever want to come home, the offer’s on the table.” she finished, rolling her eyes. “I’m happy in New York, but I’ll keep that in mind, okay? I love you, but I have to go.”
“We love you too, Mildred.” he sighed, “Goodbye. Call us next time.”
“Okay, I will, goodbye.” she hung up the phone. Throwing herself back down to lay on the bed, dramatically, she groaned “I’m sorry you had to hear all that.”
“It’s fine.” Peter waved a hand dismissively. “I do have a question though.”
“Shoot.” Jemma offered.
“Mildred?”
Rolling her eyes, she answered “Ew, gross. Don’t ever call me that again.”
“Your dad kept calling you-” he continued, genuinely confused.
“Cause that is my name.” she replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Your name is Jemma.” he stated, still confused.
“Exactly.” she nodded.
“So then who is Mildred?” he asked again.
Suddenly understanding, Jemma’s lips twitch upwards into a half smile, as she knowingly posed “We’ve been dating how long-”
“A month.”
“-and you still don’t know your own girlfriend’s name?”
“I do know your name!” he cried. “Jemma!”
She reached into her purse, pulling out her ID. “This might clear things up.”
As she handed it to him, his eyes widened. Mildred Jemma Davis.
MJ.
All along.
His whole crisis about her coworker, and her initials, the initials of the vibrant, beautiful woman he’d fallen in love with were MJ all along.
“Jemma is your middle name?” he handed her back the card.
“I could’ve swore you knew that.” she shrugged nonchalantly. “Had it honestly never come up?”
“Not once!” he laughed, bringing her back into his arms, kissing her with a soft and loving affection, a slow, cozy, sun-like warmth spreading throughout his whole body. “So I guess it’s no more secrets starting now.”
Giving him a short, sweet kiss, Jemma giggled “I didn’t realize it was a secret.”
Bringing a hand to cup her face, he admitted “Well, maybe one more.”
“What’s that?” Jemma asked, a playful, mischievous gleam in her eyes.
“Earlier today you told me you loved me.” he reminded her, leaning down to kiss her again. “I guess it’s only fair that you know the feeling is mutual.”
She leaned up, kissing him again, before challenging “That’s not the same as saying it, Peter.”
“You want me to say it?” he dared.
“Mhmm.” her nose gently rubbed against his.
“You really want to hear me say it?”
“Cut to the chase,” she hummed, giving him another light peck.
Peter chased her kiss with another kiss of his own, this one longer, more languid and romantic, before assuring her “I love you, Jemma Davis.”
Another kiss, as Jemma sighed “Mmm, I like the sound of that.”