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It’s all dark.
The only thing Peter can hear is water rushing past his ears. That drowns out everything else, even the tiny pleas for help he knows are streaming out of his mouth. God, he must look pathetic. Well, he thinks, at least there’s nobody here to see you like this.
Except that feels worse, because there’s nobody to save him either. His mask is completely soaked now. He can taste the water seeping through it, but he doesn’t close his mouth because then he would have to stop crying and he can’t stop crying. The rubble is crushing his spine, he can’t feel his legs -- and then a mechanical shriek rings out and something lands on him, hard. A burst of pain spikes out from the small of Peter’s back, through his torso and upper legs, and his vision goes white.
It takes all of his willpower to keep from passing out then, and Peter almost immediately wishes he had. Slabs of concrete resting on top of him are being kicked out of the way, a few slamming into his head from behind. One lands on top of his left arm; Peter feels the bones there splinter completely and all he wants to do is cry for help, except that so much water has found its way down his throat that all he can do is cough and heave.
Above him, behind him, a deep voice laughs. He picks up on the fact that all of the chunks of rubble that had been keeping him pinned down are gone, just as six thick metal points pierce the skin of his back. This time, the sound that forces its way out of Peter’s waterlogged lungs would best be described as a sob. The points -- claws, he realizes -- stab deeper with a series of nauseating cracks and squelches, each accompanied by a new level of searing agony, until he can feel the back of his lungs tearing when the talons clamp shut around his heart and rip upwards --
Peter wakes up screaming.
“Hey, hey, it’s alright--” there are hands on his chest, on his face. This is bad. He jumps, vision out of focus, and slams into something solid. Scrambling to piece together where he is, Peter backs himself into a corner, ragged breaths tearing through his aching throat. He looks around for he doesn’t know what, anything to help him find his bearings --
MJ is standing below him, hair and clothing totally bedraggled.
“Peter,” she says cautiously, eyes so wide he thinks they might fall out of her head. “How… the fuck... are you doing that.”
His brain picks up on the upside down TV screen behind her, playing the ending of Batman Begins. That’s when it dawns on him -- MJ is also upside down, along with the rest of the furniture in the room. He remembers now: they were having a movie marathon, waiting for their SAT scores to be posted, and now, somehow, for some godforsaken reason, he’s attached himself to the ceiling in MJ’s apartment, Wonder Woman fleece pajama bottoms and all.
“Shit. I- I can explain, I swear.”
“Am I the one that fell asleep just now? I mean, I knew you were tired but I didn’t think you would pass out during the first movie, and then you started freaking out and -- is this a dream? Am I dreaming? You would tell me if I was dreaming, right?” He chews on his lips and doesn’t make eye contact. “Peter?”
“Um…”
“Um?”
“You know how last year I kept skipping out on decathlon practice and missing school and I ditched Liz at the homecoming dance and generally screwed up a bunch of really important stuff by completely flaking out?” Peter is talking so much faster than he ever knew he could, words tripping over each other to spill out of his mouth before he can change his mind.
“This really isn’t making me feel any better if that’s what you’re going for.”
“I had to do that because I sort of got superpowers, like, a year and a half ago and now I’m kind of like a… like a vigilante, or whatever?”
Silence. MJ just stares at him where he remains perched on her ceiling, hanging on by only his fingertips and toes as if it came as naturally to him as standing upright.
“You’re Spider-Man.” Only the faintest hint of shock is evident in her voice.
“In a manner of speaking, yeah.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Wh--”
“I said, shut up, loser. Get down here.” Peter gets down there. “What the actual hell?”
“You know, most people would be a lot more excited finding out their best friend is a literal superhero.”
“You’re not my best friend,” she scoffs, but she’s too disoriented to retort with her usual wit.
“Maybe not, but I am the smartest person you know--”
“I never should have said that.”
“--and now, you can officially say that I’m the coolest person you’ve ever met, too!” Peter’s face is plastered with the most adorable shit-eating grin MJ thinks she’s ever seen, but it’s a piss-poor attempt at covering up the terror she can still see in his eyes. “Wait, actually don’t do that, this is still like, super duper confidential.”
“I just. Peter. Holy shit.”
“I know, right?”
MJ flops backwards onto the couch. Her mind is too busy melting to maintain focus on standing up, too. After a minute or so of silence, Peter sits down too. There’s a solid two feet of space between them, even with him leaning towards her on his arm.
“So you’ve been skipping practice and dropping extracurriculars like -- I don’t know, like something people drop--”
“The bass?” Peter not-so-helpfully supplies.
“--to run around Queens playing superhero?”
“It’s not a game.” Peter wishes he could take it back as soon as he says it -- he almost spits the words at her, startling her for a moment. MJ hadn’t expected such a bitter response, but clearly her words struck a vulnerable enough nerve to breach his defense matrix of humor. "Maybe it seems like a fun hobby, but there's some really weird shit that comes with it. Sometimes, it really sucks."
“I’m sorry.”
Neither of them says anything for a while. Peter still hasn’t made eye contact with her, and his fists are clenched so tightly around the couch cushion that MJ worries it might rip.
“He dropped a building on me, you know,” says Peter, almost casually except for the way his throat catches. “Mr. Toomes did. The, uh, the Vulture, he called himself. An entire fucking parking garage. I thought…”
Peter cuts off. MJ hesitates for a second before grazing her fingertips across the back of his hand. To her surprise, his eyes flick towards the point of contact. Gradually, she rests her full hand on his.
His voice breaks as he looks at her for the first time since waking up, and says,”MJ, I thought I was gonna die.”
She immediately regrets ever being even slightly mad at him.
“What the fuck?”
“Same, actually,” he replies, clearly having bounced back from his emotionally responsive state. MJ shakes her head.
“Peter, that’s -- how the hell are you okay right now?” He doesn’t say anything. “Are you okay?”
“Um.” Peter feels his hand shaking beneath hers. He doesn’t want to have to think about it, doesn’t want to answer seriously because that makes it all real. He thinks he must look just as surprised as she does when he answers, “Uh, no. Not- not really.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“I… don’t know.” He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “You’re the first person I’ve told that.”
“When did it happen?”
“During homecoming last year -- it’s why I left. I had to stop him from breaking into the Avengers’ jet and stealing a bunch of stuff.”
MJ remembers the news footage from Coney Island the day after the plane crash. It had been awful before, of course that kind of destruction on such a large scale would be, but now that she knows Peter was in that, facing off with a man easily three times his age and armed to the teeth with alien technology -- it all becomes that much more horrifying. And nobody else knows about this.
“God, I can’t even imagine what that would be like.” She doesn’t know what to say, she just wants Peter to keep talking. Clearly he needs to.
“I, uh, didn’t even have my suit.”
“What?”
“Yeah, not the real one. Mr. Stark took it away after I screwed up on that ferry that got cut in half by one of those weapons they were transporting. I was basically wearing a glorified onesie.”
“That’s…” her brain can’t come up with a response -- she hadn’t thought it could get worse. “Have you seen, like, a therapist or something? I’m not an expert but there’s no way you aren’t traumatized after that.”
“No,” Peter snaps back almost too quickly. “No, I don’t- I mean, I haven’t talked to anyone about the bad stuff except for… well, you.”
“Does anyone else know you’re Spider-Man?” The words don’t seem to fit in her mouth, this is all so surreal.
“Mr. Stark, obviously, that was the ‘internship’ thing I was doing. Ned found out by accident towards the beginning of last year, and Aunt May also found out by accident not long after homecoming.”
“You’re very bad at the whole secret identity thing, has anyone else told you that?”
“No, surprisingly.”
“Should I be insulted that you waited, like, an entire year after everyone else found out to tell me?”
“It just means you have more respect for my privacy, I guess. Also, it’s not like we were close at that point.”
“Weren’t we?”
“You called me a loser like five times a day.”
“I still do that, though.”
“But now I know it comes from a place of affection! That’s the difference.”
From there, the conversation veers into more lighthearted territory, which comes as a massive relief to Peter. Maybe he needs to keep talking about some of this stuff, but now really doesn’t feel like the time. MJ probably needs to process what just happened, which means he can go back to pretending everything is totally normal and fine for as long as that takes. Right now, he’s just glad she isn’t treating him differently. They actually go back to their Batman movie marathon as if nothing had happened. Well, except that she does ask the occasional question -- not like the ones Ned asked when he first found out, but more reasonable ones, like whether his webs are biological or manufactured.
“How long can you stay on the ceiling?” MJ asks less than twenty minutes into The Dark Knight Rises. She watches as a smile lights up Peter’s face.
“I don’t think there’s a limit! I can fall asleep stuck to things like that if I want to. It’s only happened a few times, though, and usually when I wake up it takes a few minutes for me to, like, wake up enough to unstick myself.” With that, he jumps and sticks his hand to the ceiling, and then slowly pulls himself up the rest of the way. He’s showing off, MJ realizes, in what may be the least discreet way she’s ever seen.
“Ta-da!” Peter jazz hands at her like a champ from where he sits, legs criss-cross, on the ceiling above the couch.
“Nerd.”
“Hey! This is one of the coolest things I can do!”
“Kinda underwhelming for a superhero, don’t you think?”
“You wanna try? It’s a lot cooler when you’re the one doing it.” He reaches a hand down towards her.
“Um, no thanks. Where I’m from, most teenagers can’t actually cling to ceilings unassisted.”
“So let me assist you! I have super strength, MJ! I could hold you up. Have you seen that youtube video where I stop a car with my bare hands? You weigh so much less than a car. C’mon, it’ll be fun! I promise.” She sighs, but provides no further response. Peter drops down again and lands on his feet on the couch, and his puppy dog eyes hit her full force. “I swear on my Aunt May’s life and my super top secret identity that I won’t drop you. Please, Michelle?” he pleads, drawing out the last syllable of her name for far too long.
“Oh, my God. I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this,” she says, standing up. “What do I do?”
“Let me worry about that.” Next thing MJ knows, Peter’s right arm is around her waist and his left is on the ceiling. He’s lifting her up with one arm -- and it feels like he’s not even trying. This should be illegal.
His abs tense up against her back as he turns them both upside down, and MJ almost cries. She knew he was strong -- she remembers seeing him overperform in gym class and then correct himself, like it required conscious effort not to do so -- but experiencing it is on another level of insanity.
He sits, planting himself, and then uses both arms to hold MJ. It takes a good five minutes of slow and careful movement to position herself comfortably, but she finds herself all but sitting in Peter’s lap, with his arms around her waist keeping her safely on the ceiling.
A small giggle bubbles up from her chest without her permission. It’s followed by two more, and another, until MJ is laughing hysterically. Her head is throbbing with the blood that’s rushed to it, but her shoulders feel so light and it’s like she’s breathing for the first time.
She turns her head to grin at Peter. His smile is nervous, yet bright. He pulls her in closer and rests his chin on her shoulder. He can feel his smile growing, can’t seem to fight it back; it expands alongside the glow he thinks must be radiating from his chest which makes his stomach flutter and his legs melt. He’s glad they aren’t standing up, because his knees would definitely have given out by now. Peter buries his face in her shoulder so she won’t see him like this. His ears are burning -- he must be so red right now. He hopes MJ will assume it’s from being upside down.
“Peter,” she says a few minutes after the giggles have subsided, “we can- I think that’s enough--”
“Alright.” He quickly repositions so that his hands are on her sides, and then turns MJ around so that she’s facing him. “Hold onto me.” She wraps her arms around him without hesitation, careful to restrict his range of movement as little as possible.
Getting down is a lot quicker than going up. It happens so fast she almost doesn’t process it -- the world spins around her for a split second, and then they land on the couch with a muted thud and MJ is sitting on Peter’s knee.
“Shit, sorry,” she says, lifting herself up and pushing his leg out of the way.
“No problem. Told you it’d be fun, though, didn’t I?” Peter pokes her in the side.
“Yeah, yeah. Doesn’t change the fact that you’re a huge loser.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
And just like that, they’re watching Batman again. Peter leans his head on her shoulder, and they watch the rest of the movie with their fingers intertwined.
******
They refresh the website every half hour after that. It’s 5:00 in the morning when the SAT scores are finally posted, and the floor of MJ’s living room is covered with empty candy wrappers and energy drink cans.
Peter paces back and forth on the wall (show-off) while the page with his score loads on his phone screen. When it finishes, Peter stops in his tracks, and then falls to the ground.
MJ grabs the phone, where Peter’s score is displayed in bold print that takes up the entire top of the screen -- 1585 out of 1600.
“Dude!” She yanks Peter’s wrist. “You could get into any college in the world with that score.”
“I know!” His words are muffled due to his face being pressed against the carpet.
When MJ’s score pops up, she screams.
“1590! Suck my entire dick!”
Peter flops onto his back. “Fuck you.”
“We’re gonna get so many scholarships.” MJ falls onto the floor next to him and grabs a half-empty can of Monster off the arm of the couch. “This,” she announces, “calls for a toast. To Peter Parker, Man-Spider and boy genius! And to me, for being officially five points smarter than the smartest -- and ‘coolest’ -- person I’ve ever known.”
Peter rolls his eyes and sits up, grinning despite himself. He picks up a stray Red Bull and knocks it against MJ’s can in cheers, sloshing radioactive energy drink onto the carpet. “To us!”