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There is one day out of the entire year when every student at Peter’s school gets up voluntarily at five am, and that’s the day that SAT scores come out online. Peter hadn’t been able to sleep regardless—too hopped up on nerves and a giant bottle of Dr. Pepper. He was instead slumped on the couch, watching something on Netflix that he had long since stopped paying attention to, and staring at his bulky laptop, which displayed the College Board website in a dim, pulsing glow. It was 4:55 am. The only things moving were the refresh icon next to the search bar and the group chat open on Peter’s phone.
MJ: fuck this man. they make us pay out the ass for these tests and then act like our entire future depends on them. capitalism.
Ned: dude I'm positive that I failed the essay.
Ned: I dont even remember the prompt.
Ned: was it about school uniforms???
MJ: do not let yourself be ensnared by the venomous claws of the land-owning classes, my friend
Peter glanced blearily over the texts and tapped out a quick reply.
Peter: I just hope this laptop doesn’t crash
Ned: THEY’RE UP!! THERYE UP
Ned: Wait no thats just a payment notification. Never mind. Sorry.
MJ: fuck you man damn
Peter: who’s ensnared now, M?
MJ: i may outwardly act like a member of society, but in my mind, i am a free woman. watch and learn, parker.
Peter peeked at the time. 4:48. He hadn’t felt this much adrenaline since, well, probably a few days ago. When he’d stopped four guys from robbing some poor old man’s apartment two blocks down. He decided to abandon that particular analogy. Some things just get sacrificed on the path to superhero-dom.
Ned: What am I gonna do when I’m officially outside of Mit’s acceptance bracket
MJ: piss off all three of your psats were in the 99th percentile
Ned: Uh we all were I thought.
Peter: Hey, at least it’s the junior year PSAT that qualifies you for national merit
MJ: do not remind me
Ned: OH MY GOD GUYS
MJ: the boy who cried wolf—
It was 5:00. Peter quickly abandoned his phone, frantically jamming the refresh button on his laptop like he didn’t know better. Eventually though, the page did load, and the number printed there in plain, unassuming font took him about five minutes to process
Ned: Guys! I gota 1550! Think I can make mit with that, damn!!1
Peter: um you’re not gonna believe this so I’ll send a pic
Feeling an unstoppable grin crawl up his face, Peter snapped a picture of his computer screen and hit Send, allowing himself to be a little bit of an asshole, just this once.
Ned: YOU DID NOT
Ned: PERCFECT SCORE????
Ned: Peter Benjamin Parker the MAN
Ned: FLASH IS GONNA BE SO PISSED he posted his lik 5 seconds ago on snap and it was 1530
Peter: I don’t think I’m breathing rn
He almost ran to wake up Aunt May and tell her, but he resisted. She needed her sleep. He did, however, unapologetically open a different text message and send the shot of his score to one Tony Stark. Did he crave Iron Man’s approval? Maybe. Did he know that Tony had flunked a bunch of standardized tests when he was in high school due to a chronic case of not giving a shit and wanted to rub in his own success? Maybe.
Ned: Mj? Dude.. you good?
Peter swallowed. He’d almost forgotten in his euphoria that MJ hadn’t disclosed her score.
MJ: always, my cowboy hat-wearing comrade
Ned: …… and?
Peter: Hey you don’t have to tell us if you don't want to.
MJ: i’m well aware that not telling you will just raise questions
Peter: Of course not, how bad of friends do you think we are?
Ned: yeah, cmon, we got your back. Seriously.
Ned: I’m gonna. go to bed though. wuz up all night.
MJ: sleep tight, don’t let the bourgeoisie bite.
Ned: how can you spell that off the top of your head
MJ: autocorrect, dumbass
Peter was still worried. He quickly parsed through his score details, mostly out of curiosity —it was, in fact, a perfect test, through and through. Hot damn. Maybe--just maybe--he was going to have to rub this in Flash's face at the next Decathlon meeting. He didn't want to be too braggy, but, a 1600...
Having let the shock settle with him a little bit, he picked his phone back up and hit the call button under MJ’s contact. It rang for a little while, but she eventually picked up.
“Hey,” Peter started, ignoring how gross his voice sounded after not sleeping for thirty hours.
“Hey, dork,” MJ replied, but to Peter's alarm, it sounded like her heart wasn't in it. “Perfect boy strikes again, huh? First the Stark internship, now this.”
“I’m not perfect,” he protested automatically.
“Uh-huh.” MJ didn’t even sound annoyed, just… tired. Peter had a bad feeling about her score, and he really didn’t know how to deal with that. It had never occurred to him that one of his best friends might A. be… less smart than him? Less good at tests, he corrected himself, not smart and B. get super torn up about it. Especially MJ— unflappable, amazing, brilliant MJ.
“1510.” MJ said out of the blue.
“What?” Peter choked, caught off guard.
“I got a fucking 1510 on the fucking SAT, Peter,” she barked. “It… I know, you don’t need to tell me how stupid this is, I just…!”
There was shuffling on the other end of the line, like she’d thrown herself onto a couch or a bed.
“Flash outscored me on this test. Flash! Like, I expected that Ned and you would—didn’t see that sixteen-double-oh coming, but still—I care about it too fucking much.”
Peter swallowed. “Yeah, I think you might. Care about it too much.”
Struck by an idea, he cradled his phone between his ear and his shoulder, quickly punching something into Google.
“Peter,” her tone was gentler. “Look. You're being nice, and I appreciate that, but I don’t expect you to understand this. It’s like… who needs a test to affirm their intelligence, anyway?”
Peter smiled a little. “Exactly. M, I think you know more words than I have ever seen, let alone read. All that philosophy stuff you read makes zero sense to me.”
She laughed a little. “Didn’t stop me from missing ten fucking questions on the English section.”
“M… you know how these things are. Tricky wording and stuff. They don’t actually want to know how well you know things, just how well you can follow an ass-backwards question at eight in the morning.”
“I’m really not a morning person, I guess.” MJ admitted. “Not my fault that schools won’t account for hormonally delayed teenaged sleeping schedules. Did you ever sign that petition I sent you to move school starting time from 8 to 9?”
Peter grinned. That sounded more like her. “Uh … probably.” He clicked the link that his slow as snails laptop had finally produced. Bingo! Just as he’d thought. “And guess what else.”
MJ paused her rant about anti-intellectualism and politics. “What?”
“1507-1513,” he read, “falls between percentiles 99.2 and 99.3. Considered an Exceptional score. 25th to 75th percentiles of accepted applications at MIT falls between 1480 and 1590.” Silence from the other end of the line. “Harvard’s range is 1470 to 1600. As for Stanford—“
“Shut up, Pete.” And just like that, Peter knew that he had succeeded in cheering her up.
“You should try and sleep before school, you know.” He suggested blandly.
“Get fucked.”
That afternoon, they were sitting in the weak April sun above the football field, silently working on their calculus homework. Peter got antsy sitting inside sometimes. And infinite series got infinitely easier when he had other brains to consult.
MJ set her pencil down forcefully, almost punching a hole in the offending textbook problem. “I just feel like I have to prove myself sometimes, you know?”
Peter’s head shot up from his own work, while Ned just glanced back and forth between them like he was watching a game of tennis. “Wh—“
“It’s a girl thing,” she muttered. “Can’t let stupid boys beat me.”
“Uh… sorry.” Peter stuttered, having no idea what the hell he was supposed to say to that.
She just rolled her eyes. “Not you, dumbass. The stupid ones. And, uh, maybe… boys in general. A little bit. Too.” She spread her hands and plastered a sideways grin on her face. “Brown girl imposter syndrome, hey, it's a blast.”
There was a tense moment of silence, and then Ned cleared his throat pointedly. “You… do know that you’re super smart, right? And that you’re probably going to grow up to be one of those college professors that gives sold-out TED talks?”
MJ mostly looked embarrassed. “Doesn’t explain the 1510.” she muttered, barely audible.
“What?” Ned spat out. “Are you kidding me? 1510? You’re mad about a 1510?”
MJ spluttered a little bit. “Well, easy for you to say," she cried.
Ned sighed. “Facts, MJ. The test started at 8 am sharp. I bet you got four hours of sleep before that thing. Testing situations measure how well you do under stress. You can be brilliant and not do well under stress.”
MJ stared at him, and then at Peter, who was fighting the urge to smile.
“You’re in a league together. You planned this.” She said slowly. "Trying to make me feel better or some shit. I hate both of you."
“Nah, it’s just true.” Peter replied, letting the smile gain a little ground.
“You’re a stupid sap.” She said, and to Peter’s utter surprise, proceeded to yank him into the tightest hug he’d ever experienced. He almost jumped ten feet in the air, but thankfully had enough practice controlling his super strength to avoid that. Instead, he reached carefully around her waist and put his hands there, rubbing in small circles. She seemed to have no intention of letting go.
Ned stared at the two of them for a few seconds, and then promptly snapped his book shut and got up. “I’m gonna…” he pointed towards the nearest building, “uh, bathroom.”
Peter nodded, vague confusion quickly getting swallowed up by a whole host of other emotions that had a lot more to do with his sudden armful of (crying?) MJ.
After a few of the most weirdly wonderful minutes in Peter’s life—and yes, that’s saying something—MJ pulled away slightly, and leaned into to whisper in his ear.
“I know that you’re Spider-man, by the way.”
He really did jump that time, though thankfully not the full ten feet.
“You what?” He hissed. Oh God, this was bad, this was so bad…
“You heard me, dumbass,” she mumbled. “I’m gonna start calling you Spidey.”
“Jesus… how… I… what?”
She winked. “I’m brilliant, remember?”
Peter would be lying if he said that he’d never thought about kissing his best friend, but until that particular moment, he would have been lying if he said he’d thought it would ever be possible. She was brilliant.