Work Text:
I. Kindergarten
The first time Michelle catches Peter staring at her is in their Kindergarten reading time. Their teacher takes them to the library every Friday to pick out a book, and naturally Peter goes with the other 5-year-old boys to the books about dinosaurs and race cars. Michelle on the other hand, is different. She ventures off from the ballerina and princess books and finds herself checking out a book that is labeled for the 3rd grade reading level and up.
“Are you sure Michelle?” Her teacher asks when the kids are lining up to go back to class, and Michelle hugs the book tighter to her chest and nods. She never liked the books for her class, they were far too easy and usually quite boring. She takes the book outside at recess and sits at the lunch tables to read. Other girls from her class come and ask her to come play, but Michelle politely declines. Jack and Annie ae about to go on another tree house adventure, and that’s way more exciting than hide and seek.
A short while later her teacher comes over with two boys who clearly know they are in trouble for something. “Flash, you sit at that table over there,” Michelle overhears, but she doesn’t seem surprised. First of all, that kid in her class goes by ‘Flash’, and secondly, he’s always causing trouble. “Peter, sit across from Michelle, but you are not allowed to talk to her.”
Michelle keeps her eyes on her book when she feels the weight of the table shift for a second. She doesn’t know what the two boys did and frankly she doesn’t care, but once she finishes the chapter she looks up to see a small pair of brown eyes staring at her under a mop of curly brown hair. “She said not to talk to me,” Michelle reminds the boy, and he blinks before turning around to watch the other kids on the playground.
II. 3rd Grade
The second time Michelle catches him is when they’re 8 years old. They haven’t been in the same class since Kindergarten, and Michelle always thought Peter was a weird kid. He talked about fighter pilots and the death star while Michelle was knee deep in 8th grade reading level at this point. Her parents had a talk with her teacher about Michelle not having that many friends, but the truth was that the kids in books were just more exciting than the kids she sat next to in class. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have any friends, because she does. She sits with the same group of girls at lunch and plays tag with them at first recess, but she dedicates afternoon recess to reading. It’s just what she does. When her mom gives her a box of cupcakes to take to school for her birthday, Michelle takes them in proudly, and she’s excited when she gets to wear the class birthday crown all day.
Her teacher passes the cupcakes out after lunch and brings Michelle up in front of the class so the class can sing to her. She notices him when everyone else is singing, because he isn’t. He’s staring at her with a weird look on his face, but Michelle can’t place it. She may be observant, but she’s not great at reading people yet. She thinks maybe he just zoned out, but after the song ends he smiles and joins in the applause from the rest of their classmates. Michelle walks back to her seat and looks back to where his desk is and he smiles and takes a bite of the cupcake. She swears she isn’t blushing, and she swears he isn’t her first crush, but his smile makes her want to smile too. So she does.
III. 7th grade.
The third time happens when they’re 13. Both of them are in their awkward stages, Michelle just got her first period and Peter’s voice is either super high or an awkward medium, depending on the day. They aren’t friends, but they aren’t strangers. They sit next to each other in History and have done a few group projects together, but that’s about it.
She’s never been into sports, but her older brother is on the high school football team, and that’s where Michelle is going to go in two years, so she tags along to the games with her family. Her mom gave her money to go buy a hot dog, and so that’s where she finds herself when Peter comes up behind her.
“Are you cold?” He asks, and she turns in line. He’s wearing a pretty heavy jacket, but it’s early October, and Michelle was fine in her sweatshirt. She shakes her head no, and he turns his attention to the menu. It’s not that Peter isn’t cute, because he is. His hair is still curly and his eyes are still so warm but she doesn’t know him well enough to actually like him. She’s allowed to think boys are cute without liking them, and she will never like Peter. He’s just…Peter. The crowd suddenly cheers and Michelle turns to stand on her tip toes to try and see the field, but she’s thrown off by Peter staring at her.
“What?” She asks, but he just turns around to talk to Ned from English class behind him, Michelle finally gets to order that stupid hotdog.
IV. Homecoming (Junior Year)
The fourth time happens when Michelle decides Peter is going to be her homecoming date. They’ve gotten closer since the whole Liz fiasco of last year, and Michelle is certain that Peter is Spiderman. Since Kindergarten, her observant skills have been nothing but amazing. Honestly, Peter sucks at keeping a secret, but that’s not how she figured it out. First of all, Spiderman in D.C out of ALL days? Then, Peter disappears from Homecoming last year and suddenly Spiderman catches Liz’s dad in under 2 hours AND Michelle found Peter’s tie on the floor by the lockers towards the front door exit. And finally, Ned got busted for watching porn, and ned has been terrified of porn since Flash pulled it up at a previous decathlon trip. Nice try, Peter.
She’s not sure what her motive is to bring Peter to homecoming, maybe she’ll force him to slow dance and tell him that she knows, or maybe a giant villain will come in and Peter will have to reveal himself to the world, or maybe it’s because she worries about him sometimes and- Oh no. The last one is definitely not it. Sure, she had a little crush in 3rd grade, but it’s over. He’s Peter. She’s talking herself out of that last thought when her mom calls her to tell her that Peter is downstairs, and she’s finally convinced herself when-
Well shit.
Peter Parker looks fantastic in a suit. She didn’t pay enough attention to him last year for the 2 minutes that he was there besides when she flipped him off when he walked in, and honestly he looks 10x better than before. It’s awkward when she’s walking downstairs, her mom is taking pictures and her Dad is wiping his eyes with a tissue. She avoids looking at Peter, because that little jerk has the same 3rd grade smile that still reaches his eyes. Her parents rush to get their cameras when she gets to Peter, and he’s still staring, and Michelle can’t hold her feelings down much longer, so she does the first thing that comes to her mind. She flips him off again.
V. Infinity War
New York is a mess. The summer before senior year is supposed to be college trips, late night Star Wars movie nights, and maybe convincing Michelle that he wasn’t that much of a loser. Instead? Peter is trying to save his city.
His new suit allows his senses to function properly and he’s glad because he would definitely have gone into a state of distress at this point. There’s so much debris and so many noises and so many people to save as quickly as possible. He last talked to May and Ned before Tony got them safe, and he hasn’t heard from Michelle, but his phone died and he frankly doesn’t have time to find a charger.
He’s webbing up a bad guy so Steve and Wanda can get the civilians out when he feels like he’s been punched in the gut. Michelle is among the citizens coming out of the library. She has dirt all over her and a cut on her leg and her face, but she’s alive.
Thank god, she’s alive.
She meets his gaze and he wants to yell at her to run, to run far away from New York as far as she can but he knows she’d roll her eyes at him. She doesn’t even know he’s Spiderman and he can’t say anything without risking it. He sees her break away from the group and she hops over a fallen piece of cement and goes over to him. There aren’t anymore bad guys in the area and Steve told him not to go inside because the building could fall any second.
Peter is about to say something when Michelle reaches him, pulls his mask up above his mouth, and kisses him right in the middle of the battlefield. Peter barely has time to put his hands on her waist when she pulls back and puts the mask back down.
“Be careful Parker,” she whispers, and he freezes. She knows. He watches her run back to the group and he hears Tony calling for him on coms so he throws a web to start flying over, but she knows, and Peter knows when this is all over he’ll have to talk to her, but he’ll do that after he kisses her again. Definitely after he kisses her again.