Work Text:
It isn't necessarily Peter’s plan to be caught stumbling around in an alley, one foot in and one foot out of the suit, dodging spare garbage bags and unidentifiable puddles of oddly smelling mush.
However, as he's known for an unfortunately long time, his life very rarely goes according to plan.
It's a very familiar phrase that catches his attention, one that he's heard in much the same manner, uttered by his aunt standing by his bedroom door not two months ago.
“What the fuck?” MJ says, with the particular brand of sharp, hard-edged cynicism in her voice that makes her stand out in a crowd. Peter startles, nearly tripping over the suit that his legs are tangled in. How he hasn't noticed her before, he has no idea. She may try to fade into the background sometimes, but her voice is unique, just like everything else about her.
Or maybe he's just spent so long listening - well, that's not what he needs to think about right now.
“Um,” Peter starts, and really, Parker? That's the best you can come up with? “I… uh, Comic-con?” he tries. It's weak at best, pathetic at worst, and doesn't come close to tricking MJ, who's standing ten feet away, hands on her hips and backpack slung over her shoulders, wrapped up in a puffy winter coat and patent-leather boots.
“Comic-con,” she says, with a sort of strangled hysteria.
It's one of the first times he's seen her stumble, though to be fair they've only been truly speaking for a few weeks now. There's an odd, desperate edge to her voice, like her whole world has been dumped out of a toy box and scattered across the city, parts in the river and parts on top of skyscrapers.
Peter tries not to look guilty as he slides the suit on fully, just now realizing that he's standing in an alley in his boxers, pants round his ankles. The loose fabric bunches unflatteringly, and it's not the image he really wants to present to MJ, who's become ever more wound into his life recently. Plus, it's December. New York City is cold in December, and he's very grateful for the heater that hums on when he hits the spider symbol on the front of his suit, molding the fabric to his body.
He misses the way MJ’s eyes skate over the sharp planes of his collarbones, sliding across the curve of his shoulder and the flat, taut lines of his stomach. Peter also misses the way her brows drift up for a moment, before she catches herself, biting at her lip with the insecurity of a child rather than the sharp and self-confident woman he knows.
“Hey, I'm your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man?” he offers, punctuating the words with an uncertain grin. Some of the effect is ruined, given that he's maskless and still, rather than the loud ball of energy that Spider-Man is usually described as.
MJ’s lips part, and her eyes widen, and it's almost comical how not in control of her actions she is. She looks like just the sort of person, in this moment, that normal MJ would want to sketch in major crisis.
For a moment, she plays with her hands, not sure where to set them, until she settles on crossing her arms and doing her best to fix Peter with a nasty glare.
So yeah, it works a bit. Peter’s not dumb. MJ is scary. Pretty, and sharp, and hilarious, and a whole host of other things he doesn't have time for, attached to emotions he also doesn't have time for.
But scary.
“I'm going to murder you in so many ways,” she promises. Even in her black puffer coat and somewhat-ironically-pom-pom-ed blue beanie, she's intimidating.
“Take me to dinner first,” Peter quips, then blushes bright red, enough that he probably matches the suit. Smooth, Parker. No need to act cool or anything, just go right out there with it. Hi, I'm Peter Parker and I think I'm in love with MJ. God, it sounds like he ought to be going to Superheroes Anonymous or something.
He's just now realizing how bad it would be if someone walked past the alley. Spotted him, in full costume but without his mask, trying to talk down MJ from murdering him with the sharp corner of a hardback book.
The same thought must come to MJ a moment later, because she nods and takes a few quick steps fully into the alleyway until she's standing next to Peter.
Over the last few months, puberty has apparently (finally) decided to kick in for Peter, because he's now equal in height to MJ, even though she has thick-soled Doc Martens on and he's only in the thin, flexible boots of the suit. That sparks a new idea. Even though she's tall, MJ’s pretty tiny, and he has superstrength.
Oh, he is so going to regret this.
Without letting the logical, life-preserving part of his brain kick in, Peter wraps an arm around her waist and fires off a web at the side of the building, six stories up. In an instant they're swinging upwards and MJ is screaming, whether from righteous indignation or pure shock he can't really tell.
Less than five seconds later, they touch down on the roof of a nearby building. He lets MJ down carefully, and yeah, she's definitely as light as he anticipated, because it wasn't really any trouble to websling while carrying her. His own landing is a touch less graceful, unbalanced from the loss of MJ’s weight. Peter ends up somersaulting once across the concrete roof before popping up again like a red and blue spandex jack-in-the-box.
MJ is still standing where he left her, backpack at her feet now. They aren't up high enough for it to be much colder or windier, but her stray curls are twisting in a breeze that didn't exist down on street level.
“Violent death,” she promises, her tone sugar sweet.
“Can we do death later? Like, way later? Next century, maybe?” he asks. She doesn't say anything, but she does walk to the edge of the roof, sitting down with her legs dangling over the edge. He joins her, a handswidth of space between their hips. Peter doesn't like being in the open like this, they're too visible from street level and far too obvious, but he's not going to say anything right now.
For a moment they're quiet. From their perch Peter can just barely see the billboards peeking over buildings a couple blocks down. There's not many people passing below them - he picked this alley carefully, for his superhero quick changes. MJ is the first one to go past while he was there.
Do normal superheroes get found out like this, or do they sit down and have nice, soothing chats with important people in their lives? Yeah, I'm Captain America, I run around all day trying not to get killed, but I got these sweet biceps out of the deal, so it's alright. Also, the shield’s pretty cool. Or are they like Peter, staying silent and desperate and sometimes run ragged with panic over family and friends? What's normal?
Actually, he doesn't think superheroes have a normal.
That's kind of terrifying. Living your whole life with this tilting, off-balance feeling, like you're driving and you hit the gas instead of the brake. A little panicky, a little exhilarating. Peter loves Spider-Man, loves being him, but that feeling is hard sometimes. Wobbly.
When he looks back at MJ, she's gripping the edge of the roof and angling forwards, tipping most of her upper body over the edge so that she can look at the street below. Some instinct kicks in, and he quickly puts his hand on her shoulder, gently pushing her back upright. The tingle in the back of his mind quiets once she looks secure again, although now she's scowling at him.
“I don't need saving,” she snaps, shrugging his hand away. But she doesn't lean forwards again, instead settling back, propping her body up with her hands behind her. It makes her shorter than him once more, and although Peter tries to ignore it, his brain can't help but tell him that it'd be the perfect angle to kiss her.
Dumbass, he tells himself. Like MJ wants to make out with him. Yeah, right.
“So, Spider-Man. Start talking,” she says, blinking up at him from under her lashes, the edge of her coat threatening to creep up over her mouth because of the way she's sitting. He mirrors her pose, keeping his gaze over the edge of the buildings nearby because it's so, so much easier to do this without having to see her face. Even if he revealed himself as Spider-Man, he would keep the mask on. If nothing else, he's a typical, emotionally stunted teenage boy.
“Freshman year. Bio class took a trip to Oscorp, to see their newest biotech, that sort of thing. Oscorp was working with genetically modified spiders.” It's hard, he realizes, to explain it all, spill out the imprecise details of how it all happened. This is different than it was with Ned or Aunt May. Ned was simply curious, and Peter could tell him no, get him to back off. With May, she didn't want to hear the details.
Peter knows MJ. He knows he won't get away with any of that, now. There's no way he can even try to.
“Uh, one escaped. I got bitten,” he says. “I- well, I could suddenly do all this stuff, right? And, y’know, I can do something, for someone, even if I can't do everything? So I made a suit and started, well, trying to do what I could.”
He's glossing over some things, because it's easier that way. There's still a pit in his heart from Uncle Ben, and for an emotionally stunted teenage boy, family has nevertheless always been his soft spot.
“Okay,” MJ says slowly. It's not questioning, it's soft and encouraging, a tone he hasn't heard from her before. He risks turning to look at her. She's curled up now, cross legged, and he'd been so busy battling the catch in his voice that he hadn't heard her move. Her hands are balled together in her lap, and he only just now realizes how cold it must be, sitting on the concrete. Not everyone has heaters in their outfits, nor do they run (on average) two-point-three degrees warmer than normal.
Peter turns around, flipping so his legs rest on the inside of the lip of the roof, and uses the movement as a disguise to shift a few inches closer to her. The suit heaters click higher, enough that the heat can be felt a foot or two away from the suit, and even though he’ll be sweating in a few minutes, hopefully it'll make a small difference for her.
Suddenly he realizes how long the pause in conversation has been. Automatically, he starts talking again. It's a tic of his - he doesn't do long, drawn out silence very well. There's a reason he's known for joking in high stress situations.
“And then Mr. Stark found me, gave me this suit, and-” he wants to finish there, let the story trail off, but he can tell by the look in MJ’s eyes that that's not going to cut it. “And, uh, I found Liz’s dad, uh, smuggling alien tech, right? By accident. And Mr. Stark told me not to go after it, but I did, so that's the reason why everything happened in October. I didn't mean for it to, but it did, and so it's kind of all my fault that Liz had to leave, and the whole thing on Coney Island, and I couldn't tell you, because if you know, and someone finds out that you know, then they'll come searching for you, and-”
He’s cut off by MJ’s hand across his mouth, her fingers icy from the cold.
“Shut up, loser,” she says, but it’s with the fond curl at the corners of her lips that he’s come to know means she’s just teasing.
“Okay,” he says, but it comes out as an unintelligible mumble from the way her hand is pressed over his lips.
“You know I'm mad at you, right?” It's casual, and rather gentle, for hard-edged, political protesting, brilliant MJ, but it's also true. She is mad. Even he can tell that much.
“More mad or less mad than you were ten minutes ago?” he asks, wanting to escape her eyes but unable to pull himself away. Instead, Peter curls into himself, nearly mimicking the way she's perched with her elbows propped on her knees, except his posture is tighter and shyer.
“Still trying to decide if this is better or worse than you being a drug dealer,” she says honestly. Honest. He doesn't know if that's the word - it's too sweet for the way MJ tells you precisely what she thinks and can tear apart your ego with less than three minutes’ time and then stomp on the remaining bits.
Luckily he's never been so unfortunate (or stupid) as to piss her off to the point of focusing her brilliance on him, but he's watched her do it to Flash, and Carolynn Hammeston, and Alec Hernandez, and probably countless others too. She's pretty normally, but wielding her intelligence and wit in equal measure, she's something else, something better than pretty. (He likes the word stunning.)
“Better?” he suggests hopefully. Even though he knows it's not particularly going to change her mind, either way.
She tips her head to the side, considering. He's tense while he waits for her verdict, fingers clenching together, until: “Yeah, probably.”
Peter breathes a small sigh of relief. He's not completely out of the woods yet, but it's a definite improvement over where they were ten minutes ago. Maybe she won't find a rusty knife to gut him with. Rusty knives are the worst- even his healing factor has trouble fixing wounds from those.
“Okay,” he says, trying for ease in his tone but ending up somewhere between desperate and worried - another set of emotions he doesn't want to examine.
“Okay,” she says, before pointing an accusing finger at him. “If you make one shitty joke about that book, I swear-”
Peter flaps his hands a bit to head off her anger. “No, nononono, pretty sure I don't even know what you're talking about, it's, uh, I'm kinda busy, a lot of the time, no space for books in the schedule,” he rambles. MJ doesn't smile, but she does lean back again, out of his space. He didn't really mind her being there, but. But.
They're quiet for a minute, but it's less awkward this time. Less pressing, less expectant. Peter doesn't feel like he needs to start talking, which is new. Normally, even with May and Ned, he likes to fill silence, not letting anyone linger too long on one topic or another. But there's a quiet ease now, perched on this roof, each of them curled a bit towards the other. It's nice.
Peter, surprisingly, isn't hating this as much as he thought he would. There's none of the simmering desperation to protect that sparks up when May mentions Spider-Man. He doesn't feel like he needs to leap up and save MJ. Likely because he knows she's quite capable of saving herself.
Even his spidey-sense isn't humming in the background, the way it normally does when he's out anywhere. It's a low grade anxiety that constantly scrapes on his nerves like sandpaper, but now it's gone. It's weird, because there's a blank hole where one of his sensory inputs normally goes. At the same time, the lack of humming anxiety makes him feel like he's been smoothed over like wet clay, the ragged, panicked edges calmed into comfortable ease. That's nice, too.
Peter twists, side to side, stretching cold muscles. MJ tracks his movement with just her eyes, but it's enough that he feels self-conscious and stops halfway. It's a sudden enough stop that it tears at the half-healing knife wound he got yesterday. Although he tries his best to hide the wince, MJ obviously notices.
She quirks an eyebrow at him, and he waves a hand, trying to head her off, but the slice runs from his collarbone to the point of his shoulder over bone and thin muscles, and it burns. It's not much compared to other injuries he's suffered, but still. He acquiesces to her silent demand. Carefully, Peter presses the spider symbol on his chest and tugs down the shoulder of the suit until the healing wound is visible, angry red against pale skin. The cold air soothes it somewhat, but it's still painful from being stretched the wrong way. He learned very quickly that the enhanced Spider-Man senses also came with an enhanced ability to feel pain, to be overwhelmed by the sensation. Normally adrenaline dulls it during battles, but he's calm now, so he gets the full measure of pain from the muscles knitting together under his skin, a drop or two of blood running from the deepest part of the wound.
Cautiously, MJ reaches forward. Her fingers hover barely an inch away from the red line drawn over his collarbone. She glances up at him like she's asking for permission, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. Peter nods, turning away and looking up at the sky just as her fingers meet his skin. Her touch is icy from being out in the cold, and surprisingly, it manages to chase away the worst edge of the pain, even though his muscles twitch as she gently presses on the pink edges where scar tissue is forming. Within a day or two, the injury will be completely gone, not even a scar left behind. But now he's painfully aware of it. For some reason, he didn't notice it when he swung MJ onto the roof, likely because he was so focused on making sure he didn't drop her. At the moment, though, it's all he can focus on, everything where her fingers aren't brushing melting away.
She studies the injury for a minute, maybe two, before pulling away again. Peter turns back to face her just as she pulls a tissue from her bag. Delicately, MJ mops up the little bit of blood that's curled down into the hollow of his collarbone, then crumples the tissue up. He's not used to seeing her like this, all quiet and, well, caring. MJ cares, sure, but in her own way. It's not all these cautious, silent touches and- and playing nurse, and biting her lip before her fingertips touch his skin.
He can feel the hot blush in his cheeks and he's grateful for the cold that's turned his face pink, because it'd be painfully obvious otherwise. Peter pulls his suit back up, the reopened skin already knitting together.
“Thanks,” he says quietly, breaking their little silence. Everything around them becomes loud again, from cars passing on the street to the calls of pigeons and street vendors a few blocks away, courtesy of his enhanced hearing.
“Don't start thinking you're special, Parker, I'm still furious,” MJ snaps, but once more she's softer than usual, her eyes crinkling and lips curling.
“Sure thing, MJ.”