Work Text:
Day 1
Michelle was walking home from Midtown High when the lady right in front of her dissolved into ash, leaving her cellphone behind to drop and break on the pavement. She had not gotten far from the school yet, so she hurried back to the bus that had just dropped her classmates off from their field trip, people disappearing left and right as she went. Upon her return, a familiar face was standing in shock beside several piles of dust.
"Ned!" she cried. "What's going on? What's happening?"
Ned didn't answer. With his right hand, he grabbed Michelle's wrist and pulled her after him as he began running away from the school grounds. With his left hand, he pulled out his phone and started dialing a number.
"We've gotta get somewhere safe!" he yelled over the sound of cars crashing into one another on the street.
"Wait! Where's Peter?!"
Unfortunately, Ned had a pretty good idea of where Peter was, or at least what might have happened to him. The last time he had seen Peter, his best friend was leaping out of the school bus with his Spider-Man mask on, going to fight the aliens and their Giant Circle Ship that had been all over the news since morning. Ned was willing to bet that whatever was happening to all these people was a direct result of those aliens, which could mean that Iron Man and Spider-Man were not enough to stop them, which could mean... Well, Ned didn't want to think about what that could mean right now. Besides, he couldn't tell Michelle any of that, because she didn't know Peter was Spider-Man, and Ned was nothing if not loyal to his best friend's wish that they keep his alter-ego a secret.
They could only hope that they could get to a safe location before anything else happened. If alien ships and giant centipedes started coming out of the sky for the second time in less than a decade, it would not do for them to be out on the street.
Day 2
They ended up at Peter's apartment, staying indoors at all times with his Aunt May.
Michelle kept the news on, watching videos of reporters vanishing into thin air and then other reporters try to make sense of what was going on. Like Michelle, most people were tying it to the spaceship that had appeared in Manhattan for a brief time before seemingly being fought off by Tony Stark's Iron Man (Stark, who had since been missing). It was made clear that the terrible mass murder--assuming that's what this was--occurred throughout the entire planet. Someone in Scotland reported seeing another one of those ships, or maybe it was the same one, and there was plenty of footage from foreign nations depicting people dissipating at random, all together.
Michelle was shaken, of course, but May and Ned looked extra worried. Ned would not say if he had seen Peter turn to dust or had just been split up from him before it happened, but he was constantly whispering about something with May when Michelle was just far enough out of earshot to hear the words being spoken but not make them out. It was frustrating, but her mind was in such turmoil that Michelle could only sit on the couch and listen to the sounds of people in the streets, who were either crying out that "the apocalypse is upon us" or were taking advantage of the chaos by robbing empty stores or mugging stranded citizens.
May made sure to keep the door and windows locked at all times.
Day 5
The first couple of nights, the trio slept together on the couch for comfort, but eventually Michelle and Ned started migrating to Peter's room. Ned took the top bunk, because he always did when he slept over. Michelle took the bottom, lying on her side to face the wall and thinking about how much she wanted Peter to be lying on this bed with her. In between bouts of fitful sleep, she once woke up to the faint sound of Peter's voice. It turned out to be Ned watching a video on his laptop that he quickly shut off when she asked him what it was.
Day 8
Just when they were running low on food and May was beginning to wonder if she should risk going outside to gather supplies, the world was restored. Michelle was lucky enough to actually see it happen; staring out the window absentmindedly, she saw one of the untouched piles of dust begin to swirl. Almost glowing, it spun like a tiny tornado back into the shape of a human person. Then, up and down the entire street, the same thing began happening, until it looked as though everyone who had died had come back to life.
It was about that time that Ned's phone began ringing, and the call he had made days ago was finally answered by his mother. With the knowledge that his family was (at least now) alive and well, Ned tearfully left the apartment, urging May to let him know the instant that Peter showed up.
Michelle's phone didn't ring, which hardly surprised her, but May simply gave that sweet motherly smile of hers and said that Michelle was welcome to stay as long as she liked.
While May waited more and more anxiously for her nephew--the most important person and arguably the only person that truly mattered in her life--to return to her, Michelle found herself back in Peter's room. It was comforting, she supposed, to be in a place that was so fully and completely him. Like maybe if she sat here and thought about him long enough and hard enough, it would increase or even guarantee his chances of returning to her.
To her. Michelle scoffed at her own thoughts. Peter didn't even know she considered him as being hers. Not just her friend, but more. Well, she was most certainly going to let him know, if he ever got his sorry ass home.
It was while she was standing inside his bedroom that she noticed Ned had left his laptop behind in all his haste. Maybe she was just bored, maybe she was curious, and maybe she really was hoping that the more she reminded this room of the boy who lived in it, the more likely it was that that boy would apparate back into it. No matter the reason, Michelle opened the laptop, typed in the password (which was flycasual, not that hard to guess when Ned kept whispering it to himself every time he logged in) and started going through the folder labeled 'Peter's Vids.'
The first one she found went as far back as middle school, chronicling Peter and Ned's apparent obsession with homemade stop-motion Lego movies. "Losers," Michelle murmured fondly. Others included Aunt May's 50th birthday (she looks 40, Michelle thought in amazement) and part of Midtown High's trip to Oscorp (it cut off mysteriously around the time Peter could be heard saying, "Ouch!").
Then she found one labeled 'a Film by peter parker.' She expected it to be another Lego video, but instead heard what was unmistakably Peter's voice narrating over a shot of the old Stark Expo. A cheesy, deepened version of Peter's voice.
"New York, Queens. It's a rough burrow, but hey, it's home."
"Who're you talking to?"
The camera turned away from the window to get a glimpse of the heavyset, grouchy man who was driving the car Peter was in.
"Uh...no one."
"You know you can't show that to anyone, right?"
"Yeah, I know."
"Then why're you narrating in that voice?"
"Uh...'cause it's fun."
"Fine."
"So...why do they call you 'Happy?'"
Anxious to know what the hell was going on, Michelle skipped forward in the video, stopping when she caught a glimpse of the Spider-Man suit. More accurately, Peter-freaking-Parker PUTTING ON the Spider-Man suit. There would be time to beat herself up for not deducing the truth based on her admittedly many observations of her notoriously flaky classmate later. Michelle watched in awe as Peter talked ecstatically to the camera about the new suit, fought half the Avengers with the help of the other half, and did a back-flip over his hotel bed just to answer the door.
"You making a little video diary?"
There was the man himself, Tony Stark. The video cut off around the time that Peter was asking, "I can keep the suit?" but just before Michelle could close the laptop, sit back against the bed and let out a loud, thoughtful sigh, the camera came back on.
Now it was Peter, sitting at his desk, glancing over his shoulder to make sure his door was closed.
"Uh...hey there, viewer. So, in case it's not obvious from everything you just watched, I'm Spider-Man. Me, Peter Parker. Bet you weren't expecting that, huh?"
There was a knock at the door (in the video), and May could be heard calling, "Peter! Dinner!"
Peter rolled his eyes. "Coming! One sec!"
He turned back to the camera with a sheepish grin. "Can't even get two minutes alone to leave my legacy. Oh well, I'll just speed this up. Basically, I had a really big fight with this flying vulture guy about a year ago, and I almost died."
Michelle's heart virtually broke at the haunted look in Peter's eyes, and she desperately wished she could reach into the video and embrace him.
"Mr. Stark keeps saying that if I'm not more careful, I might die. Nothing as bad as Toomes has happened since last year. I can handle myself, obviously, and even if I can't, I trust Mr. Stark to protect me. But it got me thinking that just in case I ever really do die, it probably won't be in a situation where I'll get to choose my last words. So...Aunt May, you're my favorite person in the world, and even though it would have been really nice to know my actual parents, you were an amazing mom. I appreciate everything you've done for me. I'm really sorry, I know I never say that enough. I love you. Ned, you're the best friend I've ever had. You're like my brother and I never would have made it through...everything...without you. I love you, man."
Unable to keep herself from hiding emotion (she was alone, after all), Michelle felt her eyes stinging with tears. She thought it was almost over, but then Peter said something she didn't expect him to. Her name.
"MJ...yes, Ned, you have to show this to MJ...uh, hi."
Peter's smile was so dorky and so shy that Michelle couldn't help but choke out, "Hi, loser," in between her silent sobs.
"So, this is probably a lot to take in, but just forget about the fact that I'm Spider-Man for a minute, okay? We haven't been friends for a long time or anything, but I think you're really cool and I'm glad you started hanging out with us. And...if, when you watch this, I still haven't gotten up the courage to tell you...um..."
Peter faltered, and Michelle stared at the screen as if in a trance.
"...look, just, I love you too, okay? And I like you. I like you and I love you. So, yeah."
"PETER! IT'S GETTING COLD!"
"Okay, Aunt May! I'm coming!"
Peter turned back to the camera one last time. "Okay, so those are the last words of me. Peter Parker. Spider-Man. Uh...thanks for watching."
The video ended. Michelle closed the laptop.
"MJ?"
Michelle's breath hitched, because that was the same voice she had just been listening to, but the video was over and done with. She looked up slowly, her brain telling her that the only logical conclusion to make was that the boy she had been missing so fiercely the last eight days had finally returned, walking into this room just like she had hoped he would. Her heart warned her to be careful, because it was going to split into several pieces if, somehow, Peter Parker was not there in front of her.
But he was.