Chapter Text
“So, all I’m saying is—oh my god, it’s cold!—all I’m saying is that Spider-Man has a platform,” Peter says, neck disappearing into his chest as he hunches his shoulders against the blast of cold air outside the library. The streets are weirdly empty for an unseasonably warm (though still freaking cold) November afternoon, but he isn’t going to complain, since that means he can keep talking about other stuff. “You always say that if someone has a platform they should use it to advocate for good. So I don’t see why—”
“So now you think you’re a celebrity?” retorts MJ, merciless as ever even while tucking herself under his arm. Ever since his, like, transformation or whatever, he runs really hot. Benefit for those around him, but it always makes him feel colder.
Shouldering him from the other side, Ned almost skids on a patch of ice right into a garbage can. “Hey, he’s probably more popular than, like, the Kardashians at this point.” Sweet, sweet Ned, the best friend Peter ever had, but also not great at gauging levels of celebrity. Then again, Peter doesn’t know anything about the Kardashians, but he knows a lot about himself. Before MJ can extend her fangs he not-so-smoothly interjects.
“I just don’t see why you think I shouldn’t wear the suit to the march,” he shrugs.
“It’s distracting.”
“It shows that Spider-Man, a minor public figure, cares,” Peter argues back.
“He’s a man of the people,” Ned slips in, shoving his hand in Peter’s coat pocket to steal a stick of gum from the pack he’s started carrying around in case MJ wants to make out. Her moods are about as turbulent and unpredictable as a grizzly bear’s since the snap and subsequent reality convergence, and he likes to be prepared at a moment’s notice. “If Spider-Man stands with the people at the march, that means he hasn’t been bought out by the First Order government agenda.”
MJ rolls her eyes, sticking her hand in a very different one of Peter’s pockets. He blushes, but Ned luckily doesn’t notice since all of their faces are pink from the chill anyway. “Anyone can Google which superheroes signed the Accords, that’s not a secret,” she says. “If Peter Parker goes to the march, it’s another body in the greater movement. If Spider-Man goes, it’s a cheap publicity stunt and no one takes the march seriously. It’s like if Joss Whedon showed up at a women’s rally, it’s gauche and people won’t believe you’re there for anything other than your image.”
“Okay, but,” Peter huffs, stopping and thus, by merit of their tangled arms, stopping MJ too, and looks at her. He’s grown another inch since coming back from the Soul Realm; he’s almost her height now and it’s really weirding all of them out. “What if Spider-Man wants to be there to protect the protesters? That guy who drove into the crowd last year, someone died, MJ, and if Spider-Man being there could stop that happening…”
She purses her lips, only twitching when Ned slides on another frozen puddle and collides with a fire hydrant. “You okay, Ned?” she calls first, making sure he makes a sound in the affirmative before addressing Peter again. “I’ll think about it. I’d still prefer if my boyfriend came, but…I guess it wouldn’t be the worst thing to have some muscle on our side.”
Smiling, he leans forward to kiss her forehead, still enjoying the novelty of being able to do so without arching onto his toes (even if it is because she inclines her head toward him to help). “Okay,” he agrees. “You’re the protest expert, or, protexpert, if you will, so I’ll defer to your judgment.” Then he tenses a little, knowing exactly what’s coming and already giddy because he knows her.
MJ makes the beloved, irritated, psh! noise through her teeth and he laughs, disentangling their arms to check on Ned on the sidewalk. Does she know his little quirks too? Even he doesn’t think he entirely knows himself, but he wouldn’t mind at all if MJ knew him.
“So I was thinking about that suit Tony left you,” Ned announces before he’s even fully on his feet again. “I know you didn’t want to mess with it, but I really think that maybe we should consider opening it up to see if there’s any hardware that can be salvaged, you know, for a suit that’s less creepy? No offense, but…”
A car speeds past, driving through a puddle only half-encrusted with ice; the unfrozen half splashes against their legs and they collectively shriek in freezing indignation. MJ’s holler of What the fuck, man?! goes entirely unnoticed by their assailant as they speed around the corner and vanish, but Peter and Ned each got a fragment of the plates. They groan in agony as one unit.
Flash. The jerk’s been acting out lately but no one’s quite figured it out. No one really wants to, actually, because. Well. He’s Flash. He’s awful enough on a good day, let alone a shitty one.
“I still stand by that he’s secretly in love with MJ,” Ned announces, unprompted.
MJ makes a gagging noise.
“That definitely explains why he’s been calling me Penis Parker since sixth grade.”
“Well, I dunno, it’s a theory!”
Around and around they go, all the way to the subway station, four stops on the train, and the rest of the walk to Peter’s apartment. The best thing about having two best friends—one of whom is, admittedly, also his girlfriend, but she was his friend first—is that they never run out of things to talk about. Or give each other shit about, either. Even when they fight they aren’t really fighting, just coming up with great new hot takes on one another’s opinions at all times.
And, because it’s senior year and they are very responsible young people, they also have started making dinner a few nights a week, so May doesn’t have to worry about buying all three of them dinner when her new culinary foray inevitably backfires. Peter loves her more than anyone else in the world, and she’s really good at making things she already knows how to make, but the problem is she’s always trying new stuff from her cooking classes to impress people and instead ends up with date loaf that tastes like a burnt shoe that Peter has to eat because a) he loves her, and b) he’s hungry.
So they stop at the market on the corner and pick up a huge bag of pre-mixed and -cut salad, three boxes of spaghetti noodles, three huge cans of marinara sauce, and a loaf of garlic bread practically the length of MJ’s freakishly long legs, and head up to the apartment to unload books and groceries.
“Ned, you start proofreading,” MJ says, immediately taking charge with her highly superior organized mind. “You can use my computer, it’s in my bag. Peter, handle the sauce and bread? I got the pasta.”
“So, you’re gonna watch water boil,” Ned deadpans as he digs MJ’s laptop from her bag.
Already pulling a book down from its hiding space on top of the refrigerator, she doesn’t even bother to argue. "Yup," she grins, flipping it open to her marked place and leaning against the wall to enjoy. “I’ve been writing college application essays for two weeks straight; now that we’re in the editing stage I can get back to the good stuff.”
They’re pretty good at dividing up the labor to make this task less daunting, actually. Peter’s the best at throwing together a coherent first draft on the fly, MJ’s the best at revising every sentence to make the entire work both streamlined and beautiful, and Ned’s the best at picking out the littlest mistakes even after six rounds of revision and editing. By their powers combined, they make a formidable team against any college application committee.
MJ decided at twelve that she’s going to Harvard, and Peter and Ned basically made a blood oath to room together at MIT, and all of their grades and extracurriculars are impeccable, so all it’s going to take to get there is three goddamn banging application essays.
“I mean, it’d help if we all had rich parents to donate a new campus library, too,” MJ likes to add whenever they go over strategy and start getting too cocky about their odds. Thousands on thousands of desperate teenagers apply to those same colleges every year, and some of them might just be a better candidate despite the very best efforts. It’s a very real possibility, but Peter never did do well with foresight.
“How many more revisions do you think it needs?” Peter asks, peering over Ned’s shoulder with the wrapped garlic bread in one hand. Ned’s on Facebook, his one true weakness. Peter bonks him with the bread and he guiltily opens up the essays.
“Yours is perfect, MJ, we should stop torturing ourselves and just submit it tonight,” he announces, at which MJ beams. “Mine is ready after one more comb-through, I think, but Peter, yours needs, like, mmmmmaaybe two more? You were gone a lot last week.”
Peter fidgets from foot to foot, feeling the familiar twist of guilt in his gut when real life is complicated by his after-school superheroing. “There was a string of house robberies,” he starts to explain, lamely. “I thought it was weird they kept getting away even when I thought I caught them, so—”
“We know,” says MJ without resurfacing from the depths of her book. She doesn’t sound very understanding, though, and there’s a deep line between her brows. “You tailed them as long as you could, and then started watching houses you thought they might hit next. When they broke in you webbed all the doors and windows and finally got them by scaring them out so they’d stick to the webs. They had a Mouse Hole and were using it to escape in the sewers, which explains why all the robbed houses stank like actual shit.” She closed her book and gives him a flat, level look that betrays nothing. His stomach twists again. “We were listening in and editing at the same time.”
He nods, both relieved and still guilty as hell, because he wants to defy the laws of reality and be here while at the same time get out there and protect people. He can’t divide himself in two, obviously, but that doesn’t make it suck any less when reality smacks him in the face.
“Okay, so, two more revisions,” he agrees, an olive branch extended that Ned and MJ both accept without fuss. “We’ll do them tonight. Mine, one last check on MJ's, then Ned’s, then mine again. We’ll be done by midnight.”
“As long as Ned doesn’t keep changing how many spaces he’s going to put after his periods,” warns MJ.
Ned makes a wordless noise of indignation. “There’s merit to double-spacing! Old people love double-spacing, it’s how they did it as youths! They’ll look at my essay and think, wow, this guy really knows how to write a paper, not like those other ingrate Gen Z kids who don’t respect the integrity of the double-space, give him a scholarship!”
“That’s a little little overly optimistic,” Peter gently tells him, but Ned just shakes his head.
“You’ll both think twice when I have a full-ride to MIT. And don’t do that thing where you-!”
Peter and MJ share a look and affectionately roll their eyes.
Ned groans like they’ve mortally wounded him. The water gurgles to a boil and MJ turns away to dump in the noodles. Peter pats her thigh to get her to move over so he can put the bread in the oven. Her hand brushes his bicep with gentle intent. Warmth blooms in the pit of his stomach, rising up to his face in a vivid blush.
Ten minutes later, as MJ is dumping their irresponsible volume of pasta into a colander, the door opens with perfect timing to admit Aunt May. As ever, she gasps I’m surprised relief: “You guys made dinner? Oh, I knew I kept you all around for a reason!” And they dutifully laugh, like they always do. It’s a comfortable routine and one that Peter isn’t really looking forward to interrupting when he leaves for college. He knows it’s bound to happen eventually, but he just loves May and doesn’t want to leave her on her own. Maybe she would move to Boston? But no, he couldn’t ask that of her either. It wouldn’t be fair to make her leave the place she lived with Uncle Ben for more than 20 years.
For now, they settle down to a huge meal together around the coffee table (Peter broke the dining room table a week ago after accidentally body slamming it, trying to avoid MJ’s nimble tickling fingers. May insists this will keep them closer as a family anyway) and forget about school for at least a few minutes. No phones or application essay talk at the table.
Still, it doesn’t stop Peter from thinking about his between bursts of chatter. As he steadfastly devours a plate of spaghetti the size of a small developing nation, he feels a stab of regret and guilt for his choice of essay topic. Everyone knows that he’s a Stark Industries intern with basically the keys to the castle at his disposal, that Tony named Peter in his will and left him a significant portion of Stark Industry shares, just short of a majority share, actually. But he still feels cheap writing about Mister Stark as his hero and role model. Like he’s taking advantage, somehow. There’s another two weeks before the applications are due, maybe he could...
No. God, no, he can’t just decide to rewrite his essay with two revisions of, like, a thousand left until it’s perfect. MJ would actually murder him, and he wouldn’t even get it done in time because of his patrol schedule, and he can’t, he just can’t give up patrolling when people might need him. He can't let everyone down again.
The hairs on the backs of his neck and arms rose pin-straight, gut swooping, a feeling of fundamental wrongness buzzing behind his eyes. Mister Stark, I don’t feel so good...
“...to Parker, yo, Earth to Peter.”
He looks up and knows his eyes are too wide, hands shaking too hard, to just be thinking about spaghetti. May’s mouth is pressed into a thin line. Ned is trying very hard not to look at him. On the couch beside him, MJ’s hand is pressed to her stomach; sometimes it makes her sick to think about the snap.
That they all know him well enough to react without him even saying what’s on his mind is both humbling and very, very embarrassing.
“Sorry,” he mutters, searching for something, anything, else to say to make them think about a topic that isn’t death by disintegration and losing everyone important in your life. “...pass the salad?”
MJ stands up, abrupt and looking like she hadn’t meant to judging by the fork still gripped in her fingers. For a second he thinks maybe she’s going to stab him with it. Just for a second. Then she says, “I’m all done. Meet you guys in Peter’s room to edit,” and takes her half-finished plate to the kitchen. His skin burns with guilt, but he doesn’t go after her. He knows now that MJ’s tough exterior is because she’s painfully embarrassed by her own feelings about 98% of the time, and shoving them in her face by trying to be a considerate boyfriend will only make her more defensive and closed-off.
After a prolonged lull in which they can all hear MJ shifting around in his bedroom, Ned clears his throat and turns to May. “How are the cooking classes going?” he politely asks.
With a gasp of untamable excitement, May’s mood immediately shifts into a long talk about how much she loves the Tibetan cuisine course she’s taking at the Adult Education Center, and how she really thinks they’re going to let her try using the stove again as soon as the smoke damage is repaired. Peter doesn’t stop being amazed at the amount of energy she has; she works all day and then once a week goes to learn some goddamn control over my life by controlling my frigging diet! in her words. She hasn’t quite reached the diet part yet, but Peter has faith they’ll be eating delicious Tibetan food in no time. And after that, probably Portuguese or Russian.
None of them eats much tonight, though. They put on a good performance of pushing salad around, twirling and untwirling noodles, picking apart bread with buttery fingers. Then the leftovers are enclosed in the glassware storage MJ got him for his birthday because she is a very practical person, and it’s off to Peter’s room to make revisions on their essays. May parks herself on the couch with her favorite sexy period drama queued up on Netflix and waves them off.
There’s a vague girlfriend-shaped lump under the covers on Peter’s bed where MJ is apparently snoozing; Ned helpfully sits on her to illicit a high-pitched shriek of protest.
“I hate you,” she says as she unearths from the mound of blankets, pointing first at Ned and then at Peter. “What the hell happened to wanting to protect your girlfriend, loser?”
Peter snorts, dropping into his swiveling desk chair. “Please, you could take Ned, easy.”
“Hey! Don’t diss the guy in the chair!”
He makes a face, gesturing to the fact that he, in fact, is the guy currently occupying said chair. MJ laughs, an ugly, easy sound that makes his heart soar as Ned sputters about technicalities and starting a union for the fair treatment of superhero sidekicks.
It takes half an hour for them to settle down. They revise Peter’s essay; MJ shows him where there should be more personality and where he should draw back a little. Ned finds an unnecessary apostrophe halfway down the second page. He takes in their wisdom and makes the appropriate changes in his own words, so no one can argue that he didn’t write the essay himself.
After Peter’s first revision is over with, MJ does one more read-aloud of hers to catch any last mistakes before submitting. Then, just because it’s so damn good, they call May into the room and have her read it again. Her prompt was which dead or living person she would want to have dinner with, and she somehow painted both a hilariously charming and moving word-picture of plotting the toxic patriarchy’s downfall with the help of Alice Roosevelt. May claps and kisses MJ’s forehead in congratulations, and, with a shiver of anticipation through the room, MJ presses the ‘Submit’ button on her completed Harvard application. Hugs aplenty are passed around before moving on to Ned’s last revision.
They end up debating the merits of double-spacing again (“What if the committee thinks you’re trying to cheat the length requirement?” MJ asks exasperatedly, which only makes him more stalwart), which starts with fighting and snarking and gradually, almost inevitably, turns into one of them (usually Ned) screaming “THAT’S MY OPINIOOONNNN” at each other because they have very strong feelings about grammar and punctuation, which devolves even further into taking a break to look up vine compilations online.
All in all, they lose an impressive hour and 45 minutes. Usually they lose closer to an hour, but the smell of freedom is in the air and the troops are getting restless. Ned and MJ are particularly itching to rip the Band-Aid off; Peter wonders why he doesn’t feel the same sense of urgency.
Maybe it’s because he already has a greater purpose in life as Spider-Man, he muses while doodling on the margins of his revision notes. Half his mind is on Ned spinning like a top on his desk chair, half on the relieved yet anxious flush to MJ’s cheeks, half on the city outside his window, his brain crammed and overflowing with too much, not enough. What’s he going to do when he leaves for college? What’s Queens going to do without Spider-Man? What’s May going to do without him? That feels a lot more pressing than the actual process of applying to leave.
But he can’t put his civilian life on the back burner like he tried to do in sophomore year. Balance is everything, especially if he doesn’t want to lose Ned and MJ.
“...one last read?” Ned suggests, and they repeat the same procedure as with MJ’s essay. Ned and Peter have the same essay topic since they're applying to the same school, but he chose the much safer and more touching topic of his actual dad as his hero. Ned’s a cheerful guy most of the time, so it’s kind of especially heart-wrenching for him to describe in poetic detail how much he misses his dad on long deployments, and how he had to start seeing a therapist when he was nine because one of his dad’s friends was killed in action, and it made him realize that at any moment his own dad could die, too, and how much more precious every moment they had together was after that point. By the time Ned finished reading MJ is staring determinedly at the ceiling and Peter’s eyes are burning.
He wonders for the thousandth time if he should have chosen his real dad as his hero, but the sad truth is that he didn’t get to know his dad well enough to admire him as much as he admires Uncle Ben or Mister Stark. Guilt makes itself at home in the pit of his stomach. Maybe he should be more sad to be an orphan. He likes the life he has now. He can’t imagine being happier in Silicon Valley than he is in Queens.
A hand raking gently through his hair snaps him out of space, landing on earth with a pleasant bump as he looks up into MJ’s eyes.
“Ned’s in the bathroom,” she says, and kisses him with so much feeling he ends up flat on the bed by the time she pulls back. Her hair dangles down to tickle his face, but he makes no move to fix that, because he loves her hair and he loves her face and he loves, he loves, he loves.
“You’re about a thousand miles away today, loser,” she hums through puffy lips, now fully laying on top of him like a blanket with bones. “You need more sleep. Do you want to do your last draft tomorrow?”
“No, no, let’s push through,” Peter responds immediately even while rubbing his eyes. When did it get dark out? Oh, right, it’s November, so probably around three this afternoon. Cold winter gusts push at the window, though, and there’s a sense of lateness in its urgency. Time running out. He smooths a hand up MJ’s back to rest on her ribs. “...why’s Ned taking so long in the bathroom?”
“Because I told him to,” MJ replies as she rises up onto her elbows to kiss him again, because she is a very smart girlfriend.
He loves, he loves, he loves.
“I’m glad we’ll be close enough to still see each other,” he says some indeterminate amount of time later. They’re barely touching, lain out side-by-side on his comforter like a couple of fish in the market, fingers and knees brushing, looking up at the underside of the top bunk. He turns his head and wishes she would look at him and see the unseen question in his eyes. Will we still be together in Massachusetts? Will you outgrow me, like everyone will someday? Will we run out of things in common once you start conquering the world?
But she just looks up at the top bunk, one hand resting on her stomach. “Yeah,” she says, not quite an agreement so much as an acknowledgement.
“Hey,” he says, tugging on the pinky finger of her other hand. “Now who’s a thousand miles away?”
Her eyes twitch in his direction. “More like eight thousand,” she mutters, but her pinky twitches in his hand. The corner of her mouth curls upward. “I dunno. Just thinking about how I can’t go back and fix my essay anymore. And that we could end up in different colleges, hundreds of miles apart. All of us.”
“We’re not going to.”
“But we could,” MJ insists, finally turning her head to look at him in the half-dark under the bunk. “We all applied to safety schools in New York and out of state. I applied to Stanford, Peter. In California.”
He sits up on one elbow to better face her. “I know where Stanford is,” he says. His heart is beating a little faster as he tries to process any possibility other than the three of them going to college in Boston together. Even if they aren’t the same college, the same city is all he ever thought and hoped would happen. And yeah, sure, she’s technically right, but seriously? “...do you want to go to California?”
She’s allowed to want to go to California. Peter would never ask her to sacrifice a single thing for him. He just...thought she wanted Boston. But minds change, goals change, sure, yeah, totally. It’s just an outlook adjustment he didn’t know he might have to make.
But he’s drawn back into the moment by a squeeze to his fingers. “I didn’t say that, weirdo,” MJ points out before sitting up completely. They both have to hunch over a little to avoid bumping their heads on the underside of the top bunk. “I only want to go to California if Boston and New York wont have me,” she says patiently. “I’m just saying that we could get the axe from both.”
And what happens then? he wants to ask, he’s dying to ask, he can’t ask.
“Okay,” he agrees instead. “Let’s let Ned back in and get this done so we all end up in Boston, then.”
As he gets up to open the bedroom door, he jumps in reaction to a slap on his butt. In that split second his spidey senses go completely haywire, nerve endings lighting up from head to toes, and he shrieks. MJ howls with laughter.
Once Ned’s back from his journey to the bathroom, the length of which that would put a Tolkien movie to shame, they waste another half hour (Shuri comes online for a few minutes because she had an idea for a project, and as soon as Ned saw the notification pop up decided they had to send her memes because Her time zone is so far ahead, we almost never get this opportunity, Peter!) before getting back to work.
Ned scans carefully for any last errors and actually finds an accidental single-return between two paragraphs on the second page, making them look like one enormous monster paragraph. MJ rearranges two sentences near the end, and suddenly, like shifting uncooperative stones on a ley line, the entire paper bursts with smooth, streamlined energy. Reading it out loud is as easy as thinking; Peter feels alive as the words flow over his tongue, and before he finishes he knows it’s finished.
“Beautiful,” May says where she’s hovering in the doorway. For someone who never really cared for Mister Stark, she’s pretty cool about Peter caring for him. “Just beautiful, honey.”
A lump rises in his throat as he submits the paper with his application for consideration, but Ned thumps him on the back with an awed, “We totally did it, dude.”
“We haven’t actually done anything until we’re accepted,” MJ warns, but there’s a wide smile creeping across her face. She meets Peter’s eyes and jumps off the bed to drape herself and a flurry of kisses over him like a warm blanket. Ned throws himself on top of them both, and to a riot of screams Peter’s rolling desk chair topples over onto the floor.
They lay there for a while, both to catch their breaths and because it’s a nice moment. “I love you guys,” Ned says. His head is nestled against Peter’s neck, so Peter pats his hair while tickling MJ’s hip. She’s smushed between them like Oreo filling. This is probably the most perfect moment life can possibly provide. It’s going to work. This time next year, they’ll all be together in Boston.
Then Ned asks: “Is it too late to have more spaghetti?”
A quick celebratory midnight snack later and they finally turn in for the night around one. Ned in the top bunk, Peter and MJ snuggled close in the bottom.
May finally agreed to co-ed sleepovers a few months ago, under the strict conditions that Ned has to be there too (because who wants to get nasty with your bestie in the room?) and that May and Peter had to have a long talk about consent, using protection (Peter hasn’t been able to look at a banana the same way since, thanks for asking), and how to wash his own sheets. Because she knows that sometimes Ned sleeps on the couch anyway, and just pretends he doesn’t set his alarm to sneak back in before she gets up in the morning.
She is, no contest, the best aunt in the world. And he really did learn valuable stain removal skills in the long run.
With MJ’s arms wrapped around his waist, he has to crane his neck to turn back and kiss her chin, because hell yes, he’s totally the little spoon in this silverware drawer. One skinny leg shoved between his, warm arms wrapped around him, and no hair tickling his nose? It’s the best seat in the house.
“Can I tell you something?” MJ whispers in his ear, and he squeezes her arm in the affirmative. “I felt that when you farted earlier.”
He snorts into his pillow. “Thanks. I’m glad you told me.”
“No problem.”
“Can I tell you something?” he asks, feeling brave while she can’t see him. She nods against his back, and he braces himself. “I...I love you, MJ.”
Her hand clenches in his pajama shirt, just for a second, then relaxes. “Lame,” she whispers and kisses the back of his neck.
Breathing a soft laugh, he settles back down to his pillow and doesn’t close his eyes. His heart feels...kind of bad. Not that he would want her to say she loves him if she doesn’t, but he thought she did. Hopes she does.
Wind murmurs softly against the window as he drifts into an uneasy sleep, his dreams tinted red and tasting of ashes.