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The problem when your senses are dialed up to eleven, is that you start noticing things you didn’t use to.
It’s pretty useful when it comes to hand to hand combat or spotting criminal activity, but most of Peter Parker’s life is spent on school benches these days. The things he picks up on are less of the life and death variety an and more of a… weird conundrum of information he can’t quite process.
Like MJ’s smile in Decathlon practice when he arrives on time. Or the way she subtly nods at him when he takes a seat next to her, and the crease between her eyebrows when he doesn’t.
The way she sits across from him at lunchtime, kicking him in the shins every so often to make a point.
Peter doesn’t know what to make of it, so he adds that to the pile of things he finds incomprehensible about Michelle Jones.
As a seventeen year old teenager, he knows better than to ask why she’s wearing perfume these days, or why her hair, which she used to tie up, now falls down her shoulders in messy curls.
It’s not like he doesn’t like it. But it’s a lot to process and it’s a lot of… her.
She looks different. To anyone else, the change would appear to be minimal. It’s MJ, her face bare and her guard up. But Peter Parker isn’t just anyone.
He’s Spider-Man. And every time she so much as turns her head in class, showing him her latest work of art -usually featuring him in an expression of despair- he’s overwhelmed with a thousand signals at once.
They’re small, but numerous and sometimes he just thinks about the irony of it all.
She draws him all the time, yet he’s the one who has her face memorized down to the last freckle on her neck. It’s a pity he’s so bad at drawing, and as good as he is with a camera, they don’t make lenses strong enough to replicate what he sees in MJ.
The crinkle on the bridge of her nose as she laughs, blood pumping from her heart when her wry jokes land.
Her fingers twisting around the paper, trembling slightly as she points to his face, and how the light hits her collarbone in that exact place he wants to bury his nose in.
It just looks comfy, okay?
Her pulse, uneven when he stares for too long.
He’s not a total idiot. He knows she knows. About him being a masked hero. But it’s that weird thing they do where neither of them acknowledges it because there are far more important things left unsaid between them.
Like how she’s stopped moving her leg away after kicking his, and the increased body heat coming from her as a result.
It’s kind of unfair, really, because the minute she so much as glances in his direction, he feels it with the strength of a thousand suns.
And it’s not like he doesn’t stare either. He’s just luckier because he can avert his eyes before she notices.
Or can he?
Lately he’s found it harder to detach himself from her. He blames it all on his hyper awareness. It’s just hard not to get lost in her smile when it’s directed towards him.
‘Earth to Peter, are you here?’
‘Hmm?’
‘You know I see you, right?’
He turns towards his best friend, Ned, guy in the chair and fellow nerd, and asks innocently:
‘See what?’
His friend rolls his eyes, chin pointing in the direction of MJ, who seems to be having a hard time deciding between a banana and an apple at the cafeteria bar.
Ned is too nice to say anything about it, but they’re both so painstakingly obvious it hurts his eyes.
They’ve been playing that game of cat and mouse for months. It’s easy to understand why she never sat closer to them before, when she can barely utter three words together if Peter so much as smiles in her direction.
What’s even crazier is that for all his superpowers and genius brain, Peter can’t seem to figure that out for himself.
Especially when they start hanging out just the two of them.
He can’t blame them for it, not when he’s the reason why. Him and Betty, that is. Being the new co-anchor at Midtown High news has changed things.
However, it still catches Ned off-guard when he barges in on them at May's.
It’s one thing to expect your best friend to be in the process of tending to his wounds, or tinkering with his suit, but it’s another to find him sound asleep next to a girl.
Especially when the girl in question is one Michelle Jones, one of her hands combing his hair absently while the other is holding a book.
He raises an eyebrow, his finger silently circling the two of them, his mouth shaped as a perfect ‘O’.
She shrugs, the movement waking Peter up enough for him to grunt and for her to drop her detached act and actually show concern.
That’s when it clicks. She knows. She's known for a while and hasn’t said a word about it.
Just like she doesn’t say that she’s happy he’s getting some sleep because they’re both aware Peter doesn’t get nearly enough.
And if it weren’t for his own best friend behaving like he left his brain in his backpack with the rest of his suit, he would gladly just sit back and watch.
But they have Lego to build, criminals to fight, and tests to ace.
‘Peter. Please, for the love of God, do something about it.’
‘About what?’
‘MJ, our friend. Who you keep staring at like a creepy stalker. Like Liz.’
Peter scoffs.
‘It’s nothing like Liz!’
It’s true. MJ is nothing like Liz. Liz was easy to stare at, while MJ… MJ’s more like a hurricane.
She’s messy, and rough around the edges, yet he can’t take his eyes off her.
He can’t even breathe in his own room without being reminded of her anymore, because she seems to have taken it upon herself to borrow his clothes.
Most of his sweaters smell like her, and it’s intoxicating. She’d even left a couple books, drawings, and pencils here and there.
Marking her territory .
Ned snaps his fingers in front of his face, a sly smile on his face as he sarcastically says :
‘Sure, Jan.’
For such a smart guy, Peter can be surprisingly dense sometimes.
With a loud clang, MJ drops to the chair next to him, her eyes fixated on her mashed potatoes like they just committed mass murder.
‘Something… wrong?’ Ned ventures, his hands already grabbing his plate for protection.
She huffs.
‘Some idiot just asked me out to Prom.’
Peter pivots instantly, trying not to let his jaw drop too much. Like all things related to having control over his own face, it fails dramatically.
‘What?! Who?!’ he chokes. ‘ Why ?!’
She scoffs.
‘Really Pete? Can’t think of a reason why someone would want to go to Prom with me?’
He wants to slap himself. He’s usually disoriented and kind of out of the loop when MJ’s around, but this a whole new level.
‘I can think of a ton reasons! I meant it like, why would you be mad about that?!’
She glares at him for a while, and if he weren’t the one with superpowers he could have sworn she was burning holes into his skull. She sighs.
‘I just don’t want to go with him , is all.’
She glances furtively in Peter’s direction, her heart skipping a beat. And so what if his does, too?
For once he’s glad to be tuned into whatever weird frequency MJ’s in, because he can feel her cheeks grow hot and her breath catch in her throat, the moment stretching far longer than the couple of seconds it’s actually lasting.
He really, really wishes he could tell her. Just turn to her, take a big gulp of air and admit, in front of her and the whole school, that she’s taking up all the space in his mind, and his heart, to the point of reducing his attention span to almost nothing. That everyone around him seems washed up and toned down, a copy of a copy, while she shines brighter every day.
But that’s stupid. It’s probably stupid. Right?
Ned, ever the champion of love, fidgets in his seat excitedly.
‘So… you do wanna go with someone! Wonder who that might be…’
MJ seems about to throw up, or punch him, maybe both.
Peter blurts out.
‘Well that’s too bad, because I was actually thinking of asking you.’
What.
There is a pause, followed by an uncomfortable silence, and Peter immediately curses his inability to control his mouth. MJ’s heart is pounding so hard he can practically hear the Kill Bill sirens ring, Ned is looking at him with eyes the size of a Roswell UFO, and his palms are getting clammier by the second.
Then, slowly, quietly, MJ turns to him, quiet anger emanating from every pore of her body.
‘Wow. I can’t believe I got two proposals in one day, and yours was the one that sucked the most.’
She grabs her backpack, leaving her barely touched platter of food behind, and doesn’t turn back once.
Long after she’s gone, Peter still hears her feet stomping on the floor, and the sound is ringing in his ears.
Ned places a commiserating hand on his shoulder, and sighs.
‘Dude. I love you but you literally have no game.’
Peter tosses and turns, replaying the events of the day in his head, a broken record. In hindsight, asking MJ out to prom between two bites of a bland lunch might not have been his greatest idea.
The thing is, he can’t admit it to Ned. He can barely admit it to himself. But somewhere along the way, probably for longer than he’s known, she became a big part of why Midtown High doesn’t suck that much.
He actually likes going to PE, even if he has to pretend he can barely lift his own weight, because MJ usually sits next to him and for every book page she turns, he gets the faintest scent of her. Just like he likes feeling the chill down his spine when she’s staring at him from the back row in chem class.
And look, he’s not THAT dense. He knows what it means.
He’s a teenage boy, not a cartoon puppet.
And he was building up the courage to ask her to prom. He would have asked her, eventually.
Had he had the chance to do it properly.
He stares at the crumpled paper flower on his bedroom floor.
He’d made it of poems he knew she liked, so it probably was too corny anyway.
So he doesn’t stand outside her house. He doesn’t have a corsage for her to wear, or a coordinated suit to go with her dress.
They’re not going to prom together.
It’s not the end of the world, really. Except it kind of is. There are only so many moments left to spend with Ned and MJ before the three of them go their separate ways.
Ned is going to Stanford -he’s going to study part time at MIT- and MJ just received her letter of acceptance to NYU.
It’s comforting to know she’ll still be in New York, that some part of his life won’t totally vanish as he turns eighteen. But it’s not nearly enough.
It’s safe to say that there are only a few things Peter Parker wants for himself.
Surprisingly, Michelle’s affection is one of them.
He’s aware that she doesn’t owe him anything. It took him so long to sort out his feelings and place them in neat little boxes. And he was kind of hoping to act on them, for once.
Three hundred fifty seven.
It’s the number of times he’s felt MJ’s eyes on his skin this year. He hopes it means something.
As he climbs the steps leading to the school gym, he breathes in.
He can fix this.
He will fix this.
The place is packed with people, and the only ones he can make out in the semi obscurity are Mr. Harrington, who’s busy keeping Flash at arm’s length from the punch bowl, and Ned and Betty.
Slow dancing.
He smiles. There is something to be said about young love in its naive, truest form. No fights, no misunderstandings. Just two people, dancing together, oblivious to the rest of the world.
‘Stop being a creeper and let them have their fun, Peter.’
Three hundred and fifty eight.
He turns around.
It’s not like the movies. He doesn’t stare at MJ in awe to realize that the girl he’s fallen for now resembles a Disney princess.
He stares at MJ in awe, because she looks absolutely, unapologetically like herself.
‘You look great,’ he says, a lump in his throat.
‘Just MJ’ has always been more than he could handle anyway.
She deadpans.
‘And you look stressed. Everything okay?’
He shrugs it off.
‘I guess? I think I just didn’t think this through. There’s a lot of people.’
He fidgets with his hands, not knowing what to do with them. This is not good. He can feel his chest grow tight, the wave of anxiety taking over his limbs, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. Just once, he’d like something to go smoothly in his personal life. He has no excuse. There is no bad guy tonight, no one ready to kill him for trying to defend a city.
No date to disappoint either. He turns towards her, swallowing hard, unable to meet her eye.
‘Listen… About the other day...What I really wanted to say was-’
She places a firm hand on his forearm.
‘Peter, we’re fine. You don’t need to say anything.’
He frowns. He wants to tell her that he wants to. Needs to. Instead, he squeaks.
‘Do you want to dance?’
Her eyes grow wide, surprise washing over her ever so blasé mask.
‘Sure. Okay.’
He places a trembling hand on her back, gesturing to an area that doesn’t seem as exposed as the middle of the dance floor, where Flash is now proving to everyone that disco isn’t, in fact, dead.
His new plan is to just tell her. With words. He braces himself. He’s practiced. He’s ready for this,
yet when they’re barely moving, closer than they’ve allowed themselves to be in the last three years, the words are stuck in throat.
‘So… Where is that… person ? The one who was supposed to sweep you off your feet tonight ?’
Right there. Please say right there.
She rolls her eyes, and mutters something he doesn’t quite catch, because he notices Betty and Ned hovering over the DJ booth.
It’s not really surprising when the music slows down.
‘Anyway. I’m-I’m happy to have you all to myself.’
It could be the most raging banger in the world, he wouldn’t hear it.
Because MJ is staring at him with a vulnerability he’s never seen before.
‘Really?’
He holds her gaze, giving her what he hopes is an earnest smile, when the light catches on her dress.
Which he now realizes is made of different types of lace, creating a familiar pattern.
His heart skips a beat.
‘Are those… Spiderwebs?!’
She smiles like she’s the one with the secret.
‘Thought you’d like it. I spent like, two weeks on it.’
Peter is about a hundred percent done. If he wasn’t sure before, he’s sure now.
He stammers, his voice caught in his throat.
‘It-it’s great! A little spooky I guess...’
He can feel it before she opens her mouth. She’s about to say it, yet he’s transfixed, unable to move or prevent it from happening.
She opens her mouth.
‘How about you stop lying to me about that red and blue suit you have in your backpack, huh, Pete?’
He mentally takes a step back, cautiously weighing his options. There is no way this conversation is going to end well for either for them, not when she’s looking at him with soft eyes, her lips parted and fingers digging into his neck. Which. How. He didn’t even notice they were there before.
Talk about reliable senses.
The thing is, he really, really doesn’t want to have a conversation about his spandex alter ego when they’re slow dancing in the middle of the gym, his classmates a mere feet away from them, and his heart is about to burst at its seams. He exhales slowly, carefully picking his next words.
‘I’d rather talk about why you stare at me so much.’
MJ’s eyes open wide, her mouth agape. Well that ought to do it.
Her breath hitches and he’s lucky he’s good at reading lips because her chest is pounding so hard he can barely hear anything else.
‘You know why. Don’t make me say it.’
He swallows a laugh while she scowls with feigned annoyance. She’s not going to make this easy, is she?
Then again if she did, he wouldn’t be so hopelessly in love with her.
He smiles almost proudly, and MJ shakes her head.
‘Just so you know, I don’t like you like that. Anymore.’
His grin grows even bigger, because he knows.
He can sense it, the lie. Her pulse getting slightly quicker, her lips tugging slightly sideways.
Her eyes, shining in the dark.
And for that, and all the things he’s picked up on since he first started noticing her, he allows his hand to slide from her upper back to her waist.
It brings their faces a little too close for the kind of conversation they’re having, and MJ rests her head on his shoulder.
He takes a deep breath, and he whispers in her ear.
‘First of all, I don’t think that’s right.’
She laughs.
‘Someone’s getting cocky.’
‘I’m serious. Look at me and tell me you don’t like me.’
She stares, defiant, a few strands of hair surrounding her face, and Peter thinks he could fall in love all over again. Her cheeks are definitely red from embarrassment, yet she’s not shying away. He wonders what she sees when she looks at him.
She raises an eyebrow, her sarcastic nature taking over.
‘So, what, you want to see me squirm with shame and admit that I’ve liked the same boy since sixth grade?’
He smirks.
Yes, smirks.
He’s allowed to be a little proud. The girl he’s head over heels for, the smartest girl in any room, at any given moment, likes him. And apparently, has for a while.
‘Did you say sixth grade?’
Surely she can’t mean…
‘Flash’s birthday party. Yep.’
The bottle spins between them all, Eugene licking his lips excitedly. Michelle doesn’t know whose dumb idea it was to play that game when they’re all more or less the worst looking they’ve ever been but she can’t escape it now. She can just pray silently that it keeps spinning and doesn’t land on…
Her. Of course. God this is humiliating. But what’s worse is Eugene’s grimace and the tone he uses when he states:
‘Ew, hard pass!’
She doesn’t even like him but it stings all the same. A voice she doesn’t make any effort to recognize raises from the group.
‘Are you serious?! Those aren’t the rules, Flash!’
MJ stares at the ground, because she doesn’t want anyone to see the tears forming in her eyes. Her fists grab the fuzzy carpet beneath her, soft and comforting, as she forces her breathing to slow down. Eugene shrugs.
‘If you wanna do it, be my guest. It’s my birthday, I make the rules.’
She barely has time to register the footsteps coming towards her as the rest of the group snicker, and is then confronted with the brown eyes, big ears, and hesitant smile of one Peter Parker.
Of course he’d stand up for her. He’s the second biggest loser in the room. Still, she appreciates it. He looks as nervous as she does when he says:
‘Hey is… is it okay if I kiss you?’
She frowns. How nice of him to ask, she thinks sarcastically. As if he really wanted to, and he’s not just pitying her, the unkissable girl.
She prepares to say no, but he places a shaking hand on top of hers, lacing his fingers with hers in the carpet, and she realizes she can’t possibly hurt him. She nods.
He squeezes her hand when their lips touch, and it’s as nice as a first kiss can be, considering they’re surrounded by a bunch of eleven year olds. She hears a whistling sound, some light clapping, and just as it starts, it’s over.
He retreats slowly, and she hopes her eyes say quietly what she wants him to know.
He smiles back, and from that moment on, she knows she’s a goner.
‘You were my first kiss,’ he admits, smiling to himself. They’re close enough that he has to raise his chin to look into her eyes.
‘You were mine, too.’
He raises one hand slowly, cupping her cheek. At this point, they’re barely dancing, and she couldn’t care less. It’s nice, being held by someone you actually like, even when they make you so angry you could probably tear a whole phonebook with your hands sometimes. (It’s the only book she’d be willing to deface, honestly.)
‘I have something to tell you,’ he confesses, his forehead almost touching hers.
‘I already know you’re Spider-Man,’ she hums.
He smiles. ‘That’s not what I wanted to say.’
‘What, then?’
‘We’ve established you liked me. But I don’t like you.’
She shrugs, trying to get away from him. Way to ruin the mood.
‘Cool. Good to know. Thanks for making that abundantly clear. ’
‘I love you, MJ.’
She stares at him, and when she doesn’t reply, he gets a little braver. Now that it’s out, he needs to make it count.
‘And I have, for a long time.’
MJ groans.
‘Peter I swear to God if you’re about to make a speech I will punch you.’
He gives her his best toothy grin.
‘But I had like, a whole thing planned!’
She smirks, and once again he sees it coming, and doesn’t fight it. Instead he stands on his toes, careful not to step on Michelle’s signature Chuck Taylor’s, and lets her close the distance between them.
Kissing her -again- he realizes that she’s just as soft and fragile than this fateful afternoon in Flash’s carpeted basement. He remembers the smell of Mountain Dew, the game of Twister discarded next to the couch.
He remembers his fingers lacing with hers in the orange carpet, and her hitched breath as he’d brought his lips on hers.
And then everything makes sense.
It’s her. It’s always been her.
He never even had a chance.
When he opens his eyes, she appears undone, her barriers down and he silently promises himself to never let anyone take advantage of her ever. Especially not him.
They’re going to have to talk about the red and blue suit in his backpack. But maybe now’s not the best time.
When she pulls away, her smile stretches like a cat’s and he wonders if he’s even a little bit responsible for the warmness he feels radiating from her. (He’d be lucky.)
‘I can’t believe you made me kiss you in front of the whole school. That’s so cliché,’ she mutters against his mouth, bringing their lips together once more.
‘That was plan C,’ he laughs, hugging her as he sees Ned over her shoulder, using the A.V Club’s camera for less than academic purposes.
Michelle is going to kill him.
She asks him, a couple years later, what the other plans were.
They’re sitting on his couch, MJ’s legs propped up on the armrest, as they watch Ned and Betty anchor for Channel 8.
As he kisses her hair, he admits that Plan B was to invite her to prom, standing outside her house in the dark, eyes hopeful and cheeks red from excitement.
Plan C, a.k.a ‘Let’s wing it and hope he doesn’t die in the process’ seems to have worked better.
Plan A was to ask her out a long time ago. Pretty much the day they first kissed.