Chapter Text
Michelle Jones knew a lot of things.
She knew a lot about third wave feminism, and her favourite books and authors on the subject. She knew that if she called Flash Thompson by his real first name, Eugene, it would annoy him. She knew how to make the best grilled cheese sandwiches (the key to which, by the way, was using sourdough bread and two types of cheese). She knew the best hole-in-the-wall bookstores in Queens, where to find her mother’s favourite kind of bagels, and the perfect place in Central Park to sit and read on an autumn day. She knew that her classmate, Peter Parker, had a secret. She also knew that said secret was that he was Spider-Man, the crime fighting hero of Queens. She knew a lot of things.
But what Michelle Jones didn’t know, however, was why or when or how she had fallen for Peter Parker.
She always liked him, sure. She was in the same classes, was on the same teams. And she kept tabs on him, of course. Not in a stalker obsessed way, but in a curious way. Peter Parker just happened to be more interesting than whatever their teachers were usually talking about, even before he got super powers from a lab experiment gone wrong. Or from exposure to radiation. Or from a magical wizard. She was still a little hazy on the details.
Michelle had theories, of course, but no way to confirm if her theories were true. Because Michelle Jones knew a lot of things. She knew Peter Parker was Spider-Man. That Peter Parker didn’t know that she knew he was Spider-Man. So she knew that she couldn’t let him know that she knew, and instead had to pretend that she didn’t know that he didn’t know that she knew. She thought. Of course, that all went to hell when she realized she had fallen for him. It went even further to hell when Spider-Man saved her life.
Another thing that Michelle knew? Whenever Peter disappeared for Spider-Man duties. Peter would duck out of the room, usually unnoticed, and his absence was covered by Ned. Ned Leeds was, by anyone’s account, like Michelle in his intelligence, loyalty, and knowledge of Peter’s secret. Ned Leeds was also, by anyone’s account, unlike Michelle in his inability to lie or keep a poker face.
Sometimes Michelle considered telling Ned that she knew, just so that he wouldn’t have to have an anxiety attack every time someone asked about Peter and where he had gone. If Ned knew that she knew, then she would be able to cover for Peter without suspicion. She already did it as much as she could, but she had to stay casual so Ned wouldn’t realize that she knew where Peter was. And it would be nice, she thought. To be part of something. To be in on a secret, and have people know she was in on it.
That was the crux of it, really. Why Michelle liked Peter so much. Because he made her feel like she was in on the secret. Michelle was proud to say that she didn’t need anyone, but sometimes…sometimes she wanted someone. She didn’t have any friends before Peter and Ned. She had sat with them just to have somewhere to sit. But as she read her book, she’d been surprised to find that their conversations were amusing.
Ned was such a positive person, it was almost contagious. Michelle kept her face deadpan most of the time, but Ned was always able to coax even a hint of a smile out of her when he tried. He had the funniest jokes, was always willing to help her with technology questions, and she didn’t even mind when he quoted Star Wars to her constantly.
And Peter was…Peter. He made bad jokes and bailed on things last minute, and could recite pi up to seventy three digits off the top of his head. He never gave up on anything, either. If he didn’t get something the first time, he tried again and again until he did. Michelle had to admire that in him. Just as much as she admired his loyalty, his sense of right and wrong, and his good looks.
None of which she would admit to him.
As for falling for him...it had happened over time, slowly, even paced, until it hit her in the face like that car almost did. She didn’t realize her feelings for Peter had changed until she was living a day, by all accounts, like any other. A day that, to everyone else, was like any other.
But not to her.
The realization had come during detention. Looking back, it had been peaking for a while, just barely brimming at the edge of her brain for weeks. The way she began to genuinely laugh at Peter’s dumb jokes, the way she always looked out the window of their chemistry class, just so she could get a glimpse of him before anyone else did when he ran in just before the bell. How his fingers grazing hers when she lent him a pen in English almost made her entire arm numb. All the signs were there. But it was detention that made her notice it.
Peter had his usual after school detention, the product of all his unexcused absences (Michelle had once been confused by them—why would someone so smart skip class? Now, she knew the truth). And Michelle had her usual hobby of sketching those in detention as drawing practice, as well as a way to kill time. So her coming to sit a few desks away from Peter, making him the subject of her drawing? That was the usual. But making Peter the subject of all her drawings? Of drawing him over and over, in more and more detail each time, until her sketchbook was completely full of Peter Parker? That was not the usual. That was far from it.
When Michelle realized what she had done, she sat back in her chair, staring at her book in confusion. Peter’s sketched face stared back at her.
And so did his real face, she realized, when a familiar voice interrupted her thoughts.
“MJ?” Peter had whispered to her, snapping her out of her confusion. “Are you okay?”
Michelle’s head had snapped up, and she nodded quickly before shutting her sketch book tight. “Yeah. Fine.” She pressed her lips together.
Peter glanced at the teacher supervising detention, who was half (or completely) asleep as a VCR tape of Captain America service announcements played on a TV from 2008.
“If you need to talk about something…” Peter shrugged, fiddling with his pen (Michelle knew he struggled to stay still, even before he got superpowers). “You can talk to me.”
Michelle tucked her sketchbook back in her bag, tucking her pencil into her bun. “Mhmm.” She stood up, hasty to get away from the situation. For the first time in years, she could feel her face burning with embarrassment. “I’m fine.”
Before Peter could say anything else, Michelle had disappeared from the room.
She realized that day what she was really feeling for Peter Parker. Although he had grown to be her friend, there was nothing friendly about the beating of her heart when she thought about him.
But still, if there was one thing Michelle knew, it was how to keep a secret. She went home that day and hid her sketchbook in the back of her closet, and her feelings for Peter with it. She folded them all down, neat and compact, until she could barely feel the fluttering of her heart when he smiled at her.
Barely.
The irony of it all, of course, was that Michelle was thinking about Peter when he saved her life. She was so distracted by him that she didn’t notice the car about to crush her before Peter pulled her out of the way. Before Spider-Man pulled her out of the way.
Just like the day she realized her feelings, Michelle hadn’t detected anything out of the ordinary. She had gone to her classes, tried not to stare at the back of Peter’s head, covered his ass when she needed to (for someone so smart, she had no idea why he was stupid enough to mix his web fluid in chemistry class), and kept her head down. Sure, sometimes she stole a glance, shy and nervous and totally unlike her normal persona, but that was it. She didn’t allow herself any more. No lingering touch when she passed him a pencil, no extra praise when he did well at their decathlon practice, no comment on the new maroon sweater he was wearing that made him look rugged and soft to the touch all at once. Nothing.
But now, as she walked home, she was free to think of anything she wanted, with no worry of her poker face slipping. The streets of Queens were filled with thousands of people, and no one would notice if an infatuated smile appeared on a teenage girl’s face.
Everything else happened so fast. Fast enough that Michelle could barely process it in the moment. She heard the skid of the tires, the honking of horns, of metal hitting metal and people beginning to scream. She looked up and saw the car heading towards her approximately one millisecond before it should have hit. She didn’t even have time to flinch.
When she finally did flinch, Michelle was already in the air. She heard the rush of wind in her ears before she felt it, and for a moment she thought that she had died, was ascending from her body. But then she registered the warmth that was wrapped around her, the pressure. When Michelle opened her eyes, she saw the masked face of Peter staring back at her. The face of Spider-Man.
She saw a bit of movement at the spot where his mouth should be, and realized he was speaking to her. Michelle wasn’t sure if it was the sound of the wind or the shock preventing her from hearing, but either way, her feet were back on the ground before she could understand him.
“Are—are you okay?” Spider-Man said, his voice unmistakable. “Did you get hurt?”
“N-no. No.” Michelle cleared her throat, suddenly aware of how close she was to him. She let go of him, stepping back quickly. “I—thanks.”
“Uh, y-yeah. Yeah, don’t—don’t mention it.” Peter (he would always be Peter to her) said weakly.
There was the sound of sirens in the distance, and Peter glanced over his shoulder nervously.
“I-I should—”
“Yeah.” Michelle agreed quickly, nodding her head. “Yeah, you should…go save people.”
“Right.” Peter mimicked her nod, his head bobbing rapidly. Then he held up a hand, the movement a little awkward.
Almost instinctively, Michelle extended hers too, high-fiving him as if she was Ned and they were in the school cafeteria. She then stepped back immediately, embarrassed, and fixed her curls behind her ears haphazardly.
“Okay, then.” Peter said, nervousness still laced in his voice. He brought his hand to his neck, touching the edge of his mask. Like he was making sure it was still there. “Alright, I-I’ll see you. Get home safe, MJ.”
Before Michelle could say a word, he shot a web at a building and swung off, back to where he was needed.
Michelle Jones knew a lot of things. She knew a lot about third wave feminism, and her favourite books and authors on the subject. She knew everything there was to know about Peter Parker. And she also knew that, even if she hadn’t been aware of his secret identity, she would have after that day. Because Spider-Man called her MJ, just like Peter did.
Michelle Jones knew a lot of things. But she had no idea how to handle this.