Archive of Our Own

“What do you think?”

Michelle peeks over the edges of her decathlon notes before she casts her eyes down. The makeshift, bed-sheet hammock that she’s hanging from courtesy of Peter’s webs sways slightly as she leans over to take in the full look: Peter Parker in full Spidey suit, mask including, with his beloved Star Wars hoodie over it.

She takes maybe half a second to give her answer. “Nuh-uh.”

Peter immediately deflates. “What, why not? I know you think Star Wars is kinda lame but that doesn’t mean Spider-Man does.”

“Dude,” Michelle snorts. “You cannot go out in your Spidey suit with that hoodie on. You wear it all the time. People are going to know it’s yours.”

Michelle can tell Peter is frowning underneath the mask as he grabs at the sweatshirt pocket and pulls it out, looking at the faded yellow lettering. “Tons of people have this hoodie. Thousands. I bought it at a department store.”

“Yeah, but yours is the only one with a giant bleach stain on the elbow.”

Peter twists to inspect it. She remembers him lamenting the laundry mix-up to Ned last year. “It’s not that noticeable.”

“It is.”

Ever since Peter took that picture of himself in Michelle’s shoes on the top of the nine-nine precinct, he occasionally took to wearing other clothing on his patrols. A plain blue zip jacket. A New York Mets cap. An I <3 NY novelty tee. But it was Aunt May’s fleece lined jean jacket that started the SpideyOfNYC Instagram page, which of now consists of only three photographs of Spider-Man in various outfits.

And, of course, Peter feels the need to perpetuate the attention like a moron. Novelty shirts and baseball caps that half the city owns are one thing. A specifically wrecked Star Wars hoodie that Peter wears every day is another.

“You can wear mine,” Michelle finally says after Peter spends half of five minutes trying to adjust the hoodie to hide the stain. The hammock sways a little too much for her liking as she slips off her maroon-colored hoodie and throws it straight in Peter’s face.

He finally slips off the mask to reveal his smile, full-blown, as he rubs his thumb over the HARVARD emblem across the chest. “Aww, you’re giving me your nerd sweatshirt? MJ. I’m touched.”

She rolls her eyes before settling back in her hammock, but not before Peter tosses up his Star Wars sweatshirt in exchange. His fits like all her favorite oversized everything. Hers fits on him a little awkwardly around the arms and waist.

“Your stupid muscles are ruining the look,” Michelle says, gesturing to his biceps with a tilt of her chin.

He flexes, just to piss her off.

“It’d look better as a crop top,” Michelle admits, miming a snip snip motion with two fingers.

Peter’s face lights up with the idea before he rushes out of his room to find a pair of scissors.

She can hear him bustling around the kitchen, opening and closing every single goddamn drawer and cabinet five times over. It makes it impossible to concentrate and she ends up reviewing her question of, What is the unit of length that is approximately 3.26 light-years? over and over again. She hears Peter’s triumphant cry of “found ‘em!” before he asks, much louder, “Hey, are you sure you want me to cut up your sweatshirt?”

“Sure. My mom won’t mind. She hasn’t worn that thing in years.” she clarifies.

“Wait this is your mom’s?”

“That’s what I said.”

“That’s cool, I didn’t know- wait, which mom?”

Sabrina. But she doesn’t tell him that. “Just cut it up, it’s fine.”

There’s a glorious few moments of quiet, with only the sounds of fabric snipping coming from the bathroom before one of their phones ruins it and starts to chime out one of those annoying, pre-set alarms. She has one herself, set to take her medication, but even she knows it’s not the right time for that. It must be Peter’s. “Peter? Your alarm is going off, I don’t know - shit! ”

The webs keeping her hammock tied to the ceiling snap, and Michelle drops like a fly.

She barely gets half a scream out before Peter speeds into the room, sliding on his knees, and catches her before she hits the ground.

“Jesus,” she breathes out and Peter has the nerve to laugh, even though it’s all nervous and shaky. “Next time, set the alarms for, I don’t know, five minutes before my hammock is scheduled to disintegrate, Webhead.”

His smile is smug. “I caught you, didn’t I?”

“Peter.”

He laughs again, cradling her closer and dropping two quick kisses on her cheek. “Yes, ma’am, will do.”

As he helps her stand upright, wrapping his sheet around her in attempts to fashion it like a cape, she takes note of his handiwork - and she was right. The sweatshirt does look better as a crop top.

“Spider-Man can keep it,” she decides, tugging on an uneven part that could stand a trim. “Maybe people will think he’s a Harvard student, throw people off your tail.”

Peter pulls a face. “Ugh, Boston? You want people to think Spidey is from Boston? No way.” He pauses, though, when Michelle’s words start to bare their weight. “Who’s on my tail?”

“Eugene,” she lies, but Peter’s smart enough to know she’s kidding.

His smile is back like it never left. “Well, with his Spider-Man obsession, you never know. What was it Betty said he was? Horny on main?”

“Blegh.” This time Michelle pulls a face, expression grim and disgusted, and Peter’s laugh kinda sounds like he’s hacking up half a lung. “Don’t repeat that. Ever.”

He does. Just to annoy her. “Do you still think he’d be horny on main -

“- blegh -”

“-if he found out it was me who stole his car?”

She actually stops to think about that one. Because yes, Eugene is obsessed with Spider-Man. But also Peter didn’t just steal that Audi, he totaled it. But she still comes to a conclusion. “Yes.”

Peter huffs out a disbelieving laugh before he pokes her on her forehead. “But really. Who’s on my tail?” he asks again, because at the end of the day Peter Parker and his alter ego remaining separate entities is always top priority.

Michelle hadn’t been in her right mind when she showed her Uncle Jake that picture of Peter on top of the police precinct. He hadn’t outwardly acted suspicious outside of hounding Michelle how she came to know Spider-Man in the first place. She had gotten away with explaining his heroism in D.C and how he had become a school icon, and people were snapping pictures of him all the time, hence the one she sent to him. But Jake is a detective and Peter is a dumbass who hunted down the spidey signal only hours after Jake mentioned it to him.

She’ll be honest - she’s afraid Jake is gonna sniff it out. And while Jake is a good guy in her books, he’s not like Michelle and Ned. He’s a cop, and Peter’s out there breaking the law. It’s probably not ideal for Peter to have Jake on his People Who Know Spider-Man list.

But, again, Jake hasn’t been outwardly suspicious. So she decides to spare Peter with her theories and worries, for now.

“No one,” she finally says, heaving a heavy sigh with it. She reaches out and tugs on her-his sweatshirt. “In particular. Just looking out for you.”

“You always do,” he says all soft and sweet, and Michelle has to resist the urge to reach her hand under the sweatshirt to slap the spider emblem to turn him into a puddle of embarrassment when his suit cascades off him. He spends a few moments buttering her up with his eyes before his red-bull like energy comes back with a snap and he goes rigid with realization. “Ooh! I almost forgot. Speaking of all this fashion, I have a present for you.”

Michelle frowns as Peter scuttles away and begins rummaging through his desk drawers. “What, why? It’s not my birthday.”

He shrugs, still looking. “I just saw it and thought you’d like it, it’s no big - aha!”

With an exaggerated spin, he whirls around and presents her with a vintage looking cameo hairpin.

“You...you’ve been pulling your hair back to the side recently,” he goes on to say, pointing to the plain black barrette she’s got in her hair right then. “And I was at the flea market with May and there was this girl with a stand and she made all this cool jewelry and look!” He brings it closer to her, going as far as to grab her hand and drop it in her palm. “It’s a spider!”

“Like you.”

“Like me!”

Michelle snorts out a quiet laugh before a smile betrays her indifference. The hair pin is cool. The cameo spider is set against red and the intricate bronze metal has black crystals and two small jewelry chains hanging off it.

“Thank you. It’s pretty,” she finally says and Peter lets out a breath of relief as she takes out her black barrette to replace it with his gift. “How’s it look.”

“With that Star Wars sweatshirt? Fashion Forward. Tom Ford is shaking.”

“Ask Stark to teach you more designers, your repertoire is sorely lacking.”

Peter isn’t phased. “You should wear it tomorrow.”

Aw, fuck. The lunch date. In all the post mugging fun she’s had in the past two weeks, the formal weekend date they had set aside a while ago slipped her mind and she double-booked. “I accidentally told Uncle Jake and Aunt Amy I’d go to brunch with them.”

Peter lights up at the mention of their names. “Oh, that’s okay! I can pick you up afterwards? I cleared my whole day so we can just...go to the park or something.”

He cleared the whole day. Michelle wants to barf from cute overload. “Or…,” she finds herself saying, “You can come with us. If you’d like.” She stares down at her hands, picking at worn black nail polish. “They really like you. They keep asking when you’ll come around next.”

“Really?”

She nods. “Yeah. They probably want to overly thank you for, you know,” she points to her head. “Saving my ass, I guess.”

“Oh, no biggie,” Peter plays it off with a shrug. “After all, I had a little help from Spider-Man.”

Michelle rolls her eyes so hard it almost hurts.

“But yeah, I’ll be there,” he smiles at her.

“You don’t have to,” she reiterates because, at the end of the day Peter Parker and his alter ego remaining separate entities is top priority. Jake never turns off the detective , so to speak. “I know my uncle is a lot.”

Peter shakes his head, vehemently. “No! He seems nice! He kind of reminds me of -”

He’s cut off. This time, her phone is the one that goes off. She stretches to reach the top of Peter’s dresser and grabs it, reading the text message that says:

      EMMMMMJAAAAAAAAY WE’RE HERE I’VE GOT A COP CAR ON LOAN OVERNIGHT HURRY UP I WANNA PUT THE SIRENS ON ALL THE WAY HOME

Peter laughs when she shows him the message. “See?” she wiggles the phone around. “A lot.”

His smile slants. “He’s fun.”

She can’t deny that. “Yeah, well…” she trails off, not sure of what to say. All she does know is that if she doesn’t head down soon, Jake will turn on the sirens anyway and that’s not all that fun in her opinion.  “I’ll see you tomorrow at my place? Ten okay?”

“Ten sounds perfect.”

His face is screwed up all goofy in that stupid endearing way that makes her want to kiss it. So she does, leaning forward to give him a quick peck on the lips. “Don’t race us to Brooklyn.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Peter is the worst liar.

He’s already slipping his mask off as he sits on his window sill. “My aunt and uncle are right down there. Just wait until we leave before you go save the neighborhood Project Runway style,” she says, gesturing to the sweatshirt he still has on.

“But then he gets a head start.” It’s unbelievable how she can hear his pout.

“Doesn’t matter. Because there will be no racing.”

“Jake would want to race Spider-Man.”

Oh, God, is that true. But she isn’t going to indulge that fantasy. Michelle simply points a finger in warning Peter’s way as she slowly backs out of his room, collecting her things. “Tomorrow. Ten. No racing.”

“Aye, aye, Captain Decathlon.”

Liar.

Spider-Man beats the cop car by a solid mile.

Peter shows up to her place with cracked ribs.

To the untrained eye, Peter makes it indiscernible. But Michelle has spent an embarrassing amount of time studying him ever since she got the hunch that he was Spider-Man. He stands at her front door dressed rather smartly:  plaid button up, jeans, and Ben’s old coat with, luckily, matching converse. But there’s a flicker of pain in his eyes and a weird shudder in his breath as he leans over and gives her a kiss on the cheek.

“What happened,” she asks flatly, grabbing her coat and beanie off the coat rack and shoving them out the door.

His smile is guilty and his posture slouches, giving in to his pain. “Stopped a car last night. Drunk driver.”

That’s one of the more... exciting things that’s happened to Spider-Man in the last few days. Michelle gives him one last look over for any other hidden injuries before she reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out her key, locking the door behind her. “Everyone okay?”

“Driver had some bruising, and I’m sure he’s not happy about his arrest, but,” Peter trails off with a shrug, wincing a bit with the action. “I think I’m the worst one off.” He stares at the door of Jake and Amy’s apartment and frowns. “I thought we were having brunch with -”

The sound of a dying car’s horn echoes from the street below. With Peter’s hearing it makes him jump out of his skin, and Michelle has to swallow her laughter.

“They swung by the precinct this morning to drop off the patrol car. His isn’t a step up. I hope you like cramped, disgusting sports cars.”

As it turns out, he does. All that time spent with Stark has given Peter a small car obsession, despite the fact that she knows he can’t drive. He recognizes the vintage quality, spitting out a year that may or may not be right (Jake doesn’t know himself and Amy has to painfully ask if he even has a car title) and the two of them chat about the car the whole way to the restaurant. Well, kinda. Jake talks about how cool it is to drive when it doesn’t decide to stall and he remembers a car freshener so it doesn’t smell like cheese, while Peter simply talks about how cool it would be to simply poke around the engine.

“Go for it, if you want,” Jake tells him as they sit down at a table by the window. They all glance out to where the car is street parked with barely enough change in the meter to last the meal. “It’s not like you can make it worse.”

“True,” Peter laughs. “But it’s probably just little things. They go a long way. Like an oil change or something.”

“Cool cool cool, no doubt,” Jake says with an exaggerated bob of his head. “Because I’ve done that before. Change the car oil. It’s a thing that I have done.”

Amy gives a pitying look and lays a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “Let’s talk about this later, babe.” She turns her head to Michelle, eyes lighting up, and gestures to her hair. “You look very nice this morning, Michelle. New hair clip?”

Michelle instinctively goes to push her hair back behind her ear, but the barrette is already doing its job. Instead, she smooths her palms down the skirt of her dress. “Um, yeah. Peter gave it to me.”

“I’m digging it,” Jake says, mouth full of complimentary biscuits that the waitress had set down when they were seated. “Very….witchy gargoyle style.” He looks to Amy for help.

“Gothic?” she supplies kindly.

“Yes!” he exclaims. The waters on the table shake a little with his excited slap of the hand to the tabletop. “Screw what Gina said, I knew your art history degree would come in handy someday. Yes, it’s very Gothic. Plus, it’s a nice shout-out to Spidey.” He smiles big.

It looks like Michelle is never going to escape Spider-Man anything ever again. “Well,” Michelle says, “Peter is a pretty big fan.”

Peter’s smile is a bit tight in return. “Well, sure. But who isn’t?”

Tooting his own horn. What a loser.

The waitress comes over to take their order. Her name is Indigo despite her bright green hair and Michelle is all too reminded that they are in the hippy-dippy part of Williamsburg. Even though the menu is nothing much beyond 17 ingredient omelettes and pancakes topped and made with every fruit and chocolate imaginable, the restaurant has felt the need to name every single item with some stupid name or obscure pop culture reference. Michelle and Amy both up ordering some french toast called Georgia’s Peaches and Peter orders something called the Chicken Run while Jake straight up orders double chocolate chip pancakes called Sugar Coma.

If it wasn’t for their bottomless mimosa special, she has a feeling they wouldn’t be here.

Poor Jake isn’t halfway through his first mimosa when his phone chimes in with a message and he gives a childish whine. “Aw, man!” He shows Amy. “Charles got a Green! I’ve been dying to get a Green. Why can’t I get a Green?”

Peter frowns, tearing apart his biscuit and slathering it in way too much apple jam. “Get a Green? Is that a...money laundering code?”

Jake snaps his fingers, intrigued. “No, but it should be!” He pauses, making a note in his phone. “See, we have this thing going on down at the precinct called Cluedo Catch -”

“Cluedo Catch?” Peter mimics. Michelle can practically see the gears turning in his head. Jake had offhandedly mentioned it back when Peter dropped her home after the crowbar incident and she had prayed Peter wouldn’t bring it up and get sucked into the game’s details.

Because it sounds exactly like something Spider-Man would be interested in.

“It’s been going on for months-” Amy adds. “But the premise is simple. Just like there’s six Clue characters, you need six perps to win. All of them have to have colors in their names and each has to have a different weapon and location. Doesn’t have to be murder.”

“But it can be!”

Michelle’s right. Peter is very interested. He’s already leaning forward, both elbows on the table. “So who’s winning?”

Jake smiles triumphantly, while Amy pouts. “I am! Well, me and Rosa are tied. She got a guy named Mr. Brown for assault in a bodega with a knife last week.”

“What are the rules?” Peter goes on to ask and Michelle resists the urge to pinch him. “Like, first or last names -”

“Either.” Jake says with a shrug. “Sticking to one or the other sounded a little too difficult. Maybe when I win this round we’ll bump up the stakes, make it harder, but for now, both.” He leans forward, matching Peter’s position of elbows on the table, and holds up his hand, four fingers shown. “So far I got Violet with a hammer in the warehouse,” he taps his index finger. “Goldberg with the bat in the field,” Second finger. "Blackwood with the toaster in the kitchen -”

“Toaster? What the -”

“Don’t ask. And then White with the lamp in the apartment. I just need two more.” He looks down at his phone with another pout. “And Green just seemed so easy!”

“So theoretically,” Peter’s eyes flicker over to their waitress. Indigo with the green hair. “You could cuff our waitress.”

“If she were to come over and hit me over the head with that scalding coffee pot then yes, absolutely.” He pauses, clearly thinking over the scenario. “Kinda wish she would. Bet it would be worth it.” He pauses again, shaking his head. “No, no. That’ll hurt.” Another pause. Then a wide grin. “Nah, it’d be worth it!”

With a joking smile, Peter puts two fingers in his mouth like he’s about to whistle for her attention before Michelle reaches over and yanks his hand back, holding it down on the table with her own.

“I think the guy who mugged me might be a better target,” Michelle says.

All three of them perk up at the mention of her assaulter, each throwing out their own question at the same time.

“Wait, do you remember something-”

“Does that mean you know what happened -”

“When did you figure out who he was -”

Michelle blinks, overwhelmed. “No. I just meant. Hypothetically. You already got the last part: Crowbar in the alley. His name could be…” she flounders, trying to think of a name. “...Redford.”

“Redford?” Amy smiles. “Like, Robert Redford?”

She snorts, throwing up the hand that isn’t holding Peter’s in defeat. “You never know. Maybe he’s turned to a life of crime.”

Peter’s never outright mentioned it, but she knows that the mugger that clocked her getting away has really bothered him. Ned’s told her he’s been focusing more of his patrols in Brooklyn around the same place where she had been robbed. He’s not exactly going full on Neeson or whatever, but the stony expression on his face right then and there is enough to tug at Michelle’s heart. Unlike her, who has accepted what’s happened and come to terms with the fact that she had to get a new license picture, Peter won’t just let it go. He thinks just because he’s a superhero, the weight of New York is on his shoulders.

Or maybe it’s more just an Uncle Ben thing. They never caught his uncle’s killer, either.

“Hey,” Peter whispers, pulling her out of her thoughts. His hand is massaging gently at the spot where she got hit the other week . Jake and Amy are watching her closely. “Lost you for a sec. You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Michelle promises. She takes his hand out of her hair but she meets him halfway and lets him hold hers underneath the table. “Don’t fret.”

“Can’t help it,” he mumbles. “He’s still out there. And I mean, after what happened with Ben…”

Definitely an Uncle Ben thing.

“Ben?” Jake asks. “Who’s Ben? Did this crowbar hack get someone else?”

Peter’s expression is that of guilt, like he knows he’s about to absolutely destroy the light-hearted mood of this outing. Though, to be fair, Michelle kind of did that with the mention of the crowbar dude. Or maybe it was just Charles’ stupid Cluedo Catch text that started it all.

“No, no. Ben’s my uncle,” Peter says. “He, uh…” A wince. “He died.”

“Oh,” Amy says softly. “I’m sorry, Peter.”

But Jake is still frowning, brow furrowed, and asks, “How did he die?” Because Jake is a cop and that question always follows he died in his day to day conversations, even if it is crass.

“Mugging. The guy, uh, shot him.”

Finally Jake’s expression softens, putting the broken pieces of conversation together. “And no one ever caught him.”

Peter shakes his head, eyes on the table.

Michelle squeezes his hand.

“It’s….” Peter purses his lips before running his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “I…”

He never does finish what he’s going to say.

But luckily the food comes, mimosas are poured, and Jake brings the energy back be declaring that if Robert Redford was a criminal, he’d go by the alias The Sundancer. Brunch proceeds without incident - until Peter insists on paying (with Tony’s credit card, no doubt) and an entertaining battle of Who’s The Real Adult proceeds.

And the whole time, Michelle doesn’t let go of his hand.

“Sorry if I made brunch weird.”

She cups the coffee that Peter hands her with both hands - black, splash of cream - and offers him a shrug in return. “It was bound to be weird with you there,” she teases, but she doesn’t let the joke fester for too long. “But, really. You didn’t. It’s okay. Jake and Amy are….used to crime. It’s literally their job.”

Peter flashes her a pearly white smile before taking a loud sip of his hot chocolate, just to annoy her. “We have that in common.”

Cluedo Catch flashes at the front of her mind. “Please tell me you aren’t going to help them with their dumb game.”

He takes a long stride, leaping in front of her and causing the people next to them on the sidewalk to avoid a collision. “Aw, come on!” He’s grinning at her, walking backwards, dodging every single obstacle and person with what he’s dubbed his spidey sense. “It's no different from what I normally do.”

She cocks a brow and spins him around, forcing him to walk by her side again. “Are you going to start asking for license and registration for every petty thief you stop?”

“It’s not petty when that kid really loves her Elsa and Anna bike, okay. I’m a hero.”

With a roll of her eyes, she relents. There’s really no use denying his heroism when he’s literally saved lives. “Just be careful, really.” She snorts. “You start sniffing out names someone’s gonna try to sniff out yours.”

Peter seems to really take her words into consideration, thank Christ. “Good point.”

“Are you insinuating I’ve made bad points.”

“Of course not. You’ve never made a bad point in your life.” He leans over and gives her cheek a quick kiss before he goes back to his walking-backwards, dodging-everything game. “I’ll just do more patrols in Brooklyn, closer to his precinct. Maybe he’ll get lucky.”

They stop at a crosswalk. It’s familiar, slapped with a sticker that she remembers from the night Peter carried her to the hospital. “He’s not a beat cop. He gets assigned cases. Not Elsa and Anna bike thieves.”

“Ah, well.” The light turns green and they start to walk. “You never know. I’ll stick around, see what comes up.”

They keep walking until they both find themselves standing at the entrance of the alleyway where Michelle was mugged.

“I don’t even remember what he looked like,” Michelle mumbles around the rim of her coffee cup. “Don’t go on some wild goose chase.”

Peter heaves a heavy sigh before he reaches over and pries one of her hands off her coffee so he can hold it. “I won’t. I’ve learned my lesson.” A pause. “I never told you what really happened,” he says, tone like he’s just realizing this himself.

Michelle looks over at him, waiting.

“I’d been... bitten. Only for a few weeks, but I was starting to get...the hang of things, so to speak.” He sighs and the cup in his hand crumples just a little, bits of hot chocolate spilling over onto the lid. “And that night, Ben and I had gotten into a huge fight. Stupid, but man were we both mad. I stormed out, didn’t come back for curfew. I was testing out more web combinations, but you know...he didn’t know that. He still thought I was wimpy with bad vision and asthma. He didn’t know I could take care of myself. So he went looking for me. He crossed paths with the wrong guy and…” Peter sighs again, a little more exasperated, a little less solemn. The cup of hot chocolate in his hand trembles. “I wasn’t there to stop it. I heard the gunshot, came running but...it was too late.”

“You were there.” She blinks, processing. “Did you see...well, did you see the guy who -”

“Briefly.” Peter sighs. “I told the police what I saw: blonde hair. A weird looking tattoo on the back of his neck. I mean, I can see it perfectly in my mind but I just...I couldn’t describe it. And that’s it. That’s all I had. And it wasn’t enough. For the cops or...for me. I looked for him for a few weeks but…” Peter trails off and downs the rest of his drink.

Michelle has always known that Ben was shot. She’s known his killer was at large. But she didn’t know that Peter had found him, seconds too late. She didn’t know he was already, in a sense, Spider-Man, even if he hadn’t donned the homemade outfit yet.

God, that’s rough.

“Is Ben why…?”

“Why I became...” He trails off, the name unsaid. She nods. “Yeah. He is. I should have been there, plain and simple. And now he’s still out there doing God knows what to other people -”

“-You don’t know that -”

His voice turns to steel. “When you can do the things that I can do, and you don't, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you.”

Michelle frowns, almost snarling. “That’s... not true. You can’t stop everything, even whey you are out there trying.”

He starts to drop her hand, but she holds it tight.

“Hey,” she emphasizes, forcing him to look at her when she tugs his hand, spinning him to face him. “I mean it. If that’s your goddamn written credo carved in stone, it’s gonna get you killed.”

Peter looks slightly startled as his gaze snaps up to hers.

She squeezes his hand tight, just to get her point across. “If you chant your fault in your head all the time you’re gonna end up with worse guilt complex than Stark . That can’t happen. Do you understand?”

“MJ,” he says, and for a name so short, it seems to take forever for it to fall from his tongue. “I-”

But Michelle isn’t having any of his nonsense, not today. “Do you understand?” she repeats, and she hates that her voice pitches up in fear, fear for him. Spider-Man and Peter Parker are all mushed together now, no longer separate entities that she entertains being one in the same until he one day, spills the beans. The edges of his identities are constantly bleeding into one another and when he takes a deep breath, the hitch of pain isn’t there anymore. Peter’s ribs are healing because he’s Spider-Man and if he thinks he’s just so invincible, he’ll….he’ll.

Her mind turns to mush. It’s not something she’s used to.

“Yes,” he finally says. His expression is….hard to read. Blank, but...not. Peter once described her face as such. She didn’t get it at first but now, she kinda does. “I understand.”

“Good.”

“With great power comes great responsibility.” He says, giving her a slanted smile. “How’s that one?”

She lets out a deep, frustrated breath she didn’t even realize she was holding. More or less, the same as what he said, but less ridden with guilt. “Better.” She nods, clutching her own coffee tighter. “That one’s better.”

“Uncle Ben said that to me.”

Another deep breath. Her shoulders start to sag and she relaxes. “If you’re gonna carve anything in stone, I’d go with that.”

“Aye, aye, Captain Decathlon.”

“That again? Really? Are you really going to make that a thing.”

“Yup.”

When she gives the umpteenth sigh between them, Peter’s laughter finally returns, and he leans over to gently flick at the dangling chains in her hairpin. “Now. Do you want to come with me to Goodwill to pick out Spidey Instagram outfits?”

“Do I get to pick out the outfits.”

“Duh, that’s the entire appeal in the idea.”

She cracks a rare grin, shiny teeth and everything. “You’re damn right it is.”

“Pick a crystal.”

From her place on Ned’s bedroom floor, Michelle looks up and glances at his computer screen. He’s sitting on the bed, his comforter wrapped around him like a cocoon. He’s got the screen split, half up on Buzzfeed, the other a bunch of code and numbers and maps that are tracking Peter and keeping in touch with Karen. He fiddles with the earpiece in his head before Michelle gives her answer. “Black Tourmaline.”

Click. “Okay…” Ned scrolls down. “What color is your aura?”

She frowns, blindly reaching over for the Rubik cube she knows that Peter left before he went on patrol. “Isn’t that bullshit supposed to be something someone else tells you?” With the hand not holding the cube, she messes with her own earpiece. “Spidey, what color is my aura?”

“Uhhh,” his voice is a little breathless and she can hear the wind howling around him, the soft thwip of his webs, as he swings from building to building. “Yellow.”

He sounds strangely confident. “Why yellow.”

“May said that once,” and Michelle rolls her eyes. There’s a click and Ned moves on to the next question.

“Where would you feel most yourself….” She can see the choices are wordy and plenty, so Ned skips it and picks for her. “Hah. Big library, duh.” Can’t argue with that. “Pick a quote that speaks to you.”

“Anything Peter says in his terrible Brooklyn accent.”

“Hey.” Peter whines from the comms.

Ned’s laughing, though. “From the list.”

“Oh,” she says, feigning ignorance. She looks at her choices before she starts fiddling with the Rubik cube. “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”

“Spoken like a true future president of the United States.” Peter says.

“Bold of you to assume there will be a government left for MJ to be president of,” and Michelle reaches over to give Ned a fist bump cause, hell, he’s right. “Okay and done….your tarot card is….Death.” He lets out a whistle. “Damn.”

Michelle snorts. Peter squeaks.

“That’s not a good omen!” he cries, and Michelle can hear his feet hitting some sort of rooftop.

“They aren’t omens. The Death card doesn’t mean I’m going to die, dumbass.” She starts to peel the stickers off his Rubik cube and move them around. “It’s a symbol of change, rebirth, and adaptation.”

“Oh.” He instantly sounds satisfied. “So when I took it and it said The Fool -”

“Don’t be mistaken. You’re a fool.”

“Definitely a fool.”

He sighs loudly over the comms, static tickling in her ear before he give in to the teasing and huffs out a laugh. “Fair enough.”

There’s a loud whack followed by some unintelligible shouting.

“Shit,” Peter swears. “Gotta go. Karen, offline.” and he cuts them off.

Some of Ned’s screen goes black and he pouts, adjusting his tabs so their dumb Buzzfeed quizzes are all that are left. He smothers his laughter behind a fist as he watches her carefully swap out a blue sticker for a red one. “He’s gonna figure it out.”

“Not,” she says slowly, “With my precision.”

“You’re going to ruin him. He’s gonna think his brain is melting.”

“That’s the idea.”

Her phone buzzes with a text message and she finally sits all the way up, grabbing her phone where it’s tangled in a blanket by her feet.

      Emmmmmjaaaaaay late night at the 9-9 didn’t eat dinner bring pizza 4 everyone Charles will pay you back love you <3 <3 <3

She sighs just as Ned scrambles to lean over the bed and read over her shoulder. “Jake! Can we go? I want to meet Jake.”

“Why?” she asks, tone bland. But she’s already Google mapping the closest open pizza shop and placing an order. Even though she hasn’t been a part of Ned and Peter’s little Spidey Adventures over the comms for very long, they already make her a little nervous - especially when he mutes them. It’s not his fault, he just has to concentrate, but the stupid, emotion-filled part of her brain doesn’t know that. She needs a distraction. “What toppings do you want?”

“Anything but olives.” And Michelle jokingly hits olives on the virtual pizza before Ned reaches over and flicks her on the head to make her change it back. “And Jake seems super cool! Peter’s told me a little about him. He says he has a really old car that he wants to fix.”

“It’s unfixable,” she stresses before she searches her room for Peter’s borrowed jacket that he left on the floor before he suited up and slipped out the window. His wallet is still there, and she has no qualms about temporarily snitching the black credit card that she knows for a fact is billed to Tony Stark and using it to buy the pizzas. “You’ll soon find out.”

“How?”

She takes out her keys that were also in Peter’s jacket - she let him drive them over to Ned’s which had been a terrible idea. “Jake and Amy carpool. They let me drive his car. Do you know how to drive stick?”

“Nope!”

“Cool,” she tosses him the keys. “Time to learn.”

“Alright!”

Michelle only lets Ned drive the car to the pizza place because yikes. She really didn’t think there was a way to ruin her uncle’s car any further, but you learn something new every day. Instead, she tasks him with guarding the piping hot pizzas in his lap while she drives them over the bridge to the precinct.

Ned is practically bouncing with anticipation as they walk into the precinct, each with two pizzas in their hands. Her uncle greets her immediately as soon as the elevator opens in the bullpen, jumping out of his chair and smacking one of his co-workers in the face in the process.

“Yes! You brought the pizzas!” Michelle simply shrugs in response and walks over to set them down on his desk.  “You’re a lifesaver. I think I might have starved without you.”

“Uber Eats is a thing that exists.”

“Yeah, well.” He pauses to open the top box and stuff half a piece of meat lover’s pizza in his mouth. “No one believed I had a niece, so I thought it would be a nice time to prove Gina’s wrong!”

A piece of half-eaten pepperoni flies out of his mouth. Gross.

“I believed you, Jake!” Charles’ cries, but the whole squad pretty much ignores him sans Jake, who answers his high five with his elbow.

From her desk, Gina heaves a heavy sigh. “Man, you eat Fruit Loops with chocolate milk and a ladle, you expected me to believe someone out there gave you temporary guardianship of their teenager?”

Unfortunately, Michelle has witnessed the cereal escapades, despite Amy’s attempts to prevent it. Gina has a valid point. But alas, “Well, I’m real.” Jake continues to eat with his mouth open and she feels the need to stress, “Half-niece, he did say half-niece, right?”

“Don’t worry, we know about his AncestryDNA adventures,” a detective says from the kitchen. Michelle recognizes her from her leather jacket as Rosa. She turns around, cup of coffee in her hand and offers both her and Ned a slight tilt of her chin. “‘Sup.”

Ned’s in love, Michelle can tell. Honestly, she isn't far behind. But before Michelle can remind both of them of the stupidities of love at first sight, Jake and Amy’s Captain, Holt, comes out of his office, demanding their attention.

“Listen up. A police van overturned -”

“Again!?” Jake cries.

“ - and four fugitives have escaped. Two arsonists, One for forgery and counterfeiting, and the last one…”

Jake has two fingers crossed on both hands. “Homicide, homicide, homicide -”

“Triple homicide.”

“So cool.” And half the precinct turns to give him a wary look. “I mean the higher stakes avenging. Not the murder part. Murder ain’t cool, kids.”

“Right,” Holt says, glancing down at his papers. “His name is Elvis Pink -”

The bullpen collectively gasps.

“Pink,” Charles whispers.

“But does it count,” Rosa asks, looking to Gina, the official Judge of their stupid game. “If they’ve already been brought in?”

“I’m going to allow it,” Gina says, using a stapler as a gavel. “For this special circumstance. Whoever brings in Elvis Pink -”

“Terrible name,” Michelle mumbles under her breath.

“Wins the game!” Ned mumbles heh that rhymed.

Amy raises her hand like she’s in class. “Actually, the most it could give someone is five, not six.”

“Amy. Please. You’re killing the fun.”

Captain Holt looks like he’s way too used to these kinds of shenanigans. “Regardless, it’s our job to bring them in. This is a manhunt. Get on it.”

It takes maybe three and a half seconds before Jake and Charles both shout, “DIBS ON THE SPIDEY-SIGNAL,” and bolt outside to where they’ve moved the stupid spider-shaped lamp of a creation.

“Spidey Signal!?” Ned shouts. “Oh, I gotta see this,” and he’s right on their tail, Jake and Charles welcoming him with open arms into what is just another chapter of the Spider-Man Fan Club. Michelle has no doubt that with Ned’s help, that Spidey Signal might actually work.

She still shoots Peter a text, discreetly, warning him of the manhunt in Brooklyn, because she figures he’s here anyhow.

      I see it!!! I see the Spidey Signal!!!! And don’t worry, I’m on it. Stay inside <3

Michelle holds her phone up to take a selfie, making it clear that she’s at the precinct. She tries to get part of Rosa in the picture before she takes one of Ned, Jake, and Charles out on the terrace, going on about their Spidey Signal.

Peter replies fairly quickly.

      Stay there until they catch them

Michelle’s feeling a bit cheeky, so she texts, Or you catch them.

      We catch them. Teamwork makes the dream work, Peter amends. #NineNineSpidey

What a loser. She adds,  

      One of the fugitives is a Cluedo Catch target

Her phone blows up.

      What!!?? No way!

      That’s crazy I can’t believe I actually get to play

      Not that crime is a game. Crime is bad.

      Very bad.

      Oh my god both Jake and Amy are playing who do I help?

      I mean I’ll catch him no matter what but like, if I get to help

      If I hand him off to one of them

      Who do I

      Help

She rolls her eyes before giving him something that'll hopefully solve his problems.

      I won’t hear the end of it if Jake loses

It does.

      Got it. #TeamPeralta it is

“Alright!” Jake announces as he walks back in. He goes to his desk and starts to collect his things, just as Rosa heads for the elevator. “I’m off to save the day! Be back -”

“Jake,” Amy interrupts. She pointedly slides her eyes over to Michelle. “Did you forget something?”

Luckily, he picks up the cue immediately. “Oh, right. I’m responsible for a child. MJ. Uhh….” He’s clearly at a loss at what to do. There hasn’t been a night where both Jake and Amy haven’t come home at night since she’s been staying with them. “Gina? You could go with Gina?”

“She isn’t going anywhere,” Captain Holt says. “No one is. Surrounding blocks are being evacuated. She’ll stay here until the men are brought in.”

“Right! That’s an excellent, excellent plan, Captain. You’ll stay here!” He grabs one last piece of pizza from the box before he runs over and kisses her on top of the head (and dropping a piece of pineapple in her hair in the process) “Everything’s gonna be okay,” he promises. “I’ll be back soon.”

She nods mutely, suddenly too aware of the dangers of Jake’s job as well. But she doesn’t feel so nervous. Sure, Peter’s got super strength but Jake’s got years of academy training to do this job. It didn’t fall into his lap.

“Say hi to Spidey for me,” she says, picking out the pineapple out of her hair.

“SPIDER-MAN!” both Charles and Jake do an impressive high five as they file into the elevator, Amy on their tail.

The precinct falls very, very quiet. That is, until Gina speaks up.

“Hey, you two.” She gestures to Michelle and Ned with a stylus. Her eyes are on her phone. “Want to help me win this HQ game? I’ll split the money with you, 80 -20.”

“80-20.”

“Fine, 90-10. Final offer.”

But both Ned and Michelle don’t really mind. They love trivia and she’s got Tony Stark’s credit card in her pocket so it’s not like she’s short on cash. “Sure,” Ned answers for the both of them. “We love trivia. MJ’s the captain of our academic decathlon team.”

Decathlon Team gets Holt’s attention and before they know it the four of them are crowded around Gina’s desk answering trivia questions until it devolves back into Buzzfeed quizzes about terrible Would You Rathers (that Holt refuses to answer in their ridiculousness) and questionnaires about which cryptid they are. (Ned got the Mothman, Gina got Nessie, Michelle got the Chupacabra and Holt the Yeti).

They even help choose filters for the next post on SpideyOf NYC Instagram which, of course, had been started and is run by Gina.

Ned’s in the middle of choosing the right filter for Spider-Man’s Adidas pants look when Amy returns first with a perp, followed shortly by Rosa with another. Michelle notices that they’re both covered in webs. But it’s Jake that comes in with the coveted Elvis Pink, cuffed in spider webs.

Oh, and, Spider-Man himself.

Michelle’s a little surprised that Peter just...walked into a police precinct. Willingly. There’s no warrant for his arrest or anything, but he’s always been wary. The police haven’t always been fond of him.

But she’s not the one with the Spidey Sense. If Peter trusts Jake, he trusts Jake.

“Attention everyone!” Jake announces, but it’s pretty pointless. Spider-Man shows up and people tend to crowd. “I just thought I’d let you know that I, Jake Peralta, just took down a wanted fugitive with -” He pauses for dramatic flair and points two finger guns at Peter, who strikes a pose. “Spider-Man! This is officially the coolest day in my career. I feel like I just drank ten cups of coffee. Can adrenaline kill you? Can it give you a heart attack?” He looks around, grin manic, but shrugs off his questions easily enough. “Ah, who needs vital organs, Spidey’s here!” He jumps a little as Charles appears next to him and the two of them, along with Peter, seem to fall into some silly half-choreographed sway.

And then they start to sing.

“Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can. Spins a web, any size, catches thieves - just like flies. Look out! Here comes the Spider-maaaaaaan!” They all finish, throwing out jazz hands.

No one claps, but Jake doesn’t seem deterred.

“Came up with it in the car. I’m a genius, life is a gift, I’m a real life sidekick and we’re getting celebratory - ummm, Ames, do you have any cash?”

“Uh-huh!”

“- celebratory beers!”

Peter finally breaks, laughing a little. “Sorry man,” he says in that charming little Brooklyn accent. “Gotta run.”

“Alright! Rain check!” Jake cheers, offering his hand in a high five. Peter slaps it a little too hard - her uncle visibly tries not to cry out or wince. “See you around, Spidey.”

“Bye guys!” Peter calls, walking towards the door to the outside terrace where there’s a balcony he can swing off. He points to the holding cells with the perps and calls, “Bye Mr. Criminals!” Then he looks right at Michelle and oh God that idiot is gonna say something stupid.

He does. “Bye Pretty Girl!”

Ugh, Pretty Girl. Michelle could punch him.

“Oh my god, Spider-Man called you pretty,” Gina says after Peter takes a dive off the building. “Girl, get it.”

Jake, however, is standing ramrod straight, his hand hanging awkwardly in the air. “This is still the coolest night of my career and I regret absolutely nothing but I think Spider-Man broke my hand.”

“Awesome,” Charles breathes and Ned expresses similar sentiments.

Before she can even consider checking if Peter actually breaks her hand, her phone pings from the man-of-the-hour himself.

That theme song just made my entire life I’m asking Mr. Stark if we can record it

Michelle grabs a slice of cold pizza and tries not to think about how this is her life.

“Did I really break Jake’s hand?”

Michelle pays Peter no mind as he lays down face first, straight as a board, into his bottom bunk mattress. Her Decathlon notes are far more interesting. “A group of owls is called a what?”

Peter’s scream is muffled by the pillow. “A parliament,” he eventually answers. “I can’t believe I broke his hand with a high five . I’ve never done that before.” He peels his face from the pillow and she can feel his eyes on the back of her neck. “Does he know I’m sorry? Tell him Spider-Man’s sorry.”

“Oh my god,” Michelle grumbles. “He’s fine. And you didn’t break it you just….bruised it. What’s the only sea on Earth with no coastline?”

“Sargasso.” He groans again. “I’m such an idiot.”

“No, that answer was correct,” she says, and Peter throws a pillow at her. “Hey, watch that arm. Heard it breaks people’s hands and shit.”

“MJ, ” he whines. “It’s not funny!”

“Sure it is.”

There’s a soft thwip as Peter hooks a web to the back of his swivel chair and spins her around. “Look at me I’m sad,” he pouts.

“You’re a child,” she rolls her eyes. “What is the heaviest naturally occurring element on Earth?”

“Uranium.” His eyes take a mischievous shine and he pulls the chair closer with his webs until the chair bangs against his bed. “What five letter word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it?”

“I- seriously?”

“If you don’t know the answer, I will gladly take up the title of Captain Decathlon.”

It takes her a moment. But just a moment. “Short.” She pokes his cheek and crawls onto the bed, mindful of the top bunk, and settle beside him.  “In 1796 Edward Jenner developed the vaccination for what disease.”

“Cooties,” he leans forward and pecks her on the lips.

“Smallpox,” she corrects, even though she suspects he knew the answer. He usually does.

“Same thing. What sort of birthday cake do ghosts prefer?”

“Stop it.”

He flicks at the chains in her barrette. “I’m waaaaaaiting.”

She can’t come up with an answer to his corny joke. “I don’t know.”

“An I Scream cake.”

Michelle starts to crawl off the bed. “I’m leaving.”

Peter cackles and grabs her by the waist, gently pulling her back towards him. “No, don’t leave! I need more Decathlon practice.”

“You aren’t even listening.”

“Sure I am! Owls and uranium and smallpox oh my.”

“Peter -”

The door to his bedroom, half-closed, squeaks all the way open to reveal May in a tired apron and an equally tired smile. “MJ, sweetie, Jake’s here to pick you up.”

Ever since her mugging incident, Jake hasn’t allowed her to get from Queens to Brooklyn without a car or an adult which, fair. But it doesn’t make it any less embarrassing or stressful though to know he walked all the way up just to say hello to May and Peter.

Peter’s still ashamed of what he did and refuses to come out in fear of messing everything up. As she gets up to collect her things he leans off his bed, putting his palms together in a praying motion. Tell him I’m sorrrryyyyy he mouths and Michelle decides that maybe she will, especially when she sees him reach for the Rubik cube she messed with a few days ago.

Let the brain melting commence.

“You make excellent turkey meatloaf,” She hears Jake say as she walks into the Parkers’ kitchen, shrugging on her coat. “MJ!” he says around a piece of said meatloaf. She’s surprised he can swallow it. Peter’s a superhuman and he couldn’t even do it. “Ready?”

As soon as they bid their goodbyes and close the door behind them, her uncle more or less spits up in his (bruised and bandaged) hand. “Icky,” he spits, sounding much too like a five year old. “Turkey meatloaf should not be a thing.”

He wipes his spit-covered hands on the back of his jeans and it’s all Michelle can think about as they get into his old, disgusting Mustang. She hopes Amy has common sense to tuck away napkins or wet wipes in the glove compartment, but when she opens it all she find are files.

NYPD files.

Jake’s too busy in the telling of his tale of the time Hitchcock drank his own goldfish to notice her thumbing through the files. Of course, it’s stuff she doesn’t recognize, cases that are none of her business .

But then she does see a name she recognizes.

Ben Parker.

“What is this?” she asks.

Jake looks over and yelps, snatching the files and putting them in his lap. “Don’t look in there! It’s rated R!”

“I don’t care about-” she stops and sighs. “Why are you looking at Ben Parker’s case?”

This time Jake sighs, fingers drumming on the wheel and eyes decidedly on the road ahead, avoiding her. “I just wanted to see if anyone had missed anything, that’s all.”

God, he’s no better than Peter, in some respect. A part of her wants nothing more than to tell her about Spider-Man’s wild goose chase for justice: if he can't find him, the person with more motive than anyone else, how could he? But she can’t do that. Instead, she asks: “Did you find anything?”

She knows the answer. But it still stings when she hears it. “No. Not yet.”

Not yet. Peter’s saying of When you can do what I can and you don't, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you echoes in her mind. She wonders how often Jake feels responsible for letting cases go unsolved. “You don’t seem like the type to accept cold cases, huh.”

Jake’s laugh is a little bitter. “I can. I just have to be the one to….declare it cold, I guess.”

Michelle stares at the files, itching to go through them, to read the parts that Peter will never tell her. “I don’t think you’re gonna find anything.”

“It’s...a small file.” Jake admits. “But I haven’t exhausted every theory yet.”

It feels pointless. Painful, even, to go hunting for answers that’ll lead to nothing but dead end after dead end. But she still feels a renewed energy in her heart knowing that after all this time, even after Peter gave up, that someone’s still looking to right a wrong. It goes against what she said about deadly, all-consuming guilt complexes bringing one down. But then again, if the warm feeling in her chest is anything to go by, maybe it’s not all guilt. Maybe it’s -

“Don’t give up hope,” Jake finally looks over at her and smiles, just a little.

Hope. Maybe sometimes it’s just hope.

She can’t always differentiate. But maybe Jake can. Maybe Peter can. That’s why they’re the ones keeping New York safe.

“Thanks, Uncle Jake,” she whispers. “For looking.”

“No problem, Em. Now, do you want ice cream? All this cold case talk has me dreaming of a scoop of Stark Raving Hazelnuts .”

“Murder cases make you want ice cream?”

“Look, being a cop is weird, okay? You want ice cream or not?”

She kinda does. Especially since Peter told that terrible ghost joke. “Yeah. Yeah I do.” She pauses. “You think they’ll ever make a flavor after Spider-Man?”

“Do I!?”  Jake cries, already shifting lanes to find a Ben & Jerry’s. “Ohhhhh they will. They have to! I’ve sent suggestions. Cinnamon flavored called Spin-A-Web Buns is definitely the best idea I’ve ever come up with. Ever.”

“That’s...pretty good,” she admits. So good, she texts Peter about it.

She gets a reply not three minutes later.

      KSGNHKHGSKHG MR. STARK IS CALLING BEN & JERRY’S AS WE SPEAK

Michelle really, really can’t believe this is her life.