Chapter Text
MJ walks into school and notices Ned and Peter talking by their locker. It’s late and it’s quiet and there are not many people around. Peter lifts his shirt partially up and even from several yards away, MJ can see the road rash across his torso – he looks like he was dragged down a gravel road.
Ned exclaims in sympathy and Peter laughs and pulls his shirt down.
And MJ mentally adds the scene to her spreadsheet.
Here’s the deep, dark secret about MJ aka Michelle Jones.
She’s not cool and detached and snarky … she’s socially inept. At least that’s the unofficial diagnosis that has followed her through school from elementary to middle school to her previous high school.
She says stupid things.
She misreads the situation.
She covers by saying that she is just messing with people, but deep down, she wonders what is wrong with her that she cannot figure out normal human interaction.
She hasn’t had a close friend since grade four.
Then she transfers to Midtown Tech High, which is a school for high achieving nerdy kids who specialize in STEM. And there are kids here with learning disabilities, and ADHD, and some are on the spectrum … and the school body just … accepts that some kids are weird and different.
So when Michelle is sharp and sarcastic, people shrug and take her at face value – she’s just being herself.
It’s weird.
Liz Toomes is friendly to her which makes Michelle deeply suspicious because Liz is everything that any teenager wants to be – rich, tall, beautiful (NO acne on her!), smart … and yet surprisingly nice.
Liz invites Michelle to participate in the decathlon and Michelle says no. She says ‘no’ three times before finally giving in.
“Good!” says Liz brightly. “We need more smart girls on the team.”
It’s because she’s on the team and she’s watching Liz that she notices Peter, who is after all, just a guy. An ordinary, dweeby, nerd.
In the immortal words of one of Michelle’s heroes, the feisty Anne Shirley – Peter Parker is ‘clean gone’ on Liz.
He trips over his feet in her presence.
He zones out staring at her and has to be poked into paying attention.
He’s super smart, but sometimes gets flustered when Liz is too close.
Michelle kind of pities him.
But Michelle prides herself on being a detached observer so she’s probably the first one to notice that Peter Parker has a secret. A different, not-crush-on-the-pretty-girl secret. Something … weirder.
Like how often he gets hurt – and how quickly he heals. The nasty road rash is little more than a fading bruise the day after Michelle notices it.
One day he’s wearing sunglasses to mask a spectacular black eye and the next day, he’s fine.
Michelle is worried that he’s being abused, but she’s also baffled by how quickly the bruises and cuts vanish.
Flash is swooning over Spider-man and Liz admits to a crush. Michelle watches Ned give Peter a quiet fist bump under the table and she’s immediately suspicious.
Her first assumption is that the masked crusader isn’t real – maybe these two nerds photoshopped scenes from a B-movie and uploaded them to YouTube.
But everyone is Queens has a story about their local hero. Too many people have met him for the story to be a prank.
Michelle starts a spreadsheet to identify what Liz does that makes her so socially … competent.
And a separate spreadsheet to figure out Peter’s secret.
She’s watching Ned and Peter when another classmate is telling an elaborate story of how Spider-man saved her from muggers and walked her home and flirted with her. Everyone else is captivated by the story, but Michelle sees Ned poke Peter and make an inquiring face and Peter give a mini shake of his head.
Huh. So clearly the story isn’t entirely accurate, but how did Ned know that Peter would know?
She starts a spreadsheet to figure out who Spider-man is.
It takes her no time at all to realize that Spider-man’s schedule is connected to high school – he’s more active on weekends and evenings and school holidays. And not just any high school, but he’s weirdly synchronized with Midtown High.
When a small fire in the chemistry lab closes the school unexpectedly for a few days, Spider-man is out and about during those days even though other high schools are obviously in session. During exam week, he is oddly scarce.
A teacher?
Michelle considers the options and rejects her theory – there is NO teacher at Midtown high cool enough to be Spider-man.
A student then?
She’s not obsessed, but she ends up watching A LOT of footage of Spider-man and she has to admit that he has that loose-limbed, gangly walk of a lot of teenaged boys. He bounces on the balls of his feet and fidgets. Sometimes he can be seen scrolling through his phone. There’s something familiar and endearing about him.
One day, she’s watching out a window of the school and sees Peter JUMP from the top of the bleachers to the ground as easily as if he were stepping over a pole on the ground.
She notices that when he’s asked to clean up the weights after gym class, he slings them around as if they weigh nothing.
A stray thought buzzes through her brain like a mosquito and she brushes it away. But it persists.
What if …?
She’s a woman of science and she trusts data so she starts to conduct more research. Part of this means actually talking to dweeb 1 and dweeb 2 – aka Ned and Peter. They seem a little taken aback by her conversational overtures.
Perhaps Liz would not have started with “Hey losers.”
But they share a number of classes, plus the decathlon so there are plenty of opportunities to get together and study. Or talk about their favourite movies.
She’s been watching Liz who is super sweet and nice. Liz listens to people even when they’re talking about things that aren’t her favourite thing.
MJ takes notes.
Liz asks questions and nods and pays attention to people – even those who aren’t her close friends.
MJ tries out this novel approach on Ned and Peter.
She asks them what they’re interested in.
The boys are actually not totally terrible. They make space for her at their table. They ask her what she’s reading and they actually seem to listen when she explains the college-level theories on feminism and colonialism that she’s working on.
They settle into a kind of easy companionship – not quite friendship, but something.
“I’m going to the comic book store,” Ned announces one day. “Want to come with?”
“Can’t,” Peter says briskly. “Internship.”
“Course,” Ned barely avoids rolling his eyes.
Michelle watches.
“What about you?” Ned asks her. “Want to join me?”
“What?” she asks, startled. She didn’t think she was that close a friend.
“He’s busy,” Ned points out. “And we can get tea or coffee after. If you want”
MJ knows that Liz would say ‘yes’.
MJ hesitates.
Ned shrugs. “No pressure.”
“Sure,” she agrees.
Twenty minutes later as they are walking along the street, they see the familiar red costumed figure in the sky.
She gets invited over to their houses to watch movies, play a little D&D, and fight some video game battles. Peter’s aunt May is an absolute sweetheart so MJ stops worrying that Peter is being beaten at home.
Although he’s still showing up to school with unexplained injuries.
Sometimes they go to Ned’s house since Ned is an eldest brother and is often responsible for his younger siblings.
Sometimes Peter is late; sometimes he fails to show up. MJ is learning that if you want to be friends with Peter, you have to tolerate that he is flaky and somewhat unreliable. But always VERY apologetic when he misses something.
MJ tracks Twitter to see when Spider-man is most active. She compares her spreadsheets.
The facts are hinting at a bizarre conclusion.
Spider-man gets shot (it’s on the news) and the next day Peter is limping.
Peter sometimes falls asleep in class. He’s smart enough to answer most questions in class easily, but gets into trouble for not completing his homework.
He blames his fatigue on his internship.
MJ does research and learns that high school students aren’t eligible to apply for Stark internships. When she asks Peter for an explanation, he splutters and mutters something about being offered a ‘special’ internship. He never tells her what he actually does at or even specifically where he works.
He misses a day of school and MJ learns from Twitter that Spider-man got blasted out of a window, but crawled back and webbed up two would-be bank robbers.
By the time they go to Washington, Michelle is about 80-90% sure that Peter Parker IS spider-man. The data on her two overlapping spreadsheets are clear.
The only reason she isn’t 100% sure is that the idea is so preposterous. Clumsy, awkward, tongue-tied Peter Parker is a masked superhero in his spare time?
She’s watching when Peter bumps into Liz that evening in the hallway at the hotel. Liz invites him to go swimming and even from a distance, Michelle can see the longing in his face. But he goes up to the roof instead. And an hour later, when Michelle goes up to the roof herself, there is no sign of him.
He fails to show up for breakfast. He misses the bus AND he misses the competition – the actual reason for the field trip.
Liz is furious; the teachers are annoyed.
Ned is almost frantic.
“Hey loser,” Michelle greets him on their way to the Monument. “What happened to dweeb 1?”
“Dunno,” Ned admits, chewing his lip nervously. “He said he’d be here.”
The rest of the class go up the Monument and Michelle is peacefully reading her book and watching the crowds when there is a thump. The tower bizarrely appears to sway.
She squints and realizes with dawning horror that something awful is happening.
And suddenly, the friendly local Queens hero is jumping over her shoulder.
“My friends are up there!” she exclaims, far too worried to pretend to be cool.
“Oh crap!” he says. “Don’t worry ….err miss! I’ll … I’ll take care of them.”
And then he’s climbing up the outside of the Monument.
…
Afterwards …
After the helicopters and the ambulance and the police and the tears … afterwards, Michelle does not dare look at Peter.
He shows up later, long after Spider-man has vanished, looking tired and wan, and full of excuses for his absence. Not that anyone cares.
People cry on the bus going back to New York.
Peter slumps in the back, with his head pressed against the window.
