Chapter Text
"You should have a social media presence!"
Peter is just trying to get some chemistry homework done in peace, but, of course, when can Peter Parker get anything done in peace? He, MJ, and Harry are cooped up here in a tiny study room, trying to make sense of all their readings before midterms and living off vending machine snacks. Not really the time Peter wants to be thinking about social media. But he's due for a study break soon anyway and he has a feeling MJ won't accept 'trying to memorize formulas' as a valid excuse for not listening to her new idea, so he puts his pencil down and turns to her.
"I already have social media, MJ. You follow me on all of them, in case you've forgotten," Peter points out.
"No, no, not you. Spidey," she clarifies. "Spidey should have a social media presence."
Peter stares blankly at her for a moment, waiting for when she breaks and admits that it was just a big joke and that of course she thinks that's a silly idea, because it is a very silly idea. But she doesn't, so Peter has to actually say out loud that the very silly idea is a silly idea. (Maybe their brains are more dead from studying than they'd thought.) "I hate to break it to you, but the secret part is the most important half of having a secret identity."
MJ rolls her eyes, as though it's really Peter who is being ridiculous right now. "You don't have to put your name on it, obviously, and you can post stuff with your mask on. But I think it'd be good! An Instagram where you post some of those shots you might have sold to Jameson or community updates. Maybe a Twitter that one of us could help run so you can give people a heads up when a part of the city is about to become a battle zone. Or share memes. Both!"
"MJ's right, it would help your brand," Harry agrees.
"I don't do the Spidey stuff for my 'brand' or to be popular or whatever," Peter insists. "I do it because it's the right thing to do. I don't need a thousand followers online boosting my ego for that,"
"Please, Peter, we could get you way more than a thousand followers," Harry scoffs.
"One well publicized thirst trap and you're looking at a million. Easy." MJ nods. "Besides, even if you don't care about numbers, you should care about your brand. Think of how much easier your job would be if half the city didn't think you were a menace because of the Bugle. Put up some pictures of you saving a cat from a tree every once in a while, share some memes so people see you're human, stuff like that and you can definitely start getting more people to see that you're the good guy in all of this."
That... actually makes sense, as much as Peter hates to admit it. He lets out an annoyed sigh and grabs the bag of chips to angrily chew for a few seconds, before shrugging. "I guess you're right. I wouldn't even know where to start, though."
"Well, that's why you have us," MJ says simply. She reaches over to grab Peter's phone and starts typing away at it, angling the screen towards Harry so he can give his input as well.
Peter frowns. "...how do you know my phone password?"
"Oh, please, Pete," is all she answers, which isn't reassuring at all.
A way too long study break later, Peter now has an official Spider-Man page and a Twitter set up. It had taken a while to find a username that was available (seriously, why would someone have taken the username 'realspiderman' when they clearly weren't?!) but they'd managed to snag 'yourfriendlyneighbor', which Peter was content enough with. Especially considering he hadn't really wanted to make this page in the first place. The entire process of setting them up is mostly just Harry and MJ being very excited with Peter's phone while he looked over their shoulders and occasionally nodded to show approval. (Not that he thinks they would have been stopped even without his approval.)
"I'll look into how to get you verified on both pages, but congratulations. Spider-Man has officially joined the 21st century," Harry says, handing him his phone back.
"Gee, thanks." Peter rolls his eyes. He knows a backhanded compliment when he sees one. He's the king of backhanded compliments! "What should my first post be?"
Predictably, they bicker about that for a while. Or, more accurately, MJ and Harry bicker about it for a while, as Peter tries to get back to his readings and occasionally vetoes one of the suggestions. (Seriously, he's supposed to be a role model for kids, he can't post nudes on his official instagram. What the hell are MJ and Harry thinking?!) By the time they finally give up on studying and pack up to go home, Spidey has his first post up on Instagram, which is just a dumb selfie he'd once taken on a rooftop in the middle of patrol. He can't even remember why he'd taken it - probably as a wordless, snappy reply to a friend asking why he'd been late to something or the other - but it's up for the rest of the world now, along with a caption courtesy of Harry, which just says '<<<new york rooftop lighting'.
It's ridiculous, but Peter doesn't expect much to come of it. MJ had also made sure to follow all the superheroes she knows are online with it, but Peter doubts they'll pay much attention to the follow. He can only imagine how many fake accounts there are out there, not to mention all the fan accounts. Peter goes home that day, blissfully unconcerned with the whole situation and simply waiting for it to blow over. To be honest, Peter was just being foolish to think it could blow over so easily. He probably deserves everything he has coming for being so foolish in the first place. Because not only does he expect it to just blow over, but he also makes no effort to change the account's password as soon as he's away from MJ and Harry. No, instead, like an absolute fool, he goes home and leaves the password just the same, giving MJ and Harry access to it without his being around to veto all their nonsense.
Peter wakes up in the morning to a stream of notifications on both his phones, his personal one and the burner phone he uses for his superheroing. His personal phone is mostly just texts from MJ and Harry, rejoicing that they'd managed to get him a verified checkmark and suggesting future posts. (Also one text from Aunt May reminding him him they're meeting for dinner later that week, bless her.) That's mildly annoying, but in the best friend kind of way he's come to expect from the two of them. No, his real concern is his Spidey phone.
Unfortunately, having gotten his checkmark verification means all the heroes his account had followed yesterday hadn't just ignored him like they might any regular fan account. They'd all followed him back, actually, which had made every superhero fan in the world want to follow him as well, until suddenly, he's got several tens of thousands of followers and many, many texts from his superhero acquaintances about his new accounts. There's a few unexpected ones, like Matt and Luke, who are both teasing him for acting so in line to his brand as the young and hip superhero in the city. The many messages from Deadpool, with suggestions of memes to share and superhero porn parody accounts to follow, are also expected. Just like the many messages from Johnny Storm, though he didn't think it would end up being quite so many messages in a row. They provide him with a great deal of entertainment over his morning coffee.
{sms from: Fire Hazard} Web-head!! I've been told you have social media now. Welcome to the 21st century.
{sms from: Fire Hazard} I am a little disappointed to have my 'Spiderman is secretly an immortal 400 year old ancient man in a college student's body' theory, but I'll take it.
{sms from: Fire Hazard} I am VERY excited to see your meme game on Twitter.
{sms from: Fire Hazard} I have so many suggestions. I have Spiderman meme suggestions. Spider suggestions. Man suggestions. So many quality memes I can suggest, man.
{sms from: Fire Hazard} Oh man, not to mention all the thirst traps you can post on your Insta now. Please post thirst traps.
{sms from: Fire Hazard} Let the world see those spider abs.
{sms from: Fire Hazard} But not too often, I don't need that much competition.
{sms from: Fire Hazard} Like enough for everyone to think 'wow Johnny Storm has hot friends' but not enough for anyone to think 'wow Johnny Storm isn't the hottest superhero in NYC'
{sms from: Fire Hazard} (Not that anyone should think that considering it's clearly not true, but some people are kind of silly sometimes.)
It's all made even more ridiculous when Peter looks at all the time stamps and realizes they were sent within three minutes of each other. God. Peter wishes he had the Fantastic Four kind of life. Never worrying about homework, never worrying about how to pay rent, no Daily Bugle trying to tarnish his reputation, the energy and freetime to send such a ridiculous chain of texts. What Peter wouldn't give for that. Still, though, at least he gets to be the working man's hero. That's how Peter always tries to look at it.
As usual, Peter's running on little sleep and not nearly enough time to get everything done, so he just tucks his Spidey phone into his front pocket as he heads out the door and doesn't actually get to replying until he's riding the subway on his way to school.
{sms to: Fire Hazard} If it makes you feel better, my friends sort of confiscated my belongings and started the accounts for me. So maybe I still am an old man in a young man's body.
{sms to: Fire Hazard} Also, I will definitely not be posting any 'thirst traps' so don't worry. Your reputation is perfectly safe.
Further proof that Johnny Storm has no responsibilities outside the FF and just spends his days lounging around their headquarters, Peter's phone dings with a reply as soon as he's back on the street with a phone signal and the time stamp is for only a minute or so after Peter's messages had gone through.
{sms from: Fire Hazard} that does make me feel better. thanks, spidey :)
{sms from: Fire Hazard} I will get a thirst trap out of you at some point, don't worry. We can call it a web trap or something.
Peter doesn't even bother justifying that with a response. He has a midterm to get to. He needs every brain cell he has right now to pass it and extended conversations with Johnny Storm are a proven way of burning right through said brain cells. He turns his phone off completely when he goes into the test, which ends up being one of his smartest ideas in a while. When he comes back out, he's mentally exhausted and wondering if he should start planning for how to graduate on time if he fails this exam. Just like any exhausted student after an exam, Peter heads straight to the student union and finds a couch by the food court to curl up on and scroll through memes until his brain starts recuperating function. As his screen comes on again, several notifications from Johnny come in all at once.
{sms from: Fire Hazard} Don't ignore me :(
{sms from: Fire Hazard} It's a good idea! We don't have to call it a web trap
{sms from: Fire Hazard} we can think of something else
{sms from: Fire Hazard} c'mon, spidey, do it for the fans. think of how happy you'll make half of new york
Peter sees that Johnny's tagged him in something on Instagram, which he's almost too afraid to check. This should be interesting. It's public, so it can't be too bad, but Peter still looks around before opening it, lest he accidentally scar someone's eyes with an indecent picture of Johnny Storm. (Truth be told, most other people would probably be happy to see it, but Peter doesn't want to explain what he's doing opening up Johnny Storm nudes in public.) Like he'd suspected, the post he'd been tagged in is Johnny lounging in a hot tub, maybe naked or maybe not? There's certainly not a stitch in sight in the picture. Johnny's visible until just below his hips, where the rest of him is concealed by the jets and bubbles of the hot tub.
It's a sexy picture, Peter has to admit. He has eyes. Anyone with half a brain can see that Johnny's a painfully attractive man. Still, Peter thinks the whole concept of posting pictures like these on the internet are ridiculous. He gets enough attention on the street as Spider-Man, he doesn't need to add to it. He's not sure how Johnny can even manage to post these things without being horrifically embarrassed. Peter is embarrassed enough on his behalf. More so when he reads the caption.
{blazingjstorm: Did everyone see that my man @yourfriendlyneighbor just joined Instagram? Everyone go give him a follow and tell him to give the people what they want: regular Spidey thirst traps. If you're a little confused as to how to do it, Web Head, they look like this and I'm happy to go give you an in person tutorial.}
Predictably, all the comments on Peter's singular post are people asking him to respond to Johnny with a shirtless pic of his own. Day one of having a social media presence for Spider-Man and Peter's already going insane. To make matters worse, before he can click out of all these tabs and go hide in shame, MJ's managed to creep up on him and snatch his phone from his hands. So much for his spidey senses. Peter yelps and turns around to face her.
"Give it back!" he insists, trying to grab it from her hands. He could snatch it up with his webs, he's sure, but without extra help from Spidey, MJ just knows well enough to dodge his attempts.
"In a sec, Peter. What's this you're looking at?" she asks, smirking down at him. She clearly already knows, but Peter's sure it's far more satisfying to see in person and from Peter's account. Not to mention on the phone where she can scroll through his private messages with Johnny. "Well, now you definitely have to respond with a thirst trap of your own."
"No, I most certainly do not," Peter insists. He manages to grab his phone back and convinces himself that it's because he's fast and clever and not because MJ decided to have some mercy on him.
"Aww, you should, though. It'll be fun! And you definitely have the body for it, with all those muscles from fighting crime." She reaches down and pats his pecs to demonstrate, because apparently this is the sort of relationship they have.
"I get stressed out enough when I lose a glove or have a tear in my suit. Showing that much of myself is kind of the opposite of what I'm trying to do," Peter points out, grimacing.
MJ rolls her eyes at him. "We can do it up against a plain wall. Mask still on or cut off below the collarbones. Stuff like that. No one at all is going to find out your secret identity just because you're flirting with Johnny in public now."
"Flirting?" Peter repeats, outraged. "I'm not flirting with Johnny! And what do you mean 'now'? MJ!"
"Oh sure, totally not flirting. Whatever you want to call it, Pete. I'm just saying, the rest of us have eyes." She laughs. "Come to think of, the two of you are both ridiculous enough to flirt without realizing it..."
"I'm not, Johnny and I don't, I-" Peter sputters around for a bit before leaning back against the wall with a horrified look on his face. Now that he thinks about it... "Oh my, God. MJ. MJ, I think Johnny and I have been flirting with each other for months."
"Months? Peter, sweetie, more like since the second the two of you met," she corrects. "God, you really had no idea, you poor thing. C'mon, let's get you a burger and fries and call Harry in. This situation clearly needs backup."
Peter lets himself be manhandled towards the food court and lets MJ order whatever she wants for him. He's too busy reevaluating every interaction he's ever had with Johnny to have much of an opinion. Actually... Now that he thinks about it, this does make a lot of sense. It definitely explains a lot as to why Sue and Richard always exchanged weird looks when the five of them teamed up. And he and Johnny did text with an awful lot of emojis. Oh boy. They were definitely flirting. For a while. God, did Johnny know? Was he doing it on purpose or did it just sort of happen, like with Peter? Wait. Does Peter have a crush on Johnny? Oh, hell, he has no idea. Is this just a thing they do? A friendly little banter in their friendship? Should they have started dating ages ago?
He sits there in horrified silence for a while, just shoveling french fries into his mouth and reevaluating everything he's ever known. MJ, predictably, finds this entire scenario as funny as can be and takes several not so sneaky pictures of him eating his fries with his thousand yard stares. Probably to send to Harry. God, he hopes it's just to send to Harry. He could see her involving his Aunt May in all this and she would never stop teasing him about this. Does she know that he and Johnny have been flirting this entire time? Does everyone except him know? Peter lets out a loud groan and hides his face away in his hands.
"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" he asks.
"Because this is pretty hilarious. Sorry, Pete." MJ doesn't sound sorry in the slightest.
Nor does Harry when he comes up to their table and pulls up a chair. "There he is! The world's dumbest genius. How are you dealing with this unexpected news that the rest of us have known all along?"
"I just... I mean..." Peter grumbles and peeks out from behind his fingers. "Is it even flirting if I didn't realize? Does that count?"
"You know.... Normally, I'd say no. But you're my best friend and I love tormenting you, not to mention what you and Johnny have been doing since day one is pretty obvious and it's kind of the saddest thing in the world that you didn't notice," Harry says, helping himself to some of Peter's fries.
"I can't have a crush on Johnny. That's so.... Ugh." Peter groans again, because really, what else is there to say about this situation? He hopes Johnny was in an equally confused state about all of this and that he's going through a similar experience with his friends right now. No fair if Peter's the only one to suffer.
"Johnny would definitely be a difficult boyfriend to have, but you know, I think the two of you would be pretty cute together," MJ assures him. "There's only one thing you can do now."
"What's that?" Peter asks, looking up at her hoping foolishly that they'll have actual advice to offer him.
MJ slides his phone across the table to him. "Post a thirst trap and tag him in it."
"Absolutely not! I have dignity."
****
To no one's surprise, Peter posts the thirst trap later that same evening. Because he is the biggest clown in the world and he's pathetically susceptible to MJ and Harry's peer pressure. It's kind of sad, really. He hopes no one will ever approach him to make anti peer pressure PSAs for kids, because he'd feel like a total hypocrite. And he'll forever have the evidence of his weakness publicized on Instagram, teasing him in his darkest moments. (Because somehow, Peter is sure the situation would just be way more awkward if he tried to delete it and pretend it had never happened.
As far as thirst traps go, it's probably pretty mild. Honestly, compared to what Johnny had posted, he might as well be a nun. It's him, with his spidey mask on, but the suit down around his waist. He's still wearing the compression sports tank he always wears underneath his suit, so he's not even half naked, but he's very clearly posing so his muscles look the best they can. The captain tags Johnny and says 'this is the best you're getting', then a whole row of spider and water drop emojis. (Upon MJ's insistence.) Harry and MJ had both not even tried to heckle him into taking the tank top off, probably because they know this is as good as they're getting. Peter hadn't even been able to press the post button. He'd chickened out so many times in just a few minutes, MJ had just taken the phone from his hands and posted it herself.
He'd ordered the two of them to stay at his apartment afterwards, since he's sure Johnny will start messaging any second now and there's no way he's going through that on his own. Even though Peter's apartment is the worst heated out of the three of them and always has the worst (read: cheapest and suspicious tasting) snacks out of all of them, they agree and the three of them camp out in his living room for homework and TV until it's time for Peter to head out patrolling. Peter's not sure who's more excited when his phone dings with a notification. There's yelping and yelling from all three of them and Peter's phone gets skidded around the coffee table in everyone's hurry to grab it.
"It's my phone!" Peter reminds them, managing to reach it with his fingertips and sticking to it so they won't get any ideas of stealing it from him. "Not to mention my social life. I think I should be the first one to check the messages."
"You're also the one who flirted with one of the city's most eligible bachelors for ages without doing anything about it. I'm not sure that phone will do you any good in your hands," Harry points out.
"You're mean. The both of you," Peter mumbles. But he knows they're right, so he relents and changes how he's sitting, just enough so that they can read over his shoulder as he opens up the texts from Johnny. They first one is just a screenshot of Peter's text with a long string of shocked emojis, but the rest of the messages start coming in rapidly, as is often the case with Johnny. Having learned from previous times, Peter preemptively sticks himself to his phone so they can't take it and reply on his behalf without his full approval.
{sms from: Fire Hazard} I didn't think I'd actually manage to convince you!
[sms from: Fire Hazard} Not that I'm not pleased. Trust me, I am very pleased
{sms from: Fire Hazard} looking good there, Spidey
{sms from: Fire Hazard} you definitely don't skip chest day
{sms from: Fire Hazard} no peek under the tank though? :(
Harry laughs next to his ear as he leans in closer to read it. "I can't believe your texts look like this and you still had no idea that the two of you were flirting."
"In my defence, they don't always look like this," Peter says, pouting a little. Sure, they all have a point, but he doesn't appreciate being the collective joke for being a little thick headed!
"So if we take your phone right now and scroll through the message history, they won't all look like this?" MJ asks dubiously.
Which... Okay, fair point. "Aaaanyway, what should I reply? Fuck, see, now I'm overthinking it, because I know what I'm doing! Back when I didn't realize I was flirting, I was way better at it."
"This is such a classic Parker situation. Just tell him he has to buy you dinner before you let him see under there or something like that," Harry suggests.
"No way!" Peter almost squeaks in horror at the suggestion that he be so straightforward. After all, he's still not sure if Johnny knows they're flirting. Or if this is just Johnny being Johnny. "I'm not texting him that."
"Ugh. This is why you accidentally flirt with someone for months on end, but never actually get a date. You're Spider-Man. You should be going on so many dates, you never have time to sleep!" Harry insists.
"I already don't have time to sleep. That's just a side effect of the patrolling," Peter points out.
"Yeah, well..." He shrugs. "Not sleeping for more fun reasons, I mean. So is asking him out completely out of the picture? Even in a less suggestive way?"
"Completely out of the picture," Peter agrees. "I don't even know if he likes me that way. He could just be like this with everyone. I'm not going to make things awkward between us! Supervillains don't really care about things being awkward between the superhero team-ups. They just... you know. Attack. And we have to be at our best. No bad blood or anything."
"No offence, dude, but superhero relationship drama is the best part of superheroes. But fine, fine. We won't ask him out until you're sure he's not as dumb as you are," Harry promises.
"Hey!" Peter protests. "I'm not dumb, I'm just... busy."
"Sure. Well, maybe Johnny is busy, too. Who knows." Harry shrugs. "So that's a no on asking him out. Can we at least flirt a little on the reply?"
"I think he was going to do that no matter what we said, Harry. Flirting just comes naturally to Johnny and Peter," MJ reminds him.
"First of all, there's no we about it," Peter is quick to say, before they start getting any more crazy ideas. "Second, it's not all we do! But yeah, I guess we can include a little flirting in the reply. Maybe even a winky face."
"A winky face. These are exciting times!" MJ explains, laughing.
Peter ignores them and just focuses on drafting his reply for Johnny. It's several times more stressful than it needs to be with MJ and Harry reading over his shoulder, but Peter just decides to write like he always would. MJ and Harry do kind of have a point that their usual conversations seem a lot like flirting to begin with. Just doing what he always does must be a halfway decent plan, because MJ and Harry approve of his texts without much bickering and Peter just sends it before texting a friend gets any more complicated. It's hard to do with MJ and Harry trying to text for him, so Peter has to end hopping up onto the ceiling and texting from there.
It's ridiculous that this is how he's living in his own house, but he should have known it would come to this when he called his friends over. They keep whining down from the couch, trying to get him to come down and show them the constant stream of messages. Peter is perfectly content to ignore them and just spends a while up on the wall, texting back and forth with Johnny until he very suddenly bids him farewell with the warning that he has to go off onto Fantastic Four business. Which usually means Peter has to be on standby, because who knows what that means. There could be aliens raining down on the city any second now.
Peter hops back down in front of MJ and Harry. By now, they'd given up and were just busy playing games on their phones to keep entertained and avoid their homework. It should be weird, but actually, it's a pretty standard hang out between them to simply have two of them hang out on the couch while Peter is on the ceiling or walls trying to avoid them. Yeah, maybe it's not the most normal of friendships, but Peter's chance at normal friendships had been ruined the day he was bitten by that radioactive spider.
"Well, Johnny's gone out to fight monsters or whatever," Peter informs them ."I'm going to get my suits on. I'm probably going to need it soon. And if not, I'll start patrol early. Sorry. But the two of you are welcome to stay here as long as you want, of course."
"Please, Petey, your apartment is freezing cold. I barely come here when there's good gossip to be discovered, I'm definitely not staying when there's not. It's way too cold here," Harry insists, shaking his head.
"Yet another reason you should get Johnny as a boyfriend. Instant heating," MJ suggests.
Peter rolls his eyes. "Not happening. All right, go ahead and leave, I'll see you both tomorrow. Unless I end up teleported to an alternate dimension or something like that. You never know in this line of work."
"Stay safe. Don't get abducted by aliens. Take Johnny out on a date. See you!"
***
{sms to: Fire Hazard} Sorry, Johnny. I'm a classy guy. Can't go around exposing my nipple to everyone on Instagram.
{sms to: Fire Hazard} Think of the Bugle headline afterward.
{sms from: Fire Hazard} Well, doesn't have to be for all of Insta. You're more than welcome to send them to me ;)
{sms from: Fire Hazard} Just so I can have an idea of what my New York competition is like
{sms from: Fire Hazard} obviously
{sms to: Fire Hazard} obviously
{sms to: Fire Hazard} I dunno, Storm, I'm still a classy guy. Can't go around sending pics like that.
{sms to: Fire Hazard} think of my reputation
{sms from: Fire Hazard} all right, all right
{sms from: Fire Hazard} maybe I can buy you some dinner or something and you'll rethink
{sms from: Fire Hazard} sorry, spidey g2g :( FF duty calls
{sms to: Fire Hazard} good luck! stay safe! kick butt!