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Ned notices it as soon as he gets back from his summer trip in Hawaii with his family. He’s super excited to get back to his sweet apartment, his badass computer, but most of all his two desperately in love with each other dumbass of roommates, MJ and Peter. He figured out that the two idiots liked each other roughly six months ago, and even tried to shed some wisdom on Peter a while back. He did not attempt the same thing with MJ, because he knows exactly how the conversation would end up, which is with her deep into an even more stubborn denial. Peter is less radical. He just blushed super hard and said ‘nope’ ten times in a row, before awkwardly changing the subject.
These two are definitely the smartest dumbasses of the universe.
Ned has to admit it, he was kind of afraid he’d find the apartment in a terrible state when he’d come back from vacation. It is universally acknowledged that he’s the back bone of their little ecosystem of an apartment – universally as in, acknowledged by his dad, May Parker and, most importantly, by Tony Stark from that one time he visited back in January (honestly, that might be the one thing Ned is the most proud of himself of in 22 years of existence). If you ask him, he’s not just the back bone of their ecosystem, he’s the entire skeleton: without him, things collapse and you’re only left with a shapeless blob. Two and a half weeks without him?Yeah, this should have called for a crash and burn type of situation.
Or so he thought.
That’s actually his first clue. The apartment is immaculate. The dishes are done, there’s no bags of take-out everywhere, nothing like that time back in October when Ned left them on their own for two days and came back to an apocalyptic mess all over the apartment.
So the fact that the place is actually looking better than what it was when Ned left?
It definitely triggers his Ned-Tingle.
Second clue? The fact that Peter isn’t dead from exhaustion. He’s actually looking really good, rested and not beaten up or anything. As his guy in the chair, Ned usually helps him regulate his outings as Spider-Man, because without him Peter always ends up patrolling for too long and falls into a pit of too many punches and too little sleep to function properly. Like those few times Ned went out with Cindy from his Microcomputer Architecture class and Peter went out as Spider-Man for sixteen hours straight and almost broke his back during a car chase with bad guys because he fell asleep mid-swing.
So the fact that Peter is actually looking better than before Ned left?
Definitely suspicious.
The last clue is less obvious, but Ned still catches it fairly quickly. When he opens the door, Peter rises from the couch he was sitting in, a big smile plastered on his face. MJ steps from behind said couch, her shoulders a little tensed but she’s grinning too. They both seem genuinely happy to see him, which obviously warms Ned’s heart, but after the mandatory handshakes – and a teddy bear hug with Pete because hell yeah –, when the three of them are standing in the middle of the living-room and Peter and MJ exchange a look, there’s a blatant shift in their attitudes. Their body language is super awkward all of a sudden, and Ned instantly knows.
These two had sex.
He mentally debates with himself the way to approach things. On one hand he kind of wants to exclaim à la Phoebe Buffet ‘You had sex!’ like some sort of professional mentalist, but then again he doesn’t want them to feel more embarrassed than they already obviously do right now. So he goes for the less blatant way in. “So, what’s up with you two?” he asks with a beaming smile, taking off his fedora and setting it on the couch’s armrest.
And the way Peter instantly looks down at his feet, cheeks a little red, and MJ plops down on the couch with a weird scoff, are both blatant confirmation of Ned’s suspicions. Yup, these guys did it. It’s so obvious. Ned is happy for them – he’s known they both liked each other before they themselves realized it, and he knows they’re gonna be good together. It won’t make things weird either, because they’re all adults here, so no problem. Ned is positive about it all.
He’s about to tell them all this, but then they start lying. Peter tells him that the only major change around here is that he told MJ that he’s Spider-Man. MJ cuts him by saying that he didn’t tell her and that she figured it out, and they exchange a look that screams so obviously how disgustingly into each other they are that Ned has a hard time trying not to roll his eyes. When he doesn’t freak out the way Peter probably thought he would, Ned tells him that he knew that she knew, and his best friend plops down on the couch next to MJ, pouting like a little kid about how ‘no one tells him anything’.
MJ nudges him playfully and he nudges her back with a solar smile that makes her smirk, and it’s so frustratingly obvious that those two are together that Ned could scream. He figures that’s not the most sensible thing to do right now though, so he asks if there’s anything else they’d like to tell him. When they shake their heads, apparently avoiding his gaze, Ned frowns and shrugs at the same time, a little wounded that they wouldn’t tell him. He walks back to the entrance of the apartment to take his shoes off, hearing them whisper to each other behind him. Too bad he doesn’t have super hearing like Peter does.
When he comes back, they act like nothing, but Ned knows better. They order his favorite pizza and have a quiet night in, binge-watching some horror show that MJ loves and that definitely scares Peter out of his mind. At some point MJ goes in the kitchen to make some popcorn, and when she comes back Ned pretends he doesn’t notice how close to Peter she actually sits. At some point Peter stretches his back and lands an arm on the backrest of the couch next to MJ’s head, and she doesn’t jerk away. Ned’s pretty sure she actually leans into him, curling her legs under her, one of her knees almost resting on Peter’s thigh, and really that’s just, ugh.
Those two doofus.
Why they’re keeping this from him, Ned doesn’t know. They’re probably scared he’s gonna get pissed, which is honestly the stupidest thing ever. Or, they’ve convinced themselves that them dating could ruin everything, and that if they keep it all to themselves then it’s not as real as it would be if Ned knew about it. Yeah, that’s definitely it. They would definitely be dumb enough to think that.
He must admit, it makes him a little sad at first, but then the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes how ridiculous this whole thing is. He kind of wants to mess with them just a little, after a while – especially when he comes back early from his new summer job at the dollar store, and hears them giggling in Peter’s room. Peter usually never closes his door, and the few times he came back with that Felicia girl last year he always made sure to stop anything compromising as soon as he heard Ned coming up the stairs. He must be pretty distracted, Ned thinks, to not hear him this time.
That’s when he decides to have a little fun, because honestly screw them for thinking he wouldn’t notice, right? Besides, that’ll make for some funny stories to tell his date in a couple of days – a woman named Betty he’s met during his vacation in Hawaii and who lives in New York too. Yes, this is a good plan.
Ned purposefully lets the apartment door slam, and laughs to himself when the giggling coming from Peter’s room instantly stops. He counts to ten in his head and then Peter comes rushing out of his bedroom, his hair a ruffled mess, his cheeks a beautiful shade of pink. He’s obviously just put his shirt back on (inside out), but Ned pretends not to notice as he nods to his best friend. “You have company?” he asks, faking nonchalance, and Peter’s eyes widen.
“What, no, nope, I–” His voice trails off as MJ gets out of his room, and Ned has to admit, she’s good. She doesn’t seem fazed in the slightest, but that shouldn’t surprise him he thinks, after all she is the master of deadpan, and her disinterested face is everything. Peter comes up with a crappy explanation as to why MJ was in his room just then, and Ned makes it look like he believes him – and when he subtly catches them exchange a relieved look later on, yes, it’s pretty fun.
Those two dumdums.
It becomes a little game for the next few weeks. Of course, Ned isn’t a mean person, so he doesn’t let it go too far, but he still has his fun. He starts with Peter, because it’s the easiest one to mess with. The next morning, MJ is out working at the bookstore, and Peter is doing the breakfast dishes – apparently there’s a new system where MJ cooks and he does the dishes? It’s weird – so Ned sits down on one of the bar stools and asks casually: “So how was it, being alone with MJ all this time?”
The spoon Peter was currently washing slips out of his fingers and lands with a loud clang in the sink, and Ned bites the interior of his cheek to prevent himself from chuckling. His best friend reaches to smooth his hair with an awkward laugh, before stopping his own movement and shaking the soap bubbles off of his hand. “Ha, it’s was uh, it was great, I mean uh, it went well.”
“I honestly thought I would find the apartment burned to the ground,” Ned retorts happily, and Peter chuckles at that.
“I kinda thought that too,” he agrees, making a face at him before going back to the dishes. “But uh, yeah we found a way to make it work.”
“That’s cool. So what did you do?”
“Nothing!” Peter shakes his head and shrugs at the same time, in a weird gesture that is the perfect embodiment of how uncomfortable he is right now, and Ned has a hard time not laughing. “So anyway how was Hawaii?”
Ned decides to let it slide for now, because he’s not cruel obviously, and also because he’s pretty excited to tell Peter about Betty. He launches himself in an elaborated tale of his vacation and how he’s met, he’s pretty sure about it, the woman of his life, and pretends not to notice how visibly relieved Peter is that he’s dropped the MJ subject. They end up talking for a long time, and Ned only goes back to his messing with him at the end of their conversation when Peter says he’s got to go to work. “Hey, it’d be cool if you found someone too, we could all go on double dates!” And it’s no surprise to him that Peter just nervously chuckles at that.
Next Ned goes for MJ – although he knows it’s gonna be more difficult because she’s so good at always seeming unbothered all the time. He’s thought about it a lot while he was looking for a job the other day, and he thinks he’s got a good plan. Well. Maybe. MJ is so mysterious, Ned never really knows what’s gonna affect her. Sometimes she doesn’t even smile at his jokes, and other times she snorts so loudly she’s instantly covering her mouth and nose when she does. There’s no particular humor that makes her laugh more or anything too, it’s completely random – he’s studied it all, it’s a mystery he was desperately willing to elucidate but so far failed to. He honestly doesn’t know if she’s keeping her reactions to herself most of the times, and only laugh when she just can’t hold it back, or if some days she’s more susceptible to laugh than others.
There’s one thing Ned knows for sure though.
She is always amused when Peter does something stupid. She tries to hide it most of the time, but unlike pretty much everything else in her life, she’s not doing that good of a job at it – although she did manage to hide it from Peter, which is, or was, probably the intention there. Ned’s definitely noticed though. That’s actually the one thing that made him certain that MJ liked Peter in the first place.
Call him Detective Ned, nothing can escape his Ned-Tingle.
One thing he has to be careful with, while messing with MJ, is to not give away that he knows. She’s smart, probably smarter than him and Peter, Ned thinks, and he knows if he does this badly she could guess that he actually figured out that they’re together – or at least that they’re ‘having the sex’. Ned doesn’t think he has to worry about Peter realizing that, because his best friend is so sweet and still surprisingly naive despite his years as a superhero fighting crime, that he would never ever conceive the idea that Ned could be messing with him. MJ on the other hand, she knows how to mess with people, and she has the brains to figure out his shenanigans.
Which means, he has to be careful, and catch her at her most vulnerable state.
(Ned kind of feels like he is a James Bond villain while coming up with his plan, which is definitely a lot of fun.)
He finds the perfect opportunity four days after he’s back from Hawaii. Peter goes on patrol, and Ned takes his spot as his guy in the chair –that’s one thing he would love to tell Betty all about, but unfortunately he can’t, secret identity and all. He usually sits with his computer in his room, making sure his door is closed and to be as quiet as possible, but now that MJ is finally officially in on the big secret, he decides to sit down on the couch in the living-room instead. He makes a big show of getting everything settled, knowing that’ll trigger MJ’s curiosity while she’s making herself a cup of tea in the kitchen.
He can feel her eyes following his movements, and he knows he’s caught her full attention when she sits down on the leather chair across from him – she never used to do that before, when they first became roommates a year ago, and yes, Ned is very glad about it. He imagines himself do a little happy dance in his head, then looks up to her, channeling his best suspicious face. MJ raises an eyebrow at that, her hands wrapped around her ‘Shut the F up I’m reading’ mug, and asks casually: “’Sup Leeds?”
He vaguely shrugs at that, scratching his nose to hide how he’s failing to keep a straight face – it feels as if he’s an undercover agent or something, it’s exciting. He puts on his earpiece and nods to the screen of his computer, even though she can’t see that it’s just his desktop for now, with a picture Peter and him making stupid faces in Coney Island. “Guy in the chair stuff,” he tells her with another shrug. “Helping Pete during his patrol.”
“Oh.” She nods once, staring down at her tea with a thoughtful gaze. Ned wonders what she’s thinking about, but he doesn’t let her off the hook that easily. He trains his eyes on her, seizing her body language for a couple of seconds to make sure he doesn’t miss any changes when he’ll talk again. MJ has the best poker face ever, he needs to pay very close attention to everything if he wants to know if his messing with her is working or not.
“So you and Peter huh?” he asks when he thinks he’s ready, and almost lets out a triumphant sound when he catches the very slight shift in her attitude.
It’s very faint – she’s that good – but he doesn’t miss the way her fingers tighten ever so slightly around her mug, how her eyes widen just a smidge, how she takes a quiet but sharp breath before looking up to meet his gaze. Her eyebrow raise isn’t as probing as usual either. He’s got her, ha! It’s definitely harder to mess with MJ than it is with Peter, but wow how rewarding it is, Ned thinks.
“What?” she retorts, and her voice is careful, maybe almost dangerous too – oops, he’s probably going too far in his James Bond villain metaphor. He’s gotta keep things going, or else she’s gonna call his bluff!
He pinches his lips, narrowing his eyes at her, and she’s staring at him so inquisitively that he would probably chicken out if he wasn’t having that much fun. “You think you have what it takes to be his girl in the chair?” he says, raising his chin to her with the most falsely menacing face he can muster. He’s pretty sure he cannot physically appear menacing, but oh well.
“Oh my God,” MJ mutters under her breath, and he has a hard time not breaking character. She has to believe he’s just concerned about her taking his place now that she knows Peter is Spider-Man, and that the tiny heart attack he just gave her by asking about her and Peter was not intentional. Ned thinks he’s becoming the master of manipulation, honestly, especially if he can get to MJ in particular. She sets her mug down on the coffee table, then leans forward to rest her elbows on her knees, her brown eyes fixed on him. “Okay, just so we’re clear,” she states seriously, “I’m definitely not interested in replacing you.”
“Right,” Ned retorts, narrowing his eyes in fake suspicion, just for the sake of it. MJ sighs, leaning back in her chair again, shaking her head, and Ned can’t help his next words – because it’s been on his mind for a while now, and he really really wants to share all this with her now that she knows. “Okay I believe you,” he tells her, keeping his serious, and she gives him a tight-lip smile that he knows actually hides her relief – he knows she cares about him a lot, even if she doesn’t show it that much. “Do you want me to show you what I do?”
And, to his surprise, she actually says yes. He cannot not show his enthusiasm at that, and catches her smirk multiple times as he explains in great details what it is that he does to help Peter during his Spidey patrols. “It’s the best thing ever,” he insists, and she has the decency to slowly nod every time he does. He lends her an earpiece, and when Peter finally connects onto their very private very secret vocal chat, he’s definitely surprised to hear both of their voices.
“MJ, is that you?” he asks in a breathless voice that Ned guesses can be explained by the sudden movement of the blinking point representing his Spider-Pal on his computer screen – he wonders if he fell upon hearing her voice or something. Awww, cute.
“Whaddup dork?” she retorts, and Ned definitely catches how her smile softens with that. Awww, cute again.
“It is us,” Ned adds pompously, “your very own personal gal and guy in the chair!”
“Only one chair?” Peter chuckles.
“Guy and gal on the couch,” MJ rectifies at the same time, and there’s a silence of a couple of seconds before the three of them just burst out laughing. The rest of the night is basically Ned and MJ making stupid jokes and distracting Peter while he swings around the city trying to do his superhero side job correctly, and it’s a lot of fun. By midnight MJ says – rather reluctantly if you ask Ned – that she has to go to bed, and Peter’s ‘oh, okay’ kinda sounds a little disappointed – if you ask Ned again.
“I’m not saying I’m going to do this with you dorks every night, but this was a lot of fun,” MJ says with a yawn before taking off her earpiece and going back to her room. They keep quiet for a little while after that, and when Peter talks again – about something completely unrelated – Ned can still definitely hear his big smile in his voice.
Ugh, those two cute idiots.
A few days go by after that, and Ned keeps messing with them – well, mostly with Peter, because messing with MJ requires a lot of preparation. He also meets with Betty a couple more times, and by their third date she suggests at some point that it would be fun to try and set Peter and MJ up with other people. Ned tells her she’s a genius, and he loves the way she blushes at that. They haven’t kissed yet, taking things slow because they’ve both been in crappy relationships before, but Ned is very excited still. The more he meets with Betty, the more he thinks she’s the one. He tells Peter so the next day, and his best friend smiles fondly at this. He still tells him to be careful, and Ned assures him he’s got everything under control.
“We’re all adults here,” he tells him very seriously, “honesty and respect are what matter the most in any relationship.” The way Peter’s face scrunches up uncomfortably at that makes him laugh internally. “Ooh, by the way, Betty has this friend, Gwen, biology major, who’s apparently single and who’d be perfect for you!”
It’s very funny to see Peter try and find an answer to that. “Ha, well I uh,” he stammers for a few minutes, and Ned just stares at him with a fond smile. “I’m, I don’t know if I’m uh, really in a good place to um, date anyone right now…” his voice trails off just as MJ enters the room – this was not orchestrated by Ned, but wow, talk about perfect timing –, and Ned watches as his two friends’ gazes meet. “But I mean um, thanks for uh, offering,” Peter adds to Ned’s intention, his cheeks a little pink.
Ned has to admit it, the soft gaze MJ gives his best friend makes his heart swoon. He hides it behind a shrug, then turns fully to MJ and calls out: “Hey MJ, so Betty has this friend, Gwen…”
“Ned!” Peter exclaims, his eyes bulging out of their sockets from his astonishment.
“Are you trying to set me up with the same girl you just tried to set Parker up with?” MJ snorts, leaning against the wall with a smirk, and Ned shrugs again.
“I mean yeah, why not?” he retorts, Peter still watching him in such a massive disbelief he cannot help his chuckle. “What? It’s not like you two are together or anything.”
The following silence is so dense Ned thinks if he hadn’t figured it out yet he would have at that very moment. He watches as his two idiot roommates exchange a glance, and when Peter opens his mouth, he thinks this is it. This is it, they’re gonna tell him! The split second of believing that makes him so happy his heart jumps in his chest. Then MJ rushes to Peter’s side, muttering something about having to talk to him about something for work – for work, what a crappy excuse, they don’t even work together! – and everything is ruined.
Well, not everything is ruined, maybe Ned is exaggerating just a little, but still, he’s pretty disappointed. It sucks that they don’t want to tell him. He knows it’s not because he’s unworthy or because they think he can’t keep a secret – which he definitely can by the way, thank you very much. He proved that by keeping Peter’s secret identity to himself all these years. No, he knows it’s neither of those things, he knows it’s just something they have to figure out together, but still, it sucks.
He feels a little gloomy for a few hours, then meets with Betty and everything is better again. He even holds her hand at the end of their date, and they agree to see each other again the next day for dinner. He’s pretty sure this is gonna be it, that next date is gonna be the one they kiss, and he’s very happy about it. He even buys a box of mints on his way home, just in case. He tells MJ all about his date when he gets home – Peter is out patrolling – and weirdly, she tells him almost exactly the same thing Peter told him before: to be careful. If that’s not another proof that these guys are spending more time together than they were before, Ned doesn’t know what it is.
The next morning and early afternoon are relatively eventless as Ned goes at his kinda boring job at the dollar shop, but things switch up a little when he gets back home, excited to get ready for his date with Betty later. He doesn’t pay much attention to anything, too wrapped up in his thoughts about how things are gonna play off, just noticing that MJ’s room is closed, music flowing from under the door, and that someone – probably Peter – is in the shower.
Ned doesn’t think much of it, getting ready in his room and giving himself a rather lengthy pep talk, yes. Once he’s done, he gets out of his room and hesitates for a second. He kind of needs to get his cologne from the bathroom before he goes out again – he still has time, but he wants to arrive early at the restaurant, obviously. Peter is still in the shower apparently, and Ned could wait, but he really doesn’t want to because he really wants his date with Betty to happen in the most optimal conditions.
So he knocks on the door and enters the bathroom, because he knows Peter won’t mind. He’ll be quick anyway, he just needs to grab his cologne under the sink and then out again, easy peasy. It doesn’t exactly happens like that though. He steps inside, shouting ‘it’s just me!’ with his back to the closed TARDIS shower curtain and toward the sink and the cupboard under it. He stumbles on clothes on the floor though, and when he looks down his mind kind of freezes.
Because they are two sets of clothes on the floor, some that are Peter’s – science pun t-shirt alert – and some that are definitely MJ’s. And she never leaves her clothes on the floor. She actually yells at them if they forget to pick up their clothes off the bathroom floor – it’s mostly Peter that gets yelled out, obviously. So if these clothes are MJ’s, if she’s not in her room…
Yeah, that’s just…
Definitely TMI for him.
So Ned grabs his cologne from the cupboard, hands a little shaky, then walks sideways, eyes trained on the ceiling, terrified at the idea to witness anything compromising to say the least. He has no idea why, but as he’s about to close the door, he shouts back: “Sorry I barged in guys, um, have fun!”
It makes Betty laugh a lot when he tells her about it later on. Ned loves it when she laughs. Her whole face lights up in the cutest way, and her blue eyes crinkles at the side, and Ned really wants to kiss her when she laughs. She kisses him after dessert, and she tastes like strawberries, which is really nice. They talk for a very long time after that, and Ned doesn’t think much about what’s probably waiting for him at home. He walks her home, hand in hand, and kisses her on the doorstep, and his heart is pounding in his chest the whole time.
He’s pretty sure she’s the one. He’s pretty sure she feels the same way.
And it’s the greatest feeling in the world.
When he gets home it’s pretty late, but he’s not surprised to find Peter and MJ in the living-room. MJ manages to keep the illusion running that she wasn’t waiting for him by only looking up from her book five good seconds after he’s walked into the room, but Peter – unsurprisingly – fails entirely to do the same. He springs up to his feet as soon as Ned opens the front door, with an anxious ‘Ned!’ crossing his lips as he does. His face is a mask of anguish and maybe some guilt too, and Ned has a hard time not chuckling.
Poor Pete probably thinks he’s scarred him for life right before his date.
“Hey guys,” Ned says casually, taking off his fedora and setting it on the kitchen bar. He walks to the fridge and takes the Brita out, serving himself a glass of cold water before looking back to his two friends. Even MJ seems a little nervous, and Ned can barely hold back his smile now. Oh yes, this is definitely it.
Ugh, those two idiots.
“Hey, Ned,” Peter says in a kind of choked voice. He seems to be looking for the right words, but when he speaks again, Ned knows it’s definitely not what he wants to say in the first place. “How was uh, how was your date?”
“Perfect,” Ned smiles instantly, and somehow he thinks both Peter and MJ loosen up just a smidge at that. He almost asks them how was their shower but thinks better of it. It would have been fun, but he doesn’t want to be responsible for Peter dying of a heart attack or something. He is still looking pretty distraught, poor kid.
“So um, about what happened earlier…” Peter starts, eyes on his feet.
“It’s not what you think,” MJ assures, and Ned definitely sees her cheeks flushing in the slightest. He can’t believe they’re still trying to deny all of this! Those two idiots! He definitely cannot believe how dumb his roommates are.
“Oh so you’re not trying to lower the cost of our water bill then?” he asks with a falsely surprised face. “I mean at first I thought that was weird, but then again showering together is a good strategy I guess. Does that mean we’re gonna take rounds or something? Our shower is pretty small but I guess we can make it work.”
“What?!” Peter gapes at him like an idiot, and Ned cannot hold back his laugh.
“He knows,” MJ sighs, pinching her nose, shaking her head. “I’m so stupid, of course he knows, he’s been messing with us this whole time!”
“He has?” Peter repeats, eyes round. “Wait, you know? You know we, we –”
“Of course I do, Pete!” Ned cannot stop chuckling, and now his best friend is frowning in disarray. “I’m not stupid, I’ve known since I came back from Hawaii!”
“You’ve known all this time?!”
“Well duh!” Ned lets out another laugh, shaking his head. “You guys underestimate my Ned-Tingle, obviously.” This earns himself a loud ‘ugh’ from Peter and an amused snort from MJ.
“You have a tingle too then?” she asks, and her eyes are shining with amusement. A little part of Ned’s brain notices he’s feeling relief from this: she’s not mad. She’s amused. Maybe a little impressed too, if he guesses right from her crossed arms and the smirk on her lips. Peter on the other hand is looking at him in disbelief, like he cannot believe his best friend would overtly mess with him, but oh well.
“Yep,” Ned tells her very seriously, “a special tingle that alerts me when there’s bullshit around.”
He’s delighted to hear MJ’s huge laugh at that. “Nice one, Leeds,” she tells her with an appreciative nod, and he definitely feels proud of himself. Peter collapses on the couch with a groan, no doubt hating the fact that just like May they picked up on calling his sixth sense a ‘tingle’. It’s a running gag, one that even Tony Stark himself joined in. “I want a tingle too,” MJ adds after a few seconds, sitting down next to Peter with a playful nudge in the ribs that makes him mumbles something inaudible in his beard.
“Ah yes,” Ned agrees, “tingles are great, we need to find you a tingle.”
“Please,” Peter begs with a loud sigh, “please stop saying tingle the both of you…” They keep torturing him for a couple of minutes before Ned sits down on Peter’s other side, the three of them staring at the black screen of their TV. “I can’t believe you’ve known all this time.”
“Yeah, from the second I stepped in the apartment actually,” he tells them with a satisfied smirk. “It kind of made me sad that you wouldn’t tell me but –”
“Oh Ned it wasn’t because of you,” Peter assures him instantly, wrapping his arm around his shoulders, which makes him smile.
“We weren’t ready to tell anyone I guess,” MJ adds with a shrug, and when Ned meets her gaze he can see the apologetic hint in it, clear as day. God he loves these two idiots.
“I know,” he nods, smiling to them both. “You know I love you guys right?” They both nod at that, both reciprocating his words in their own way – Peter by hugging him strongly and saying the same, and MJ by bumping him in the feet with a soft smile and sparkling eyes. They keep quiet for a little while, the three of them lost in their own mind, before Ned speaks again: “So Betty and I kissed.”
“You did?!”
“Oh my God tell us everything!!!”