Chapter Text
all i want is nothing more / to hear you knocking at my door
ten hours after.
Their apartment is dark.
Early morning sun has just started infiltrating through the cracks of the windows, illuminating the floor, the walls, even bits of the ceiling, and yet, the lights are off and their apartment is dark.
Michelle lets the door close behind her, slamming with a bang louder than she’d intended, but she’s exhausted, aching in ways deeper than just the surface level, and she can’t bring herself to care.
It’s been ten hours—ten hours since.
Maybe she should’ve given herself more time before coming home, before coming here into what was a shared space. Their shared space.
From the dirty dishes in the sink to the two pairs of shoes sitting by the door to the fridge covered in magnets and notes. It’s too worn, too used, too lived in for her to be back here in their apartment.
Her apartment.
Michelle runs her hands through her frizzy hair, fingers pulling harshly at the roots as she leans back against the door. All she can feel is exhaustion, a dull ache, and that’s what tells her that she hasn’t been hit with it yet.
There’s no pain when all she can comprehend is shock. Ten hours isn’t enough.
If this were really about her, Michelle would be wondering if this was the universe’s way of punishment. She’d be wondering if the ache she was feeling now could be cathartic enough for the universe to change its mind, take it all back.
But this isn’t about her. Maybe it never was.
Because they’ve gotten to a point where Michelle finds it hard to believe that every event she’s lived through wasn’t just another step towards this moment.
It’s hard to wrap her head around everything, the idea of how temporary the past few years of her life ended up being.
And the only permanent thing she’s gotten out of it—possibly the worst of them all—is now she knows what the rawest, most unadulterated form of love feels like.
Just ten hours have passed, and all Michelle can think is that she’d do anything to go back. To stop this—stop all of it. Rewind to back before they’d met, and maybe there would at least be a happier ending.
It’s the shock talking.
Michelle knows that it’s the shock talking, devastatingly so, because all it takes is the sound of the metal doorknob twisting from behind her to cast an illusion. She turns around, quick enough to make herself dizzy, and opens the door.
“Peter?” she whispers first and foremost, chest heaving and vision starting to blur, but it’s the desperation of it all that makes her blind.
Maybe it’s because she’s so used to him being on the other side with no explanation, no reason at all. Just him, her, and nothing in between.
“Michelle,” comes the response, and when the clouds clear away and her hope has left, she can see May standing there with an expression Michelle thinks she’s seen before. All it would take is one look in the mirror.
And, oh.
There it is, the shock fading, and now Michelle’s grounded in reality.
There comes the pain.
nine years until.
Her name is Michelle.
Michelle Jones, but her friends call her MJ.
Peter knows that he doesn’t have the best memory—far from it. His brain runs in ten different directions most of the time, and yet, he remembers the day she’d become the team captain with startling clarity, almost as if it were tattooed on his heart without permission.
The way she’d given a little smile after the admittance, the way she’d laughed shyly and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear—somehow, it’s all there. It felt like they were all let in on something special, something she doesn’t share with just anybody.
Of course, Peter didn’t think much of it at the time, him still trying to wrap his head around the events of Vulture days earlier. There was no room for Michelle’s words or her smile back then, his mind only making space for Tony. Avengers. Spider-Man.
So, the moment was left behind in the room to be forgotten.
But when Tony actually did put the offer on the table to officially join the team, Peter had no idea what to do. There was a second, a split-second where all he felt was excitement, his brain screaming do it, do it, just say yes and regret the rest later .
There was so much potential for Spider-Man to be bigger than just a neighborhood superhero if that’s what he wanted.
Except, no. Reality came crashing back down, and something shattered—the pedestal he had once kept the idea of doing this full-time.
Peter felt it like a dam breaking, memories rushing in of what it was like to be trapped under that parking garage. The weight was too much to bear on his shoulders, even then.
So to become someone who has the responsibility of the world on their shoulders? It’s impossible to comprehend, knowing he was far from ready for it—not when he couldn’t even bring himself to go back out as Spider-Man yet.
They wouldn’t be able to count on him.
The prospect of becoming something more dwindled down to a mere concept, an idea he’d reconsider in the far future, but for now, Peter was content just taking time for himself. He needed it.
A break would be a nice chance to grow, to heal, to just be a teenager.
So, he’d said, “Thank you, Mr. Stark, but I’m...I’m good.”
And he got to go home to his aunt that evening, just in time to see her fanning the fire alarm and tossing a burnt pan of pasta fazool. They’d ordered in some Thai instead, and May talked to him about her volunteer work, about the influx of kids coming to FEAST, about how they could always use more hands.
Peter was open to volunteering, always, but he knew that he’d have to start putting school first, his grades having suffered majorly in the past few months.
Meaning his schedule was about to be as mundane as ever.
School, home, rinse, repeat.
And it went accordingly, at least for a few weeks.
But Spider-Man always seemed to linger in the back of his mind, and while Peter was trying to focus on himself, he was starting to feel the guilt of not being out there. Starting to stress about a time limit—how long he could go before people started forgetting that there had been anyone looking out for the little guy in the first place.
It poked and prodded at the sensitive part of his brain, leaving him wondering each time he looked out the window. What was he doing? What was he accomplishing without Spider-Man?
Would he ever be ready to go out there again?
Peter knows his uneasy mindset about the whole situation certainly wasn't pushing him to go back out any sooner. Motivation was lost at the moment, and he wasn’t sure how to get it back.
And to make matters worse—or potentially better—those lingering thoughts aren’t the only thing that has Peter off-kilter.
The only difference is, the other is a girl—the first girl he’s thought about in weeks that hasn’t been related to the incident with Toomes. She’s sitting outside of FEAST with a sketchbook in her lap and a pen between her teeth, inking away at whatever’s on the page.
And memories he didn’t realize he still had of that afternoon come rushing back, her smile, her laugh, and her words.
“My friends call me MJ.”
Yeah, Peter’s schedule is off now because he stands outside for who knows how long, just watching her from afar as she scribbles and scrawls and maybe even scratches out lines on the paper. It’s easy to lose track of time, the frosty wind blowing around but him remaining unmoved.
He notices the way her hair is constantly getting whipped back in her face, so much that she needs to pull it up in a ponytail. He notices the way she chews on the tip of her pen for a good five minutes with this look of disappointment on her face, etched with something sharp.
Peter watches as her expression crumples into one of frustration before the unassuming page in her sketchbook is ripped out. Balled up and tossed away.
Michelle doesn’t seem angry or upset, but there’s a wrinkle of emotion between her brow. She could be annoyed, maybe at herself, and it shows when she shoves off from the pavement and walks away from FEAST.
Her drawing is still lying on the ground, a potential victim to birds or snow or a nosy person who isn’t Peter.
And, well, he wouldn’t want anything else to get to it.
That…and he’s curious.
Peter walks closer to the building and crouches down for the paper. He almost goes to throw it away, almost respects Michelle’s privacy enough to not look at her drawing.
But then changes his mind on a whim, feeling like his selfish instincts were onto something here. And, well, they couldn’t be more right.
It’s a sketch.
A self-portrait.
The picture in itself is beautiful as a whole, truly, but it’s her smile that gets to him.
The same smile from that afternoon that she’s drawn on herself, small and shaded and half-hidden behind a wall of curls, like it’s a secret meant for only a few people.
Three weeks. It’s been three weeks since that day, and they haven’t talked since—haven’t even interacted—but now Peter’s here, standing right outside of their local homeless shelter with a drawing of this girl whose smile is ingrained in his mind for no other reason than him simply liking it.
And for the first time in a while, he experiences an honest pang of regret, a feeling that makes him wish he’d stayed a little bit longer that day.
Just to call her MJ.
Peter keeps the sketch.
There’s really no reason to, knowing that it being abandoned on the pavement must mean she doesn’t want it back, but he can’t bring himself to just throw it away. So, it lives in the top drawer of his nightstand and probably won’t see daylight again.
Carrying on with the rest of his week, Peter finds himself falling into a rhythm that almost feels normal. Stress and school on repeat, that’s normalcy for teenagers, right? But now he keeps an eye out, too.
Not for her, specifically. That would be ridiculous. And creepy.
Just an eye out in general.
And, well, if that eye drifts in Michelle’s general direction, it’s really not his fault.
Because she’s the one who’s changing up the colored streak in her hair weekly, going through every hue on the spectrum. She’s the one who carries a different backpack on Fridays that only contain classic novels, and she’s the one who sometimes wears mismatched Converse. Red and navy.
Except, when he brings up his casual observations with Ned one day when they’re eating lunch, they don’t take it the same way.
“You’re obsessed with her,” Ned tells him, and Peter either chokes on panic or his pasta salad.
“What? No, Ned, I—I am not obsessed with her,” he hisses under his breath after a coughing fit, yet still finds himself sneaking a look over at Michelle. She doesn’t even glance up from her book, chewing on the tip of a green highlighter. “I’m just...observing. By accident.”
“By accident.” His best friend gives him the most deadpan expression Peter’s ever seen. “By accident ? Dude, you...how...?”
It’s easier to lie to Ned, harder to lie to himself.
“I’m here. And Michelle’s there. We both exist, so of course I’m going to... notice her. That’s, like, how the world works.”
“My dude. Peter. You’re not just noticing her. You’re noticing the little things about her. Kind of like what you used to do with...you know who? But a lot more creepy, honestly—”
Scratch that. It’s hard to lie to Ned, too.
“I don’t like her like that,” Peter blurts out, rushed and almost nervous. He might be interested, intrigued, but he doesn't know enough about her for anything more. That’s his excuse. “This isn’t—this isn’t like how it was with Liz. Me and Michelle don’t even talk.”
“You and Liz didn’t talk.”
“That...is not the point.”
“Then what is the point?” Ned asks, squinting hard.
Peter exhales, a shaky thing, because maybe that is the point. He doesn’t want this to be like what he had—or didn’t have—with Liz. Because if it starts the same way, who’s to say it won’t end the same way too?
“My point is...I’m not obsessed with Michelle like you said. That we’re not even friends, actually,” Peter continues quietly. “And I definitely don’t like her in that way...”
Ned stares at him, like he’s trying to figure out what’s going on in his head, before seemingly giving up. “Okay. Yeah, I was just making sure, because I didn’t think MJ liked you either.”
Peter isn’t sure if it’s his ego or his feelings that take the brunt force of his statement, but as soon as that information sinks in, there’s confusion settling in his stomach.
“Wait, what? Are—are you being serious?”
“Maybe I’m reading her wrong? But I don’t think so. It’s just...a head’s up, man,” Ned says, honesty in his words, and all Peter can do is fall silent.
Michelle and Ned are friends.
Meaning he would know.
And Peter and Michelle, well. They’re not friends, they never talk, they barely even look at each other. Of course, there’s no reason for her to like him, but is it an aversion or simply an indifference that she feels?
Why does he care?
No. Peter decides right then that doesn’t care.
It’s just a bruised ego, that’s all, because there’s absolutely no reason for him to care about what she thinks. He might look at Michelle, might notice the little details, might even hope to see that smile of hers at times.
But what does it matter when she isn’t even looking back.
eleven hours after.
“Michelle...this doesn’t have to be done right now,” May tells her with a voice shaky enough to match the tremor of her hands. “It’s okay if you give yourself time—”
“I don’t—I don’t have the time, May,” Michelle responds, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “I’m the one who has to live here. I’m the one who has to see his shoes, his clothes, the stupid...the stupid notes that he would always leave on the fridge.”
Michelle rips one off the door, her eyes scanning the sloppy scrawl before crumpling up the note in her palm, the paper too damp now to hold ink.
And as soon as she drops the paper, she sees the way his words have bled onto her skin, smudged but distinguishable. Too distinguishable.
‘I know you’re right next to me but I’m writing this down so you never forget.
I’ve missed you and I love you. Thank you for coming home last night.
Peter x’
Michelle inhales sharply and it’s at that moment she decides with utmost certainty that his presence can’t be in this apartment anymore. It all has to go, because what he’d written in the note is the only thing she wants to do right now.
Forget.
nine years until.
People are starting to notice Spider-Man’s absence, really notice, and rumors are spreading through the tabloids like wildfire—rumors that he’s moved on, that he’s quit, that he’s dead.
Some of them are not so nice, and Peter can’t bring himself to look at another news article without having the urge to talk about it. There’s so much pressure for him to get back out there and prove that Spider-Man didn’t just give up.
But that would be a lie, wouldn’t it?
Because as of right now, what has he done other than give up?
Peter would talk to Tony if they were close enough, would probably talk to May if she knew the truth in the first place. But he can’t talk to either of them and certainly isn’t going to drop all of his worries onto Ned.
So, he keeps it bottled up and takes an even further step back, shutting away anything and everything that has to do with Spider-Man. Blocked on the media, blocked in his mind. It’s all he’s got.
What Peter needs is a distraction, and he thought decathlon would be that for him, but then Harrington comes up to him one afternoon, says that his grades still aren’t the best right now, that he’d slacked off far too much in the first semester.
Basically tells him in the nicest way possible that if he doesn’t get his shit together, he’s going to be kicked off the team.
“I thought that was up to the captain.”
“It is,” Harrington says sympathetically, nodding his head towards the table where the rest of them are sitting. Where she’s sitting.
Peter can feel his heart burn with some unidentified emotion, but he knows it has to be akin with anger.
The table’s conversation pauses, probably because he’s watching them and they noticed—Michelle glancing away from Ned, the laugh dying on her lips as her eyes lock onto his. It startles both of them, but her more so.
Peter doesn’t want to be the first to look away, the frustration that’s been building up over weeks at a time getting the better of him.
And, well, she makes it easy, letting a strand of hair fall back into her eyes, hiding them from him and ducking her head.
“Michelle.”
Not MJ.
“What’s up, Parker?” she asks, and it’s so simple, those three words, but they ignite something in him.
“You want to kick me off the team?” Peter says, wondering if he sounds as agitated as he feels. It doesn’t help that her expression doesn’t change, like she isn’t affected by his terse voice.
“I don’t want to kick you off,” Michelle tells him, straightforward, and yet he has a hard time wrapping his head around that. “And I’m not going to kick you off if you just...put in a little more effort this time.”
Peter can’t help but scoff slightly, his tone coming out sarcastic as he says, “A little more?”
“Yeah, Peter. A little more,” she says, eyes narrowed. There it is. “I could count the number of meetings you came to last semester on one hand. If you want to stay on the team, there’s not going to be a repeat of that.”
Against his fighting instincts, Peter doesn’t argue, knowing that she’s right, that he needs to try harder or else there’s no point in being on the team at all. But his grades are terrible despite his constant studying, his mind too all over the place as of late, and nothing is working out.
There’s too much and yet not enough going on all at once.
“Okay,” he eventually says, his tone softening out of guilt at aiming his anger at her just because she was an easy target. “I, uh, I’m trying to get my grades up. I swear that I am, but it’s just…”
“Maybe MJ could help tutor you,” Ned suggests out of nowhere, and they both turn to him with different expressions.
Michelle with a warning look, Peter with a perplexed one.
“Whatever you guys want to do to have everyone on the same page, I’m all for it,” Harrington adds with a slight shrug.
“Do you...want me to tutor you?” Michelle asks, voice quieter than before as she looks at him, and he already knows his answer.
No.
If she already doesn’t like him now, there’s no way they would get along for hours working on something as tedious as American literature. That’s the last thing she’d want to be doing, the last thing he’d want to be doing.
But then Ned gives him this persuasive look with his eyes that reads ‘say yes, you dumbass’ and Peter figures that doing this would be for the well-being of the team and his grades.
So, he finds himself nodding robotically, mumbling, “Sure.”
“We’ll figure out the details later,” Michelle says and then does a move that Peter doesn’t expect—hasn’t expected at all in the last few weeks. She smiles at him, a small, shy thing.
Somehow, he doesn’t comprehend it at that moment, finding himself returning the smile with the same sort of timidity. The magnitude of it doesn’t hit him until later that night when he’s lying in bed and thinking about her.
At that point, it’s too late to back out.
Peter knows he’s fucked.
“I still can’t believe you’re making me do this when you know she doesn’t like me,” Peter tells Ned when they’re at lunch later that week, chewing around the Hershey kiss of a peanut butter cookie.
“That’s exactly why I think it’s a good idea. You two should become friends. She’s honestly easy to get along with if you try,” Ned responds.
“If she were easy to get along with, we would already be friends.”
“Excuse you.” Ned squints at him hard. “Maybe you’re the one who’s hard to get along with, dude. Look at her. She’s so...chill.”
They both swivel simultaneously toward Michelle’s end of the table, and she has her head ducked into another book, one that Peter knows she keeps in her bag of classics.
Michelle has these ticks, he notices, as she reads. Her nose scrunches up when she’s on the same page for longer than usual, her fingers always twiddle with the book jacket if it’s not already removed, and sometimes, she mouths the words like they’re already memorized in the back of her brain.
“She’s coming over later today for our first study session,” Peter says, folding his arms on the table and resting his head atop them. If he happens to still be staring at her, that’s no one’s business. Not even his own.
“Maybe tone down the heart eyes a little bit.”
“Ned, I’m not —I’m just looking—”
“Are you guys talking about me?” Michelle asks without even glancing up from her book, taking a casual sip of some water.
“Obviously.”
“Not. Obviously...not,” Peter tries, but then she looks up from her book with this amused half-smile as if she already knows, and his train of thought goes out the window. “I, uh...I’m...did you—?”
“Peter wanted to know if you’d like to walk with him after school to his apartment,” Ned supplies, which was not what he was gonna say. “For, y’know. The study session.”
Michelle raises a brow in Peter’s direction. “Is that what you were going to ask?”
And he can’t very well say no without sounding like some type of asshole about it, which is why he replies with, “Yeah. Yep. Just...a suggestion. One that you can ignore if you—”
“Either way,” Michelle interrupts, a slight frown tugging her smile away before she goes back to her book.
Peter doesn’t deflate. He’s not even a little disappointed, because this awkwardness means he’ll be able to keep her at arm's length if feelings were to come into play. Not that they would since, you know, he doesn’t like her like that.
But...maybe if he needs a reminder in the future.
“Yeah. Yeah, you really are the unlikeable one, aren’t you?” Ned comments off to the side with a snort.
Except, in the end, it doesn’t even matter because Peter’s last class is right across the hall from hers and they find each other anyway. He greets her with a smile, reflexive, and they walk out of school together, all bundled up because it’s winter and freezing.
They’re quiet for most of the way, but Peter finds himself glancing at her more often than not. She keeps her head down, her cheeks red from the cold, and there are snowflakes starting to melt in her hair.
It’s a sight.
She’s a sight.
Peter bites the inside of his cheek, willing himself to not look at her again until they reach the apartment because if he doesn’t, he’ll surely say something idiotic. Probably bumble out a compliment, try to take it back, and then it won’t just be silence but awkward silence.
But, much to his surprise, Michelle speaks up first, throwing him off by saying, “I see your aunt sometimes.”
“You...what? You see May?”
“Sometimes,” she repeats, shrugging. “At FEAST. She’s a volunteer there, right?”
“She is,” Peter says, feeling his lips curl up slightly, recalling the time he saw Michelle outside of the shelter. “Does that mean you’re a volunteer, too?”
“You could say that. I’ve gotten to know the people there on my free days. They’re very nice. Warm. Kind of like family, y’know?” There’s a wistful look in her eyes but that disappears the moment they reach the apartment.
“May! We’re home,” he calls out after opening the door, wincing slightly at how that sounds. “I mean...I, uh, I brought—”
“MJ?” May barrels through the kitchen doorway, beaming, and her arms wrap around his guest in a familiar hug.
“—Michelle,” Peter finishes awkwardly.
“Oh, it’s so good to see you, honey. I had no idea that it was you who would be helping Peter out,” May continues, looking between the two of them while still holding Michelle’s arms. “Of course, he never tells me anything.”
Peter feels his cheeks heat up but when he glances at Michelle, it seems that they’re both equally sheepish. She meets his eyes and a moment passes before a quiet snort escapes her lips. It almost sounds fond.
But either way, with how well May and Michelle seem to get along, Peter thinks that this study session might not be so bad.
Because after all, anyone who has the approval of his aunt must be pretty special.
“Be real with me, Peter. Do you personally think you need these tutoring sessions?” Michelle looks at him from behind her thin-framed glasses, squinting only slightly, but it sounds like an honest question.
And Peter can admit that it’s a fair one. They’ve had four study sessions so far over the span of two weeks, and he’s been grasping the material rather easily after applying himself a bit more.
Peter knows he’s smart. He may be an idiot at times, but he’s not dumb. Over the past few weeks, it’s just been easier to do schoolwork, and maybe that’s because the distractions in his head aren’t lingering in the forefront.
Or maybe it’s because Michelle makes it easier to focus on what he’s supposed to be doing. She’s easy to listen to, and any thoughts about Spider-Man are the farthest from his mind.
“What do you think?”
Michelle rolls her eyes, a slight smile to her lips. It’s something else he’s noticed—the fact that she’s started smiling at him more.
Not that it’s a big deal to him or anything.
They’ve just been bonding a little and maybe that fact just makes his heart flutter...if slaving over their American literature together even counts as bonding.
But even if feelings did happen to start sprouting up for Michelle in a not-so-platonic way, Peter would never admit it out loud and ruin something easy. He isn’t going to let this turn into a story that won’t have a happy ending.
“I think that if you wouldn't slack off, you’d actually manage to bring your grades up by yourself,” Michelle tells him, blunt and to the point. “You don’t need me to help you, Parker.”
“But you are helping, though. Maybe not in the way you think, but you’re forcing me to focus,” he says, and she squints harder.
And it hits Peter in that moment that this could be her way of asking for a way out of tutoring him. Ned might’ve been right all along. Maybe she really doesn’t like him, doesn’t want to waste any more time than she has to.
The smiles could be a ploy, but it hurts to think so.
“As long as my presence has some lasting impact on you,” she replies with a snort. “Because we need you on the team. Believe it or not, Flash is much more of an asset when he’s an alternate.”
“Is that...the only reason you’ve agreed to do this?” Peter asks, only half-joking. “Because Flash is more unlikeable to you than I am?”
“Yes, Peter. That’s exactly it,” Michelle says, and her tone is utterly dry.
He’s so confused.
“If you don’t want to be here, I could try finding someone else—”
“Of course I want the team to succeed,” she interrupts with a short exhale and a quiet voice. “But I’m also here because I do actually want to help you. Sue me, Parker.”
“That’s nice of you,” Peter says, swallowing, and she looks up, meets his eyes. “I just—I wasn’t sure since Ned, uh...he told me that you don’t really like me. I thought maybe you were doing this because you had to, which...you don’t.”
“Leeds told you that I didn’t like you?” she asks, and her smile expands like the rising sun. He can’t keep up.
“Is he right?”
“I like you just fine, Peter.” Her gaze casts downward. “But the fact that Ned can’t read a person for shit is hilarious.”
“Yeah, it is,” he agrees, silently wishing he could know what she was thinking for once. “Thanks for the clarification.”
Michelle tucks a pencil behind her ear, one of the graphite ones she uses to sketch, and asks, “Why? Was that a question that’s kept you up at night?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Peter says while on the precipice between yes and no. They both look away at the same time.
Confrontation was inevitable.
Peter should’ve expected it sooner, but he wasn’t surprised when Tony had called him one afternoon, providing nothing short of a gentle prodding for information on why he hasn’t been out patrolling lately.
And, of course, for as unprepared as he was to answer, Peter managed to slip by with a brief excuse about how he was bogged down with schoolwork and didn’t have enough time to go out. Stark called it a responsible move.
Peter called it a dirty one. Because, well, that was only half the truth.
A familiar feeling of guilt lingered with him for the remainder of the day—one that he expected would only get worse when a call from his best friend came in.
Ned was the one to find out they’re starting to sell Spider-Man memorabilia in the neighboring bodegas and had wanted to let Peter know.
It should be exciting, the idea of getting a bobblehead of himself to stick on the dashboard.
“I already got one,” Ned says with a chuckle to himself and sends a grainy picture. “Pretty cool, I think. They’ve got some art, too. Like, these really awesome posters? They’re hand drawn by local artists around Queens, and it’s all worth checking out.”
What Peter wanted to say was, ‘yeah, man, I’d love to see it’ , but what he ended up saying was, “People are still...supporting Spider-Man?”
Because it’s shocking, especially to himself.
“Have you expected them not to?”
And, yeah. That’s exactly what Peter had expected. He hasn’t gone out two months and counting, and he assumed everyone had believed the tabloids that claimed he’d quit. Given up on the city.
The last thing Peter wants is for people to forget that there’s always someone looking out for them, even if Spider-Man isn’t doing it publicly, but trending news comes and goes.
So the fact that not everyone has forgotten him yet throws him, and he doesn’t know what to say.
“Honestly...a little.”
“Listen, Peter,” Ned begins, sounding slightly concerned. “Maybe you think I haven’t noticed. Or maybe you think that I’m just ignoring what’s been going on around me...but I’m not. It’s obvious what’s going on.”
“I mean, what, obvious due to the lack of Spider-Man?” Peter asks with a humorless laugh, hearing the similarities between this conversation and the one he’d just had with Tony.
But then Ned snorts, saying, “It’s obvious because you’re my best friend, Pete. Spider-Man’s not part of the equation here. You think I wouldn’t notice that you’ve seemed more stressed out lately? Or that you’re manifesting a guilt complex the size of Mt. Washington?”
“And here I thought I was good at keeping my secrets,” he replies, his tone slightly dry.
“You know you’re terrible.” Ned’s voice softens then. “But what’s worse is that you didn’t think you could talk to me about it? I know I’ve never brought this up, but the last thing I wanted was for it to seem like I was pushing you.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t...say anything. I just didn’t want to burden you, that’s all. You’re supposed to have the fun part of the job. Guy in the Chair and all.”
“No, dude, we’re past that. If you can tell me with no shame that in eighth grade, you and Gwen Stacy did some hot ‘n heavy making out in the ladies’ room, then you literally can tell me anything. Nothing will ever be as bad as hearing the details of that.”
“One, I thought we agreed to never bring that up again. And two…thanks, man. I just...haven’t had the motivation to go out, I guess. It doesn’t feel right, but…”
“You can’t force yourself. You shouldn’t even have to. If you want to take a year long break, then you fucking take that year long break.”
“Well, I’m glad to have at least one person on my side,” Peter says, half-smiling.
“You won’t hear me blowing up your ego by saying there’s a lot more than just one,” Ned jokes. “But I’m implying it.”
Peter feels his heart warm, and while that wasn’t encouragement to get back out there on his feet, the reassurance from his best friend was something he needed to hear. That even if he wasn’t doing the right thing for the well-being of the city, he was trying to do the right thing for himself.
“Appreciate that, Ned.” He husks out a quiet laugh, gratitude that he had someone like Ned in his life rolling off him in waves. “Honestly, love you, man.”
“Love you, too, bro. Always got your back.” There’s a brief pause before Ned continues. “And speaking of having your back...guess what we’re doing this weekend with a certain someone.”
“Tell me that that certain someone isn’t—”
“MJ? Consider this me wingmanning for you, honestly. Star Wars marathon, dude. She says she’s never seen one before because they’re supposedly cinematic space trash. Care to prove her wrong with me?”
“Please, Ned. You act like I could ever tell Michelle she’s wrong.”
twelve hours after.
“This doesn’t feel real, does it?”
Ned’s statement sounds like an honest question, and he’s asking her for an answer that she can’t provide. He wants her to tell him that no, this doesn’t feel real—that there’s no way this could’ve happened.
But Michelle can admit to herself that she’d always expected it would end this way. Not this soon, not this brutally, but it was bound to happen.
“May offered that I come stay with her for the time being,” Michelle says instead, eyes downcast, fingers fiddling with the sleeves of her sweatshirt. “She doesn’t want me to be alone here.”
“Will you?”
Michelle swallows thickly, vision fogging up as her thumb rubs against her ring finger, just recently bare. The weight of what had previously taken up that space was too much right now.
“I don’t want her to be alone either. I don’t want you to be alone. I just...I think that I need to be alone. Somewhere else, maybe. I don’t know yet.”
Her home had always been a person, never just a place, and now that he’s gone, she doesn’t know where to go.
nine years until.
It was supposed to be a one-time thing.
That’s what Peter had told himself before their night had even begun—himself, Michelle, and Ned all huddled in his room later that evening, crammed on his bed, sharing the damn thing because it’s the only form of seating he’s got.
Peter had spent half of the night paying attention to the movie and the other half listening to the valid critiques Michelle had muttered under her breath that weren’t even for him to hear.
Everything had been uneventful for the most part, Ned falling asleep by the credits of the second movie, leaving Peter in an awkward silence with Michelle, who was clearly getting bored.
It got to the point where Peter was desperate to fill the quiet, awkward tension with something. Anything.
Which is why he brought up her art.
It started as an offhand comment, something about how he’d noticed her sketching from time to time.
Michelle seemed surprised by the acknowledgement but then a smile cracked across her face, and she started talking. Really talking, and it was different than anything he’d seen before. Because, finally, this was a topic that she loved.
Peter wished he knew beforehand that all it took to have a real conversation with Michelle was bringing up one of his many observations that he had of her.
Honest to god, he knows he would’ve let her go on for hours, would’ve let her talk about something as simple as the brand of pencil she uses if it meant that sparkle would remain in her eyes.
Maybe that was a sign that Peter’s starting to fall down a rabbit hole of feelings, but looking back now, he was blind to it.
Or, maybe he wasn’t.
Because that seemed to be the turning point.
Peter starts inviting Michelle to weekly movie nights, something that hadn’t existed before she’d come along, but neither he nor Ned are complaining. His feelings of excitement are genuine, truly, these evenings being what he looks forward to most by the end of the week.
It’s getting easier, their dynamic, he thinks. They’re almost friends, right on the borderline, as she’s opening up with him more now.
Only onward and upward from there.
Except, the more time he spends with Michelle, the more he starts to slip up, his thoughts drifting farther away from just friendship. That’s not what was supposed to happen, but there’s an allure to her that his feelings just can’t seem to resist.
It hasn’t cost him anything.
Not until now.
“Hey, Parker, you still have that flash drive I lent you? The one you were supposed to use to study?” Michelle asks one evening, Ned already snoring on the bed next to her ear.
“I did use it to study, thank you very much,” Peter retorts with an easy laugh, his attention only half-focused on the television, on the movie. “Top drawer in my nightstand, I think?”
Michelle nods and opens the drawer, he can hear that, but he can’t hear anything else. It goes silent, eerily so, despite the movie still playing on the screen in front of them.
And it’s that moment when Peter remembers—remembers that he hadn’t put the flash drive in that drawer but something else. Not that her sketch belongs to him either, but now she’s seen that he has it. He’s kept it.
“Peter,” she mutters, quiet, and he can’t read her tone. “Why do you have this?”
“I found it,” Peter admits, wetting his cracked lips as he turns to look at her. She’s looking at him, her expression too blank. “You just...you threw it away, and I didn’t—I didn’t think it was worth throwing away. It’s good.”
“So you kept it,” Michelle says, and there’s nothing familiar about her at that moment. She’s not angry, but it’s not the same as it was five minutes ago.
“I’m sorry if you didn’t want me to see,” he tells her, swallowing, and her eyes soften before darting away from his. “You can have it back if—”
“I don’t want it. I just—I...don’t. You keep it.” Her words are uncertain, and maybe her expression is too. “I, uh...I have to go.”
But it’s the finality of the door shutting behind her as she leaves that wakes Peter, snapping him into the reality of her being there and suddenly being gone.
Ned stirs at that moment, his snoring ceasing as he sits up, blinking blearily. “Hmm? What’s going on? Where’d MJ go?”
Peter finds himself sitting back on his bed, staring at the paper in his hands with regret. He wonders if he should throw it away now.
“She left.”
Maybe keeping the sketch wasn’t worth it, a mere piece of paper possibly costing him a friendship with Michelle.
Peter understands where she’s coming from, that artists make art in ways that are personal to them—that this sketch must have been personal to her, and he just took it without a second thought.
It’s taken him nearly the whole night to accept those facts, him waking up at six a.m. on a Saturday because lying in bed for much longer with just his mind on a constant loop of the previous night isn’t what he wants to do.
With May still asleep, the kitchen is dark, and he’s barely awake enough to make himself a cup of coffee.
In fact, he starts dozing at the kitchen table, despite having the coffee in his hands, which seems to be doing nothing for his alertness.
That’s only further proven when there’s a knock, two taps against the apartment door, and Peter barely hears it—him only noticing when five more consecutive knocks sound against the wood, softening after each, like they’re on the verge of fading.
Peter doesn’t know what brought him to do it, but he stood up and gripped the knob in his palm. There was a chance that she wouldn’t be there, that he was putting too much hope into this, but honestly...
He would do anything to see her on the other side of the door.
And she is.
“Michelle,” he exhales, trying to contain his blatant relief that she’s there despite having no idea why. “It’s...six a.m.”
“And yet, you’re awake,” she responds with a barely-there smile, clenching a roll of paper between her palms. “Sorry. I know I could’ve waited, but I was afraid I’d change my mind later.”
“Do you want to come in?” Peter asks, and she presses her lips together, nodding. They step inside, gravitating back towards the kitchen.
“I didn’t mean to run last night,” Michelle eventually admits after staring at the worn kitchen table for a few minutes. “It was just...the idea of you having that self-portrait...I was a little embarrassed if I’m being honest.”
“What? No, you don’t have to be embarrassed. It was so beautiful, Michelle,” he insists, and maybe him calling her self-portrait beautiful was intentional. “I know I shouldn’t have taken it without letting you know, but I really only kept it because...you drew it.”
Michelle breathes out a soft laugh, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear as she says, “Thanks. I meant it when I said you can keep it. I’m past embarrassment and stuck in acceptance now.”
“Cool, cool,” Peter says, rocking on his heels with a dumb smile on his face. “Is that, uh...is that why you came over?”
“Basically.” Though, she hesitates before placing a roll of paper on the dining table. “But I also have this piece that I kind of want your opinion on. Sometimes my sketches get away from me and turn into...well.”
Peter chews the inside of his cheek in anticipation, wondering what piece of art she would want to trust his opinion with, but then she unrolls the paper and he suddenly can’t breathe.
“You...you drew this,” he whispers, his eyes tracing along the sharp lines and neon oil pastels laid against the paper into a familiar form.
“Spider-Man has always been an artistic inspiration of mine,” Michelle says, glancing at him. “And he’s done so much for the city. I thought I’d make him something in return.”
“This is...incredible. I really—I don’t know what else to say.” He swallows, feeling his heart thrum in his ears, because what an honor. “And you wanted...my opinion on this?”
“Of course. I trust you.” Michelle meets his eyes, and there’s something knowing in her expression. “As long as he likes it, I’ll be happy.”
“I think he’ll love it.”
Michelle smiles, an easy thing, and says, “Would you let me know when you see him around next? I’d like to give it to him in person.”
“Ah, he...he’s been gone for awhile, and I don’t know when he’ll be back,” Peter admits, looking down. “Or if.”
“Well. Spider-Man can take as much time as he needs,” she says, starting to roll the picture back up. “Because no one is going anywhere. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yeah,” he murmurs, his voice cracking just a bit with emotion. “Will I see you around?”
“Only if you want to.”
Peter manages a small laugh, nodding as he says, “I’d like to, yeah.” And then he takes a risk, a big step forward in the figurative and literal sense, tentatively wrapping his arms around Michelle in a hug. Their first. “I’ll see you then, Michelle.”
“My friends call me MJ, Peter,” Michelle reminds him as she pulls back, and he smiles, feeling his heart skip a beat while she steps into the hallway. As much as this is a goodbye, it feels like a hello. Like the beginning of something.
“Goodbye, MJ.”
thirteen hours after.
The fridge is bare.
Michelle holds the box of notes in her arms and carries them to the bedroom, stopping short at the doorway. She hasn’t stepped foot inside since they’d left together, and it hurts differently entering now.
But she takes a deep breath, knowing what her goal is, and kneels onto the floor, right next to the bed on his side.
Sliding a box out from under the bed, Michelle’s breath hitches as she’s reminded of the contents. She drops the notes inside, them fluttering down and landing atop the faded pastel.
It’s been years since she’s drawn Spider-Man.
Michelle had never regretted making him this piece, not until now when the only thing it serves as is a reminder that life is a temporary thing.
And that love is everything but.