Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s been one week since MJ moved to the fourth floor of her cozy little apartment building. It’s charmingly shabby with its rickety stairs and squeaky door hinges. The nice, off-white tile with the hanging vintage chandelier in the lobby balances out the rusty mailboxes and the smell of weed and mothballs— surprisingly homey. The hot water of her shower tends to fog up all the windows in the apartment, the entire counter buzzes when she makes smoothies, and the pipes rattle whenever the person above her flushes the toilet. But, in a weird way, it’s all very comforting. To be surrounded by the city, by people each living out their individual lives, above her, below her, next to her. It’s why she loves New York.

She stops by the deli around the corner on her way home from work one afternoon, weaving in between the passing people, trying to maintain hold of her sandwich all the while she types an email to her boss. Multitasking. She’s known for it. But it all goes downhill when she drops her lunch on the pavement, someone immediately squishing it beneath their foot. She stands, defeated, longingly looking at the flat sandwich, still confined in it’s wrapping, yet utterly deformed. MJ sighs. She picks it up before anyone else can step on it. What’s a little squish? It’s all gonna end up mashed in her mouth anyway.

When she gets to her building, she struggles yet again to keep ahold of everything in her hands, shoving her shoulder against the door, giving a grunt. Walking up four flights of stairs has it’s moments of torture and, yes, this is one of them. She takes a deep breath when she makes it to the top of the last flight, closing her eyes and blowing wisps of flyaway curls out of her face. Hands still clasped to her purse, work bag, phone, and the ever-increasingly sad sandwich, she walks to her apartment door.

It’s marked with a gold 411, scratches of wear marring almost every inch of it. She realizes her fatal mistake, as her keys are somewhere in the mess at the bottom of her bag. Fuck it. She releases everything she’s holding onto the floor in one resounding thud. She turns her back to the door, closes her eyes, and slides down, huffing another over-dramatic sigh. She just needs a goddamn minute.

When she opens her eyes, she sees a man mirroring her position against the door marked with a gold 410. Except he’s looking at her. She frowns.

“What’s up with you?” She asks.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he chuckles. “No, I, uh. I got locked out.” He shrugs, sheepishly scratching the back of his neck, “Any chance you know how to pick a lock?”

She arches one eyebrow at him.

“Uh, kidding.” He starts to stand up, “I’m Peter, by the way. Peter Parker.”

“Peter Parker, huh? Sounds fake. How do I know you’re not one of those con-artists trying to lure me into your apartment?” She gives him a theatrical once over, mostly just to mess with him. But you can never be too careful.

Standing with his arms crossed now, as he looks down at her on the floor, he says, “Well, that’s a good point, I guess. I called the landlord, but they said it wouldn’t be ‘til tonight that they got around to unlock it for me.” He looks down at himself, “Not to mention the fifty dollar charge— can you believe that? You’d think I’d learn my lesson after the first three times, but I think the keys physically get up and hide from me in the morning.”

“I’m sorry, you said three? This has happened multiple times and you never managed to put a spare under the rug or something?”

His cheeks redden still looking at the floor. “I lost the spare, too,” he mumbles.

Michelle tries not to laugh. She presses her lips together, hiding the upward curve of her smile.

He continues, “I’m just trying to get creative, I will literally try anything at this point. Any suggestions?”

MJ rolls her eyes. She looks over at her purse to stick her hand in and rummage through its contents until she feels the cold metal of her key ring at the tip of her fingers. Pulling them out, she lifts herself off of the floor and turns to unlock the door to her apartment.

“I have an idea,” she says, opening the door, then picking up the rest of her discarded things. She sets everything down on the coffee table, looking back through the open door at Peter with her eyebrows raised. “Come on.”

“Isn’t inviting the con-artist into your apartment counterintuitive?”

“How do you know I’m not the real con-artist?”

He smiles at her, flashing a pair of sweet dimples, a lopsided grin that makes her face feel a little warm. He steps through the doorway, looking at the haphazard boxes in the living room and the scarce furniture she’s managed to set up. His gaze lands on her.

“I guess I’ll take my chances,” he replies.

“I guess I’ll take mine.” Her lips become slightly more than an upward curve, and she looks away to save herself from his reaction.

It’s not that she doesn’t like smiling or laughing. It’s just that smiling always invites more people in, encourages people to delve deeper. Deeper into her walls and insecurities and, boy, does she not have the energy for that. Easier to throw them off, make them work a little harder so she has time to determine if they’re worth the effort to unfold herself. Michelle’s the type of person with just a few close friends, friends she still struggles to keep up with after college flung them all separate ways. But Betty and Liz still live in the city. She has plans with them this weekend. See, she thinks, I have friends. Friends that would love to hear about her cute next door neighbor. Yeah, there’s no way she’s telling them about this. Too many questions.

Her mind pops back to the present. To Peter standing in her living room. She looks out the window and confirms her quite creative idea of how to get him back into his apartment. And out of hers.

She points to the metal structure outside, “Yeah, see, the firescape runs alongside the building. You desperate enough to go through the window?”

She looks back at him and his eyebrows nearly reach his hairline.

“Oh! Um, yeah. That’s… actually a good idea.”

“You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” She asks, sensing a hesitation in his surprise.

“No, I, uh. I’m just mad I didn’t think of that before,” talking to himself more than her. He scratches the back of his neck again. Must be a nervous habit.

MJ shoves the window open, it screeching in protest. She sticks her head out and looks straight down. She’d reckon you could live from a fall this high, right?

Peter, suddenly next to her, puts a hand on the window sill. Showing no signs of nervousness, he gives her a smile and goes to lift his leg up and out the window. She steps back, ready to give him a hand and witness this awkward exchange of Cute Guy crawling haphazardly onto the firescape, but in one smooth motion he steps out of the window and turns to face her.

MJ blinks. “Seems like you might have some practice at this… climb out of windows often?”

She means it in a cheeky way. Sneaking out of the house, sneaking into a house. But Peter clears his throat and looks down at his feet. Not afraid of heights then.

“No,” he says, stalling, “I’m just… limber.”

“Limber,” she narrows her eyes. Underneath the graphic t-shirt that says “If you believe in telekinesis, please raise my hand,” she sees him puff out his chest. But the show emphasizes his point, he just might have something going on under there. She internally rolls her eyes. Men.

He stands up straighter, winks, and says more confidently, “Limber.” Then he walks off, shoes clacking on the metal, to break into his apartment.

Halfway there, he turns around and shouts over the busy street below, “I never got your name!”

She debates messing with him, but she decides it might be good to make nice with the overly-friendly and, you can’t forget, limber neighbor.

“Michelle Jones,” she yells, “but my friends call me MJ!”

Peter smiles, lifts the window that presumably leads into his apartment, and disappears inside, maneuvering past the window as smoothly as he did with hers.

She shuts the window and fastens the locks as best she can. Just because he’s cute doesn’t mean he has a free pass into her place. She looks to the coffee table at the lumpy sandwich, seemingly taunting her for the weird day she’s had. She ignores the feeling that Peter’s appearance seemed to lighten her mood, instead narrowing her eyes and stomping over to pick it up. She chucks it in the trash.

~

The four story walk up seems less strenuous when Betty and Liz are beside her, distracting with their overzealous oohing and aahing at every detail. It’s refreshing. MJ doesn’t have a ton of close friends. She’s grateful that Liz and Betty have persisted throughout the years to keep their friendship intact.

They insisted on having a night of decorating, drinking, and general catching up. It’s only been a couple weeks since Michelle moved in, but she gradually lost incentive for unpacking her things after the first nights alone. It’s good to have an excuse to finish what she started. Except, this time, with company.

Her friends instantly remark on the state of her apartment, playful banter poking fun at Michelle’s barren walls and the haphazard organization of furniture all pushed to one side of the living room. Betty makes the executive decision to sort the books onto the bookshelves first, considering Michelle’s need to buy a new paperback every time she enters a dusty old bookshop.

There’s something about bending back the pages and dog-earring her place that adds to the comfort of reading. She prefers the pliability and wear to the rigidness of a thick hardback. Makes a difference when you’re moving about two hundred of them, too.

“Holy crow, Michelle, you kept this from freshman year history class?” Betty asks, looking at a worn copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

“Duh, Dr. Cahoon ate up my final paper analyzing the inherently homoerotic nature of Gilgamesh’s reationship with his so called ‘best friend,’” Michelle replies, thinking fondly of the nights spent reading the paragraphs over and over again to best absorb the gay subtext.

Betty just scoffs, bringing on a discussion of the most outlandish academic paper they’ve ever submitted for a passing grade. Betty’s being a commentary of humanity’s inevitable formation of celebrities for a senior level poli-sci class (A-), Liz’s being a short summary of an Onion article: “Wealthy Teen Nearly Experiences Consequence” unironically for a current event assignment (an absent-minded hundred percent, she’s sure her professor never actually read it), and MJ’s being the investigation report of local high schoolers who drenched their fellow baseball teammate in actual piss for her intro to journalism class (C+, her professor did not find this as sarcastically charming as she made it out to be).

Caught up in their college antics, Michelle realizes they’ve reached the end of the last box of books. Neatly placed on her many shelves shoved in the corner, they’re organized by the author's last name. Liz suggested by color at first and Michelle just about lost it.

“Okay, dinner break,” Liz huffs, rolling her shoulders and cracking her neck. Michelle places the last book, Pride by Ibi Zoboi, on the bottom shelf. She does her own little stretch to straighten out the kinks in her back.

“Carryout?” Michelle asks.

“Yes, please,” Betty says, slumping on the couch.

“After dinner, we enter the speed round, okay girls?” Liz looks at them with mock seriousness.

“That wasn’t the speedround?” Betty huffs.

Michelle looks around at the furniture. “We’re just getting started.”

Two cartons of Chinese takeout and three bottles of wine later, the music is blasting on the stereo and the three friends reassure each other, it gets messier before it gets cleaner. With the living room configured, they migrate to Michelle’s small bedroom and all look down at the mattress on the floor.

“You’re one of those people, Michelle,” Betty says, gravely. “You’re one of the people you hate so much.”

“I have a bedframe. It’s right there,” she points to the corner where the wooden slats and everything sits.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us,” Liz says, clearly the drunkest of them, yet holding it together much better than Michelle and Betty combined. They heave the mattress up on it’s long side and lean it against the wall.

Then comes assembling the pieces of her bed frame, more complicated now than it felt putting it together the first time. The alcohol makes this all incredibly funny. Betty lays on the floor, laughing, red in the face because Michelle fiddled with the screwdriver for ten minutes before realizing she needs a flathead instead of the crosshead she was forcing into the top of the little screw.

She drops her tools and lays next to Betty, Liz picking up where MJ left off. Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” seems a little loud when you’re not focusing on anything else. Michelle gets up to turn down the stereo in the living room when the huge thud of the mattress falling makes her physically jump. Betty laughs louder, the sound carrying into the other room. She hopes her neighbors don’t mind the noise on a Friday night.

Just as the thought crosses her mind, she hears a knock at the front door. Had she not been in the living room, she would’ve missed it. Forgetting to turn down the music in her haze of red wine, she swings the door open wide and blinks.

Her neighbor, looking sheepish, stands in her doorway, one hand on the frame. Uh-oh. Michelle panics, acutely aware of her very intoxicated friends in the other room. What Betty might say to this man, without a filter.

“Hey, Michelle. I mean, MJ. I heard a noise, just checking to make sure you’re okay,” Peter looks past her towards the racket of Liz and Betty now singing, “Just! One! Touch!” horribly out of sync with Katy’s vocals. He’s hiding a smile.

Her brain swims and her response comes slower than she’d like to admit. “Just moving things, you know… around.”

“Ohh, of course,” he eyes her playfully. “Let me know if you ever need any help, though it looks like you already have some.” His smile grows wider.

She narrows her eyes. “We happen to be making great progress, actually.” She’s somewhat defensive, somewhat teasing. The empty bottles on the coffee table add to the effect.

Peter laughs and lifts his hands in surrender, “I see that,” a flash of teeth, “No worries. Glad you’re having fun.” His eyes grow genuine, crinkling at the corners from his smile. Michelle is relieved their conversation is coming to an end, her brain using all it’s power to maintain coherence.

“Oh, Meeeeshhelle…!” Betty’s voice calls from the bedroom. “I’m thinking it’s time to lie in a circle and spill all our secrets,” she giggles, walking into the living room and stopping short at the sight of Peter in the doorway.

His eyebrows raise, going back to hiding his smile, nevertheless showing just how amusing he finds this. “Secrets?”

“No boys allowed, obviously,” Betty sways, the change in direction confusing her legs.

“I won’t intrude on your slumber party. Seems like quite the night.”

“I’d offer you a beverage, but we drank all of it.” Michelle is concentrating on forming her vowels, refusing to slur her words.

Betty opens her mouth to respond, Michelle already bracing herself, when—

“Spider!” Liz screams, her drunkenness bleeding into the shrill sound. It seems to echo out into the hallway, pinging up and down the staircase, no doubt waking up some people in the process. Everyone looks toward the bedroom.

“Don’t kill it!!” Michelle calls urgently. No creature shall be murdered under her domain. She runs into the kitchen, socks sliding on the tile. Grabbing a plastic cup, she makes a beeline for the bedroom.

Liz lifts an accusing hand toward the closet, “It’s in one of your shoes.”

Michelle sighs, bending down to inspect every pair. When she spies the spider’s spindly legs hooked around the tongue of one of her sneakers, MJ glances slowly at her hands. Oh. She forgot the piece of paper that goes under the spider-catching cup. Grateful for her drunkenness, she shakes the shoe over the cup, the spider tumbling into the container. She slaps her hand over the top, feeling the soft tickle of it trying to escape.

She stands and is surprised to see Peter and Betty slouching in the doorway. Betty’s expression is one of absolute glee, Peter’s hedging on amusement.

“Take it outside!” Liz doesn’t question the random man in Michelle’s apartment, her focus solely on the task of removing the spider.

“I’ll go with her,” Peter volunteers. No one comments on his suggestion. Betty’s giggles don’t count.

Michelle walks mechanically to the hallway, Peter following her cautiously.

“Got it?” he asks when she starts to descend the staircase.

“Yep.” MJ thinks it the best course of action to keep her mouth shut. It’s funny. She knows he finds it funny. But she feels vulnerable, not ready to be so metaphorically exposed to her neighbor.

It’s not like she hasn’t been drunk with men. Or men she’s liked. It’s easy to flirt with liquid courage running through her veins. Fun even.

This feels different.

The shyness makes her focus on her feet, each step carefully placed so she doesn’t go slipping down, making an absolute ass of herself.

They make it to the bottom, metal mailboxes glinting in the cold street light streaming through the windows. Peter opens the door for her, shoving the doorstop underneath it with his foot. She looks around. Not much greenery for so-called wildlife in her hands.

“Just on the sidewalk where he can get crushed under someone’s foot?” She’s not sure why the safety of the spider is so vital right now. “Here,” Peter offers his hand. MJ looks at it with interest. Realizing he’s waiting for her, she removes her hand from the cup, spider latched onto her ring and pinky finger. It’s not one of those delicate daddy long legs, it’s body is dark and a little fuzzy. Peter’s palm cups the back of her hand and the spider walks from her fingers onto his. The small contact makes her clear her throat, heat rising to her cheeks. Peter walks a couple steps to the edge of the building, placing his fingertips against the brick, a makeshift bridge for the spider.

“Maybe he’ll find his way back inside.” His eyes glint at her, teasing, in the city’s darkness. As dark as the city can be, at least.

She shrugs. It will be ten times easier to do this again tomorrow, sober. MJ doesn’t mind.

“It’s freezing out here.” Shivering from the cool nighttime breeze, she wraps her arms around herself.

“Isn’t the alcohol supposed to keep you warm?”

“Contrary to your assumption, immunity to weather conditions appears with the next level of intoxication, one I have yet to reach. I’d need about three more shots for that.”

“But intoxicated enough to use three vocabulary words per sentence.”

“I thought you’d be able to keep up, Parker.” Michelle is self aware enough to acknowledge the fact that she’s compensating. Making up for the slowness of her wine-addled brain by over-annunciating and hyper-clarifying. To be fair, though, this is a staple of Drunk MJ. It is a fun game, challenging her mouth to keep up with the sentences forming in her thoughts.

“We can go back in now,” he chuckles. Placing his warm hand on her shoulder briefly, they walk back through the door and up the staircase. Michelle pauses at the junction of their hallway, Peter facing her, smirking.

“Have a good rest of your night, MJ.” Michelle’s vision is swimming and she’s seemed to hit her word count for the night, so she just nods with a slight smile, wanting to join her friends again.

She shuts her door. Feeling dizzy, she leans against it, head tilted up to the ceiling. Relief floods her features and giddiness settles in her stomach.

“Who was that?” Betty giggles. Michelle looks at them, sitting on the floor, their backs against the sofa, cheeks red, eyes glassy with alcohol. Somehow, they’ve managed to turn off the music. She smiles, reluctantly.

“My neighbor, 410. Peter Parker. I just met him last week.” She joins them on the floor, laying her body flat in front of them.

“He’s yummy, MJ.” Betty slumps to her left, lying on her side facing Michelle, hiccuping between giggles.

Liz nods her head enthusiastically in agreement, intoxication finally showing in the drooping of her eyelids. MJ laughs, outright and thunderous, the relief rolling off her tongue. Gratefulness swells in her lungs, she squints at her friends in her newly cozy apartment. Her hair, frizzy, spread out around her head like a halo, creates a makeshift pillow. She blinks slowly, each time becoming harder to lift her eyelids back up. She falls asleep, there on the hardwood, making an unconscious note to get a rug tomorrow.

In the morning, MJ’s body feels stiff. Betty had gotten up to make toast and coffee, though, and the breakfast helps clear MJ’s head. They all laugh over last night’s interruption and admire their surprisingly organized work on Michelle’s apartment. The living room (bottles and takeout since cleared away) looks amazingly quaint. The sofa faces the small television, a coffee table inbetween. A chair sits in the corner with the hefty bookshelves, and artwork fills the previously empty space on her walls.

When she changes her clothes, the mattress is nicely made atop her assembled bed frame in the corner. They must have done that when she was taking out the spider with Peter. The memory makes her roll her eyes, her nerves nonexistent with a clear head. They’ll have a laugh over it next time she sees him.

After doing some last minute rug shopping with Betty and Liz, she bids them goodbye and heads back to her place to relax for the rest of the weekend. Introverted at heart, she looks forward to curling up with a book (or many) in her comfy nook, brought to life with the help of her friends.

~

On a sad Tuesday morning, MJ has pulled herself out of bed absurdly early in the morning. Usually, she can sleep in an extra hour before she has to get to work, but it’s been chaotic lately. She’s going in early to tie up some loose ends she left unfinished yesterday.

After putting on a gray pantsuit that compensates for the rattiness of her tattered converse (what even is business casual, anyway), MJ makes her way down the stairs with a tall thermos of green tea sloshing dangerously close to the lip.

As she descends the last flight of stairs, she spots the fleeting figure of Peter Parker walking out the front door. At the last second, he looks back, hearing the sound of her keys jangling. He pauses and holds the door open, chivalrous as ever. Michelle rolls her eyes.

“Thanks, Parker.”

He smiles in response. “Have a good weekend, MJ?”

She knows he’s referring to her drunken shenanigans and she resists the urge to roll her eyes for the second time in less than a minute. She stays strong, instead giving him a level look as they both head the same direction.

“I had a great weekend. Our moving party was supremely successful.”

“I’ll say. Didn’t peg you for a Katy Perry fan. Or an ally to spiders.”

“I’m a humanitarian, Peter,” she says, referring to the spider. “As for the Katy Perry… I’ll blame that one on my drunk friends.” Everyone likes to get down to a little Katy Perry, when the mood strikes. Call it a weak moment. But she doesn’t want to give Peter the satisfaction.

“They seem great.”

“They’re…” Michelle looks for something witty to say. Make a joke about how silly and obnoxious they are, but all that comes out is, “They’re pretty great.”

Peter looks at her, eyes soft and smiles with closed lips. She thinks about Betty dropping a book on her foot when they were stacking the shelves and Liz wrapping one of MJ’s stray curls around her finger as a greeting. Michelle smiles, too, just for herself.

It dawns on her that they’re both headed toward the subway, some unspoken New Yorker instinct taking over as they dodge the people bustling past them, while still keeping pace with each other.

“What’s your train, Parker?”

Peter huffs a laugh. “The R. You?”

“You work downtown?” “Yeah, photographer for the Daily Bugle.”

Michelle’s mouth curves upward, thinking of Peter kneeling in Central Park, feeding crumbs to the pigeons in exchange for their cooperation. “What kind of pictures do you take?”

“Mostly stuff around the city. Sort of whatever relates to the articles—traffic, buildings, Central Park, and the like.”

MJ breaks into a full smile, unable to help it. “You sure you’re not some pigeon photographer extraordinaire?”

“MJ, if that was my job title, I’d wear it with unwavering pride,” he says with mock sincerity.

“I’m sure you take wonderful pigeon pictures.”

Peter nods, satisfied with her assumption.

“I’m taking the R, too,” she says, remembering she never actually answered his question. She tells him about nearly interviewing for the Bugle—not for photography—for a journalist position. Peter is surprised.

“Hey! We coulda been coworkers!”

MJ huffs and concedes, “I don’t know how you deal with Jameson. I’ve never met the guy and I already despise him from the tidbits of new coverage he gets from being such an ass.”

“His bark is certainly worse than his bite. But he would’ve fired me ten times over by now if I wasn’t the only guy who could get photos of Spider-Man.”

Peter darts his eyes away with a small smile.

“And here I thought your specialty was pigeons.”

“Spider-Man is definitely not my specialty.”

“Then what is?”

“Let’s go with… nature. Or… landscapes.”

MJ can’t help it, “Some might call spiders part of nature.”

“Only humanitarians, MJ.”

Michelle gives in with a small laugh. “Okay, fine.”

She tells him, instead of the torrid Bugle, she found a position at the ACLU way above her paygrade. She may have her doctorate, but being fresh out of school, she was short on experience. One of her professors vouched for her and she got an interview for the media strategist position. Lots of writing, with a side of investigating. She could not complain at all. Peter looked awed, which normally made Michelle feel smug. She worked hard for what she got, and despite being somewhat under-experienced, she deserved it.

Under his appreciative gaze Michelle doesn’t feel smug, like someone had underestimated her and she bested them. She feels proud. Just proud.

Her thermos is clutched in her right hand, bleeding warmth into her palm. Peter walks on her right, the steam wafting between them.

“What’re you drinking?” He nods his head toward the thermos.

“Tea.”

“Mm. More of a coffee guy myself. But that smells good.”

“Tea is the superior drink.”

“Most of America would disagree.”

“Most of America would disagree with a majority of my beliefs. Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

Peter just smiles and nods. “I’ll have to try it.”

“You’ll have to try tea,” Michelle teases him.

“I mean, it’s not like I’ve never had tea before. I just mean, well, I’ve never had tea that I liked before. So. I guess I’ll have to try it again... And hope it’s better...”

MJ raises an eyebrow. “Honey usually makes it taste better. And if you leave the tea bag in too long, it gets bitter.”

“Noted.” Peter bobs his head, like he’s actually making a mental note.

When they finally arrive at the station with bits of small-talk floating between them, the wind picks up and chills Michelle straight to the bone. Waiting for the train to arrive, she tries to contain her shivers, knees nearly knocking together. Peter eyes her with veiled concern.

She waves a dismissive hand, “I run cold. It’s my one and only weakness, Parker.”

“Oh. Mine is gummy worms.”

Her eyes dart to his, a laugh burning in her throat. She swallows it and smirks at the ground instead.

As the voice urges them to mind the gap, they step onto a fairly crowded car, both leaving the few empty seats for those who need it more. Michelle grabs the pole closest to her, the cold metal searing her already frosty finger tips. Peter situates himself behind her, grabbing a loop dangling above them.

When the train jerks to a stop at Herald Square, MJ stumbles backward, her left elbow locking from clutching the bar to catch her misstep. Instead of spilling her tea down the entirety of the right side of her body, Peter places his hand over hers, steadying the cup with surprising reflexes. It seems his fingers scorch more on the back of her hand than the ebbing warmth of the tea against her palm.

She cranes her neck, turning to look at him. His shy smile is accented with the pink tinge of his cheeks. “All right there?”

MJ shrugs, adjusting her stance again. The New Yorker Stance. A bit embarrassed by the fumble, she wraps her arm around the bar for extra stability.

“This is my stop, Jones. It was good to see you this morning.” He flashes a smile, dimples, white shining teeth, and all. Michelle feels a little dizzy.

“See ya around, Parker,” she says over her shoulder as he pushes his way to the doors. She proceeds to have an excellent day, clearly unrelated to her early morning activities.

~

MJ finds that New York City in the winter is one of her favorite New York City's. Despite the constant chill in her bones, wrapping herself in her rough-worn burgundy coat with a soft, pilling scarf and embarking into the icy wind, a hot tea clutched in her gloved hands makes the bitterness of the weather bite a little less. Her favorite days are the days where the cold is sharp, achingly slicing through all her layers, yet there's not a cloud in sight. When the sun shines relentlessly down, warming her frosty cheeks, oozing in to thaw the rest of her frozen insides. Sometimes she pauses mid-step to arch her face toward the sky, savoring the feeling for a bit longer.

Winter gives way to a slow defrosting of crisp March air, and as Michelle feels the seasons shift ever so slightly, she also feels herself settling into a new routine, one that revolves around the cozy hub of her apartment. She sees Peter often, as they're coming and going from their building. Though none of their interactions seem as extensive as those when she first arrived into this new orbit. Just pleasantries exchanged when their busy schedules seem to intersect. While MJ likes to lie to herself when convenient, she finds herself lamenting over whether they might delve further into something resembling a friendship or stay strangers forever. Acquaintances. Neighbors.

She sees Betty and Liz more often than not most weekends. Betty never fails to ask about Yummy 410, to which MJ always rolls her eyes, making up more elaborate excuses as to why she’s never introduced them. He’s off analyzing snowfall in Siberia, slipping down the world’s longest known waterslide (location Top Secret), or he’s hiding in his apartment, the doors and windows bolted shut from a nasty pigeon who’s his arch nemesis because of an unfortunate photoshoot gone wrong (Michelle’s favorite scenario). Betty does a lot of scoffing, swearing she’ll intercept him one day when they’re hanging at MJ’s. Amid all their exaggerated squabbling, MJ occasionally catches Liz’s gaze, her eyes knowing, and her smile soft. Michelle ignores it, doing her best not to read into whatever Liz thinks she knows about MJ’s feelings toward Peter.

She reflects on the past month, the days blurring together pleasantly.

The kettle from the kitchen whistles, shrilly signifying it is finally time to steep her tea. Finishing up her bedtime routine, MJ pads out of the bathroom, her hair wrapped in an old cotton t-shirt. Bedtime is Michelle’s most favorite time of day. When folks wind down, pull on tattered old pajamas, curl up with a cozy book, tucking themselves and others into a cocoon of fuzzy blankets and soft sighs. She is quite partial to the book part, and, of course, the steaming cup of hot tea to blow on patiently until it becomes cool enough to drink. With most of her stuff unpacked and her furniture in place, the living room has become her quiet little reading nook, bookshelves overflowing with her ever-growing collection, dim reading lamps bathing everything in subtle warm light, and the worn yellow chair she folds herself into.

It was nice to have had her friends help her with all of the boxes. The sparse decor of the place was waning her cheeriness of moving, only piling on top of an already long list of things she couldn’t make herself finish. Liz and Betty seemed to have sensed her lack of motivation, because they turned it into a fun memory of decorating and heaving furniture around as a team, while leaving her with a comfort she feels whenever she comes home.

She settles into her chair, setting her mug down on the side table and twisting herself sideways so that her legs drape across one arm of the chair while her back rests against the other. She looks at the haphazard organization of art hung on the wall. Collections of pieces she’s found across the years at thrift stores, Goodwills, and some that have been gifted to her. All seem to have a sense of wear: the yellowing paper, the vintage golden frames, or the warm hue of brown paint against a pop of orange. She would love to spend the rest of her days quietly surrounded by art and books.

And tea... She remembers her cup on the table, and takes a tentative sip. Ah, just right. She can taste the dash of honey swirled in, it makes her mouth feel fuzzy and her eyes droop. A couple minutes of reading and it will be off to bed. MJ smiles thinking about how this is what she, a twenty-five year old woman in The Big Apple, does on a Friday night.

MJ’s just drifting to sleep when a thump in the living room startles her awake. She sleeps with the door closed, like a sane person, so the noise is muffled. She sits up in bed and waits a beat.

There’s no way she dreamt that, but it’s silent now.

Then she hears a rustle, like fabric against fabric. She creeps out of bed, heart beating so fast she’s unconvinced she might still be dreaming. This is real, and someone’s breaking into her apartment. On the fourth floor. Did she forget to lock up? How could she not have heard the door? Maybe that was the initial noise? But it didn’t sound like the door, it sounded like something falling to the floor.

She reaches past the clothes in her closet, deep into the left side, she grabs the solid baseball bat she keeps for emergencies like this. Irrational emergencies, Betty had told her. Ha she thinks. The bat in her hand makes her feel sturdy, prepared, but the notion of victory she felt in being right dissipates as she hears another thud. She waits by her bedroom door, it’s gone quiet again.

“Uhg.”

She jumps. Metaphorically. In reality, she becomes even more still, body unwilling to confront the perpetrator, even though that’s the only plan she has. She heard a voice. A voice coming from out there. She slowly twists the doorknob, nudging the door open as soundlessly as possible, bat still in her right hand, poised to swing. In the darkness of the living room: nothing. Just the curtains blowing in the chilly night time breeze. The window, which is wide open, is definitely how she didn’t hear the door.

She steps out of her room, hearing a sigh from the kitchen. She leans forward, shifting her weight to her toes, trying to catch a glimpse of whoever or whatever decided to climb into her apartment. She sees movement from the corner of her eye, instinctively holding her breath. There: in the doorway of the kitchen. Now focused, her eyes catch a shadow, something sticking out into the living room. Legs, MJ’s brain supplies. Someone is lying on the floor and she can see their legs, a darker color than the gray of the wood in the dim light.

Another sigh. And a grunt as the legs shift and the figure sits up. They have a mask on, darker than any detail she can make out, but definitely something obscuring their face. Huh. Pretty lousy burglar, just sitting on the floor.

She’s far enough away, tucked just past the threshold of her bedroom door, so they don’t see her standing stock still. Her breath is still lodged in her throat, but she figures it’s as good a time as any to intimidate the intruder. Kick em while they’re down and all. She leaves no room for fear as she strides over, the bat arching from over her shoulder to connect with the figure’s clavicle. Not the head, like she was aiming for, but it knocks them back to the ground where the streetlights from the window above the sink bathe them in eerie color.

They grunt in pain, but MJ freezes.

Spider-Man is on her floor. He has his hands up to protect his face from her still raised bat. Oh my god. What. The. Fuck.

“What the fuck,” she says.

“What the fuck,” he says back, sprawled on the floor, left hand now rubbing where she hit him with the bat.

“What do you mean, ‘what the fuck,’ you’re in my apartment, asshole.”

He hesitantly lowers his hands, looking up at her with those creepy white ovals.

“Uh.”

“I can wack you again, dude. Any particular reason you crawled through my window?”

He sits up, yet again, and MJ raises her bat to swinging position from where it was resting, limp on her shoulder.

“Wait,” he moves to stand up, but curls in on himself, hand going to his left hip. He’s hurt. There’s blood, the light reflecting off of the metallic liquid that’s seemed to spread from a rip in his suit. “Shit,” he mutters.

She hesitates, not that she trusts Spider-Man any more than the next guy. But breaking into people’s apartments doesn’t seem to be his MO as far as she knows. Unless he’s some shitty knock-off Spider-Man that creeps into people’s homes. His suit looks pretty legit, if not a little worse for wear.

“Why the fuck are you in my apartment,” she asks again, her voice carrying more vibrato than she feels.

His hand goes to the back of his neck, absentmindedly. Is he going to take off his mask? He looks down.

“This is all a big misunderstanding.” His voice is low and raspy. He gets to his feet slowly, crouching, one hand still cupping the wound on his hip.

“Oh my god, is this some kinky shit you do with your hookups?” A beat. “Oh god, do they live in this building?”

“What?! No!” His voice goes high and he stands up to face her, wincing from the wound, somehow looking incredulous.

MJ’s not sure why that’s the first thing her mind clung to. Sure, there’s a lot of Spider-Man fans out there, sure there’s Twitter stan accounts dedicated to admiring him, despite never having seen his face. But that’s irrelevant, she’s never been one of them. The thought that someone in her building is makes her cringe, but hey, both of them are entitled to their business. As long as it doesn’t involve her. Which it does. Which makes her more than grumpy.

“So any other reason you’d be in here?”

She’s loosely gripping the bat in her left hand. Clearly, he’s not a threat. And while she did hit him by surprise, she can’t imagine she’d get another chance to land a blow, with him alert like this. If he wanted to hurt her, he probably would’ve done it by now.

“Literally anything but that,” he looks at her, “No, I, uh… I got my ass handed to me out there, I was just looking for a place to rest. I kinda thought this was… someplace else.”

Her brows crease, skeptical.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, really.” He holds up his hands in surrender, but she doesn’t lower the bat.

“Kind of a reach to confuse this building with the eyesore of Stark Tower,” MJ says. The thought that Spider-Man lives in a New York City apartment just like the rest of them never crossed her mind before. She figured he probably bunked up in that gaudy tower or wherever the hell the rest of those glorified “celebrities” stay.

“Yeah… my bad,” he says, conceding, not revealing anything.

She narrows her eyes further.

“I’m gonna leave now, if that’s okay.” She just stands there, watching him.

He looks at her, or she thinks he’s looking at her, his mask is rumbled and dirty. He nods, then walks past her to leap out the living room window as if he’s done it dozens of times before. She hears the thwip of his web as he swings off, into the night and through the dark streets. She shakes her head. What the hell was that. She shuts the window with a smack. The locks are so rusted, it’s no wonder he got in here with such ease, super strength regardless.

Obviously, he was lying to her. Protecting some secret lair or mission. But what could Spider-Man possibly want in her tiny one-bedroom? The cut on his abdomen looked deep. Deep enough that a normal person would not be walking around, let alone swinging from buildings. So maybe he was hurt. Why come to the dingiest part of Queens and not to, say, a hospital?

MJ’s not a fan, but she’s seen her fair share of news coverage. Spider-Man saves an entire bus of children. Spider-Man stops a train with his bare hands. Spider-Man does a flip for random lady. She doesn’t think he’s evil. At least not like billionaire, egotistical Tony Stark, a man without an ounce of humility.

Still, she’s left with the feeling of violation.

She stands back from the window and looks around, the fluorescent streetlights casting deep shadows across the room. She sets the bat down against the wall and wraps her arms around herself, rubbing some warmth back into her body. Only now does she realize the big shirt she wore to bed barely covers the top of her thighs. What an intimidating sight: MJ in her underwear. Her heart is still going a mile a minute. The thought of crawling back into her dark, cold bed gives her shivers.

She resolves to drink some water. When kids are crying—from spilled milk or a scraped knee—you give them water to stop the hiccupping and distract them with something else to focus on. Maybe it’ll do the trick when Spider-Man pays you a surprise, midnight visit. In the kitchen, she leans against the counter sipping from her cup, wishing Betty and Liz were here. How their presence was enough to make her feel completely at ease.

MJ turns and looks at the door, deciding something. With a deep breath, she sets her empty glass in the sink and goes to her room, pulling on the first pair of pants she finds. Locking the door behind her, she walks into the warm light of the hall.

They don’t know each other that well, but she’ll be damned if Peter doesn’t make her feel the tiniest bit safer. Maybe it’s the ingrained misogyny. Or maybe it’s his warm brown eyes. He’s probably sleeping. She hesitates before knocking, her hand paused in a fist, hovering below the gold 410.

Spider-Man just broke into her apartment. Fuck it. She knocks three times. The sound echoes in the quiet hallway. She wonders if it’s enough to wake him up. She wonders if he’ll look at her like she’s crazy.

After a minute and no sound from the other side of the door, she turns to go back to her apartment. She’ll just turn on all the lights and watch some TV so she doesn’t have to feel so alone. Easy fix. But before she takes the first step, Peter’s door opens. He’s barefoot, with boxers, and a crumpled white shirt on. The sight makes her rethink this entire plan. She looks up at his face and pauses. He’s got a bruise on his temple, a scratch on his cheek. He looks impossibly tired, yet he’s giving her a small smile.

“MJ. Everything okay?” He whispers, like he might scare her away. She shakes her head, wondering if she should be asking him instead.

“I’m sorry, I... Something happened, can I come in?” She’d normally freak out about being so forward, she’s never seen his place before. She’s too tired to care. But his brow creases in concern and he opens the door wider, inviting her in.

“Of course, of course. Come in.”

She walks past him, coming to a stop in the hall. His apartment is set up differently than hers, the kitchen to the left and the living room in front of her. He closes the door behind them, but doesn’t lock it. She doesn’t know if she feels better or worse about that. It’s dark, briefly, but Peter turns on the kitchen light and goes to lean against the counter.

“Want some tea?”

“I didn’t know you drank tea.” She remembers him saying he was more of a coffee guy.

“Well, after our conversation, I thought I’d try it again. Since you speak so highly of it.”

“Of tea.”

“Yes, since you speak so highly of tea.” He smiles. She looks down, smirking at the ground.

“Yeah, I’ll have some. What kind you got?”

“Just green for now. I accidentally got the decaf, so it won’t keep you up.”

“Oh, that’s perfect. Thank you.”

Peter starts the hot water and grabs two mugs from the cabinet above the sink. MJ stands there trying to find something for her hands to do, looking around to distract herself.

“Oh, you can sit down if you want,” he says, gesturing to the sofa in the living room.

The light from the kitchen washes over the ratty brown of his couch, and MJ finds it’s much more comfortable than it looks. The coffee table is a mess of papers and old dishes, the floor littered with mismatched shoes and socks. The blinds on the window are in some state, one end completely rolled up, while the other stretches toward the sill. She smiles. Peter’s a mess. But the room is still cozy, framed pictures hung on the wall, some of him and his friends, some of the city. An old happy birthday garland strung across the corner of the room, limp streamers hanging from the ceiling. She wonders when his birthday is, was it recent?

Peter breaks her from her thoughts and sits next to her, handing her the mug of tea. Said mug is white with yellow bubble letters that spell out “Good Morning, Grandpa!” in a wacky font. She huffs a small laugh and blows on it absentmindedly. She sneaks a peak at his, which has a colorful depiction of a brown mallard. When her eyes travel up from his hands, she finds he’s already looking at her, waiting. She gazes at the tea instead, smile fading, ignoring his subtle invitation to explain. His eyes are heavy and he seems to concede that she doesn’t wish to share. She probably does owe him an explanation for waking him up and barging in, but he doesn’t make her feel bad about it. Instead they sip on their tea, quietly avoiding each other’s gaze. Michelle’s tea is far too sweet for her taste. She peaks at Peter out of the corner of her eye. The man clearly has a lot to learn. Unlike coffee, you can’t just drench it in sugar. A tasteful dash of honey suffices. She’ll have to make him a proper cup sometime.

“I gotta say, your whole tea suggestion wasn’t half bad.” Peter lifts his mug in mock cheers. Michelle rolls her eyes.

“I’m not known for bad suggestions,” she gives him a pointed, playful look. “Just wait until you discover the niche of tea categories. We got uppers, we’ve got downers, we’ve got chai lattes…”

Peter laughs. “I feel like coffee beans have just as much variation.”

“See that’s a dark path to go down, Parker. What’s a bean to another bean?”

“What’s a leaf to another leaf?”

“It’s not just any leaf! Did you know that every type of tea comes from the exact same species of plant? They grow it in different regions, obviously, but it’s all Camellia sinensis.”

Peter is smiling, chuckling with soft laughter, “Okay, you got me. I’ll have to delve further into tea lore when I get a spare couple hours. Sounds like there’s a lot to learn.”

“Yeah, something like thousands of years of historical and cultural significance. And when you need a hands-on lesson on the superiority of tea, my door is just across the hall.”

Peter’s closed mouth smile and soft eyes make Michelle itch to drag him into her kitchen right now where she has an entire cabinet of tea, ranging from your average American selection, to the pretentious white teas only connoisseurs with an attitude have access to. She knows he would listen to her, patiently, fully engaged in her analysis of oxidation and water temperature.

The thought of her kitchen brings back the memory of tonight's events and she goes quiet.

When they get to the bottom of their mugs, the silence is louder than before. She doesn’t want to go back to her dark apartment. Not yet.

Peter looks at her, reading her. “Did you, maybe, want to stay on the couch?”

MJ blinks and Peter stammers, “I mean, you just seemed freaked out, I don’t want to be...” He trails off.

MJ shakes her head, “No it’s fine. That, uh. It’d be great if I could stay, actually.”

“Of course. Let me get a couple blankets.”

He gets up quickly and disappears down the hall across the kitchen. A second later he emerges with a pillow and a pile of blankets. He sets them down on the couch next to Michelle.

“I have to go in to work tomorrow. Catch up on some stuff I didn’t get to this week...” He rubs the back of his neck. It’s so familiar, his nervous little habit. The gesture stretches his shirt, causing it to ride up the slightest bit, revealing a sliver of toned stomach. MJ would be carefully averting her eyes right now if the motion didn’t also call attention to the small mark on the bottom left side of his shirt. A stain. A red one, the smallest bit peaking through the white fabric. Fresh, she thinks. It wasn’t there when he opened the door to her. Michelle goes rigid and there’s an almost audible click in her brain. She’s missed whatever else he said.

Peter yawns and bids her goodnight. She manages a soft, “You too,” in return. Shell-shocked.

Michelle stays awake staring at the ceiling for a long time. She’s not scared, it’s Peter Parker. That kid couldn’t hurt a fly. It makes so much sense, she’s pissed she didn’t figure it out sooner. The humble modesty, the kindness, the late nights and tired eyes. She’s only known him for a mere couple months, but it’s so glaringly obvious now. She’s supposed to be observant. His swift movement out the window that very first day she met him. He was embarrassed he didn’t think of the firescape: he could’ve swung right in there. Maybe he didn’t have his suit. Does the suit give him powers? Or can he just crawl up walls, no clothes needed? Oh, great, don’t picture that. She squeezes her eyes shut. Clothes definitely needed.

Wait.

Peter broke into her apartment because he thought it was his.

Her living room window faces south, just like his. Only hers are a good thirty feet away from his. What an idiot. Granted, he did seem to be in quite a state. She wonders now if maybe she should have helped him. If he has super healing, he wouldn’t need to go to the hospital, but clearly he needed some first aid to stop the bleeding. And whatever he managed didn’t actually work, hence the stain on his shirt. He did give her a scare. Asshole. And she ran directly into his proverbial arms. But instead of being upset… she giggles. Softly, in Peter’s living room. She’s running on fumes, she’s laughing at this. It’s kind of funny.

She rolls over, finally drifting to sleep with the thought of pressing gauze to a certain lithe abdomen. “Limber,” he’d said. Limber doesn’t cover it.

When MJ wakes in the morning, it’s to the soft sound of the coffee maker and running water. She sits up, her discovery from last night still swirling in her head. Peter’s back is covered in a soft blue button up, tucked into some khakis, sealed with a brown belt. He turns and licks his finger, places the knife in the sink. He catches her watching and smiles.

“Good morning, sorry to wake you.” The bruise is gone. And as he walks closer, she can tell the scratch on his cheek has healed as well. If she had any doubts, they’d be irrelevant now.

He offers her some buttered toast, shoving his own piece into his mouth.

“Thanks,” she says. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

“It’s no problem,” he mumbles, mouth full. She folds up the blanket and takes her forgotten mug from last night into the kitchen. She catches his eyes, and instead of looking away she holds his gaze. Michelle feels the tiniest bit closer to him. Maybe it’s because she discovered his biggest secret while they barely know anything about each other, but she thinks back to when he opened the door last night. She remembers concern on his face. Maybe mixed with a bit of guilt. MJ wonders if he thinks she suspects. It’s not like she has anyone to tell. Even if she did, she decides, his secret is safe with her.

Peter breaks the eye contact and looks down.

“Hey, if you ever need anything,” he pauses, looking back up into her eyes, sincere, “you know where to find me.” He gives her a small smile, holding the door open.

She goes to unlock her own door, glancing toward him as he makes his way to the stairs, “Thank you, Peter.”

“It’s the least I can do.”

Damn right.

~

There’s a knock at the door. MJ shuts her book and looks at the clock on her bedside table: 12:34 AM. It’s late. She needs to start setting an alarm for when she gets swept up in her nighttime reading. Shoving the blankets off of her, she wonders who’s knocking at this hour. Ding dong ditch? She didn’t think there were many families in this complex, let alone teenage troublemakers. Betty or Liz? They were texting just this afternoon, fine as rain. Unless something happened… MJ quickens her pace to the living room where she throws her black robe over her thin pjs and wraps herself securely in it. She opens the door before realizing she probably should’ve looked through the peephole first to make sure it wasn’t a murderer. What murderer knocks, though?

It’s Peter. Looking down at the floor, pajama pants, rumpled hair, wrinkled shirt, and all.

“Peter,” MJ says, cautiously. They’ve become closer these past few weeks. Especially after the Spider-Man incident, though she’s pretty sure he doesn’t know she’s figured it out. Either way, she feels safer. Knowing he’s here, that he is the one knocking.

He looks up at her, through his lashes. Trying to hide his red-rimmed, glassy eyes. Oh. He’s been crying.

“Sorry, MJ, were you sleeping? I just… I’m. I’m sorry, I should go back—”

She cuts him off, “I was just reading. Get in here, dork.” She works to keep her tone casual. Keep him at ease so he doesn’t feel like he has to explain. The teasing pet name just slipped out.

He gives a half smile, still looking down, his hand reaching to scratch the back of his neck, “Sure, ok.”

She follows him to the couch and they plop down, MJ tucking her cold feet underneath her as Peter settles into the corner of the cushions. The dim light of the table lamp casts his face in shadows, MJ’s hand twitching to capture the sight with her charcoal pencil on the warm vanilla paper she keeps in the drawer of her desk. She studies him, grabbing her cold tea she made earlier this evening from the coffee table. Giving her hands something to do so she doesn’t reach out to him. He looks down at his own, fidgeting, restless.

He looks up at her suddenly, the sadness masked from his face, “I have nightmares.”

“What about?” She can’t help but ask. Maybe a mistake, what, with his fragile state, but she’s never had a filter in front of Peter. Why start now?

He looks back down at his hands. “Falling mostly… And, well, not making it in time.” He leaves it at that. Open ended enough where, if she didn’t already know, she wouldn’t necessarily guess. He glances at her, checking to see if she heard him. Maybe hoping she didn’t.

“You get nightmares often?” She can connect the dots. Spider-Man out there, swinging at impossible heights, saving everyone disaster touches. She wonders how many people he couldn’t save. She wonders how much he blames himself. She wonders if there’s a way to convince him otherwise.

“You could say that,” he chuckles, without much humor. He leans forward, a glint of vulnerability in his eye, “Do you get nightmares, Michelle?”

“Not many, but… it’s always the same thing when I do. I’m with people I know, people I trust, but there’s something off about them. Like they’ve been replaced with an exact replica. Something about it scares me, like they’ll turn on me, or sense that I know they’re not the real deal. But everyone acts normal. The same. So I have to go right along with it. Smile and laugh while they touch me, talk to me. I can’t show any fear or weakness or they’ll know that I know. And it will all fall apart.”

She’s had this dream maybe five times across her life, starting in high school. When she came to Midtown, her social anxiety spiked to new heights. She felt crowded, unworthy, an imposter. At the ripe age of fourteen, she was quiet and observant, not some overachiever with tons of ambition for life like all these other child prodigies. It got better once she found her niche, a small circle of friendly acquaintances. She started managing the Academic Decathlon team, found that reading and literature was her muse, and that passion ignited her enthusiasm in writing. The fears and anxiety had dissipated over the years along with the dreams, never quite going away, but shoved in the back of her mind until a new, scary situation arose. Like starting a new job, or a new relationship. It isn’t something she’s uncomfortable with, she has enough wherewithal to guess the dreams stem from her trust issues and feeling like she’s the outsider even when everyone else is just pretending. But she doesn’t like to talk about it often. This is a peace offering to Peter. Tit for tat. He came to her of all people after a presumed gory nightmare. The least she can do is make him feel a bit more sane.

He’s still looking at her. Studying her, maybe, like she was him moments earlier. “I don’t sleep very well alone.”

If it was any other guy, she’d guess this was a ruse to get into her bed. But this is Peter. Nerdy, silly, sincere Peter Parker. And he’s hurting. She considers making a joke, but she settles on, “I don’t sleep very well with people beside me.” She gets up to make tea for them in the kitchen, bringing her old cup to wash in the sink.

“Really? I would’ve thought you enjoy suctioning the warmth from another body with how cold you always are.” He’s smiling now, turned to face her over the back of the couch. She’s glad for it.

She smiles down at the kettle as she places it on the burner. “Blankets are cozier than most ribcages.”

“Hm, I beg to differ.”

“Then beg.” She laughs at his expression, but he starts to laugh along with her. They’re slap happy, relieved from previous seriousness. MJ leans her back against the counter, still squinting at him as she chuckles.

“So you don’t stay after a one night stand?” Peter says, still cheeky.

“Why would I? To make it awkward in the morning? To see the frat house decor of a business major wannabe in the daylight?”

He giggles. He giggles. She turns away to hide the blood rushing to her cheeks.

“Why would it be awkward? You mean, you don’t make breakfast together in the morning?”

She whips her head around. He’s not joking. Teasing her maybe, but he asks it like it’s a genuine question.

“Peter, do you make breakfast with your one-night-stands in the morning?”

“Well, just some toast or eggs or something, nothing special. Maybe put on a couple of tunes. Both of us did just get laid. It’s fun to celebrate.”

He’s serious. Nothing special, huh. She guesses the bar is on the floor, but it’s sweet that he thinks that’s the morning-after etiquette. Maybe it should be.

“You’re such a dork.” She says it with such affection that Peter just smiles while his cheeks go a little pink. It makes hers burn a little, too. The kettle whistles and she takes it off the heat to pour into two lopsided mugs. She found them at a second hand shop. Brown clay with a swirling green glaze, just asymmetrical enough that it’s charming instead of unusable. She always wanted to try pottery. If her stuff turned out like this, well, it wouldn’t be so bad.

She hands Peter his, dropping a chamomile tea bag into it and passing him the honey. He squirts in at least two tablespoons full. Far too sweet for her taste. She finds his sweet tooth endearing and exasperating, less they ever have to share a dessert. She can just feel the cavity forming.

“The chamomile should help you get back to sleep and relax your muscles.” MJ has a tea for almost every situation. Almost.

He’s quiet, stirring his tea. She sips on hers, the same kind with less honey. She’d be lying if she said this hadn’t tired her out. Michelle likes her routine. She’d already broken it by reading too late into the night. Then again, she thinks, had she not been awake to hear the knock, she may have never learned about Peter’s nighttime perils. Or how she could be the one that distracts him enough to help him through it.

It’s not an uncomfortable silence, but a tension of uncertainty spreads in the air as they finish their tea. Peter holds out his hand, palm open for her mug. He takes the dishes into the kitchen, starting the hot water to wash them. He stands there in the dim light, head down, quietly rinsing her dishes. The ones from earlier, too. The plate from her grilled cheese lunch, the pasta sauce bowls from her dinner, the cutting board from slicing the vegetables. Avoiding her eyes as she gazes at him from the couch.

He’s finishing up and the air thickens again. She rises from the couch as he dries his hands on the towel she tucks into the oven handle. He turns just as she works up the courage to wrap him in a big hug, arms winding over his shoulders. He hesitates, surprised probably. MJ’s not known for her hugs. But his arms fold themselves around her waist and his chin tucks against her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“We’ll be alright,” he responds, hushed tone soothing her nerves from the physical touch.

She relaxes into his embrace, like this hug might be more for her benefit than for his. They let go and he rubs the fabric on her shoulders, chasing the tension away with his fingers. They look at each other and Peter takes a deep breath, looking sheepish.

“I should get to bed. Sorry I intruded on your night.”

“It was no intrusion.”

He goes to walk out the door, hand hesitating on the knob as MJ blurts out, “I thought you said you didn’t sleep well alone…”

He looks back at her, waiting. Why did she say that? She made it weird. She made it so much weirder than it already was. They had almost found a balance and she made it weird. Instead of outwardly panicking, she shrugs and treads into her room where the string lights are still twinkling. She takes off her rings, placing them in the dish on her desk. Peter stands in the doorway, arms crossed.

“I thought you said you didn’t sleep well next to other people.”

“Don’t try anything shady.” She narrows her eyes at him, walking over to the bed to slip under the covers, leaving the invitation hanging. She might be freaking out, but she pushes that part of her down, down until it’s just a whisper in the flurry of her heartbeat.

She rolls over to face the wall. “Can you turn off the light?” She hears him walk over. He pulls the covers back and the mattress dips under his weight. The lamp on her nightstand flicks off and Peter sighs as he settles in.

“Aren’t adults supposed to have their beds in the middle of the wall instead of the corner?”

“Are you judging the artistic rendering of a room that definitively belongs to an adult woman?”

“I may be critiquing it… Though I didn’t know the placement of your bed involved such artistic renderings. Please, tell me more about that.”

“Well, it’s all about the string lights.”

“Ah.”

“And windows.” Peter shifts, tilting his head to look at the two large windows on the west wall.

“And the bed shoved into the corner factors in, how?”

She huffs and turns over, “Would you like to move the bed, Peter?”

She sees the glint of his toothy smile in the dark, lights from the street steaming past the curtains. She nudges him playfully with her elbow, causing him to shake with suppressed laughter.

“You’d move your bed for me?”

“I don’t see how moving the bed would solve anything. It just displays a false performance of adulthood that ultimately makes no sense.”

“What do you mean it makes no sense?! It’s so two people can get into their side of the bed without crawling over each other.”

“If you’re sleeping together, it shouldn’t be any more intimate to crawl over each other.” They’re both staring at the ceiling now.

“It’s about convenience!” Peter huffs a big laugh. “You’re just messing with me, right?”

MJ smiles, “Maybe.”

A beat.

“I guess I’ve never had to share with anyone long enough to actually move my bed.”

Peter is quiet. But under the covers his pinky finds her hand and the warmth there makes up for the hush of her admission.

He whispers now, “I don’t mind you crawling over me.”

She ignores the innuendo that makes her face burn, and squeezes his hand. MJ closes her eyes and wills her heart to slow as she drifts to sleep.