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“Oh, look at this. This is a good one,” Michelle says with a hint of humor in her tone, readjusting the way she’s lying down on the roof. It’s not the most comfortable place to be, but at least she has something soft underneath her head. Some people can’t relate. “Some suggest that Parker’s powers include the male spider’s ability to hypnotize females.”
“Stop, come on,” Peter replies with a light chuckle, the corners of his eyes creasing as he looks at her and smiles. And if she’s being honest, as much as she hates to admit it, this is the first time she’s seen him smile in days. But at least he’s smiling now, with her, and she hopes she can keep up the light atmosphere if that’s what he needs.
Michelle simply purses her lips, lifting her voice just a bit, biting back a grin. “Yes, my spider lord.”
He laughs, wholly and completely, the breathy sound escaping the back of his throat like it’s been trapped for so long, having no reason to escape until now. And god, if that doesn’t have her own face cracking wide open with a smile, she doesn’t know what else would.
“Can we just stay up here all day? It is so crazy down there,” Peter asks a moment later, quieter, and she props herself up on her elbow to look at him. He swallows and looks down at his fingers, twisting them together. “Please.”
“If it were up to me, we would stay here forever. I like it just being us up here,” she replies, eyes dropping to the concrete rooftop. “It’s quiet. Peaceful. It’s a nice place to pretend, at least.”
“Yeah.” He bites his lower lip and sits up, crossing his arms over his knees, looking around. “I just…I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to see everyone’s faces…they’ve literally all seen mine and they think I’m…I’m a—”
“You’re not.”
“But the fact that they think that. Our high school peers think that I murdered someone,” he rushes out, dragging his hands down his face, eyes squeezed shut. “How long have they known me? Almost four years or—or longer? And they automatically assumed that I’m someone who could ever—?”
“People jump to conclusions when they don’t have all the information. Hey,” Michelle murmurs, sitting up as well so that their shoulders are bumping, and she wraps an arm around him. He heaves out a sigh, using her as a support system, leaning on her. “You know you didn’t do it, so it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.”
“It matters what you think,” he mumbles, flopping his head against her shoulder and linking their arms, their fingers. It didn’t take very many weeks of them dating for Michelle to figure out that he’s a very affectionate person, and fuck, if that’s not her absolute favorite thing. “And what May and Ned think.”
“And we all know the truth.” Michelle muffles her words against his head, briefly dropping a kiss there because he also told her last week when they were just hiding out in her bedroom that he really likes her kisses. All doe-eyed and smiley, like it was just something nonchalant, as if her heart didn’t immediately flip out of her chest the moment he said it. It was when she remembered how far gone for him she is, and well. No turning back—now, or ever. “We’ll be there with you tomorrow at school.”
“Don’t know what I’d do without you guys,” Peter whispers, stifling a dramatic groan before twisting his body so that they’re tangled together, lying on the rooftop and sharing her backpack as a pillow instead of him using those hard textbooks. “Hey, it’s starting to get cloudy. Maybe we should go in after all.”
Michelle hums and absently starts curling a strand of his hair around her finger, his eyes subsequently closing. “If we get rained on, so what?”
“You know what, you’re right. I’ve decided it. We’re staying up here forever,” he says in a hushed tone, a hidden grin pulling through, and she exhales a laugh as their noses bump. “Just you and me.”
“You and me, always.”
You and me.
The constant feeling that she’s forgetting something important is ringing loud in the back of her mind, sectioned off somewhere that she can’t quite reach. And if it’s not the most frustrating thing she’s ever experienced, she doesn't know what else would be.
Michelle replays the words like a reel in her mind as if every action she takes isn’t a failure at sparking some kind of recognition. There’s a significance somewhere, and she almost considered talking to Ned about it at one point, because somehow, he knows what she means without having the words to describe it.
She thinks it isn’t fair, and she thinks that she somehow got the short end of the stick, but she tries not to let it ruin her week. She continues shoving books into her locker, ignoring that feeling in favor of another, the feeling of being watched.
Michelle turns around and just looks through the throng of students pushing their way down the hallway and sees him there, just staring openly at her. If she happens to blush, it’s not his business—but no, he doesn’t even react to her noticing.
He just blinks and he watches her with parted lips and soft eyes, and she can’t stand them like this, staring and not moving. It’s awkward.
“Parker,” she eventually says, abrupt, and he swallows like he was caught red-handed. “Take a picture? It’ll last longer.”
“I have,” he says absently but then his eyes widen, like he realizes how that sounds. “Not that—I don’t secretly take photos of you. That’s not what I meant. I just—”
“Relax, I’m just messing with you,” Michelle quickly clarifies, but judging by the way his lashes start fluttering rapidly as if he’s about to cry, she wonders if what she said hit a nerve of some sort. “I’m sorry—”
“No, it’s okay—it’s not you.” But his voice cracks and he sniffles something ugly, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “No, um, my dog…died.”
“You don’t have a dog.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.” Michelle winces slightly before shaking her head. “Not that I’m obsessed with you. Obviously not. I’m just observant, so I…happen to know that. Sorry—”
“Please stop apologizing,” he rushes out, and she releases an awkward cough. He looks around, not that it makes a difference because it’s just them now, the hallways empty after they’d ignored the bell for first period. Stupid. Why would she do that? Just to talk to him?
…Yeah.
Maybe it’s no secret that Peter has always held a soft spot in her heart. She noticed him back in freshman year, glasses and all, and she thinks that despite never really getting to know him through their high school career, they would’ve been best friends. If she ever tried, that is. But her heart won’t give her a break now, reminding her that he’s still kind, still cute, still everything she likes about him despite disappearing for a few months.
Not that anyone knows why.
“MJ?”
Michelle’s attention snaps back to him and she realizes he’s, like, right there. So she takes an instinctual step back and her back hits the locker, and well. Embarrassing.
“Hi,” she says thickly.
“Sorry if I was too close,” he mumbles, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his forefinger, eyes on the ground, but those words fly in one ear and out the other. “I was just wondering—”
“Yes.”
“What?”
Michelle inwardly smacks her forehead, seeing as trying to get out of one awkward situation just put her in another. She gauges his expression, all amused and somehow reminiscent, but she thinks she should be embarrassed that he didn’t even finish his question. Whatever. She probably won’t see him again after graduation anyway, so she can embarrass herself all she wants.
“I said…yes.”
“But I didn’t even get to ask,” he says with a little laugh, eyes creasing around the corners, and she realizes it’s been a while since she’s seen him smile.
“Surprise me,” Michelle finally tells him.
Peter’s throat bobs and he averts his gaze, suddenly all flustered. Good. They’re even. “Well, I was wondering…if you maybe wanted to grab some coffee. Sometime.”
Oh.
Oh .
He’s really not wasting any time—not that she’s complaining—but this came so far out of left field that Michelle thinks she needs to steady herself. Did he ever give her any hints that he wanted to get to know her before? Not that she can recall, but whatever.
“I mean, you already know my answer,” she says with a small smile, and he blinks.
“So…yes, like you wanna go…?”
Yes , like of course she does.
“Yes.”
Much for her own amusement, Michelle sometimes reads articles that Peter sends her of people taking the piss on Spidey in her free time. She almost always considers writing and posting a rebuttal article to explain why everything they’ve got down is wrong—but that seems petty. Funny, but petty. She considers it for later anyway.
The lamps are off in her room so her fairy lights are the only thing illuminating her walls—walls that just so happen to be decorated with mindless art sketches and charcoal drawings from before everything had gone to shit. She just so happened to pin up the detention drawings from sophomore year because Peter had noticed them in her desk drawer after coming over one evening and said he remembered them with a cheeky sort of smile.
Speaking of the devil, her phone starts ringing with a video chat call from Peter. She answers immediately, lying down on her bed and stifling her grin behind her forearm.
“How you doin’?” Peter greets with that ridiculously over-exaggerated Queens accent of his, nodding his head. “You look comfortable.”
“You look comfortable,” Michelle counters, eyes darting down to see the familiar print of his—or, her—shirt. Her Joan of Arc shirt that she’d lent him out of convenience. It looks a little tight around the shoulders, the sleeves not quite meeting his wrists, and she could complain about him stretching it out, but her mind is more focused on how it somehow looks better on him than her. Whatever. “I’ve been wondering when you were going to give that back.”
“Never. The answer is never,” he says coyly, chuckling a bit as he places a hand behind his head. “Don’t kill me if I say I haven’t washed it yet.”
Michelle blinks, taking that information in slowly. “You’re serious?”
“It reminds me of you, shut up,” Peter says with a little sheepish laugh, dropping his chin. And boy, he knows exactly what to say if he wants to get her flustered in the same way that he looks right now. “Seriously, though, how are you doing?”
“I’m okay,” she replies softly, feeling her chest tighten at the way he keeps checking back over his shoulder, even in the safety of his own apartment. “I should really be asking you that.”
Peter hesitates before shrugging a little, sucking his cheeks in. “Scared? I don’t know. It feels…dumb to say that I’m scared, but there’s really…no other way to describe it. I can’t go outside without my Spidey sense screaming at me, and the idea of even just going back to school...”
“It’s not dumb.” Michelle positions the phone so that she can see him clearer, the way his eyes shine in the dim lighting of his apartment. “Maybe…this can be a good thing? Like, does any part of you feel relieved about all this?”
“What do you mean?” Peter asks, furrowing his brows, and she hesitates before shrugging.
“Now that everybody knows, you don’t really have to hide or…lie to people,” she begins to say carefully, gauging the way Peter’s brows dip, quickly morphing from surprise to guilt, which wasn’t the goal at all.
“For the record, I never wanted to lie to you.” He pushes a hand through his hair and looks away, his throat bobbing. “But how do you tell someone that you’re Spider-Man? And now everybody knows.”
“No, it’s okay. I get it. I figured it out anyway, so,” Michelle reminds him in a lighter tone, and his expression softens into something fond, lips tugging upwards just a bit.
“Yeah, you did,” Peter murmurs, not letting his eyes stray far from hers. “You were the only one who paid attention to me.”
“Lucky me.”
“Lucky me .” He releases an exaggerated sigh and rolls onto his stomach, burying his face in his arm. “I really wish you could be here with me. May and I aren’t too happy to be cut off from civilization, I don’t think.”
“I’ll be there with you as soon as I can,” she tells him reassuringly and he smiles at her, expression tired yet dopey and soft before he stifles a yawn. “Do you want me to let you go?”
“Never.”
“Not even just for the night?” she teases.
“Never,” he repeats, just as serious, and Michelle feels her veins spark, her heart skipping a beat. But then he yawns again, and she thinks he might end up falling asleep on their call anyway, his eyes starting to flutter shut. “Hey…Em?”
“Yeah?”
A moment passes as she’s waiting for his response but it never comes, and that’s when she realizes that he has indeed fallen asleep in the single moment of silence between them. So she exhales a quiet breath and drops a kiss to the camera of her phone—the pixelated image of his peaceful expression that only comes around when he’s sleeping—before ending their call.
At the very least, she hopes he can get some rest.
Peter has been more smiley lately, having a little more of a skip in his step since their first hangout. And no, she’s not going to call it a date since they haven’t done anything together whatsoever before that day, but it was still nice. Still makes her blush when she thinks about it alone in her bedroom.
If she’s being honest, she didn’t even know he considered her a friend, let alone was interested in talking to her, so it’s more of a surprise when he continues orbiting her life.
She figured hanging out was only a one time thing, but she sees him in the morning by her locker and in the afternoon with the offer to walk her home. He lingers outside her class doors when his own finishes first, and he brings her tea sometimes. Not that she knows how he memorized her order, but maybe he’s just as observant with her as she is with him.
There’s something so familiar about the way that he sits with her and Ned at lunch. Peter and Ned had been friends before, and she and Ned had been as well, but somehow, the three of them never all sat together. It strikes a chord with her that makes Michelle rush out of lunch one day, if only to cry a little in the bathroom.
There’s so much that she feels without reason, and it makes her mad that she doesn’t know. But Ned is there and Peter is there, and things are starting to feel a little more normal. Whatever that means, whatever that feels like.
“Okay, we’re going to split into teams. Captains? Any volunteers, or else I’m just going to pick.”
Michelle won’t lie and say she gives a shit about gym class, and Coach Wilson usually allows her to not give a shit, but she’s here in the middle of reading a book when he declares a mandatory game of basketball. Mandatory . Truly, fuck off.
“Parker and Thompson? It’s your lucky day, Captains. Pick your teammates.”
“Do I have to—”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Peter concedes quickly, swallowing. His eyes sweep across the class, and she’s not actively watching him, no. But she sees him look at her out of the corner of her eye and that makes her want to run out of there at high speed. “Can I choose MJ?”
“Michelle, you’re on Parker’s team.”
“What?” No.
“You’re on Parker’s team,” Coach Wilson repeats.
“Why?”
“Because he wants you?”
“Weird,” Michelle grumpily mutters to herself before shuffling over to Peter, and he breaks into a shit-eating smile. “I can’t play basketball, by the way.”
“I don’t believe that,” he says with a little laugh, and she shifts from one foot to the other before exhaling because he’s not entirely wrong.
“Well, my dad and I used to play when I was little. Like, six or seven, but it’s been a while since…” She trails off and swallows, shrugging. “I’m rusty, is all I’m saying.”
“I’ll take it.” And he tells it to her so earnestly that she thinks he wouldn’t care if she didn’t know what a slam dunk was, as long as she was on his team. It makes her heart flutter and she has to look away before he makes her smile any harder.
How did she get herself into this mess in the first place, crushing on a boy that only starts going somewhere when their high school career is at it’s near-end?
They pick the rest of their teammates and Michelle kicks at the ground half-heartedly when Flash swipes up Ned.
“MJ? You ready?”
“No,” she says but shakes her head and walks over to the court anyway. She’s tall, meaning people automatically assume that she can make slam dunks like it’s nothing. Well, she can’t. And yet, everyone keeps passing the ball to her.
Michelle is just about surrounded by people on all sides, but there’s a little opening that she somehow manages to squeeze through and she spots Peter near the hoop.
“I’m open,” he calls out, so she passes the ball to him without thinking twice about it.
The teams are tied, but they really only need two more points to win. So she doesn’t bother moving anymore, keeping her eyes on Peter as he dribbles the ball, and then. Well, he jumps.
It’s nothing that she’s ever seen before, and not to brag, but her own two eyes have witnessed a lot of shit in her eighteen years of living. But no, never the height and the agility at which he jumps. She swallows, watching him so intently that she doesn’t realize that they’ve won the game with him slam-dunking until Coach Wilson blows his whistle.
“Alright, that’s it! Congrats to Parker’s team for winning, but it was a close game. Hit the showers and I’ll see you all tomorrow.”
“Dude,” Ned hisses when everyone starts filing out, but no one can keep their voice below a whisper. Just like Ned.
“What?” Peter looks up from mopping up the sweat from his forehead with the bottom of his hoodie, and she happens to get a good look at the muscles underneath. Her face heats up, much to her dismay, but she can pass it off as physical exertion. For sure.
“How did you jump that high?”
“I…no, I barely even left the ground,” Peter quickly excuses with a nervous laugh, but then he looks at her. She doesn’t say anything, her brows dipping. He’s certainly not good at lying, that’s for certain.
“Fishy,” is all Michelle says before dropping the subject. She can overanalyze it all she wants tonight in bed.
“For real, though, I never knew you had, like…superpowers,” Ned jokes, but Peter’s face pales.
“I don’t!”
“Obviously not. But weird nonetheless.”
Michelle just watches Peter, the way his eye twitches slightly, how he scratches the side of his brow. He doesn’t look at either of them, and yet again, she’s hit with the feeling of forgetting something important.
It makes her chest feel hollow, feel tight, and when she finally meets Peter’s eyes again, they’re a little red and glazed over. Like he can relate to how she’s feeling—maybe even more intensely. The feeling of losing something.
Devil in disguise.
Public enemy #1.
Mysterio = NYC’s hero.
“Yo, Peter, heard you gotta drop out now. Guess they don’t allow criminals in the school.”
“This must be how he managed to get a girlfriend. Of course anyone would date Spider-Man.”
“Date a murderer?”
“Maybe she’s into that.”
“Explains why he never showed up to classes.”
“Surprised he didn’t flunk out during freshman year. We should’ve guessed. Remember when he had glasses?”
“Oh, fuck, that’s right. Guess he didn’t go down the right path though. I feel bad for his family.”
His grip on her hand only tightens the further they get, walking through the barricades as people watch them, stare, point, take photos. It’s a spectacle, truly, the way they aren’t even allowed privacy on their way to school, cameras flashing the second they had stepped out of Happy’s vehicle—one of the many security measures taken to keep them safe.
“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” Peter whispers, flinching as someone waves a Spider-Man figurine in his hand before throwing it to the ground. “Definitely not a good idea, actually. I don’t think—”
“Sorry we’re late,” Flash suddenly exclaims, loud and almost obnoxious, but he’s got an arm slung around Ned’s shoulder as they make their way down as well. “Sorry, everyone. My dad’s car almost crashed because some lunatic was speeding down the road to get here for their news report. Crazy, right? I’m sure all of you with the cameras care so much about that.”
Michelle realizes with a snort that as much as it sounds like attention-seeking, Flash is actually trying to draw it away from Peter—if only to make it easier for him. She looks back, sees the significant expression on his face, and for once, she’s grateful for how he’s trying to make everything about him.
“What do you have to say about your peer, Peter Parker, being a criminal—”
“Oh, so you wanna know about how much I would be willing to sue for nearly getting run off the side of the road? I’ll gladly tell you all about it. Might want to take a seat though, this could take a while.”
“Thank god for Flash,” Ned exhales as he pushes through the crowd, moving ahead of them now as they walk inside the school—which isn’t much better than outside, but they have no other choice. “Now, what the hell . Don’t any of you people have classes?”
“They think you guys are my Spider-Minions,” Peter whispers, and Michelle wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all, recalling that article of her and Ned on puppet strings. “God, guys, I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean for this to get bad for you too—”
“Nah, bro, don’t worry about it. We can handle this,” Ned reminds him with a small smile, a reassuring slap on the back. “We’ve been here since the beginning.”
“Can’t blame you if you don’t want to stay ‘til the end,” Peter mutters under his breath, massaging his temple as yet another student snaps a picture. “Like, we haven’t even been here for five minutes and I just want to leave.”
Michelle doesn’t say anything for a minute, eyes darting to the way students are looking at them amongst the chaos. Not only are some people enraged, but most of them almost seem afraid. And it’s all misplaced, all a misunderstanding—but this is what happens when the truth is twisted.
“Let’s go, then,” she says simply, grabbing Peter by the hand and dragging him through the crowd. She might bump a student or two out of the way, but she’s not here for civility if they’re not.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m kidnapping you, obviously.” Michelle tugs him towards the rooftop doors, Ned trailing behind, and she eventually shows them to the place she comes sometimes when she needs time to herself, away from everyone else. “If you want to just…skip class, we can stay here.”
“What about your perfect attendance?” Peter teases, crossing his arms over his chest and dropping his chin.
“Please. I emanate such a… presence ,” Michelle begins with a snort, gesturing around herself. “That they’ll either know I’m here without even having to see me, or they just won’t notice I’m gone. Perfect attendance stays intact either way.”
“We love to hear it,” Ned declares before sitting down on the roof, resting his head back against the access door. They sit in silence for a little bit before Peter speaks up again.
“Do you remember when you asked me in sophomore year if I should tell everyone I’m Spider-Man?” he recounts with a wry laugh. “You know, I actually considered it. I thought it would be nice to just…exist as someone other than Peter Parker to everyone else.”
“Well, we’re glad you didn’t back then.”
“Yeah,” Michelle agrees quietly, resting her chin on his shoulder, him taking the opportunity to kiss her temple. “If they can’t appreciate you as Peter Parker, that’s their own fault. Spider-Man would be nothing without you.”
“Em,” he groans in that flustered way, his cheeks tinged pink and his smile stretching sheepishly as it does whenever she compliments him. “Has anyone ever told you that your body must be made of neon and oxygen?”
“Don’t.”
“Because you are the only ONe for me,” Peter continues unabashedly, Michelle spluttering and leaning over to swat him, which he dodges with a laugh, and meanwhile Ned is just snickering in his corner at the terrible joke. “It’s true, stop laughing!”
“Dork,” she exhales fondly, Peter giggling into her sweatshirt, her hand clutched in his as they just continue to sit there—comfortable as can be.
“Thanks for taking us up here,” he eventually says, more subdued now. “It’s really nice and…yeah, I guess I just needed the break for a little bit. Well, who am I kidding. I might sneak up here for the rest of the school year.”
“No, it’ll get better soon,” Ned says firmly, like he truly believes it. “All they have to do is prove that you didn’t kill Mysterio, and Matt is working on that, right? You’ll have all the evidence you need soon, and your name will be cleared.”
“But people will still know that I’m Spider-Man.”
“There’s really nothing you can do about that,” Michelle murmurs hesitantly, but she knows the extent of the dangers that could come about people knowing.
“What if there was?” Peter mutters, almost incoherently, and she looks at him in question. He doesn’t elaborate though, his bottom lip caught between his teeth and his fingers carding through her hair. “It’s cloudy again.”
“It’s New York. We’re never gonna see the light of day for as long as we live here.”
Peter snorts. “Now there’s an alternative. We move out of here, just the three of us. Maybe change our names, find a nice small town? Live out the rest of our lives in peace.”
“I think you would genuinely take that route…if it didn’t mean running away from almost everything you know,” she tells him, and he exhales a small breath, kissing her head.
“You’re right about that.” He sighs heavily. “Which doesn’t leave many options.”
He hasn’t left her mind since that day in gym class. Admittedly, Michelle wishes that were more of a drastic statement, but he always seems to be a constant in her head as of lately, making a home there.
She thinks about him when she doesn’t mean to, like when she was at the store and found a Death Star LEGO set and thought he would really like that. She didn’t buy it—it was expensive as hell, but she can write it down as a Christmas present idea.
She thinks about him when she orders a sandwich at Delmar’s and when she listens to True Crime podcasts, and every single time he’s in her head, she feels like he’s been there before.
It’s crazy and almost unnatural how hard and fast Michelle thinks she’s falling for him. They’ve barely been talking for a month, haven’t even had a real date, but it’s like they’ve been together for years. Her heart beats a familiar rhythm every time he’s around, and god, she’s fucked if they ever actually do anything about it.
And yet, there’s something he’s not telling her, and she hates that about as much as she likes him. She knows she’s not owed anything, but when it feels like there’s a big ass gap in her memory, she’s allowed to be a little frustrated with secrets.
When she walks into her bedroom after a day of errands, she nearly drops all of her library books on the floor upon seeing him sitting there on her bed. Like he owns the place.
“Hi,” Peter greets sheepishly.
“Um—” Michelle runs a hand through her hair, trying to catch the breath that he practically stole, and not in the way she would’ve liked. “You’re in my room? Did my…parents let you in?”
But they’re not even home, so she scraps that idea as soon as it leaves her mouth. Somehow, someway, Peter Parker got into her house, her bedroom , and is just sitting there like he’s been waiting for her. Not at all weird.
“Sorry, I realize that this—” He drops his head in his hands for a brief moment, groaning loudly. “Is unconventional. And kind of creepy. But I wasn’t sure when you’d get home.”
“You could’ve called?”
“I could have.” He bits his lower lip, looking away. “But there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you and I know that I would’ve just chickened out if I called beforehand.”
Michelle nods slowly as if she knows what the hell he’s talking about. Ever since the incident during their basketball game, she’s run through the possibilities of what could’ve happened in her head. Multiple times. But out of all the possibilities, not many of them make sense. And she’s not going to lie and say she knows the kind of person Peter is behind closed doors.
“How did you get in? Let’s start with that.”
“Your window was open.”
Michelle walks over to her window, seeing as it’s on the second floor of her house with no ladders to be seen. “O-kay. And did you bring your own trampoline to somersault your way in, or what?”
“That would’ve been funny. But, uh…” Peter trails off and scratches the back of his neck before rolling his shoulders. “No. I actually just…climbed.”
“What? How? Unless you’re—”
“I’m Spider-Man,” he blurts out in one breath, cheeks flustered and eyes wild, like he can’t believe he just said that out loud.
“Oh.”
Peter blinks. “Oh? That’s it?”
Michelle shrugs. Him being Spider-Man was one of her theories if she’s being honest, but she didn’t have enough information to come to a conclusion. He definitely expected her to have more of a reaction than that though, judging on how he’s watching her intently. “Yeah, I mean. I was about 33% sure.”
“Only 33%?” he repeats, lips starting to slip into a small smile as he pulls one leg under him in his sitting position. “Not 67%?”
“Maybe if you would’ve given me more time to figure it out on my own,” she snorts, sitting down next to him.
“I wanted to tell you.” And his voice is shockingly soft when he says it, his eyes on her even when she’s not looking back. She swallows thickly, taps her thumbs against her thighs, wonders what he could possibly see in her that made him want to tell her.
“Why?”
“Because…I trust you,” Peter says quietly, biting his lower lip as if to keep from saying more. “And I’ve never…had the chance to tell anyone on my own before. I wanted you to be the first.”
“Oh, wow. Okay.” No pressure or anything. She meets his eyes, takes in the way they flit all across her face, like he’s trying to memorize her features, ingrain them in his mind as if they could disappear any moment. And then he wets his lips, and she feels like they’ve been here before. “I, um…I don’t…”
“Was it too much? I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to, like, dump that on you,” he says quickly, nervous now, fingers drumming against his knee. “I know you don’t know me very well, but—”
“No, it’s okay. I mean, I’ll have to get used to it. But it’s pretty cool. And I promise I won’t tell anyone else.”
He simply smiles at her. “I know.”
“So…” Michelle looks away quickly as her face heats up to unnatural levels and she figures he can probably hear her heartbeat as well. What exactly did she get herself into, again? “You used your powers to sneak into an unsuspecting girl’s bedroom, huh?”
“God, my aunt would kill me if she found that out.”
“May would probably just make you eat her cooking as punishment, honestly,” she laughs, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, but he looks stricken, lips parting and eyes widening.
“Wait, you—you know May?”
“What?” Did she say that?
“Do you know May?” he repeats.
“I—I don’t know. You’ve talked about her before—”
“No, I haven’t. Not recently,” Peter says, urgent, like this is suddenly a big deal, but she can’t imagine why it would be. Of course she knows he has an Aunt May—she’s gone to school with him for four years—and at the very least, she also knows that May’s not a good cook after tasting her dinner one time, but it was the thought that counts.
Wait. Has she ever even been over to his place?
God, her mind is so jumbled.
“I know she’s a bad cook,” Michelle eventually says, not that that’s a normal fun fact to know when she can’t remember ever going over their apartment. “Peter? What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he eventually settles on, wiping his eyes because they’ve gotten dewy, but he’s not going to tell her why. He never tells her the reason behind anything. “Nothing, I just…”
Michelle hesitates before just pushing through, figuring she might as well ask. “Is there any chance you could tell me…why it constantly feels like I’m forgetting something?”
“I can’t. I’m sorry,” Peter says, his voice cracking, his hands flexing in his lap. “I hate that I really can’t offer you much, but I can…I can hug you, if you want.”
She knows she could decline, that she should decline, seeing as it’s obvious he knows more than he’s letting on and choosing to keep it from her.
But she doesn’t say anything at all, instead moving a little bit closer to drop her chin on his shoulder. His arms wrap around her tightly, fingers threading themselves in her hair, lips pressing against her head and lingering like they’ve found their resting place.
If she were less observant, she wouldn’t have remembered that friends don’t hug like this—wrapped together so closely, so intertwined, that they could share a heartbeat and a heartbreak, and no one would know any different—but lovers do.
“You know, usually our places are switched,” Michelle says with a tentative smile to see if she could get him to crack one as well. But a wince pulls through instead when he ties off the stitches on her arm, and she thinks this isn’t the time or a place for a joke despite her wanting to lighten the mood. “Look—”
“Can we not…” Peter swallows thickly, standing up from her bed that they were sitting on just to wear down a hole in her carpet by pacing. “I should’ve known—”
“How would you have known? And look, it’s not a big deal—it’s barely even a scratch.”
All it took was one person to recognize her at the grocery store as Spider-Man’s girlfriend, the most basic two words anyone could label her as, and well. He’s got a lot of haters who are willing to do a lot of shit to take him down, physically, emotionally, whatever they can get their hands on.
“You don’t understand—”
“Don’t tell me I don’t understand when I have been in this position a dozen times,” she says firmly, recalling every single time she’d been the one stitching Peter up late at night. The times he’d come home from patrol unscathed were few and far between. “And just like you, I’m okay—”
“But it’s the principle, MJ!” He spins around so that she can’t see his face, his fingers tugging at the roots of his hair. “It’s—it’s the fact that you…you and Ned and May can all be used against me now because everyone—literally everyone in this goddamn city knows how much you mean to me. Sure, today was just a scratch, but tomorrow? Next week?”
“Peter—”
“I can’t keep doing this until one of you ends up…well. Hurt…or worse? Dead.” Peter snaps his mouth shut, his laugh humorless as he shakes his head. It’s satirical and bitter and so, so fucking defeated. “I can’t lose any of you to…them.”
To the public.
To the city of New York.
It’s sad how it only takes a bit of false news for a whole city to turn against the person who has done everything for them. She thinks it summarizes all that’s wrong with the media, with believing what you read.
Their case is still going strong in court, but that won’t mean that New York will jump right back on the Spider-Man train right away. And she wishes that they weren’t in the immediate crossfire, that Peter could have some peace with this, but Beck didn’t want to make this easy for them.
“Pete, I promise you,” Michelle prompts quietly, standing up to take his hands in hers, tight, reassuring. “We’re going to figure this out, but in the meantime, we can’t do anything drastic to make the situation worse, yeah? This was just…”
“It was terrible, Em,” he whispers, moving his forehead against hers, eyes dropped to the way his hand is sliding down her forearm. He skirts around the stitches, bottom lip between his teeth. “It’s terrible. And I can’t let it happen again—”
“You didn’t let this happen—”
“Either way, it was my fault. It happened because of me—because everyone knows who I am.” He backs away from her, his smile wry and eyes watery, his hands clasping the back of his head like he can’t believe what they’ve come to. “And I need to fix that.”
She knows what he’s thinking. He told her a few days ago that he’d approached Strange for advice on his situation, maybe even looking for a magical fix, but the only thing provided was an unstable solution. A memory wipe. It was possible, he said, but it was the riskiest path to take.
“No. No, he said that was a fucking risky solution, Peter,” Michelle reminds him firmly, but he shakes his head wildly, manic, like an animal backed up into a corner with no other options. “Hey—”
“There’s nothing riskier than staying in the position I am now. I have—god, I have so much to lose. I can’t, I can’t just wait for the trial and have something happen between now and then.”
“You’re talking about erasing an entire city’s knowledge of you being Spider-Man.” She swallows thickly. “Who are you going to have left?”
“I didn’t have anyone at first. It was just me on my own. I could do it again.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” she argues.
“There’s no other choice!” he shouts and he’s crying, and Michelle realizes that he really believes that. Her heart cracks and she shakes her head, approaching him, holding him, falling with him to sit on the floor. “I’m sorry—I don’t mean to yell, but I can’t…”
“Let a few people remember,” Michelle suggests quietly, combing her fingers through his hair as he leans into her touch. “Ned, May…”
“You?” He turns slightly to look at her, lashes damp and eyes rheumy.
“Of course.” That’s a given, Michelle refusing to consider the possibility of her forgetting him and everything they’ve been through. “It’s you and me, for as long as you want.”
“I'll always want that.” Peter inhales sharply, sucking his cheeks in, and the falter makes Michelle hold him tighter. “If I were to ask Strange to let you guys keep your memories…would you…I mean, do you think…”
“Yeah. We will,” Michelle says without needing to hear the end, resting her cheek against his shoulder, the feeling of his lips brushing against her hair making her heart tingle. He exhales softly, nestling his head atop of hers, and she hears him murmur two words under his breath. They could’ve just been part of her imagination, but maybe not.
Love you.
She doesn’t ask him about it, doesn’t push, because she knows that they’ll have time to talk about it when everything else is sorted—when the memories are wiped, and it’s just them again.
After all, the last thing he should be is alone.
This is her spot.
Michelle would know—she engraved her initials into the brick wall with a rock, just to immortalize the fact that she was here. She just didn’t realize that it was popular for other people to come up here too, but she lets Peter lead her across the school roof all the same.
“Do you bring all your faves up here?”
“Not all of them,” he bounces back, a small smirk gracing his face. “Only you.”
“How sweet.” She bites her bottom lip, looking away as Peter’s expression softens the longer he stares at her, and her heart starts beating loud enough for him to hear, surely. She doesn’t know why she agreed to join him out here, but running away now would be silly. Not that she wouldn’t do it anyway. “How’d you find this spot, anyway?”
Because he’s bringing her the little nook in the corner, sheltered by part of the access door but not shadowed, the sun being a very visible thing when the clouds aren’t looming overhead.
“Um.” He scratches the back of his neck, exhaling a little laugh and looking at her with those eyes that make it seem like he knows more than she does. “There was this girl…a while ago. She’s not around anymore…I mean, she is…but it’s, um. It’s different than it was.”
Peter awkwardly clears his throat. “But she showed me this place during a difficult time in my life. She always came here for some peace and quiet, which I figured we could use.”
So much for this being her own quiet spot if everyone knows about it.
“That’s nice.” She doesn’t know what else to say, seeing how despondent Peter suddenly seems, like he had his heart broken over this girl. Despite her own confusing feelings right now, she wonders if he was happy with her. She really does hope so. Her curiosity is getting the best of her though. “Was she important to you?”
“I mean. Yeah. I loved—I love...” He swallows thickly, staring down at the pavement, fingers twisting together, and he doesn’t even need to finish his sentence.
“You still do.”
“It’s complicated.” Peter gives her a weak smile, and it feels like a consolation prize, in more than one way. He never tells anything to her straight. “But I’m serious when I say it doesn’t matter at all—”
Michelle blinks, lips thinning into an unimpressed line. “How doesn’t it matter?”
“Because I’m here with you now. And you’re…”
“Not her?” Obviously not.
“That’s not what I—”
“I’m messing with you,” she says, but it comes out dry, and his brows crease.
Michelle isn’t sure how she’s feeling about this, expecting more of a sting, a slap of jealousy, to hear that he’s not over his past love while with her, but there’s none of that in her chest—even if there should be. Her heart is in her throat, sure, not because she’s upset, but because she thinks she can relate to what he’s feeling—thinks she would feel it too, if only she could remember what she’s missing.
Who , not what. Who. The realization hits her, sweeps the rug from under her, and even goes so far as to kick her while she’s down. Because forgetting something is one thing, but forgetting someone is another.
“MJ, I’m serious. Hey,” he says with an urgent softness, placing his palm over her hand that has never been far from his reach in the first place. “You don’t—”
“Remember.”
“What?” He gulps. “What don’t you remember?”
“Good question,” she responds wryly. “You’re the one over here telling me that you can’t say anything about it? So you know something, and you’re keeping it from me—for what?”
“Can’t you just trust me here with this?” he asks desperately, but her trust for him doesn’t encompass secrets regarding her own goddamn memory.
“Honestly…fuck you.” She stands up and of course he does as well as if they’re in sync and always have been. “God, Peter, if it were you in my place, what would you do then? If you forgot someone really important to you?”
Peter wets his lips, folds them together, and she sees the way his eyes shine. Maybe she drove her point home too hard with just a few words, but she thinks that’s fair enough.
“If I forgot you, I don’t know what I’d do with myself.”
“You mean, if you forgot her? Or whoever the hell you love, Parker, because you don’t know me—”
“That’s not true,” he insists, desperate, and she doesn’t know why, but it’s almost on the tip of her tongue. “I know you. I know that you’re a terrible cook, just like my aunt, but you somehow can bake a killer cake anyway. I know that you can’t keep a plant alive for the life of you but black dahlias are your favorite. I know that you sketch people in crisis all the time in detention but never yourself, even though a self-portrait would be frame-worthy.”
Michelle’s throat has suddenly gone dry, and she swallows thickly. “And how do you know all this?”
“Because I…I pay attention to you. I always have. You’re…” He blinks, drops his chin, loses a tear down his cheek, but he’s smiling. “You’re amazing, and maybe I haven’t known you for as long as you think, but I want to. I want to know everything about you.”
“Peter,” she murmurs, feeling a tug in her chest that makes her want to go to him—hug him, hold him, never let him go. Her voice softens into something quiet, almost shy. “You’re not joking?”
“I’m not joking. I really…really like you,” he rushes out softly as if it’s been on the tip of his tongue this whole time, him just waiting to say it.
“I really like you, too.” It’s an instinctual response, the words like a familiar beat on her tongue, and she repeats it again. His eyes light up and crinkle around the edges, but she doesn’t see much of his face before he’s right there, and his lips are on hers.
She memorizes the way he kisses, the way he’s holding her like he knows what she likes. It sort of melts together and gets twisted, their past and present and everything in between, because he’s kissing her like he did on the bridge and in the school and on the roof, every single time. He tastes the same and holds her just as tightly, so she whispers his name and drops her lips to his collarbone.
“Em?” he utters, dazed with stars in his eyes.
“Pete,” she counters, meeting his gaze whilst tucking a few stray curls behind his ear. He needs a haircut desperately. “It’s the roof, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Sorry, my Spider-Lord, if things got a bit lost in translation,” she says, and a helpless sound escapes the back of his throat. “But the roof is our favorite place, right? I mean, for all the times we’ve snuck up here—”
“Em,” Peter repeats wetly, his arms winding around her so tight that she’d forget how to breathe if he weren’t right there with her. He kisses her temple, her nose, her cheeks, doesn’t commit to her lips until she asks nicely. “You remember? You’re not messing with me?”
“I remember you and everything that you didn’t tell me,” she hums with narrowed eyes, and he exhales a quiet laugh against her shoulder.
“I’m so sorry. The spell—Strange tried to protect the memories of you guys, but then something happened and it didn’t work and none of you…remembered.” He presses a shaky kiss to the column of her neck. “And if I said anything, it would’ve messed with the space-time continuum. You had to get your memories back on your own.”
“That’s terrible,” she says with a frown, and he merely shrugs, looking away, but the loneliness he’d felt is evident in his expression. “Glad you were super forward with me because…you know. Yikes.”
“I hoped at least that you still liked me.”
“Lucky you,” she laughs, and his smile splits his face. “Besides, I think I more than like you.”
“Yeah?”
“Pretty sure I heard someone say that they loved me, though. So maybe we’re on the same page?”
“Maybe we are…because I love you.” He hugs her, and she feels so warm, so safe and at home, and everything Peter, Peter, Peter , fills the gaps of emptiness she’s been feeling for weeks until it’s gone and she’s whole again.
“I love you,” she simply replies with a warm face that she hides in the crook of his neck, and he kisses her forehead twice over. “You gonna work the process with Ned and May too?”
“Yeah. Might be a little harder, but with your help, I’m sure we could figure it out?” he says, and Michelle merely offers a small smirk.
“You and me?”
“You and me, always,” Peter says as he cups her face just as the sunlight finally peaks through the gray clouds for the first time in ages.