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After dealing with three angry customers in the first hour of opening the coffee shop, MJ is relieved to see Ned walk through the door. The chime nearly had her in hysterics after having just sent out a woman who demanded to watch MJ make her coffee order with nine different modifications and made her do it twice because the “foam wasn’t foamy enough,” so she sends a big grin and a wave in her friend’s direction before meeting him at the back counter.
Ned brings up their fall semester at MIT, and MJ carries on the conversation half-heartedly. Part of her still can’t believe that she got accepted, and another part, one she can’t explain, feels that she shouldn’t be going in the first place, like there could be something more important than college for her to be doing.
She turns her attention to the customer at the front a little guiltily; he had walked in before Ned, and she’s been ignoring him for about two minutes now.
“Sorry about that,” she says, turning to him. He’s young, probably around her age, and she hopes he doesn’t get as hissy as her earlier customers. “What can I get you?”
He gives her a nervous smile. “I’m Peter. Peter Parker?” He bites his lip, and MJ stops herself from reaching out and pulling the bottom lip away from the top—it has a cut that’s healing pretty well, but was likely nasty when it first happened. Peter shouldn’t be hurting himself.
She catches herself thinking it almost immediately, and it throws her off. When has she ever been that concerned about a customer? Sure, he’s cute, with brown hair and kind eyes that look like he could turn the world upside down to save someone, but she shouldn’t be caring this much.
MJ clears her throat and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “Right, Peter. What can—”
“Your scar.” Peter’s eyes are fixed on her forehead, his smile gone.
“Yeah, it’s almost healed.” She doesn’t know why she’s explaining herself to a stranger. She clears her throat.
He seems to battle with himself internally before finally deciding. “Right, sorry. A coffee, please.”
“Coming right up.” It shouldn’t be this hard to turn away from a customer. MJ has to force her feet towards the coffee machine, leaving the rest of her body no choice but to follow.
She grabs a doughnut and slides it in Ned’s general direction, and then grabs the full coffee cup from the machine. When she heads back to the front counter, she sees Peter shove a piece of paper into his pocket.
“Your coffee?” She’s not sure why she says it like a question, like there’s something unfinished between the two, some mystery that needs solving, but her arm thankfully gives him the cup automatically as she’s done for the hundreds of customers before him.
Peter takes the cup. “Yeah, thanks.” His eyes meet hers, hopeful, and his mouth parts just the slightest bit—
MJ is hit with a sense of yearning so strong that she feels she might cry out in pain. Her chest aches like it was drowning in something long ago and now it’s so empty that she might shatter from the inside out, and it’s only Peter’s eyes and Peter’s lips that make her feel like that feeling might go away. When she meets his gaze, she is drowning, and this must be love or heartache or whatever comes in between at the same time, because what she’s feeling right now has her choking back a sob as she searches his eyes for a secret he refuses to divulge.
Peter’s eyes finally lower and she feels like the string connecting him to her is no longer pulling; it’s still there resting heavy in her gut, but no longer taut. “Um…”
“Oh, sorry.” Peter pulls out cash and hands it to her. MJ had completely forgotten that he even needed to pay.
“Have a nice day,” MJ says on autopilot. Her eyes follow him out the door, and as soon as he’s out of sight, she collapses to the floor.
“Are you okay?” She can hear Ned’s voice through a haze, but her mind is already back by the Statue of Liberty. Helicopters are swerving around by the torch and someone is yelling at them through a megaphone, assuring them that they’re going to be okay, but something inside of MJ is broken and she knows she won’t be okay until it’s fixed by him, and she has no idea who he is, and she and Ned are just sitting here, and she has no clue how she got here, and he’s not here, and—
“It happened again, huh?” Ned brings the bottle of water to MJ’s mouth. Her tongue and throat feel dry, and she finishes half of the bottle quickly.
MJ nods. “I still don’t understand how we ended up at such a big crime scene and didn’t know how. We even missed Spider-Man. How do we miss a guy in a red and blue costume swinging around?” She tries for a laugh, but her throat closes up and it comes out as a cough instead.
“Wild, huh?” Ned frowns. “The most we can do is read the newspapers, watch the videos. Look towards the future, MJ, not the past. It only seems to be hurting you.”
Ned’s not wrong about that, she realizes as she stands up and leans against the counter, eyes closed. But a small part of her, the one that has ached so tenderly since the incident, thinks, What if I could make the past my future? A ridiculous thought.
But then, that part screams a little louder. What if we could fix what memory broke? What if I could just remember Peter Parker, Peter Parker, Peter Parker the stupid, selfless, amazing idiot who was just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man trying his best?
MJ’s eyes shoot open and she gasps.