Archive of Our Own ^beta

Campus life had never really interested Michelle. It wasn’t that she didn’t have friends. She totally had friends. Everybody had at least one, right? So it wasn’t that. No, it was more so… Well.

The reason she was at MIT wasn’t to party or get drunk or high or whatever the hell happened at those parties (and really, she wouldn’t know - she’s basing these guesses off movies here, alright?). She was there to study, to get her degree, and to make connections to get a damn job.

Here she’d thought that was the reason most people would be here. But as she works her Friday afternoon shift at the campus café, staring out at the lobby of a startling crowd of two lowly patrons with their eyes glued to their laptops, she can’t help but think that a few people missed the memo.

After a solid thirty minutes with no change - no new customers, and the two current ones staying in their seats with their long-cold drinks and mountains of textbooks - Michelle can’t help but groan. She leans back against the counter and tugs a small notebook from her apron pocket. She flips it to a clean page and pulls a pencil from its place tucked in her ponytail, and lets her eyes wander between the two people in the lobby.

The first is a woman with a blonde bob cut, held back from her face by a black headband. She looks a little older than Michelle, at least a junior. She’s chewing on the end of her pen in between scrawling lines out on the yellow legal pad next to her laptop, and she looks focused. She doesn’t even seem to feel Michelle’s eyes on her.

The other one fits Michelle’s needs far better. His wavy brown hair is fluffy from the half dozen times she’s noticed him running his hands through it. His eyes are almost frantic as they trace over whatever he’s reading on the screen and she can’t help but wonder if, perhaps, he has a deadline approaching. It’s not finals season yet, but a midterm paper wouldn’t be out of the question.

He certainly fits the parameters for her People in Distress sketchbook.

She lowers the pencil to paper and starts on the curve of his face - a total baby face, by the way; seriously is this guy really in college? She runs the pencil in a smooth arch to show the way his cheek is pushed up by his own fist, giving it shading before she moves onto his lips and nose.

He fidgets under her gaze, his hand moving from under his cheek to the back of his neck where he rubs with obvious distress. His brow knits up, his lips purse, and before Michelle can blink, his eyes are suddenly on her.

Their gazes lock, his eyes as wide as saucers while she merely arches a brow, as if challenging him to question her. She silently moves her pencil a little farther up the page to draw his eyes. They’re in the perfect position now, the ideal definition of Distressed. He really is a great subject.

His eyes darts down to the notebook in her hand and has the audacity to look even more distressed. In fact, he’s almost frantic as he slams his laptop closed and grabs his bag from the floor. He’s out the door before she can even question what the hell he’s freaking out over, leaving his half finished coffee behind on the table.

Despite being forced to cut her drawing short, Michelle can’t resist smirking. What a weird guy. She hopes he comes back some time so she can finish the drawing.

She thoughtfully taps the pencil on the page a couple times before sticking it back into the crook of her ponytail and tucking the notebook into her apron again. At least she can get back to her job, if only for a few minutes. She walks over to the vacated table and wipes it down, picking up the paper cup to toss. Her own familiar handwriting stares back at her along the side of it, a name she barely remembers putting there and still barely registers now before she drops it into the trash can.

Peter

The weekend is boring when you don’t like going out. At least, to most people. But Michelle knows how to make good use of her time, between studying and homework and even a movie night in her dorm if she can swing it. Her roommate, Gwen, at least pretends to like the weird documentaries that Michelle turns on, which is pretty cool of her.

So all in all, Michelle really doesn’t get ‘bored’, per say.

She does, however, get curious. She stopped into the campus café on Saturday to grab her daily free ‘I’m an employee, you owe me coffee’, and he was there again.

Peter.

He’d looked just as stressed out as the night before, maybe even more so, and it took all her power not to restart her sketch right then and there. He even did the same thing as before, rubbing the back of his neck and shifting his weight and looking like he wanted to be absolutely anywhere else but there, but he didn’t look up this time. He just kept typing.

And alright, maybe it was a bit rude to overstep the boundaries here, but sue her. She peeked over his shoulder as she left with her coffee, unable to quell the need to know what he was working so intently on. Except that it didn’t really help, because whatever it was looked crazy complicated. Lines and lines of coding that she absolutely couldn’t make heads or tails of filled the entire screen, and yet he was adding to it like it was his first language.

No wonder he looked so distressed all the time.

Gwen looks up with a crooked smile when Michelle finally makes her way back to the dorm, coffee in one hand and library book in the other.

“Welcome back.”

Michelle hums, shrugging as she sits on the edge of her bed and tosses the book onto her nightstand.

Gwen gives her a curious look, taking her silence at face value. “What, they make your coffee wrong or something?”

Michelle looks at her from over the top of the paper cup. “No?”

“Then what’s up?” Gwen presses.

Michelle gives her a deadpan stare, somewhere between being legitimately confused and simply not wanting to answer. “Why does something have to be up?”

“You look like you swallowed rotten milk or something.”

Michelle narrows her eyes, and then kicks her feet up onto the bed and leans back against the headboard. “Well I didn’t. And there’s not.” Her face scrunches as she tries to make sense of her own poor wording. “There’s not something up, I mean. There was just a guy at the café.”

Gwen’s eyes widen ever so slightly, the work on her desk suddenly forgotten. “I’m sorry, did you just say a guy? Is the great MJ, the ever stoic Michelle Jones, really this distracted by a guy?”

A small pillow goes flying across the room, missing Gwen by mere inches when she manages to duck out of the way. Gwen bursts into laughter as it thunks against the wall behind her and drops to the floor, only to earn a glare from Michelle.

“I’m not getting distracted by a guy,” she clarifies with a huff. “I’m just a little curious, alright? He was there when I was working last night and it was stupid slow so I started drawing him and he totally freaked out when he noticed. Grabbed his stuff and booked it.”

Another laugh escapes Gwen before she can stifle it, eventually hiding it behind a crooked grin. “Maybe because some weird girl was staring at him. I’ve heard that makes people uncomfortable.”

She glares at her with that same deadpan look, refusing to take the bait. After a moment, she makes another short ‘hmm’ sound and leans back to continue sipping her coffee. Shaking her head, Gwen eventually returns to her work and the click click click of her typing fills the silent room. Eventually, Michelle sets her empty cup aside and picks up the book. If nothing else, she can get some reading done.

After all, she’s totally not distracted. Not by some jumpy weirdo with messy brown hair.

“-and, according to witnesses, the robbery was cut short by Spider-Man himself. We’re heading to the scene now, where police are still cleaning up last night’s mess-”

Michelle doesn’t bother dragging her eyes away from the café’s TV. The media hasn’t stopped talking about the vigilante since he first showed up last summer. His appearance in Boston had been nothing short of surprising, considering New York had been his usual haunt for years. Most people were speculating that the Spider knew something they didn’t - obviously Boston must be in danger of something bigger if they were getting their own superhero.

Michelle though definitely has a better theory. Certainly a more plausible one if nothing else. See, it’s obvious. He may have superpowers, but he’s not psychic. Clearly whoever is under that mask is just…human. He moved, got a change of scenery. End of story.

“Big Spider-Man fan?”

Michelle jolts back to reality and is met with a timid grin and brown eyes peeking over the top of the register.

“What?” The word comes out slightly accusatory, making Peter’s grin falter.

He awkwardly points towards the TV screen, a tint of pink coloring his cheeks. “Spider-Man? The robbery last night? That is what you’re staring at, right?”

She forces herself to look at him after that, as if to prove him wrong. She’s totally not staring. She absolutely does not care about Spider-Man. That said, now she’s staring at him, at Peter, and somehow that’s not any better.

He seems to shrink under her gaze, reverting to the same jumpy version of himself that she saw the other night. After a few beats of uncomfortable silence, he clears his throat and gestures towards the register. “R-right.” He breathes out a huff of a sigh, suddenly working very hard to avoid meeting her narrowed eyes. “Um, can I just…get a hot chocolate? And a slice of gingerbread loaf?”

Michelle taps it into the system with her lips pressed in a thin line. “Size?”

“W-what?” Peter’s already blushing cheeks turn an even brighter shade of red.

“Size,” Michelle repeats sternly. “For the hot chocolate.”

His eyes widen into saucers, reminiscent of the expression that earned him a spot in Michelle’s People in Distress collection in the first place, before he finally sputters out, “Large. Please.”

She taps the option on the screen with her brow raised, never breaking eye contact. “You got it, Peter. $8.26.”

Pure confusion passes over his face as he hands over his card to pay. She can practically see him trying to connect the dots on how she could possibly know his name, but his mouth barely starts to open before she gives the card back and shoos him towards the other end of the counter.

“They’ll have it out in a minute or two. Next-”

Still looking fairly lost, he shuffles away to make room for whoever is next in the growing line behind him, while Michelle shares a silent, internal smile with herself. She doesn’t know a thing about Peter - Peter Parker, according to his debit card - but she can’t pretend that watching him squirm isn’t at least a tiny bit satisfying.

The rest of her afternoon shift is spent stealing glances towards the table he settles in at after getting his order. Like the other day, he pulls out his laptop and pours himself over whatever is on the screen. He has a notebook out today too though, scrawling out some sort of equation or another. Chemistry, from the look of it.

Not that she’d know. She’s not really paying attention. She’s just being observant.

Peter doesn’t show up during her Tuesday shift. Or the Wednesday one. By Thursday, Michelle is wondering if he was just a visiting student or something, because she hasn’t even seen him in passing. Not that she was looking, obviously.

She just sort of kind of happened to be a little… Curious. Yeah. Simple, innocent curiosity, that’s all it was.

It’s when she’s wandering across campus after her late night calculus class that that curiosity comes to a head. She’s tugging her scarf tighter around her neck, tucking down into her thick jacket and silently begging the weather to stop threatening snow, when she feels her foot collide with something on the ground. A vibrant blue notebook goes careening across the sidewalk and tumbles into the grass, having been kicked in her hurry.

Her brow scrunches up as she bends down to grab it - she doesn’t exactly feel bad for kicking it, she’s not the one who left it on the ground, but she’s also not so heartless as to leave it to get hit by the next morning’s sprinklers. And when her eyes fall onto the name written on the back cover in sloppy black ink, she has to question exactly how much of a coincidence it would take for this to happen.

Peter Parker

A crooked grin tugs on her lips when she notices that he has a dorm room written down with his name. She has to wonder if he just knew he would lose it at some point and this is how he prepared for that inevitability. The thought amuses her.

She hurries to wipe the smirk of her face. There is absolutely no reason she should be smiling like an idiot about some dweeby guy she’s talked to all of one time. Even if he was kind of cute, in that weird nerdy way that she supposes anyone attending MIT would have to be.

Shoving the thought aside, she looks back down at the notebook and sighs. The dorm number is staring her in the face, and she actually knows exactly where it is. It’s only a building over from her own, and she can technically pretend that it was on the way if she takes the scenic route…

She chews her lip and spares the darkening sky a glance. Rain, at the very least. It’s probably too early for snow, but she doesn’t really want to jinx herself by thinking it. The internal debate is short lived and soon she sighs and readjusts her jacket against the chill, and then starts the walk towards Peter’s dorm.

At least with night classes, she doesn’t have to worry about running into many people along the way. Most students are already locked away in their dorms, ready for bed or buried in textbooks. She kind of hopes that Peter is the latter type of person. She doesn’t want to even think about how awkward it would be to wake him up for a notebook.

It only takes ten or so minutes before she’s knocking on the door of the third floor dorm room. A series of heavy thunks and a loud grunt on the other side send her brows straight up and her eyes widening, but before she can make the call to come back later, fearing that maybe he was asleep after all, the door swings open.

A Filipino boy stands in the frame, bare feet poking out beneath thick sweatpants. He has a baggy t-shirt on, a picture of the Hulk smashing some sort of molecule plastered across the front, and a pair of high end gaming headphones sit around his neck as if he’s just yanked them off in his surprise.

“Uh,” he eloquently says, his jaw dropped.

They stare at each other for several stunned seconds before Michelle suddenly thrusts her arm forward, holding out the blue notebook. “This is Peter’s.”

The boy gapes at her a little longer before he manages to look down at the notebook. “Uh,” he repeats again. “Thanks-I mean, like, wow, he totally loses this stuff all the time, so like.” He snatches the notebook from her, looking almost panicked as he forces himself to clear his throat and laugh. “Thanks. Yeah.”

Michelle quirks a brow and tucks her hand back into her jacket pocket. “All the time, huh? That’s probably a really bad habit.”

Something beeps frantically on the computer behind him, the screen carefully turned so it can’t be seen from the door. His head whips around as that same panic seems to hit him. “Yeah, totally!! Um-thanks again, I gotta go!!”

Michelle doesn’t even have a chance to figure out what the hell is happening, because the next thing she knows, the door is slamming in her face. There’s another loud thud from the room, as well as a loud shout and something falling over that she’s not sure she even wants to guess at. Still, she stares at the door for a solid thirty seconds before she shrugs, rolls her eyes, and makes her way back to her own dorm.

Freshmen, right?

And of course she knows she and Gwen are freshmen too, but they don’t count. Not like Peter Parker and his equally weird roommate. Obviously.

It’s Friday before Peter wanders back into the café again. Michelle looks up when the little bell jingles, a strange tug in her chest when she sees that head of already familiar floppy brown hair.

Her lead on the register gives her a weird glance. God knows he’s never seen Michelle bother paying attention to who does or doesn’t walk into the café. He says nothing though, merely turning himself back to the incoming customer and taking his order.

Michelle tries not to think about the fact that Peter Parker only seems to order hot chocolates and never coffee. She tries not to think about the fact that he orders another gingerbread loaf, or the fact that she definitely just saw him slip the only remaining bill in his wallet - $5 - right into their tip jar. And she absolutely positively tries not to think about the fact that as soon as he accidentally catches her eye, he smiles ear to ear. And it’s a good smile. The kind of smile that almost makes her give him one in return but instead makes her flip around before he can see the way her face is flushing pink.

She shoves the frothing wand down into the stainless steel canister to steam the milk, her shoulders tensing when she flips the lever to turn it on. Milk slops over the side of the metal and she swears internally. Just one more thing to clean up.

She swears she hears Peter laugh behind her, but she doesn’t dare turn around to confirm it. Focus on the drink, get it served, clean up. Do not look at Peter Goddamn Parker.

“Someone you know?”

Michelle jumps at the sound of her lead’s voice, nearly spilling the hot milk all over the counter as she pours it into an extra large cup. PETER is scrawled on the side in Michelle’s sloppy writing. “What?”

“Peter?”

She hunkers down to stir the chocolate in, keeping her eyes averted as her co-worker leans across the counter to grab the pastry. “Not really. He’s been in here a lot this last week, that’s all. He orders the same thing every time.”

Michelle douses the top of the hot drink with whipped cream before pressing the lid down over it. Turning to take it to the end, where Peter is quietly waiting and fiddling on his phone, she’s instead cut off by her lead standing in front of her with his brow raised.

“You know his order?”

Michelle frowns at him, feigning nonchalance. “It’s a really simple order.”

She shoves past him before he can question her further, snagging the newly bagged gingerbread loaf out of his hand and making a beeline for the other end of the counter.

“Hot chocolates ready,” she says as lazily as she can, raising the cup into Peter’s line of sight as she approaches.

He looks up with that same sparkling grin as he reaches out to take it. “Hey, thanks.”

She makes a bit of a face to keep the smile off her face. Why this boy makes her want to smile so bad makes absolutely zero sense, but she refuses to give in.

“Sure,” she says instead and holds the pastry bag out for him next.

He takes that too, his grin only widening more. “Cool~ Hey, you know Ned said you dropped off my notebook yesterday. Sorry I wasn’t there, but thank you.”

“Ned?” she asks before she can stop herself. Curse her curiosity.

“My roommate,” Peter clarifies before taking a deep sip of the hot chocolate. She can practically see the warmth returning to his cheeks. Stupid baby face cheeks-

“Oh.” She shifts her weight, glancing over her shoulder to make sure her lead isn’t waiting on her. He’s not even behind the counter, and there’s no one in line either, so she decides to give in and ask, “So where were you anyway?”

Peter hurries to take another gulp of his drink, and Michelle would swear that he’s avoiding her eyes all of a sudden. “Night class. Physics.”

Michelle raises a brow but keeps her mouth shut. She knows for a fact that her night class is the latest one they offered. She did that on purpose, thank you very much. So either Peter is a liar, or he’s been in her class this whole time and she’s never noticed. Considering her class isn’t physics though, she’s definitely leaning towards the first option.

He tucks his pastry into the pocket of his jacket after a moment and flashes her another, slightly more nervous smile. “I guess I’ll see you later then?” He trails off thoughtfully, as if that’s not quite how he wanted to finish that sentence.

Michelle shrugs. “Sure.” She finally gives in to the tiny smile that’s been tugging at her lips since he first walked in, calling out before he reaches the door,

“And it’s Michelle, by the way.”

He pauses mid-step and turns to look at her with wide eyes. “Michelle?”

She nods once, tucking her hands into her pockets and shrugging.

The grin that spreads on his face is brighter than the sun. “Then I will see you later, Michelle.”

Peter is already at the café when Michelle goes in for her next shift. She can’t help but smirk when she passes his table, his laptop running and a familiar blue notebook open and shoved to the side. He has a multitude of colored pens spread out, at least six of them having already been put to use on the current page. She doesn’t recognize a single formula but it’s definitely chemistry.

She also notices that there isn’t a cup on his table, or a telltale plate from his usual gingerbread loaf.

Once she reaches the counter and clocks in to free her co-worker, it doesn’t take long for her to look up to see Peter at the register, ready to order with that same sparkling, doe-eyed smile. It takes all her power not to melt at the sight.

“Peter,” she forcibly deadpans, but the smirk is still there.

“Michelle,” he says back with a light tease in his voice.

“Large hot chocolate?” She’s already typing it in before he can answer, as well as the gingerbread loaf she knows he’ll order next.

“Please and thank you,” he says, reaching for his wallet. “And-”

“And the gingerbread.”

He pauses, wallet in hand, and his grin falls crooked. “Yeah, that.”

She chuckles to herself and holds her hand out as he gives her a ten dollar bill. “Thought so.” The register dings as she grabs his change, eventually giving him back $4 and some coins.

He raises a brow. “Isn’t it normally $8.26?”

She shrugs as she shuts the drawer with her hip. “Pastry was on me today.”

Peter blinks back his surprise, still standing with his hand out, change in his palm.

She flashes him a smirk and rolls her eyes when she notices he hasn’t budged. “I’ll see you when your drink is ready, Parker. Move along.”

He stammers for a moment, as if the simple gesture of treating him to a slice of cake has completely knocked the air from his lungs. There’s an awkward beat before he dumps all his change into the tip jar, and then he’s scooting down to the end of the counter to wait.

Peter is so easily flustered that it’s actually difficult to hide how endearing it is to her, and Michelle has to hold back her smile while she takes the next person’s order - vanilla latte, non-fat. Somehow she manages to keep her usual stoicism until her back is to the lobby and she can focus on making drinks and warming pastries. Once she’s there, she doesn’t have to keep the smile at bay.

She makes the latte first, knowing how simple Peter’s will be in comparison. She moves through the steps like clockwork, handing off the latte and then going back for the pastry already warming in the oven and the milk already steaming at the wand. She bags the loaf, pours the milk and stirs in the chocolate, tops it with whipped cream and caps it off in mere seconds.

When she goes to hand the order off to Peter, she tries not to give in to the crooked smirk tugging at her lips. “Here you go.”

She holds out the cup first, rotated at just the right angle for him to see his name scrawled out in sharpie. A string of numbers is carefully written out below it and she can practically see the way it sinks in as he takes the drink.

“Is that-”

She gives him another look, brow arching and mouth just barely quirked up in the corner. “My number. So you can call me. Or text. Or not.” She shrugs and straightens back up, taking a step back from the counter as if to get back to work.

She’s ready to turn around - ready to leave Peter standing there in his stunned silence, gaping at the cup - but then he suddenly looks back up at her and stammers, “What are you doing on Tuesday?”

She pauses, lips starting to purse as she holds back a laugh. “I have class. Don’t you?”

His pale cheeks immediately turn pink. She can actually see the blush spreading down his neck, which is fairly adorable. “Yeah. Yeah, of course. But like, after class?”

Michelle lets him sweat for a long moment, eyes tracing over him before she gives into another little smirk. “I guess you’ll have to tell me when you come up with something.”

He stares back with pure awe drawn across his face. His jaw is loose, and he fumbles the pastry bag in his hand. He barely manages to keep a hold of it, tucking it against his chest and definitely squishing it a little. “I-yeah! Yeah, you know what?” He starts to back away from the counter, looking absolutely giddy as he tilts the cup towards her to motion to her writing. “I’ll text you! Call you! I mean, whichever, right??”

She raises a hand to cover her mouth when he bumps right into an empty table, forced to stifle a snort of laughter. “I’ll be waiting with bated breath,” she jokes through her fingers. He’s still trying to straighten out the table he knocked into when she calls out again, “Oh, and Peter?”

He jolts upright with a start, accidentally scraping the chair across the floor in his attempts to put things back. “Yes-yeah?”

His wide, puppy dog eyes are nothing short of adorable and it takes every ounce of her power to resist a full blown laughing fit at the sight. “If you’re going to take me on a date you should probably call me MJ.”

Peter’s entire expression lights up as if fireworks are sparking inside his very gaze. “MJ. Got it.” He stares at her with that dopey look for several seconds before he shakes his head and gestures towards the door. “Right-I’ll um, yeah. Tuesday. I’ll see you Tuesday, MJ.”

Still holding back a laugh, she gives him a lazy wave. “Tuesday,” she confirms, and then he’s gone and the day continues as if nothing has changed.

As if she hasn’t just let herself fall head over heels for fluffy brown hair and hazel eyes and a smile that will light up her mind for hours at a time.

“You’re kidding me.” Gwen doesn’t phrase it as a question. In fact, most of what Gwen says is not a question. It’s more like she’s confirming things she already knows, or, in this case, is just expressing how much she doesn’t actually believe the answer that people are trying to tell her.

Michelle arches a brow from her seat on the bus, looking up at Gwen who stands with her hand looped in one of the grips on the overhead bar. “Why would I be kidding you about going on a date?”

Gwen gives her a look that screams why wouldn’t you? “You. Michelle Jones. MJ. Going on a date with hot chocolate boy.”

“Peter,” Michelle corrects without a second thought.

Gwen throws her free hand up in exasperation. “And you know his name! How is this not weirding you out? It’s weirding me out. MJ, the girl who swore to me on move in day that she, quote, wasn’t going to be that girl bringing hook-ups through the dorm or going out to parties to get drunk.” She makes one handed air quotes as she recalls the conversation. “We’re not even through the first semester!”

Michelle shrugs. “I have no intention of hooking up with him, and I’m still sure as hell not going out to any parties.”

“I can’t believe this,” Gwen huffs, but at this point she’s starting to look a little amused. “You’re leaving me behind here, MJ. I’m heartbroken.”

“Leaving you behind.” It’s her turn to voice her disbelief, her face and voice equally deadpan as she meets Gwen’s eyes. “Like I’m that oblivious to you and-”

Gwen jumps forward to press a hand over Michelle’s mouth, only to nearly tumble right over when the bus takes a wide turn. Michelle cracks up beneath her palm, reaching over to help steady her before she can go all the way down. A few wriggles frees her mouth and she tosses Gwen a suggestive grin. “So?”

Gwen’s entire face is pink at this point and she hurriedly pulls her hand away and grabs onto the loop again to catch her balance. “So it’s totally not the same.”

Michelle just rolls her eyes. “Sure it isn’t.” She’s kind enough to drop it when Gwen shoots another look her way, but she’s still smirking at the thought.

As the bus rolls to a full stop, Michelle hops out of her seat and loops her arm through Gwen’s. “Alright, come on. I thought we were supposed to be getting new coats before the snow came in, not lecturing me on my dating habits.”

Gwen follows with a look of exasperation. “Coats. You want to focus on coats when you have a date. We should be getting you a new outfit, screw the coat.”

Michelle sighs in annoyance. “I am not buying a brand new outfit for Peter Parker, thank you. You and I both know that the café doesn’t pay me nearly enough for that.”

Gwen reluctantly agrees as they tromp down the bus steps and onto the sidewalk. As much as Gwen wants to push her to splurge for once, MIT’s tuition fees are both no joke, and no secret. A nice new coat is as much as she’ll be convincing her of and she knows it.

Michelle casually redirects the conversation as they walk, turning it to talk of movies coming out or whatever has popped up on the news recently. It’s no surprise that Spider-Man comes up at some point. He always comes up with Gwen. Michelle wants to call it hero worship, but it feels more genuine than that whenever her roommate talks about him. Then again, Gwen is a New York native, just like Michelle herself is. Maybe it just comes with the territory.

They pop into one of the three Dunkin Donuts on the block for a much needed dose of coffee - both for the caffeine and for the warmth against the turning seasons - and then they jump right into the flow of the pedestrian traffic. The people here move like flood waters, weaving between one another and paying almost no mind to anyone they might bump into along the way.

Michelle doesn’t mind it. It feels like home.

And when the shouting happens, accenting the sound of distant sirens, that feels like home too. Because she can hear the excitement in their voices - excitement, not fear - as they spot Spider-Man swinging down the street. He takes arching leaps, sling-shotting himself off of lamp posts and traffic lights as he chases down whatever criminal is trying to make their escape.

The crowd bustles, pointing up at the red and blue vigilante and shoving one another in some strange attempt to get a closer look. Gwen grabs onto Michelle’s arm as they’re jostled around, trying to tug her out of the thick of it - it’s definitely not where they meant to end up, whether they’re fans of the Spider or not.

And then someone pushes a little too rough, a little too hard, and Michelle barely registers what’s happening. She lets out a thin hiss of pain as her ankle rolls over the edge of the curb and she wobbles right out of Gwen’s grip. She hits the asphalt with a heavy thud, and before the spots even clear from her vision, a horn is honking so loudly that she’s sure she’s going to go deaf-

And then she’s weightless, soaring upwards, and for a moment she wonders if the car hit her and sent her flying, except it can’t have, because she’s not in pain. In fact, she’s more warm than anything.

The world stops flying past her mere moments later, when her feet end up planted on the balcony level of a nearby mall and she finds herself staring down at a sea of restless, shouting people. She spots Gwen running towards her in an instant, her bright pink knit hat a dead giveaway among the crowd, but she still feels so far away from this height.

Michelle whips around as the realization finally hits her. She’s face to face with Spider-Man in the next second, the lenses of his mask just as wide as her own eyes surely must be.

“Are you alright, M-iss?” He stretches out the word, as if he wasn’t sure how to address her right off the bat. His hands are up, practically twitching as he resists the urge to reach forward and check her for injuries.

Michelle’s mouth opens and closes a few times before she finds her words. Her mouth feels dry and raw, and her head is little more than white noise. “I-what?”

Spider-Man winces. “You took quite the fall down there. You’re lucky I was around.”

Her brow furrows. “They were pushing because of you, you know.” And alright, maybe she should have started with a thank you, but what can she say. She’s a little off her game right now.

Spider-Man must be too though, because his lenses somehow widen even more. “I am so sorry. People can be crazy, you know?” He hesitates, taking a cautious step towards her. He’s clearly trying to get a better look. She can feel the concern pouring off of him. It’s actually kind of sweet. He let a criminal go so she wouldn’t get hit by a car.

…

Michelle’s shoulders stiffen. “You let a criminal go so I wouldn’t-”

“So you wouldn’t get hit by a car?” He cuts her off to complete the sentence, crossing his arms over his chest. “Yeah. Of course I did.”

She blinks back her confusion, shaking her head. The motion only serves to make her dizzier. Maybe she did hit something… “Why?”

He tilts his head. “It’s what I do. The cops’ll catch him anyway, I slowed him down enough.” He perks up as the rooftop access door swings open behind him and Gwen comes tearing across the roof towards them. “And that’s my cue. I’m glad you’re alright, MJ. I’ll see you around!”

He’s gone before she can even register what’s happening, taking a flying leap off the building and swinging off towards the distant sirens.

Gwen doesn’t even pay him any mind, immediately grabbing Michelle’s shoulders and checking her for blood or bruises. “Holy shit, MJ! Are you ok?? I’m so sorry! That was insane-”

Michelle barely hears a word of her worrying. She can’t pull her eyes away from the dot of red and blue on the horizon, and she can’t shake the strange rush of anxiety and excitement twisting together in her gut.

Something tells her that Tuesday is going to be even more interesting than she was expecting.