Chapter Text
When MIT finally, finally , sends Ned his dorm assignment and his new roommate’s contact information it’s the height of summer in New York about one week after he graduated in the top five of his class at Midtown. He’s meeting up with MJ for the first time since their joint family graduation party to try and cool off with some Italian Ice and they’re both rushing to eat it before it melts into juice. MJ’s mouth is dyed blue from hers and Ned knows that his is probably not that much better.
Both of their phones are sitting on the table and they vibrate in tandem with email notifications. They freeze for only a second before diving on them like starving animals.
“It’s the room assignments,” MJ tells him, excited and already clicking through the email on her phone. Ned’s is running slow than hers because it takes forever for his link to open and he takes the time to scoot around the table and lean in so they can compare notes. They’re both in East Campus, which has them both relieved even if Michelle is on the first floor and Ned is on the fourth.
The page also lists his room number and his new roommate’s name - Dylan - his MIT email address and his phone number. MJ, who has gained confidence through high school and is much more forward than he is, has already found her roommate’s - Gwen - Instagram and has sent a follow request as well as an introductory text. Ned lets his finger bounce on the casing of the phone for a few seconds before he locks it and slips it back in his pocket.
He’s been excited for his room assignment for months. He’s ready to go to college and ready to grow and be his own person. Live on his own. Well. Kind of on his own. He’s nervous too because this is the first of many Big Adult Steps that he’s going to be taking but he’s normally good with new people.
So why does rooming with this random guy feel so weird and wrong? Why is he sad about it?
“Three more months and we’ll be Engineers,” Michelle says with that breathless type of excitement and she’s not even trying to hide the little bouncing motions of her knee. The type of excitement she doesn’t really share with anyone beyond her oldest friend. “I hope that Boston has a better breeze than New York,” she jokes, fanning her face ineffectually with a folded up napkin.
“Unlikely,” Ned pokes back, giving up and drinking his melted treat. The sour taste of lemon and grape is refreshing when it bursts over his tongue and he crinkles his nose as his taste buds scream making MJ laugh at him as she downs her own.
They part ways soon after and Ned elects to walk the twelve blocks home instead of taking the sweltering subway. There’s a light breeze finally that cools the sweat on his forehead and the back of his neck and it makes the walk marginally more pleasant. He’s going to miss the city while he’s gone. All the noise, the people, the excitement. Boston doesn’t have its own vigilantes and superhero bases like New York does - It’s almost going to be boring by comparison.
But after the incident where he and Michelle got stuck in the middle of a fight at the Statue of Liberty it might be nice to have some boring.
“Hey honey!” His mom calls from her place parked in front of their overworked window unit in the living room. She’s reading whatever her book club assigned for the month but she puts it aside when Ned joins her, enjoying the blessedly cool air.
“Got my roommate assignment,” he tells her, handing over his phone when she excitedly asks to see and makes grabby hands at him.
“Your dorm looks fun!” She says as she scrolls through all the information, sending links to herself via text so she can, presumably, look up more information on it later. “Where is Shelly staying?” She asks, handing it back and using the nickname that she’s used for MJ ever since she was little and following Ned home from third grade to hang out and play Mario Kart.
She could kick his ass then too.
“Same dorm, but on the first floor,” Ned offers, glancing at Dylan's name and contact information for a second time. He’s got that weird feeling bubbling up again - like something is wrong or maybe like he’s forgetting something? It’s got him a little off balance.
His mom, misinterpreting the troubled look on his face, pulls him into a hug. “It’s a big step,” she says, “but you’re going to have so much fun Jun. College is such an experience and you don’t want to miss out on it. You’ll see.” A crash sounds from upstairs and she releases him with a sigh when the frantic knocking and loud whispers float down the stairs. “That’ll be your brothers breaking something. Again.”
“Good luck,” he laughs as she starts up the stairs to referee whatever is going down. He can hear his sister laughing loudly and nonsensical babbling from Edwin and Eliot and he smiles. Their house is always a little chaotic and he likes to think being away from all the responsibility of being the oldest sibling will be nice but he knows he’s going to miss it. His brothers are just about to be thirteen and are finally tolerable to be around and he and his sister have gotten a lot closer now that she’s in high school.
He unlocks his phone again and stares at his roommate assignment for a second before he opens up a new email and starts typing.
It’s pretty typical luck that, the day Ned moves into his very first college dorm, it’s bright outside with naught a cloud in the sky and in the mid nineties. He’s sweating the second he gets out of the small U-Haul van that his parents and MJ’s had gone in together on to transport their whole lives to a new state. Over half of it was filled with stuff Ned’s mom had overpacked for him including what had to be a pantry’s worth of food.
Michelle had taken one look at it and had declared that she’d be raiding it as needed for quality studying snacks. “I’ve already packed all your favorites,” Maria had told her and MJ had looked touched before pulling her into a tight hug. Things had been weird with her own mom after the blip but Ned never minded sharing his own - she had plenty of love to go around.
“Welcome to MIT!” One of the RAs enthused, decked out in a cardinal MIT tank top with a high ponytail. “Let me get you checked in and we’ll have some of our student volunteers help you unload!”
“We’ll start unpacking,” Robert Jones says, nudging MJ closer to Ned. “You two go get your keys and meet us back here.” Ned’s dad was already hip deep in their pile of cardboard boxes and totes and bags in the back of the van and rubbing his mustache in that very ‘dad’ way that meant he was excited to unload and jokingly argue about how things had been packed.
“Shall we?” Ned asked, offering Michelle his arm and she smiled as she linked their elbows together.
The line to get their keys, keycards and information packs stretched out the door of the dorm and was packed with other incoming freshmen talking excitedly and looking just as anxious and nervous as Ned felt. The energy was electric and he could feel himself getting lost in it as it hyped him up too.
He was ready for this. College was a good thing.
It didn’t take long for them to fall into conversation with the people in line close to them, introducing themselves and comparing notes on hometowns and majors and rumors that they had heard about on-campus dorms. By the time they had both gotten their information packets, Ned was already part of two new discord groups and had the phone numbers of five new people.
“Day one and we already have a study group,” Michelle joked, rifling through her packet.
Ned laughed brightly as he looked over the campus map. “Easier than we thought!”
Once they made it back to the van they had to split up - MJ to find her room on the first floor and Ned to queue up with his hand cart at the elevator. His parent’s had gotten caught up talking to a couple other couples so Ned was making the first trip upstairs on his own.
The halls were packed with bodies and boxes and the fourth floor felt about ten degrees warmer than it had on the ground level and Ned wiped his forehead with his arm as he navigated the cramped hall on his way to four-sixteen. His door was propped open with a doorstop and Ned parked his cart in the hall.
“Hello?” He calls, stepping in fully and waving at the dark-haired guy who peaks around the open door of his closet. “You must be Dylan?”
“And you’re Ned,” Dylan says with a smile. “Nice to meet you.”
He held out his hand for a handshake and something in Ned fuzzes out like static.
He grips Dylan’s hand to shake it but his arm tries to continue the motion - like there was more to it or something missing and he feels almost dizzy with the deja vous and brain fog that suddenly clouds him. The handshake he remembers is complicated but he breezes through it in his memory and so does… so does…
“You okay man?” Dylan asks, face pinched a little in concern and the memories melt out of his head like water through a sieve leaving him a little off kilter.
“Yeah,” Ned says. “Yeah, sorry. The heat you know?”
“Oh dude I’m from North Dakota,” Dylan commiserates. “I’m going to melt if it doesn’t cool off soon.”
They share a laugh and Dylan helps Ned unload and stack his boxes on his side of the room and, by the time they meet up with Gwen and some other people in their dorm for dinner later, Ned’s forgotten all about messing up his handshake.