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He’s late.
Peter is so unreasonably late and honestly, he’s not sure it’s a bad thing. One, he did manage to save a busload of people from taking a nose dive into the Hudson. Two, he didn’t want to be set up on a date anyway.
But he never had much of a choice, not really. Not when Anna got involved.
It’s not as if he didn’t try to say no. He did! But his neighbour is nothing if not persuasive and she reminds him too much of May for him to actively want to disappoint her.
Peter remembers the day she came into his life as he rushes to hide his suit with the crinkled shirt he pulls out of his backpack. He was so used to avoiding people and so used to not having anyone to talk to or to interact with - that he kind of forgot other people are dealing with things too. So, whenever he kicked his door closed it annoyed the people around him. Just because everyone forgot Peter Parker doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. It doesn’t mean he’s immune from being a nuisance just because no one knows his name.
But then Anna came knocking on the same door with a scowl and a casserole in her arms.
He hadn’t invited her in, not really. But he never had a choice - she was through the door and setting the food on the counter, removing the tin foil and cutting it into large squares, before he had a moment to ask her if she was alright. It wasn’t the last time she came over with food or a house plant he was desperately trying not to kill. But it signalled a change in his life all the time.
So now, he gets home and he’s conscious about the steps he makes, about the volume he plays his music. It’s not that he doesn’t want to disturb Anna. It’s just - well, he doesn’t want her to know he’s home.
The first few times she came over, she forced him to eat a good meal, telling him she wasn’t blind and that she knows he stays out too late and she sees him with a takeaway container more often than not. And it was fine, it was better than fine. It was nice - to be thought about.
And then she started telling him about her life, just small pieces that made him slightly uncomfortable because he doesn’t want to start seeing her as anything more than a neighbour.
She started hinting about her niece. About how she thinks she’s the same kind of age as Peter, even though he keeps most of his personal details to himself. Anna thinks he’d really like Emmie - but right now, and maybe forever, his heart belongs to MJ. The girl he made sure would never remember him. Who he hasn’t seen since the bakery. She won’t have a clue who he is - and that’s how it’s supposed to be. But the thought of meeting someone else - he can’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair to her, or to MJ.
So he always politely declined being set up, talking about his heavy workload and how he’s really just not the relationship kind of guy. He always managed to keep the topics of conversation to Anna’s day - to her work, to her future plans. To anything that doesn't centre on him.
Because she's just his neighbour. That's all she can be.
But then Anna told him how she wasn’t used to taking care of people - it was never in her nature. But she spent the last few years of her life becoming friends with a woman she met at FEAST who taught her that you do what you can when you can, just because you can.
And then she had to bury her too soon. And now she’s spreading the love she had for her, wherever she can reach.
So as hard as Peter pulled back. He was ignoring her knocks at the door and giving her dishes back late. She was always right there again the next day with a new soup for him to try.
It’s not like Peter can’t be friends with a woman in her mid-fifties. It’s just that he’s spent the better part of three years refusing to get close to people. Letting the only people he cares about live lives without him because he loses everyone he loves. Everything and everyone he cares about gets hurt and he can't think about what would happen if Anna no longer existed. It aches in his chest to think about it.
But Anna really hasn’t given him much of a choice. She was determined to be in his life one way or another and he didn't want her to resort to climbing in his window through the fire escape like she threatened the last time he didn’t take her cookies.
So for as much as he tried to pull away, he’s currently pouring the last of his water over his face because he’s pretty sure he’s bleeding from his eyebrow and his cheekbone is swelling, all because Anna asked him to. Numerous times. And he couldn’t think of a good enough excuse to get out of it before she had called the restaurant already.
So he throws his backpack over his shoulder and heads for the restaurant he definitely should have looked up before because it looks a little too fancy from the street. He can see his reflection in the streak-free window - so he quickly tucks the rest of his shirt in and is forever thankful that he can’t afford to buy a new one because his muscles fill out the creases. He smooths his hair, takes a deep breath and goes to walk in.
His first thought is that this place is definitely going to bankrupt him because the Maître D opened the door for him. His second is wondering whether or not he’s going to get kicked out because he looks sloppy as all hell and he doesn’t need the window back to be able to tell, the waiter is hiding nothing on his face. He doesn't even want to be here and the waiter isn't helping and he's about to just run away.
But that’s when he sees her.
She’s looking at him, a small smirk on her face that she’s not trying to hide as she looks him over. There’s a small furrow to her brow that he can’t place - it’s either the fact he’s twenty minutes late or that it looks like he crawled out of a dumpster. But really, there is no other thought other than how utterly lovely she is.
She looks the same - if not entirely different. Like he knows her but she’s not his MJ anymore. She’s grown up without him and the way he’s missed her for the last three years almost renders him speechless. Her hair sits a little shorter, a red tinge that he always thought would look perfect on her. And she’s beautiful. She waves him over and then the panic sets in.
He can’t be here. He’s at least sixty-seven percent sure she doesn’t remember him from before because she would have told him, right? Although, he gathers if she did figure it out, she might not care anymore. She’s graduated from college. She’s lived a whole life without him that he’s watched through pictures because he likes to torture himself with what might have been. She’s been without him much longer than she was ever with him.
So he should leave, right? So why does he practically run across the restaurant, relying solely on his powers to stop him from walking into chairs?
“Peter?” she asks, her voice full of humour as he all but barrels into her table.
“MJ,” he breathes, a little too familiar but he’s just lucky he didn’t blurt out that he loved her.
“Only my friends call me, MJ,” she frowns, her lips pouting as she plays with the edge of the menu that she slapped on the table. MJ doesn’t like snapping at people and she hates the defensive way she won’t let people call her MJ. It’s the same reason she doesn’t go by the name Watson. Peter knows that - but he shouldn’t.
“Sorry,” he says, a small smile on his face as he runs his hands through his hair. “Michelle.”
“Mhm,” she replies, her cheeks a little pink. It was probably unfair to flex his bicep in the hopes she'll forgive him for being so forward, but using the things he knows about her can only help in this situation. He’ll just be sure to not use the wrong ones. He’s not even sure what’s going to happen after their date. He’s thought long and hard about finding her and telling her everything but anytime he went to pick up the phone, there was another reason not to. A crime boss sent someone to his house or he lays flowers at May’s grave and he remembers the danger people are in when he’s around them.
He’s lonelier than he ever thought he could be - but at least he hasn’t had to bury anyone else.
The waiter comes over without a notepad before he can spiral any further and Peter just knows looking at the prices will make him shudder because places without notepads are notoriously fancy. He can barely remember the day of the week let alone someone else’s food and drink orders.
“Oh I’m sorry, sir,” he grimaces, flipping the menu open. The waiter just leaves, there’s no sigh but there’s an obviousness to his dislike of Peter. Maybe it’s because the waiter has been whispering to his colleague about MJ since the second Peter sat down. Maybe it’s because Peter hasn’t opened the menu and he’s been here for five minutes. Either or.
The second Peter glances at the menu, he snaps it shut and watches MJ instead. He’s just going to get what she gets because it’s better for his entire being if he watches the way her eyebrows crease when she’s trying to decide what kind of potato she wants. He watches the way she pulls her lip between her teeth and he spends almost all of his energy not blurting out that he’s been hopelessly in love with her for years actually and he knows he messed up but truly and honestly he can’t imagine walking away from her again.
But as he looks over at her, he finds her already looking at him.
“You’re late.”
In hindsight, he probably didn’t need to worry about it.
“I’m sorry, MJ - Michelle,” he winces.
She furrows her brows and lets her hair fall in front of her face a little bit and he knows she wants to know where he was. To know if he’s late because he was just a bit tardy or if something happened. She deserves to know.
MJ deserves more than this entirely if he’s honest. More than an awkward dinner with someone that looks as though they haven’t slept in years and clearly can’t afford to pay for her meal as well as his if he’s going to make rent. But she deserves everything she wants and he knows she likes first dates to be casual. He knows Anna would have forced her to come to this restaurant but he can’t exactly change the plans now.
But he can do one thing.
“Erm, I was on time, honestly but then some kid ran into traffic, he was so cute he had a little backpack on and dungarees, erm doesn’t matter,” he chuckles as he runs his hand through his hair again. “But I barely had time to stop him before well. That. And then I stopped at the florist for erm, well, you. But then a bus almost plummeted into the river and it was borderline carnage, Michelle and -”
She’s looking at him in a way that stops his heart for a tiny second. If he wasn’t Spider-Man she could probably take him out with the blush on her cheeks. Even with the extra powers, he has a hard time staying upright.
“What?” he asks when she doesn’t say anything, his eyebrows touching his hairline with his inability to be subtle. She looks delighted with whatever she’s thinking and he’s wondering if there will ever be a time he’s not entirely infatuated with her.
“Did you buy me flowers?”
Well, yes, he did but they were definitely crushed in his haste to save a bus load of people.
“Yes,” he replies anyway. He could probably find a one that looks relatively okay and even if he doesn’t - maybe she’ll tell him all about the murder like the first time he ever tried to tell her he liked her.
“But you didn’t even want to be here,” she muses instead. “I overheard my aunt on the phone saying said she practically had to beg for you to say yes.”
“Uhm -” he starts, his throat tightening with every second that she looks at him. He could just tell her now that she’s the reason he didn’t want to be here. That the thought of dating someone else when he had to let her go was nothing he could bear.
Or he could be a little less unhinged and tell her he’s just busy.
“It’s alright,” she laughs, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “I didn’t either.”
“Oh,” his heart sinks. It’s unfair really, to expect her to be anything but ambivalent to the thought of meeting him but he’s never been able to hide anything from MJ, not really.
“Not like - erm, I hadn’t seen a picture of you or anything otherwise I wouldn’t have been so, erm, not that looks is everything and-” she says quickly and nothing quite lights a fire in his heart the way a flustered MJ does.
"It wasn't my looks that kept you away?" he asks, feeling lighter than air as she scowls at him.
"No - it - my aunt can just be a lot."
"Mhm," he smiles. "Well, you're really pretty."
"Therefore I have value?" she asks, her head cocked to the side. He was hoping she would say that if he's honest, but he didn't expect it to feel so nice. And besides, being around MJ is terrifying because she's objectively the best person he knows - but he did learn a few things while they were together.
"That's not what I said," he laughs, watching her scrunch up her nose. "It's just - well it's all I know about you right now and I -"
"I'm just kidding. You look pretty too."
"Thank you," he smiles feeling more at home here in this semi-awkward half reunion than he has done in years. “But I am glad we're both here now, so."
Peter reaches for the flowers in his bag, scowling as he sees broken stem after broken stem and he wonders how bad it would be to say he lost them. But if there’s anything he doesn’t want to do if he’s given anything like a second chance with Michelle, it’s lying to her.
“These are for you,” he says somewhere between a whine and a grimace as he avoids the glares of people near them as he hands over a crooked bunch of flowers.
“Oh,” she smiles. It’s his favourite one, the one she can’t quite hide.
"Sorry, they're so..." he pleads.
"It's okay, I like them broken," she whispers as she runs her fingers over the petals.
But then her brows furrow again as she looks at him again.
“Wait - we’re you on the bus?!” It’s clear from the way she looks at the swelling on his cheekbone and the way her eyes flick to his hair, that it would make sense for him to have been on the bus. Her hands are frantic as she reaches for his, twisting and turning his palm to look for other injuries the way she used to when she patched him up after patrol.
Her fingers linger against his as she sees they’re bare, unharmed, but he aches for her touch anyway and he lets his hand settle onto her palm.
“Oh,” he whispers, “Erm no but -”
MJ drops his hand the second he speaks, taking a sip of the drink she must have ordered before he got there. He gives her just a second to straighten out her dress and a moment for his chest to stop wriggling before he goes to answer her, with what he’s not sure, but she beats him to it.
“Are you Spider-Man?” she asks, her lips pouted.
“ What ?” he wheezes. He knew she said she’d figure it out but he wasn’t expecting it to be that soon. Maybe she’s known the entire time and she’s been waiting for him to tell her and he hasn’t and now he’s sat here like a loser as she waits for him to lie to her. He’s thought about how to tell her and what to tell her every day since he left and yet he’s still not ready.
“Calm down, loser,” she laughs, as he taps his fingertips rapidly against the menu, then, “I know you’re not Spidey.”
“You do?”
“Mhm, I know him,” she shrugs.
“Oh yeah?”
“Well,” she replies with a slight roll of her eyes. “Not really but he did save my life once. I think. Maybe it was a dream, I haven’t figured it out yet. But he is cute, so I guess you have similarities.”
“You think I’m cute?” he repeats uselessly, his smile splitting his cheeks as she blushes.
“We’re getting off-topic!” she laughs. “Just don’t be late next time.”
“Next time?”
“Oh my God, pick your food before the waiter kicks us out.”
Peter laughs as he finally looks down at the menu properly and he almost groans out loud.
“You okay there, tiger?”
“Tiger?”
MJ sighs loudly, her lips pouting as he looks over at her. “Are you going to answer with only questions all night?”
“I don’t know, Michelle, am I?”
“You’re so annoying,” she laughs, looking back down at her menu.
She doesn't pick the lasagna straight away but Peter gathers that her favourite meal could have changed in the last three years. But he watches her look over the menu for a third time and he clocks the waiter giving them stink eye from across the restaurant.
“Erm, are you alright?” he asks, though he knows she wants to say something a little strange because that was the face she pulled whenever she had to something about the whole multiverse situation that has him sitting across from the love of his life in a whole scenario he would never wish to be in.
“Wanna get out of here?”
“What?” he asks, his voice so high he almost doesn’t hear it. She just laughs at him and he almost cracks in half because it’s his favourite ever sound and he hasn’t had enough of it in years. He’ll keep the fact that he replays her voicemails to himself when he’s really struggling, to himself for the rest of time.
“I mean, if you want to spend fifty dollars on pasta then we can stay. But I’m in the mood to go bowling and eat cheese fries.”
“Yeah?”
She rolls her eyes at him again but he just beams at her.
“You wanna go?” she asks again, practically already out of her seat with her jacket in hand.
“Yes.”
Peter throws a crumpled bill on the table and reaches his hand out for hers without thinking. He could have put it back by his side if he was a reasonable person but he’s an idiot in love and he waits until she’s grabbed her broken flowers and looked at his open palm for five seconds.
“Let’s go,” she smiles, slipping her hand into his and he wonders if he’s ever been happier.
Peter fights MJ on who gets to pay to bowl. He listens to her for four minutes and thirty-six seconds as she explains the reasons she should pay but it’s no use. He’s already dropped to his knees to tie the rental shoes up for her as she lists the reasons on her fingers.
When he gets back up she’s frowning at him but he doesn’t really mind. May taught him everything he knows about dating which isn’t very much but he’ll use her advice until the day he dies.
“You can buy the fries, MJ,” he says with a roll of his eyes as he pulls her to their lane with a groan.
MJ does buy fries and the onion rings and the mozzarella sticks after Peter wins the first game. For a moment he's worried that his inability to hold a job and therefore being broke as fuck is far too obvious with his appearance because she basically bought the entire menu.
But then he realises that one, she's eating a bit of everything so maybe she just couldn't choose and two, if the date keeps going as well as it is, the fact he's poor is going to come out anyway. And he's so tired of hiding things from her.
So he eats the fries she doesn't want and they share a milkshake and he beats her at the second game too.
He sees it happen before she does, of course. But what’s strange is that he notices before his Spidey sense even tingles. He’s there, his hand at the small of her back before she can even yelp. It wouldn’t have been a nasty fall, a bruised ego at best and a bowling ball in someone else's lane - but it feels good to catch her anyway.
“Oh my - phew, nice catch,” MJ exclaims, her heartbeat racing almost as fast as it did when they kissed for the first time on the London bridge. He can feel it through her ribcage and it makes him feel a little like he’s on fire.
“Yeah,” he stammers. “You’re welcome.”
“Now that I almost died,” she laughs, as he drops his hand, the memory of her almost falling to her death when he didn’t catch her is always playing on a loop in the back of his mind.
“Can you ease up on thrashing me?”
“MJ,” he drawls, picking up his next bowling ball as she throws her head back with a groan. “I thought it was toxic masc -”
“Shut up,” she laughs, her hands lightly against his waist as she pushes him towards the lane. She’s still behind him as he lines up and he wonders if she’s trying to distract and if she knows how well it’s working.
He gathers she does because she hooks her chin over his shoulder and whispers in his ear, “only my friends call me MJ.”
He only hits four pins.
“I don’t wanna hear it,” she says, stomping past him as he watches her ball roll into the gutter.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Shhhh,” she groans, though she sits closer to him anyway. “You distracted me.”
“Wow, that is a strong accusation, Michelle and I do not appreciate it,” he huffs, crossing his arms and tensing just a little. Maybe more than a little.
“You’re doing it again,” she mumbles, shoving his arm but he catches her hand before she realises he won’t move.
“Doing what?” he asks, his voice low as he takes in just how close she is, the shine on her leg and the curve of her shoulder.
“Distracting me,” she whispers, playing with his fingers.
She looks at his lips and he just about loses his mind. The times he’s thought about kissing her or touching her, or being with her is a little embarrassing if he’s honest. He knows if she kisses him know it will be better than his dreams but he’s not sure he should - he’s at least eighty percent sure he should pull back and tell her everything first. To think about what it means to kiss her now.
But for as well as he knows MJ, as well as he used to know her, he somehow forgot how much she loves to win. So when she brushes her nose against his, he should have known, it was all for the game.
But as he watches her walk back with a skip in her step because she hit more than two pins he realises he doesn't mind, not really.
Peter’s not sure he wants the night to end but he’s already been lucky with how long he’s had with MJ before New York tried to weasel its way in. He needs to regroup and plan how to tell her. What to tell her is simple - he’ll tell her everything she wants to know. Maybe she’ll believe him or maybe she won’t but it’s time to do what he always knew she deserved.
It’s time he tells her.
“I had a good time tonight,” MJ says, turning to face him as they stand outside the door to her apartment - or, knowing MJ, they’re a block away because she doesn’t trust people on a first date to know where she lives. And he loves her.
“Yeah?”
“Mhm,” she replies, rubbing the goosebumps at the top of her arms. He pulls his backpack around and yanks his sweater out.
“I live right here, dork,” she laughs as he attempts to shake the creases out.
“I know," he shrugs. " I’m cold." He motions for her to lift her arms up when she’s done rolling her eyes at him and it makes his toes feel tingly that she's this close.
“What are you going to wear home?” she asks, her eyes bright and her hair fluffy when she pokes her head through the neck hole. Peter almost asks her to marry him because he’s missed her in his clothes but he shoves the words back down his throat somehow.
“I’ll be fine,” he mutters, his fingers travelling to her neck of their own accord as he goes to lift her hair out.
“You just said you were cold.”
“Mhm and yet you took my sweater anyway,” he jokes with his eyes wide as she smiles at him. He traces the back of her neck just because he can and he brushes his fingers along a chain he hasn't been able to see all night.
"You're the worst person I know," she whispers moving closer.
"With only one date under my belt as well? Ouch," he murmurs, impressing himself with his ability to stay ever so slightly cool around her for at least some of this evening, even if she has called him a nerd a million times.
It all disappears the second he pulls her necklace out with her hair.
"Wha - uhm - you -"
She looks down at what's causing his momentary lack of decorum. His fingers linger over the missing petals and he's overcome with the need to know everything. Everything she knows or wants to know. Everything that she thinks is missing. Everything she's done in the last three years.
He selfishly wants all of it.
"I told you," she says, her nose touching his. "I like them better broken."
“Em,” he whispers but the last of his words are swallowed by her lips. If he’s honest he didn’t try that hard to stop her. If he thinks about it he probably pulled her the rest of the way.
She kisses him once, twice, three times before he has any fraction of sanity.
“Before we go too far,” he mutters, desperately telling himself to move away but he’s missed the taste of her lips too much.
“Yeah?” she whispers, pulling back until her nose bumps against his.
“I have something to tell you - erm, actually a lot to tell you.”
“Is it something to do with this?” she asks, her finger slipping under the material of his suit. He’s never been particularly good at hiding things from her, not really.
“Yes.”
“And if Anna hadn’t forced you on a date with me,” she starts and he wants to tell her the truth forever more, but he knows what she’s going to ask and he’s terrified of what his answer will mean.
“Em,” he begs.
“If she hadn’t,” she continues anyway, fiercely wiping a stray tear from her cheek. It’s all he deserves - it’s all he’ll ever deserve if she leaves now. “Would you have told me?”
“MJ -”
“Peter.”
“No, I don't think so.”
Peter reminds himself over and over again that she only ever deserved the truth. That he should have told her the second he had the chance. That he should never have left the coffee shop.
He’s always regretted his decision - even if he knows he’d do the same thing all over again if it meant she was safe.
It hurts in a whole new way now.
It's been a week since she left. Since she said she didn't know what she wanted and she walked to her apartment. It's been a week and the only reason he's slept a wink and been to the grocery store is that she asked him to. She saw how spider-Man had been lately and she knows he needs to be kinder to himself. It's the only reason he isn't face down in an alleyway right now.
He's being extra considerate now because he's sure Anna has heard about their date and he's not sure how MJ has suggested it went - what the reason she gives Anna for not wanting to see him again. But Anna hasn't been doing her daily check ins - so he gathers he's lost them both. It's all he deserves.
But then he hears Anna's door close, and he hopes beyond belief that she knocks on his door. That she wants to see him. It’s rude, honestly, how much he craves human contact now he's seen and lost MJ again, and how badly he doesn’t want anyone else to get hurt.
His heart is in his throat as he listens to her walk down the hallway, practically crossing his fingers that she'll stop by and he lets out the biggest sigh when she taps against the door - she's chosen a new pattern but he doesn't have long enough to think about it as he runs to answer.
But as he opens the door, it's not Anna standing on the other day. But he doesn't mind, not really. Not as she plays with the cuffs of his sweater and pulls her lip between her teeth.
"Hi."
"Hi," MJ replies. "Um, can I come in?"
"Ye - yeah of course," he replies, ushering her in. He lets her look around, to see the few things he has before the words are trying to fall out of him at a rapid pace.
“Michelle -”
“You can call me MJ, nerd,” she huffs, crossing her arms over her stomach.
“MJ,” he stresses, walking over to her. “I’m so sorry, I’m -”
“I know, you’ve said,” she replies and he can’t place any of it. The reason she’s here with him now, the words she’s saying, the way she says them. If she likes him at all or if she -
“Do you want to go out with me again?” she asks, her eyes flicking over his face.
“ What ?”
She looks down at her feet and Peter gives her a moment to take it back if she wants but she gets around his senses as she always does, and she leans to kiss him instead. Though he manages to get his brain to focus long enough to wrap his arms around her waist.
“I don’t remember you,” she mutters, her nose bumping his with every word she speaks. “I don’t know if I remember enough to figure it out from before. But I like you now. I like you right now.”
“I like you too,” he laughs, something a little watery.
“I’m not saying it’s going to work, you’re a massive loser,” she says, but she kisses him anyway so he doesn’t really mind. “But it feels easy. I've felt comfortable with you from the second you fell into the restaurant. I didn't make sense and it barely makes sense now but I don't really care. Part of me must have known you weren't going to tell me if we were as close as you say because I'm the smartest person I know and -"
"You said I was the smartest person you knew," Peter replies.
"You can forget that as well," she groans.
"I'm sorry," he repeats.
"We were kids, Peter," MJ sighs, pulling away from him just a little. "We’re practically still kids and I just - you know I cried the entire way to college because I was terrified of not living in the city, of not seeing my Grams every weekend and just - feeling the pressure to grow up. I couldn’t - I can’t imagine doing any of that, any of it without anyone. So I'll forgive you and if you want to go out with me, to start again, I really want to go out with you again.”
“I really like you, Em. Probably more than that if we’re being honest -”
“Easy, bug boy,” she mutters as she kisses him again. "Later."
She's right, as she always is. He can tell her later. They’ve got time.
"I can't believe you're here," he says, his thumb brushing against her cheekbone.
“Face it, Tiger, you just hit the jackpot.”