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There’s a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you
The first time MJ meets Peter Parker she’s halfway to a full anxiety attack and doing her best to hide it.
Well, to add context, she’s starting her first day of high school at Midtown School of Science and Technology. It’s her dream school really, a feeder to Ivy League with a curriculum that might actually challenge her and students that actually want to be there. But she knows no one and MJ’s never been one to make friends easy so she’s on her way to find a quiet corner to collect herself before her afternoon classes and she’s not paying attention to anything but the beat up linoleum.
And that’s when she, quite literally, runs into him.
They both hit the floor with grunts and her backpack, not properly zipped closed, explodes books and folders and papers across the otherwise empty hall adding insult to injury.
“Oh shit,” the other person says, scrambling to his knees and frantically scooping her stuff into a pile. “I’m so sorry - I wasn’t looking where I was going!”
“It’s fine,” she mumbles, feeling her cheeks heat up in embarrassment and her heart beat faster in her chest. Of course she would make a fool of herself - this is just what she needed to deal with today. She picks up her sketchbook, still closed thank god, and shoves it in her bag before she even bothers reaching for anything else. “I was the one who hit you anyway.”
The boy laughes, straightening out the stack of her notebooks and loose papers. “We hit each other,” he compromises. “I’m Peter Parker by the way.”
He sticks out a hand to shake hers and it gives her pause - because who in their generation actually greets someone by shaking their hand - and she looks up.
Peter Parker is cute in the skinny dork kind of way. His hair is a mess of unmanaged curls and his glasses are held together by tape in the middle like he’s broken them too many times but his smile is so bright and his eyes are the warmest shade of brown she’s ever seen. She hasn’t had a crush since Brian Henderson in the sixth grade but she swears her heart actually skips a beat when Peter grins at her, eyes crinkling at the corners and single dimple popping.
“I’m Michelle,” she finally says after a beat too long, shaking Peter Parker’s hand and hoping hers isn’t too clammy.
“It’s really nice to meet you Michelle,” he tells her, a blush forming high on his cheeks as he clears his throat and pushes himself up off the ground. “Maybe I’ll see you in class!” He says as he nearly trips over his own two feet to hurry down the hallway on his way to the cafeteria. Michelle watches him go and can only think that she really hopes they have at least one class together.
Feeling surprisingly more steady, she heads to the library. She has another twenty minutes before her afternoon block of classes and it’ll be nice to spend it in the quiet stacks surrounded by the smell of books and paper and ink.
—
I’ve loved you three summers now, honey, but I want ‘em all
“I can’t believe you,” MJ fumes, slamming the door to her dorm shut behind her and locking it. She sprung for a private room freshman year and has never looked back but she still doesn’t want her suitemates peeking in to check on her and seeing something they shouldn’t.
That something being her absolute dumb ass of a boyfriend who is holding her favorite t-shirt that she stole from him to the profusely bleeding gash on his forehead.
Peter, clearly too concussed to realize that she actually is angry enough to strangle him right now, just smiles that dopey smile that melts her. “Hey Em,” he slurs, hand lifting to grope in the air in her direction. “Please don’t break up with me again.”
The fight drains out of her a little and she rolls her eyes fondly at the man she, for some reason, keeps getting back together with. Peter is a human disaster on a good day and a magnet for trouble on a bad one and the number of times he’s shown up bleeding in her bedroom or dormroom since their senior year of high school is, frankly, obscene.
She loves him so much it makes her chest hurt.
“I make no promises,” she teases as she digs through her desk drawer for the first aid kit she keeps stashed there. “What was it this time?”
“Scorpion threw a manhole cover at me,” Peter says sadly, puppy dog eyes made more effective by the grossly mismatched pupils that try to focus on her. The one on the right almost blots out all of the warm brown that’s become her favorite color. “Who does that? Doesn’t he know that those are covered in bacteria?”
MJ snorts as she folds herself onto the floor next to him and coaxes him to lay his head on the towel in her lap. “I’m thinking he probably considered that a bonus.”
“Fucker,” Peter says, with feeling, and MJ can’t hold back her laugh anymore. She removes the shirt from his forehead and winces at the gash and the bruise forming around it. “What’s the verdict doc?” He asks melodramatically. “Am I gonna live?”
“It’ll be touch and go,” she says sadly, her tone completely ruined by the grin on her face. Peter cackles and winces as she pulls on gloves and pops open the suture kit. “But I think my half-ass first aid skills should probably work. Good thing I’ve had so much practice suturing stupid vigilantes back together.”
Peter’s quiet for the stitching, wincing occasionally but mostly just watching her. But its comfortable now - Peter is her best friend, her on-again-off-again lover, the person she trusts more than anyone. She smooths a line of triple antibiotic across his beaten skin and leans over to kiss the center of his forehead.
“Marry me,” he whispers, pushing himself up to catch her lips with his and she smiles into it.
“Ask me when you have your full mental facilities,” she answers.
MJ cuts his laugh off with her lips.
—
This is our place, we make the rules
MJ finds Peter dozing on the couch when she wanders out of their bathroom after her first shower in their new - shared - apartment.
“The great Spider-Man,” she teases as she leans over the back of the hand-me-down sofa they got from a junk sale in Harlem, “felled by carrying too many boxes up the stairs.”
“My one weakness,” Peter agrees, opening his eyes to look at her and reaching up to tug one of her damp curls. “How’s the water pressure?”
“Absolutely abysmal,” MJ answers, letting him pull her over the back of the couch and across his chest. “What did you expect?”
“More roaches if I’m being honest,” Peter says half serious as he worms his chilled hands under her shirt to trace shapes across the still damp skin of her lower back. It makes her shiver and she retaliates by kissing his neck and biting his Adam’s apple gently. She feels him swallow thickly between her teeth and she smirks in victory.
He doesn’t let her relish in her spoils for too long though but the steamy make out session is so worth it and it's made all the better by the fact that there’s no one to walk in on them or tell them to get a room. They already have one that they bought together. “We have an apartment,” she says, giddy, and Peter tangles his fingers in her hair and pulls her back in hungrily.
There are boxes everywhere that need to be unpacked. The mattress is on the floor and their kitchen only has three cabinets. The walls are so thin MJ can hear the big band music their elder neighbor is playing on his record player and there’s a dead roach in the corner.
But the mattress being on the floor makes it easier to fall into and they only have six plates to go in the cabinets anyway and the music drifting through the walls makes it easy for Peter to pull her into an impromptu slow dance lit only by the watery hallway light.
It’s the most perfect apartment in all of Queens.
—
I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover
“We don’t have to do this today,” MJ insists, sitting on the edge of the bed and facing Peter. “We can do this anytime we want.”
The stitching across Peter’s broken nose pulls in a painful looking way as he scrunches it and then winces at the ache. “But I’ve seen your dress now and it’s bad luck.”
MJ scoffs but smiles at him indulgently. “You’ve seen it many times before,” she reminds him, adjusting the thin strap of her white dress from where it fell off her shoulder. It’s one of her all time favorites and she’s probably worn it a hundred times by now.
“But now it's your wedding dress ,” he tells her slowly like she’s the one missing something here and she, maturely, sticks her tongue out at him.
“You wouldn’t have anything to worry about if you hadn’t decided to go on that last minute patrol,” she reminds him with a pointed finger, her plain silver engagement ring glints in the sun streaming through the MedBay windows, sparkling on her curled ring finger. They were supposed to go to city hall today to finally - finally - tie the knot but Peter, of course, wanted to do one more sweep of Queens before their three day honeymoon upstate.
They could argue all day about Peter’s hero complex but they had been together over seven years now - if there was one thing she had accepted about her life it was that even her most important plans were subject to change in a moment’s notice. So, yes, today was their wedding day and, yes, they were once again in the Avenger’s MedBay but she couldn’t be too upset. It was best not to start their marriage under any false pretense anyway.
“You’re right,” he conceded with a guilty look. “I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” MJ asked, a little confused.
Peter fidgeted with the end of the cast around his thigh. “For ruining our wedding day.”
MJ blinked a couple times and then burst out laughing, dropping Peter’s hand to steady herself against the bed frame when she laughed harder at her fiancé’s confused look. “What’s so funny?” He asked, sounding almost a little offended and MJ tried to stifle her giggles as she picked his hand back up to kiss his bruised knuckles.
“Tiger there’s no way you could ruin our wedding day,” she assured him. “Besides,” she continued, “I asked both Ned and Gwen to get ordained just in case.”
It took a three count for her words to click but then Peter’s smile was as bright as her own.
And the wedding was perfect even if Flash had to stand next to Peter and prop him up for Ned’s quick ceremony. Peter may have nearly passed out but he didn’t and Gwen had made MJ a bouquet of gloves and tongue depressors that kind of resembled flowers. May and her own mother held hands and didn’t even try to hold back their tears when they finally shared their first kiss as husband and wife and even the taste of blood and Peter’s missing incisor couldn’t stop the smile that made her cheeks ache.
Like everything else in her life with Peter Parker it didn’t go the way they planned but she couldn’t help but think it was better that way.
—
All's well that ends well to end up with you
MJ sits on the couch and fidgets with the box in her hands.
Her work phone has been vibrating on and off with emails and IMs and phone calls for the better part of an hour but she can’t bring herself to look at it and break the moment. She feels like she’s standing on the precipice of something momentous and she doesn’t know if she wants to scream or cry or both.
“MJ!” Peter gushes, nearly falling through their living room window and ripping off his mask. His face is red with exertion, his eyes wide and wild and his hair is completely plastered to his scalp. “What’s wrong? What happened? Are you okay? Is May-”
“Everyone’s fine,” she interrupts before he can continue to spiral and he drops to the couch in palpable relief.
“You scared the shit out of me,” he says, pulling her in for a quick kiss. “You sounded so upset on the phone what happened?”
“I’m late,” she blurts out and Peter looks puzzled for all of two seconds before his eyes fall to the open pregnancy test box in her lap and his jaw unhinges.
It takes him a few seconds to form the words but he finally asks “Have you taken it yet?” She nods. “And…?” He continues and for the first time in their relationship she can’t read his expression. They’ve talked about kids before of course, they both want to be parents, but this wasn’t in the plans for another couple years at least. It wasn’t until Gwen was bitching about not being able to wear her white pants to watch MJ’s dissertation that she even realized she was well over a week late.
MJ knows they want kids but she just doesn’t know if they’re ready for them.
“I have,” she whispers, fingers trembling with nerves until Peter grasps them in his own, the gloves of the Spidey suit rough against her palms. “But I haven’t looked yet.”
He doesn’t say anything but he unfolds one index finger to trace over the lettering on the torn box and he bites his lip. “Want to look together?”
“Yeah,” MJ agrees, voice hoarse as she slowly untangles one hand from his to grasp the end of the little stick that’s loose in the box between two fingers. “Together?”
“Together.” He says and she pulls out the stick, her heart stuttering in amazement at the two lines.
Pregnant.
“We’re gonna have a baby,” Peter says in shock, his eyes locked on the test. MJ can feel tears on her cheeks and then Peter’s laughing and pulling her into a backbreaking hug. “We’re having a baby!”
MJ laughes with him, their happy tears mixing when he cradles her face in his hands and kisses her open-mouthed and messy. “We’re having a baby,” she confirms, bringing their still-clasped hands to rest over her stomach and the new life growing there; a perfect mix of herself and Peter Parker.
—
Can we always be this close forever and ever
“Ma’am?” The social worker says gently but with a clinical edge to her voice. “Is there anyone we can call for you?”
MJ shakes her head, unable to speak to tell the woman that she's already called May and Ned, both of whom are on the way. The baby kicks restlessly in her stomach and she puts an unfeeling hand over her protruding baby bump like she can calm the kid down that way. How could she do anything for them when she feels like she’s shaking apart herself?
She has her other hand curled around Peter’s limp one, squeezing it as tight as she can and hoping, praying, for a response.
It stays just as cold and unmoving as it has for the last half hour she’s been sitting here.
The social worker frowns in concern and steps around the gurney. “Why don’t you come with me honey? We’ll get you something warm to drink and we can talk a little, how about that?” She reaches out like she means to separate MJ from Peter and that just won’t do.
“Don’t touch me,” she hisses, pulling Peter’s hand closer to her and curling over him as much as she can. “Can you just… leave? Please.” The older woman looks a little disapproving but says something that MJ doesn’t hear and she finally leaves and MJ lets her shoulders drop.
“Hey Tiger,” she says, voice thick with tears. “Not looking so hot huh?”
Peter doesn’t answer. His face is slack and pale and there’s still blood crusted around his hairline. The doctors and nurses have most of him covered up so MJ can’t see all the damage but the odd dips and angles and empty spots tell her plenty. Her eyes burn but no tears fall.
“The police tell me that you saved over thirty people before they got there,” she says. “Peter Parker did - not Spider-Man. Even with a kid on the way you never could stop helping could you?” She asks a little sardonically, curling her arm more firmly over their child. “But that’s the man I married - the man I love. It wouldn’t be you if you didn’t… if you didn’t…”
She has to stop to let out a sob and catch her breath. The fluorescent lights in the family visitation room are too bright and it's too quiet in the small room and she really just can’t stand being so far away from him. Tears finally falling, MJ fumbles clumsily with the short bed railing until it drops down and presses herself forward until her forehead rests against his.
A million memories flow through her of being in this same position at their homecoming dance and in their apartment kitchen and on their wedding night. But now Peter’s face is cold in her hands and his lips are stiff when she kisses him.
In her belly the baby moves again and she sits back down, wrapping both arms around her middle. “We’ll be okay,” she promises Peter, voice cracking but strong. “We’ll be okay,” she says to her baby bump this time. The perfect little mix of her and the person she loves more than anything in the world.
She takes his hand again in hers and brings his scuffed knuckles to her mouth for a final kiss.