Chapter Text
“You’re staring again.”
MJ glares at Flash, who just smirks at her as she rolls her eyes.
“I’m not staring at anybody,” she says, ignoring the look that Flash is giving her. She doesn’t even know why she’s still sitting here with him, long having finished her lunch while he chatters on about whatever thing Spider-Man did.
(She knows why she’s still sitting with him.
She also knows that Flash isn’t going to let this go.)
“You should just talk to him. He’s a loser anyway,” Flash says, MJ looking up from her book with a frown. “What? He is?”
“You’re just mad because Harrington made him alternate over you.”
“It doesn’t make sense , MJ,” Flash exclaims, distracted enough now from the look on his face. “After that shit he pulled at nationals, I don’t even know how he’s on the team.”
He narrows his eyes, looking at her up and down. “You’re not going to let him stay on the team are you?”
MJ shrugs. “He’s our best in chemistry.”
“More like you want to have chemistry,” Flash grumbles under his breath, MJ kicking him under the table they’re at. Flash tries to kick her back, missing and nearly spilling his soda from the effort— MJ grinning at him as he scowls.
“Whatever. Stare all you want and be weird. See if I care,” he teases but MJ just ignores him, rolling her eyes again as she glances over her shoulder.
She’s not staring at Peter Parker— she’s just very observant. She knows that he ditched Liz Allan at homecoming and that he’s been skipping class a lot in the months since, knows that despite Flash’s complaints that it wasn’t really fair that he was still allowed to be on the team and that if she was a good captain— she’d do something about it.
But MJ has always liked a mystery and she— she thinks she likes figuring out whatever’s going on with Peter Parker, glancing over her shoulder only to see that Peter is staring back at her.
She turns, Flash snorting from across the table as she glares at him.
“Got caught?”
“Shut up,” she counters, Flash popping a fry into his mouth before his eyes travel behind her. “Oh hey. Incoming.”
MJ turns again, only for this time to see Peter walking towards them— tray in hand and Ned beside him, looking just as confused as MJ feels as they walk up to them.
“Hey.”
“Hi,” MJ says in reply, Peter sheepishly smiling as he nods to the table they’re at.
“Can we sit here?”
“Free country,” Flash says but MJ ignores him, nodding as Peter sets his tray down beside her.
Ned flanks her other side, Peter sitting to her right and smiling at her as he does.
(She feels something that she can only describe as butterflies in her gut.
She tries to ignore that feeling.)
“Are you excited for summer break?” Peter asks, a question that seems directed to her despite the four of them being at the table.
“I guess. I was thinking of getting a job, maybe.”
“Your birthday’s in June, right?” Peter asks, MJ nodding in surprise.
“Mine’s in July. If you’re wondering,” Flash interjects, MJ withholding the urge to kick him under the table again— choosing instead to give him a look as he just smirks.
MJ didn’t have a lot of luck getting close to people growing up, mostly because her parents had weird hours and even weirder plans— her dad being an English professor at Columbia and her mom working as a circuit judge.
She and her older sister Gayle got carted off to “functions” and “galas” and places where MJ was always bored out of her mind of— until she met Flash.
That their forced proximity growing up led to this, an actual friendship in high school that she was now quickly regretting because of the look on his face— made her wonder if she was better off not being around anyone else.
“My birthday’s in November,” Ned offers, Flash snorting in response.
“We know. You didn’t stop talking about it for weeks because you got that Lego Death Star.”
“It was the Millennium Falcon, not the Death Star,” Ned argues, Flash leaning forward to argue something as Peter leans in.
“Is he always like this?” He asks, referencing Flash she’s sure but now she’s only thinking about how close he is— smelling the French fries on his breath as she smirks.
“You have no idea.”
It doesn’t feel like a big joke but it makes Peter laugh, enough that Ned and Flash stop whatever they’re arguing about.
“What are you laughing at?” Flash asks indignantly, Peter grinning as he leans forward.
“Nothing,” he says, looking over at her conspiratorially.
MJ just grins in response.
MJ doesn’t how or when, exactly, she and Flash became the sort of friends who hung out with Peter and Ned outside of school or school sponsored activities like AcaDec, but it’s summer and there’s no school or AcaDec and she’s hanging out with Flash, which isn’t out of the ordinary, but also – Ned and Peter. Which, she’s realizing, isn’t so out of the ordinary anymore, either.
And she likes this whole having friends thing, more than she might’ve expected. She likes teasing Ned and Peter, likes taking Flash down a peg, likes watching the boys banter and bicker.
(She likes how Peter will glance at her sometimes when he thinks she’s not paying attention, too.)
(She’s always paying attention, though.)
The point is, it’s been a month since school let out and she’s spent most of that time with Flash and lately, with Ned and Peter. Meeting at the park, getting sandwiches, going to museums in Midtown or trying to get rush tickets for shows. She carries her sketchbook with her everywhere and sometimes the boys will sit with her and read while she draws, or they’ll talk about Star Wars or whatever. And it’s nice.
Her parents have been pestering her about inviting her friends over for dinner, which feels vaguely mortifying, but it is nice to have friends to invite over, so she considers it.
(It’s not like she hasn’t gone to Ned’s grandma’s house, Peter and Ned trying to teach her some video game, putting Legos together while Peter tells her about the history of Legos and how actually, the company nearly went bankrupt a few years ago, can you believe that? And she’s been to Peter’s house, too, his aunt asking if she wanted tea while the boys argued about which movie to watch.)
Being friends with Ned and Peter and Flash is nice. Having inside jokes, having someone to text if she’s bored, having people check in on her if she doesn’t respond for a while.
(Two weeks out of school and she got sick, and Peter offered to bring her soup or something, which had made her blush and insist that no, that was okay.)
Flash used to tease her about having a crush on Peter, which she never admitted to but she can’t say he’s wrong, exactly, but it’s a little too vulnerable to actually admit that she likes Peter even if it’s true. It snuck up on her, okay? One minute she’s watching him because she’s observant to a fault and he’s weirdly intriguing, and the next she’s feeling a fluttering in her chest because he laughed, tingling in her hands because he sat next to her and their fingers brushed. She never meant to have a crush on Peter Parker but here she is, crushing on Peter Parker, with his stupid smile and his stupid laugh and how stupidly nice he looks in his stupid science pun t-shirts. She’d hate it, except she catches him looking at her sometimes, and she knows he catches her looking sometimes, and Flash doesn’t tease her about it so much anymore but Ned will elbow Peter sometimes when she enters a room and she thinks maybe it’s not impossible, this thing between them, so much as inevitable.
But it’s been a month since school let out and she’s inexplicably friends with Flash and Ned and Peter, and the four of them have spent most days together, and there’s nothing weird or out of the ordinary about the group of them making plans to go to the Met – nothing weird except it’s Peter who suggests it; Peter, who has never shown an interest in art, who had admitted to her when they went to the MoMa in June for her birthday that he’d never been there before, or to the Met, or most museums in the city.
But she likes the Met, a place her dad used to take her and Gayle when they were younger, and she’s weirdly excited about going with Peter and telling him the facts and trivia she’s picked up, and showing him her favorite pieces, and maybe standing close enough to brush hands with him. So she’s looking forward to the trip, and she texts Flash to ask if he wants to meet her at the subway (they live near the same stop) but he doesn’t respond so she assumes he must be on his way already.
When she gets to the Met, though, Flash is nowhere to be seen. Same with Ned. There’s just Peter, hands shoved in his pockets, smiling brightly (nervously?) at her when he sees her.
“Hey, MJ,” he says. His voice is high like it gets when he’s nervous or lying. She narrows her eyes.
“Hey.”
“So, um, Ned and Flash had to bail at the last minute, so it’s just us. If that’s okay?”
Why wouldn’t it be okay? It’s not like they’ve never spent time together by themselves before; not like her palms get sweaty when she’s around him or her heart beats a little faster.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” she says. “We should get tickets.”
“Oh, um, I did. Already.”
Odd.
“Thanks,” she says. “I’ll pay you back.”
“You don’t have to,” he says quickly. His ears are pink. She’d tease him except she feels a little warm, too, so she doesn’t; she just takes the tickets from his hand and starts walking up the steps, feeling him follow after.
And they’ve never hung out one on one before; they’ve talked by themselves and texted outside the group chat, but MJ has never been alone with Peter for more than a few minutes, and it’s actually not as awkward as she might’ve expected. She fills the awkward silence with facts and he asks questions that allow her to keep talking, and when she realizes she’s gone on a bit of a tangent and stops abruptly, a little embarrassed, he smiles at her encouragingly.
The thing about MJ is she’s not used to talking to people. Her parents would fill the silence with conversation, or Gayle, and Michelle liked to watch and listen. And she never really had a best friend, never felt comfortable sharing with people. It’s been a lesson in opening up, having friends, and it feels like a different sort of lesson to spend an afternoon with Peter Parker, who listens and asks questions and laughs at her sarcasm.
After the Met Peter asks if she wants to walk around Central Park for a while, and she agrees, because she likes Peter and she’s having a good time with him. If she had a best friend — which she supposes Flash is — and if she talked about things like boys and crushes with a best friend, she think she’d tell them all about this day, about walking with Peter and making him laugh and how he said they should come back to the Met, how his hand brushed hers and he didn’t pull away.
(They buy pretzels from a vendor and Peter is being weird again but she tries not to notice because it’s been a good day and she sort of hopes, now, that they can do something like this again.)
“So there’s this thing I’ve been wanting to talk to you about, for a while,” Peter says finally, after they’ve been walking for a bit, after they’ve finished their pretzels, on a bridge in Central Park. “I was gonna tell you — I’m just gonna tell you.”
And he looks nervous, wringing his hands and looking at her all earnest and she’s never been on a date but she thinks that’s what this is— has been— and so before he can say anything else, she leans forward and kisses him.
He looks shell shocked.
“You kissed me,” he says. She nods, suddenly worried that she misread the situation, and she’s about to apologize when he leans forward and kisses her back.
Her kiss was little more than a peck, barely a kiss, but Peter’s lingers an extra second or two, and even as he’s pulling away she wants to kiss him again. He smiles, and she smiles, and he says, “I really like you,” and it’s half a laugh. “That’s what I was gonna tell you.”
“I really like you, too,” she says shyly, and his smile gets brighter.
He moves toward her again and she meets him in the middle, lips pressed against his and his hands coming up to grip her arms while she rests hers against his cheek.
She likes being friends with Peter Parker, and that day she learns she likes kissing him, too.
(It occurs to her that maybe she won’t need to tell Flash about this after all; it occurs to her that Peter might have planned this whole thing.)
“Meesh’s got a date ,” Gayle teases, MJ scowling as she glares at her sister.
“I wish I was an only child,” MJ counters as she readjusts her shirt for the fifth time. Not that she’s counting.
(Not that she’s nervous.)
“That’s what I said when they brought you home,” Gayle sitting on the couch and smirking at her. MJ flips her off, Gayle sticking her tongue out as MJ rolls her eyes.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in college? Finding yourself or whatever? Why are you always here?” MJ asks as her mother walks in, readjusting her earrings as she and their dad prepare to go out for a late lunch. It was a tradition that dated back to their dating days, one that MJ had thought was weird growing up but was starting to come around to it.
Mainly because it meant that they were gone most Saturdays, leaving her to her own devices.
(She preferred it that way anyway.)
“Because finding yourself is overrated and laundry is free,” Gayle says with a sigh, laying her head back on the couch– long braids draped over the cushions.
“For now,” their dad calls out as Gayle sits up, a frown on her face as MJ snickers– Gayle looking to her and going to say something else when their mom speaks up.
“Stop teasing your sister,” she says, MJ glad for the save only to see the way their mom winks at her as she says, “it’s not every day that dad and I get to see her and her little friends.”
“ Please don’t call him that,” MJ says, holding in the urge to whine for fear of being teased even more so by Gayle. “He’s not my little friend. He’s my… Peter.”
“Your Peter, huh?” Gayle asks, MJ ignoring her because she doesn’t feel like explaining something that she doesn’t even know the answer to herself.
She liked him. She kissed him but they hadn’t really– they hadn’t really decided what they were to each other, had they? They’ve texted a few times since their date at Central Park, mostly to talk about what today is– another date that unlike the first time, she knew what it was.
(She still didn’t know what they were doing but she could be cool with that, right?)
He was her friend and now he was her– her boyfriend? Friend that she kissed a few times and really liked? (And who really liked her back?)
It’s not like it was the first date she’s ever been on (that was with Eddie Martinez) and it wasn’t even her first kiss (second grade with Layla Houmi). Peter would probably be the first person she could call her boyfriend unless sixth grade counted and since fooling around with Seth Richards a few times in the back of the library freshman year didn’t really feel like dating .
The thing is, MJ feels like it’s different with Peter— different because she just turned sixteen or maybe different because he was actually her friend first. She wasn’t used to having these kinds of friends, not ones that seemed to care about her.
She likes Peter, really likes him and he says he likes her too but MJ wonders if making it “official” meant that—
“Meesh? Hello, anybody in there?” Gayle asks, throwing her out of her thoughts— only to be interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Don’t embarrass me,” she says quickly, to Gayle but maybe to all three— hearing Gayle’s snickers and ignoring them as she rushes to the door.
She checks then opens it, Peter Parker standing in her doorway looking just as nervous as she feels.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” she says with a smile, the nerves settling as soon as she sees him.
She likes him. Really likes him.
Peter smiles at her and it makes everything else melt away.
Dating Peter is a lot like being friends with Peter, except dating Peter means touching, means kissing, means she gets to watch him without worrying about being caught — means going to the movies together and sitting at the back, hands on knees or around shoulders, jokes whispered in ears and maybe a kiss or two. Dating Peter means hanging out with him and Ned and Flash but sitting next to him at dinner, holding his hand, teasing and flirting and stealing one of his flannels because she got cold when they went to Shakespeare in the Park.
By the time school starts up again MJ feels a little bit like a different person, because when school ended she was a loner who was starting to have friends, and now she doesn’t think she can call herself a loner because not only does she have friends, she has a boyfriend .
(A boyfriend who is nice, who holds her hand as they walk to school, who waits by her locker so they can walk to AcaDec practice or the subway together, who lets her steal his flannels and buys her tea or a muffin some mornings on their way to school.)
MJ really likes dating Peter, and she especially likes when they study in the library and he asks for her help to find some book, which is really just a pretense for getting away from Ned and Flash so they can make out.
Which is what they’re doing now: making out instead of looking for the book Peter needs for his European History paper. She teases him sometimes about how much of a STEM kid he is, super smart and yet utterly incapable – or unwilling – to put effort into any of his non-STEM classes. He’ll skip ahead to read or do the assignments for his chem or physics or calc classes, doze off during class and still ace his assignments, but ask him anything about history or literature and he’s useless.
(It probably doesn’t help that they end up making out whenever he gets bored of his history or English homework, which is often. She’s probably contributing to his barely passing marks, but she has a hard time focusing on that when he’s pressed up against her like this.)
“Peter, we’ve got English in five minutes so –”
“Stop making out,” Flash finishes for Ned.
Peter and MJ spring apart, both of them flushing, and MJ instinctively goes to fix her shirt. Flash glares at her from where he’s standing with Ned at the end of the row she and Peter are in.
“You’re not subtle.”
“Don’t embarrass them,” Ned chides.
“They should be embarrassed.”
MJ almost feels bad for ditching Flash as much as she has been – not just when they study in the library, but hanging out after school or on weekends, too. Before the four of them were a unit she and Flash were sort of a unit and Peter and Ned were their own unit, too, and now she and Peter have superceded either of the previous ones. Sure, they still hang out the four of them, but often even a group hang out will turn into Peter and MJ going off on their own, leaving Ned and Flash to entertain each other. Neither, it seems, are terribly pleased with this development.
“See you after school,” MJ says, kissing Peter on the cheek before taking her bag from Flash. He nods and she and Flash head out of the library, MJ looking back once to see Ned and Peter almost arguing. She turns back to Flash.
That’s a problem for another day.
“Where’s Peter?” she asks after school, when Ned comes to her locker alone. Flash is scrolling Instagram on his phone, pretending not to pay attention but clearly tuned into the conversation. Ned looks like a deer in headlights.
“He– he didn’t text you?”
“No. Should he have?”
“He’s sick,” Ned says quickly. MJ narrows her eyes. He’s acting weird. “He got food poisoning. Left early.”
“Hope that’s not contagious,” Flash says.
“Food poisoning isn’t contagious, it’s not a virus –” Ned starts.
MJ ignores how Ned and Flash start bickering about the spreadability of various ailments and pulls out her phone. No texts. She sends one to Peter and waits a minute or two but gets no reply.
“When did he get sick?” she asks Ned. He, once again, looks put on the spot. Something’s not adding up.
“Uh. During class. It was really quick, he left – I’m sure he’s fine, but he’s not here now. But he’s alive.”
“Why are you being so weird?” she asks. She can see Ned starting to crack. He’s lying . But why?
“Ned’s always weird. Come on, I want pizza and you owe me, Jones.”
“You guys go, I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m gonna go check on Peter,” Ned says.
“I can come–”
“No!” Ned pauses. “I mean, no, that’s okay, hang out with Flash! He misses you. I’ll tell Peter to text you.”
And then before she can say anything else, Ned turns and nearly runs away.
“What the fuck?”
She looks at Flash, who seems as confused as she does. He tears his eyes away from Ned’s disappearing form to glare at her.
“Of all the losers you could’ve decided to date, you just had to pick Parker.”
She shuts her locker and knocks her shoulder against his.
“Come on, just admit that you like him. And Ned.”
“Tolerate.”
“Uh huh.”
“Now you owe me two pizzas.”
She laughs and checks her phone again. Still nothing.
MJ decides not to worry about it. Focuses on spending time with Flash.
(Peter’s disappearances and failing history grade aren’t her problem, anyway.)