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He was home for three days.
MJ was still sore from giving birth to a baby she had been initially hesitant about and they had just gotten home yesterday afternoon from the hospital.
As she held Jessalyn against her chest, trying to drown out her daughter's tears since she had gone through her mental checklist of what could be upsetting her baby, she was starting to regret telling May that she could go home and that they could handle the baby.
That's when she heard a faint curse from downstairs from Peter followed by quick footsteps towards her in their bedroom.
"Em, I'm so sorry about this," he murmured as he pressed a kiss to her forehead, "don't worry about dinner, I'll pick it up on the way home, but I'm so sorry."
"What's wrong?" She asked over Jessalyn's cries and slowly brought herself to her feet, wincing at the sharp pain that shot up her spine.
"It's Sand Man, he's attacking the city."
"I thought you said you would take at least a week off so we could get settled in with Jess."
"I know, but if I don't go out there, a lot of people will get hurt."
MJ wanted to tell him, no, to say that if he went out there, he would get hurt or even worse. She wanted to find a way to get him to stay, but she also knew that this is what she got herself into when she started dating him, married him, and had a baby with him.
So she nodded despite being overwhelmed by Jessalyn still fussing against her chest and pressed a long kiss to Peter's lips before letting her free hand linger on his cheek and whispered just so he could hear it.
"Go get 'em, Tiger."
He slipped his mask over his face with a quick smile and jumped out the window towards the New York skyline, leaving MJ to limp to the window and shut it, all while still trying to stop her daughter's sobs.
She managed to get herself and Jessalyn downstairs and to the living room before Peter returned, Chinese takeout bags in hand and a frustrated scowl on his bruised face as he all but slammed the bags on the countertop.
"Are you okay?" She asked softly, Jessalyn snuggled against her chest, but he was clearly not in the mood to speak since his mask was scrunched up in his hand and his face was still turned up in anger.
"I'm getting a shower. I'll take the night shift with Jessalyn." He told her before disappearing into their bathroom, so MJ did what she always did when he got like this after a patrol. Log into their staff Daily Bugle account and click the "Avenger updates" tab.
Sure enough, she found exactly what she was looking for and she understood exactly why her husband was so upset.
"Spider-Man goes face to face with Sand Man. 3 dead, 6 missing."
…
MJ couldn't help but toss and turn every time Peter got out of their bed to tend to Jessalyn. She could have sworn that in the brief moments when he snuggled against her, his bare chest against her back, she could feel the cold sweat against her back that was indicative of nightmares from her husband.
But given the day he had, she knew that he would just mumble fake reassurances of being fine against her shoulder before coaxing her to go back to sleep. He had been doing that since they started dating. Every time he had a nightmare, she knew that she just needed to wait it out until he told her, usually in some sort of breakdown.
So the next morning, she kissed his forehead, noticing that the bruising on his face was much lighter due to his enhanced healing, before going to Jessalyn's bassinet and swaddling her so she could carry her down the stairs to give Peter a chance to sleep in on the surprisingly warm April morning.
But the bliss wouldn't last for long, because just as she finished ordering the Doordash for her and Peter's lunch, she heard him awoke with a myriad of fast footsteps as he came down the stairs in his suit and went towards the window.
"Peter-"
"I have to," he interrupted her as he pressed a quick kiss to her cheek, seemingly using it instead of words, "I'll bring dinner tonight, I promise."
She wanted to tell him no, that he was going to get hurt again, but she stopped herself and took a deep breath. 'Have faith in him.' she told herself before nodding and kissing his cheek.
"Be safe."
It seemed as soon as he opened the window that it set off Jessalyn again and she started crying at the top of her lungs, her face turning red with the force of it.
MJ just limped towards the window, catching a glimpse of Peter swinging into the distance before shutting it behind him so she could go through her mental checklist to soothe Jess.
She ate lunch on her own. She took care of Jess for hours as she waited for an update on her phone or her TV on what was happening between Spider-Man and Sand Man. Any other new mother in New York was probably doing the same thing, but they were probably watching from a distance whereas the outcome of this fight was something that could easily topple her marriage or her life down like a fragile house of cards.
MJ gave up on him getting back for dinner after she fed Jess at eleven pm and grabbed a protein bar out of the cabinet to take her postpartum painkillers with before laying her daughter down in the bassinet, making sure she was fully asleep before getting into her bed and pulling the covers over her already shaking shoulders.
Once she was convinced that she was fully muffled in a way that the baby would stay asleep, she finally let her tears of worry and frustration slide down her cheeks in painful, harrowing sobs. There was no word on how the fight went, she hadn't gotten a single text from Peter…she was all alone.
The invasive thoughts of 'he's dead' and 'he's giving up on you like your mother did' fiercely plagued her mind with a vengeance as she continued to sob harder, pulling the blanket that she could reach to her chest to feel something other than the sadness that was pouring down all around her.
She couldn't manage to stop even after snot mixed with tears on her face, her eyes stung from the water and her throat was raw from the noises that erupted from her soul and that's when she heard it.
The soft ping of a notification.
She scrambled to grab her phone, knocking her bedside lamp to the floor and waking up Jessalyn in the process, but she was able to breathe in a sigh of relief when she saw the message lit up on her phone.
'Be home in twenty minutes. I have food with me if you're still hungry if you're even awake.'
As if on clockwork, a second notification pinged on her phone, but it was a lot more disappointing than the first one.
"Spider-Man is 0-2 with Sand Man. 6 dead, 17 injured."
She knew she couldn't force herself to ask Peter what was wrong, that he wouldn't tell her if she did and Jess was already asleep again from the crash, so she decided to pick the lamp up, plug it back into the wall and go back to sleep.
'If he wants to talk, we can talk it out in the morning.' She assured herself to get herself to sleep.
…
She didn't get a chance to speak to him that morning; instead, she was greeted by a sticky post-it note on the coffee pot with Peter's familiar messy handwriting on it.
"Got another lead on Sand Man. I moved more breastmilk to the fridge this morning from the freezer. Not sure when I'll be home. -Peter."
'I should have talked to him last night,' MJ immediately regretted the decision she had made through her emotions last night as she ripped the sticky note off of the coffee pot and all but smacked it onto the kitchen counter as her internal voice sneered, 'he's leaving you and Jess. You'll be on your own once again because no one wants to be around you.'
She forced herself to grip the counter and take a deep, hollow breath. Just because her body was sore, her daughter seemingly cried whenever she was awake for reasons that MJ just didn't understand, thus forcing her to wait it out, and the fact that Peter was absent, didn't mean that she was being abandoned again.
'Peter's not leaving you. He's not leaving Jessie,' she reassured herself as her breathing returned to normal, 'he has the whole world on his shoulders, he has for years. He still loves you, he just has to focus on the world right now.'
With that thought, she turned her head to where her cell phone buzzed with a notification. It was just a political Daily Bugle article, but she finally had to accept that she was in over her head and if she couldn't stop the world for Peter, she might as well call in the next best person.
So she opened her contacts, scrolling through the numbers and clicking the one that read 'May Parker' before pressing it to her ear and listening to the dial tone.
…
May arrived in twenty minutes and immediately got to work on soothing Jessie who had woken up and cried through MJ's mental checklist already that morning.
"You weren't kidding about needing help," May spoke above Jessie's cries as she continued to pat her back with more force than MJ would have ever thought was necessary, "Peter was a pretty gassy baby, but he usually just needed enough force to.-" Sure enough, she was cut off by Jessalyn letting out a loud burp and the cries stopped with it.
It left MJ nearly in shock as May gave her back her daughter, who was awake and not crying for the first time since the hospital, but she was brought back to her senses by May gently putting her hand on the side of her cheek.
"Why don't you let me put her in a wrap and get a shower?"
MJ would have protested under any other circumstance, but she had been the one to call for help with the baby so she nodded and grabbed the wrap from the coffee table for May and maneuvered Jessalyn into it before going to the bathroom, stripping out of the clothes she had been wearing since she got home, unable to change due to the pain.
As soon as the hot water hit her back and the house was silent aside from the sound of water, MJ swore she felt rejuvenated already. No longer overwhelmed and alone, but at peace with the fact that Jess was safe with her great-aunt just a wall over.
Not only was she able to take a full shower, but despite her postpartum belly, she was able to shave her legs for the first time since her third trimester without help and that was enough to make her smile with genuine happiness and tell herself that it was going to work out.
When she got out and got dressed, she found May at the stovetop with Jess snuggled sound asleep against May's chest in the baby wrap.
"I know I can't make much and that Peter complains that I shouldn't be near a stovetop ever, but I figured that I should make a few freezer meals for you guys so you weren't dependent on Doordash."
"I…I don't know what to say," MJ stuttered as she approached closer so she could see the top of her daughter's head better, "if there's anything I can do-"
"Michelle, you just had a baby," May interrupted as she turned to look her in the eyes, "you still have your hormones screwed from being pregnant, your daughter was struggling and you're in this apartment all by yourself all day with no one to talk to. You don't need to do anything except recover and relax."
"Okay," MJ nodded as she held her hands up in surrender, knowing not to fight with May, "but thank you so much. I appreciate it."
"I'd do anything for you, Peter and Jess, but you're welcome," May nodded with a grin before motioning to the couch with her eyes, "now do something for yourself, seriously."
MJ smiled and sat on the couch slowly before flipping to ID Discovery, taking in the case that was currently being discussed and letting herself revert to a mental state of peace, knowing that Jess and May were both okay and that she had to push away the worry about Peter to breathe freely for the first time in nine months.
…
May left after dinner and made sure that they were caught up on laundry, dishes, and vacuuming, which led to MJ sitting on the couch with the TV playing some sort of house-flipping show with Jessalyn fast asleep on her chest when she heard the soft knock on the window that only meant one thing.
'Peter's back.'
She placed Jessalyn down in her portable crib before going to the window and prying it open, having to keep her gasp to herself.
Nothing would ever prepare her for when Peter returned with bruising covering his face and scratches that were big enough to bleed through his suit, but something about the tears on his cheeks made her heart sink in an unknown way as she helped him inside, her hand softly on his back as they walked to the couch.
"I did it," he spoke, his voice a shaky whisper as she walked to the cabinet where she kept the first aid kit, "I beat Sand Man."
"Good job," MJ didn't mean for her voice to sound so emotionless as she walked back over to the couch, setting the first aid kit on the coffee table before slowly pulling off his suit so she could get to the gashes that aligned on his chest, "I'm proud of you."
The room was silent aside from an occasional sleepy hiccup from Jess or a pained hiss from Peter as she applied antiseptic to his wounds; they were still bleeding, but his healing had kicked in enough that he didn't need stitches.
'One less thing.'
"I wouldn't blame you if you left me," Peter's voice was still just a whisper, but his words shocked her to her core and she snapped her head up to look into his light brown eyes, which were full of tears as he looked directly in her, "all I do is cause problems."
"Hey, hey, Peter," she spoke to him the same way she did to Jess, although she had a feeling that he'd be left receptive to her voice, "hey, you don't just cause problems."
"I've been a horrible husband and a horrible father. You don't deserve all of this, MJ. Not when anyone else can and will take better care of you and Jess." He was now looking down at his partially bandaged hands, refusing to look her in the eyes.
MJ didn't have to be a mind reader to know that his avoidance was laced with guilt and feeling powerless against the world.
"Peter, you're not a problem, okay?" She said in the form of a question to gain his attention, "you're just human. A super-powered human who cannot catch a single break."
"That's not an excuse."
"I'm not mad at you," she stopped to press a gentle kiss to his bruised knuckles to try to gain his eye contact again, "I'm frustrated with Sand Man, but you got him. We don't have to worry about him anymore."
"If it's not him, it's Doc Ock or Venom or-"
"Shhh," she interrupted him as she pressed her forehead to his while holding gently onto his hand, finally gaining his eye contact again, "let's not focus on what ifs tonight, okay? Let's get you patched up and watch a movie."
To her surprise, he nodded in return. He stayed silent as she finished bandaging his wounds and threw away the trash before sitting beside him on the couch and throwing a blanket over their legs.
"I'll wash the suit tomorrow for you," she told him as he rested his head against her chest, allowing her to gently reach over and run her hand through his hair while changing the channel with her other hand.
She wasn't surprised when all she got in response was a soft snore.