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The front door opens while Peter is half dressed in his suit, knees on the ground and elbow deep in an old box to find some spare web fluid for his patrol. Familiar sounds of keys getting dropped in the bowl that they wicked up because in their first apartment, Peter kept losing his keys. Shoes being kicked under the shoe rack rather than on the shelves, he’ll trip over them when he leaves for work in the morning.
Home feels more complete knowing that’ll happen.
“Hey you!” He shouts as MJ’s footsteps approach. “Dinner’s on the stove, I think it might actually be edible this time. Not a single pasta shell burned to the bottom on the pan and I made sure to use a wooden spoon so the teflon coating isn’t seasoning the sauce.”
“Sounds good.” MJ answers with no teasing remarks or much energy in her response. Sitting back on his haunches, Peter looks over his shoulder at his wife.
In his eyes, she is always beautiful. Even early in the morning when there’s sleep in her eyes and a nasal strip across her nose. Right now, she is still beautiful, still MJ but just… deflated. She looks drained and empty.
“Hey... you okay?”
MJ shrugs, continuing to approach. Peter stands, his suit still half pooled at his hips and welcomes her into his arms. She rejects his worry by simply telling him that a long day around her co-star’s perfume had left her with a headache. He should have known that things were worse than that the second she walked towards him and bent forward, resting her forehead against his sternum. Her arms looping loosely around his middle and letting him crowd her closer.
MJ got particularly affectionate when she was feeling low. That should have been a sign.
“I was gonna head out on patrol, but want me to dish up for you? I can–”
“No, no. I think I’m just gonna go to bed. Be quiet when you come in?” She lifts her head, chin taking the place of her forehead.
“Sneaky as a spider.” He promises leaning down to give her a quick peck, grinning as her face scrunches. MJ stood by a lot of his shit, that didn’t mean she was immune to having feelings about it all– crawling on the ceiling in the dark, comfortably hanging upside down for extended periods of time, creeped her out at the best of times.
“Please eat something though. I worked really hard.”
“Please don’t get stabbed. I really like you alive.”
When they got married, there was an unspoken understanding that one particular line, ‘In sickness and in health’, was a commitment that MJ would have to live up to more than Peter. His part of that was the acceptance of her help, refusing to hide from her.
Marriage was a delicate balancing act.
When he’d proposed, Peter didn’t know for certain that they could weather whatever faced them. Their life was unpredictable at the best of times. They had been managing it so far that it filled him with enough confidence that they would at least try their very hardest to make it through. They would go in with the belief that they could survive anything and do whatever they could to make that come true.
That realisation had struck him one morning when MJ had exited the shower, her hair still damp as she got ready for work. The tensions of their argument from the night before lingered, hanging over them like the potential asbestos in their ceiling.
She kissed him goodbye, a quick peck to his temple and he had just known.
They were in this for the long haul.
MJ had already stuck around ‘in sickness and in health’, or more aptly, ‘in bleeding and in broken bones’. She wasn’t going anywhere and Peter didn’t want her to.
Marriage was a delicate balancing act.
One they were well practised at by this point.
Sometimes their expectations were spun around.
His second sign that what was up with MJ was more than just a ‘long day’ was when he came home, silently as he promised. That shouldn’t have mattered though because he had a bleeding wound cutting across his left side. His wife had a sixth sense for when he’d been stupid and usually met him with a tired expression, their first aid kit in one hand and the other directing him towards their bathroom.
The needle, thread and gauze was in its home under the bathroom cupboard and he had no company while he stitched himself up in the bathtub.
MJ barely stirred when he finally climbed into bed with her. The sheets warmed from the hours she had been laying there alone. The only greeting he got was an open mouthed cough, thick and chesty.
That was sign number three, which to his credit, he’d noticed but the pull of his pillow was too strong for him to act on anything then.
His final sign comes in the morning, when the damp sheets briefly make him think he’d given himself an infection. Annoyance filtering out quickly when he heard the sound of MJ’s breath coming through her mouth and not her nose. When every breath was accompanied by a chesty, mucus heavy cough and a feeble groan.
Rolling over to see her face, she’s caught between sleep and sheer exhaustion, heavy lids stopping her from focusing on him for too long, but her coughs stopping her from falling back asleep completely.
He tells her the obvious as soon as she’s able to focus her gaze on him. “You’re sick.”
“Yeah…”
“You never get sick.” He notes.
“I hate it.”
“I know.” He presses his lips to her clammy forehead. “Let’s get you showered.”
MJ turns her head into her pillow, muffling a round of coughs. He moves his hand to the middle of her back, rubbing gentle circles. Her whole body rattles with each one. When she looks back to him, she looks even more tired than before.
“I don’t know if I can stand up. I feel like you look after three rounds with Tombstone.” She explains, managing a wry smile. Her eyes are bloodshot, red around the edges. Her skin is missing its usual glow, the tip of her nose practically glowing with the redness. Strands of her hair cling to the sweat on her forehead.
“Mmm. I know from experience that’s not nice, lucky for you, you have a strong boyfriend to help hold you up.”
“I’m gross.” She moans, moving her sweat soaked body closer to him.
“Very,” He agrees. “But I love you anyway. Come on, shower then you’re on the couch while I get you some soup and change these sheets.”
Despite what she’d said only moments ago, MJ begins to protest. “I have work.”
With how hard she’s worked to get where she is, she struggles to take the breaks she needs. The irony of that isn’t lost on either of them, which is why he feels comfortable pushing back on her a little bit.
“No you don’t.”
“I do.”
“Recite your lines for today.” He challenges. Sleepily, she stares at him, another cough escaping that she barely manages to cover. “You can’t, can you?”
“It’ll come to me.”
“Babe.” He says gently. “You haven’t received your sides yet. You get them on set. That was a test and you failed so many ways. You’re not going in.”
“ You have work. I know that.”
“Nah. I’m sick too. Or ‘least that’s what I’m telling Jonah.” He tells her, smoothing back her hair from her face. “Let’s get you in the shower.”
Showering helps to bring her fever down a little. Peter bundles her on the couch with some herbal tea before dipping out to the nearest corner store to grab some soup, painkillers, some rehydration salts and oranges– they only have small satsumas, but he thinks they’ll do the job.
MJ had once told him a story about how her parents would load her and her sister up with orange juice and orange slices when they were sick as kids. As she got older, she knew it was more than an orange that made her feel better, it was time and medication, on the rare occasions she did get sick, the need for that small childish comfort remained.
When he gets back to the apartment, MJ has fallen asleep on the couch, bundled up in blankets and his ESU sweatshirt. Her tea is only half drank. He lets her sleep until she wakes herself up with a fit of coughs. He provides fresh tea, a bottle of water and her first round of meds. She paws at him to join her on the couch, quietly protesting when he kisses her forehead– she’s still a little warmer than he’d like– then steps back to the kitchen to peel one of the satsumas.
He is careful to remove as much white pith. By the time he’s done, the individual segments are laid out on a small side dish, his fingers smelling of citrus even after he washes his hands twice. The extra effort it takes doesn’t cross his mind as a burden. At the sight of the plate he rests it in her lap while he squeezes into her cocoon, her eyes light up– the first real and true sign of life in her that he’s seen that morning.
It is more than worth it.
“How you feeling?” He asks, rubbing her arm and pulling her into his chest. A segment of orange gets offered out for him to take.
“Tired.” She groans, breaking into another coughing fit. “I hate it. I want to sleep, but I keep–”
“I know… I know.” He whispers, shifting to grab her bottle of water and holding it for her to take. Her body shakes as another cough rattles through her. “It’ll settle soon.”
“I feel gross again.” Her nose is still congested, all her words coming out low and a little hoarse. He presses another sympathetic kiss to the back of her head.
“We can shower before bed, you got nice fresh sheets to get into.”
MJ hums, leaning back into him. It’s a silent ‘thank you’. They sit in silence for a little while longer with the TV playing in the background. As one episode rolls into the next without any comment from her, he half suspects she’s managed to fall asleep.
While she rests, his hand moves down from her arm to intertwine their hands. His thumb runs across the back of her knuckles, stretching up to brush her wedding band. It is a simple and plain gold band. With her growing fame, MJ didn’t want anything that would attract too much attention. They had been spotted out together before, but people still speculated about her relationship with co-workers and friends. She didn’t want people using her ring as evidence for think pieces, eager to keep their relationship as their own.
The ring didn’t need to be flashy. It just needed to be theirs. It just needed to represent this; morning spent on the couch with MJ sweating through a borrowed sweatshirt and Peter by her through it all, a reverse of their usual dynamic, but their dynamic nonetheless.
When the third episode rolls on, MJ breaks her silence. “Did you get hurt last night?”
“Nah, I’m fine.”
She twists her neck to look back at him. Her bodily exhaustion only further emphasises her exasperation. “I saw the first aid kit. You didn’t put it away. You never put it away.”
“Oy, when did you get lucid, huh?” Her quiet laugh turns into another cough. “I get a pass for leaving the kit out, I was bleeding and very focused on getting into bed with this really gorgeous, congested and sweaty lady.”
“You’re annoying.” She tuts, turning back. Her words are undercut with how she shifts, snuggling further into his hold.
“You signed up for it. In sickness, in health and in bad behaviours.”
“Corny.”
“You love me.”
“I do.” She mumbles. A moment later. “Thank you.”
“Anytime.” He promises, thumb rubbing her ring finger once more. It was a vow that he would commit to over and over and over, as long as she would have him.