Work Text:
MJ knows what it’s like to hurt. Knows what it’s like to be bruised and broken. Figuratively and literally.
When MJ thinks about her childhood, she wants to remember the time when everything had been fine. When her parents had brought her to the playground next to their home and had watched her while sitting on a bench. Or when her father had taught her how to ride a bike, laughing and shouting in excitement when she had gotten the hang of it.
And MJ does remember that time. But when she thinks about her childhood, she thinks about the after.
The time after her father had lost his job at the harbor and started drinking. After he started to spent his time seedy bars until he could barely make it home again, where he fell asleep on the couch, reeking of alcohol, sweat and other things. After even the smallest issues caused him to lose his temper. After her mother stopped caring.
That time was full of pain. It started with a push against the kitchen wall that led to a bruise on her arm but quickly turned into much more. A slap in the face because she refused to hand him another beer. A punch in her ribs because she dared to look him in the eyes. A strike with a broom because she was too loud.
There were a lot of things MJ could do wrong and a lot of ways to punish her. She stopped counting her bruises, her cuts, her swellings. One time he broke her wrist and her mother told everyone how her clumsy, accident-prone daughter managed to fall down the stairs.
Not that MJ would have told anyone the truth. She always hid her injuries because she didn’t want them to see what was happening at home. Didn’t want to tell them that her own father was the one that hurt her.
That was probably what hurt the most. The realization that, while other parents would do anything to protect their kids, her father was the one she needed protection from. And that her mother would do nothing to help her because she didn’t care enough to put herself in the line of fire.
MJ watched the other families. Watched them when her classmates were picked up after school or after an event. Watched how parents wrapped their arms around their son’s shoulders or hugged their daughters. She watched Ben and May laughing with Peter, their closeness and love so obvious despite them only being his uncle and aunt. And knew that there was no love left in her own family.
So yes, MJ knows what it’s like to hurt, even if that time is long gone and she hasn’t spoken to her parents in years. But that doesn’t ease the pain she is feeling right now.
It’s a Wednesday night and she should be sleeping because she has an interview tomorrow morning, but all she can think about is the newspaper on her kitchen table. The headline. That damn photo.
It’s been two weeks since she broke up with Peter and it’s been hard to see Spider-Man on the headlines. Even if she was the one that ended things, she still misses him. She still loves him, even if his overprotectiveness became too much for her to handle.
So even now, she reads every article, every tweet, listens to every news report on the radio because she needs to know that he is safe. Needs to know that he is still alive. Every time someone posts a picture of him getting injured or bleeding after a fight, her heartbeat speeds up and it does not calm down until there is another report about a recovered Spider-Man somewhere else in the city.
This headline made her heart skip a beat.
MJ has heard about Black Cat before. She can still hear Peter complain about the skilled thief and there are a few articles released by the Daily Bugle about some of her burglaries, but since MJ wasn’t the one to write them, she never bothered to learn more about her. There are a lot of criminals in New York and Black Cat is not the worst of them.
But apparently, Peter knows her well.
MJ’s gaze falls on the newspaper, even if she read it so many times she now knows it by heart. What the cat dragged in: Spider-Man alleys with burglar.
It’s a typical Bugle’s headline and even if MJ wonders why Peter would work with a villain instead of fight them, that is not what shocked her. It’s the picture beneath it. A picture that shows Black Cat and Spider-Man next to each other. Embracing each other, her hand on his neck, her hip against his thigh, their faces just inches from each other, separated only by his mask.
MJ thinks she might be sick.
In the past few years, she has seen or read a lot of things about Spider-Man and most of them were hard to deal with. Defamation by the Daily Bugle, accusations, insults. There had been declarations of love from female – and sometimes male – fans, speculations of what his body might look like behind the suit, what he might be like in bed, what he might be able to do with abilities like his.
She ignored them for the most part. Sometimes, she even felt a bit proud because she was the one that knew the answers to those questions. She was the one that Peter came home to after a mission. And most of the other things that were written about him weren’t true anyways.
But that picture is real. And it tells a lot of things. As do all the other things MJ found on the internet in her obsessive research that followed her seeing the headline. Snapshots taken by bystanders or posts on twitter. The two of them standing on some rooftop. Him grabbing her by the arm to prevent her from falling off a building, even if MJ is certain that she could manage on her own. A shaky video that shows them swinging trough Manhattan.
And the kiss.
It’s a grainy picture someone posted on Instagram and it’s impossible to make out any details, but there is no mistaking the scene it shows. Black Cat has Spider-Man backed up against a wall, her hand is pulling up his mask as she presses her lips against his. MJ feels like someone punched her in the face.
She knows that she has no right to be jealous. Her and Peter are not a couple anymore. She is the reason for it and he is free to do whatever he wants. Free to date whoever he wants. Or whatever it is that he is doing with Black Cat. She doesn’t want to think about it.
Except that she does. And she can’t stop it.
It’s been two weeks. Two weeks after almost two years of dating. Apparently, that is enough for Peter to get over her.
Ironically, him moving on is exactly what she wanted. She didn’t want him to suffer. She doesn’t want him to suffer. So why does it feel like someone is ripping her heart out of her chest?
Deep down, MJ knows why. She was devastated after their breakup. Spent hours crying on her couch, unable to forget Peter’s sad eyes or the fact that they no longer belonged together. That she is no longer the one he comes home to. The one that patches him up after a fight or comforts him after a mission gone wrong.
But now she realizes that she always hoped that they could become a couple again. That someday, he would realize that she doesn’t need protection. That she can fend for herself and needs to be out there to help the city just as he does. She hoped that they could become equals.
She never thought about the possibility of him finding a new partner. A new love.
But it seems like he did. And it turns out that dying hopes cause a pain that no bruise or broken bone could prepare her for.
Because injuries heal. Losing Peter could be forever.