Chapter Text
"We're in a magazine." Mary Jane said.
Johnny snorted. "Uh, aren't we always?" He asked as he cracked the egg into the bowl.
She rolled her eyes. "All of us," She clarified. "Together. Hold on, I have it right here." She dug into her bag with the hand that wasn't covered in flour. "Heeere it is." She announced, smiling.
Peter rinsed out the measuring cup with water in the sink and then filled it with vegetable oil.
"Here you go." He handed it to Harry, who poured it into the mixture. "Go on, MJ, we're listening." Peter assured her as he began measuring out the brown sugar.
"Squad Goals," Mary Jane read aloud. "The hottest celebrity squads ranked inside."
Harry paused. "What are we ranked?" He asked very casually, as he resumed stirring.
"We are 'Sizzling Second Place'" MJ informed him.
"Yeah!" Johnny cried out happily as Harry looked offended.
"Second place?" Harry asked, affronted, his nose turning up slightly.
Peter patted him consolingly on the shoulder, leaving a few dusty white fingerprints. "Whoops." Peter said, staring at them.
Harry rolled his eyes. "It's fine, you dork." He seemed to shoot oddly fond looks at the smears, whereas mere weeks before they would have bothered him.
"Some group of reality stars is ranked number one." Mary Jane answered belatedly, and she shrugged. "But, if it make you feel any better, Harry, we won the audience poll with a ninety-four percent of readers thinking we are the best squad."
"Why would that make me feel better?" Harry scoffed, but his lips turned up in a pleased smile despite himself.
"Chocolate chip time!" Johnny said, dumping the entire bag in one quick motion.
"Wait - "
The whole bowl was practically filled with chocolate chips.
Peter stared at it.
"It's half the bag of chocolate chips." Harry hissed. "Half! This is why we're only second place!"
Johnny's jaw dropped open and his laughter came out as a wheezing breath. "Oh my gosh." He breathed.
"Well," Mary Jane peered at the bowl. "We can either make extremely chocolately cookies or just double the batter recipe."
Peter wet his lips as he considered it.
"Go big or go home?" He offered questioningly. "Let's - let's just bake them."
Mary Jane smiled. "Sure. But you've been hanging out with Johnny too much; you're starting to sound like him. And that's never a good thing."
"Hey!" Johnny protested.
Harry started stirring in the massive mounds of chocolate chips into the cookie dough.
Peter quickly dipped a finger in and a scooped out a bite.
"What are you doing?" Harry demanded, as he stopped mixing.
"Um. The dough. It's the best part." Peter explained, his hands fluttery.
"The dough." Harry said, unimpressed. "Are you s - Mary Jane!" He turned to look at her in astonishment as she also snuck a bite of cookie dough.
"What?" She asked innocently.
Harry's arms wrapped protectively around the bowl and he shot a glare towards Johnny.
"Oh, come on!" Johnny protested, raising his hands in the air. "I haven't even taken any yet!"
"Yet?" Harry demanded, hunching a little further over the bowl. "You heathens are going to be the death of me. And the death of these cookies! How are we supposed to bake any if you guys keep eating the dough?"
"Keep eating?" Peter wondered, having only done it once.
"You're such a drama queen, Osborn." Johnny rolled his eyes.
"Harry, have you - ever had raw cookie dough?" Peter asked curiously.
Harry stared at him incredulously. "Of course not. I buy all of my cookies from bakeries. I don't buy cookie dough because it's not supposed to be consumed."
"Ooh, just try a bite." MJ crooned.
"Baby's first cookie dough." Johnny agreed in a singsong voice.
Harry flushed.
"Aww come on, you guys." Peter interrupted their playful teasing. "Harry doesn't have to try anything that he doesn't want to."
----------------------------------------
Harry quietly comes out, on his on terms, via his Twitter account. He doesn't give any interviews about it.
The four of them spend the day crammed on Peter's bed, marathoning queer movies in celebration.
Harry cries because of 'But I'm A Cheerleader' and not because he's so overwhelmed but he's also happy and really thankful for his friends, and it's making him tear up because it's all so much. It really is the movie, he would say if anyone had asked him but no one does because they just snuggle in closer to him and pass him the popcorn and some tissues.
He can't remember a time where he was happier.
----------------------------------------------------------
"So you're the only normal one in your group, huh?" The interviewer asked, live on the Red Carpet, and Mary Jane smiled pleasantly.
"I am. The rest of them are just complete dorks." She laughed teasingly, her tone carefully playful and easygoing.
"That's - not quite what I meant." The interviewer awkwardly said, hesitating at her apparent obliviousness.
"Oh?" She inquired. "Then what did you mean?" Her smile never changed, and yet something in her eyes shifted; a hidden frostiness became revealed.
The cohost didn't see it until it was too late. "I think John was trying to say that you're the only one with a normal gender. Is that weird? How did that even happen?"
Mary Jane never dropped her smile, but the chilly demeanor about her became colder. "What," She laughed, and her voice was icy, "do you mean by a normal gender?"
Both men straightened up, backing away subtly. They glanced at each other.
"Um." He finally began. "You know. You're the sex that you were born as."
And then suddenly he was nearly quaking as Mary Jane stopped pretending to be civil.
"The fuck." She said, staring them down furiously, clearly catching the television censors off guard and allowing it to slip through. "You two ignorant s__t-bags are f__k-ing scum. I could educate you in the ways that you're so f__k-ing wrong, but it's might take a while to get past your thick skulls. Get your lazy ass PR to do it. Or I'll have to cram some human decency into you, even if I need to cram it up your ass." She let out an exhausted, weary sigh. "For s__t's sake."
They stared up at her, wide-eyed, as she ended her angry tirade and marched away - pretty effectively, considering the thick throng of people in her path. The camera was still rolling. Dead air on the television as the interviewers said nothing, did nothing.
Finally, one of them spoke.
"Um." He cleared his throat. "We'll be - we'll be back after the break. Somebody cut it to commercial, dammit. Whose bright idea - If I don't -"
The television abruptly showed an advertisement for whitening toothpaste.
Peter's jaw was still dropped open in shock.
"Well." Aunt May said quietly, and he jumped, having forgotten for a moment that she was watching beside him. "Your friend has quite the vocabulary."
She stared at Peter with a raised eyebrow, half impressed and half in disapproval.
Peter erupted into laughter at this bizarre scenario. Aunt May merely smiled.
"Holy cow." Peter groaned. "Did that really just happen?"
Aunt May shrugged. "Unless we both are dreaming it?" She offered. Peter pinched himself, and sighed.
"Nope." He declared mournfully. "We're awake."
He pulled his phone from his pocket and stared at it. He tried to compose up something, but he had no idea of what to say. Absolutely no clue.
Finally, he just sent the twin dancers with devil horns emoji.
Ten minutes later, Mary Jane sent back the hair flip emoji and the painting nails emoji.
So she was fine. Still... He couldn't shake the feeling that somehow she was covering something up with her two emojis, even though they were a typical response for her. Maybe that was why; it seemed too typical of a response for such an unusual occurrence.
Peter bit his lip, hesitating, but then went ahead and hit 'call' on the "Pacifica" contact.
"Hey." He said softly as it stopped ringing. "You okay?"
Mary Jane laughed, the sound harsh and grating. "Am I okay? I'm fine, Peter. How are you okay? How are you always okay? How are Johnny and Harry okay? Of course I'm okay. It's not like I'm the one having my fucking identity attacked by these - these jerks." She took in a shuddery breath. "And they're not even the worst jerks is the problem. Why are people so terrible, Peter? I don't understand it."
"MJ." He gently intervened. "What's really going on?"
There was silence.
And then she said, in an angry voice, "What, you don't think that I'd get upset over my friends being treated this way? Over human beings being treated this way? That I'm some kind of cold hearted bitch that just doesn't care about anyone?"
Peter simply said, "MJ."
She sighed.
"I've been getting hate mail." She admitted in flippant voice. "That's nothing new. But these threats are new. People are angry at me just for being your friend. People are telling me stop being your friend, to stop being Johnny's friend, to stop being friends with Harry." Her voice cracked. "And they're also threatening you guys. Saying all sorts of stuff. I've gotten some stuff in the past but - not like this. I've gone to the police, but there's not much that they can do. So I've hired a few private detectives and security, and I have a team watching your house, right now, Peter, because I don't trust anyone anymore. I can't."
"Mary Jane." He murmured. The was a muffled sob over the receiver. "I'm fine. I can take care of myself. I appreciate it, and I get where you're coming from, I really do, but you don't need to worry about me. I promise that I'll be fine."
"But what if you're not?" She asked desperately. "What if I could have done something to help -"
"Mary Jane." He interrupted firmly, yet gently. "Really."
"Okay." She said but sounded like it was anything but. "Okay."
"Pacifica?" He asked.
"Yeah?" She asked quietly.
"Dipper Pines can take care of himself." He said, smiling against his phone.
"No he can't." She argued, but she laughed as she said it, the sound coming out congested and snotty by tears. "That's why he has Mabel."
"Well." He shrugged, the gesture useless via telephone communication. "I have Aunt May."
Mary Jane laughed, and he closed his eyes, feeling relieved to hear the sound.
"You're a dork." She told him, like he didn't already know.
"Yeah, and, surprisingly, so are you." He rebutted.
There was silence for a moment. "Why don't you call Johnny and Harry?" He suggested. "Just talk to that idiot, and you'll understand that he doesn't need protection either. He's the Human Torch. Harry has all types of security; trust me, I've seen his house. Call everyone and talk to them. You're not alone, and neither are we."
"Thanks, Peter." She softly said. "Sorry for making this about me."
"Nahhh." He dismissed the idea. And then teasingly he said, "Besides, everything should be about you, Pacifica."
"Oh, shut up." She replied, her watery voice sounding much firmer and more amused than it had.
"Take care, MJ." He suggested softly, still worried.
"You too."
He hung up and simply stared at his cell phone for a while, contemplating.
Then, he made up his mind.
He had something to do. But, first, he'd have to ditch the security team that MJ had hired.
Which. Really, he wasn't entirely too sure how he felt about that to be honest. It was thoughtful, but at the same time... an invasion of privacy? Peter shrugged to himself as he nimbly climbed on to the roof and prepared to lose the security.
After all, he had places he needed to be and secret identities to keep.
-------------------------------------------
"Hey, there!" Spiderman greeted, skidding to stop as he swung down and landed on his feet.
Steve Rogers looked up curiously. Beside him, his friend spilt his coffee in surprise with a soft exclamation.
"Spiderman." Steve Rogers inclined his head thoughtfully. "Can I help you?"
"It's so funny that you would ask that, since you can, in fact, help me." Spiderman said in a rushed breath.
"You know Spiderman?" The man beside Captain America demanded with a disbelieving, almost offended look. "Seriously? And you, what, decided to keep it a secret?"
"We've never actually officially met." Steve shrugged, and Sam squinted his eyes suspiciously at the two of them.
"And unofficially?" He asked, still wiping coffee off of his shirt.
"He asked me for an autograph." Steve simply said, smiled way too amused.
Peter could feel himself flush underneath the mask. "Whoa! Back it up! That's not exactly how the story went!"
"Are you saying that I'm lying?" Steve Roger looked at him with his handsome face and all - and, really, that was not fair.
"Er, no." Spiderman mumbled, scuffling a foot awkwardly on the ground.
Steve looked at Sam smugly, and Sam looked towards heaven in exasperation. Then he looked at Spiderman.
"He's a little shit." He said consolingly, chin gesturing toward Steve. "Don't take it personally, kid."
"Kid!" Peter squawked, and that wasn't very smooth of him at all. He internally winced.
Sam cooly lifted an eyebrow. "Kid." He said again, voice a little firmer this time.
Steve eyed Spiderman in new contemplation. "Kid, huh?"
"Seriously?" Spiderman groaned. "Can't you two chill with the kid thing for like two seconds - or forever - while I ask Cap for help?"
"Only Cap's help?" Sam asked curiously.
Peter cocked his head as he looked at Sam in a new light after that comment.
"No way." He gasped, upon realization. "You're the Falcon?"
"Should I be insulted by the amount of surprise in that question?" Sam muttered.
Steve snickered. "Well, you didn't exactly make a first impression." He nodded towards the coffee stains up and down Sam's shirt.
Sam sighed.
"What did you need help with, kid?" He asked, interrupting Peter's excited babbling.
"Oh, right." Spiderman said, blinking behind his mask. "I need you to join my club."
Sam and Steve looked at each other, and then they both kept on walking.
"No, wait, wait, that came out wrong!" Peter hastened to say, scrambling after them.
"I need your help to make a difference!" He called out affer them, easily matching their pace.
Steve sighed. He stopped and turned around to face the younger superhero.
"What sort of club?" He asked skeptically.
"The Human Torch and I are calling it the Superhero Gender Defender Club. Superheroes uniting to use their publicity to stand up for all gender rights. Fight the binary system! Fight the patriarchy! Fight for trans people!"
Sam looked at Spiderman in a mixture of interest and disbelief "Why superheroes? What do you think that we can do that civilians can't?"
Peter grinned. "I think that superheroes can be heard."
Steve studied Spiderman carefully. "You're serious about this."
"Yes. Sir." He added the second word after a long moment.
Steve's lip twitched in amusement at that.
"So. What exactly does a Superhero Gender Defender Club do?" He asked seriously.
Peter nearly punched the air in excitement.
Instead, he said to them both, "Well, here's my plan so far..."