Chapter Text
MJ was going to kill her manager.
Don’t get her wrong, Paula was one of her best friends, and MJ would take a bullet for her if the opportunity ever presented itself, but in this particular moment she wanted nothing more than the woman to sink deep into the varnished wood of her living room floor and never come back.
“You’re not serious, right?” It felt like a pointless question for MJ to ask, of course Paula was not being serious. She couldn’t be. This was all a very shitty joke and any second now Paula was going to crack a laugh and say ‘Of course not! Could you imagine?’ and MJ would go about the rest of her day as intended.
Except Paula kept looking at her with that pointed, exhausted glare that could only be achieved by someone playing the dual roles of both MJ’s manager and friend.
“Look, I know this is not something you’d typically be interested in,” Paula spoke to her like a mother pleading with a fussy child to eat their vegetables, “But this is an incredible opportunity for you, one that will do wonders for your career!”
“Dancing with the Stars?!” MJ asked, because maybe she misheard her before. Maybe instead of Dancing with the Stars, Paula had approached her about something else. Something that didn’t involve sequins and hairspray and bad spray tans and snooty ballroom dancers who think they're better than everyone-
“They’ve offered you to be on the next season. They're really interested in you MJ, the hiring agent I spoke to said you were top of the list.” Paula told her this as if it meant anything. As if MJ of all people didn’t know that people in this industry are willing to tell you whatever they think you want to hear if it means getting what they want.
“You have to know I’d never agree to that,” MJ said.
“Why not?” Paula griped, an exasperated sigh pulling her whole body loose and slack. “Please explain it to me. Why are you so against this?”
MJ stared, her mouth opening in an automatic rebuttal, but all that fell out was ineffectual sputtering. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t vocalize her thoughts without sounding ridiculous.
The truth was, she had no idea why she was so opposed to it. It was something deep in her gut, a natural stirring that caused her stomach acid to try to crawl up her throat every time the idea of herself on national television in some sort of tiny dress bumbling her way through a waltz popped into her mind.
God, was it just insecurity? Or fear of embarrassment? You’d think she’d have left all that behind the second she decided to be an actress. She’d made enough flubs on stage at this point that the fear of messing up in front of an audience shouldn’t affect her anymore.
That was different, however. She was a good actress. She knew that. She was confident in that. Every time she had made a mistake in a show, or on set, she knew that it was just that. A mistake. Something that happens to everyone.
Dancing, though? She’d never done that. Had no experience in it bar the minimal half step and sway that she pulled out at weddings.
Or the Macarena.
And she wasn’t even good at the Macarena.
She didn’t know if she could cope with the world witnessing her discover she was truly shit at dancing live on TV.
Paula seemed to gleam some of MJ’s inner turmoil, or maybe she just knew her well enough to know that when she got speechless like this, it usually meant MJ’s resolve was crumbling and it was time to strike.
“MJ you’ve been doing pretty good these last couple years, but that doesn’t mean anything in this business. You know that.” Her tone was softer, and she reached over the top of the wonky coffee table that MJ had taken home from a garage sale years ago to grab her hands. “This is an opportunity to expose yourself to a bigger audience, gain more people who’ll support and watch whatever you do in the future. Think of it as an investment into your career.”
MJ let out a full body sigh, one that she hoped expressed the bone weary feeling this conversation was giving her. Paula gave her hands a final squeeze before she stood up from the couch and moved to grab her coat.
“You have two weeks to make a decision,” she told her, leaving her with a final smile before she slipped out the front door of the apartment and left MJ alone to stew in her thoughts.
* * *
MJ lasted 2 days before she had to call for reinforcements.
And by ‘reinforcements’ she meant the only other person in the world she would ever take a bullet for.
And by ‘call for’ she meant slightly breaking into his apartment in the middle of the day and wearing a hole in his floor from how much she was pacing while waiting for him to come back from work.
“How long have you been here?” The sudden sound of Ned’s voice interrupted her from the same asinine dialogue that had been running through her mind since Tuesday. Ned didn’t seem at all shocked to find her there, perched on his ratty armchair with her leg bouncing enough in anxiety to rock it back and forth. He gave her a key when he moved into this place after college, knowing that if he didn’t, she’d probably find a way to get in anyway. He said he was saving himself the headache of having to get the lock replaced every time she came over, but she knew he didn’t mind her coming and going as she pleased. They’d both long given up the pretense of pretending they weren’t each other's best friend. Not that Ned ever really did, but MJ liked to pretend that the hesitance to commit to actual relationships in high school was a mutual thing and not just a her thing. It saved her therapy bills.
“I have a dilemma.” MJ jumped up from her seat to follow him as he moved into his kitchen to, supposedly, unload the bag of groceries he held in his hands.
He stopped in the entryway to the kitchen and turned, appraising her intently. She understood what he was thinking. MJ didn’t approach people about her problems. She didn’t like asking for advice; it felt too dependent. If it wasn’t something she could fix herself, then it wasn’t something to worry about. That was her general philosophy and it had worked thus far. Mostly.
So actively seeking someone out to talk about her issues? Ned had a reason to be concerned.
“What happened?” She could only imagine what was going through his mind. Clearly it was something bad, as the paper bag of groceries started to slip from his grip, forgotten in selection of whatever doomsday scenario Ned was imagining.
Jesus, was it so out of the ordinary for her to ask for help that she’s paralyzed her best friend in fear at the concept?
She should probably open up more in therapy. Cost be damned.
She reached out to grab the bag from him before it fell to the ground, depositing it on the kitchen counter and then turning to face him.
“It’s nothing bad, I promise.” He looked like he didn't believe her. An incredulous laugh made its way out of her mouth. “It's actually incredibly dumb. In fact, it is so mind-numbingly stupid that it has circled all the way back around again to being torturous.”
She was unabashedly laughing now, and Ned looked like he was about to collapse.
“MJ... what’s the matter?” Ned watched as she caught her breath, wiping a stray tear from her cheek that she wasn’t sure was from laughter or despair.
“Dancing with the Stars, Ned!” It came out as something akin to a shriek, the absurd nature of this whole situation catching up to her as soon as she said the words out loud. Because was she literally standing in her best friend's kitchen crying over a dancing show?
The thought was enough to set her back off in stitches.
Ned looked more confused than ever. He probably figured she finally fell off the deep end, the blighting effects of Hollywood sending her to an early retirement in a padded cell.
“They want me to do Dancing with the Stars.” She clarified once the rolls of hysterical laughter subsided.
“Who wants you to? Paula?” He asked.
“Yeah Paula, and apparently whoever oversees casting over there too,” She sniffs. She doesn’t believe for a second she was anywhere near top of the list for choices for them. She’s a C-list celebrity at best, and one who is particularly outspoken about the types of ‘political issues’ these shows tend to give a wide berth to. It had gotten her dropped from jobs in the past, not that she gives much of a shit. Playing love interest number #2 in a crappy CW show is not worth sacrificing her morals for.
“I don’t really understand,” Ned said, “You don’t want to? Or you do?”
She shook her head. How could she even begin to explain her feelings around this? She couldn’t even straighten them out in her own head.
Ned seemed to think for a moment, before coming to some sort of conclusion and gesturing her to sit back down on the worn-down recliner she had vacated before.
He took a seat on the couch adjacent to her and sighed, looking deep into her eyes as he spoke.
“You want to do it, but you’re scared of failing, so your instinct is to avoid putting yourself in any situations you don’t have complete control or confidence in.”
...
It felt like getting punched in the face. And then being lit on fire and tied to the back of a truck and dragged through the streets of New York. And then getting punched in the face again.
Ned was just looking at her as if he had made a comment on the weather.
“How did you do that?” was all MJ was able to mutter. Wasn’t Ned just a moment ago looking at her like she’d gone insane? How did he come up with that conclusion so quickly? And, more importantly, how was he right?
“MJ come on, I’ve known you since we were 15. I know how your brain works.” He offered her a disbelieving smile, “The fact that you still don’t is what concerns me.”
Some small part of her brain that was still aware enough to listen to him figured that she should be offended by that statement, but it was overpowered by the rest of her going into overdrive as it took in his assessment.
She was scared. Terrified, she realized, now that she actually knew what that twisting in her gut was. How could she have not worked that out before?
The twisting unfurled a tad at the comprehension, but just as quickly wound itself right back up as she realized what this meant.
Michelle Jones made a vow a long time ago to not let fear control her life. All throughout high school, and then college, and then a burgeoning career in the arts; she never once sacrificed something she wanted out of fear. She wasn’t going to abandon that now.
Paula picked up after 2 rings.
“Tell them I’ll do it.” MJ’s voice sounded confident in her own ears.
She hung up before Paula could hear the waver in it.
* * *
Peter was going to kill Johnny Storm.
His instinct was to do it right here and now, shove the man right off the edge of the building they were both sat on. It would be so easy. It would take no effort at all for Peter to knock at Johnny’s shoulder and watch him plummet the 40 stories down to the street below. He could just say it was a strong breeze.
Unfortunately, Johnny could fly. So, the long game it would have to be.
“Are you mad at me?”
Maybe poison his food, that would be doable. They spent most of their time together between crime-fighting these days eating whatever they could scrounge from street carts.
“Spidey, come on you are overreacting.”
He probably wouldn’t even get the blame for it, heaven knows those street hotdogs can be lethal all on their own without Peter’s interference.
“You’re being childish.”
New York might suffer with his absence, but the way Peter looked at it it was either Johnny or him, because there was no way he could continue living in the same world as Johnny Storm after today.
“How do you know this was even about you, huh? Maybe I just wanted to do this for myself.”
Peter finally turned to face him. The sun was beginning to set, a deep red hue emitting from where it melted into the horizon, and it cast a golden tone upon Johnny’s face and hair. It looked like a fire was burning just behind the barrier of his skin, which Peter figured was fitting. In any other circumstance, Peter’s fingers would’ve itched for his camera to capture the tableau. Right now, though, he couldn’t manage to think of anything except the statement Johnny had just blindsided him with.
“Oh right, so it’s just a coincidence that you suddenly decide you wanna go on Dancing with the Stars just months after you find out my identity?” Peter levelled him a look.
For a second, it seemed like Johnny would double-down on his assertation that it was merely chance that drew him to ballroom dancing and, thus, to Peter’s day job. Peter almost wished he would, he needed more grounds to support his assassination attempt.
Johnny sighed, tearing his eyes away from Peters to stare at the concrete buildings that surrounded them.
“Fine. The idea only came to me after I knew you were a pro-dancer there.” He turned back to him then sharply, his tone becoming imploring. “But it’s not a joke, okay? That show calls me practically every year to join and I’ve always just written it off, but this time when they offered, it was only a couple of weeks after you unmasked around me, right? So, for the first time I, like, really thought about it and I watched a bunch of past seasons of the show and dude, it looks fun.” Johnny’s body had shifted so that he was fully facing Peter now, leg curled up under him on the edge of the roof.
Peter really studied him, trying to infer if he was telling the truth. Did he actually want to go on Dancing with the Stars? In all the time they’d known each other, Johnny had never so much as brought up liking to dance or wanting to learn.
It was just over 6 months ago that Peter had finally entrusted Johnny with his identity. It was a long time coming, they’d known each other for nearly 4 years at that point and had been good friends for most of it. Of course, Peter was close with all of the Fantastic 4, he would trust all of them with his life, but it was different with Johnny. They actually spent time together outside of crimefighting. They had so many movie and pizza nights that Peter lost count.
The point is, Peter trusted Johnny. He had for a long time before he ever considered taking the mask off.
It was March time, and the Fantastic 4 had just finished dealing with some lunatic who had access to some sort of alien disintegration ray and was far too eager to use it on innocent pedestrians. Peter had joined the fray toward the end, but the 4 seemed to have the whole thing under control by the time he showed up so he aided in the evacuation efforts.
After they had the trigger-happy buffoon (seriously, what kind of villain name was Senior Pistol? He was neither Spanish nor wielded a pistol) locked in the back of an armoured vehicle and the area cleared of any lingering civilians, Johnny had approached him with the usual pleased smirk he always had after a job well done and said, “I’m famished. Usual place?”
So, it was at the top of the statue of liberty, empty cartons of Thai takeout thrown to the wayside, that the thought came shooting into Peter’s head again. It wasn’t the first time he’d considered it, far from it, but it was the first time he could see himself actually going through with it.
Before he could talk himself out of it, before the bile rising up his throat could make it out of his mouth, he reached up and took his mask off.
It was such a simple movement that Johnny didn’t even realise he’d done it for a few agonising seconds, during which Peter had to fight every instinct in his body to put it back on and pretend like nothing had happened.
When Johnny did finally notice, turning toward him with his mouth half-open to start another topic of conversation, Peter felt the whole world freeze. For 1 second. And then 2. And right as it tipped over into the 3rd second of absolute silence, just as Peter was about to yank the mask back on and swing away from this whole situation forever, Johnny smiled at him and finally spoke. “What kinda name was Senior Pistol anyway? Was he even Spanish?”
Peter could kiss Johnny Storm.
For all the pomp and circumstance that Johnny usually expressed in his day-to-day life, he also knew exactly when to hold back. At least when it came to Peter, Johnny was very adept at realising when he could joke about something versus when a situation required a little more nuance.
Maybe it was the way Peter’s entire body was wired taut as he waited for Johnny’s reaction, or maybe it was merely that Johnny knew how important Peter’s identity was to him, but he seemed to realize that this was one of those times that desperately required a subdued approach.
Peter returned the smile. “No chance. Should’ve called himself Mr Alien-Ray-Gun if he was looking for accuracy.”
Johnny snorted, and that was that. It was amazing how quickly Peter went from agonising over his identity, to struggling to remember a time where Johnny hadn’t known. It felt so normal. So natural to sit here with his face bare and joke together the way they always had. He even managed to tell Johnny his full name before they parted that day, to which he replied, “Yeah you look like a Peter.”
Peter swung away with a weight off his chest.
It was 3 days later that Johnny called him in the middle of the night with one simple question. "Dancing with the Stars?!”
Peter was almost proud of him for waiting that long to look him up.
In truth, he was so caught up in the fear of unmasking that he forgot the one aspect of his personal life that would be at all interesting to someone, especially someone like Johnny Storm.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were semi-famous?”
“I’m not famous, Johnny.”
“Of course not, I’m famous. That’s why I said semi. You’re like Z-list, you know, you’re on the list but, like, the bottom.”
“Johnny-”
“Say’s here your last partner was some 70-year-old politician, sheesh. Talk about short end of the stick.”
“Johnny it’s 3am.”
“Don’t pretend like you were asleep. Oh Jesus, 3 years and highest place you’ve got is 13th? Come on, man that’s pitiful.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Good, you need to be spending all your free time in the practice room with these scores.”
From that point on, not much more was said about Peter’s day job. Other than the occasional quip from Johnny, but that was par for the course.
Not until today, of course. Peter should’ve known something was up, he hadn’t got nearly enough flak from Johnny about his, admittedly, bad track record on the show so far.
“You seriously just want to do it? For yourself?” Peter didn’t really know what answer he wanted. If Johnny genuinely wanted to do the show, then Peter wouldn’t try to stop him. He just didn’t know what to expect from interacting with Johnny on a weekly basis as Peter Parker and not Spider-man.
“Yeah, I really do. I think it’d be good.” Johnny smiled, “Plus, I mentioned it to Sue and apparently she’s a superfan, so she’s not letting me back out.”
“Oh, god.” Peter put his head in his hands. For some reason, the thought of Susan Storm watching him every week on national TV has him more unnerved than anything else up until this point. Johnny laughed at him.
“See you on the dancefloor! I feel like we’re really going to bond from this experience,” Johnny was gone in a flash of light and heat, leaving Peter alone to contemplate everything that just happened.
For once, he was glad he’d probably be eliminated early.