Archive of Our Own

“My name is Peter Parker.”

“I’m sorry, sir. What was the last name?”

“Parker. Peter Parker.”

“Can you spell that for me?”

Peter sighed. “P-A-R-K-E-R.”

“Please hold.”

He groaned, letting his head fall against the side of the air vent. The sky was overcast, but it wasn’t raining. He’d been off work for an hour, and was waiting for nightfall to conduct his next patrol.

If he could get the double-charge for MJ’s flowers removed from his credit card. He was perilously close to going over his limit, and didn’t need that trouble again. Peter sighed again. At least tomorrow is payday.

“Hi.”

Peter lowered his head and directed his gaze to the fire escape, where MJ’s head was poking over the edge of the roof.

“Oh…hi,” he said awkwardly. He hadn’t seen her since her housewarming party the night before. When he’d seen her with her boyfriend. Stop it.

“I didn’t think anyone would be up here,” she said, climbing the steps and walking onto the roof.

Peter held up his phone. “Better reception.”

She nodded. “Ah, ok. I figured this would be a good place to be alone.”

“Oh, is everything okay?” he asked. She didn’t look upset, but…

“Yeah I…I just like to think,” she replied. She stopped just short of where he was sitting. “I don’t mean to interrupt your call.”

He glanced at his phone. Honestly, he’d forgotten he was holding it. “No. No, it’s okay I’m on hold, again.”

She sat across from him, back against the HVAC unit. “So. Peter.”

His eyes went wide. He hadn’t introduced himself last night. How would she…?

MJ smiled. “You just spelled your name on the phone. Peter Parker. P-A-R-K-E-R.

“Oh,” he muttered, finally breathing again. “Right.”

“Thanks for coming to my party.”

“It—it was fun.”

That was a lie. It had been torture. Watching his two closest friends from a distance, knowing that they didn’t remember him. And, then seeing MJ with her boyfriend…

Of course she has a boyfriend! Peter chided himself. She moved on. Why wouldn’t she? She had no memory of him, nothing to hold her back.

MJ’s voice snapped him out of his spiraling self-flagellation. “I’ve asked around. You’ve lived here for years, but nobody seems to know you. Yet, you’re kind enough to bring a new tenant housewarming flowers.”

“Um, I work all the time. Constantly coming and going.”

“And, yet, you come to a housewarming party for someone you don’t know.”

“It’s the first time anyone slid an invitation under my door,” Peter shot back, thinking quickly.

MJ nodded. “Ned’s idea. We were never invited to a lot of parties in high school, so when we got to college, he decided to be the one who invited everybody.”

Peter smiled. “Make sense. I hope you liked the flowers.”

She was watching him warily. “They’re my favorite. How’d you know?”

“I…just picked something pretty. Something I thought was pretty—might be pretty,” he fumbled.

“Hm,” she was still watching him. Peter was starting to feel like a suspect in some unspoken crime. A bug under a microscope. He dismissed that. It was just his own conscience nagging him. “So, ESU.”

He blinked, caught off-guard by the change in subject. Belatedly, he remembered that he’d pulled on his school sweatshirt before coming up here. He glanced down at himself, then gestured toward her sweatshirt. “Oh. Right. Yes. Um, MIT. Go Engineers.”

“Yeah, well,” she glanced at her own shirt briefly. “Engineer, but…my real passion is investigative journalism. Don’t tell my dad. If…you ever meet him.”

“Investigative journalism,” Peter nodded. That made sense, actually. “That’s…different. Not what I expected.”

MJ smiled. “You’ll need to expect the unexpected, being my neighbor. Peter Parker.”

Something about the way she said his name stabbed Peter right in the heart. It also formed a pit of absolute dread in his stomach, for some reason. “How, um…did you get interested in that?”

“I’ve always dabbled in mysteries. Conspiracy theories,” she replied. She was still watching him like a proverbial hawk. “I started writing for the campus newspaper. I liked it. It let me spread my wings, a little.”

“Oh, okay,” he said slowly. “I’d…love to see some of your articles sometime.”

What are you doing, Peter? What the hell are you doing?

“Maybe I’ll show them to you,” she said, standing. “You know, the next time we cross paths on the roof.”

A traffic cop pulled a car over in front of his building, so Peter couldn’t enter through his window directly like usual. Even in the dark, if the cop looked up, it would be a problem. So, he swung around the building, stopped on the roof to change clothes, and dropped down the fire escape until he reached his floor.

It was after midnight. The hall was quiet. He’d just reached his door and was fishing for his keys when his Spidey-sense tingled.

“Working late?” MJ’s voice came from behind.

Peter turned, carefully tugging the collar of his shirt up to make sure his super suit wasn’t visible. He’d taken to wearing it under his clothes, like Peter Two. “Yeah. Good—good evening, neighbor.”

“Isn’t it a little late for the deli to be open?” she asked, innocently.

It wasn’t innocent. Peter knew her well enough to know when she was sniffing around for a secret. Fortunately, he had a ready answer for this kind of question.

“I was doing inventory.”

“Ah,” MJ nodded. “That seems reasonable. Ned thought you were a male escort on the side.”

Peter frowned. “No, sorry. I’m not that interesting.”

MJ made a face. “Too bad. Good night, Peter.”

“Night,” he muttered. Turning back, he unlocked his door and stepped inside.

What’s with people thinking I’m a male escort?

Washing one’s super suit in a community laundry room was risky. Peter resorted to going down after midnight, when no one—usually—was awake. Since he was down there anyway, he often brought the rest of his clothes, too. It took a few hours, but he was off the next day, so he could sleep in in the morning.

He sat with his back against the machine that was washing his suit, wishing his body would heal faster. He’d had an encounter with some ATM robbers. That in and of itself would have been easy to deal with, except that these clowns had found some power-armor suits—more of that damned left-behind Chitauri tech—which had made his job harder and a lot more punishing. His body was covered in big bruises.

Even considering the chilly night air, it was hot in the room with two of the machines running, so he’d removed his pants and tossed them in with the colored clothes. No one was going to mind him sitting there in his underwear at this hour—

“Oh, sorry, I—” MJ’s voice called out over the hum of the machines.

Lost in his own tired thoughts, Peter nearly jumped out of his skin. His senses hadn’t warned him that she was there, for some reason. He hopped to his feet, only belatedly realizing that he was standing there without his pants. MJ was standing in the doorway, apparently as speechless as he was.

She was also checking him out, he was almost a hundred percent certain. He awkwardly folded his hands in front of his groin and managed an embarrassed smile. “Hi, MJ.”

Her surprise evaporated when her eyes landed on the football sized bruise adorning his right quadriceps, and was replaced with concern. “What happened to you?”

MJ entered the room and closed the door behind her. Coming closer, she tentatively reached out and her fingers brushed his thigh.

It was a simple gesture of concern, but Peter’s lonely brain immediately flashed back to that hotel in London, where Happy Hogan had put him up for the night so that he could heal after the battle with Quentin Beck and his drones.

MJ’s hands had touched him in much less innocent ways that night. They’d been alone, chronologically adults post-Blip, with a lot of post-crisis adrenaline to work off.

And they had, several times.

Peter forcefully pushed that memory away, as it was already having potentially embarrassing effects on his body. “I, um, was coming out of work when a bicycle messenger clipped me.”

“Looks like he did more than clip you,” she murmured.

“You should see the other guy,” he replied gamely.

Perhaps realizing that her hand was still in contact with his bare thigh, MJ pulled back. “You—you should put some ice on that.”

Peter waved that off. “I already have. I’m past the ice stage.”

“How do you know?”

“Not my first time. Encountering a fast-moving bike,” he added quickly.

“They’re menaces. I’ve always thought so,” MJ said resolutely.

“What are—what are you doing up so late?” Peter asked, purposefully dragging the conversation away from his bruises.

“Exploring the building,” MJ said. “You know, trying to figure out where everything is…you know.”

Peter nodded. For some reason, he wasn’t quite sure he believed her. But, he didn’t mention that. “Well, this—this is the laundry room.”

“Cozy,” she replied, glancing around.

“Pretty busy during the daylight hours,” he continued. “Hard to find an open machine.”

“Hence, the midnight laundry run,” she countered, smirking. “So, you…spend your nights down here?”

“Well, once a week.”

MJ watched him for a moment, then crooked a thumb over her shoulder. “I’m wide awake. Do you mind if I go get my clothes and join you?”

Peter immediately thought about his suit, which was currently spinning out in the washer. He found himself nodding anyway. “Sure. I can give you the tour during the spin cycle.”

All thought of how he was going to hide the suit fled his mind when she smiled at him.

Peter’s apartment door was messed up. Again. The latch wasn’t catching when he closed it. The first indication that the old problem had recurred came when there was a knock, and MJ’s face appeared.

“Hi!”

He quickly killed the video feed on his monitors and turned. “Hello!”

“Your door was open,” she said, edging into the room.

“It’s—it’s okay,” he said, stepping out in front of the desk and blocking her direct view of the setup. “Come on in.”

“Not working today?”

“Nope,” he replied.

“Wow, you…have a lot of high tech stuff in here,” she said, cautiously stepping closer.

“Yeah, I, uh, I restore old computer equipment. It’s a hobby.”

“This must cost a fortune,” MJ murmured, looking at the array of monitors.

“No, not really. You’d be amazed at what people throw away. Most of it just needed to be cleaned.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re a dumpster diver.”

Peter grinned. “I’ve never actually dove into a dumpster.”

That was true. Usually, he snagged whatever device he spotted with some webbing. He’d always been good at it.

“I thought you might want to see my articles,” she said, holding up her Stark Tablet.

Peter blinked for a moment. He had a bad habit of losing his train of thought around her. “Oh! Right. Your school articles. Sure, I’d love to.”

He stepped forward, guiding her toward his threadbare couch, and carefully away from his computers. Her eyes lingered on the desks, though, even as they walked. “Is that a police scanner?”

“Yeah,” he said, dismissively. “It’s kinda fun listening in on traffic stops. There are some crazy people on the roads.”

Like those guys in the tank he’d chased down the other day.

MJ grunted, but said nothing else. He motioned for her to sit, and then sat down next to her—a comfortable distance away. She handed over the tablet, and he swiped down the list. The titles made him smile, they were so MJ…

The Rise and Fall of the Stark Empire

Long Term implications of the Blip

The Department of Damage Control: Necessary Evil or Government Overreach?

VPNs: Are They Still Enough?

Do the Sokovia Accords Still Matter?

One made him pause.

Who is the Spider-Man?

“This is…a wild list of subjects. You really follow the news!” he covered, trying to keep his eyes off the last title.

“I try,” MJ said quietly. He could feel her gaze on him.

He made a point of scrolling back up and tapping on the one about Stark Industries. Skimming the first few paragraphs, he nodded. “This is really well researched. Did you speak to people on the inside?”

“Some of the former employees would talk to me, others I had to dig through interviews.”

“This is great work,” Peter said, honestly impressed.

“I’ve been following yours, too,” MJ replied.

Peter froze. It took a moment for his voice to function, so he covered it by pretending to read more of the article. “My—my work?”

She held up her phone and pointed to a Daily Bugle article about Spider-Man. “Photo credit: Peter Parker.”

“Oh!” He nodded. “That. Right.”

“You never mentioned you’re a photographer.”

Peter forced a grin. “It’s just a side hustle, kinda thing. Mister Jameson is—well, he’s an ass, but, he pays well.”

“You specialize in photos of Spider-Man.”

He shrugged. “Gotta give the boss what he wants.”

“You manage to get a lot of photos of him,” she pressed.

“Just lucky,” Peter demurred. “Turns out the deli is pretty close to one of Spider-Man’s usual routes through the borough. I spend my lunch and dinner breaks on Delmar’s roof, waiting. Most days it’s a waste of time.”

“Mmm,” MJ nodded. Her expression was indecipherable. “I’d love to talk to you about it, can we…I mean, are you free for lunch?”

Peter’s stomach flipped over. Was his tongue going numb? Bad idea, Peter. Bad, bad, bad idea!

“I, uh…I mean…I mean, won’t your boyfriend get upset if I—?”

He hated the way she made his voice squeak. He sounded like a teenager, again.

MJ shook her head. “He’s…out of town. As usual. He travels for work. Ned’s at work. So…I’m all alone. I thought, maybe…”

Say no. Say no! She’s already suspicious about you! “Sure! I’d love—love to go to lunch.”

God, how stupid are you, Parker? He chided himself. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Peter wasn’t sure what was wrong with him. Intellectually, he knew that MJ was better off without him. His life was too perilous, and she would be in too much danger if they were together. Besides, she didn’t remember him anyway. She was safe. Things were better off the way they were.

So, why was he sitting in this bistro, waiting for her to arrive for their lunch meeting? The lunch meeting that had started as a once in a while thing, then became a weekly thing, and now was a several times a week thing? What the hell was wrong with him?

All those thoughts disappeared when he saw her coming. He spotted her hair first, just over the banister, then saw her come around the corner.

And, that’s when his day stopped in its tracks. MJ had very obviously been crying. Peter stood as she approached.

“Sorry I’m late,” she muttered, sitting down quickly.

“What’s wrong? What’s happened?” Peter asked quietly.

“It’s nothing.”

Peter put on his best empathetic expression. “You can tell me anything. You know that.”

MJ looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “Harry…Harry’s been cheating on me.”

“What?” Peter asked, eyes widening in surprise. How stupid was Harry to do something like that?

“All those trips out of town,” MJ shrugged, trying to laugh it off and failing miserably. “Turns out it wasn’t always work. He’s been seeing someone else since we were in college.”

“Oh, MJ, I’m so sorry…” Peter started to reach across the table, but quickly stopped himself before she noticed.

“You know what?” MJ sniffled. “Who cares? As far as I’m concerned, Harry’s ceased to exist.”

“If there’s anything I can do—”

“We can have lunch, and forget this every happened,” MJ said definitively.

Peter nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, we can do that.”

MJ’s suspicions about Peter were getting stronger and more obvious. He did his best to deflect them and tamp them down, but she was relentless. He wasn’t surprised. He expected it. He’d even started enjoying the cat-and-mouse game they seemed to playing out. Whether she really suspected that he was Spider-Man, or was just sensing his general secretiveness, he couldn’t say, even after so many weeks.

He longed to tell her everything, but that was still out of the question. His recent visit to May’s grave had only reinforced his conviction that MJ and Ned had to be kept at arm’s length. Ned’s work schedule helped a great deal. They barely had time to see each other, anyway.

MJ, on the other hand, seemed to carve out time even on the busiest of days to keep tabs on Peter. Their friendship—renewed friendship, from his point of view—had only deepened since the breakup. She was spending more time with Peter than ever.

“Hello, Peter.”

Right on cue. Peter cut the feed on his monitor and turned, finding MJ’s head poking through his—still broken—door. He really need to call the super again and get that fixed. “Hi!”

She stepped inside. They were long past visitor’s boundaries. She more or less had the run of his apartment—and he hers—but he made sure she never saw anything incriminating.

“You keep very odd hours.”

Cat.

Peter smirked. “Have you been stalking me, again?”

Mouse.

“Of course, what else am I going to do in my free time?”

“You could find the screwdriver I lent you last month, which you lost.”

Cat.

“I didn’t lose it. I’ve just temporarily forgotten where it is.”

Mouse.

Two could play this game. She made a leading comment. He deflected back at her.

“You work all day, and then you’re out all night.”

“Lot of errands to run. Lot of dumpsters to dive into.”

“I’m fairly convinced that you’re not a male escort.”

“Good to know.”

“Though, you’ve got a great body.”

Peter blushed. “Um, thanks. I think.”

“Yet, you don’t have a gym membership, and even if you did, you don’t have time to go to one.”

Cat.

He rolled his eyes dramatically, making a show of deflecting her observations. “So, I’m really busy, I don’t go to the gym, and I’m not a male escort. But, you think I might be…”

“Spider-Man.”

Peter blinked, and tried not to show exactly how dry his mouth had suddenly become. He flashed back to the bridge in Prague.

MJ, I—

Am Spider-Man.

What?

That’s what you were going to say, that you’re Spider-Man.

No…

He was slightly better equipped to conceal his identity this time, at least, he hoped. “That’s flattering. Really. I mean, I’d love to be a hero like him. But, I’m just a deli clerk. Sorry to disappoint you.”

“You didn’t disappoint me,” MJ said. She pulled her phone from her pocket and opened an app. “In fact, when I put the camera on the ledge to watch your window, I was convinced that I was crazy and all I was going to see was the side of the building. But, then…”

She turned the phone around, and Peter saw himself, swinging from his window in his red and blue suit, starting his nightly patrol. He froze, unable to speak. The only sound in the apartment was the hum of his computers.

The cat had caught the mouse, after all.

He swallowed thickly.

“Aren’t you going to say something?” MJ asked softly.

Peter’s vision blurred a little, but he blinked it away. This couldn’t happen. He knew that. He’d been fooling himself for a long time, but…no.

“Even if I was Spider-Man…which I’m not,” he said quietly, keeping his eyes firmly on his image in the phone screen. “I couldn’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

He couldn’t meet her gaze. If he looked into her eyes, he’d tell her everything, and he knew where that road led. He couldn’t go down that road ever again.

“Spider-Man has a lot of enemies. Anyone he cares ab—anyone he knows would be in danger. For their own safety, they can never know who Spider-Man is. I’m sorry.”

MJ lowered the phone, and looked away awkwardly. “I…I get it.”

“I’m sorry, MJ,” he murmured stiffly.

“It’s okay. I really do get it. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that.”

She stepped closer. Peter stood his ground. He couldn’t have moved if he’d tried.

“We don’t ever have to talk about this, again,” she said. “We can pretend this never happened. I haven’t shown this to Ned. I’ll delete it.”

Peter nodded.

She reached out and touched his arm. “I don’t want anything to change between us.”

He shook his head. “It won’t.”

“Ned and I have a gift card to Steffano’s. You want to come with us? If…you’re not busy tonight.”

Appreciating the change in subject, he huffed a laugh. “I’ve never been able to afford that place.”

MJ smiled. “Us either. Hence the gift card. Please…come to dinner with us. We don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to talk about. Please?”

Peter couldn’t say no to her most days. He probably couldn’t now, either. “O-okay.”

“You’re not busy?”

He shook his head, glancing at his monitors. “Nothing that can’t wait.”

“Good,” she said, gently rubbing his upper arm. “Um, there’s a dress code—”

“I have a suit. It’s a little dusty, but, I have a suit.”

It had been awkward for a while, but the game had resumed a few days later. Peter didn’t complain. He enjoyed it, strangely enough. Somehow, the fact that MJ knew the secret made it easier. They could verbally spar more freely, without him feeling like he was lying to her.

It was nice to have someone to talk to, even if their conversations were so circumspect as to be indecipherable to anyone else.

Lunches had shifted into dinners. They usually fit them in between his work hours and nightfall, so he could slip out afterward to go on patrol.

“You know, you’re not on social media, at all,” she said without preamble, while he was tossing his apron in the hamper.

He smiled. “Did you find anything interesting this time, scouring the Internet for my face?”

“As a matter of fact…”

Peter wasn’t sure why his Spider sense was suddenly tingling, but—

“A friend of mine from high school, Betty Brant, sent me a bunch of photos I didn’t have.”

MJ turned her tablet so that he could see the screen. A group photo from Venice was displayed, showing most of the class by one of the canals. Peter was behind everyone and slightly off to the side. She swiped left, and there was one of him and Ned in front of their sophomore year science project.

Peter said nothing. He honestly should have seen this coming.

“I think we need to talk, Peter,” MJ said. She didn’t seem angry, exactly, but she wasn’t happy.

He didn’t try to deny anything. That would be pointless and insulting to her intelligence. Still, it was going to be a difficult discussion.

Maybe it was time.

“It’s going to take a while to explain,” he said simply.

MJ didn’t argue. “We can talk over dinner. We’ll get a table in the back so we can be alone.”

Nodding, defeated, Peter crooked a thumb toward the bathroom. “I need to take a shower. I smell like deli meat.”

“I’ll be right here,” MJ said, sitting down at his desk. He’d already turned off the monitors, but…if she looked, he wouldn’t say anything.

Silently, he gathered his clothes and retreated to the bathroom. He kept his shower brief, just long enough to get the stench of work off of his skin.

When he came out, he was about to grab his shoes when MJ suddenly spoke.

“Hi, my name is Peter Parker…”

Peter stopped, looking over to see that she’d opened the drawer of his desk. She’d found the note. The note he’d never given her and should have destroyed years ago. But, he hadn’t. He couldn’t. MJ didn’t look up, just kept reading. He idly wondered how many times she’d read it while he’d been in the shower.

“You don't remember me, but I have something to tell you that's going to sound crazy. But it's the truth, and I know you're going to believe me, because you're very good at telling when I'm lying. We used to know each other. We were together.

“But something bad was going to happen to the world. And the only way to stop it was to make everyone forget me, including you. Because I'm not just Peter Parker. I'm Spider-Man. And sometimes, Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. Even if it breaks Peter Parker's heart. Maybe I'll never read this to you. Maybe I'm just writing this for me. Maybe that’s my responsibility, to live alone with the truth. But the truth is I love you. And I hope that deep down, something inside you remembers that you love me too.”

Neither of them spoke. Peter was frozen in place. After what seemed like an eternity, MJ looked up at him. Her eyes were wet, but…she didn’t seem hurt. She seemed…relieved? He wasn’t sure how to proceed.

“Yes,” she said.

“Yes, what?” Peter asked, sheepishly.

“Something inside me does…”