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MJ is not thinking about him.
She is not thinking about Peter Parker.
She's not thinking about him when she's at the store, or when she's walking home, or when she's in the waiting room for her fifth job interview (that will inevitably offer her the job that she will inevitably not accept).
She isn't thinking about him when she gets home and the news is blaring stories of Spiderman, or when her phone buzzes with the Spideytracker app. She isn't thinking about him when she hears laughter and a crackly voice call from inside Ned's room.
She is most definitely not thinking about him when her boyfriend shows up with dinner in hand. Not when he's kissing her cheek and then her neck. Definitely not when he kisses her lips, after, and she doesn't know whether to tell him that she apparently kissed Spiderman while being mind-controlled.
She doesn't tell him. He lays out tacos for them on paper plates and yells for Ned.
And yes, maybe MJ is withholding again, but in her defense, her love life just jumped out of the general vicinity of normal, and then web-swung to the other side of the world.
In the morning, she waits in the hallway for her sixth job interview, the floor to ceiling windows casting bright sunlight across the space. Forty seventh floor, the view almost dizzying.
And she thinks — How can she not remember?
The spell is good. Because she has the broken black dahlia necklace, and she has bits and pieces that don't add up strewn all across her college experience — How, for one, did she find out that the roof of Midtown High was accessible? When exactly did she and Ned become friends? — But still, she can't remember him. And there's this prickling feeling in the back of her ribcage, in the back of her head. His mask-messed up hair and the subtle upward flick of his lips every time he sees her now, while he's visiting Ned. Like her heart is a little bruised, if not a little broken.
She wants to say something. Something like, you don't deserve this, Peter. You deserve to be remembered.
Not that she knows him well enough to say a thing like that definitively.
The door opens to the interview. It's a big jet company, and she didn't want to apply here, but Ned convinced her anyway. God forbid someone want to do some good in this day and age, rather than be part of some inevitably damaging capitalist machine. God forbid —
A screech sounds outside.
Both her and the interviewer turn to look at the window, just as Spiderman hits the glass and sticks to it with his hands and feet. He's fighting something, always fighting something. He crawls across the glass, and some lizard creature comes swinging in a circle towards him. He rolls out of the way, and then he's looking in through the window.
And their eyes meet. The whites of his eyes widen, and she can see him smile under the mask. She knows what it looks like, his smile. He winks, one eyes turning wholly black for a second, and then rolls back, and leaps back into the fray.
MJ spins to the recruiter. "I'm sorry." She blurts out. "I can't do this."
She pulls her jacket off the chair, and runs down the hallway to the elevator.
When she gets home, she closes the door with her back, and leans against it to catch her breath.
Ned looks up from the couch and frowns. "You alright?"
"Fine."
She's going insane actually. She's about to find some yellow wallpaper to pull at. She's about to murder an old lady with an axe. And hell, she needs to read something more recent, because all her references are dated as hell right now.
"Peter's coming over in a bit." Ned says casually.
Her voice is clipped and short when she replies. "Okay."
"Are you sure you're alright?"
She's interrupted having to answer by the handle on the door turning, and she knows without looking that it's her boyfriend. He's the only one who always waltzes right in.
She stands back as he opens the door — and because of course he is, Peter Parker is right behind him.
They both smile at her, saying hi. She tries her best to smile back, like everything's fine.
Peter frowns at her a bit, like he caught it. Which he would, based on their history. Or maybe it's wishful thinking on her part, and he didn't catch anything.
She contemplates, briefly, jumping out the window and fleeing. But Peter would probably jump out after her. Catch her with a web. He's Spiderman, after all.
Her boyfriend goes straight for a kiss and a hug.
Peter pushes past them with a low cough. He goes into Ned's room without a look back. MJ tries not to look at him over her boyfriend's shoulder. Not to think about him at all.
I love you.
I've tried to live without you but I can't.
She closes her eyes tight in the hug so she doesn't watch him go.
The next night, a man who is mostly a rhinoceros rampages through Brooklyn Bridge Park. Spiderman is caught on the news cameras, pulling civilians from the river to safety.
MJ sits in front of the TV with her legs curled up to her chest, her arms around them. And she can feel her heart rate spike every time he nearly gets hit by something, and she wishes she could just get up and change the channel, maybe then her heart would stop thundering, but she's paralyzed, and all she can do is watch.
It's not just Peter, either. It's that she's always thought of herself as a rational creature (thank you, Jane Austen), but the feelings she's having now are anything but rational. They aren't logical. They don't add up.
Two plus two is four. In calculating terminal velocity at normal air pressure, buoyant pressure is negligible. The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. She does not know him and she cannot love someone she does not know.
Granted, maybe she knows Spiderman, and she can care for Spiderman, but this heart-stopping feeling is just...
Her younger self, she reasons, dated Peter for about half a year. Her younger self apparently already knew he was Spiderman, or had guessed it to some extent, before they got together. That means that it's possible that he's just - she's just -
She doesn't want to say it's just Spiderman but maybe there's a part of her that just really likes and will always really like Spiderman. That's gotta be it, right? The superhero thing? That's why he's, like, messing with her head now.
On TV, the news helicopter circles closer. Spiderman is webbing Rhinoman (hopefully that's just a Daily Bugle moniker) to the harbor. But he swipes out, one last time before the web wraps around him fully, and Peter gets hit squarely in the torso, throwing him back into the street.
MJ's fingers tighten around her blanket.
"Did you see that?" Ned calls out from his bedroom, the door wide open.
"Yeah."
"That's gotta hurt." He mutters, hushed. "There's no way that didn't injure him."
Ned knows everything. Remembers everything. Doesn't have to worry about strange and deeply awkward feelings like the ones she has. She would resent him if she wasn't truly happy for him to have his best friend back.
MJ gets to her feet and dials his number. Peter picks up on the first ring.
"Hey," MJ says quickly, "I saw the news, you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"Where are you?"
"Um..." His voice is a little distant. "A roof."
"What do you mean a roof?"
"Like the top of a building —'
"You're hurt."
"I'm fine, it's just a few ribs."
"A few... Come here."
"Wh - what?"
"To the apartment." She pulls open her window.
"Your apartment?"
"No, Flash Thompson's —yes, my apartment!"
"Okay," he chuckles, and she can hear his smile through the phone line, "okay, okay. I'm coming."
She calls Ned over, and stands at the window. Peter swings around a nearby building two minutes later. He lands so lightly on the fire escape, he seems weightless.
"Your suit." She says, backing up as he's climbing through the window. It's ripped in places, bloody and scratched.
"It's fine. I'll stitch it back up."
"Take off your mask." She doesn't know why she says it. There isn't any reason to.
But he obeys, ripping it off. His eyes are black under it, her face bruised. She bites down a wince.
Ned walks out of his room with Advil. "Dude." He says. "You look like shit."
Peter grunts. "Thanks, I appreciate that." He stumbles.
MJ steps forward to catch his arm, and swings it over her shoulders. "Sit down."
She helps him over to the couch. He slumps back against the cushions. She gets up to go around the kitchen counter, and digs inside the cupboards for their old first aid kit.
Ned brings over a bottle of water. Peter whispers a thank you.
"You've been doing this by yourself for four years, huh?"
"It was fine." Peter tries to say it lightly, but it comes out just as depressing as it is. MJ's hands tighten around the cupboard door handle.
"Liar." Ned adjusts a pillow behind him. "Just sleep here, man. I know that super healing can take time."
"You guys won't..." She feels his eyes on her back for a second. "You don't have guests to worry about?"
"Nah, not tonight. Or tomorrow morning. We'll lock the door in case anyone does show up, so we have a minute to wake you. Just sleep, man." The sound of Ned patting his leg. "It's not like we'd let you go home by yourself when you're hurt."
"Right."
MJ finally tracks it down. It's not expired yet, thankfully. She grabs a frozen bag of peas from the freezer, and brings everything over into the TV area.
Peter takes the peas with another whispered thank you.
She sits on the armchair beside them to open up the first aid kit.
"Who needs Night Nurse?" Ned jokes.
"Her name can't actually be Night Nurse." MJ says.
"It is, actually." Peter says. His voice is a little thick, almost drowsy. "And get this... she and Luke Cage dated, and she and Daredevil dated."
"No way." Ned gasps. "That's gotta make Defenders meetings awkward."
"Nah, Luke Cage is with Jessica Jones now. Also, I don't know how much they still do those."
"They totally do. I saw a video of Daredevil and Jessica Jones beating the shit out of some guy in tandem, like, last week."
"That's just the two of them." Peter closes his eyes.
"Okay, guys, hold on. Kiss, Marry, Kill. Daredevil, Iron Fist, Luke Cage."
MJ narrows her eyes at him. "How old are you?"
"Hey man, Peter totally missed seasons 18 to 21, so we gotta do some seasons 18 to 21 things."
"There's a non-zero chance that Daredevil can hear me," Peter mutters, "so I'm gonna say not killing Daredevil."
"Kiss or marry Luke Cage," MJ tosses out. "Obviously."
"That is one handsome dude." Ned agrees.
Peter chuckles, the sound sleepy.
And if they're awake late into the night, the lights of the apartment all on and visible from the street, Ned's laughter drifting out of the window — well. It's worth the sleep deprivation the next day, is all.
It becomes a thing, Peter spending the night on the couch when he gets injured. So when she comes home late one night from a party and finds him on the couch, she goes about her nightly routine without blinking.
Her feet ache like anything. Her head's still a little dizzy from the lights, and she's still more than a little annoyed by her friends who totally ditched her.
Peter shifts up when she bustles around the kitchen, and she catches sight of the Hot Girls 4 Zohran t-shirt he's wearing. Ned's, probably. Hers is in the wash.
"Hey, MJ." He scrunches up his eyes against the kitchen light. "You alright?"
"Hey, yeah."
She dumps her heels by the door. Torture devices, those things. She can't believe she let her friend talk her into wearing them. And she was hoping her boyfriend would carry them for her, but he got caught up with some old friends and she ended up leaving without him.
"How was the party?"
"It sucked." She says flatly, turning back to face him with a Liquid Death can in hand.
He frowns. "I'm sorry." And he probably really is, because as she's learning, he's just like that.
Peter would probably carry her heels for her, she thinks. And then shuts that line of thought down immediately, because it is so dangerous.
"Yeah. Well. Whatever." She nods at his hand. "What's that?"
"Oh." He chuckles, lifting it up — a postcard. "It's a postcard from Jean. She's somewhere in some small town in... Washington, I think? Looks like the Pacific Northwest, anyway."
"Ooh. I've always wanted to go. Would love a small town where —
"— something isn't quite right." He huffs a laugh. At her wide eyes, he backpedals. "I just... I was just thinking the same thing, is all."
She nods and bites her lip.
"Love Twin Peaks." He mutters, looking at the postcard.
She does too. She wonders if they watched it together, and she just doesn't remember.
"You think she's going to be playing detective?" MJ jokes. "Investigating the thing that isn't right?"
"Jean?" He shakes his head with a smile that's almost fond. Unbelievably generous, she thinks, for someone who nearly killed him and half the city. Who possessed her body and apparently taunted him with it. "Nah. If anything, she's going to go be the thing that isn't right."
She smiles. And then starts laughing, when Peter starts laughing, because it's somehow funnier when you think about it the second time.
And as if the world isn't hostile enough, she's walking home from her new job (for now) that weekend when she gets caught behind a fight.
A man dressed like a tarantula - seriously, what is with all the animal people in this city? - is on a van, speeding through East 31st at full speed, and Peter is swinging from the side of one glass skyscraper to the other, chasing after him.
And they reach her vicinity - the van takes a screeching turn around a corner, smashing into some cars that go skidding right at her, debris flying right over her head - and then she's too close to run.
She braces for impact —
"MJ!"
— and she's in the air.
She's clinging on to Spiderman for dear life before he deposits her in a nearby alleyway.
"MJ, oh my God. Are you alright?" He draws back and his hands comes up to her cheeks, his voice desperate, out of breath. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine." But her voice shakes.
"Yeah?" The debris caught her clothes and her hands, so she's covered in dirt and dust now. He draws her hair out of her face. The eyes of his suit narrow, and she knows his suit tech is inspecting her all over. He wipes dust away from her cheek, from her forehead, his touch delicate and careful. "Are - you sure?"
"I'm okay. Peter," she steps back and snaps, "I'm fine."
He realizes, suddenly, that he's too close. He jerks away. "Right - okay." His hands hover in the air for a second. "Take the subway, alright? Just — get to safety."
"Okay."
"Okay."
And she hears a thwip, and then he's gone, leaving her heart pounding in her ears and her hands still trembling. She wrenches her eyes shut for a second, before she takes off towards the subway.
She thinks about texting him, I'm sorry for snapping at you. It's not your fault. It kind of is your fault, actually, because you were being really overwhelming and I'm really overwhelmed right now. But she doesn't.
Instead, she goes to her boyfriend's apartment.
When she gets there, he's already talking to her as she puts her keys on the entry table. He's behind his PS5, chattering away, when he notices that she hasn't taken off her shoes or tossed her bag aside. He stands from the couch, turning to look at her
"Listen," she says slowly, "it's..."
And, well. MJ never thought she'd be the, it's not you, it's me, person, but she can't be the, I still have feelings for my ex who was wiped from my memory and is also Spiderman, person, so here she is. Living cliche and all.
When she comes out of her bedroom the next morning, The Punisher is in her living room, a maskless Spiderman beside him.
Which, she lives with Ned Leeds. Stranger things have been in her living room at 8 AM.
"Hey, Frank." She makes a beeline for the fridge.
He doesn't greet her back, just raises a hand in a half wave and a grunt.
Ned blanches. "Wait, you guys have met?"
"Yeah, Spidey brought his girlfriend around back when Jean Grey was after her."
The Spidey in question raises his hands. "No, no, no. I'm not — she has a boyfriend."
MJ raises an eyebrow, clicks her tongue. "Not anymore, actually." She clicks the espresso button on the coffee machine. It begins to buzz.
"What, since when?" Ned says, at the same time as Peter says, "Wait, what?"
"Yesterday." MJ replies, loud and airy. "Can we talk about literally anything else? Like why you guys are in our living room right now?"
Peter takes a moment to catch on. He's too busy staring at her.
"Um. Right, sorry. We've just realized we've been tracking the same gang, and we kinda need your guys' help. Both of you. But I know - it's dangerous, I just want to make sure we get them without killing them." - He looks pointedly at Frank - "And without doing too much damage." His gaze is pleading when it meets hers. "But if you guys want out, obviously, I'll find some other way, it's just that I have a fraction of one of their weapons, and I don't think I can do it on my own."
It's courting trouble. But there's a part of her — maybe every part of her — that's always liked trouble.
This is also, she notes, the first time Peter has ever directly asked either of them for help.
"Of course. Anything for you bro." Ned shrugs. "But be prepared, man. You can't save everyone."
At the exact same time, MJ and Peter say, "But you have to try."
And both of them freeze.
Peter gives her a look out of the corner of his eye, soft and searching. His mouth quirks up into a half-smile.
Which is rude. She's still trying not to think about him. She's been trying not to think about the way he had cradled her face earlier when he saved her from the wreckage in Manhattan; like she was something precious. Something delicate and beautiful.
Not things she ever thought she'd want to feel, and yet.
"Alright." Frank says, getting to his feet. "Let's hope you two don't regret it."
She doesn't regret it.
Until she's on the street, tablet in hand, following the gang as they cut through Bed-Stuy with bullets. Daredevil, Frank, and Peter are swinging and running around the group of them, webs and bullets flying.
She's interfering with their comms as best she can from as far away as she can reasonably be. The edge of an alley between a laundromat and a Mexican restaurant, peeking around the corner. They're a little out of her reach, so she has to leave her spot. Has to inch a bit closer —
And then there are bullets coming right at her.
But she hears a thwip, and a zip, and a thud. Warm arms engulf her and swing her into the air, and away.
She blinks. She's on the rooftop.
Peter is in front of her, so close she can see his eyes through the white.
But then he coughs, and she stops breathing.
He stumbles back — bleeding — and she tries to catch him.
"Peter —"
"MJ." He chokes out, before he stumbles back and falls to the ground.
"Peter!"
She drops to her knees. Her hands scramble to his torso. Two bullet holes in his left side, and he's bleeding. She puts both of hands on the wound, presses down as hard as she can.
Pressure. She's supposed to put pressure.
She taps her comms. "Frank —"
"We saw. Pointy ears is on his way."
She keeps her hands where they are. Scans his face, and that goddamn mask. That she can't take off right now to see if he's okay, because it's too risky.
"Peter." She whispers.
"Spiderman." He rasps out. "Identity, remember?"
"Spiderman. It's gonna be okay. I got you."
"Y - yeah." But the strength in his voice tapers off into a choke. "I - know."
A moment later, a flash of red hops over from the neighboring rooftop — Daredevil.
"I've got him." Daredevil says softly.
He sounds familiar, but she can't think about that. Can't think about anything but Peter. Can't relax her hands, pressing against his chest.
"I've got him," Daredevil says again. "MJ, right? Let me."
There's a part of her that wants to be stubborn and say no, say don't take him away, say I'm coming with you, but she can't speak.
Daredevil gathers Peter up in his arms.
And yes, it's Peter, and not Spiderman, because once she knew Peter, he stopped being Spiderman to her entirely, and he'll never just be Spiderman again, always, only Peter. Now that she's seen him, now that she knows him, she can't ever unsee him. And she knows with absolute certainty that that's how it was before, too. She was stupid to think it'd be any other way.
Daredevil grabs a fire escape railing, pulls himself up, and then leaps over the end of it with Peter now on his back.
She blinks, and they're gone.
Peter calls her and Ned later, when they're home.
He's in the Night Nurse's office, laid back against a hospital bed. He asks if they're okay, as if they're the ones who got shot.
He thanks them profusely for helping him catch the gang. Ned chuckles and fills up the silence, because MJ isn't saying anything at all.
She just finishes her chores for the week in total silence, afterwards.
Ned eyes her from the couch. "You're freaking me out, you know."
"I'm fine." She says, dragging the mop across the floor.
"You're mopping." He points out.
She never mops. She always makes Ned do it. Apparently she's a nervous cleaner.
Sometimes she wonders if, when she forgot Peter, she forgot a part of herself too.
Sometimes it's like she's discovering herself anew.
By the time she's done, it's dark out. It's dim in the apartment, since both of them forgot to turn on the lights. Ned is passed out in front of old Buzzfeed Unsolved videos still playing on the TV. It's the Peter Quill episode, the hosts lobbing theories about alien abduction back and forth. The TV is the only source of light, casting colors and sound across the quiet apartment.
The window swishes open.
Peter rolls in, and gets to his feet. "Hey," he says, straightening up.
MJ freezes where she is, by the counter. "Hi."
His eyes flick to Ned. "Good." He mutters. "He needs that nap."
"Yeah."
MJ goes over to the closet and puts the cleaning supplies away.
Peter turns towards the TV. "Oh, I love this episode. I met him in space, you know. He really did get abducted by aliens, so they were right —"
"I thought you were going to die." She says quietly.
He turns back to her, falling silent.
"You were... Are you... okay?"
He slips his mask off, like he knows that if he didn't, she would ask him to. And his face comes into view, his hair everywhere, his expression heart-wrenchingly earnest. God, maybe he should have kept it on.
"I'm fine." He holds his arms out. "I'm okay."
She can't decide whether she wants to cry or laugh.
"You stepped in front of a gun. Again." She takes a step back, ultimately. "Don't do that."
"I... can't promise that."
"You have to. It was stupid, and it was risky. I would've been fine if you just yelled —"
"I had to. I was the one who brought you in on it, I had to." He holds his hands out again, and shrugs, like he's helpless. "MJ, I..."
"Don't." Because she's afraid he's about to say, I love you, again.
He snaps his mouth shut. She feels bad instantly.
"Listen," she says, slowly, "there's just - there's a lot of people in this city that care about you and rely on you. Don't... don't scare them." Because she can't say, don't scare me.
But he smiles, a little. Maybe catches her meaning anyway. "I'll try."
"Thank you."
He nods.
"There are spare clothes on Ned's desk." She nods towards it. "So you don't have to leave as Spiderman."
"Oh." His eyes soften, molten. "Thanks."
She goes into her room after that. But she makes her way over to her window after she hears the door click shut. Rests her head on folded arms. Watches Peter and his shadow go down the street in one of Ned's hoodies, under the light of neon signs and the half-moon.
Ned starts keeping Peter's spare clothes in his closet, after that. They come in handy, once or twice.
Other traces of Peter start to fill up the apartment too, the more time he spends there. Legos on the shelf by the window, for him and Ned to make. Certain snacks that he loves in the kitchen. Extra cans of Liquid Death, and pizza delivery menus from places he swears are better than the ones they usually go to. Extra first aid kits too, that MJ checks and restocks regularly. New bits and pieces of his suit in Ned's room, where the Spider-board is now replaced with Spider-suit ideas.
He comes over for their shared Christmas, sits on the floor in between quick dips out of the window to save the odd cat in a tree, the odd car stuck in snow.
He's over before their New Year's party, too. Helping them set up lights and drinks, locking away Ned's board. Moving tables and couches like it's no sweat.
And he misses the entirety of the party, because of course he does. He has to go fight some city-ending threat that just happens to attack the city an hour before the ball drops.
MJ pretends she isn't checking her phone the whole party, just in case.
Everything turns out fine. But by the time Peter swings back in, it's 4 AM. Everyone's gone, or asleep. MJ's cleaning up broken glasses and Ned's dragging trash bags across the floor. Peter takes the trash instead, and sweeps the floor. He picks errant confetti out of her hair. He helps Ned move his board back out and drags the couch back into place.
They're all collapsed on the floor by the time the sun comes up.
Peter tells them about the fight. The New Avengers. Congressman Bucky Barnes was there, apparently.
"Next time you see him," MJ says, sprawled out on the carpet. "You need to ask him about his policies."
"His policies?" Ned scoffs. "Dude, you need to ask him where he was in November 1963. There is no way that man didn't kill JFK."
MJ expects Peter to laugh. So does Ned — so when he doesn't, they both turn their heads to look at him.
And he's sound asleep, his head on a pillow made of his suit, turned slightly towards the two of them.
"Man," Ned says softly, "he didn't even get to enjoy the party."
Her heart twists in her chest.
Because he's so good.
After Ned and her ex's insistence on getting a prestigious job somewhere and just looking the other way regarding her moral requirements — she'd been starting to think that she was being too stubborn. She was asking too much of the world, to want to do something good. Maybe she was being unrealistic. Maybe she was being unreasonable.
But she watches a little Spiderman blink across a map of Brooklyn when she's on the subway in the morning, and she doesn't feel unreasonable anymore. She wants to dig her heels back into the mud, and say, no. The way she used to when she was a kid, and being stubborn was her absolute nature. She wants to be that girl again, the one who never doubted herself. Who said, I am not moving. You move.
"How'd you remember?" She asks Ned, one evening, when she's sketching on the couch.
He blinks at her from his armchair. "I don't know." He says. "I just did. I remembered our secret handshake, before anything else. I guess erasing memory doesn't include muscle memory."
She nods. "Right."
"And... I don't know for sure, but I feel like erasing memory doesn't necessarily erase feelings, either. Why would it, you know? I mean..." He backtracks at the look on her face. "I don't mean it couldn't have erased yours - sometimes feelings and memory are intertwined, of course..."
MJ pushes off the couch, deciding she needs a drink.
She finds a liquor store half a block from their old high school, and she stops outside the store, looking up at the sunset-pink sky.
A few moments later, she's on the Midtown High roof, sitting with her legs folded up on the concrete, watching the sky dim and change color with the sunset. The wine bottle is a third empty beside her.
All in all, she's in a sad state, and she hopes no one sees her.
Except.
There's a swish, and a thud, and Spiderman lands on the edge of the roof, because of course he does.
He stares at her from his perch, his hands resting between his feet. "...Hey."
"Hey."
She doesn't look at him. He doesn't move; she wonders if it's strange for him to be up here, if he's been up here since high school.
"What are you doing up here?" He asks.
"I'm still mad at you." She blurts out.
He stills. "What?"
"About not telling me." MJ clarifies, her fingers lingering on the neck of the bottle. "I'm still..."
She finally looks at him.
He looks back at her through the eyes of his suit, the black growing thicker than the white.
Then he rips off his mask, hops off the edge, and paces over. When he gets close to her, he holds out his hand. She blinks, and then realizes he's asking for the bottle.
She hands it over.
He drops to sit beside her, and takes a long swig.
"I understand." She says. "But I don't want to."
She understands, because this is the world where the sky opens up and aliens invade, when you're seven years old. This is the world where you turn to dust aged sixteen, and then reappear exactly where you were at the age you were, five years later.
This is the world where dumb heroic superheroes give you up for your dumb safety and then suffer in dumb silence for four years until they're forced to tell you in some dumb convoluted circumstances.
She doesn't say that part.
"I don't want to understand, because it feels like something really big is missing from my past. There's all this stuff that's just gone, and that I never knew I was missing, because you didn't tell me."
"I..." He trails off. "I don't want to just say sorry, again."
"It just sucks."
"Yeah. It does."
"It feels like..." It was important.
And that's the kicker. It feels like it mattered so much. Like there's a hole in her past that she didn't realize was there, and it's sized much larger than just a high school boyfriend. It's the size of courage and stubbornness and honesty and heroism. Things she didn't know she'd been living without. There was a version of her, sixteen and fearless, that fell in love with Spiderman, and wasn't the same afterwards. Because who would be?
"I know it's been hard to wrap your head around." He puts the bottle down between them, and turns to look at her. "And I know it wasn't fair to you guys, what I did, but I really did... I really did ruin your life, MJ. Being associated with me, it ended both of your MIT chances, took away your privacy. Ruined your family's lives too."
They let that sit in the air for a moment.
Then Peter starts talking, telling her all of the other things that happened, the little stuff that popped up and up and up.
When he's done, MJ takes another swig of the bottle. "Well. Did I regret it?"
"What?"
"Me. Younger me, before I forgot. Did she regret it? Ever tell you she wished she'd never met you?"
"No... No, you... said you wouldn't do a thing different."
MJ shrugs. "Then there."
He looks at her thoughtfully.
She thinks - for a second - about leaning forward and kissing him. But no, not now, when she's wine-drunk and thoughtless. He doesn't deserve her thoughtlessness. Not when he's still looking at her like that when he thinks she can't see him.
She lies back on the roof.
Peter looks down at her over his shoulder. "Can I take you home?"
"Drinks and swinging?" There's a very real risk she'll puke on him. "No, thank you."
He laughs. "I was going to call you a taxi."
"As you should." She holds a hand out to him. "Lead the way, my Spider Lord."
He grins down at her, before he takes her hand to pull her up. His whole face is lit up with a dopey smile.
She thinks that it's quite possible she's never wanted to kiss someone so badly in her life.
She thinks the next time they come up here, she won't be drinking.
When summer rolls around again, Peter has to go to space.
According to him and Ned, this isn't the first time.
He just lets them know that there's no transmission in space, so he won't be able to call or come by for a little while. Maybe a few days. Not too long, though. He hugs them both goodbye in their apartment, and she packs him some extra stuff when he's not looking, for him to find later.
MJ tries not to dwell, or worry. She's busy getting adjusted to her second new job, the one she got after dramatically quitting the first one account of their unethical replacement of human creatives with AI. Seriously. Would it kill any major employer in New York to be even mildly up to par?
She's lamenting about it out loud to Ned on the phone. She's in a cafe near her new workplace, waving the hand that's not holding the phone while she waits for her coffee to cool down.
When they both go silent at the same time.
Because the sky is red; blood-red, in a way that can only be apocalyptic. It reflects against the cafe window. And her phone beeps, someone else trying to call her. But she's pushing out of the cafe door, staring at the sky, her arm falling to her side. Strange portals start to open up in the sky, glimpses of broken universes beyond.
Something sounds like a thunderclap, so loud it makes her head hurt. Everyone around her stumbles, too, or cries out.
The thunderclap sounds again. And then they're all caught in a burst of color. Like they all were when she first met Peter again — frozen. Unable to move in a kaleidoscope, the world distorted. Something shining in the air. The cars all frozen on the street, people all trapped in the action of something.
She doesn't how long the world stays like that, hours or days. By the time she can move again, breathe again, the whole world is panicking. Sirens blare around her, people scream.
The sky's turned back to blue. But her hand trembles a little as she lifts her phone back up to call Ned again —
And her eyes catch on a voicemail. Peter 🕷️.
Her blood goes cold.
She lifts the phone to her ear slowly, like she can delay the inevitable.
Hey, MJ. Peter's voice is shaky. It's me. You know it's me. I know you have my number saved as Peter spider emoji. Which you did before, too. It's a secret identity, you know? Not that it matters that much now. Anyway... I...
MJ can't breathe.
You know, this past year, getting closer to you and Ned again, I... it's meant the world to me. You have to know that. I think you do know that.
She takes a deep, shuddering breath, but tears are building up in her throat.
And you know this next part too, but I have to say it... I love you. I know you don't... don't feel that way about me, but that's okay, MJ, really. I'm not trying to make you feel weird or pressured or anything, I'm just, um. I just don't know what's going to happen next, and I don't want to... have any regrets. So yeah, this is me telling you. I still love you. I think I might always love you. I know you think you're cold, or distant, or withholding. But you're not. You think deeply about things, and you never take anything at face value.
She claps a hand over her mouth as the tears begin to stream.
You're smart, and strong, and beautiful, and I know you'll hear that last part and want to ask, and therefore I have value, or something like that, but I just want you to know that I love that about you too. Your beautiful brain, and the way you laugh when you're like, really happy. So just know that... if nothing else... there is - was someone in the world who loves - loved you like that. More than anything. So... yeah. Yeah, that's all. Stay safe. I love you. Bye.
She takes a breath in, but it comes out a sob instead. She calls back, but it doesn't go through. Sends him a text, but it doesn't deliver.
She goes back home, calling him again every hour and texting him again, but nothing goes through, on her phone or Ned's.
A day passes. Then two.
The sky turns green, but the next morning it's back to normal.
Four. Then five, and six, and a week.
Peter doesn't call back.
Life goes on in a pantomime of normal.
She makes breakfast. Ned orders dinner. She goes to book club in a local thriller-themed bookstore. Ned starts frequenting a new Korean-Filipino fusion cafe two blocks away.
She plays the voicemail to herself every night, when she's about to fall asleep.
She hears Ned hacking away at all hours on superhero sighting platforms, for any sign of him anywhere.
She almost forgets the Spideytracker app sound. It's only because it pings once randomly while she's at work, and she has to scramble to get it out of her lab coat strung over her chair, that she remembers what it sounds like.
It's a false alarm, of course.
Another week goes by.
Peter doesn't text, either.
They both pretend they're fine outside of the confines of the apartment. But when they're together at the coffee table, two drinks in, Ned cries. And MJ wishes she could cry too, but something is lodged in her chest and it can't quite get out. All she can do is stare at the black screen of the TV, her pale reflection, and try not to think about Peter, out there in space somewhere, lost and alone.
Worse; she imagines how things might've been if she and Ned had never met him again. That he'd just be gone with no one to remember him.
That hurts more than anything. And not for the first or last time, MJ is desperate to remember.
When she shows up to her first day of work at her third new job, there's a robot waiting for her by the elevator, short and oddly Star Wars-like. She fights the urge to take a picture of it and send it to Ned. But she doesn't, even though this job was his idea. She's signed an NDA.
The elevator zips them up through countless floors, and MJ tries not to spend too much time marveling at the building. She has, after all, a reputation to uphold. It dings at floor 61, and the doors slide open. The robot gestures for her to follow.
When they turn the corner, there's someone waiting for her. The man is chubby, tall, with curling black hair and face she can only describe as kind. And she never describes people as kind - but his warmth is suffusive, and she feels comfortable instantly.
"Hi."
"Hi." He smiles. "You must be MJ. I'm Harold Hogan." He folds his hands together. "But everyone calls me Happy. Come on, I'll show you to your desk."
Working for Stark Industries suits her.
The best part, of course, is that it doesn't feel like selling out. Her primary job is modifying aircraft and spacecraft that the Avengers need.
Those of them that came back from space, anyway.
Because there's more than a few that didn't.
She tries to keep her mind from wallowing. She spends a little extra time in the labs and in the test rooms, running more simulations than is strictly necessary.
Turning to workaholism to cope with grief. Her originality, she thinks, is astounding.
Happy notices pretty quickly that she has an aptitude for the suits and the suit assembly machine. She doesn't tell him, of course, that she's seen all of this tech before in Peter's suit.
One morning, he lets her and the team see the plans for the original Iron Man suit. Iterations of the first few, the blueprints and instructions that started it all.
It's fascinating. And she has ideas for —
Her hand falters while clicking through.
"You alright?" Happy asks.
She doesn't answer the question. "Hey, all of these fail-safes..."
"What about them?" He walks over, putting on his glasses.
"They were built for Pepper Potts." She says, holding a hand out to the screen. "I mean — all of the disaster options, they're all for her. That doesn't make any sense. The suit belongs to him, but all the directions in case of emergency center around... her."
"Hm. That was Tony." Happy takes a step back, taking his glasses off. "Sometimes you love someone so much it makes you insane."
MJ's coworker, watching the interaction, pipes up. "...You ever had that, Happy?"
He frowns a little. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I did."
I think I did too. MJ thinks. I just don't remember it.
As it is, when she sees Peter again, her first instinct is to assume she's hallucinating.
After all, sometimes you love someone so much it makes you insane, et cetera. Her brain is obviously broken from job hunting stress, memory loss, and grief.
That's why Spiderman just leapt out of a spaceship and is swinging several floors above her head in central Manhattan.
It's almost real.
It looks so real, in fact, that hope takes over, and she runs towards the disaster instead of away from it. Even though a part of her is thinking, it can't be.
She makes it within a block of the fight when he sees her. He sees her, and the whites of his eyes widen, and God, it is him.
Just then, the alien monster thing they're fighting shakes its tail out and sends it flying into the side of the building above her, smashing through glass and steel.
Debris begins to fall - she ducks away —
And she's weightless. Spiderman sweeps her up off the street and out of the way so quickly, she barely remembers to scream.
He drops them both down into a roof several blocks from the fight.
He lets go of her. "MJ, are you —"
She throws her arms around his neck. He holds her so tightly her feet just skim above the ground. She feels a pressure on her temple, his lips through his mask.
She pushes him back. "Ned." She says. "He - does he -"
"He knows." Peter's voice. Even through the mask, the familiarity of it makes her tear up. "I saw him, he knows."
"Okay. Okay, go," she says, "I'm okay, they need you up there..."
But he pauses. He stares at her like he's drinking in the image of her, his chest heaving. "What were you doing here?"
"I saw you." She doesn't say, you're alive, how are you alive —
"I'll explain," he says, like he's read her mind. "I'll tell you everything, MJ." He looks to the fight above, curses, and looks back at her. "Just... give me a bit, okay? Stay out of the way, and I'll see you at home. I need to go after these guys."
"Yeah. Yeah go." She wipes her eyes. "Go."
He dashes forward and kisses her head again, a touch so sudden she barely feels it. And he throws out a hand. She hears the zip of web releasing, and then the whoosh of wind as he swings away.
She doesn't go back to the apartment right away. She walks in circles for a bit, to clear her head. Watches the Spideytracker from time to time. Knows when he's there already, but she stays out anyway.
When she is ready, it's dark. She circles back around to her building. Stares at the door, before she goes up.
When she enters, Ned and Peter - still fully in his suit - are standing in the living room mid-conversation. But Ned takes one look at her, and retreats to his room with a last hug to Peter, and an exaggerated yawn.
"Night, guys."
MJ waits until he's gone. She stares at Peter's hands, wringing together.
Ned's door closes behind him.
"Hey -"
"I got your voicemail." She says, flatly.
"Yeah. Yeah, I know. I'm so sorry, MJ, when I sent it, I really thought - except I lived, and then I was stranded without any comms for a long time. And then Captain Marvel —"
"It's fine."
"It... is?"
"Yeah." The word comes out short and final. She inches towards her door. "I'm glad you're okay. I'm just... I'm tired, so I'm gonna..."
He swallows. "Right." He says. "Of course."
"I'll see you tomorrow. Or..." Her eyes flick to Ned's door. She thinks that Ned is going want to keep an eye on Peter, given everything. Maybe she will, too. "Can you sleep here tonight? I know the couch isn't super comfortable, but I..."
"...Yeah." His gaze is heavy on her. "Yeah, of course."
She closes her door behind her and leans against it. She takes a deep breath. Everything's fine and normal, she decides. She's going to sleep. Sleep will fix her.
Except MJ wakes in the middle of the night, breathing heavily. And she's not sure what she dreamed, but suddenly - she's afraid —
She dashes to her door and throws it open —
And he's there.
Peter's lying on the couch, his head propped up on her pillows and his phone in his hand. He sits up as she steps forward, frowning.
"MJ?" He says, his voice scratchy like he's been sleeping. "You okay?" When she doesn't say anything, he gets to his feet, hopping on one foot as he disentangles from his blanket. "Hey, what's —"
She swallows. She covers the distance between them, and pitches forward into his arms. "You're okay."
"Yeah." He wraps his arms around her instantly, his hand coming up to cradle her head. "Yeah, I'm okay. I'm right here."
After a minute, they move away from each other slowly. So slowly, she almost feels him dip forward to rest his forehead against hers.
But he doesn't. Whispers a sorry, instead, and steps back. She shivers from the sudden cold.
She thinks he'll go right back to lie down and sleep, but he doesn't. He turns and goes to the kitchen, opening a cupboard to get a glass and holding it under the tap to fill it up with water. He comes back to her holding it out. She takes it with a grateful nod, and downs it in one go.
"Sorry," she says when she's done, "I just had a bad dream."
"It's okay." His voice is feather soft. He takes the glass and places it back on the coffee table. "I know the feeling."
He sets it down so gently. And she knows how strong he is, has seen him lift bars of steel and dockyard equipment single-handed, carry parts of crumbled buildings and busloads of people in a web, but he's so gentle.
He's so Peter, and he's here.
When he turns back around to her, she surges forward and kisses him.
It's barely a peck. But Peter stares at her like she did something unthinkable. He's silent for so long, she worries she broke him.
Except then he speaks. "You kissed me."
"I did."
And a small smile starts to play on his lips, on the verge of growing. "Why?"
She doesn't answer, opting to kiss him again, instead. And this time, he's prepared for it.
He catches her, wrapping her arm around her waist and holding her close as they kiss, again and again. He tastes like smoke and something sweet and familiar. She tips her head to the side, cradling his face in her hands — and it's the best kiss she's ever had, because he kisses her like he knows how.
It's only when he breaks away that she realizes she's tearing up. She goes to wipe her tears away, but he beats her to it, bringing his free hand to her cheek. One side, then the other.
"Hey." He whispers. "It's okay."
"I missed you." She whispers back.
She tugs his face closer and kisses his forehead, letting her lips rest there for a moment.
"Me too." His eyes flutter shut. "I missed you so much."
She doesn't know if they're talking about now, or before, but it doesn't matter.
He pulls back and kisses her mouth, then the corner of her mouth, and then her cheek, before pulling her tight into a hug. She takes a deep, shuddering breath into his shoulder. Breathes the tears away.
It doesn't matter. All that matters is that she wants him now. And maybe she always did, and just didn't know it. Or maybe there's just something about Peter Parker that will always draw MJ Watson in. Any MJ, at any time, in any life. Memory or no memory.
"There are rules." She says, when they break apart. She goes to the couch, tugging him along.
"Rules - yeah, of course." He's out of breath as he drops down beside her. "Rules are good. Great."
"You tell me everything. Every memory we have, good or bad. Weird or not weird."
"I'll tell you everything." He draws her hair back behind her ear, shaking his head ever so slightly. "Of course."
"You'll text me after every fight. I don't want to just hear what's happening from the news."
"I'll text you after every fight." He repeats.
"You don't tell me you love me —"
"Wait, I..."
"Peter."
"But —"
"Rules."
"I... okay. Okay."
"You didn't let me finish. You don't tell me you love me, until I say it first."
He nods. "Okay."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
She drops her forehead against his. He takes a shuddering breath in, and she puts her hands together behind his neck.
"So?"
"So, what?" He murmurs.
"Got any rules for me?"
"Any..." He huffs. "No. Just - just..." He pulls back. "Stay with me. Promise me we'll always be friends. No matter what?"
She nods, bringing her hands to his cheeks again. "Yeah, I can promise that."
She's sure of it, actually. She knows it now. This isn't going to be like any relationship she's had in college, or after. Peter is not someone she's ever going to be able to put behind her.
She surges forward to kiss him again. He tilts his head to the side, and she slips her hands around his neck and back into his hair.
He lies back on the couch, pulling her along on top of him. His hands skate around her shoulders and bring her closer, sure and steady, and she doesn't remember the first time, any of their first times, but still. It feels like the warmth of the sun melting the winter snow. Like the first sip of a hot coffee.
Like a homecoming.
.
.
.
MJ remembers a school dance, a boy running away, a girl left standing alone in a spotlight.