Chapter Text
It happens again, it’s a Friday night and Michelle is lying in bed scrolling through her phone. Through the thin walls of their apartment she can hear Ned and Peter chatting and laughing on the sofa, she also hears the dull noise of movie that has long been forgotten over their conversation.
Something had shifted during the past month, since Spider-Man had his brush with death and Michelle had spent an hour in a stasis that had rattled her brain. She was acutely aware that at some point Spider-Man had revealed himself to Ned as Peter Parker and in turn revealed he was once his best friend but she couldn’t help but feel that there was more to it than that.
MJ tries not to listen in to their conversations, she can barely make them out most of the time anyway but when she does she hears things that sound odd. She occasionally hears Peter talking about Washington and Venice, she knows in a universe somewhere that he was with them but it’s not one that she can remember. If she listens closely sometimes it sounds like Ned responds with a familiarity of shared memories, but that can’t be possible.
She tries not to listen in, her head pounds as though it will split in two and it’s happening again. The pillow below her head is beginning to feel damp and she realises she is crying again. Ever since being stuck in stasis Michelle finds herself crying, on the subway, in the coffee shop, at home, sometimes mid conversation, it was becoming increasingly embarrassing.
‘Dammit’ she muttered as she wiped at her face with her hands.
MJ swung her legs off her bed and headed into her bathroom, she came face to face with herself in the mirror. The constant headaches had been taking a toll on her over the last two weeks and with the addition of the random crying episodes MJ had never felt less like herself.
When she looked into the mirror she almost didn’t recognise the young woman who looked back at her, her eyes were distant and blank.
She turned on the sink and let the cold water run before splashing it onto her face and taking out some painkillers from the medicine cabinet. She slowly shuffled back into her room looking for her flask of water but finding it empty.
‘Shit.’ MJ whispered into the dark.
-
‘Have you tried kissing her, maybe that will work?’ Ned whispered excitedly.
Peter laughed mirthlessly.
‘Well, kinda but not really.’
‘Wait, what?’
‘Well MJ was Jean and she kind of did something dark and twisted, it was messed up. Then MJ was herself again and she didn’t remember the kiss and she still didn’t remember me and she found the letter that I wrote that I was going to give you guys and I think you know maybe there’s a part of MJ that doesn’t want to remember me, maybe she’s protecting herself the way I wanted to and y’know she told me that she doesn’t love me and so I just think maybe I have to make peace with that.’
The words spilled from Peter’s mouth like he had been injected with a truth serum.
‘Wait, what?!’ Ned repeated. ‘She told you she doesn’t love you? When did she say that? Peter you have to know that isn’t true.’
Peter sighed.
‘It is Ned, and you know what I have made peace with it. Sometimes when you love somebody you have to know when letting someone go is for the best. MJ doesn’t know me, maybe one day we’ll be friends again but it isn’t fair to her to put that kind of pressure on her.’
‘I don’t know man, I mean you two were always destined to be together. You’re Peter and MJ.’
Peter swallowed back the emotion in his throat.
‘We were man. Now I’m Peter and she’s MJ and she has her own life without me. It’s good, I’m good.’ He finished unconvincingly.
His head shoots up from the sofa where he was picking at loosening thread, he hears the creak of floorboard and his eyes catch the very ones he dreams of every night.
‘MJ.’ Her name sounds like something holy and sacred on his lips.
She winces as though caught in the act of eavesdropping.
‘Hey guys,’ she mutters, ‘sorry I just needed to grab some water you guys carry on, pretend I’m not here.’
Peter wishes he could, every time he is in their apartment he’s acutely aware of where MJ is or isn’t, he tries to ignore his spidey-senses and give her the privacy she deserves but sometimes he can’t help it.
‘It’s okay, listen it’s getting late anyways and I shouldn’t keep imposing on you guys like this.’
‘You’re not imposing man, you’re our best friend, mi casa su casa.’ Ned smiled earnestly.
‘Yeah what Ned said.’ MJ mutters as she busied herself in the refrigerator.
Peter could hear the blood coursing through her body and could practically feel the pounding in her head.
‘You feeling okay MJ?’ Peter tried to ask as casually as possible.
‘She’s had these headaches for like two weeks. She said she didn’t want to worry anyone and that she be fine but clearly she isn’t.’
‘Ned!’ MJ grumbled as she held a cold bottle of water to her head, annoyed at Ned’s tattling.
‘You should really go and get that looked at, maybe Jean being in your head twice in the space of a few days did something.’ Peters brows furrowed together, unable to hide the concern and worry.
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Michelle waved off the boys concerns and made the shuffle back to her room eyes closed.
Just before she reached her door Peter called out to her.
‘Hey MJ, please promise me you’ll get it looked at?’
MJ turned around and cracked open one of her eyes, her heart twinged at the look on Peter’s face and it made her want to agree to any promise he asked of her.
‘I will.’ She smiled softly and genuinely before slipping back into the dark solitude of her bedroom and crawling into bed.
-
Two days had passed since promising Peter she would get her headaches checked up and she had kept her promise however the doctor’s tests had come up inconclusive.
Or perhaps not inconclusive but not exactly the answers that Michelle had been hoping for.
The words emotional turmoil circled in her head, yeah she supposed she had been suffering with some emotional turmoil over the last few weeks. She had found out that Spider-Man was her ex-boyfriend who she couldn’t remember but at some point had been totally in love with.
Ex-boyfriend, was the right? She supposed they’d never actually broken up but also they’d never actually been together, whatever, MJ thought it didn’t matter now.
What mattered was finding out what Ned was hiding from her and she had a creeping suspicion that she knew exactly what that was.
‘You know something.’ She states that night as they eat left over noodles on the sofa.
‘I know lots of things.’ Ned replies puzzled, ‘it’s kind of my thing, knowing stuff.’
‘You know something about Peter.’ MJ clarifies.
‘I know that he’s Spider-Man?’
‘Not what I meant.’
And you know it, she doesn’t say that part but Ned can tell she thought it.
‘You remember him don’t you?’ Her voice is quiet and sad.
‘I-‘
‘Please don’t lie to me Ned, just tell me. You remember everything, all the times he was there with us?’
‘Yeah.’ Ned’s voice is also sad.
‘Okay.’
It’s simple, nothing more and nothing less. A weird cloud of emotion wraps itself around them in the room.
‘I’m glad you remember, I’m glad that at least he has you.’
Ned nods in agreement and looks into his container of noodles, spinning them around with his flimsy chopsticks.
‘Maybe-‘
‘Don’t.’ MJ stops him, ‘don’t give him hope, don’t give me hope.’
The air feels thick and MJ can feel one of her headaches starting again, she stand up from the sofa and brushes some invisible crumbs from her jeans. She dumps her half eaten noodles in the trash and makes her way to her room.
‘I thought we were watching Game of Thrones tonight?’ Ned questions with disappointment laced in his voice.
‘Headache,’ MJ winces, ‘sorry Ned.’
With that Michelle moved back into the solace she found in her dark and quiet room. Sat on the edge of her bed was her sketchbook, it had been a while since she had gotten it out. Well a while since she had drawn her snapshot of Ned and Peter.
She had been drawn to it a couple of nights ago, an image she couldn’t seem to shake from her mind itched to be immortalised in lead and paper. MJ opened up her sketchbook and turned to that drawing in particular.
It was Peter, only MJ couldn’t remember ever seeing him quite like this, he was younger but not by much and lighter than she had seen him, crinkles beside both eyes as he smiled so authentically. It took her breath away to see him like this.
Perhaps it was the Peter she knew, whilst she definitely wasn’t the MJ he knew could the same be said for Peter too? The version she had seen more and more often over the last few weeks seemed solemn and perpetually sad, he walked around with invisible burdens sat on each shoulder. The Peter in her picture was happy and loved, she wonder when the last time somebody told him they loved him.
The thought immediately sprung a pain to MJ’s chest.
‘I don’t love you.’
She had said that, she had thought about what she had said a lot over the last few weeks. Somehow it didn’t feel quite right anymore, it felt like a stranger had taken her place and forced her to say those words. She could feel this time that it was happening again, she didn’t hide from the tears that trickled down her face and onto the paper in her lap.
MJ pushed the sketchbook to one side and buried her head into her pillows. She knew the reasons behind her tears this time, it was Peter.