Chapter Text
MJ doesn’t think that anyone is forgettable. It’s almost a tenet of hers at this point. Sure, she’s forgotten strangers on the subway, customers from her shitty pre-college job, and blurry faces from late nights at MIT parties. Just because she doesn’t remember them doesn’t mean they’re forgettable. That being said, there are certain people who are more unforgettable than others. MJ, a certified people watcher, likes to think of them as impression makers.
Peter is almost forgettable. She sees him for the first time in her own home, talking to Ned about Spider-Man—one of the many ways to get her best friend fired up—and holding a bouquet of flowers. Friendly neighbor. He stumbles through his own name, and he looks at her in a way she can’t describe. It tugs at her mind. His brown eyes, blown wide like he’s awestruck that he’s here at a too loud and too drunk housewarming party. He runs out as soon as Paul shows up. If MJ had any less self-control, she might have asked him to stay. To sketch him. People in crisis and all that. But she doesn’t because there are enough strangers in her house and the one person she actually likes here, Ned, is distracted trying to stop Samantha and John from knocking his Star Wars replicas off the table so they can dance on it.
“MJ!” Ned calls. “Help me.”
She shrugs, “This party was your idea, your problem.”
She goes to talk to Paul, to tell him she’s going back to her room, maybe invite him with her since he was being sweet tonight. Seeking her out throughout the night to make sure she’s having fun. He’s distracted now too. Another stranger has declared a shotgun race, and she watches Paul climb onto an already cramped fire escape to join. She hopes Peter isn’t too bothered by the noise. It seems to just be getting started. She retreats to a corner to watch and draw. It really is Ned’s party.
MJ runs into Peter again two days later. He’s standing in front of 5C, which is missing the 5 but keeps its ghostly imprint, with two boxes and a key he’s struggling to turn in his door.
“It helps if you pull the door while you turn the key.”
He whips his head around so fast MJ feels her own neck hurt, “MJ…uh wait, Michelle. Sorry, I wasn’t sure where we left off on the, y’know, friends or not friends? Are people usually friends with their neighbors—I guess that depends—”
“You can call me MJ, Peter.”
He looks dazed for a moment before catching himself, “Ah right. Right, right. Ok well um good. Yeah good.”
MJ stares, “You left the party early.”
“Oh… parties aren’t really my thing.”
MJ smiles, but only a little, “Yeah, not really my thing either.”
He smiles back, it’s so wide it takes up his whole face. MJ finds herself unwillingly noticing his teeth, the crinkles in the corners of his eyes, “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She dips her head in a low nod and gestures to her door, “Well I should probably–”
“Go! Yeah, you’re busy! I’m sure. I should probably get these inside. Thanks for the key tip, MJ.”
She opens her own door and steps inside, not before she chances one glance back where she sees Peter lift both boxes with one arm. She unwillingly notices how his bicep fills his T-shirt like it’s trying to break through. They must be light boxes. Still, he looks strong.
She met Paul in a Chemistry class Junior year. They didn’t start officially dating until about two months before graduation but he had been a constant, if distant, figure in her college life. They were lab partners and he liked MJ a lot. The first time he asked her out was after the semester they had first met. MJ said no three times over the course of their knowing each other before finally agreeing to a date. Paul was nice. He was from New York too, so he understood her in the way people from home do. But he grew up in Nyack so he didn’t really get what being a kid in the city was like.
She thought their relationship might end, a short stint at the end of college, but it didn’t. Paul told her he was coming back to the city, and asked to live together. She was always going to live with Ned. But they’re still dating, going on dates, that is.
Tonight, Paul took her to Kellogg's Diner in Brooklyn, “It’s famous MJ!” He really likes hitting all the go-to spots in the city. Sometimes it makes her feel embarrassed.
They’re sitting in a squeaky booth, picking at fried pickles. MJ doesn’t like pickles, but Paul does, so they got it for the table. She’s tired from job-hunting and the party the other night. She kind of really wants to be home and curled up with her current read: The Trial by Kafka.
“Where’s your head at, Babe?” He’s always calling her babe or baby or my girl.
“Oh, just jobs and stuff.”
“Tell me about it! Post-grad is not for the weak of heart.”
She tosses a pickle chip in the basket, “You wouldn’t even know yet.”
“Hey! I’m not exactly looking forward to four more years of grueling med school either.”
“At least you know what you’ll do.”
Paul grimaces, “Are you mad about something? Is it the party? I swear I wasn’t flirting with Sam. She was really drunk I was just making sure that she was ok. You know that you’re my girl.”
MJ honestly hadn’t noticed anything going on between Paul and Samantha at the party. After Peter left she had kind of checked out. Everyone else she already knew, or was too drunk to really start a conversation with. If Peter had stayed, would she have seen Paul flirting? She shakes herself. Why is she thinking about her neighbor on a date with her boyfriend?
“No, no. I’m not mad I’m just…” she searches for the right word and it doesn’t come, “I’m just tired.”
Paul doesn’t look placated, “I wish you would talk to me about this stuff.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“There’s always something to talk about MJ. You just don’t want to talk about it with me.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I don’t understand why you have such a hard time with this!”
Here we go again, she thinks.
“I’m your boyfriend aren’t I? You don't have to be so–so” he sighs, “So closed off with me.”
“I’m not!”
The waitress drops a stack of pancakes on their table with a too-wide smile, “Anything else for the lovely couple?” It’s like she’s willfully ignorant.
“No.” MJ says.
They eat pancakes in silence. Paul keeps shooting her sad looks. MJ feels like she’s lost her appetite.
When she finally gets home and trudges up her five-floor walk-up, Led Zeppelin is thrumming through the door of 5C. She normally wouldn’t do something as petty as ask a neighbor to turn down their music, especially after hosting a raucous party the night before, but she’s already in a bad mood. It’s almost like another person inhabits her when she goes and pounds on Peter's door.
The music dips and she hears scuffling on the other side before Peter stands before her. He’s wearing a T-shirt that MJ thinks is frankly too tight. How much does this guy work out to have a chest like that? Although she’s dressed nicely for the date, in a gray mohair sweater and her best pair of jeans, she feels suddenly insecure. She shouldn’t. His shirt has the periodic table on it with a lame I wear this shirt periodically stamped under it. MJ tries very hard not to find it endearing, and fails.
“Can you turn the music down?”
“Yeah,” he says, “yeah I’m sorry. I hope it wasn’t bothering you for too long.”
Peter reaches his hand to scratch the back of his neck. A nervous tick. The way it makes his arm flex is doing terrible things for MJ’s resolve in this matter.
“No, it’s fine, it’s just late.”
“That’s my bad, I tend to lose track of time when I’m working.”
“What are you working on?”
“Uh–that’s um–well it’s uh– hard to explain. I would tell you– but–”
She cuts him off, “What are you? Some secret government agent?”
“No!” Peter exclaims, “No! Definitely not that–it’s just well–it’s uh private?”
MJ likes watching him squirm. Just a little bit, “Hmmm.”
She peeks over his shoulder. Behind him are two messy piles of unpacked boxes, “Did you just move in too?”
He looks weirdly guilty, eyes darting into his house before landing back on her, “ I actually think I moved in after you guys?” He says it like a question. She wonders how she wants her to respond.
“What, no housewarming party?”
“Well parties–”
“Aren’t really your thing. Right”
“But I wouldn’t mind having you over! You and Ned after I set up a little more. Or unpack at all, I guess. It’s been a slow-moving process.”
“Don’t you have friends?” Well, that came out mean.
Peter somehow doesn’t get offended. He looks sad. A darkness, like memories passing over his brown eyes. MJ feels bad for asking, for being a crotchety neighbor and complaining about his music, for being unable to talk to her boyfriend. There must be something wrong with her.
“No,” he says, pushing his curls back, “I guess I don’t.”
“That’s sad,” She just can’t help herself, can she?
“It’s hard for me.”
MJ wonders how that’s possible. An attractive, earnest guy like Peter not having anyone in his life? Or anyone who wants to be close to him. She’s reminded of herself, before she had Ned. Drifting through high school alone but never reaching out. She desperately wanted to be known by somebody else but felt incapable. She wanted the connection even when she shied away from it. Ned was her first friend, her longest friend, and having him in her life opened a whole new side of herself. She wonders if Peter feels like that, hoping to be found by people who would take the time to know him despite the walls. She might be projecting.
“Well, for the record, we would come to your housewarming. Once it’s not just boxes on the ground.”
Peter laughs; tension she hadn’t seen before bleeds out of his shoulders. “I would like that. Thank you, MJ.”
She doesn’t know how to respond to the warmth melting in his words and the look in his eyes. Awestruck, again. So she doesn’t.
“Goodnight, neighbor.”
She flees to her own apartment, Peter’s soft reply “Goodnight,” following her like a ghost.