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MJ opened the door to her, Ned, and Peter’s apartment with her free hand, lugging her laptop and work bag in the other. Finally finding a job that stuck to her moral compass had seemed a feat in and of itself, but after remembering how she had helped Spider-Man with more than a couple matters of great importance regarding the fate of the entire universe and then some, she had found it to be almost a walk in the park.
She laid her stuff out on the small kitchen counter and glanced around the apartment, frowning a little at the silence that greeted her; it was nearing six o’clock, and she knew Ned had a presentation and wouldn’t be home until late, but Peter usually stopped by to see her before going on his nightly patrol.
He had seemed . . . off that morning, though. To be fair, that wasn’t uncommon, what with all of — well, everything.
It had been surreal, going from knowing nothing to remembering it all at once. Peter had fit back into their lives like the piece of the puzzle that neither she nor Ned had realized was missing but that had always felt missing; she remembered, for the past four years, touching the broken Black Dahlia around her neck and wondering why it felt so important to her, never quite able to put her finger on that why.
She could, now, and she was glad for it, even despite the pain it had taken to get there — the pain that Peter still struggled with, more often than not. It had been, and still was, a hard transition for him; to go from having nothing and no one to having most everything back.
Usually, though, he was good at at least admitting the gist of what was wrong, when there was something wrong — like there clearly had been, that morning.
He had gone off earlier than usual to patrol with barely a good morning to her or Ned before they had left for work — and then he hadn’t texted at all (something that, if it had been anyone else, wouldn't have concerned her in the slightest, but he loved to text her), and the Spidey Tracker (which she had downloaded as Ned’s first supporter back when he’d first programmed it, and had never been able to bring herself to delete despite its annoyingly constant notifications, most of the time) hadn't updated all day . . .
And now he wasn’t here when she got home from work, the apartment silent and empty instead of filled with his usual excited talk about the people he’d helped so far as Spider-Man that day.
She didn’t have Peter’s spider tingle, but she did know that something felt wrong.
Making up her mind, MJ pulled out her phone, pulled up his contact (even now, weeks after regaining her memories, she nearly shivered just reading the name Peter Parker), and called him — only to hear the buzzing of his phone’s ringtone from the den, and only to find it abandoned in between two couch cushions.
She frowned, one hand going up to brush fingertips over her necklace as her pulse jumped uneasily.
“Peter?” She called out — feeling slightly panicked, even as she kept her voice steady. “Are you here?”
There was a long moment of silence, and then — a loud, purposeful thump from behind the closed door of her and Peter’s room.
She strode over without hesitation, taking in a calming breath as she opened the door. The hinges squeaked noisily, and — just as she had begun to think things of relief; that Peter had just been sleeping, that he was fine, that nothing was wrong — a shaking pile of blankets on the middle of the bed let out a throbbing moan of pain at the sound, and MJ froze.
“Peter?”
The blankets went still, and there was a quiet whimper.
“. . . MJ?”
Peter’s voice was weak and thin, like a punched-out, wheezing breath. MJ felt her heart twist; she could only see the outline of him, huddled underneath two or three blankets, curled in on himself in the pitch-black dark of their room, half-lit only by the open door behind her.
“Peter, what happ—?”
“Shhh,” he groaned, and, as her gaze adjusted to the darkness, she saw him cringe in on himself; she saw his hands come up to cover his ears, his eyes screwing shut in a grimace. “Please.”
Realization clicked into place immediately, and she nodded in understanding. She closed the door as quietly as she could behind her and toed off her shoes, lingering at the edge of the bed, uncertain of whether he wanted her closer or not — but he answered that wordlessly as he reached out for her, his uncertain, half-lidded gaze shining in the dark.
Carefully, she slid into bed beside him and took his trembling, cold hands in hers, squeezing lightly to ground him.
“Sensory overload?” She questioned softly, already knowing the answer.
“Yeah. On n’ off all day, too loud and bright and — my head,” he moaned, his grip loose in hers, his hands twitching a little upwards as though he wanted to press the heels of his palms into his temples. “s’ been killing me all day.”
“Don’t tell me you went on your usual patrol like this,” MJ whispered, trying her best not to scold but doing it a little anyway. Peter grimaced again, eyes squeezed tightly shut once more; he was breathing purposefully and slowly through his mouth, muscles working tightly in his jaw.
“Tried to,” he croaked out. “Woke up feeling like shit, thought it’d go away if I just . . .”
“Went on like normal?”
“Mhm.” Peter sighed, and cringed at the movement — and then at that movement, too. “Didn’t really work out for me. I called DeWolff, let her know I’m down today, but I’d already gone out and made it worse, so —,”
He cut himself off with a choked whimper as, from outside, an ambulance wailed in the distance. From the way he shook, MJ thought it must sound like someone was screaming at the top of their lungs right in his ear.
“Do you . . .” MJ hesitated, keeping her voice as soft as she possibly could; barely the breath of a whisper, right now, as he trembled with the fading of the sirens. She was reluctant to make the suggestion, but for the lack of a better solution — “Do you still have the inhibitor? Would it help?”
Peter gave the tiniest shake of his head.
“Don’t want it,” he grit out. “Soon as this passes, m’ gonna make some, some sort of — of sensory blocker, I dunno — an’ an enhanced Advil that’ll actually work on me — but —,” He drew in a ragged breath, shoulders slumping even further downward. “I don’t want the inhibitor.”
“Okay,” MJ murmured, “okay.”
She squeezed his hands gently. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”
He fell quiet for a long moment, still quivering slightly. And then, barely a whisper:
"Just . . . hold me?"
She said nothing, because she was afraid of how she would sound when she spoke. Instead, she just wrapped herself fully around him, cradling him to her chest and letting him bury his face in her neck as he curled impossibly tighter into himself and into her, letting out a shuddering sigh that she felt rather than heard.
They lay like that for a long while, and in the silence, MJ thought about those four years she had spent with a hole in her heart and her life that she had not known how to fill, because she had not known Peter Parker.
She thought about those four years — those four years, that Peter had spent completely and utterly alone. She wondered briefly what he would do then, at times like this — then realized that she already had her answer.
He hadn't called her, had he? He hadn't told her that he was at home, in pain — for hours and hours, if it had been since so early that morning, when he had first left for patrol. He hadn’t called for anyone; she had just had to come back to find him alone and shaking and in pain, his voice hesitant and tentative as he had asked for her to just comfort him, to hold him close and to be there —
But he hadn’t called. He had let himself suffer, and then, even when she had shown up, he had hesitated to ask for comfort.
And didn't that just hurt.
"Peter?" She whispered, once his breathing had gone comfortably calm and even, and his heart rate had stopped beating a rapid tattoo into her shoulder. He shifted a little against her, his curls — frizzy from, she was sure, being buried underneath blankets all day — tickling her cheek.
"Hm?"
"Next time something like this happens," she murmured, "with this specifically, or . . . you getting hurt, or . . . just having a bad day . . . you know you can call me? Or Ned? Either of us, just . . .” She sighed quietly, stroking a soft, gentle hand down his back.
“I don't want you to be alone, when you're in pain. Or ever, but — especially then."
She felt a shudder pass through his body, and heard him swallow audibly.
“It’s —,” Peter’s breath hitched. “It’s hard,” he managed to croak out eventually. He was trembling slightly, and she moved a hand up to stroke slowly and gently through his hair, boldened when he didn't flinch away from her touch but pushed into it, almost desperately.
"I was — alone," he breathed, "for — for a long —,"
He cut himself off when his voice began to wobble, taking in slow, measured breaths.
"I'll try," he said finally. "I promise I’ll try, MJ. But it's — it's just hard,” he repeated. His fingers loosely gripped at her sweater, as though he didn’t want to hold on too tightly, but also didn’t want to let go.
“I feel like — like if I let my guard down, if I — if I accept that I'm not alone, that — that —,"
MJ’s heart seized in her chest, and she sighed quietly.
"You're afraid you’ll lose us again?"
Peter nodded silently. He pressed his face into her neck and she felt hot tears against her skin, soaking into the collar of her sweater as she carded her fingers gently through his hair and whispered softly to him.
"You won't.”
"I'm Spider-Man,” he rasped out, sounding almost defeated. "You can't promise that.”
"Maybe not," she conceded, because there was no way around that frank truth. "But I can promise you that as long as I am here, I want to be here with you when you need me. I don't want you to suffer. You've done enough of that. And —," She hesitated, but frankly, this might be the only way to get him to process how much importance this carried, because for all he did not care for himself, he made up for it in caring for, and about, others — "and it hurts me, when you do."
"Oh," he mumbled. He had gone still against her, no longer trembling, but his voice shook as he added, “Sorry.”
“No apologies.” She almost wished she could make that a blanket rule; after how many times he’d apologized once she’d remembered him, she never wanted to hear him say it again. “I care about you, Peter. I want to be here for you.” She pulled back just enough to meet his shining gaze in the darkness.
“You just have to let me."
Peter stared at her for a long moment, then nodded, tentative and slow. He only winced a little at the movement.
"Thank you," he breathed out. He leaned up to press a kiss against her jaw, and she smiled, tilting her head down to catch his lips with hers — carefully, lightly, then a little more enthusiastically when he melted into it; kissing, it seemed, was a sensory experience that he didn't seem to mind being overloaded with.
"Don't apologize or thank me," she murmured into his mouth. "Just . . . tell me sooner, next time."
“Mmm,” Peter hummed, eyes half-closed, lips still parted. “Okay.”
"Are you only saying that because I'm kissing you?"
". . . Maybe," he murmured, then whined when she pulled back. "No, really, I will. I promise."
"Good," she said, moving up a hand to cup his face, tenderly stroking his cheek. "Because stoically suffering in silence isn't a good look on you."
He smiled, sheepish, and she returned it.
"See?” She said, and she kissed him again, gentle and slow — holding him, just like he had asked.
“I like that smile better."