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Not remembering the man you supposedly loved is strange. For him to stand before you, confess his biggest secret and tell you he loves you, while you hold no single memory of him, even stranger. It’s like the confession has created a hole in MJ’s brain that she simply can’t fill up. As if it was always there, hollow and deep. Aching to be replaced by something that it can’t explain.
But what’s even stranger than that, is your best friend coming home with the same man, speaking of fond memories that recovered instantaneously.
It seems just like yesterday when Ned had stood in their doorway, talking about how Peter introduced himself to him and his memories had just magically… come back. Like the clock had gone backwards and began counting down, especially for him. Only him.
That same clock did not tick for MJ. Doesn’t tick for MJ. She’s still suck in her mind, trying to regain images she simply does not hold. At least not completely.
The truth is, after Peter had confessed to her, memories had slowly started to come back. When she thinks back on her time in high school it isn’t just her and Ned anymore—it’s her and Ned and… somebody. Somebody who must be Peter. He had been there with them along the way; sitting next to them on the roof they had spent so much time on. The roof she has come back to after so long, trying to fill the ever-aching hole.
She holds the black dahlia necklace in between her fingertips, twirling it around as if it can give her something her thoughts can’t. She wants to hold onto it tighter, for it to give her the answer as to why she had kept it all this time despite not knowing where it came from, but she’s scared that it’ll break if she does. She can’t afford to lose it again.
A sigh fills the quiet of the sky, painted in orange and blue. The sunset has always been the most beautiful from this angle. Had Peter thought so, too? Did he come here often, by himself?
It’s a cruel fate that Ned remembered everything so easily, while she’s left to pick up the scraps. Quick, fleeting moments of Peter Parker, never the full thing. Never the whole man. The man she met as Peter Parker, then forgot and was forced to remember only as Spider-Man.
A ping from her phone gets her out of her thoughts for a second. She looks to the screen, a message from Ned showing.
Ordered bánh mi for us and Peter! Get home safe
Then a second ping, from the Spidey-tracker app this time. The screen shows the animation of Spider-Man moving closer and closer to their address, seemingly spotted by passerby’s. MJ downloaded the app right after Peter had gotten shot a few weeks ago, keeping it secret to everybody but herself. Because, while she’s still angry with him for not consoling her about her removed memories, she can’t deny she’s started to care about him. If not as her ex-lover, as Ned’s best friend.
As she walks home, she looks toward the donut shop she worked at before getting into MIT. She remembers a guy, years ago, ordering a coffee and introducing himself as Peter Parker.
𓂃۶ৎ
“MJ!” Ned says happily as MJ throws her key on the dresser, waving to her from the couch. Peter is next to him, gaze instantly fixed onto her like he doesn’t have anywhere else to look. She waves back.
“Where have you been?” Ned then asks when she sits down next to them, right in the middle, grabbing one of the báhn mi her best friend ordered for the three of them.
She looks between Ned and Peter, eyes blinking, unsure of what to say. She doesn’t want to tell them what she actually had been doing, which is sit on her high school roof for hours, wrecking her brain so much it had almost been painful. So she says, “Looking for jobs.”
“Ah, still? You didn’t get into Oscorp?” This makes Peter look up in interest, eyes wide. MJ tries not to gravitate towards them.
“I did, but I declined their offer.” She shrugs.
“You got into Oscorp?” Peter asks in amazement, the filling of his báhn mi dropping onto his plate. He doesn’t seem to notice or care, his eyes still big and fixed onto MJ.
She shrugs again. “Yeah, but I don’t know… I don’t think it’s the right fit for me.”
“But it’s the best company in New York!” Ned interjects, obviously confused as to why MJ would ever deny their job offer.
“Maybe that’s why I declined in the first place.” The real reason was that she had been waiting for something bigger. Something… or someone. She looks toward Peter, his eyes full of wonder.
“Well, that’s amazing that you got in in the first place, MJ,” he compliments and begins to eat the leftover filling still on his plate. She smiles in return.
“Gotta pee. Be right back,” Ned announces as he stands up and walks toward the bathroom, leaving Peter and MJ alone.
The tension in the room starts to thicken, like a fog is settling over it. Ever since Ned and Peter reconnected, and he started to come over again, it had been like this. Like the silence could swallow MJ whole. Like she would die if she couldn’t speak to Peter again.
The anger from getting her memories stripped slowly starts to dissipate every time she’s in Peter’s vicinity. After all, Peter had done it to keep her safe. He thought he had made the right decision, and spent four years in complete solitude by making that choice.
But a new anger had started to arise. Because why, why had it been so easy for Ned to remember all about Peter Parker, but not her? Why was she left with the mere acknowledgment of his existence, but not what it had entailed? She wants to remember so badly, to give him a proper place in her life.
“Hey, Peter,” she calls, causing the other to look up at her in shock. They haven’t had many conversations since their first meeting. Or, their first meeting after years. “I… I went to the school rooftop. You know, the one we used to go to?” Peter nods. “I was just wondering… do you ever go there?”
It’s obvious that he’s taken aback by the question. MJ never asked him anything about those times before. She never alludes to remembering anything about him. For all Peter knows, she has no idea he ever existed up until the day she read that letter. “I haven’t been there since… since my aunt passed away.”
She nods in understanding. There’s not much else to say, really. It’s only logical that the place that once held so much significance has changed into one of pain. “I’m sorry for asking,” she says anyway, because she can’t imagine how painful it must be for him. To remember everyone he forced to forget about him. But he shakes his head immediately.
“No, don’t say sorry! You can ask anything you want, really, MJ.”
He plays with his fingers a bit before asking, “So how are things with Paul?”
Just like how MJ never asked him about the past before, Peter had never asked her about Paul since the letter. Guess they’re both out of patience, now. “Uhm, we broke up. He’s moving to Houston for a job and… yeah.”
“Oh,” Peter simply states. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.”
Ned comes in right before the tension gets too thick, for which MJ is thankful. She can finally breathe again without feeling fog enter her lungs.
𓂃۶ৎ
The next time MJ looks over the sunset on the rooftop, she remembers sitting here with Peter and Ned, two other men in Spider-Man suits with them. She remembers Peter crying, hugging him with her heart beating so loudly she was scared it would fall out of her chest.
It comes back to her like remembering a dream in the morning. Something that she doesn’t feel like she experienced, but she most definitely did. Peter’s aunt had just died, and he came here to get away from it all. But MJ and Ned had found him, right by his side in his moment of need.
She feels tears falling down her cheeks as she thinks back on that time, about how hurt Peter had been. She can only hope that MJ had been there with him as he picked up the pieces.
𓂃۶ৎ
A Friday night usually means that Ned, Peter and MJ will watch a movie on the TV until late at night, before ultimately falling asleep on the couch to wake up with pain in their backs. However, into the first half hour of The Empire Strikes Back, Peter gets a notification from his phone, alerting him that he’s needed as Spider-Man instead.
“Be careful, okay?” MJ tells him as he leaves, and that’s that. The duo of her and Ned which used to feel so natural, somehow feels incomplete now.
They sit in front of the TV as the movie keeps playing, and MJ swears she’s trying to concentrate, but all she can think about is how Peter is doing—if he’s in danger, if he will be back soon. Ned doesn’t seem to share her worries. Maybe it’s because he knows him better, and knows that Peter will never be in danger as long as he has his powers to save him. But she doesn’t.
She checks the Spidey-tracker app, spotting the latest animation at a random square around the area, and decides that she’s going to check it out. Peter isn’t going to do it alone anymore.
“I’m gonna get something to eat. You want anything?” she asks as she grabs her coat and puts on her shoes.
“No, thank you!” Ned simply replies as the movie keeps playing. It’s not like MJ has been focusing on it much, anyway. She’d be more than happy to restart it once Peter returns to their apartment, safe and sound.
The streetlights cast the dark streets in a familiar, yellow color, but tonight it’s making MJ’s stomach feel uneasy. She could write it off as nausea if she had eaten any of the snacks Ned and Peter had bought for their movie night, but ever since Peter left she hadn’t taken a bite of them. She knows what’s making her feel like this—worry. She’s worried sick about Peter.
Holding her phone in her hand, she follows the Spidey-tracker as it keeps updating Spider-Man’s location. He has moved from the block he was at when she left the apartment to somewhere two streets down, right around the bodega they often. She picks up the pace, fearing the worst. What if Peter is getting beat right now, actively getting injured without MJ to help him? What if people around him are getting killed, and he has to bury an even greater guilt? What if he gets unmasked again—
She stops her pace right in front of the bodega, spotting Spider-Man with a bag in hand, full of the snacks he knows MJ likes.
“MJ!” he calls as he spots her. And it looks utterly ridiculous—Spider-Man in his red-and-blue suit, holding a bag of snacks, but she can’t help her heart from fluttering at the sight. There’s no one around, not one enemy or police officer. It’s just them in the otherwise busy street. She runs to Peter and holds his face in her hands, inspecting it despite knowing that she can’t see anything behind the mask. Only his eyes; which stare back at her in shock.
“Where’d everyone go? Are you hurt?”
“Well, judging by how there was a guy trying to kill all of us like ten minutes ago, I’m guessing they all left.” Peter takes her worried hands and gently removes them off his face. He keeps holding them, though, gloved hands feeling warm in hers.
“Why’d you come? It could’ve been dangerous.” MJ can’t stop trying to sneak peeks at his eyes behind the goggles. They’re hard to spot, but if you try hard enough, you can see two brown orbs looking back at you. MJ can see them right now, staring at her softly.
She doesn’t know how to answer his question. It’s hard to explain, even to herself, why she was so worried about him. This is Spider-Man, who survived a fatal shot not that long ago. The things Peter has been through as his superhero persona are endless, and they were probably much more challenging than a street fight. She should’ve known he’d survive without too much effort. So why had she felt like she was about to throw up?
She shrugs. “Wanted to get some snacks,” is what she settles on. Less to explain to Ned, and also not really a lie.
“Well, I got them,” Peter answers as he holds up the bag of snacks, and MJ can see him smile behind the mask. The laugh she returns is genuine, relief washing over her. Peter is safe.
She looks up at the sky, closes her eyes. When she looks back down, Peter’s still facing her, waiting for something. Or just simply looking.
“Hey,” she says, “do you have your own clothes nearby? I wanna go take a walk.”
Peter nods instantly, bobbing his head like he can’t stop. “We’re near my apartment. Wait just a sec,” he informs and swings away, bag of snacks still in his hand. MJ can’t help the small laugh that overtakes her.
A moment later he returns, suit ditched for his usual attire; a white t-shirt over washed denim jeans, black vans on his feet and a black jacket to fight off the cold. He looks good, and MJ is once again reminded of the time where he had first revealed himself to her. In the moment, she had been too shocked and upset to really look at him, however had been able to complete a drawing of his face perfectly hours later. Every feature instantly memorized. Perhaps that had been the first sign.
They walk in silence, simply enjoying the quiet as they cross street after street. The only sound to be heard is the ruffling of the plastic bag in the wind, and the horns of distant cars. It’s uncharacteristically quiet in Queens—almost as if the city is trying to give MJ the silence she’s craved after her mind has been so loud.
They reach a bridge crossing the East River, grand and imposing. MJ overlooks it, before looking at the time on her phone. Only, before she can even spot the time, a ping sounds. A voice that sounds oddly like Ned’s says, Location found! all enthusiastically.
Spidey-tracker.
“You downloaded Spidey-tracker?” Peter asks right away, pointing at her phone. The notification has its own little icon, Spider-Man’s animation. “I thought you were against the app for breaching Spider-Man’s… my privacy.”
“Yeah, uh…” MJ definitely was against the app, confused as to why people were so enthusiastically endorsing an app which makes it significantly easier to stalk their favorite superhero. That was, until Peter got shot, and she needed to be more up-to-date with his whereabouts. “I was. Am. I just worry about you.”
“Oh,” Peter tries to reply coolly, rolling his shoulders.
“It’s not anything crazy,” MJ says with a wave of her hands. She always talks with her hands when nervous. “You got shot and… I don’t know, we’re friends now so I want you to be safe.”
The faux nonchalant look Peter was trying to sport fades instantly, replaced by the same wide eyes he usually has when talking to MJ. “We’re friends?”
“Yeah, are we not?”
The shake of Peter’s head comes just as instantaneously. “No, we are! We are,” he defends. “I just didn’t expect you to be after…”
MJ lets a small smile creep over her lips. Tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “No worries, Peter. Bygones are bygones, right?”
“If you say so.” Peter gives her a small smile of his own, looking away from her and to the bag in his hands.
MJ looks over the water. She’s reminded of her school trip in Europe, going to Italy with Ned and the rest of her classmates. Of how it got ruined by a bunch of villains entering the scene, defeated by the Night-Monkey which had looked suspiciously like… Spider-Man.
Night-Monkey. Spider-Man. They had used the same web shooter, which MJ had picked up after sneaking off to that festival. She had shown it to Peter after suspecting him for weeks. Peter had already confessed to being Spider-Man to her then, on a bridge in Venice.
A sudden headache overtakes her, making her fall down into strong arms as she holds her head in pain. She looks up at Peter—the same Peter who had confessed his secret identity to her then. A confession she was forced to forget.
“Are you okay?” he asks her as he holds her, eyes wild in worry. She nods, still a little off-kilter. “What happened?”
And it must be the painful headache that makes her spill it out. “I remember… being on a bridge in Venice. You confessing being Spider-Man to me. A bridge just like this one.” She beckons to the bridge in front of them with her chin. Peter doesn’t look at it, eyes focused solely on her.
“You remember?” he asks with a small voice, hope burning in his tone. “You remember me?”
“I’ve been remembering small parts of you,” she admits. Again, the headache is making her not think straight. “First it was the roof, all those moments, and now this.”
“You remember.”
“Not… not everything. Small moments. They never made my head hurt this badly, though.” Peter holds the back of his flat hand to her forehead, feeling its temperature. “It feels fine,” he says in confusion.
MJ can guess that getting back memories that were forced out of her with a spell must do something to her insides. She’s not surprised that her head hurts, more so confused on why it does so now instead of when remembering the other things. Maybe this memory had more significance to her, somehow.
Discovering Spider-Man’s secret identity is no small feat. Not the first time, and not the second time either. MJ’s sure that in that time in Italy, it had been even more of a shock that her classmate, innocent Peter Parker, was the vigilante behind the famous mask. Maybe that’s why her head continues to hurt so much.
“Let’s get you home,” Peter suggests to which she nods in agreement, unsure of how else to diminish her headache. “Should I swing you?”
“God, no.” Last time she was swinging in the air she had feared for her life, so no, thank you.
By the time the two come back to Ned and MJ’s apartment, the headache has mostly subsided. A long walk, fresh evening air and some snacks from Peter do wonders when needed. As they sit back on the couch, Ned looks at them in mild confusion.
“Where did you two meet up?” he asks, taking one of the newly bought snacks and popping it into his mouth.
Peter and MJ look at each other, back at Ned, and back to each other.
“I went to the bodega, and you know, Peter was swinging there, took me home.” MJ is talking with her hands again. Peter just nods at her story, hands on his hips.
Ned heaves a loud, disappointed sigh. “Why does that never happen to me?”
𓂃۶ৎ
The bright sunlight is hitting the window in such a perfect way, that it makes MJ unable to see her screen properly. She tries to squinch her in hope of ignoring it, but the time of day makes it impossible to avoid. A sigh leaves her lips before she can help it.
Peter is up and closing the curtains before she even has to ask. Eyes once again wide and full of love, waiting to be praised. A little nod and small smile of appreciation is enough to create a matching grin on his face.
After her failed interview at Oscorp, MJ has promised herself that she will take her time before throwing herself into the next job offer. She’s lazily scrolling LinkedIn, keeping an eye out for attractive articles, laying a closed fist on her cheek in exhaustion. Who knew that finding a proper job with humane conditions, would be this hard?
Peter has come to sit next to her, Ned gone off to Brooklyn with friends for the weekend. It’s just the two of them—a new regularity in their friendship that MJ has yet to get used to. Ever since she’s admitted to the other that memories have started to come back to her, the increasing hope in his irises has been evident. It makes her feel awful that she has to let him down with the fact that, ever since that one night, no other pieces have returned.
“Find anything interesting?” he asks. He’s sitting on the couch much more comfortably than he did the first time he was in here. Almost like it’s his. He belongs to their home—quietly completes it. It’s nearly as if he never left. The only place that is still missing Peter… is MJ’s mind.
She shakes her head upon the question. “Everything is so soulless. Big companies like these are most definitely exploiting their workers, and I refuse to become their next victim.”
She turns her head sharply upon hearing the small laugh Peter lets out. He’s clutching onto his stomach, acting like her statement had been hilarious, causing her to squinch her eyes once more in faux offense. “What?” she asks.
“You haven’t changed at all,” the other replies. “Years ago, you could’ve said the same thing.”
It’s an innocent statement. Purely one of nostalgia, reminiscence. Recounting memories, because Peter knows MJ. He remembers MJ. He got to keep the memories that were forced out of her. Her gaze hardens.
“Years ago, huh,” she states simply, tone void of any humor. Peter instantly stops laughing, instead turning to her in concern. “And what were you like years ago, hm?” He doesn’t answer.
“I would love to remember. What you were like when I met you. In high school, with Ned. But I can’t.” Her eyes are getting teary. She can feel it—her voice breaking, her heart beating louder. She doesn’t want to cry in front of Peter. After all that he’s lost and had to go through to deal with that loss, it feels unfair. But her not being allowed to remember, that’s unfair too. It’s cruel.
“I’ve always wondered why I’ve kept this necklace.” Her fingers twist around the black flower pendant with few petals missing. “Or why I couldn’t go with Paul, to Houston. Why I was hellbent on staying here in New York, in this shitty apartment, when clearly there’s no reason for me to stay.”
Peter simply stares at her in shock and hurt as the tears start flowing over her cheeks. He doesn’t have a rebuttal or an explanation—not even a simple reply. After all, he’s ultimately the one that’s caused all of this.
And as hurt as he looks, MJ just can’t seem to stop letting it all out. After years of having stolen memories, after weeks of being aware of that fact, she’s fed up. It’s all so cruel. “And then Ned gets to remember. He gets to know the reason behind why he stayed here in New York with me, why he had been so obsessed with Spider-Man and even created an app for him. He knows now!” she yells out in frustration. “But me? I am left to pick up all these puzzle pieces without ever seeing the full picture. I’m forced to live with the fact that you were there in my life, but not what you had meant to me.” She instantly stands up and leaves for the kitchen to get a tissue and hopefully erase the remnants of her sadness. She doesn’t want Peter to know just how much this is hurting her.
But he walks after her. “MJ, I… I’m so sorry, I don’t know what to say—”
“You don’t have to say you’re sorry,” MJ replies. He really doesn’t, it only makes her feel worse. Peter is the one who was left all alone, all those years. He had to miss college, had to miss out on all of Ned’s and her adventures. He’s not the one who should say sorry.
When she looks up again, Peter is right in front of her, holding her hand softly just like he had when she found him at the bodega. “I have to say sorry, MJ.” He sighs softly. “I know I should’ve told you earlier. Give you a bigger chance to remember. And I don’t know how Ned did but… I’m sure we can recover your memories too.”
“And what if we can’t?”
“Then I’ll make sure you’ll fall in love with me again.”
And he says it with so much certainty, so much determination, that it makes MJ believe him. It washes away all her worries about the memories that she has yet to get back, or the fact that she might not get them back at all. She nods softly, rubbing her lips together as she tries to hold back tears of relief.
Peter’s thumb wipes them away before they ever arrive. The big smile he throws her is so full of hope, happiness and love, that she has no choice but to return it. Her own hands find the back of his head in no time, stroking the hair behind his ears because it feels right to do so. His curls clump at her fingers in a familiar fashion, her brain already used to the idea. She must have held Peter like this often in her lifetime.
The way Peter kisses her with fervor and hunger is a little less familiar to her. She doesn’t remember kissing Peter, let alone anybody, with this much love in her being. Peter holds onto her wrists, a relieved sigh leaving his lips as he opens them and lets MJ in, and keeps her there for what feels like hours. When she pulls back, puts their foreheads together and looks into his eyes, she can feel the final puzzle piece falling into place.
Her memories might not ever recover fully, and that’s okay. What she knows for sure is that she will always, no matter in what life, find her way back into falling in love with Peter Parker.
𓂃۶ৎ
As MJ sneakily takes a peek at Peter sitting on the couch talking to Ned, his face full of bliss, she remembers sitting at the table in high school, a younger Peter playing around with a younger Ned. She can feel the same butterflies in her stomach, fluttering around and causing her heartbeat to quicken. And instead of making her head ache, it causes a bright smile to form on her face.