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Jean Elaine Grey had a problem.
Well... technically, she had several problems, considering that she was a mutant with telepathic and telekinetic powers, that she had been involved in more world-ending situations than she would care to admit, and that she had recently discovered that living surrounded by other mutants did not necessarily mean having a peaceful life. But there was one in particular that had been tormenting her ever since she arrived at that damn mansion, and that was the fact that she could no longer ignore hurtful words the way she used to before... before losing her sister.
It had all started much earlier, under circumstances that Jean preferred not to remember too much. After Damage Control and William Metzger murdered her sister, Jean had lost control and, from Roosevelt Island, had used her powers to possess approximately half of New York, drowning in a desperation and rage that she could barely explain now that everything was over. Frank Castle had responded by shooting her with a .50 BMG rifle, and the bullet, which had been aimed directly at her, ended up hitting Peter Parker.
Peter would have died right there if Jean, upon finding his unconscious body, had not made a desperate decision: she had entered his mind. She had felt his lungs stop working and, without thinking twice, had used her telekinesis to keep them functioning from inside his body. She had breathed for him, literally, keeping that stranger she barely knew alive while doing everything she could to make sure his body held out until he could receive help. And somehow, Peter had survived.
After that, Jean ended up leaving for Westchester.
There, she found a mansion that also served as a school, refuge, and home for people like her: mutants who, for one reason or another, had nowhere else to go. Charles Xavier welcomed her with open arms, and Jean, who had arrived there without really knowing what to do with herself, slowly began to find something she had not had in a very long time: a place she could call home.
It was there that she met the X-Men. And it was there that, due to circumstances she still did not fully understand, she found herself reunited with Peter Parker.
A guy named Doctor Doom, from another universe, had created an entirely new world using fragments of multiple universes, including hers. Jean still had far too many questions about it and far too few answers, but one thing was certain: in the middle of all that chaos, she had found Peter again. And this time, they had not had to fight each other or deal with the full weight of what had happened in New York; they had fought side by side.
That had changed things.
After everything that had happened, Jean and Peter finally talked. They talked about what she had done, about what she had seen when she entered his mind, about May Parker and the way she had accepted Peter exactly as he was. They also talked about that conversation in which Jean had confessed that she had no one, and Peter had promised her that she had him. Peter had kept his word.
Now they were friends. Real friends.
And since then, they had grown closer and closer. Jean talked to Peter whenever she could, sought him out whenever she needed someone to talk to, and although she would never admit it out loud, she found a special sense of peace simply by being near him. Peter, for his part, seemed to feel comfortable around her in a way he did not with many people.
That was why, when an argument between the X-Men led to Anne Marie, a.k.a. Rogue, belittling Jean in the heat of the moment and no one defending her, Jean did not hesitate for even a second to leave that school, institute, or whatever it was and head straight to the only place where she could truly feel safe.
The apartment was completely silent, save for the snores of the person who lived there.
Three monitors displaying a map of all of New York were quietly running several scans across the entire city. A modified police radio rested beside one of the screens, currently tuned to a frequency that was silenced at night. An upside-down mask, with exposed hardware inside its lenses, rested against the desk, being examined through a magnifying glass. A red-and-blue suit with black lines in a web pattern lay over the back of a chair, and a gray coat with a yellow stain on one side was draped over it.
A radiator hummed in the background, occasionally going quiet before starting up again. The refrigerator in the kitchen emitted a constant buzz from being plugged in. A small drop of water came out of the faucet every 30 seconds. A camera in the corner of the apartment constantly moved from side to side, monitoring all activity. Finally, a 3D printer—made from parts salvaged from the trash, just like the monitors and practically every other piece of technology in that apartment—seemed to be manufacturing new lenses for the mask on the desk.
Not far away, inside a small room, on a bed that was clearly not the most comfortable in the world, Peter Parker was sleeping deeply, his snores being the only sound in the apartment besides the radiator and refrigerator. It was one of those rare nights when he was so exhausted that, instead of staying awake until 3 a.m. making or repairing something on his Spider-Man suit, he simply decided to go to sleep. He had arrived at his apartment sometime after midnight, taken off his suit, and prepared to make some changes to his mask... and after 10 minutes, he decided to leave it for tomorrow, going straight to bed without eating.
For anyone else, it was the logical thing to do. For Peter, simply getting up and going to bed required a level of willpower comparable to what he had needed to fight Thanos.
So Peter slept in complete peace and tranquility, unaware that the window to his apartment suddenly opened. Footsteps could be heard approaching the bedroom before the door opened. It was not until that last part that Peter's spider-sense forcibly pulled him out of his dreams. The brown-haired man groaned, clearly annoyed at being woken up, and rolled onto his back after having been sleeping on his stomach, running a hand over his eyes... And when he saw Jean Grey standing in front of him, Peter jolted, bringing a hand to his chest.
"Shit!" Peter exclaimed, before sighing and relaxing when he saw that it was Jean. "Jesus Christ, Jean. You almost gave me a heart attack..."
Peter rubbed his face with both hands to wake himself up properly, then picked up his cell phone from the nightstand. A Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6, for a change. Anyone would think that someone with such an expensive phone had money to spare... well, that was not the case with Peter Parker, who had simply used his 3D printer to make this phone because it was the only one that did not break in the middle of a fight. The perks of being a fan of building technology out of garbage since he was a kid, he supposed.
Peter checked the time on his phone. 3 a.m., far too early even for someone like him, who had fallen asleep approximately three hours ago.
"It's simultaneously too late and too early," he muttered, closing the phone before looking up at Jean. "Did something happen? It's not normal for you to come see me this early..."
"I'm sorry..." Jean said, offering an apologetic smile while trying to hide her glassy eyes. "I didn't mean to wake you... I just..."
It did not take Peter long to notice Jean's posture. Tense shoulders, a clenched jaw, the way she avoided looking him in the eyes, how glassy they had become, the slight trembling of her lips. Peter immediately knew that she had not come here just to say hello, regardless of what time it was.
Without wasting any time, he carefully stood up and walked over to her. It was not until they were standing face-to-face that Jean could no longer hold it in and burst into tears, wrapping her arms around Peter and burying her face in his shoulder. Peter immediately wrapped his arms around her, gently stroking her back and red hair with a care and tenderness that was unusual for him. He ignored how soft Jean's hair was and how she smelled because he knew this was not the time to sit there analyzing, once again, how he felt about her.
Jean trembled in his arms, occasionally tightening her grip and sniffing. Whenever she felt herself calming down, the memories of why she had come here made her break down again, and Peter did nothing more than hold her against him.
"Jean..." he whispered carefully. "What happened?"
It took about 20 minutes for Jean to calm down a little.
The tears were still falling down her face, but she was no longer making a sound as she sat on the couch in the apartment's living room, hugging herself.
After asking her about eight times whether the sound of the radiator bothered her and having her assure him that it did not, Peter immediately went to heat some water and took out a box of peppermint tea bags. The tea was not for him; he had never liked it. But since Jean sometimes came over to his apartment and he felt bad if he did not offer her anything, he had started buying boxes of tea bags to offer her whenever she came over, in case she wanted some. Sometimes, he did it merely out of courtesy.
Other times, like this one, he did it because he knew the tea calmed her down when she was tense and could not speak properly.
Once the water finished boiling, Peter followed all the other steps to make the tea. At first, he had done it wrong: he heated the water too much or too little, did not put the tea bags in properly, added too much milk or too little... But eventually, he learned how Jean liked her tea, and now making it was as natural to him as breathing.
When the tea was ready, he brought the steaming cup over to her and sat beside her as Jean uncrossed her arms and took the cup in her hands. She took a large sip of the tea, to the point that only half the cup remained by the time she lowered it onto her lap.
"Do you feel better?" Peter asked, his full attention on her without putting too much pressure on her.
Jean looked at the cup in her hands for a moment, then looked at Peter and, offering a weak smile, nodded without saying anything.
Peter nodded back, then settled more comfortably into the couch and looked at her more seriously, his worried expression never fading.
"Do you want to tell me what happened?"
Jean took a few seconds to answer.
She looked at the cup of tea between her hands again, watching as the steam slowly rose before disappearing in front of her face. For a few moments, she seemed to be searching for the right words, although Peter could already imagine that there were no words appropriate enough for whatever had made her show up at his apartment at three in the morning.
"I had an argument with Rogue," she finally said.
Peter did not respond immediately.
"Anne Marie?"
"Yes," Jean nodded.
"Is everyone else okay?"
The question made Jean let out a small, bitter laugh.
"I suppose."
Peter frowned slightly.
"That didn't sound like a 'yes.'"
"Because it isn't." Jean lowered her gaze again. "It was an argument between everyone. Nothing too unusual, at first. Logan was being Logan, Scott was trying to get everyone to calm down, Kitty and Jubilee were arguing over something stupid... the usual."
"Ah, yes. A perfectly quiet night at the mansion."
"Exactly." Jean smiled faintly, but the smile disappeared almost immediately. "Until we started arguing about... about me."
Peter tilted his head slightly.
"About you?"
Jean nodded.
"About what happened on Roosevelt Island."
Peter went completely still. He did not need Jean to explain what she meant. He remembered Roosevelt Island, remembered the bullet, remembered the pain, remembered the fear. And above all, he remembered that Jean had been the person who had stopped him from dying.
Peter lowered his gaze for a moment before looking at her again.
"What did she say?"
Jean tightened her fingers around the cup.
"That I shouldn't be here."
Peter frowned.
"What?"
"Rogue said that after what I did, I shouldn't be living with the X-Men. That no matter how much I've tried to make things right, what I did is still unforgivable."
Peter remained silent.
Jean took a deep breath.
"She said possessing all those people wasn't an accident. That I chose to do it. That hundreds of people could have died because of me. That..." Her voice began to crack. "...that I'm probably just looking for everyone to forgive me because I can't stand living with what I did."
Peter slowly exhaled through his nose. He did not look angry. That was precisely what made his expression even more serious.
"And what did you tell her?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"I couldn't." Jean shook her head, her eyes filling with tears again. "Because part of me knew she was right."
Peter immediately shook his head.
"No."
Jean looked up.
"Peter..."
"No." This time, he said it more firmly. "Jean, I'm not going to tell you that what you did was okay. I'm not going to lie to you. It wasn't okay. You know that yourself. But that doesn't mean you have to accept everything someone says about you as if it were a sentence."
Jean swallowed.
"She said you almost died because of me."
Peter paused.
"That part is true."
"Peter..." Jean closed her eyes.
"But it's also true that you saved me."
She slowly opened her eyes.
"I don't know if that makes up for it—"
"It doesn't have to make up for it." Peter leaned forward, resting his forearms on his legs. "We're not talking about a bank account, Jean. It's not 'you did something bad, then you did something good, so now we're even.' That's not how things work."
Jean remained silent.
"You did something horrible," Peter continued. "You regret it. You acknowledge it. You're trying to be better. And when you had the chance to let me die, you didn't."
Jean pressed her lips together.
"I was responsible for you being there."
"And you were responsible for keeping me alive."
"But if I hadn't..."
"Jean." Peter looked directly at her. "If you want to talk about what happened, then let's talk about all of it. Not just the part that makes you feel guilty."
Those words made Jean slowly lower the cup.
Peter continued.
"I was dying. You entered my mind and literally kept my lungs functioning until they could help me. You didn't have to do that."
Jean did not respond.
"And before all that, when you told me you had no one..." Peter smiled slightly. "I told you that you had me."
Jean looked at him.
"I remember."
"Good." Peter reached out and placed a hand over hers. "Then stop trying to convince yourself that promise had an expiration date."
Jean felt her eyes burning again.
"Why do you do this?"
Peter blinked.
"Do what?"
"Be here."
Peter watched her for a few seconds.
"Because you're my friend."
Jean let out a small laugh through her tears.
"You're too good to me."
"No." Peter gently shook his head. "I'm just trying to be the friend I promised I'd be."
Jean looked at their hands.
"Everyone looked at me like I was a monster."
"Not me."
"But you know what I did. You know exactly what I did. And even so..."
"And even so, I'm here."
Jean could not hold back another tear. Peter let it fall. He did not try to wipe it away; he simply remained by her side.
"You can cry," he murmured. "You don't have to pretend with me."
Jean breathed shakily.
"I didn't want to feel like this again."
"Like what?"
"Like I had no one."
Peter gently squeezed her hand.
"You're not alone anymore."
Jean closed her eyes. And, for a few seconds, she allowed herself to believe him.
Silence returned to the apartment. Only the radiator, the refrigerator, the 3D printer working in the background, and two people sitting together on a couch at three in the morning.
Then Jean spoke again.
"Can I stay here tonight?"
Peter did not even think about it.
"Of course."
"Doesn't it bother you?"
"Jean, you came through my window at three in the morning, woke me up from one of the best dreams I've had in months, and drank half a cup of tea in less than five minutes."
Jean looked at him with a confused expression.
Peter smiled.
"If it really bothered me, I would've charged you rent by now."
Jean let out a small laugh. A laugh still accompanied by tears, but a genuine one.
Peter smiled when he heard it.
"I like it when you do that."
"Do what?"
"When you laugh. I like seeing it."
Jean shook her head, although a smile remained on her face.
"You're an idiot."
"Yeah." Peter stood up. "I'm going to get you a blanket."
"Peter."
He stopped.
Jean looked at him for a few seconds.
"Thank you."
Peter smiled.
"Always."
And while Peter disappeared down the hallway in search of a blanket, Jean remained sitting on that couch, looking around the small apartment.
It was not a mansion. It was not Xavier's school. It was not a particularly nice place. In fact, there were probably three things in there that could technically be considered a fire hazard.
But for some reason... Jean felt safe.
And perhaps that was the only thing she needed that night.
Eventually, Jean took off the clothes she had arrived at his apartment in, replacing them with an old Peter shirt that said "I survived my trip to NYC" and a pair of pink pajama pants.
Peter felt the heat rise to his face when he saw Jean wearing his clothes, and he was forced to look away and make himself stop imagining things that were completely beside the point. No matter how much she had promised not to do it again without asking, Jean was a telepath who could get into other people's minds, and he preferred not to give her any material that could either ruin what they had or give her something to tease him about for months.
Peter refused to let her sleep on the couch, so he was going to give her his bed. She tried to protest, and Peter would not let her. To him, sleeping on the couch was not a problem, even if it was to her. After arguing about it for a while, they eventually agreed on something... strange: sleeping in the same bed.
Simply lying down together there was a strange process. Jean settled on the left side and Peter on the right. And for approximately 10 minutes, they both lay there, staring at the ceiling with the lamp on, silent and completely aware of who was lying right beside them.
It was probably the most awkward situation they had shared since they met.
Jean had her hands folded over her stomach, completely rigid, while Peter kept his at his sides, as if any sudden movement could trigger a nuclear explosion.
Neither of them said anything. Neither seemed to want to be the first to do so.
Until Peter cleared his throat.
"This is weird."
Jean let out a small laugh.
"Very."
"I just wanted to make sure I wasn't the only one thinking it."
"No, you're definitely not the only one."
Another silence.
Peter glanced over at her. He saw her red hair, so soft that sometimes he just wanted to bury his fingers in it and never take them out. He saw her sea-blue eyes, in which he could lose himself for hours if she let him. He saw the little freckles decorating her face, which he considered the most adorable thing in the world.
Peter had accepted a long time ago that he liked Jean. More than that, he was in love with her. It had not happened overnight, but rather through a slow process in which Peter noticed things about her that made him feel things he had not felt for anyone in a very long time... not since MJ. And at first, it had scared him, falling in love with someone else while thinking that he was replacing Michelle, that he was forgetting her. However, he also learned that if he lived in fear of falling in love again because of someone who did not remember him, then he would never be able to move forward with his life, just as he had promised himself he would after leaving the hospital following the bullet incident.
Jean was no different when it came to that. Every time she thought about Peter, she saw his kind brown eyes looking at her as if she were the most important person in the world. She saw his curly brown hair that seemed to have a life of its own and was never still. She saw his scarred face and felt her heart pounding.
Unlike Peter, it took Jean a while to accept that she was in love with him. She had already had crushes on other boys a long time ago, back when she still had Sara, a mother who loved her, and her powers had not yet awakened.
However, Peter was different.
It was not simply that she found him attractive. It was not merely that she liked talking to him. It was not even the way her heart raced every time Peter smiled.
It was everything else.
It was the way Peter had never looked at her as if she were a monster after learning what she had done on Roosevelt Island. It was the way he had listened to every one of her confessions without interrupting her or trying to justify them. It was how he remembered little details that even she forgot she had told him. It was the peppermint tea he had specifically bought for her. It was the way he always made room for her, even when he was exhausted.
And above all, it was the promise.
"You have me."
Jean had heard those words many times throughout her life, spoken by different people and with different intentions. But when Peter said them, she believed him. That was what frightened her the most. Because Peter had become far too important to her.
"Jean..." Peter called suddenly, and she turned to see him staring at her. "You said no one defended you when Rogue said all that. Is that true?"
Jean felt a knot form in her throat, but swallowed it and, unable to say a word, simply nodded.
"Really, no one?" Peter asked, as if he could not believe it. "Kurt, Remy, Hank, Bobby, Ororo, Logan, Scott... not even Charles?"
Jean slowly shook her head.
"No," she replied quietly. "No one."
Peter remained motionless for a few seconds.
"Not even Scott?"
"Scott tried to stop the argument, but..." Jean sighed. "He didn't say anything when Anne Marie started talking about me. Then everyone just stayed quiet."
"And Charles?"
"Neither did he."
Peter looked away toward the ceiling. That seemed to bother him much more than he was willing to admit.
"Wow."
Jean glanced at him.
"Peter..."
"No, I'm not angry."
"Yes, you are."
"A little."
Jean let out a small laugh.
"I knew it."
"It's just..." Peter ran a hand through his hair. "I understand that everyone has complicated feelings about what happened. I understand that some of them are angry with you. I even understand that Rogue might feel that way."
Jean blinked.
"You understand?"
"Yes." Peter looked at her again. "I'm not saying she's right about everything she said. But I understand that someone who knows that hundreds of people were controlled against their will might be furious with you. She's allowed to feel that way."
Jean lowered her gaze.
"That's what I thought."
"But being angry with you is one thing, and telling you that you don't belong there is something completely different."
Jean did not respond.
"And if someone says something like that in front of everyone..." Peter paused. "I hope someone says something."
"Maybe they didn't know what to say either."
"Then they could have said that."
Jean raised her head.
"What?"
"'I don't know what to say.'" Peter shrugged. "'I need time to process this.' 'I don't agree with you.' Whatever. But for everyone to just stand there silently while you're listening to someone tear you apart..."
Peter shook his head.
"That had to hurt."
Jean felt her eyes beginning to well up again.
"Yes."
Peter looked at her for a few seconds.
"You know what worries me the most?"
"What?"
"That you thought you deserved to be alone after that."
Jean's mouth opened slightly, but she did not respond.
Peter continued:
"Because that's the first thing you did. You didn't call Charles. You didn't call Scott. You didn't go looking for Ororo. You didn't try to talk to anyone."
Jean swallowed.
"I came here."
"Exactly."
"Because I knew you'd let me in."
"Jean..."
"And because I knew you wouldn't ask me why I needed to be here before opening the door."
Peter smiled slightly.
"Well, technically, you came through the window."
"Details."
"Important details. That window has a lock I've been trying to fix for three weeks."
Jean let out a small laugh. Peter smiled when he saw her, but then became serious again.
"But yes. I would have let you in."
Jean remained silent.
"Always. No matter what happens, Jean. You can always come here."
Those words made something inside Jean tighten.
"You can always come here."
Peter seemed to say it with such ease that it completely disarmed her.
Jean slowly turned toward him.
"Peter."
"Yeah?"
"Why are you like this?"
Peter frowned.
"Like what?"
"Like this with me."
Peter took a moment to answer.
"Because I like you."
Jean went completely still. Peter did too. The silence that followed was so absolute that they could both clearly hear the hum of the refrigerator on the other side of the apartment.
Peter's eyes widened slightly.
"As a friend," he quickly added.
Jean felt a strange mixture of disappointment and tenderness.
"Oh."
Peter cleared his throat.
"I mean... you're important to me."
"I know."
"A lot."
"I know that too."
Peter looked back up at the ceiling.
"Great."
Jean smiled.
"What?"
"Nothing. I'm just trying to survive this conversation without saying something stupid."
Jean watched him curiously.
"Like what?"
Peter turned his head toward her. For a second, their eyes met. And neither of them looked away. Peter felt his heart beating far too hard. Jean did too.
But Peter was the one who finally broke eye contact.
"Like saying you're too pretty to be awake at three in the morning."
Jean smiled.
"That's not stupid."
"Trust me. It sounded better in my head."
"I liked it."
Peter looked at her again. Jean was smiling. It was not the sad smile from a few minutes ago. Nor was it the smile she used to pretend everything was fine. It was genuine.
And Peter felt something warm in his chest.
"I'm glad."
Jean shifted slightly on the pillow.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Have you ever thought that maybe..." Jean paused, searching for the words. "...what happened between us wasn't a coincidence?"
Peter frowned slightly.
"What do you mean?"
"When I met you. Roosevelt Island. Everything that happened afterward. The fact that we ended up here, talking about our lives at 3 a.m."
Peter smiled.
"If you're telling me the universe conspired to make us end up together in an uncomfortable bed, I'm gonna start getting worried."
Jean laughed.
"I'm not saying that."
"Good."
"Although..."
Peter raised an eyebrow.
"Although?"
Jean smiled.
"Nothing."
Peter smiled too.
For a few seconds, they fell silent again. But this time, the silence was no longer awkward.
Jean slowly closed her eyes.
"Peter."
"Yeah?"
"Thank you for letting me stay."
"You don't have to thank me."
"Yes, I do."
"No."
Jean opened one eye.
"Are you always this stubborn?"
"Ask my aunt."
Jean smiled.
"I would've liked to meet her."
Peter's smile faded slightly. Not out of sadness, but rather surprise.
"I think she would've liked you."
"You think?"
"I'm pretty sure."
Jean closed her eyes again and slowly began to relax. Her shoulders stopped being tense. Her hands were no longer clenched against her stomach. Even her breathing began to slow.
Peter watched her.
"Jean?"
"Mmm..."
"Are you asleep?"
"No."
"Of course."
Jean opened her eyes again.
"Peter."
"Yeah?"
"Can I...?"
The question hung in the air. Peter waited, and then Jean raised one hand slightly.
"Can I move a little closer?"
Peter felt his heart skip a beat.
"Yeah."
Jean moved a few inches closer to him. Then a few more. Until she finally rested her head against his shoulder.
Peter went completely rigid.
"Are you okay?" Jean asked.
"Yeah."
"You look like a corpse."
"I'm trying not to move."
Jean smiled.
"You can breathe."
Peter let out the breath he had not realized he was holding.
"Thanks."
Jean let out a small laugh and closed her eyes.
Peter looked down at her. Jean's red hair brushed against his neck. He could feel her calm breathing against his chest. The warmth of her body seeped through the old shirt she was wearing. And, for the first time since Jean had arrived that night, Peter stopped thinking about what had happened at the mansion. He only thought about her, about the person he was holding in his arms, about the woman who, without realizing it, had become one of the most important people in his life.
Peter slowly raised one arm and wrapped it around her shoulders. Jean did not protest. On the contrary, she moved a little closer.
"Good night, Peter," she murmured.
Peter smiled.
"Good night, Jean."
A few minutes later, they both fell asleep.
And for the first time in many hours, Jean Grey did not have any nightmares. She did not remember Roosevelt Island, did not remember Rogue, and did not remember the words that had hurt her. She only felt Peter's warmth beside her and heard the steady beat of his heart.
And as she slept, a small smile appeared on her face. Because that night, she had learned something.
Maybe she could not control what other people thought of her. Maybe she could not change the past. Maybe someday she would still have to face everything she had done. But she could choose where to stay.
And that night, she had chosen to stay with Peter.