“You’ve reached the ninety-ninth precinct; this is Detective Jake Peralta speaking.”
“Oh, thank God,” says the voice on the other end. Just from the tone, Jake can tell it’s a woman, probably in her forties or late thirties. “Thank you for answering.”
“It’s what we do, ma’am,” says Jake sincerely. “Other than, y’know, solving crime and stuff. How can I help you?”
“Um, it’s my nephew,” she says. “I’ve—I’ve been calling him all day and he’s not answering. With the ferry accident and his penchant for danger, I just...wanted to know if you’ve seen him around, or anything.”
“I can get IT to scan traffic cameras within a ten mile radius of our precinct.” Jake offers. “All I need is a name and an age to narrow the search.”
“Thank you.” the woman says softly. “His name is Peter Parker and he's fifteen years old.”
+ or - may parker called 5 police precincts. the 99th was one of them.
this is for u @deltacomerade. i said give me a week and i wrote it in 6 days. <3
available on ao3 here.
It’s a normal day for Jake Peralta when he gets the news; normal, of course, being the day he walks around the precinct trying to find a friend for Algernon, who has gotten pathetically lonely inside Jake’s desk drawer.
“Yo,” says Rosa from the kitchen, nursing another cup of coffee. “You seen the news yet?”
“No, Rosa,” Jake replies with a scoff, standing up straight. “You know I don’t watch the news. The news is for Charles and old people.”
“Staten Island Ferry got lasered in half.” she says, ignoring Jake’s comment completely. “Apparently Spider-Man was there. FBI too. Then Iron Man showed up and saved everyone from dying.”
Jake blinks. “Woah,” he says. “When did that happen?”
“Fifteen minutes ago.”
Huh. Maybe that’s why the phones started going crazy fifteen minutes ago.
“That’s definitely why the phones started going crazy fifteen minutes ago.” Rosa adds.
He blinks again. “Did I say that out loud?”
“Yeah.”
“I wondered why my thoughts felt super loud all of a sudden.”
Rosa fixes him with a look. “Anyway, Holt wants us answering all calls as quick as possible. People are gonna be scared. Also, don’t tell people that Captain America is cooler than Iron Man.”
“But he is.”
“Debatable.”
“We’re from Brooklyn, Rosa.” Jake points out. “Home of Captain America and Bucky Barnes? Tony Stark is from California. That’s not as cool.”
“Tony Stark is from Manhattan.” Terry interjects from his desk. “Get your facts right, Jake.”
“Are we from Manhattan?” Jake fires back. “No. Didn’t think so. I rest my case.”
“Dumb case.” Rosa says. She leaves the kitchen.
“O-kay,” says Jake to himself. He looks at the ground, where he’d been scoping for a friend worthy of Algernon, and then returns to his desk. He supposes Algernon will have to wallow in his self-pity for just a bit longer.
His phone is silent for about twenty minutes. Then, as he’s halfway through Tony Stark’s Wikipedia page, it rings. He picks it up, eyes scanning the section about the billionaire’s abduction and origin story for Iron Man, and says, “You’ve reached the ninety-ninth precinct; this is Detective Jake Peralta speaking.”
“Oh, thank God,” says the voice on the other end. Just from the tone, Jake can tell it’s a woman, probably in her forties or late thirties. “Thank you for answering.”
“It’s what we do, ma’am,” says Jake sincerely. “Other than, y’know, solving crime and stuff. How can I help you?”
“Um, it’s my nephew,” she says. “I’ve—I’ve been calling him all day and he’s not answering. With the ferry accident and his penchant for danger, I just...wanted to know if you’ve seen him around, or anything.”
“I can get IT to scan traffic cameras within a ten mile radius of our precinct.” Jake offers. “All I need is a name and an age to narrow the search.”
“Thank you.” the woman says softly. “His name is Peter Parker, he’s fifteen years old.”
Fifteen. No wonder this woman sounds upset. “Okay.” Jake writes it down. One of his software guys passes his desk, so he hands him the notepad and mouths search. “I’ll get the results back as soon as possible for you.”
“Okay,” she replies. “Okay, thank you. Sorry to bother you with this.”
“It’s not a bother.” he promises. “Like I said, it’s what we do.”
“I just—I’ve called four other precincts,” she admits. “And, um, you’re actually the first one to do anything for me.”
Jake wishes he was surprised. Then again, the Nine-Nine is the best precinct, and he’s definitely not biased at all. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“And I know I’m not the first family member calling about somebody to make sure they’re okay, especially today, but—he’s just so young, you know?” Jake knows enough about civilians to know that this woman is rambling because she’s stressed. He closes the Tony Stark Wikipedia page and leans back in his chair. He knows it’s just best to listen. “And—he just lost Ben—his uncle—and he’s dealing with a lot right now, and he always answers his phone, always, so I’m just a little—” she breaks off, letting out a laugh. “Sorry. Sorry! You don’t need to know all of this. I’m just freaking out. A little.”
“It’s understandable.” Jake promises. His heart’s twisting, just a little bit. This kid’s fifteen and he lost his uncle, and by the sound of it, his parents probably aren’t around either. He doesn’t have it easy. “I promise I’ll do everything I can to try and locate your nephew, ma’am. If you don’t mind me asking, when did you last have contact with him?”
“This morning,” she says. “I said goodbye to him when he went to school. So he’s not—he’s not missing, but—”
“It’s all right.”
“—I’m probably just working myself up, he’s probably just with his friends or something, maybe that’s why he hasn’t answered his phone—”
“It happens sometimes.” Jake agrees. The woman’s breathing has hitched just a little bit, so he says, “You know, I don’t think I ever got your name.”
“Oh. It’s May. May Parker.”
“Nice to meet you, May. I’m Jake.”
“Yes, you said that.”
“...I knew that. I just like introducing myself twice.”
She laughs again. This time, it’s less hysteric, more amused. “Not the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Jake swivels in his chair to look around the precinct. As he does, the guy he’d handed the paper to catches his eye. Hopefully, Jake raises his eyebrows.
Samson, the tech guy, just shakes his head.
“Ah,” says Jake softly. He lowers his head and sighs. “I’m sorry, Ms. Parker. We...didn’t get any facial recognition on your nephew in the area.”
“Okay.” May repeats. “Okay, that’s...that’s okay. That’s all right. Thank you so much for checking for me, anyway. I appreciate it. I—I’m sure he’s okay. Thank you.”
“Hey,” says Jake, before she can hang up. Don’t get involved, says Rosa’s voice in his head, but as he normally does, he ignores it. “Actually, would you—would you mind letting me know if he gets in contact with you before the end of the night? I’ll give you my cell number.”
“Oh.” May says, sounding surprised. “Yeah, I can—I can do that.”
“I just...wanna make sure he gets home okay.” he admits. “And in the worst case scenario, I wanna be as on top of this as possible.”
So Jake gives May Parker his personal cell number. She thanks him for his time. When he apologizes for not being able to give her any solid information, she just waves it off with another thank you.
Then she hangs up, and for some reason, Jake can’t shake the feeling of a pit growing in his stomach.
/
“Ben Parker,” says Captain Holt, when Jake asks him just before he heads out. “I remember that case. It was tied to a robbery attempt at a bodega in Queens. The robber came out of the store and shot the man point-blank. If I remember correctly—and I do, since my memory is impeccable—the man’s nephew was there when he got shot.”
“Wow,” says Jake, feeling worse by the second. “Did they catch the guy?”
“No.” Holt answers, and it’s like a punch to the gut.
/
He’s just getting home after spending the evening at Shaw’s when his phone pings.
It’s an unsaved number, but he knows who it’s from immediately after scanning the message.
Peter’s home safe. Thank you.
Jake smiles. He texts back, everything alright?
The reply takes a few minutes. He lost an internship that meant a lot to him. Physically, he’s fine.
Ouch. good to hear
not the internship part
the fine part
May Parker doesn’t reply. After an hour of searching the Internet, actually watching the released footage of the Staten Island Ferry incident, he goes back to their text conversation and fires off another message.
let me know if theres anything i can ever do for u guys. never hurts to have a friend in the police dept.
Jake can’t do much. He can answer calls and try and help people with their cases. He can solve murders and stop robberies and drink a substantial amount of beer in one night.
And he’ll do his hardest to help May and Peter Parker in any way he can.
They sat on top of Gavin’s roof. The two of them used to sit up here with their group of friends, all up until the rest found weed and forgot about them. Now it was just Gavin and Dan. They didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, did nothing except talk to each other. They’ve shared secrets to last a million friendships. There was still a foot of space between them. Gavin’s hand was outspread between them.
Gavin turned to Dan. “I don’t belong here.” After a few second of silence, he took a deep sigh.
Dan thought about what to say. Of course they talked about deep subjects here, it was why they were so isolated here, so no one would hear. “Yeah?” is all Dan said.
Gavin nodded. “Yeah. I can’t explain it. This isn’t where I’m supposed to be.”
Dan didn’t understand it. He felt like this is exactly where he had to be in this moment. This felt like a lock and key finally meeting. Except Gavin didn’t feel the same. Dan was used to that. “Where do you belong, B?”
“I don’t know.” Gavin sounded tired, physically and emotionally. ‘I don’t know’ slurred into ‘I dunno.’ “Anywhere not here.”
“What, like outside of England?”
Beat of silence. “I guess. It’s just,” Gavin groaned. “not here! Doesn’t matter if it’s outside of this city, or outside of this country, or out of this continent, or out of this world. I don’t want to be here. Dan. I hate it.”
If Dan were braver, he would have taken Gavin’s hand then. Trace a few words onto the back of his hand. Would have done anything. Instead he turns to Gavin. “Sounds terrible, B,” he says.
Gavin looks back, and nods. “I feel like an alien here. Though, not with you. You make it better. Not as bad.” He rolled onto his stomach, ruffled his hair, put his face into his hands. “I should live in a big city. London or something. I’m too much for a little village town.”
“Too much what?”
“Just, too much. That’s it.” Another frustrated groan. “I want to blend in with the city. People won’t stop and look at me for any reason. It’s a big city, who cares if some guy trips over his own feet. There’s better things to be looking at. I want to camouflage. Pretend I’m one of them. I could even act like them. All shallow.”
“City people aren’t shallow on principle, you know that.”
“Let me fantasize, B.”
Dan raised his hands in surrender. “Go on then.”
Gavin is silent, obviously thinking. He sits up. “Or,” he says. “A rural town. Where I can hide away for months. Just be myself. Not worry about other people or how they view me.”
“You wouldn’t survive a day on a farm. You don’t even own boots!”
“That can be fixed easily!” Gavin laughed. Dan laughs with him. When he’s done, he sighs.
This isn’t where Gavin belongs, but it’s definitely where Dan belongs.
Then Gavin started learning everything he could. School was out for the summer, jobs were worked in the early afternoon. This meant Gavin had the rest of the time to mess about. First, he tried learning photography. Got a few bucks for taking pictures for neighbors, sending pictures to articles. Then, he learned about his computer’s hardware. What started as a routine cleaning ended with half his computer unscrewed and laying around on his carpet. When Dan opened the door, Gavin yelled, because he had just hit the computer tower. He stayed around, watching Gavin google every single part for identification. He watched him clean the dust out of it and watched him put everything together again. He sat on the floor for a few seconds.
Then he started taking it apart again.
Dan left the third time Gavin asked him to quiz him on computer parts.
Gavin bought better specs for his computer, which lead to more power, which lead to better pictures, which lead to more money, which lead to better specs. He was in that cycle for a year. When Gavin’s 17th birthday rolled around, Dan got him ‘Coding for Dummies,’ and didn’t see him for two weeks. By the time he came out of his sleep deprived and bloodshot eyes state of being, he knew linux. And was in possession of a coffee addiction. Dan took care of the second part, cutting him off from coffee.
Gavin never stopped at ‘good enough.’ When Dan stayed the night, he showed him his latest project. A few scripts, none of which Dan understood. Gavin was grinning hard, so Dan rolled with it.
“So what does it do?”
“Well. It hacks.”
“It does what? Gavin, what are you planning on doing with that?”
“I put a few words into it, maybe someone’s birthday, their dog’s name, graduation year, and out pops a password. If they used any of that stuff to make it, of course.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“It basically puts that stuff in random order until it makes the right password. Brute force.”
Dan nods. He waits for Gavin to acknowledge the second part of his question. What does Gavin want to do with this. It’s obviously nothing good.
Gavin never acknowledges it.
On Gavin’s 18th birthday, Gavin has a following. Somebody DDos attacked their school server, and with such a small class, it wasn’t hard for the rumors to start. Maybe it was Gavin, who spent all his time in the school’s library, writing scripts to get past the school’s firewall. Of course, going through firewalls wasn’t enough. A few months into senior year, none of the staff or faculty could log into the servers. They were being overloaded. Though, the staff never heard the rumors, Dan was panicked. One of them had to be, and it wasn’t Gavin.
“Relax, it was just a little attack. It wasn’t on anything special, just a school. The most time I could get is 10 years.”
“10 bloody years, Gavin. You’d be getting out of jail at 28. That’s terrible!”
Gavin just laughed. Nobody messed with him anymore, for fear of getting hacked. The A/V nerds flocked to him, looked up to him. Dan thought it would get to his head, but he was still the same boy he met in the first place. Still flubs on his words, still trips everywhere, still too lanky to control himself. He was just worshipped as a tech god at school.
He gets even more daring. Hacking into open-source phones, looking through pictures. He had no need for blackmail, though, he got enough money from photography. The photography had evolved right before their eyes. One day, Gavin was shadowing a slow motion photographer, and the next he’s buying phantoms left and right. Sure, hacking and programming did make money. He could offer his services to companies, to test their security or to strengthen it himself. But having the niche market of slow motion backing him up, Gavin was becoming a hot commodity. Local directors wanted him, badly. When he wasn’t filming or at school, he was in his room testing the boundaries of the law. Tips to the police did put a shiny buck in his pocket in between shoots, though. Serves criminal’s right for leaving evidence on their phone.
Then he got really cocky. Hacking into a CTO’s phone. Text messages, emails, and bank account info galore. First, Gavin started draining hundreds. Nothing he would miss. When the CTO upped the security, Gavin got cockier. He could access the CEO of the company’s laptop, and as soon as his phone was connected to it, Gavin could access the phone. He drained a little bit more. A few thousands here and there. A few months of that, with no signs of Gavin, he drained a couple hundred thousand. He was rolling in dough. Then, he saw the emails. Embezzlement. All coming from the CEO. Gavin placed a few backdoors to come back to. He drained 1 million. When the bells started ringing over at the company, he sent the proof of embezzlement to the government under someone else’s name. The company was gone and bled like a skunk, and now Gavin had more than a million dollars. He had no idea what to do. He couldn’t keep it.
The panic started setting in an hour after he realized what he was doing. Hundreds of donations went out under an off-shore bank account.
But by then, Gavin saw the light.
They sat on the roof again. Facing each other. Gavin had his legs spread out, while Dan sat cross-legged. Dan thinks about what Gavin said when they were 16 about once a month. It usually happens when they’re on this roof. He doesn’t know if Gavin remembers that night. He doesn’t ask, but he realizes he doesn’t need to. Gavin is silent, staring at his own hand. His fingers flex and spread out, then he closes them into a fist. He’s looks off the side of the roof, onto the small town with it’s splitting roads that lead to either pubs or stores, and that’s it. Dan can see his eyes unfocus on the terrain, just staring at the air.
He still doesn’t feel like he belongs here.
Dan turned away, looking at the other side of the roof.
They were just different. Dan belonged here. In this moment, in this town, in this country. On this roof with Gavin. If he had to imagine his one place, it would be on this roof. That isn’t the case for Gavin.
“I have more than a million dollars in my bank account right now.”
Dan felt woozy. He almost threw up. “You have-”
“This isn’t even the first time. Or even the second.”
“Gavin-”
“The first time, I knew I couldn’t keep it. I donated it all to a bunch of charities. The second time. I wanted the thrill of the first time. I spent a few thousand. Did the same thing as the first.”
“How-” When Gavin opened his mouth to cut Dan off again, he put his finger up. “No. I question, you answer. How do you keep this money in your bank?”
“Offshore bank account. Wiring the money to a bank in Switzerland. All I had to do was get the forms, ship them, have a million dollars, and done.”
“Is this legal?”
“Offshore banking is legal.”
“I meant, is how you are gettin’ it legal,” Dan said.
Gavin stayed silent.
“Oh, Jesus, Gavin.”
“Who else can say they’re a millionaire by 19?”
“Entrepreneurs who worked for their money!”
Dan thinks. Thinks about Gavin, mainly. He was right, back then. When they sat on here and he talked about how he didn’t belong. He really didn’t. It pained Dan to admit it. That maybe, they were different. Too different. Dan had his future planned. Gavin went with the flow and his impulse.
That made this either really easy, or really hard. Dan’s planned future is why he wanted to be here. Dan looked at Gavin. He was already looking back.
“I’m joining the army, Gav.”
Gavin looked down.
“You were right. All those years ago. You were right, you don’t belong here.” Dan looked down as well. “You belong somewhere greater. Somewhere that can hold you and everything you bring with you. Not some rural town, raising sheep right next to a gravel road. London, or Birmingham. Machester even-”
“Like Los Santos.”
“Yeah, if you want to go to America.”
Silence.
Dan looked up at Gavin. He was biting at his nails, avoiding Dan’s gaze.
“Gavin.”
“I got noticed, B. Extremely noticed.” Gavin’s voice was low.
Low enough to make Dan remember all of the times he fell in love with that voice. Every single time they were on this roof. Every time Dan thought about kissing him in the dead of the night, where no one could see them. Where Gavin would kiss back. He imagined it so many times that he could describe what Gavin’s lips felt like. Unpleasantly dry, but God, he would give up everything to kiss them.
They were too different. Gavin saw something he wanted-or rather, wanted him- and he’s willing to travel out of the country to get it.
Dan has been face to face with the one single thing he’s wanted for years.
He’s willing to travel out of the country to avoid it.
“You can tell me anything,” says Peter honestly. Michelle feels like she’ll regret messing with him like this, just a tiny bit, when it’s all over, but. It’s his fault. His fault for making it so easy.
She glances around conspiratorially as if wary of bugs or cameras. Leans in just a bit closer. Tries to put on her best I’m very serious face. “Okay.” Lets out a breath. “I’m Spider-Man.”
+ in which mj pulls a prank on peter parker. and all of the avengers are involved.
yallllll really. i wrote this in less than 24 hours and it’s the funniest thing i’ve ever written. thank u to @midtownsparker for screaming about this idea with me and being my beta and also just the light of my life. this fic would not exist w/o u. love u.
available on ao3 here.
It’s four in the morning on a normal day when Michelle Jones sits straight up in bed like a lightbulb has just turned on in her head.
Because, really, it has.
And she cannot believe she’s been stupid enough to not realize that Peter Parker has been parading around Queens as Spider-Man for as long as he has.
She’s kind of pissed. Very pissed. He’s so going on her hit list.
But first…
It’s probably just sheer luck. Absolute coincidence. Then again, Michelle doesn’t really believe in coincidences.
She walks into her favorite coffee shop (which just happens to be the Starbucks closest to Midtown, where she does most of her homework because the wifi’s surprisingly good and one of the baristas has started giving her free refills) and finds someone who could help her in the best of ways.
“You,” says Michelle. “Oh, this is perfect. I need your help.”
Clint Barton swivels around to face her; it should be noted that he is sitting on a table in the middle of a Starbucks in Queens. He is holding two cups of coffee. “I’m retired,” he grunts, and drinks from the cup in his left hand.
“Not that kind of help.” Michelle sets her backpack down next to him.
“Still retired.”
“Do you know a superhero by the name of Spider-Man?”
That piques his interest. “Sure,” he says. “Stark’s protégé.”
“You ever seen him without the mask?”
Clint blinks. “I don’t like this test,” he says. He drinks from the cup in his right hand. “Have I mentioned I’m retired?”
“It’s not a test.” she climbs into the table across from him. He looks mildly surprised, like he didn’t expect her to do that, but Michelle’s nothing if not unpredictable. “Consider it an opportunity.”
“Am I being pranked right now?” he says, glancing around. “Did Stark put you up to this? Nat?”
Michelle climbs off her comfy table and steps closer to him, keeping her voice quiet. “I know who Spider-Man is,” she says. “I know because he’s my friend. But he doesn’t know that I know.”
Clint looks unconvinced. “Prove it.”
Her lock-screen does.
(If Peter and Ned ever find out that she’s made her lock-screen a picture of the three of them, she’ll kill them.)
“I’m gonna go ahead and guess that you’ve met him without the mask,” says Michelle.
Clint looks at her. Down at the phone. Back up at her. “Bold of you to assume that.”
“I want your help to mess with him.”
He hesitates and drinks from the coffee in his left hand.
“You’re retired,” says Michelle, “I know. But this requires minimal effort. Basically, I just need someone on the inside. Maybe a little help with the press, depending on how far I can make this go.”
But he remains unconvinced. “What’s in it for me?”
She shrugs. “I’m a broke high school student. I can’t offer much. But Peter’s going to be thoroughly embarrassed when this is all over. I’m sure you’d love to take credit for that as much as I will.”
Clint takes a moment to think about it. Michelle watches as he drinks from both cups of coffee. “Ah, hell,” he says. “The retired life is boring, anyway. I’m in.”
She grins. “Good.”
“Didn’t even learn your name, by the way. That’s probably important.”
“I’m Michelle,” she says. And then: “My friends call me MJ.”
“Clint Barton,” is his answer. “Though you already knew that. I just like introducing myself to people I’ve never met before. Makes me feel a little better, you know?”
He’s weird. Probably also has a raging caffeine addiction.
“So,” says Clint after a moment of drinking his coffees. “What are you thinking? Do you have a plan?”
Michelle has to remind herself that Clint Barton doesn’t know her, so getting offended about the fact that he just asked if she had a plan doesn’t really make sense. “Of course I do,” she says. “Here’s what I was thinking…”
Michelle walks into Academic Decathlon a week later with an Avenger’s phone number in her contacts. He texts like a child.
Today’s the day. After a full week of planning every possible thing she could, she’s really about to walk in here and prank the shit out of Peter Parker. This has to be the highlight of her high school career. This is the story she’ll go down for. Assuming, of course, Peter eventually reveals his identity to the public, and immediately follows his announcement with a (probably overdramatic) retelling of this very story.
This better be her fucking legacy.
“Hey, MJ,” greets Peter, looking up from his textbook. He gives her one of those smiles he’s been giving her recently.
“Hey, Peter,” she answers, as if she’s not going to blow his mind in about an hour. “All right, guys, let’s get to work.”
It’s a normal practice, as it usually is. They’ve got a competition coming up, as they usually do, and her team answers every question correctly, as they always have. Ned and Peter exchange a few whispers throughout the practice and Michelle is almost positive they’re probably talking about the spandex-clad web-slinger. She almost texts Clint about it, just because she can. Then she decides against it, because if she sends Clint Barton one text, he’ll respond with about twenty.
“Okay,” says Michelle, after that exhausting hour, “that’s it for today. Same time next week, as always, and don’t forget to keep looking at those flashcards, right? See you guys around,” she adds as a dismissal, and she waits until a few people are out of the room before she clears her throat. “Hey, Peter.”
He looks up from his backpack.
“Would you mind staying for a minute? I want to talk to you about something.”
“Oh.” Peter looks at Ned and then to her. He lets go of his backpack. “Sure, MJ. I can stay.”
“I’ll wait for you outside.” Ned tells him. Michelle tries not to smile. She’s about to start laughing just thinking of Ned’s reaction.
So Ned leaves. Cindy and Betty leave. Mr. Harrington leaves. And that leaves Peter in the room, alone with Michelle, and her plan falling perfectly into place.
Peter shoves his hands into his pockets. “Okay,” he says, watching her carefully. “What’s up?”
“Maybe we should sit down.” Michelle answers. Peter looks mildly confused, maybe a little alarmed, but he sits down in the chair he’d been in during practice. She pulls up a chair right in front of him and clears her throat, trying to make herself look a little uncomfortable. She’s never really been an actress, but it’s kind of now or never at this point.
“You’re kind of freaking me out, man.” Peter pulls his hands out of his pockets and clasps them together in his lap. His leg is bouncing. He’s being unusually hyperactive at the moment. It’s pretty amusing to watch.
“Sorry,” she says, and blows out a breath. Wipes her hands on her thighs, like her palms are sweaty. “I just...I needed to talk to someone.”
Michelle leans in and suddenly she’s the closest she’s ever been to Peter Parker in her entire life. Focus, she reminds herself. She’s on a mission. A mission, regrettably, that she has to execute without her camera, because she lost it somewhere in her room. She really needs an organization system.
“I have a secret,” she says, keeping her voice very low.
Peter swallows. “You—you do?”
“Mhm.” She’s a genius. Really, an absolute genius for coming up with this. “I just—I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer. No one knows.”
“You can tell me anything,” says Peter honestly. Michelle feels like she’ll regret messing with him like this, just a tiny bit, when it’s all over, but. It’s his fault. His fault for making it so easy.
She glances around conspiratorially as if wary of bugs or cameras. Leans in just a bit closer. Tries to put on her best I’m very serious face. “Okay.” Lets out a breath. “I’m Spider-Man.”
The look on Peter’s face is priceless. Several emotions cross his face: shock, confusion, disbelief, more confusion, absolute and utter dumbfoundedness. He settles on looking like he wants to puke. “You’re—uh—what?”
“I’m Spider-Man.” she repeats.
“Uh—MJ—you know, uh, isn’t Spider-Man a—”
“Man?” she waves a hand dismissively. “I never gave the press that name. They came up with it themselves. I just went along with it. I don’t really care, and to be honest, it protects my identity even further. The suit’s pretty good at keeping disguisable body parts look non-existent, if you know what I mean.”
Peter is still slack-jawed. He doesn’t even blush at her comment. Michelle is pretty sure his eyes are about to pop out of his head at any given moment. “I don’t—understand.”
“I know it’s a lot to process.” she says in a hushed tone. She pats his arm and then stands up, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “But I know I can trust you with this.”
“MJ, hold on.” he says in a strained voice. “You can’t just—”
“I gotta go, Peter,” says Michelle, and tries her very hardest not to laugh when she says this, “you know, superhero duties.”
She leaves him in the Decathlon practice room. She wonders how long he’ll stay there with that same expression on his face.
“Hey, Ned,” she says, when she sees him waiting for Peter just outside, as he said he would. “See you tomorrow?”
“Yep.” Ned answers, completely unaware of how she just broke his best friend. “See you tomorrow, MJ.”
Then she goes to meet Clint Barton at Starbucks and hopes he’s kept up his end of the plan.
“So?” Michelle asks, when she sees him perched on his favorite Starbucks table. “Did you get them?”
He looks mildly insulted. “Of course I did,” he says. There’s a bag on the chair beside him. He gestures to it with his foot. “They’re in there. Copied, like you asked, so no one gets suspicious. Is that all you needed?”
“For now.”
“Got your own spandex lying around, then?”
“Duh.” Michelle answers. “Can I keep the bag?”
“Why would you want to keep the bag?”
“Looks cool.”
Clint looks like he is very done with teenagers in this moment. “Sure,” he says finally. “It’s not mine. I don’t care.” He is silent for a moment, to drink from his (only one) coffee cup. Then he asks, “So, did Peter freak out?”
“I thought he was going to vomit on my shoes.” Michelle says honestly. That gets a laugh from the archer. “He was thoroughly spooked. This is the best idea I’ve ever had.”
“This is the funniest thing I’ve ever done.” Clint agrees. “This beats the Istanbul Incident by a longshot.”
Michelle decides that she does not want to know what the Istanbul Incident is. She orders her coffee and sets the bag he brought her next to her own backpack on the floor. So far, she’s received no texts from either Peter or Ned, and isn’t really sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
“You know,” says Clint, when she’s halfway finished with her coffee, “Stark would probably get a huge kick out of this.”
Oh, doesn’t she know it. But Michelle’s not really interested in the Big Leagues. Plus, she’s sure that including Tony Stark in her harmless prank would add so much embarrassment to Peter’s life, on top of how badly he’s already going to feel.
“I bet he would,” Michelle answers. “We can show him the finished gag reel once I find my camera and put it to good use.”
Michelle sincerely hopes Peter’s suit is made of a different material than her fake one because honestly it’s very itchy and very uncomfortable.
(With the mask on, though, it’s very convincing that she could be Spider-Man.)
(This really is the funniest thing she’s ever done.)
When she’s finished with the suit, she puts it at the bottom of her backpack. She’d spent a good eight hours making that suit, immediately following her Starbucks rendezvous with Clint, and is severely sore from sitting the entire time and extremely exhausted because it’s, like, two in the morning. But completely worth it.
No texts from Peter or Ned.
She texts Clint a photo of herself in the suit and is spammed with five texts of approving emojis before calling it quits for the night.
“Hey,” says Michelle gently. “I hope I didn’t freak you out.”
Peter practically jumps out of his own skin. He slams his locker shut and stares at her like she’s a ghost. Michelle’s camera is tucked into her bag, but she doesn’t think it’s an appropriate time to whip it out. “N-no,” he says, rapidly shaking his head. “Not at all, I just—”
“It’s a lot to process.” she guesses. “I know. Believe me.”
“MJ.” Peter’s voice lowers. “You cannot possibly expect me to believe that you are Spider-Man.”
She raises an eyebrow. “You don’t think I can handle myself?”
“No! No, I just—” He’s desperately searching for some kind of fact to disprove her. Michelle is pleased to find that it’s difficult for him. “Um. What about when we went to D.C. for that Decathlon trip last year?”
“What about it?”
“Well, um—”
“I wasn’t in the building.” Michelle tells him. “I know you wouldn’t know that, since nobody knew where you were the whole day.”
That shuts him up.
“I heard the explosion. Thankfully I had my suit with me.” she pats the strap of her backpack. “I always carry it with me, in case of emergency.”
His gaze zeroes in on her backpack. “You have a suit in there?”
“Of course.” Michelle looks at him like he’s daft. “If duty calls, y’know?”
There’s that I’m going to puke look again. It’s Michelle’s favorite expression on Peter’s face in the whole time they’ve known each other. “Right,” Peter says slowly. “Can I see it?”
“Not here, obviously.” she looks around. “Too many people. But I’ll text you a picture.”
“Right,” he says again. “A picture.”
First bell rings. Michelle’s whipping out her phone, going to her Photos app to send him the picture she’d sent to Clint. “I gotta head to class,” she says. “I’ll see you later.” She hits send.
She can hear Peter’s weird choking noises when she’s halfway down the hallway.
barton: need help plz
mj: help with what???
barton: are u free 2nite from like 5-10
mj: yeah, why?????
barton: babysit my kids
mj: you are shitting me.
barton: haha. nope.
barton: meet me @sbux ill take u 2 the cmpnd
mj: i didn’t say yes?
barton: 2 bad so sad ur doing it bc im helping u w this prank
mj: fine but only if you pay me
barton: thats not how this wrks
mj: fine
barton: but ill pay u if nathan bites u cos hes been doing that 2 us lately
mj: ……..what
barton: ok thx byeeeeee!!!!!!!!
Michelle is watching an eleven-year-old, an eight-year-old, and a three-year-old inside the Avengers facility in the wing where Clint Barton and his family occasionally stay. She is watching the children of an Avenger who is helping her prank one of her best friends who is sort of an Avenger but not really. This three-year-old is named after two Avengers. She is trying very hard to make sure Nathaniel Pietro Barton does not bite her, because getting bitten by a toddler is not worth the money Clint offered as recompense.
This is absolutely the weirdest thing Michelle has ever done and she can’t even take a picture and send it to the boys to prove it.
She does, however, get plenty of time to plan her next move. Which...isn’t going exactly how she wanted it to go.
She wants to go all out, for this one. Peter’s already going nuts. But Michelle isn’t really sure how to go big or go home in this sense. She doesn’t want to go out in the suit; she doesn’t have web fluid, and really could not pretend to be Spider-Man in action if she tried. But that doesn’t mean she can’t...make a public appearance.
Oh. Oh.
When Clint and his wife come back from wherever they went, she proudly tells him that his son did not bite her, and also tells him to make sure he’s at Starbucks tomorrow so she can tell him her brilliant addition to their plan.
She also tells him to make a Twitter.
Michelle has few interactions with Peter the next day, but each one of them involves him just staring at her like she’s just sprouted a second head. At lunch, she sets her backpack on the table, and pulls out her replica suit just a little bit to show him that it’s in there. He does not eat for another ten minutes. It’s hilarious.
Hilarious.
She spends the rest of lunch on the opposite end of the table, reading Persepolis for the third time that month. She can tell that Peter is watching her, very carefully, like he wants to say something to her but doesn’t know what.
But lunch ends without Peter Parker saying another word to her. School ends the exact same way. And when Michelle makes her way into Starbucks, she finds that Clint Barton is not the only Avenger waiting there for her.
“Hello,” says the redhead cheerfully. Clint is back to two coffees, but she’s nursing a tea in her hands. “It’s nice to meet you. Clint’s told me about you.”
“You know,” says Michelle, “my friend Ned would have probably passed out by now, if he were in my shoes.”
Natasha Romanoff’s eyebrow quirks up in amusement. “I’m flattered,” she replies. “But I’m not that special.”
Not that special. Michelle almost snorts. “Well, I’m a little surprised to see our team’s expanded.”
“Sorry. I tell Nat everything.” Clint says helpfully. “She’s great at this kind of stuff, though. We can trust her.”
Michelle has no doubt. “I need coffee.”
“Here.” he hands her the one in his right hand. She takes it reluctantly, finds it completely full, and looks at him skeptically. “I was a special agent with S.H.I.E.L.D., you know,” Clint says, mildly miffed at her expression. “Your coffee order was not exactly hard to decipher after the first time we met.”
“Clint says you have an idea on the next step.” Natasha prompts, as Michelle sips on her coffee that is precisely her order. Damn. She doesn’t know why she almost doubted an Avenger.
Michelle grins. “That I do. Clint, did you make that Twitter account?”
Natasha Romanoff tweets a captionless selfie of herself and Clint Barton inside a library. In between them is Spider-Man.
Clint retweets it and adds the announcement.
@hwkeye: com 1, com all, 2 the queens library in forest hills!!! spdr-man is reading kids books from 4-6 n WILL b takng pix!!!!!!
“I should mention,” says Clint, just as Michelle is sitting down in her fake Spidey suit, “that Peter doesn’t know we actually know who he is.”
Her eyes widen. "What.”
“It wasn’t hard to figure out.” Natasha agrees. “I mean, the kid’s bad at keeping secrets. This is proof of that, obviously. And I told Clint, because I tell Clint everything. The only person who knows Peter, as far as Peter is aware, is Tony.”
“You told me you’ve met him without the mask.” Michelle tells Clint accusingly.
“No, I didn’t.” Clint is grinning with a shit-eating grin. “You guessed that and I said, ‘Bold of you to assume that.’ So. Never confirmed.”
“Oh, my God.” says Michelle, slowly. “Did I just get pranked during my own prank?”
Clint and Natasha high-five.
“This just got so much worse and so much better all in one go.” Michelle mutters. “So much worse. So much better.”
“I hope you can at least try and sound like him.” Natasha tells her. “His voice is higher than yours.”
She snickers. “You’ve got my camera ready?”
“Tony will definitely know about this after today.” Clint says, more to himself.
“In case they ask you any questions about people you’ve fought, I’ll be on the comm.” Natasha taps her ear. “Ready to read to some kids?”
“Guess so.” Michelle answers. She clears her throat, puts on her Peter voice: “Bring them in.”
Natasha looks amused. “Good.”
After Michelle is done reading, she answers a few questions, but not many, since most people just want photos. The selfie of her with Clint and Natasha pretty much goes viral within three hours of it being posted. Then, she stands with little kids in the small reading room of the library, posting with peace signs and other random hand signals that she thinks up on the spot.
“Two more, Spidey,” says Clint, pushing the door open. “They just decided they wanted pictures last minute. Is that cool?”
“Sure,” says Michelle, in her Spider-Man/Peter Parker voice that makes him crack a smile. “Send ‘em in.”
It’s Peter and Ned.
Michelle relaxes a little. She holds onto her Peter voice, despite knowing that by the look on Ned’s face, he’s completely and utterly aware of the situation. “Hey, guys, what’s up?”
“Holy shit,” whispers Ned.
Michelle grins. “You want a picture with the best superhero in New York?”
“Uh,” says Peter.
“I’d say best Avenger, but I’m not an Avenger,” she says cheerily. “Not yet, anyway. I just like saying I am one because it boosts my ego.”
Peter makes that choking noise again.
They end up posing for a picture. Clint takes it for them. Michelle throws up a peace sign.
“Man,” she says. “I can’t wait to get this mask off. I can never breathe in this thing, you know?”
“Uh,” says Peter, again.
“Well, nice to meet fans, always,” she adds. Clint opens the door for them. “See you guys around!”
Clint escorts them out of the room and gives Michelle a thumbs-up on his way out. Once they’re gone, she changes back into normal clothes, and lets Natasha and Clint drive her home.
“Call me Nat,” says Natasha, when Michelle gets out of the car.
On her camera, hours after the event, there are several pictures of Peter and Ned standing in the back of the room, absolutely flabbergasted. Peter’s got the puke face on again. Michelle uploads them to her computer immediately, just so she can put in an order to print the one with Peter’s puke face.
When she goes to bed, she has two Avengers in her contacts.
When she wakes up, she’s about to have three.
Unknown: Pretty good imitation of the Spidey suit. Why don’t you come by the lab and I’ll make it even more convincing? -TS
It’s Saturday, which means Michelle has all day for this. Nat is downstairs, in a car, waiting to bring her to Tony’s lab. She shoves her fake suit in a bag and climbs into the car, incredibly grateful to see her coffee waiting in the cupholder.
“Someone’s keeping a close eye on Parker,” she says, before Michelle can say anything. “If he comes toward the facility, we’ll know.”
“Someone?” Michelle echoes. “You mean Clint?”
But Nat has this look in her eye that tells Michelle she’s up to no good. “Not Clint,” she says. “This is no longer a small circle of people, kid.”
“This has gone way too far.” she declares.
Nat laughs. “Probably,” she agrees. “But this is the most fun I think any of us have had in a long time. And considering the fact that technically only Tony knows who Peter is...it’s ridiculously easy.”
Michelle smiles. She opens her phone and pulls up her texts with Peter. Shoots off: lol should i make an instagram for spidey
She can almost hear the choking noises from here.
When they arrive at the facility, Clint greets them. Together, they walk down to Tony Stark’s lab, with Michelle’s fake suit in her bag, and they hear his voice drifting through the glass doors as they near him.
“...kid, you gotta be rational about this.” Tony says. Michelle already knows who he’s talking to. “Yeah, I know they helped out with the library stunt, but—nobody knows who you are, up here. No, I’m being honest. Just me.” A pause. “We agreed to keep your identity secret. That’s what we’re doing. I’m not going to tell them just because one of your friends is taking the piss out of you, okay?” He’s quiet again, as they enter the lab. His expression brightens when he sees Michelle. “Listen, I can’t give you advice on that part. You just gotta tell her when you’re ready. Honestly, I think it’s pretty hilarious. You should too. And honestly, she’s giving Spidey great publicity.”
She sets her fake suit on the table.
Tony grins. “See? There you go, kid. It’s not that deep, I promise. And if you really don’t like it, just give me another call. Okay? Okay. Yep. Have fun. Bye.”
He puts his phone down and rubs his hands together. “Michelle Jones,” he says, in a tone of voice that gives Michelle the impression that he’s impressed. “You’ve got one hell of a mind, don’t you?”
Her phone buzzes. A text from Peter: do it ill help if u want
The eyes move. The eyes in her fake suit move when her real eyes move.
Tony fixes the stitching a little bit and darkens the spider emblem on its chest. He adds fake web shooters, just so they’re there, like they are on Peter’s suit. After tweaking it for an hour, it looks like it is Peter’s suit. “Kid’s gonna kill me,” he mutters. “Worth it, probably.”
“Well,” says Michelle, as the suit’s finished, “I don’t think we can just do casual Starbucks meetings after school anymore.”
“Definitely not.” Tony agrees. “Good thing I planned for that, already.”
Starbucks meetings turn into occasional meetings at Stark Industries, in the fifth floor conference room. A couple meetings are at the facility, on Saturdays. Tony always has Starbucks waiting for them every time, each other perfect. Clint always gets his two coffees.
There’s this one time that the four of them end up at Michelle’s house, when her parents aren’t home. She takes a selfie just so she can print it.
It’s this meeting, in her living room, when Michelle cries: “Winter Soldier is in on it?”
“That’s our someone tailing Peter when we’re at the lab.” Nat says proudly. “He’s dragged Steve into it, of course, who wants to meet you and take a picture for his Instagram, if you want.”
If Peter knew the Winter Soldier was keeping tabs on him, he’d freak out. Not to mention: a photo. With Captain America. Nat says it like it’s no big deal. That’s a very big deal. “I’m in,” she says. “How many does that bring the count to, by the way?”
Clint ticks off his fingers as he talks. “Me, Nat, Tony. Bucky and Steve—”
“I told Rhodey,” offers Tony helpfully. “Happy is obviously in the know, even though he’s pretending like he knows nothing when he checks up on Pete.”
“Rhodey.” Clint amends. “Happy. Anyone else?”
“I’m sure Sam’s aware of the situation.” Nat says coolly. “I didn’t tell him, but you know how close he and Steve are. Plus, he doesn’t like Peter all that much after the airport incident, so any opportunity he has to mess with him is an opportunity he’ll take up. Same with Bucky.”
This is hilarious. Mind-blowing, Michelle thinks. This is like something straight out of a fucking comedy. How is this is her life right now?
“If Steve knows, Wanda probably knows.” Tony points out.
Michelle nearly spews coffee all over her shitty carpet. “Scarlet Witch?”
All three Avengers are eyeing her reaction curiously. “What?” she elaborates, casually sipping her coffee again. “She’s hot.”
Clint looks confused. “I thought you and Peter—”
“Peter also thinks she’s hot,” says Michelle.
“But aren’t you and Peter—”
“We’re not getting into my love life right now.” she says firmly. “That’s off the table.”
Nat nudges him. He goes back to sipping both coffees. Tony Stark looks at Michelle like he knows something about her that the others doesn’t.
She doesn’t like that.
“So...everyone’s in on it, then.” Michelle says, after a beat of silence. “Right? Is that everyone?”
“Probably.” Nat reasons. “Because if Wanda knows, then so does Vision, even if they don’t really ever do anything about it.”
“Peter would probably piss himself if I got a picture with Scarlet Witch.” Michelle says, half to herself.
Tony raises an eyebrow. “It wouldn’t just be for your personal benefit?”
“What? No way. Definitely for Peter. Have you seen his puke face? It’s adorable. Hilarious.”
Clint and Nat exchange looks over their cups of coffee.
“Okay.” Tony says. “I’ll make a call.”
“What is the end goal, by the way?” Clint inquires, when Tony steps to the side to make said call. “Like, we’re pranking Peter, which is hilarious. But are we going until we can’t think of anything else? Or are we going to tell him?”
“Well,” says Michelle, “considering that I never expected it to go this far, I think we should just keep going until Peter cracks. He will, eventually.”
“You don’t think he’ll be mad that you’re doing this?”
“Mad? No.” she taps her fingers on her coffee cup. “Irritated? Probably. I think I’m technically forcing him into telling me his secret, but it doesn’t really count, because I already know, even if he doesn’t know that.”
“Great news, gang.” Tony pockets his phone, picking up his Americano from the table. “Wanda’s en route with Vision. They’ll be here tomorrow. Photoshoot at the facility?”
Michelle almost passes out right there.
Peter meets her in the hallway just before Clint is supposed to pick her up. “MJ,” he says, keeping his voice low. “I gotta talk to you.”
“Sorry, Pete,” she says, closing her locker. “Can we reschedule? Someone’s waiting for me outside.”
“Oh.” he looks pretty uncomfortable. “Sure, of course.”
Michelle probably shouldn’t. Really shouldn’t. But she does anyway.
She squeezes his arm, offers a soft smile, and says, “I’ll tell Tony you say hi.”
Ah, yes. The puke face. The choking noises. She thinks Peter might be having an existential crisis at this point.
When Michelle sends Peter the photo of her and Captain America, Steve suggests, “Tell him you stole his shield once.”
When Michelle sends Peter the photo of her and Scarlet Witch, she texts: she’s even more hot in person
She takes another photo in between Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson, and Bucky posts it in his own Instagram account because he’s into that sort of thing. Michelle doesn’t understand the caption reference, but Sam does, because he throws his head back and starts laughing as loud as he possibly can.
Michelle takes a picture with Tony, and behind her fake mask she is laughing the whole time. They both chuck up peace signs, and right after they take it, Tony says, “Peter’s gonna break after this one, I bet. Completely lose his mind.”
“I’ll keep you updated.” Michelle answers. “Maybe I’ll call you when he tells me.”
“Oh, no.” he grins. “Kid doesn’t know about my involvement. Keep me out of it. He’ll give me an earful after it all.”
Another text to Peter: don’t worry, i’ll get them to sign your autograph book
A response: i literally h8 u
She’s pretty sure he means it. But she laughs anyway. And when Tony prints out the pictures in his lab, she gets two copies of each one, so she can give signed ones to Peter.
What Michelle thinks believes to be the final straw that breaks Peter’s back, though, is when Tony Stark uploads the picture of him and fake-Spidey in the compound, holding up peace signs.
@stark: Suit up. Newest Avenger coming soon.
Michelle laughs for approximately twenty minutes. She’s already added the photo to the several print-outs from her long-lasting prank. She’s thinking about making a few scrapbooks when this is all over: one for her, one for Peter, and one for the compound, since she’s got selfies with every Avenger on the planet at this point. She’s got enough photos for each of the scrapbooks to be identical, so.
Her fake suit lies in her closet, where she’s just put it after returning from the facility. It probably needs to be washed soon. She’ll have to ask Tony how to do it properly. Maybe, when this is all over, she’ll frame it. Maybe that’ll be soon. After all, it’s going to be really, really hard to come up with something that will top everything else they’ve done, if Peter doesn’t break after this one.
Turns out, ten minutes after she’s done laughing, Tony Stark is right.
There’s a steady knock on the door. Her parents aren’t home; they’ve been gone since this morning on a business trip and will not return until tomorrow, so whoever is out there is here for her.
Michelle opens the door.
Peter bursts in in a fury, wearing one of his nerd shirts, a jacket, and a pair of jeans. He’s yanking his hand through his in hair in frustration and Michelle notes that he’s wearing red winter gloves. As she closes the door behind him, he paces, all over her living room, breathing hard and not saying anything other than incoherent sounds.
“Peter,” says Michelle calmly, turning to face him. “What’s going on? Why did you show up like that?”
“I can’t do this.” he says. He sounds pained. The puke face is back. “MJ, I know you’re not Spider-Man.”
She maintains her composure. Frowns at him. “What do you mean?”
“You’re—you’re not Spider-Man.” he stops pacing long enough to face her, wringing his hands nervously. Michelle is starting to think those aren’t winter gloves on his hands.
“Peter, I think I’ve pretty much proven—”
“You’re not Spider-Man because I am.” Peter interrupts, and Michelle falls silent. “I’m Spider-Man, okay? It’s me. It’s always been me.”
He takes his coat off, then, and yanks the shirt with a math equation over his head. The pants come off next. He’s wearing his Spidey suit. The real Spidey suit. Peter Parker is standing in Michelle’s living room, wearing the Spider-Man suit, telling her his most trusted secret, staring at her because he’s waiting for her response.
Michelle says, “Oh, thank God. This shit was exhausting.”
Peter blinks.
“Hold on—let me facetime Nat and Clint.” Michelle fishes her phone out of her pocket. She takes a photo of Peter’s shell-shocked face first, because it looks funny, and then actually clicks on their group chat, hitting the video call button. It rings once before Nat picks up, Clint following shortly after. “Guys, we did it. Peter just told me he’s Spider-Man.”
“Finally!” Clint cries. Peter looks even more confused. “I’ll go tell the others.”
“God.” Peter groans.
“Good work, kid,” says Nat with a smile.
“MJ.” Peter says tightly. She looks up at him. “C’mon.”
“Call us back later.” Nat advises. The brief call ends.
Michelle puts her phone back in her pocket. Peter looks less stunned. Maybe a little irritated, now. “Okay, you want the full story?”
“Please.”
“Sure.” she exhales. “Peter, you are not the best at keeping secrets.”
He eyes her. “How long have you known?”
“Since D.C.” Michelle answers. Peter’s eyes bug. “Well, just after it. I realized it just after Homecoming.”
“How—?”
“It was pretty easy, really. Spider-Man was a Queens superhero until the team went to D.C., when he followed. So he had to be someone on the team. I knew you’d been missing, and then Spider-Man showed up, but Ned said you were sick and couldn’t make it, so I didn’t immediately suspect you at that point.” Michelle shrugs. Peter is listening very intently. She’s going to miss his puke face. “But then Homecoming happened, and you ditched Liz, and then Spider-Man was spotted fighting someone in the parking lot and then later on the beach on Coney Island.”
“Huh.” Peter says.
“And then Tiny told me that Stark’s bodyguard was talking to you in the boys’ bathroom.” Michelle adds. “And I realized that the Stark Internship was a little more than just an internship. It was kind of annoying, too. I woke up at, like, four in the morning with the realization.”
Peter’s eyebrows are raised very high. “That’s...well, when you put it all like that, I do kind of suck.”
“Oh, you suck so hard.” Michelle agrees. He lets out a breathy laugh. “But I’ve been planning this prank since then, so I’m very glad it came to fruition.”
“I just don’t know how you did it.” he admits. “How did you get the Avengers on board?”
Michelle laughs. “That was complete happenstance, to be honest. I walked into Starbucks and saw Clint sitting on a table.”
“On a table?”
“Yep.” she smiles fondly. “On a table. He texts worse than you do, fun fact.”
He makes a face.
“Exactly. Barely legible. So at first, it was just me and Clint, and...” Michelle keeps going, telling Peter the entire story. At some point, they both end up on her small couch, half on top of each other, and she has never felt so comfortable in her life. Peter’s irritation goes away as she keeps talking, explaining the timeline: Clint, then Nat, then Tony; then, in no particular order, kind of all at once, Rhodey and Bucky, Sam and Steve, Wanda and Vision. Michelle kind of wishes she’d been able to meet Thor and Bruce in the midst of her prank.
“I would have absolutely fucking lost it if you met Thor before I did.” Peter says seriously. “Or Bruce Banner. I literally would have lost my whole mind.”
“I know you would have.” Michelle answers, shooting him a grin. “That’s why I was hoping they’d turn up.”
Peter throws his head back, letting it rest against the couch cushion. “This has been the weirdest experience of my life.”
“You’re telling me,” she agrees.
“I'm kind of upset, though. You caused me a lot of anxiety.”
“I am sorry,” says Michelle, and she means it. “I didn’t mean for it to go as far as it did. It’s all Clint’s fault, for being at my Starbucks, really.”
“You pulled off one hell of a prank.” Peter says impressively. “I’m not mad at that. I am, though, a little annoyed at it all.”
“Did you know that I knew?”
“Not at first,” he admits. “I thought Mr. Stark was the only Avenger who knew my secret. I thought about it, at the library thing, but I didn’t actually realize it until you sent me the picture of you and Captain America and of you and Scarlet Witch.”
“She’s hot, right?” Michelle points out.
He sighs. “So hot. I hate that you officially met her before me.”
“You’re still oblivious, though.” she says. “For not guessing it in the beginning. If I were you, I would have guessed right away.”
“Eh.” Peter sighs. “I’m kind of glad I didn’t. By the time I realized it, you were knee-deep in this prank. I wanted to see how far you’d go.”
“The Avenger thing broke you?”
“Yep. Even though I knew Mr. Stark was messing around.”
Michelle is quiet for a moment. Then, she asks, “Were you ever planning on telling me?”
“I was!” he promises. He looks down at his hands. “I just—you know, with...with great power comes great responsibility. I didn’t even want to tell Ned, or May; they both just found out. But I wanted to be the one to tell you. When I knew I could protect you, in case anything happened.”
Michelle leans forward, ducking her head a bit to catch his eyes. “Why?”
She wants him to say it.
Peter stares at her, something soft in his brown eyes. “Because you’re different,” he says. “To me. May’s my aunt. Ned’s my best friend. You…”
He covers one of her hands in both of his gloved ones. “I’m sorry for pushing you to it,” says Michelle quietly.
“Don’t be.” Peter smiles at her. “This was quite possibly the most hilarious thing that has happened to me, too.”
“Oh, good.” Michelle breathes, relaxing. “Because I have a scrapbook to give you as a memoir of this insanity. I hope this means you’ve completely forgiven me.”
“Partially.” Peter says. She frowns. “I will completely forgive you,” he adds, grinning lightly, “on two conditions.”
Condition number one: Tony Stark takes a picture of them in an alley, in their respective Spidey suits, pointing at one another.
Condition number two: Michelle puts on the real Spidey suit and poses for a photo with the mask off while Peter calls her Spideychelle and cute in that order.
(Condition number three, which is completely Michelle’s idea: they go on their first date.)
+ in which you meet your soulmate. and he just so happens to be the masked superhero who goes by the name of spider-man.
part 2
haha, so.
this is my first imagine and i really wish i had the capability of writing something short! but alas, i don’t! so this is going to be more than one part. i hope i captured the characters well enough! :’) i hope you enjoy!
word count: 2994
You hate the universe.
You haven’t always; growing up, you were fascinated with the idea of soulmates. You had your mother tell you the story of how she met your father several times. It was your favorite story. It still is. Even now, the story of how your parents realized they were soulmates is something you idolize. And you try not to, really, because everyone’s first encounter with their soulmate is different, but...can’t the universe cut you a little slack?
At least, that’s what you had originally hoped when you moved to Queens. Your family’s new apartment is significantly smaller than your old house, but it feels no less homey. Your room looks the exact same: all shades of grey.
Back to the reason you hate the universe: you’re seventeen years old and you haven’t met your soulmate, so you’re stuck in a world without color.
You were okay with it at first. At first lasted until you were about age 10. Then it was a mild inconvenience.
Then, last year, five days after you turned sixteen, your best friend found her soulmate and was suddenly immersed in a world of color. “It’s...beautiful,” she’d said. “I can’t even describe the feeling. But everything is bright and beautiful and—you’ll just have to wait until you find your soulmate.”
So naturally, now you hate everything.
“So?” says your best friend, grinning at you from a grainy phone screen. “How’s the new place? Do you like it?”
“It’s fine,” you answer, lying back on your bedspread.
“How’s Queens?”
“We haven’t really explored yet. But it’s not Manhattan, so it already sucks.”
She laughs. “I’m sure it’s not that bad. Besides, I’m coming up tomorrow, so we’ll have the entire weekend to explore before you start school. Where are you going, again?”
“Midtown School of Science and Technology.” Your class schedule for said school is sitting on your bedside table. You pick it up and wave it in front of the camera for good measure. “My classes are already stressing me out.”
“It kinda sucks that you guys had to move right before senior year.” your best friend agrees. “But who knows? Maybe you’ll finally meet your soulmate this year.”
“Sure,” you answer, trying (and failing) not to sound sarcastic. “That would be great.”
She gives you a look. “You’re going to,” she says, with absolute certainty. “This is going to a great year for you, (Y/N).”
--
Your best friend arrives just in time for lunch the next day, greeting you with a hug. It’s been too long since you’ve seen her—too long being about five days. How you’re going to survive without her during senior year is beyond you.
And you tell her this. And all she says back to you is, “You’ll be fine. You’ll have your soulmate. I know it.”
“I appreciate the optimism,” you reply, as the two of you leave your apartment complex. The hot sun hits your skin almost immediately. The sun, you know, is yellow, even if you can’t see the color yourself. “But you can’t know for sure. It’s not like my soulmate is going to randomly drop from the sky.”
Except he does.
A blur of red and blue drops down in front of the two of you with a groan. The figure picks himself up, brushing himself off as he stands up straight. “Sorry about that,” he says, his voice muffled through the mask covering his face. “I—”
Wait. How did you know he was red and blue?
You blink. The world around you is now in color: you can see the red-brown of the bricks on the building, the tan concrete, the blue sky and the white clouds; the sun isn’t yellow but just a bright light.
And the person in front of you is clad in a blue and red suit with a mask covering his face and a spider emblazoned on his chest.
You’re not the only speechless one. This...spider-thing is staring at you, probably with his mouth open, but you can’t tell, because the mask covers his face.
Great. So you just met your soulmate, but in a disguise. You really do hate the universe.
“Uh,” says Spiderthing. “Gotta go.”
A thin spider web shoots out from his right arm and he jumps away.
“What was that?” your best friend says, after a moment of silence. You feel frozen to the sidewalk. You don’t even turn to watch him—your soulmate—as he practically runs from you. You’re not sure what’s worse: the fact that you met him, but you have no idea what he looks like, or that he knows what you look like, and if he thinks you’re ugly, he never has to come to you in person and tell you that he’s your soulmate.
“That was him,” you say, after another pause of silence. “Him, (Y/BFF/N). That was my soulmate.”
She’s staring at you with an unreadable expression. Then, very slowly, she says, “Oh, you’re screwed.”
--
After extensive internet research (also known as opening YouTube and clicking on the first recommended video), you discover that ‘Spiderthing’ is called Spider-Man, Queens’ very own superhero. Basically, the video tells you, he’s an Avenger. And no one knows his real identity.
“Isn’t it beautiful, though?” says your best friend later that night, clasping her hands in her lap. She sighs with a light smile, closing the laptop set up between you. “You can see, now. Even if you don’t know what your soulmate looks like.”
She’s right; you stretch your legs out against the lilac of your comforter. It’s like you’re living in an entirely different world. Every color, no matter how soft, looks intense to you. It’s overwhelming. “This is so annoying,” you say. “Of course I, out of all people, meet my soulmate when he has a stupid mask on. And of course he wasn’t about to take his mask off right there, in public, when he’s a superhero and probably has enemies!”
Your best friend pats your knee. “It’s going to be all right,” she says. “Take your mind off it for a few days.”
“How can I take my mind off him?” you point at your eyes. “The fact that I can see color makes me think about him.”
“You start school on Monday, don’t you?” she points out. “You should focus on that. Whoever this Spider-Man is, he’s probably your age. Maybe you’ll have a couple classes with him.”
“But how will I know that it’s him?”
“I’m sure there will be signs.” she shrugs.
“Such as…?”
“How should I know? It’s not like I’ve been through this situation before.”
You sigh. “Great. I’m really excited.”
“Have I ever told you how unnecessary your sarcasm is?”
“Multiple times.”
--
“So,” says your best friend, who is still in bed as you take your phone into the kitchen with you. “Do you think you’ll meet your soulmate today?”
“I don’t know,” you say finally. “I think I just want a stress-free first day of senior year.”
(You know you’re going to be the furthest from stress-free anyway.)
“It’s okay if you don’t.” she says hurriedly. “Obviously. I’m not pushing for you to meet him or anything.”
But she kind of is. “You’ve been pushing for me to meet my soulmate ever since you met yours.”
“That’s not true—”
“I don’t mind,” you cut her off. Your best friend looks surprised. “I just...I have a lot on my mind. I don’t really want to think about my soulmate.”
“If you do think you find someone who could be him,” she says, “you text me right away.”
You smile slightly. “Will do. Have a great first day of senior year.”
“You too, (Y/N).” your best friend smiles back at you. Then you end the FaceTime call, grabbing your backpack from the kitchen table.
It’s ironic, you saying you don’t want to think about your soulmate, because your soulmate is the only thing on your mind. The fact that your soulmate is Spider-Man means he’s probably always in danger, and if someone traced him back to you, well...your parents wouldn’t be too happy about that. You don’t even know if you’re all right with that. You should be. You want to be. But having a soulmate who is constantly in danger would probably mean you would be worrying about him all the time. And...with New York’s previous encounters with aliens, who’s to say aliens wouldn’t come back? This time to Queens? With your soulmate at the center of it?
You’re already giving yourself a headache and it’s not even eight in the morning. If that doesn’t say great start to a brand new school year, you don’t know what does.
--
There’s a cute boy on the train that you’re taking to Midtown. He looks like he could be your age.
His hair is chestnut brown. His sweater is a soft blue. His eyes, you notice, when he looks up from his phone (but not at you), are chocolate brown. He’s absolutely beautiful.
And he doesn’t look at you at all the entire ride. Which is unfortunate, because seriously, you wish he could be your soulmate, but he just doesn’t look like he’s Spider-Man material.
--
Your first class of the day is English. When you enter, you see that Train Boy is there, sitting in a desk, looking down at a notebook. He’s sketching something out, but you can’t see what it is. Coincidentally, however, one of the only empty seats remaining is right beside him, so you slide into it before anyone else can take it and set your backpack down beside you.
Then you catch a glimpse at his notebook.
“Oh, Spider-Man, huh?” you ask, before you can stop yourself. Train Boy jumps a little, dropping his pencil onto the paper. “I love him.”
“You—you do?” he stammers, without making eye contact. You watch as he scrambles to regrasp his pencil, covering his drawing with his hands in the process.
“I mean…” you tuck your hair behind your ear. “Sure. He’s pretty famous, right?”
“K-kinda.” Train Boy clears his throat. “I’ve never seen you before—are you new here? Or—?”
“I just moved from Manhattan. It’s not terribly far away, but still a new school district, so.”
“Right. Right.” he nods.
“So...Spider-Man.” you prompt. “Obviously he’s pretty well known around here. Does anyone know who he is?”
“Peter knows Spider-Man!” But it’s not Train Boy who says this. No; it’s the boy in front of him, who turns around in his seat to join your conversation. Train Boy gives him a look that you don’t catch. “I’m Ned,” says the boy who interrupted your conversation, holding a hand out to you to shake. “It’s nice to meet you.”
You shake it. “(Y/N),” you say. “You too. Uh, who’s Peter?”
“This is Peter.” Ned tells you, gesturing to Train Boy—Peter—with his head. “Peter Parker. My best friend.”
“Oh.” you look at Peter, who still hasn’t looked you in the eye since you started talking to him. “You know Spider-Man?”
“I’ve—uh, I’ve met him. Once or twice. Through an...internship that I had. Through Tony Stark.” Peter answers. He looks down at his notebook. “He’s pretty, uh, pretty cool, I’d say. Why—why do you want to know who he is?”
“Uh.” You’re not quite sure about telling these two people you just met that Spider-Man just so happens to be your soulmate. “I’m curious, that’s all,” you say. “I accidentally ran into him over the weekend.”
“That happens sometimes.” Ned agrees. “Hey, so since you’re new and all, would you like to sit with us at lunch? It’s just us and our friend MJ.”
--
When you leave school at the end of the week, you have three official friends.
Ned makes it official at lunch on day one. He introduces you to MJ by calling you a ‘new friend’. You like Michelle and Ned both very much, and part of you wishes Peter would talk a little more, so you’d get to know him, too. You’re not sure if he just feels uncomfortable with eye contact or what, but he only looks at you a couple of times during lunch. You try to ignore the sinking feeling in your stomach. Ned tells you that he’s pretty busy, working on college applications and so forth, but after five days of it, you start to wonder if Peter doesn’t really like you at all.
But Friday, things change. He walks with you to the train. “So,” he says, shouldering his backpack, holding on to the top railing as the train leaves the station, “Week one at Midtown is done. What did you think?”
“I liked it,” you say honestly. You share English with Ned and Peter, Anatomy with MJ, and Government with all three of them. All three of them, you learn, are on the Academic Decathlon team; and although that type of extracurricular has never been something you’re particularly good at or interested in, you let them talk to you about their strong suits and about how competitions work. “Midtown is much smaller than my high school back home.”
“Do you miss your old friends?”
“Just my best friend, (Y/BFF/N). But we usually talk every day, and I’m going to see her this weekend. So I’m surviving.”
Peter smiles slightly. “I get that,” he says. “I think if I went to a different school and Ned went here, I’d miss him too.”
“Yeah.” you say. “For sure.”
The pair of you stand in silence for a minute. Then he says, “So...Ned and MJ are coming over on Sunday to study for the Government quiz. You’re more than welcome to come. I can give you my address, if you’re free.”
“Oh.” you blink. “Wow, yeah, actually, I’d love that. I study better when I’m with other people.”
Peter fishes his phone out of his pocket. “Me too.”
You tell him your phone number and he types it in. Your phone vibrates in your pocket moments later, with a text you assume is from Peter, giving you his address. “So,” he says. “I’ll see you then?”
“Sunday.” you confirm, as the train rolls to a stop at one of the stations. “And...this is my stop.”
“Okay.” Peter clears his throat. “I’ll—Sunday. Bye, (Y/N).”
And he smiles at you. You tell him goodbye and step off the train. It occurs to you, then, as you start walking toward your apartment, that the fluttering feeling in your stomach is butterflies, and you’re not quite sure how to react to that.
Your best friend is calling by the time you reach your place. “Hey!” she cheers, when you answer the FaceTime call. “So? How’d the week go?”
You give her a quick recount of everything. She knows who Peter, Ned, and MJ are already, and since most of your senior year anecdotes include them, it doesn’t take you much time to get your best friend up to speed on your life.
“No soulmate updates, then?” she asks you, once you finish catching her up.
“Nope,” you reply, popping the ‘p’.
Your best friend sighs in frustration. “I would have thought for sure that you’d have figured it out by the end of week one.”
You shrug lightly. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s not a senior. Or maybe he’s just not in any of my classes.”
“Why are you acting so nonchalant about it all of the sudden?” she stares at you. “Weren’t you so anxious about it on Sunday?”
“I mean, yeah. But…” you bite your lip. If you’re being honest, your soulmate had slipped from your mind more than enough times this week. Which is surprising to you still, considering that he’s Spider-Man. “But I figure he’ll come to me, when he’s comfortable. I mean. Telling someone you’re a superhero is a big deal. And I technically already know his secret.”
“But you’re his soulmate,” she points out.
“That doesn’t mean I’d have his automatic trust.” you reply. You sit down on your bed and discard your backpack onto the floor. “You still have to work for it, I’m sure. It’s different for everyone. This is a special situation, remember?”
Your best friend stares at you. “I’ve never heard you say anything like this before. What changed?”
What did change? You bite your lip. “I don’t know,” you say honestly. “I think that...if I see Spider-Man again, maybe I’ll ask. But he knows what I look like. I’ll let him come to me. I just made new friends, (Y/BFF/N). I don’t...I don’t think I need a soulmate right now.”
Your chest feels lighter when you say it. You think of your brand new friends—who, yeah, you’ve only known for a short amount of time, but sometimes you just get that feeling, you know? When you meet someone and you know you’re going to have a great relationship with them. That’s the way you feel about MJ. About Ned. About Peter. You’re still not quite sure what the butterflies in your stomach meant when you stepped off the train. You’re not even sure you want to know.
“I just,” you add, before your best friend can say anything. “I just want to stop thinking about my soulmate for a little while. I can take a break from him.”
“Sure,” your best friend agrees. “You can. Listen—I have to go, okay? But I’ll text you when I’m on my way tomorrow.”
“Okay,” you say. “Bye.”
You end the call and put your phone on your bed. You can put Spider-Man-aka-your-soulmate out of your mind for at least a weekend, can’t you? It’s not like he’s going to pop up at your window all of a sudden, right?
--
(It should be noted that this is the second time you’ve jinxed yourself when it comes to your soulmate.)
+ in which you realize something you probably should have a month ago.
part 4
hoooooly mOLY. you guys are amazing!! i’m incredibly blessed at how much feedback this has gotten. this chapter got away from me a little bit, i’ll admit. it’s the longest so far and it probably is going to be the longest; i think there’s only going to be one more part after this! unless i want/you want me to write an epilogue.....
like always, tags are at the end! send me an ask or a message if you’d like to be added!
word count: 3369
“Go Fish.”
“I hate this,” you say, reaching down to the pile of cards in front of you. “You’ve got to be lying to me.”
“I cannot believe you just accused me of being a liar.”
“You are!” you look up as you tuck your new card into your hand. “I thought Spider-Man was a friendly neighborhood guy, not a liar.”
Spider-Man’s eyes narrow at you in what you assume is an attempt at a glare. But his mask is stretching around his mouth like it does when he smiles. Over the past month, you’ve done an excellent job at reading Spider-Man’s facial expressions despite the literal mask covering his face.
Yeah. So, it’s been a month since you moved to Queens. A month since Spider-Man dropped in front of you and the world exploded in color. A month since you started school at Midtown and met Ned, MJ, and Peter Parker.
Peter Parker. Involuntarily, your expression falters slightly. It tends to that these days, whenever you think of the curly-haired, brown-eyed boy who walks with you to the train after and before school now.
“What is it?” Spider-Man asks, the eyes on his suit widening. You’ve decided that his eyes are blue behind the mask. Or maybe green. Or grey. Anything but brown.
“Nothing,” you say. It’s a blatant lie, but you’re unsure if he picks up on it. You don’t lie often. But you don’t want to hurt your soulmate’s feelings. You feel guilty enough; whenever you’re with Spider-Man, Peter somehow drifts into your mind. But when you’re with Peter, sometimes you forget about Spider-Man. You’re wading into dangerous waters, and you know it, but you can’t stop yourself. “I just. Can’t believe you won’t admit you lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie!” Spider-Man protests. He shifts closer to you, holding on tightly to the four cards in his hand. “I didn’t have a three. Or a five. Or a seven. Statistically, it’s possible. You just have bad luck this round.”
Go Fish isn’t the only thing you have bad luck at right now.
“Let’s do something else,” you say, setting your cards down. Spider-Man does the same without questioning. You like that about him. He’s easy-going, he’s sweet. Last week he’d even helped you with your Statistics homework.
Then again, on Wednesday, Peter did that too.
Spider-Man has visited you a total of seven times in the past month. Almost twice per week. You look forward to every meeting, really. You’ve managed to always leave your window unlocked, and tonight was the first time he hadn’t knocked before climbing in. You didn’t mind. It’s another step forward.
“Do you want to play Five Questions?” he asks, putting all of the cards into one neat pile.
Five Questions is pretty self-explanatory. There aren’t really any rules, because you already promised you wouldn’t ask for his name until he was ready to tell you; you also don’t really ask about physicalities, because it falls under the same category of you not knowing his name. The pair of you only started this game last time, when Spider-Man asked you five questions about yourself. So now it’s your turn to ask questions about him.
“Sure,” you answer. And screw it. You said you wouldn’t ask for his name, but the only thing you can think about right now is Peter and Peter is not your soulmate. Taking the deck of cards from Spider-Man’s outstretched hands, you ask, “Do you have a middle name?”
You can see the caution on the mask. “I do,” he says.
Biting your lip, you reach for the empty card tin and pop it open, placing the deck inside. “Can I know it?”
Spider-Man says nothing. You’re too busy making sure the deck of cards fits inside the tin, so you aren’t looking at him. You’re kind of afraid to. You place the lid back onto the tin and stand up from the carpet, crossing to your desk to place the cards back in the drawer you’d gotten them out of.
“Benjamin,” he says.
So...you weren’t actually expecting him to answer.
You whirl around. The red-and-blue clad superhero is looking up at you, eyes wide, fiddling with his hands in his lap. “My middle name is Benjamin,” he repeats.
“Benjamin.” you say slowly, testing out the name on your tongue. You’re not sure if Benjamin is a name you would have associated with Spider-Man, but now you do, because it’s his. It’s his middle name. “Do you go by it?”
“I do not.”
“All right.” you take your seat again across from him, leaning against your bed. “Does it have any significance, or did your parents just choose it because they liked it?”
“It was my uncle’s name.” Spider-Man says. Suddenly, the tone of his voice sounds as masked as his face is.
You watch him carefully. “Was?”
The room is silent. Spider-Man hangs his head, looking down at his clasped hands, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “Was,” he agrees, in the softest voice you’ve ever heard him use. “My uncle died when I was fourteen. Just before I got these powers. It was—really hard to deal with. When I got my powers, I knew that...that I had to do right with them. So I stopped small crimes. Robberies. I stopped a three-thousand pound car from barreling straight into a city bus. I stopped a man from taking alien tech to create his own weapons. Everything I’ve done, it’s all been to try and make this world a better place. No one else should lose their family members because of petty theft or people who think that they have any power because they’ve got a gun.”
It’s more than you asked for. And you’re really, really glad he told you.
You lean forward and put your hand on top of both of his. Spider-Man looks up at you, his fingers twitching beneath yours. Then he unfolds his hands and lets you lace your fingers through his, resting your entwined hands on his leg. “Hey,” you say, very quietly. “I think your uncle would be very proud of you and all the work you’ve done.”
Spider-Man squeezes your hand. “Thank you, (Y/N),” he says. “And—and, uh, that’s five questions.”
You smile slightly. He’s right. “Okay,” you say. “So what do you want to do next?”
“I think I should go home.” he admits, but he doesn’t let go of your hand or attempt to get up. “It’s getting pretty late.”
“Sure.” Glancing at the clock, you realize he’s right; it is pretty late. This is probably the latest Spider-Man has ever been at your house. It’s a good thing your parents are out for the night. “Be safe on your way home?”
“I promise.” Then, with another brief squeeze of your hand, Spider-Man stands up, pulling you to your feet as well and letting go of you. He goes to unlatch the window and slides it open, stopping just before he crawls through. “See you.”
Then he’s gone, sliding the window closed behind him.
--
“Benjamin, huh?” (Y/BFF/N) muses, only her eyes and forehead visible on your phone screen. “That’s cute. Does he go by Ben?”
“He doesn’t go by his middle name,” you reply, glancing at your closed window. Spider-Man left only minutes ago and the first thing you did was call your best friend. Naturally, she answered. “Which is why he told me, I think.”
“Huh. Well, did he tell you anything else?”
“No.” So maybe telling your best friend that Spider-Man’s middle name is Benjamin probably wasn’t the best idea, mostly because you’re sure Spider-Man trusts you not to tell anyone what his name is. But anyway, Spider-Man doesn’t even appear in Manhattan ever, so what’s the harm? Plus, your best friend is the exception to the “don’t tell anyone” rule in every situation. Except for when Spider-Man was heartbreakingly honest about the death of his uncle. “Just that. We also played Go Fish and then he left.”
“Wow. Why Go Fish, of all things?”
“I suggested it.”
“You’re so weird.”
You grin. “Back at you.”
Your best friend shakes her head at you. “Listen, I’d love to stay up and talk, but I have to get up early tomorrow for swim practice. So I’ll call you tomorrow, if I can, okay?”
“Okay.” You’re not going to lie; you’re a little sad that she has to go. You haven’t really seen her recently, because you’ve both been busy, and your FaceTime calls have been getting shorter and shorter over the past couple of weeks. “See you.”
“See you,” she says. Then she hangs up.
--
“Wrong.” Peter says to you gently, erasing your given answer on the worksheet. “Try again.”
“Can’t I just copy yours?” you complain, frowning at the paper in front of you.
Peter smiles slightly. “No, you can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because a question just like this one is going to be on the test, and you need to know how to do it. Copying it won’t tell you how to do it.”
You sigh and fling your pencil down onto the table. “This sucks.”
“Trigonometry isn’t for everyone.” Peter gives you a look, reaching for your pencil to hold it out to you. “Just keep going. You’ll get it eventually.”
But you won’t. You know you won’t. Not right now, anyway, when Spider-Man is the only person on your mind. “Can’t we just take a break?” you sit back in your chair. “When are Ned and MJ supposed to get here, anyway?”
“Soon, I think.” A frown passes Peter’s mouth as he reluctantly closes his textbook. “One of them is bringing over a pizza. I don’t remember who. (Y/N), are you okay?”
Great. So he’s also attentive to your emotions. Which is kind of what you wanted, but now that he’s actually asked you about it, you don’t want to talk about it. “I’m just thinking,” you say, which is true. You close your notebook. “About Spider-Man.”
“What—what about him?”
“I don’t know. Everything, I guess. He came to my house last night.”
Peter looks surprised. “O-oh, he did?”
“Yeah.” you bite your lip.
“What did he say? Did he tell you anything?”
And you want to say yes; you want to tell Peter everything word-for-word about last night. But you can’t. Spider-Man trusts you. You telling his secrets to your friends—even if they are your closest friends—violates that. And you don’t want to lose his trust at all. Telling your best friend his middle name is all the secret-spilling you’re going to allow yourself. After all, she’s your best friend. You tell each other everything. So instead, you say: “I found out a little bit more about who he is.”
“That’s good,” Peter says, reaching for his water. “Isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” But all you can think about is how Spider-Man told you about his uncle. “But...it’s got me thinking about a lot of stuff.”
“Like?”
“Like...maybe I shouldn’t find out who he is.”
Peter, who is taking a sip of water as you say this, quickly lowers his glass, almost spitting out the water in his mouth. In fact, he practically chokes on it, coughing behind his sleeve. “Wh-why would you say that?” he says between coughs, his face reddening. “He’s your soulmate. You have to find out who he is.”
“He was in a situation where he lost someone and couldn’t do anything about it.” you blurt. “So I know why he doesn’t want to tell me who he is so he can protect me. What if I know his identity, and everyone knows we’re soulmates, and some enemy of his targets me? If it’s down to saving me or saving someone innocent, he shouldn’t—”
Peter stares at you in disbelief. “What, like you’re not as innocent as anyone else?”
“If I never find out who he is, then his enemies will never target me. They’ll never hurt him that way. He’ll never have to make that choice.”
“He knows who you are.” Peter reminds you. “He sneaks into your house to talk to you. Anyone could see that, if they were in the right place at the right time.”
“He already told me that he’d choose to save me first.” you tell him. “And that’s just it. I’d want him to let—”
“Don’t.” Peter says sharply. You blink at him; all redness is gone from his face, replaced with a determined look in his eye. “I know what you’re about to say, and don’t say it. You’re his soulmate, (Y/N). You’re more important than the entire world. So don’t you dare think for one minute that Spider-Man wouldn’t give all of that up just to save you.”
At that exact moment, with quite possibly the worst timing in the entire world, the door flings open.
“We’re here!” Ned announces, walking into Peter’s apartment with MJ behind him. “And we come bearing food!”
“They took way too long to make the pizza.” MJ adds, closing the door behind herself and Ned. “But we did get free breadsticks.”
You’re still staring at Peter. He’s still staring right back at you. You’ve never seen him look remotely angry in the month that you’ve known him—but he does right now, and there’s something else in his eyes that isn’t anger and it makes the butterflies in your stomach stir—
“Hello?” Ned sets the pizza on the counter. “You guys good over there?”
Peter breaks eye contact first. “Uh, yeah, man.” He clears his throat and pushes his textbook to the side, standing up to join the others in the kitchen. “Let me grab napkins and stuff. We were just doing a little bit of homework.”
“Yeah,” you say. Your voice sounds a little foreign to your own ears. Peter glances nervously at you as you stand, grabbing your notebook to shove it back in your backpack. “Homework.”
That’s all it was allowed to be, anyway.
--
Your intentions to return to your homework after eating fly out the window the minute Ned mentions Peter’s Star Wars DVD collection.
“I had no idea you liked Star Wars,” you admit, when Ned moves to put one of the movies in the DVD player.
“Like?” MJ snorts. “Peter loves it. He’s obsessed.”
“Really?”
“Er—yeah, I do.” Peter picks at the pepperoni on his pizza. “It’s my favorite series.”
How ironic it feels that the first thing you learned about Spider-Man’s personality happens to be one of the last things you feel like you’re learning about Peter’s. “Mine, too,” you say to him, picking up your pizza crust.
That’s how all four of you end up in front of the TV with one of the several Star Wars movies starts up. You and Peter end up together, on the floor, sitting as close as you did on the train a month ago. For a minute, you can forget that the two of you just argued for the first time.
For a minute, you actually forget about Spider-Man.
And then May Parker comes home.
You’ve met Peter’s aunt before, only once; you know he lives with her because his parents died when he was little. You also know she’s quite possibly the best person you’ve ever met, because she’s kind and loving and also loves to embarass Peter.
The fact that you know she loves to embarass Peter after only meeting her once is also one of the reasons why you love her.
“Hey, kids!” she greets, stepping into the apartment. “Peter, help me with the groceries, will you?”
“Coming!” Peter sets his pizza down on the ground and pushes himself up, walking away from his spot beside you. You don’t mean to, but you watch him go, immediately helping his aunt pull things out of plastic bags and put them in the cabinet or the fridge. May says something to him that you don’t hear and he grins, looking lighthearted and happy.
You might really have a crush on him.
It’s times like these when you wish you had a way to contact Spider-Man. He’s got to have a phone number, doesn’t he? Or an email? Or maybe he could make another email account just to talk to you? Maybe that’s something you should talk to him about.
Peter Parker is one of your closest friends. He’s also not your soulmate. Having a crush on him would be complicated in more than one way. And you don’t want to have a crush on him. But he’s unbelievably cute, and dorky, and sweet, and kind, and funny without meaning to be, and...you know who he is. He’s Peter. And he means a lot to you.
But Spider-Man is your soulmate. You don’t know who he is, but the masked superhero means a lot to you too, already. He’s also kind, and sweet, and he cares about you. He’d give up the world for you.
You miss your best friend. You wish you could call her, but the last time you attempted to it had gone straight to voicemail. You’re sure she’s busy, because she is, but her advice is really what you want right now. What you need right now.
You’re so lost in your own thoughts that you almost don’t hear May say it.
“Peter Benjamin Parker!” the middle-aged woman chides sharply. You turn your attention away from the TV to see Peter’s aunt walk out of his room with a full laundry basket propped against her hip. “I told you to clean your room before you had friends over. Where am I supposed to put this basket?”
“Sorry, sorry!” Peter throws his hands up. “I’ll do it right now.”
“You’d better.” she holds out the basket. He takes it and disappears into his room.
Benjamin.
“Benjamin?” you echo, only loud enough for MJ and Ned to hear you as May Parker goes into her own bedroom. “I didn’t know Peter’s middle name was Benjamin.”
“Yeah.” Ned says, clearly only half-listening to you, his eyes glued to the TV screen as the Millennium Falcon flies from one edge of the frame to the other. “That’s his uncle’s name. May’s husband who died during freshman year.”
MJ hits him.
And if she hadn’t, maybe you wouldn’t have noticed. But MJ does with an expression you don’t see, and you watch as Ned tears his eyes away from the movie, looking from her to you, seeming to realize what he’d just said and who he’d just said it to. Then his eyes widen, and he says, “Oh, hell. Uh, I mean—”
But you aren’t listening anymore. How could you?
Benjamin. That’s his uncle’s name. May’s husband who died during freshman year.
Benjamin. It was my uncle’s name. My uncle died when I was fourteen. Just before I got these powers.
Peter knows Spider-Man!
I’ve—uh, I’ve met him. Once or twice. Through an...internship that I had. Through Tony Stark. He’s pretty, uh, pretty cool, I’d say.
“I have to go.” you say immediately. You must have interrupted Ned, because his mouth is open, but you don’t care. You push your plate aside and stand up, reaching immediately for your backpack that is resting against the back of the couch. “Sorry. My mom—uh—just texted me.”
That’s not a lie at all. Except you’re not holding your phone. Smooth.
“(Y/N), wait.” MJ says, standing up from the couch. You shove your shoes onto your feet, your mind running a mile a minute, unable to comprehend what you probably should have a month ago.
“Tell Peter—” your voice catches with your hand on the doorknob. MJ’s eyes immediately soften. “Tell him thanks. And I’m sorry.”
You wonder if they know. You’re sure they do. With the way they both reacted, they must both know and they probably have for longer than you’ve known either or them. They’re Peter’s best friends. Of course they know.
You close the apartment door behind you and winces at how it slams. You’re so dumb, sometimes. How could you not have seen it before?
+ in which all things are suddenly right within the world. eventually.
epilogue
!!!! i’m speechless, still, at how much everyone has loved this & at all ur kind words. i am constantly blown away and i’m very honored! thank u all, so very much.
tags are at the bottom! send me an ask/message if you’d like to be added to the list.
word count: 3391
Screw the universe. It really does hate you.
The first thing you do is lock your window and shut the newly-added blinds over it. Well, not technically true; the first thing you do is get the hell out of Dodge—Dodge being the apartment of one Peter Parker. Peter Parker, who just so happens to be the masked red-and-blue vigilante half-Avenger superhero thing who goes by the name of Spider-Man.
Oh, and he’s also your soulmate. Because the universe sucks. And you hate it.
So the technically second thing you do is lock your window and shut your blinds. If Spider-Man—if Peter—appeared at your window tonight, would you let him in? If he knocked? If you could hear him speak outside of it?
If you could go back to before tonight, before you found out, would you?
Does Peter even know by now? You check your phone. It’s been about half an hour since you left his apartment. Maybe he came out of his room after cleaning it, expecting to see you sitting on the floor with your pizza, waiting for him to come and sit next to you. Maybe he saw Ned’s horrified expression and MJ’s pitying one and maybe he had to ask why you weren’t there. Or maybe he already knew.
Suddenly your curiosity is replaced by anger. Peter knew. Peter has known since the moment he met you. Peter knew before he officially met you. And he’s spent the whole month spending time with you as Peter Parker and as Spider-Man, while you’ve been sitting around worrying about how you’ve been falling for the doe-eyed, chestnut-haired dork despite him not being your soulmate.
Except he is your soulmate. And you’ve known him this whole time.
Then you remember: you promised Spider-Man you wouldn’t ask his identity. And he would tell you when he was ready. You had made your peace with that. You knew that the minute Spider-Man revealed himself to you, you would recognize him.
You just...didn’t think it would be Peter underneath that mask. Maybe things would be different if you hadn’t become so close with him. If you hadn’t developed feelings for him. Because now, with this new revelation, you’re really having a hard time trying to remember that Peter Parker and Spider-Man are the same person.
Then your phone rings.
For a split, terrifying second, you think it’s Peter, and you almost don’t even reach for it to confirm. But you know you should, because if it isn’t Peter, you’ll probably answer it. And sure enough, when you turn your phone over to look at the screen, Peter’s face isn’t the image you see. It’s your best friend’s.
You could cry with relief. You accept her FaceTime call and lean back against the wall, propping your arm on your knee as you hold the phone up to your face. “Hey,” you say, letting out a breath. You didn’t realize you were holding one.
“Hey!” she greets, in a mood that’s the cheeriest she’s been in a while. But she soon catches glimpse of your expression and her smile immediately falls. “What’s wrong?”
“You know how you thought I had a crush on Peter?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I do.”
Your best friend’s eyes soften. “Oh, (Y/N),” she says. “What happened? Did you tell him? Did you tell Spider-Man?”
And you start to tell her, but you bite your lip before you can even say a word. Peter’s secret is still his secret. And sure, most of the time it’s “don’t tell anyone” be damned, because (Y/BFF/N) is your best friend and you tell each other everything. But this feels different. Now that you know. Even if you’re still upset that Peter never told you, you can’t break his trust like that. Not until he says it’s okay for you to tell her.
“I found out who Spider-Man is.” you say next, and you watch as her eyes widen as large as they possibly can. “And I...I like them both seperately. And I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m sorry.” your best friend says honestly. She doesn’t ask about Spider-Man’s identity. You love her all the more for it. “I’m so sorry. Whoever Spider-Man is, do you know him in person pretty well?”
“Unfortunately.”
She exhales. “I’m so sorry. I can’t even begin to understand what’s on your mind right now. I wish I…(Y/N), what are you going to do?”
“I have no idea. I just found out.”
“When did you find out?”
“Um, about half an hour ago?”
Your best friend looks shocked. “Wow. Oh, my gosh.”
“I came straight home.” you add. “I didn’t say anything. I don’t even know if he knows I know. He might show up at my window tonight.”
“Are you going to let him in?”
And that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? Are you? You want to talk about it with Spider-Man/Peter. You have to. Eventually. But you don’t think you’re really ready to deal with all of that tonight.
“No,” you say. “Not tonight.” At any rate, you have Peter’s phone number. He can call you. You could text him and tell him not to come tonight, even, if you wanted. “I think tonight I just need a night to calm down and collect my thoughts about what just happened.”
“I could come over.” your best friend offers. “I’d be there in an hour. We can make popcorn and watch Star Wars.”
It’d be a nice idea in any other situation, but Star Wars only makes you think about Spider-Man and Peter both at the same time and the pair of them—the one, because they’re the same—are starting to give you a headache. “I appreciate it, (Y/BFF/N),” you say. “But I think I’d rather be alone tonight. If you’re free tomorrow, though, my entire day is open.”
Ah, yes. Because of course this whole debacle had to happen on a Friday night. Of course, you’re also kind of relieved; it means you don’t have to see Peter tomorrow morning on the train. “Sure,” says your best friend, smiling. “I’d love to come up and hang out. We can make a girls’ day out of it, just you and me.”
“Actually—why don’t I come up there?” you say, before she can say anything else. “I haven’t been back to Manhattan since I moved here. I’ll take the train in.”
She looks a little surprised for a minute. Then her smile widens. “Okay, perfect. You’ll text me when you’re on your way, then?”
“I will.” you promise. “See you tomorrow.”
Your best friend hangs up. You shift on your bed, leaning over to grab your phone charger to plug your phone in. It’s been a long night; looking at the time on your phone, though, you realize it’s not even late, but you feel tired anyway. It’s probably just time to call it a night instead of sit and run the events of the night over and over in your head.
So you do. You change into your pyjamas, brush your teeth, and climb into your bed, checking your phone one last time to see if you have any notifications, but there are none. You’re unsure if you’re relieved or disappointed. You lock your phone, place it on the table beside your bed, and then roll onto your side, facing the wall, and you close your eyes.
Spider-Man does not visit that night.
--
You get to Manhattan around ten in the morning. It immediately feels more familiar than Queens does, and as you get off of the train at the correct stop and make your way to your best friend’s house, you see one building that sticks out above the rest.
You’ve seen it for years. It’s Tony Stark’s tower—or at least, it used to be, because Tony Stark sold it two years ago. But the exterior of the building is the same; it used to be the base for the Avengers. Peter is an Avenger. You tear your eyes away from it and keep moving. Today is supposed to be a day to get your mind off of your soulmate, not to constantly find things that remind you of him.
Standing outside on the sidewalk in front of her apartment complex is your best friend. She waves the moment she spots you, and when you’re within arm’s length she pulls you in for a hug. “Hey, loser,” she greets affectionately. “Long time no see, huh?”
“It’s been too long.” you agree. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too, of course.” she laces her arm through yours. “Let’s get some coffee, shall we?”
It’s a staple of yours; the two of you would either hang out at your place, hers, or the coffee shop that’s almost exactly halfway between. So it’s that very coffee shop that the pair of you walk to, and you sit at the very same table you always do, and for a very short amount of time, you can pretend like you never left Manhattan at all. And it’s nice.
The small voice in the back of your mind asks: Do you really wish you’d never moved to Queens?
The answer is no, and you know that. You love your life in Queens. And, even though you’re still a little upset and things still feel complicated, you’re glad that Peter Parker is your soulmate. Out of all of the people your soulmate could have been, you’re really, really glad it’s Peter.
“Stop that.” your best friend warns, setting a cup of coffee in front of you. “I know you’re thinking about him.”
“I can’t help it.” you complain. The look she gives you tells you that you can help it, but you’re choosing not to.
“You just need a break. Isn’t that what you said yourself?” she points out. “All your soulmate issues will still be there in a couple of hours. For now, though, I want you to turn off your phone and give yourself a break.”
Reluctantly, you pull your phone out from your pocket and turn it off. The screen goes black, but it doesn’t really make you feel any better. You put it in your purse and set it aside, looking back up at your best friend as she sips her coffee thoughtfully. “Happy?”
She grins. “Very.”
--
So the only thing you don’t talk about with your best friend is Peter or Spider-Man. In fact, she rarely brings up Queens at all. Only to ask you about how your parents are doing, or when your first official break of the year is. The pair of you stay at the coffee shop until around three, when the rain outside ruins your plan to spend the rest of the day outside. But it’s the rain that sobers your happy mood, and before long you find yourself deciding that you’re just going to take the train home early.
“Are you sure?” your best friend says, frowning at you in concern. “We could watch a movie or play a card game or something inside until the rain blows over.”
“I’d love to,” you admit. “But I also have homework I should focus on. And don’t think I didn’t notice your phone repeatedly going off since we sat down.”
Your best friend has the decency to smile sheepishly. It’s true; her phone was buzzing almost the entire time they’ve been inside the coffee shop, but not once had she picked it up. “I’m sorry,” she says, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “I really am. I told—”
“It’s okay!” you say quickly, before she can get too worked up about her own soulmate. “Really. I don’t mind at all.”
She blinks. “You don’t?”
“No.” you promise. “Go spend time with your soulmate, (Y/BFF/N). There should be a train arriving in ten minutes, anyway.”
“Fine,” she says, sounding reluctant, but the grin on her face says otherwise. “Be safe, make good choices. Text me when you’re at your house, okay?”
“I will.” you assure her. The two of you hug after you stand up from your seat, and when you leave the shop you part ways: your best friend back towards her apartment, and you towards the train station.
The ride back to Queens gives you plenty of time to think. Mostly about Peter Parker and Spider-Man, who, last you checked, are the same person. You’re still not really sure if that’s unfortunate or not.
It’s still pouring when you get off the train stop nearest your apartment. You didn’t bring an umbrella, or a sweatshirt with a hoodie, so you’re stuck to walk the couple of blocks quickly with your hands over your head, as if that would make you any drier. By the time you reach your bedroom, around ten minutes later, you’re drenched through your clothes and you’re shivering, just a little bit. Thankfully, you’ve just done your laundry, so clean, dry clothes are waiting for you on your bed when you enter your bedroom.
After you change, throwing your wet clothes into the hamper, you cross the room to the window. You love rain in instances like this, when you’re inside, the rain is outside, and you have no cause to go outside whatsoever. You pull up your blinds, expecting to see the rain falling in the alley between your window and the next building over.
That’s not what you see.
Well, it is, but a certain hero clad in red-and-blue-spandex is blocking most of the view.
Spider-Man is perched out on the fire escape, hand raised in a fist like he’s about to knock at your window. He probably just was. When he sees you, though, his eyes widen, and he scrambles back, throwing his arms out to catch himself as he leans away from the window.
Then he waves.
You forget momentarily that it’s Peter underneath that mask until the moment Spider-Man waves. You can see Peter within Spider-Man now, without even seeing his face. And part of you wonders how the hell you’d missed it before—the voice, the mannerisms...everything about Spider-Man just screams Peter to you now. And it kind of makes your heart hurt.
Then Spider-Man does something that makes your heart stop.
Still looking right at you from the other side of the window, Peter places his left hand on the glass, and uses his right hand to pull the Spider-Man mask off of his head.
Your mouth falls open. Quickly, you bend down to pull the window open, grabbing the front of Peter’s suit to yank him into your room. “What are you doing!?” you demand, as he topples over your windowsill and promptly lands on the carpet. “It’s the middle of the day! Someone could see you—”
“I don’t care.” Peter insists, standing up, still holding the Spider-Man mask in his right hand. You shut your blinds as quickly as you can. “I had to see you. I have to know if you’re angry with me. Because I really like you and I don’t think I could take it if you’re angry with me.”
He’s watching you carefully when you turn back to him. His chestnut-colored hair is plastered to his forehead, wet from the rain. It occurs to you that you don’t really know how long he’d been out there. Maybe he’d been there before you even got home.
“I’m…” The words catch in your throat. Peter takes a step back, looking down at the mask in his hands, like he already knows what you’re going to say and he doesn’t want you to see his expression. But starting at him, right now, you realize the answer he’s expecting isn’t the one you have for him. You’re not angry. Not anymore. “Not. Angry,” you say slowly.
Peter looks right at you in disbelief. “You’re not?”
“No.” you sit down on your bed. “I mean—the first time I met Spider-Man—you—I knew I wasn’t going to learn your identity for a while. And I knew that I would recognize you. Obviously, I didn’t know that the man behind the mask was going to be you, but…I’m relieved, that it is you.”
“You—are?”
“Sure. Of course I am.”
“I…” Peter exhales, folding the mask in his hands. “If I’d known you liked me—like, really me, as Peter, I would have told you who I was right away, (Y/N). I didn’t mean to do that to you. I hadn’t even noticed. Ned and MJ both had to spell it out to me. I just...I never thought you would like Peter Parker, if you found out Spider-Man was me.”
He looks very small, standing in the middle of your bedroom, with his shoulders hunched as he looks down at the mask in his hands. It’s very easy to associate the image in front of you with Peter Parker. But not Spider-Man. Spider-Man...well, to you, he seemed to be everything Peter wasn’t. I never thought you would like Peter Parker, Peter just said. But somehow he’d known that you would like Spider-Man.
“Actually,” you say softly, taking a step toward him. “I think I like Peter Parker more than I like Spider-Man.”
Peter’s eyes widen. Then he blushes, reaching up to rub the back of his neck with a gloved hand. “Well,” he says, clearing his throat. “I—I guess that’s a good thing.”
You smile. “Is it?”
“Uh, yeah. When I was Spider-Man, here, talking to you, and you’d get—I don’t know, distant? I could always tell when you were thinking about something else.” Peter admits. “I thought you were thinking about a different guy, or something.”
“I thought I technically was.”
Peter smiles slightly. “Yeah. I guess so. Nice to know that if my soulmate’s cheating on me, at least it’s with me.”
And it sounds so ridiculous that you laugh out loud. Peter does, too, after a moment, grinning as he stands in front of you. Somehow, you end up stepping forward, holding his arms as the two of you still laugh at something that wasn’t even that funny in the first place.
When the laughter dies down, you’re inches from Peter. You could kiss him, if you wanted. This is the third time you’ve been this close to your soulmate, and this time, your heart feels like it’s melting in your chest. You really, really like him. “I can’t believe you didn’t think I would fall for you as Peter.” you say softly, looking up at him. Something else registers in your brain. “Is—is that why you didn’t tell me? Who you were?”
“No!” Peter assured you. “No—I really do want to protect you. Maybe that was part of it, but all I really want is to keep you safe.” he hesitates for a minute, studying your expression before carefully adding, “And, uh, to be with you. To protect you and to be with you.”
Tentatively, you reach up to brush his wet hair away from his forehead. You don’t miss the way his eyes flutter, leaning into your touch on the side of his head. “I want to be with you, too,” you say, keeping your voice quiet.
Peter beams. Actually beams at you, looking like the physical embodiment of sunshine with the amount of happiness in his eyes and on his face. His happiness feels so contagious that you can’t help but smile back. This is your soulmate. The person you’ve been wanting to meet since you knew what a soulmate was is standing right in front of you, holding you, grinning at you like you’re his entire world. And he’s yours.
“Can I—uh—?” Peter shakes his head, letting out another laugh as he cradles your face in his hands, tucking loose, wet strands of your hair behind both of your ears. “Can I kiss you?”
And he asks. Gosh, you really adore this boy.
“Yes,” you breathe. His chocolate-colored eyes shine and make your grin widen. Then he bends down and captures your lips in a kiss.
It’s safe to say that it’s the best kiss you’ve ever had.
(It should be noted that it’s also the only kiss you’ve ever had, and that this is also the first of many, many kisses you will share with Peter Parker. But it’s always going to be the best nonetheless.)
+ in which you actually thank the universe. shocking, right?
my masterlist
welllllll here we are, at the end! this is nuts. i can’t believe the support this lil thing has gotten over the past week. i’m so blessed. i love u all, thank you all so much for reading. special thanks to @quackmom for helping me with this bit, i love u, i’m very thankful to have someone to bounce ideas off of, especially someone as wonderful as u <3
as always, the tags are at the bottom. since this is the last installment of reds and blues, if you’d like to be added to my permanent tag list, please send me an ask or a message! i don’t have any more series planned, but i have a few angst requests in my inbox - and my inbox is always open if you want to request anything!
QUICK NOTE - i posted this at like 1 am on december 8, so if you’re only getting tagged now, i think it’s because tumblr hates me and most people didn’t get tagged! if you got tagged twice, i’m so sorry lmao tumblr is weird
word count: 3850
“Will you hold still?”
“What’s the point of wearing one of these?” Peter complains, hooking two fingers inside his shirt collar to tug at it, desperately trying to loosen it. “I’m wearing a gown over it anyway. Why can’t I just wear a t-shirt?”
“Because high school sucks,” you say flatly, adjusting the tie around his neck. The fact that he’s trying to loosen his collar is making it worse. You swat his hand away lightly. “And because this is the dress code underneath your gown. At least you’re not confined to a white dress and nothing else.”
Peter, miraculously, stands still as you finish fixing his tie, tightening it just a little bit. “I think you look very pretty in your white dress.” he says to you, soft enough that only you can hear it.
“I think you look very handsome in your tie.” you whisper back, ignoring the butterflies fluttering in your stomach. You’ve spent the past nine months with Peter Parker and still he gives you butterflies. Then again, he is your soulmate. “Although, I have to say, you’re being pretty obvious.”
“Obvious about what?”
“Red and blue tie,” you say, poking it. “White shirt. Black pants. Someone’s feeling a little extra Spider-y today.”
“What can I say?” Peter replies, shrugging innocently. “We’re graduating. I’m feeling a little nostalgic. Besides, I met you in the Spider-Man suit, so that automatically makes being Spider-Man a thousand times better.”
You can’t help the blush that creeps up on your face. “You absolute sap.”
He leans forward and kisses your cheek. “What? It’s true.”
“Are you two ready?” May asks impatiently, walking into Peter’s bedroom with her cell phone in her hand. “We should leave for the ceremony soon, and I want to get a couple of pictures in—(Y/N), are your parents meeting us here or at Midtown?”
“Midtown,” you answer. “Last I checked in, they were both still setting up.”
By setting up, you mean for the small party taking place at your apartment afterwards, consisting of you, Peter and May, MJ, Ned, and their families. Just you, your closest friends, your soulmate, and the people you love. Nothing could be better.
Well, okay—it could be better if your best friend was able to make it out. But she can’t, because she’s also graduating today, and she’s got plans of her own. So you’re a little unhappy, but it’s definitely all right, because you’ll see her again soon. After all, she is going to the same college as you plan to. And although it’s a pretty big university, at least you’ll be living closer to her than you are right now.
“Okay. Well, let’s snap some photos and head on over, yeah?” May smiles at the pair of you. Peter slips his arm around you, pulling you against him as he smiles for his aunt, tapping his fingers on the curve of your hip. He’s anxious. Probably just to get to Midtown and graduate already. You know how he feels; you feel the exact same way, actually, but you loop your arm around your soulmate and smile in the direction of the phone.
May lowers her phone, scrolling through the recently-taken pictures, and then she beams, looking back up at the pair of you. “All right! Let’s get this show on the road!”
Normally, to get to Midtown, you and Peter would take the train. But in your caps and gowns, May insisted on driving you instead. You don’t really mind; driving is faster, and this way you don’t have to stand in a crowded train car with a bunch of strangers while you’re in your cap and gown.
When you arrive at your high school, Ned and MJ are there, waiting outside near the front doors. Ned recognizes May’s car instantly and waves before you or Peter even steps out.
“Okay.” May puts her hand on Peter’s arm. “Have fun in there. I’ll see you when the ceremony starts, okay?”
“Okay.” Peter leans forward and kisses his aunt on the cheek. “Love you, May.”
“Love you too.” May pats his arm and then Peter climbs out of the car. She turns to you, then, looking at you over her shoulder with a smile on her face. “And good luck to you, too, (Y/N). You know how happy I am that you’re in his life.”
And you do, because May has told you repeatedly, and each time she does, it leaves you with a smile on your face. “Thank you, May.” you say, fidgeting with the graduation cap in your hands. “I’ll see you in there?”
“Of course.”
You climb out of the car and stand beside Peter, watching as his aunt drives away. He takes your hand, lacing your fingers through his, giving your hand a reassuring squeeze. “Ready?” he asks.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” you say. Then you and your soulmate walk toward the high school.
--
Your graduation ceremony is short, because the high school wants to get you out of there as quickly as possible, and bittersweet. As you stand in the line, waiting to walk up and receive your diploma, you think back about everything that’s happened for you during your senior year.
For starters, meeting your soulmate. To this day, you still think about the first month of school, how everything happened; how Peter had dropped from the top of building right in front of you. How your world exploded into color that same instant; and how, for the next month, you found yourself falling for Peter Parker and Spider-Man at the same time, ironically not knowing that they were the same person.
Then you think about Halloween, when you’d spent the night at a party with your friends. And Thanksgiving, when you had invited Peter and May over to your apartment to share the holidays. And in December, you took Peter to see the new Star Wars movie and found that he was not the only one who couldn’t stay still in his seat.
(The other person was you. You might have been more antsy than he was. You also might have cried harder.)
Then it was Christmas. And that...well, that was the best Christmas ever. And almost a week after Christmas was New Years’, and even though that kiss with Peter was pretty amazing, you’ll still never forget the time you’d kissed in your bedroom for the first time, both of you slightly damp from the pouring rain, Peter in his Spider-Man suit.
February brought Peter’s birthday, and then a week later Valentine’s Day, and it’s absolutely safe to say that MJ and Ned hated the two of you for being so “disgustingly cute,” as Ned had called it. March, April, and the first half of May flew by, and then finals stressed you out more than you could have ever imagined. But you did get to cuddle with your boyfriend quite a lot, so you suppose it’s all right.
And here you are now, walking across the stage, reaching out to grab your diploma. And the minute it’s in your hand, it’s like your entire world shifts.
Sure, you know where you’re going to college. But college is still scary, and you know that, because there’s a tiny pit in your stomach that grows just a little bit whenever you really think about it. You won’t be alone, but it’s a big step. Things will change. You may lose friends. You’ll probably make new ones. You’re stepping into a whole new learning dynamic with a major you’re somewhat wobbly about and nothing’s really for certain.
Except Peter. Peter’s for certain. And, actually, that’s more than enough for you.
--
You wonder, of course, what your parents would think if you told them your soulmate is Spider-Man.
They know Peter’s your soulmate. You told them this about three days after you and Peter officially start dating. They like him quite a lot, because they think he’s an incredibly good person, kind, and in their eyes, innocent.
But oh, boy. If they only knew.
You all end up staying in the living room area, because it’s the largest and that’s also where all of the food is. While most of the adults stay on the couches with the TV playing a movie in the background, you and your friends sit at the table, playing quite possibly the easiest game you could ever think of.
“Go Fish,” you tell Peter, who groans and reaches for another card.
“Why are we playing this, again?” MJ questions.
Ned snorts. “You’re only saying that because you’re losing.”
“No, as a matter of fact, I think I’m losing now.” Peter corrects, frowning at the cards in his hand. “I hate this. Can we play another game?”
“There’s a bunch of other ones in the cabinet, if you want to pick one out, sore loser,” you tease.
Peter sets his cards down and rolls his eyes at you, kissing your head soundly. “Sure. I’ll be right back.”
That’s when the doorbell rings.
Frowning, you stand up. “Are we expecting anyone else? Mom?”
“We didn’t invite anyone, sweetie,” your mom answers from the living room. “See who it is?”
Your hand’s on the doorknob as she says that. When you pull the door open, however, one of the last people you possibly expected to ever meet is standing in the hallway.
It’s Tony Stark. At your apartment. He’s definitely here for Peter, and part of you kind of thought about the possibility of this happening, but you’re still surprised. The billionaire raises his hand in greeting. “Hello,” he says.
“Uh—Peter?” you call, still standing in the doorway.
“Yeah?” your soulmate calls back, most likely still at the closet.
“You’ve got a visitor.”
Peter comes around the corner and stops, staring at Tony with wide eyes. Peter looks more surprised than you do to see him. “Mr—Mr. Stark!” he exclaims, coming to your side. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard someone graduated.” Tony answers, raising his eyebrows at Peter. “Is this your grad party?”
“Uh—uh, no, no, I’m not having an official grad party.”
Tony takes his sunglasses off. “That was a trick question. Of course you are. It’s next week. Everyone’s going to be there.”
“Ev—everyone?”
“Sure. It’ll be at the facility.” Tony pockets his sunglasses and turns to you, extending his hand. “You must be the soulmate,” he says. “I’ve heard a lot—and I mean a lot about you.”
“Likewise,” you say with a smile, shaking Tony’s hand. Peter’s face is bright red. “Why don’t you, um, come in?”
The only person in the room who really isn’t all that shocked to see Tony Stark is May Parker. Your parents look absolutely shell-shocked. Ned’s and MJ’s do too, for that matter. “Look who decided to stop by.” Peter says, gesturing to the billionaire.
“I’ve just got a little thing I need to discuss with Peter.” Tony claps Peter’s shoulder. “Nothing major. Oh,” he adds, using his free hand to reach into his pocket, “and this.”
He hands Peter an envelope. Peter takes one look at it and his eyes grow wide. “I—I can’t accept this.”
“You don’t even know what’s in it.” Tony reasons.
“Yes, I do, because I know you, Mr. Stark.” Peter pushes the envelope back at him. “I can’t take that.”
“It’s yours.” Tony pushes it back at him. “Pepper’s the one who wrote it, anyway. I don’t even know how much it’s for. If you won’t take it for tuition...” Tony lowers his voice so only Peter and you can hear. “Consider it a salary for the year.”
You know exactly what he’s talking about.
Peter told you before, than when he was a sophomore, Tony offered him a place to stay at the Avengers’ facility upstate. It’s not too far away at all, but at the time, he was a sophomore in high school and wasn’t really ready to give up his normal life. But things have changed now. About a month ago, Tony offered Peter a place to stay again. With it being college and all, courses are much easier to take online, or even commute, and that way Peter could also focus a little bit more on his Spider-Man life.
But he’d turned it down. That was also the day that the two of you decided you’d live together when you started college.
Sure, you’re still young. But you’ve been together for a year, and Peter is your soulmate, and splitting the cost of an apartment is certainly cheaper than the room and board rates. Plus, you love him, so...it was an easy decision to make.
But Peter is still an Avenger. He’s still available for missions if Tony calls. And honestly...it makes more sense for him to live at the facility and take online courses. You know it makes more sense, despite wanting to believe otherwise. And honestly, Peter knows it makes more sense. But you know he’d never choose that over living with you.
(You know that because he told you that.)
“Mr. Stark,” Peter says, glancing at you. “Really—”
“Pete, can I steal you for a minute?” you interrupt. Tony turns to look at you. Peter, still holding the check, lowers his hands, watching you carefully. “Just a quick second, Mr. Stark, I promise.”
“Of course.” Tony tells you. He lets go of Peter’s shoulder. You take your soulmate’s hand and pull him down the hall, into your bedroom.
“What’s going on, (Y/N)?” Peter asks, the moment you close the door behind both of you. “If this is about Tony’s offer—”
“Peter,” you say. Peter stops talking and turns to look at you, eyebrows furrowing. “You’re an Avenger.”
Peter watches you carefully. “I am,” he agrees slowly. “But I don’t see what that has to do with my decision.”
You squeeze his free hand. “Peter—listen—I know you said no to Tony, but...are you sure that’s what you really want?”
“What?” his eyes widen. “Of course it is. (Y/N), I want to live with you—”
“I know,” you say slowly. “But I also know you’ve always wanted to live with the Avengers.”
“You’re my soulmate.” he points out.
“And you’re mine.” you return. “Which is why I think we should reconsider where you’re living next year.”
“(Y/N)—”
“I mean it.” you step closer to him. “What if Tony calls you out on a mission and you have to miss a week of classes? Some classes have limitations on absences. I’m really not sure they’d excuse you for being an Avenger.”
“We don’t know that.” Peter points out jokingly. “Maybe they would. ‘Sorry I couldn’t come to class this week, I was busy fighting an alien—’”
“Peter.” you interrupt. Peter’s words die on his tongue. “I really mean it.”
“Look, It’s fine, okay?” Peter promises you. “It’s not a big deal. I already said no.”
“But it’s your dream,” you insist. You wouldn’t be pushing for it if it weren’t. Sure, you’d love to live with Peter, but you can see the gleam in his eyes whenever he talks about the Avengers. Or Tony. You know he’s wanted to live there since he was a sophomore. This is the perfect time to.
Gently, Peter lets go of your hand and lifts his own to cradle your face. “You’re my dream,” he corrects, running his thumb across your cheek.
You stare up at him. “You stole that from Tangled,” you accuse.
Peter kisses the tip of your nose. “Well, that is one of your favorite movies.”
“And you’re one of my favorite people.” you remind him, putting your hands over his and pulling them down between the two of you. “Which is why—despite how much I’d love to live with you—I think you should join Tony at the Avengers facility.”
“(Y/N)—”
“I’m serious. Look, I can ask Ned and MJ to join me at the apartment. I’m sure they’d love to.” Peter opens his mouth to protest, but you continue speaking. “Peter, I know. But I’m just saying, I’d rather you try and live there for a year and test it out. I’m sure that’s what Tony would prefer, too. And I can visit, or you can come here.” you smile slightly. “I wouldn’t mind a few visits from Spider-Man, like old times.”
Peter bites his lip. “Are…” he says slowly, clearing his throat. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” you tell him, squeezing his hands. “Very sure. And if you decide it’s not for you...then we’ll talk about it. Again.”
He meets your gaze and leans forward, kissing you soundly. “I love you,” he says.
You smile, letting go of his hands to wrap your arms around his neck. “I love you too,” you reply. Peter’s smile makes your heart swell. “So? Let’s go tell him the news.”
Peter leads you out of your bedroom. When the pair of you reach Tony, Peter takes a deep breath, lacing his fingers through yours, and says, “Okay.”
Tony blinks. “Okay?”
“Okay.” Peter repeats. He looks at you and he looks absolutely certain. “I’ll move to the facility.”
Tony spreads his arms. “Great!” he exclaims, placing one hand on Peter’s shoulder and the other one yours. “Did the missus finally convince you?”
Your reaction is immediate. You feel the blush heat up your face, looking at Peter as he awkwardly returns the glance. “Oh, I’m not—” you start, just as Peter stammers, “Sh-she’s not—”
“I know.” Tony says, before either of you can manage to finish your sentences coherently. The billionaire squeezes your shoulder and Peter’s. He grins. “I was messing. You guys are cute when you’re flustered, y’know? But seriously, it’s only a matter of time before you are married.” He takes a step back, letting his arms fall, pushing his hands into his pockets. “I’ll see you next week, for your party,” he says to Peter. “Bring your friends, too, of course.”
Tony reaches the door before he says anything else. Putting his hand on the doorknob, he turns to you. “It was nice putting a face to the name, (Y/N),” he says to you. To Peter, he says, “Congrats, kid. I’m proud of you.”
When Tony shuts the door behind him, you turn to glance at Peter. He’s staring at the door like the best thing ever just happened. And maybe, to Peter, it kind of just did.
“So,” you say, giving Peter’s hand a squeeze. You look at Ned and MJ, who look as starstruck as your soulmate. You feel a little in awe too, but you have a feeling you’ll be seeing Tony again anyway, so there’s no use in gawking. Plus, you’ve just made a huge decision with Peter. That’s enough to jar you from anything. “Guys, would you like to be my roommates?”
--
It should be noted that Peter absolutely adores living at the Avengers facility. He’s only been there for a week, and you’ve moved into your on-campus apartment with Ned and MJ. Classes will start for you on Monday, while Peter’s are due to start, well, whenever he wants. Having online courses and Tony Stark as your mentor kind of allow you to do that thing.
Still, despite all of the texts and video calls over the last week, you miss him. You can’t remember the last time you went more than a couple days actually being away from Peter. Things are changing, of course, and this you knew; but at the beginning, you sort of thought Peter would be one constant in your life that would always stay the same.
Except he will always be the same to you. He’s your soulmate. He may be upstate, tens of miles away, but he’s in your heart, always. And who knows where the road will take you? Tony joked about the pair of you being married, and yeah, you were embarrassed, but you’ve talked to Peter about it before. A few times. A few more times, over the summer, on hot summer nights in his bedroom or yours. Occasionally in the park. The idea of marrying Peter makes you happier than you’ve ever been before. It may take until you’ve both graduated college, as you’ve discussed, but you’ve got forever with your soulmate. You don’t care.
It’s been a long day. The apartment you have on campus is equipped with three bedrooms. After adding MJ and Ned, you were able to get an apartment with an extra room. Not that you’d mind sharing with MJ; in fact, you were excited to, but after one...unfortunate incident in which your close friend walked in on you and Peter in a compromising position, she requested to have her own room. You accepted almost immediately.
(It wasn’t that compromising. All of your clothes were on. Except Peter’s shirt. You guess that was enough for her.)
You collapse on your bed with a sigh and reach for your laptop. You should be setting an alarm for tomorrow and making a list of what you need to do in your last few days before classes officially start, but that can always be done tomorrow morning, right? Besides, it’s not like you’re planning on staying up late tonight.
Except you should know, by now, that any time you say something like that, you end up jinxing yourself. This time, however, you don’t mind.
A sharp tap on your window makes your heart leap in your chest. “Gee,” you say, loud enough to be heard through the slightly-cracked window, “I wonder who would be at my window at this hour?”
“Some loser, probably,” says a muffled voice from the other side of the window. You pull your blinds up and open the window fully, a grin plastered on your face. “Who’s absolutely, hopelessly in love.”
“What a loser.” you agree. Spider-Man grins, the mask stretching around the sides of his face. “Who on earth could he be in love with?”
“Beats me,” he says. Lifting the mask over his head, Peter climbs into your room, closing the window and the blinds behind him, because honestly, your neighbors wouldn’t want to see what you’re about to do next. You even lock your door, just for MJ’s sake.
--
An hour later, you lay in your bed with your red-and-blue-spandex-clad soulmate, your head on his shoulder, his arm around your waist, both of your attentions on the laptop screen as you watch A New Hope for what is most likely the hundredth time.
Peter drops a kiss onto your head. “I love you,” he says.
The butterflies in your stomach dance. “I love you too,” you whisper, and your heart feels light every time you say it to him.
So...you love the universe. You thank the universe. You’re sure it’s smiling smugly down at you. Can it even smile? Can it be smug? Who cares? You’re happy, you’re with your soulmate, and that’s all that matters.
So...thanks, universe. Guess it doesn’t really suck after all.
🐞 "Well Parker here you are all tied up. And over here we have your girlfriend who we are gonna torture so you get tortured. Isn't that a nice little game? Let's see how long she lasts." Said the most gruesome villain ever.
finished!! this took longer than i wanted it to. thank you for participating!word count: 385
Peter’s entire body goes numb.
He meets her eyes across the room, noting the tears beginning to well in the corners of hers. If she were able to talk, he knows what she’d say: it’s okay, it’s gonna be okay, we’re going to be fine, and other mantras that Peter wishes he could believe. She’s always been the optimistic one. It breaks Peter’s heart to think that optimism is the reason they’re both here.
Shocker rips the duct tape from her mouth and the groan that escapes her lips makes Peter’s heart jump into his throat. His entire body is screaming at him, but he can’t move; immobilized, tied up, frozen in place on the other side of the room, helpless to watch. He doesn’t know if they’ll get out of this one. He doesn’t know if anyone knows that they’re here.
God, it’s all his fault. Isn’t it?
“Peter.” she says, her voice light and like music to Peter’s ears. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.”
She’s crying. Peter can barely register the tears on his face. “I love you,” he says desperately. He knows she knows it, but if those are the last words he’ll get out to her, he’ll say it a thousand times. “I’m so sorry.”
An electric glove slams into her side. Electricity travels up her body. Her eyes light up with lightning and the first scream escapes her mouth, filling the room with a sound that shatters Peter’s heart in two. “Stop it!” Peter shouts, turning the villain’s attention towards himself. “Take me! Kill me instead, please, let her go, don’t—”
Another hit. And then another. Peter finds himself screaming as she does, watching as the electricity makes her body convulse, as the punches bruise the side of her face. He can’t take watching her, but he can’t look away; he’s afraid that this is the last time he’ll ever see her and that shakes Peter to his core. Though he struggles, he can’t break free of his bonds. Though she doesn’t try, she can’t break free of hers, either. But through it all, when her eyes aren’t tightly shut, she meets his eyes and holds his gaze for as long as possible.
She does that until her eyes close and do not open again.
