(Aged Up) Michelle 'MJ' Jones x Reader
Summary: ok so (y/n) is basically Peter (Tom Holland) and Peter is just like Ned 2.0
It's after No Way Home so no one remembers him and MJ, Ned and Peter are off to college (you've also lost all your humour and happiness in case u were wondering)
Anyways things happen and memories are triggered.... Enjoy I have edited nothing as usual (it's so late I'm so tired wtf)
Warnings: Swearing; sad MJ; yelling/fighting
You watched from a rooftop as New York teemed with activity even in the dead of night - not that that was anything unusual. Crowds of party-goers cheered with joints in hand. Mini-supermarket clerks filled out expert crosswords while casual thieves slipped candy into their pockets. Burnt-out child hackers typed ferociously in the hopes of pirating a new online game.
Those were your lesser worries. Those weren't the things you dared worry about. Not that you worried much these days. None of it mattered much, anyway. No one was there to care if you failed at what you had tasked yourself with for eternity.
You brushed down your dirtied red and black skintight suit, to no avail. That didn't matter, either.
This was peace. Peace was leaning back against the cold concrete. Peace was pressing »play« on your playlist and hearing Sweet Gene Vincent ramble around the murky night air like a newer, cleaner mist with a Cockney accent and punk ideals. Peace was pulling out your phone and looking at old photos of you and your former girlfriend and friends even though you knew you couldn't afford the emotional exhaustion. Peace was finally letting all those tears slide from beneath folds of harsh ignorance. That was peace now.
It wasn't always like that. It used to be lying around the living room, spread out on couches, with Peter and Ned telling you about the new Lego Death Star with an electronic component and MJ lying across your lap with a smile that suggested they were being stupid as she stared lovingly up at you as you ran your fingers through her curled hair.
But that sort of peace wasn't possible anymore, so there was no point seeking or missing it.
A picture of Ned and Peter grinning like idiots as they stood in front of the cinema to watch a rerun of Alien slid across the screen.
It was replaced by an image of MJ smiling back at you, mockingly signing 'metal' with one hand as her foreshortened feet lay closer to you and the camera.
You turned your phone off. A police siren wailed pathetically in the distance like a droning call for help.
The Hercules cafe bustled with customers overflowing the nine-person chair budget.
MJ, Peter and Ned were positioned fortunately in the best corner beside the window. It was about lunch time - peak hour at that particular instalment - but the three had arrived hours earlier already.
"Mrs. Zeis is killing me," Ned was complaining, only stopping to sip at his strawberry milkshake. "Two protocols, one theory essay and an experiment setup? Does she not remember we have other subjects, too?"
The snarky waitress who never wore a name tag - the counterpart to exaggeratedly sweet Mr. Lang - strode up to them, snarling. "Will you be here much longer? We have other customers, y'know."
"Yeah, we'll have another chocolate milkshake, thanks," MJ dismissed her smoothly, turning back to her friends.
"Yeah, she's pretty bad," Peter continued for Ned. "I wrote an essay once I knew was bad but I hadn't had time to do it properly and she literally just ripped it apart."
"That's cruel," MJ conceded, smiling as Mr. Lang brought her her order. "Any chance you'll be rid of her for the last semester?"
"Not really," Ned sighed in exasperation.
"I will," Peter added cheerily, stealing Ned's straw and slurping a great deal of milkshake away from him. Ned stared on in horror.
The waitress came up to them again, but before she could dart out that poised tongue Ned was reminding her they weren't finished. She walked away with such impotence as if they had greatly insulted her.
"I can't believe we're graduating so soon... I'm looking forward to Manhattan. It's not really a great place looking back but it'll always be home," MJ said thoughtfully, chewing on her straw.
"Yeah. We had some great times," Peter smiled, handing Ned his latte in attempted reconciliation.
"Yeah," Ned added dreamily.
MJ nodded. Then: "Hey, I'm getting major Deja vu right now. Either of you?"
"Nah, not really," Ned admitted sheepishly as Peter simply shook his head.
They were all silent for a moment, all in their own worlds, when Peter spoke up again: "I know this sounds totally out there and weird, but do you sometimes feel like someone's missing? I mean, like there should be a fourth of us? I don't know, maybe I'm just-"
"No, you're not wrong," MJ interrupted, peering around the cafe as if something might be written on the walls in reply.
"Hey, MJ," Ned said slowly, some eerie disturbance creeping up on his usual voice. "Where did you actually get your necklace? I mean, you wear it every day, so I just... I don't know why I thought of it..."
She looked down at where her black dahlia necklace rested on her collarbone.
She stared. There was something familiar about it, and yet it was like she no longer knew it or why it was there. But she did, didn't she? She had been wearing it every day for years since...
"Are you okay? You look a bit pale," Peter commented, casting a sidelong glance at Ned, who looked similarly anxious about the look on their friend's face.
It was all coming back to her. Rushing, roaring memories like tidal waves washing up to a shore that had been awaiting them for a decade too long.
"It's (y/n). He's missing," she murmured, standing up straight in seconds and rushing right past the returning waitress, almost making her fall over.
"Children! That's what you are!" she yelled after her, but MJ could hardly hear anything beyond her beating heart and gaping lungs.
You lazily pressed the »play« buttons on the remote, refocusing your attention on your Chinese takeaway as He's Just Not That Into You started. It was going to be stupid. You knew that. Scarlet Johansson was in it, though, so you didn't particularly care. Stupid was good once in a while, anyway.
Your mobile buzzed, making you groan as you set your food back down to get it from the faraway table.
Probably another scam, you thought in slight disappointment, but not much surprise. You hung up. There was no one to call you, anyway.
You sat back down on your bed which acted as a couch at times like these and pulled the Chinese food back into your lap. The credits rolled.
Your phone buzzed again. Unfortunately for your innocent food, you almost completely spilled it slamming it back down on the table to reach your phone again.
You hung up again, muttering to yourself about stupid people and their stupid money scams. You wondered if you could pay not to get scammed and then realised you were in the same issue all over again. Except maybe they wouldn't interrupt takeaway night as much.
Far away one truly stubborn woman decided she was not having your bullshit and booked the next flight to New York she could find.
MJ had travelled once across Manhattan and still she hadn't found even half a lead on your whereabouts.
She was close to despairing after finding your old apartment empty, countless people who should have known you to render your name foreign and only Delmar who knew of an old boyfriend of hers at all - though even he thought he hadn't seen you in more than a couple of years.
You were walking harmlessly along in your favourite black hoodie - one thing that you wouldn't let change - when you saw her, too. Or, someone who looked like her. It couldn't be. What was she doing here? She was supposed to be in Massachusetts. Far away from all of this.
You quickly turned a corner, hoping whatever psychotic trauma you were reliving at that moment would quickly pass.
She couldn't be there. You had made sure of that. Dr. Strange had made sure of that. She was safe. Ned was safe. So was Peter. She's safe.
Your inner voice repeated it like a mantra, following you the entire rushed way to your apartment building and up its concrete wasteland stairs. You stood before your door, shaking, trembling, scrunching your eyes closed to reassure yourself her familiar gaze wasn't on your back.
You were right. You had lost her. Both now and then.
You fought a losing battle with the rusty lock on your door until it finally gave in out of pity, its swinging whine stolen and replaced by your own breathless sigh.
You kicked it shut, not bothering to lock it, considering there was hardly anyone who'd be much trouble to you in Manhattan - and if they were, no lock would stop them, most likely.
Collapsing on the mattress, the bare room's singular comforting component, your head landed in your hands as heavily as lead weight. It hurt so much. It didn't matter if it had been her or not. She would never be yours again.
You looked around your place. Nothing felt like yours anymore. This fridge with a spoon, fork and plate next to it, this iPhone charger and mattress, microwave and a closet with so few clothes the spider suit almost stood out - none of it held any identity you could associate with yourself. None.
The door creaked again, and this time there was no heaving breath to hide it.
Please no. Please not now, not here, not unprepared... She can't be here. She was safe. I kept it that way.
She repeated your name, but your fingers only tightened their deadly grip around the sheet. Silence. Finally, you looked up, because you were almost convinced, almost hopeful that familiar voice had been a fragment of your imagination or she had decided you a lost cause and left after all.
She was still there. Your body sagged in upset.
"Do you even eat?" she snapped, and you wondered whether she had meant it to be so harsh. More words followed, each cracking like a whip also. You plead mercy with your emotional masochism. "You haven't brushed your hair in days - don't deny it, I know how it looks. You practically have bruises under your eyes. You're like a bag of bones; no exercise, no good food, right?"
You didn't answer, simply staring at her. She was so beautiful.
"God, (y/n)," she whispered, voice so soft it hurt more; the way it cradled you while it lasted and dropped you from its billowing clouds far higher up than anything else. Her pain crawled as ugly tendrils across the floor and through the very soles of your feet to the weight in your lungs.
"You remember," you stated deftly, but nothing in you wanted to accept it. It couldn't be. It just couldn't.
And yet... she had remembered. Your relationship had been so strong, she had remembered. How? Curiosity danced groggily on the sidelines of your train of thought.
"Yeah. Remember this?" MJ lifted the dahlia necklace from her chest, holding it up for you to see. You did. An array of yellowing memories about your trip to France all those years ago flashed before your eyes, reminding you of every reason you had to buy it for her and every reason you should have been bursting with happiness at the fact she was standing before you.
"How did you find me?" you asked instead, earning a deserved scoff.
"I told you I'd track you down." She clenched her jaw, as if remembering how angry she was. "You promised." It was a quiet reminder, but stone in its sureness.
Your muscles tightened as you looked away. You couldn't bare it. You were certain you had done the right thing, and yet...
"You promised you would find us," she repeated, a little louder.
Still, you didn't answer.
"Look at me!" she finally yelled, making you jump, staring at her with wide eyes. She never used to be so loud. She never shouted, even when you fought. She had changed... or maybe you had given her reason to.
Tears threatened to escape her, but her expression remained firm, impossible.
"I did. I was there, just like I promised," you admitted slowly, enunciating every word so that you may never have to say any again. "I saw you, MJ. With Peter and Ned. And it was just... it was so clear you were better off without me. Without this huge Spider-Man burden on your back. You were safe not knowing me."
"So, let me get this straight," she started, in a way that unlike before was similar to the way she usually talked. Casual-sounding, light. "Not only did you assume what was best for us and ignored what we wanted, but you also - for even a second - thought I could survive seeing you like this? You really weren't planning on finding us? Ever?"
Your stood, leaning clumsily against the mattress as you watched her. You didn't need to reply.
"No. No. I won't have this. You need to apologise. You need to- to- I don't know. Make it up to us. You think this is okay? You think this way of living works? Well, it doesn't. The Bell Jar isn't this fucking depressing."
You winced. She always referenced that book when she was calling something fucked up. She began crying properly now.
"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I'll do anything. There's nothing like this feeling that you could be responsible for the death of someone you love, MJ. That's not an excuse, but it's a pretty damn good reason. I understand you're angry, but you've gotta understand, too. You were everything. You are. I can watch from afar, but I can't watch everything end. If you're worried about me, worry about that. Your end would be my end. My fucking end, okay?"
Her chest heaved in wet sobs. You had only seen her cry three times before in all this time. You hated it. You pressed a finger to your cheek and realised you were crying, too.
"It's not fair. It's not fair," she sobbed, gesturing wildly in the air, her curls pushed to one side.
"I know. I know. Nothing's bloody fair," you sniffed, approaching her slowly, as if she were a shy animal, a stranger, perhaps.
It didn't take much. She slumped into your opening arms with all of her force behind her. Tears of yours mingled with hers on your shoulders and in each other's hair. Everything seemed tinged with the distant taste of salt.
She looked up at you, and suddenly your lips were connected once more, though it was sloppy and damp and certainly not your best kiss. But it was something. It gave your dingy kitchenette character and your mattress the air of a childhood sleepover in the living room.
"I won't leave you alone. Ever. You need to understand that. Whether you like it or not. You get it?" she murmured beside your ear.
You wanted to answer something romantic, something impressive, something to look back on - but all you could manage was a string of shaky "you remember"s.
