“I – I need advice.”
She raises an eyebrow.
“Advice.”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t you have, I don’t know. Friends to ask about this?”
He looks fucking devastated, and there’s this – this phantom limb or something, this déjà vu type feeling in her arms, like she should reach out to him, and where is that coming from?
“That’s part of the problem,” he says.
Notes:
a contribution to MJ week. prompt: meet again after no way home. this has been kicking around in my head a few days so. enjoy.
“I – I need advice.”
She raises an eyebrow.
“Advice.”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t you have, I don’t know. Friends to ask about this?”
He looks fucking devastated, and there’s this – this phantom limb or something, this déjà vu type feeling in her arms, like she should reach out to him, and where is that coming from?
“That’s part of the problem,” he says.
Notes:
a contribution to MJ week. prompt: meet again after no way home. this has been kicking around in my head a few days so. enjoy.
“Peter could only be hers in Queens; over time, as she visited less often, he became less hers. She decided that it was better that way.“ To quote Taylor Swift, “it always leads to you in my hometown.”
happy MJ week! this chapter is brought to you by its very own playlist, specifically: we looked like giants (death cab for cutie), memory (sugarcult), transatlanticism (death cab for cutie), the 1 (taylor swift), same old same old (the civil wars), this modern love (bloc party), and my body is a cage (arcade fire). oh, and supercut by lorde. obviously. (death cab's transatlanticism and we have the facts and we're voting yes are essentially the vibe of college mj and peter.)
more notes at the end - thanks for reading, thanks for the comments, i super love writing this universe and i'm glad you are, too.
as always, enjoy.
wanna catch up? one. two. three. four. five.
six.
in my head, i do everything right. When you call I forgive and not fight, because all of the moments that play in the dark -
we were wild and fluorescent, come home to my heart
---
nine years ago.
“Peter – ”
“Fuck, wha –”
“We should – we shouldn’t –”
“Mmm.”
“We should stop,” she breathes out. As soon as she says it he does, letting his head fall to rest on her shoulder as he lifts his hips away. He’s still so close; she can feel his breath on her skin as he tries to calm down, and honestly, she wants to say nevermind and let him go back to what he was doing – let herself pull at his shoulders and kiss him until all the thoughts go away, until all she can think about is him and this.
He pulls off of her and lays on his back, their arms barely touching.
“Sorry,” he mutters.
“Don’t be.”
“I know we –”
“Hey, I wasn’t exactly unwilling.”
He laughs lightly, and she feels for his hand, smiling when she finds it and he twines their fingers. This was supposed to be just two friends hanging out. Watching a movie in his dorm. Platonic friend shit. How did they end up shirtless and making out on his bed?
(Of course they saw each other at Flash’s. The first time the gang was back together again since starting college. They’d been cordial at first, then started talking. Maybe they got a little drunk. Maybe they made out. But it wasn’t a big deal. And he’d text her the next day to apologize, and ask if she wanted to hang out – as friends – because it had been a while. And she did always like hanging out with him, so why not? She hadn’t expected that they’d barely get twenty minutes into The Road to El Dorado, but maybe she should have. Maybe they’d both known what would happen if they spent time alone together.)
“What the fuck are we doing?”
“Well you see, Em, when a man and a woman love each other – ”
She pulls her hand from him to hit him, but he captures it again, and she turns to her side to try to hit him with her free hand, and soon they’re wrestling and giggling and then he’s got her on her back again, her hands clasped above her head, held in place by his. He smiles widely.
“I win.”
“Fuck you,” she says on a laugh, struggling. He kisses her neck.
“That’s what I’m saying.”
God, she’s missed him. But –
“Peter.”
“Mmm?” he murmurs as he presses kisses to her neck, down to her collarbone. She sighs.
“Peter. This is exactly – the opposite – ”
He sighs heavily.
“I know,” he says against her skin. She shivers involuntarily, and he bucks his hips into hers. She’s ready to say fuck it, go back to what they’ve been on their way towards, but he sits up and moves away from her. “I’ll be good.”
Goddammit.
She sits up, too, and moves to sit cross-legged – carefully not touching him. His hair is messy, and fuck, this is not how this was supposed to go but she’d be lying if she hadn’t hoped, just a little. But –
“We broke up. You broke up with me,” she says. He deflates a little.
“I did.”
“I’m going back to California in two weeks.”
“You are.”
“And you’re staying here.”
“I am.”
She looks at him. He looks sad. As sad as she’s felt.
“I miss you,” he says softly. Her heart does a little skip at that. She knows they broke up because of the distance, not because – but it fills something in her to know he’s missed her. To think he might, maybe, even, regret – ?
“Yeah?”
“Of course.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “Look, I thought – it’s better this way, right? Because we’re in completely different places.”
“Yeah.”
“But I miss you. So much.”
“I miss you, too.”
“I know we shouldn’t,” he says, reaching tentatively for her hand. She lets him take it, shifts closer to him without thinking about it. “But I want to.”
“Me, too.”
“This is a bad idea, right?”
“Probably.”
“Can I kiss you anyway?”
She kisses him instead.
---
eight years ago.
“Wow, you’re really not subtle.”
“Are we doing that?”
“Apparently not.”
He slips his hands under her shirt and trails his lips down her neck. She closes her eyes and sighs.
They’d arrived separately, because that would’ve been a little too obvious, but they’d barely been able to keep their hands off each other, and when she announced that she was tired and heading home early, he didn’t even wait five minutes, like they’d discussed before.
Somehow, though, she can’t find it in herself to be all that upset, with the way he’s got her pushed against the wall in the alley outside the bar. They’ve been sneaking touches all night but apparently it’s not enough. It’s six blocks back to his apartment, and part of her wonders if they’ll even make it.
She pulls his hair lightly to get him to kiss her, and he does, and fuck, she flies back to school in four days. She wonders if that’s part of why he’s so desperate tonight. They’ve spent practically her entire break together, but she’s leaving soon, again, and thinking about it makes her heart ache. She kisses him deeper.
She can feel so many words trapped in her chest, and she knows he must have a few, too, from the way he holds her.
“Get a room!” shouts a stranger, and they pull apart, but barely. Peter flips the person off without removing his eyes from hers.
“Wanna go back to my place?” he asks, a little breathless. His cheeks are pink, and she smiles and kisses him.
“I mean, that was my plan before someone got impatient.”
He smirks and then reaches for her hand, lacing their fingers.
“Let’s go.” He starts to lead her to his apartment, then turns to look at her. “Can you stay the night?”
She wonders if her dad will believe she’s crashing with Betty or Liz. (He’d asked how Betty was a few days ago and she’d completely forgotten that she had supposedly stayed with Betty just the day before, and he didn’t say anything but she had a feeling he knew. Especially since Gina – she assumes it was Gina – put a few condoms in her purse.)
Cut she’s leaving in a few days, and she misses him, and she’s an adult now, right? Her dad will get over it. He likes Peter. She decides it’s worth it.
“Yeah.”
---
seven years ago.
“Next semester is gonna suck,” she complains, sprawled out on his bed as he decides between the three ties on his dresser.
“Yeah, but you’re gonna crush it.”
“But I’m gonna suffer.”
“Aren’t we all?”
He picks up two of the ties and weighs them in his hands.
“Let me see,” she tells him, rolling over onto her stomach. He holds them up on either side of his chest.
“What do you think?”
His shirt is white, unbuttoned at the collar, and one tie is blue striped, the other plain burgundy. His hair is still damp from the shower and he’s not wearing socks. The whole moments feels so domestic, she wants to curl up and never leave. But he has a work thing soon, and she’s trying to milk out as much time with him as she can, so she lingers on his bed and watches him get ready and tries not to dwell on how nice it feels to be with him like this.
“Try the red,” she says. “You look good in red.”
He smirks at her and tosses the blue tie, lifting his collar to slip the chosen tie around his neck.
“I can’t believe I have to go to this stupid –”
“It’ll be fun,” she encourages. He’s trying to tie the tie without looking in a mirror and struggling. The tail is too long, so he pulls it undone and starts again.
“It’ll suck. Four hours of being treated like a waiter, despite the obvious camera in my hand, and shitty music, and all for minimum wage? Barely? Jameson is a fucking cheapskate with the highest standards, I don’t know where he gets off –”
She frowns.
“Come on, I thought you liked this job.”
“I do like this job. But that’s four hours I could be spending with you.”
He doesn’t looks at her as he says it, and he’s still fucking up the tie, so she gets up and puts her hands over his. He stills, sighs.
“Sorry. School has been stressful, and yeah, I like working for the Bugle, I just wish I could take a break, you know?”
She gets it, sort of. He’s seemed stretched especially thin this visit. Bags under his eyes, canceling their tentative plans or so sleepy that they end up cuddling more than anything else. She doesn’t mind that part. She’s just worried about him.
She buttons the top button and ties his tie, and smooths down his collar, and gives him a soft kiss.
“What are you doing tonight?” he asks.
“Probably just gonna hang out at home. My dad’s been wanting to have a, like, family movie night or whatever. I think he misses Gina.”
“And you.”
“I’m not the one who got married and abandoned him.”
“Not yet,” he teases. Her heart skips and she tries to ignore the flutters. She’s definitely not getting married anytime soon, and it’s not like Peter –
“That’ll be fun, though,” he continues.
“Yeah. I’ve barely seen Gina this trip.”
In truth, she’s barely seen anyone this trip.
He nods. Looks down at their hands.
“I wanna ask you to come over when I get back, but that feels a little – selfish,” he admits. “You should hang out with your family tonight.”
“It’s not selfish,” she says. He shrugs.
“I’m probably gonna be too tired to do more than watch Netflix.”
“That’s okay. I like hanging out with you.”
He sighs again. Oh, Peter.
“I wanted to do a lot more with you.”
(They’d talked about going ice skating, bowling, mini golf. Going out and doing the tourist-y stuff they never did because they’d grown up here. He’d wanted to take her to the Natural History Museum, because he remembered how she said it was her favorite. But so far, none of that had happened.)
“I get it, really. You’ve got a lot going on.”
“I want to make time for you, though.”
Her chest tightens at the earnestness in his face. She wants to ask why – they’re not dating. Why shouldn’t he ask her to come over when he gets off work? Aren’t they just glorified fuck buddies?
(But even as she has the thought, she knows it’s not true. She’s never cared this much about what a hook up has had for dinner lately. When the last time he got a full night’s sleep was. And no hook up has ever remembered her coffee order, or her favorite museum exhibit, or stocked up on the poptarts she likes in case she gets hungry.)
She kisses him again, slow and deep, and he wraps his arms around her.
“Text me when you’re on your way home,” she tells him.
“You don’t have – ”
“Maybe I just wanna be around you. Even if you’re tired and boring.”
He has that look in his eyes, that look she recognizes.
(They haven’t said I love you since before they broke up. They dance around the words, and sometimes she feels them on her tongue, but they never say them. Sometimes his eyes look like he’s about to.)
She kisses him to save him from saying something they’ll both regret.
He walks out with her, his ratty coat and camera, his hand on her back as he guides her through the door.
“Text me when you get home?” he asks.
“Go get ‘em, tiger,” she returns. He smiles, and she smiles, and he leans in for one last kiss.
She might be imagining it, but she swears there’s a spring in his step.
---
six years ago.
“I think this is the nicest place you’ve lived.”
“I mean, I think May’s is actually – ”
“No, I mean, on your own.”
“With three other guys.”
“I’m trying to say something nice.”
“Sorry. Continue.”
She smiles against his skin, grateful that his roommates are gone. One of them she’s met before, a guy he roomed with last year, but the other two are new. Nice enough. Nicer now that they’re gone. She wonders if they actually had plans, or if Peter bribed them with extra chores and pizza. Harry told her that’s how he used to get him out of the apartment when MJ visited, back when they had been rooming together.
“Think you’ll stay here?”
“What, this apartment?”
“Yeah.”
He shrugs.
“Maybe. Depends on what the others decide, or if I can find new roommates.”
“Makes sense. Are you ready to graduate?”
He groans.
“No. I guess. I dunno. I’m gonna have to get a real job.”
“Says the man with three.”
“Three part-time, freelance things that barely cover my bills. Plus my loans are gonna kick in –“
“Nooo, stop talking about that.”
“You started it.”
“I didn’t mean adulthood. I mean school. We’re gonna be done.”
He pulls back to look at her.
“What?” she asks.
“You’re not gonna be done.”
She blushes.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Yeah you have,” he says, a fondness in his voice that makes her ache. He rolls onto his side to look at her and she mirrors him. “You’re gonna go be a fancy, hot-shot lawyer. You’ve got years ahead of you, Jones.”
“Maybe,” she says.
“Really?”
He sounds genuinely surprised. She shrugs this time.
“I mean, I dunno. Law school has been the plan for the past few years, you know? But I sort of. I fell in love with theatre. Part of me wants to give that a shot.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, it’s just so – it’s so different. But I love it – the people, the work – I dunno. I’m not sure I wanna be done with that part of college yet. But law school.”
“But law school.”
“And loans.”
“I thought we weren’t talking about that?”
He’s smiling easily at her and it makes her feel like – like things are okay, or can be.
“But you’re right. We’re gonna graduate, and loans are gonna be due, and we have to figure out housing, and – ”
“Hey.” He kisses her, and she stops spiraling, just a little.
“Law school is practical,” she admits, because she keeps coming back to it.
“But is it what you actually want?”
“It’s what I’ve been working toward.”
She didn’t answer the question, though, and she’s wondering if he’ll press her on it.
“Whatever you do, you know you’ve got an army of people behind you.”
“Including you?”
She hates how small her voice sounds. He frowns a little.
“Of course.”
He says it, but does he – what does that mean? What are they even doing?
“What are your plans?” she asks, deciding they need to change the subject before it becomes a fight.
“Not sure yet.”
“Grad school?”
He shrugs.
“Maybe. I’m gonna take a break, at least. I’ll figure it out.”
“You always do.”
He kisses her forehead, the gesture so tender her eyes well up.
“You’re gonna be amazing,” he says softly, running his fingers over her arm. It’s soothing, tender. (It’s moments like this she can almost forget that they – that she will leave.)
“What if I can’t decide?”
“Flip a coin,” he suggests.
“Why?”
“Ben used to tell me, if you can’t decide between two things, flip a coin. When it’s in the air, suddenly you know exactly what you want, because you’re already hoping how it’ll land.”
She bites her lip.
That’s not nearly as easy as it sounds.
(Because she wants a lot of things, and she knows – )
“You’ll figure it out,” he says quietly.
“So will you,” she tells him. He smiles something small, something sad.
“I might just come home,” she says suddenly. “For the summer at least. Figure it out then.”
“Yeah?”
She shrugs, trying to quell the way her heart speeds up at the note in his voice.
“I mean, my dad is here. Gina. Friends.”
You.
“That would be nice.”
“As nice as this apartment?” she teases.
“Definitely nicer,” he tells her, smiling against her lips as he kisses her. He rolls her onto her back, and it’s a perfectly dreary day, but wrapped up in Peter’s blankets, in him, with the future a question mark but maybe, maybe theirs –
It’s the best day she’s had in a while.
---
five years ago.
“God, Ned was so messy last night.”
“Ned? What about Flash?”
“Flash is always messy, Michelle. You’ve been away too long, are you already forgetting us?”
“Fuck off. What was the occasion?”
She’s washing dishes, Betty on speaker for their weekly catch up phone call. She likes the predictability, the routine. Something to look forward to in her busy weeks and application filled weekends.
“Um.”
“What?”
“It’s Peter’s birthday.”
Oh, fuck. She forgot. She’d been ticking down the days, angsting over whether she should text him or call or – something. Try to breach the seemingly impenetrable silence.
But she got caught up in a work disaster, and her personal statements, and – and now here it is. Peter’s actual birthday. She’d almost forgot. (Would it matter?)
“Oh, right. Yeah. So it was fun?” she recovers.
“Yeah, it was.”
“He had a good time? I mean, it sounds like it.”
“I think so. He asked about you.”
Fuck.
“Oh yeah?”
“Would you call him please?”
“I’m not the one who started this, he –”
“Look, I mean this in the nicest way possible – I don’t give a shit. Flash tried to be his wingman, last night, MJ. He was sad-drunk, because Ned and Harry thought more alcohol would cheer him up. He obviously misses you.”
“He’s made no effort. He hasn’t said anything to me –”
“I know, he’s a dumbass. You should know this by now. He’s a dumbass who doesn’t know how to talk about his feelings and –”
“So I have to be the fucking grown up? If he misses me to goddamn much, why doesn’t he call? Or text? He could send a fucking email. No, Betty, I’m – I can’t keep doing this with him.”
“But it’s his birthday.”
“Yeah, well. It sounds like he’ll be too hungover to notice if I reach out or not.”
“Michelle. I know he’s the one who fucked up here, but you miss him, too.”
“Betty – ”
“Just – just think about it?”
“Yeah, whatever.”
She doesn’t text him.
(She’s too afraid he’ll respond.)
---
four years ago.
She should probably feel surprised to see him, but somehow, with everything else, it’s not even a little but shocking. It’s Peter. He’s standing next to baggage claim, hands in his pockets, a black beanie covering his ears. She doesn’t know what to call the feeling in her chest when her eyes meet his. She has even less of an idea when he crosses to her and wraps her in his arms. She buries her face in his neck and breathes. Had she been holding her breath up until now?
She doesn’t say anything for several minutes, and neither does he. After what feels like weeks, she pulls back, just a little, to look at him. She’s about to apologize – not talking feels so incredibly stupid, what were they even fighting about? – but he shakes his head, like he’s reading her mind. He reaches down to take her hand, and grabs the duffel she’d dropped on the floor, and leads her outside without a word.
“How did you –”
“Gina called. She’s at the hospital.”
“Is he –”
She hasn’t checked her phone since getting off the plane. Honestly, she spent the flight terrified that she would land and find out he’d already died.
“He’s not awake, but he’s there,” Peter tells her. He hails a cab and opens the door for her, tells the driver where to go. She takes his hand as soon as he sits down, and rests her head on his shoulder. He presses a kiss to her temple.
“I should’ve been here,” she mumbles.
“MJ –”
“I should’ve –”
“Shh.”
He drops her hand and wraps his arm around her.
“What if he –”
“Don’t think about it.”
“It’s all I can think about.” She can feel the tears in her eyes. “Tell me it’s okay?”
“You’ll be okay.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“I know.”
He presses another kiss to her hair. She closes her eyes and tries to breathe.
“You’re gonna see him, and tell him you love him. And I don’t know beyond that. But you’ll get that much. I promise.”
She buries her head in his neck, and they spend the rest of the ride in silence.
He takes her hand once they’re out of the cab, and leads her into the hospital, to the elevator, up to the seventh floor. She feels like she’s in a trance, heart in her chest, terrified and paralyzed but somehow still moving. Peter feels like the only thing anchoring her to reality.
Gina sees her and she drops Peter’s hand, running to meet her sister, both of them crying and clutching at each other.
“Is he –”
“He’s asleep,” Gina tells her. She hears a baby mumble as she and Gina separate, and she looks up to see Jesse – sweet baby Jesse, with his curly hair and bright eyes, gnawing at a toy and clutching at May’s necklace.
May smiles softly at her, and Michelle tries to return it.
“Can I see him?” she asks, looking to Gina. Gina nods and starts down the hall. She hears Peter’s voice and turns to see him taking Jesse from May. Lingers just a moment to watch her nephew rest his head on Peter’s shoulder as he shifts him to his hip. May disappears down the hall.
“Michelle?”
She turns to her sister, who reaches out her hand. Michelle takes it, and follows her to one of the rooms. She takes a deep breath as Gina opens the door.
“Daddy?”
---
She sits with her dad for a while, holding his hand and talking to him. Gina comes in and out of the room. Eventually, Michelle and Gina venture back into the hall. Peter is sitting with May, still holding Jesse. Jesse’s asleep now, and the window at the end of the hall is dark – how long was she in there? – and there’s a drool spot on Peter’s shirt where Jesse’s mouth is, but he seems unconcerned. He stands when she approaches.
“Can I?” she asks, holding her arms out. Peter carefully passes Jesse off to her, and he stirs a little as he settles against her chest, his skin sleep warm. Somehow, this is the calmest she’s felt since she got the news.
“Are you hungry?” Peter asks. She shakes her head. “When’s the last time you ate?”
She can’t remember. He seems to gather this from her silence.
“Michelle, you should go home.”
“No, Gina, I need –”
“Go drop your stuff off and sleep. Come back in the morning.”
“When’s the last time you went home?” she asks, defensive.
“This morning.”
Dammit.
“Take Jesse, and go nap, and we’ll switch in a few hours, okay?”
“Fine,” Michelle says. “But only a few hours.”
May motions to Peter, and he nods. He puts his coat back on and grabs Michelle’s bag.
“I’ll go with you guys,” he says quietly. She’s about to tell him no, he doesn’t have to, but she’s exhausted, and she’s not sure she can manage the subway by herself, much less with a fifteen month old. So she nods, and lets him press his hand against her back and guide her to the elevator.
“Thanks,” she says softly as the doors slide closed.
“Of course.” He nods at Jesse. “Want me to take him, or you got it?”
“I got him,” she says, a little defensive. He nods. They stand in silence as the elevator dings each floor down.
He hails a cab once they get outside, and she’s about to tell him no, it’s fine, they can take the subway, but he waves her off and opens the door for her, sliding in behind her. Jesse stirs a bit more this time as they settle into their seats, and she pulls him closer, pressing a kiss to his hair.
“Shhh, you’re okay, baby, you’re okay,” she whispers to him. He whimpers, and she thinks maybe he’s awake, and that he’s going to start crying, and she feels woefully unprepared for that. Peter rests his hand on Jesse’s back and rubs small circles. She bounces Jesses a bit in her lap, and she can feel him start to settle again, can feel as his breath starts to even out again as they merge into traffic. It’s dark out. The clock says 9:14. When did her flight land? What day is it?
Peter pays the fare when the cab stops in front of her building – her dad’s building. She’s going to have to pay him back. They got a cab to the hospital too, didn’t they? What was that one? She can’t let him pay for all these cabs, she’s sure he doesn’t have that kind of money. She tries to commit the amount to memory, but her head feels like jelly. So do her arms. Jesse isn’t that big, but she’s not used to carrying a baby. Toddler. What is he considered these days?
“Want me to –”
“I got it,” she says. He doesn’t fight her, just opens the door for her and presses the button for the elevator. Her arms are burning, and Peter watches her like he’s waiting for her to break. She’s suddenly furious. This is her nephew. Why shouldn’t she be the one to hold him? Why can’t she carry him?
Why can’t she –
He presses the button for her floor – her dad’s floor – and she can’t remember when the last time was that Peter came here. How did he remember?
When was the last time?
Her arms are on fire, her body feels too warm from her coat and Jesse and this elevator and Peter beside her, radiating heat, and is she sweating? She feels like she’s –
The elevator dings as the doors open, and she can’t seem to move.
“MJ?”
When was the last time –
She tries to reposition Jesse but her arms are screaming. The doors start to slide closed. Peter puts an arm out to stop it, his eyes on her, worried.
“Michelle.”
She takes a breath (has she been breathing this whole time?) and steps out and onto the landing. She feels like she’s losing her grip on Jesse. Maybe more than just that. But she puts one foot in front of the other until she reaches the door – her dad’s apartment, the place she’d grown up – and –
“I –”
She stops, eyes filling. She feels suddenly, overwhelmingly, defeated.
“I don’t have a key,” she whispers. She’s about to collapse, can feel herself crumbling, the tears starting, but just as quickly Peter is taking Jesse from her and pulling a key from his pocket.
“We’re okay,” he says softly. He puts his free hand on her arm, the shape of the key pressing against her, and leans in to kiss her forehead. Her eyes slide shut at the touch. “You’re okay. We’re here, and you can rest.”
Can she though? Can she sleep, knowing –
He lets go of her and turns to unlock the door, pushing it open and gesturing her inside. She wipes at the tears, embarrassed and tired and, somehow, even more devastated.
(It smells like she remembers, like her dad’s soap and the cinnamon he puts in his coffee.)
She closes the door.
“I’m gonna go put him down,” Peter tells her. She nods. He doesn’t move. “Which one is his room?”
(When was the last time Peter was here?)
But she knows this one, she can answer this question. So she leads him through the living room, down the hall, to the room that used to be hers, that now houses her sister and nephew. How many times has she led Peter into this room? How many times had they studied, or watched a movie, or fooled around in exactly this space? But it’s so different now – a crib where her dresser used to be, but the fairy lights she put up remain. She sees Peter take in the room as he steps in, and she wonders if he’s thinking the same things she is, if he’s remembering, too. This room has changed. Have they?
She motions to the crib and Peter sets Jesse down gently, then looks at her.
“Is that it?”
“What?”
“Does he just sleep like that? Or should we put him in pajamas, or something?”
She has no idea. She looks down at Jesse. Steps closer, and carefully takes his little coat off.
“I think he’s fine.”
Peter nods.
She goes back to the living room, and Peter closes the door behind them.
She’s still in her coat. Where did Peter’s beanie go? He was wearing it before. Did he have it on in the cab? The cab – what was the fare? She needs to ask him, she should at least split it –
“You should eat,” he says, pulling her out of her thoughts. He’s taking his coat off and setting it on the back of the couch. She shakes her head.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Water?”
She sighs, which he takes as a yes. He disappears, and when he’s back in front of her, he has a glass of water. He sets it on the coffee table, and gently approaches her.
“Can I help?”
What is he talking about? Then he’s, softly, helping her out of her own coat, putting it with his, and leading her to sit on the couch. He puts the glass in her hand and watches as she drinks. She’s thirsty, she realizes.
She sets the glass down, and he’s sitting beside her still, watching her. She closes her eyes, the day washing over her.
“He’s gonna die, isn’t he?”
“Em –”
“Don’t lie to me, Peter.” She looks at him, and she can feel herself crying again. He looks stricken, too.
“I don’t know.”
She bites her lip.
“I do.”
Peter doesn’t say anything.
“Can you hold me?” she whispers. Immediately, he’s gathering her into his arms.
“Of course,” he says, pressing a kiss to her temple as she settles against him. He’s solid, and warm, and she can feel his heartbeat and it’s grounding. She barely feels here but Peter – Peter feels like something. Like something to hold onto.
“Can you stay?”
“Of course.”
---
She wakes up ravenous, on the couch in her father’s apartment, pressed up against Peter Parker. He’s sleeping, and she feels so tense, her neck so sore. Her eyes hurt from crying but she doesn’t think she cried that much, actually. Sleeping didn’t ease the anxiety; instead, she feels the urgent need to check her phone, to make sure nothing happened while she slept.
(She can’t believe she fell asleep, what kind of daughter is she?)
She sits up and fumbles for her phone, and that seems to wake him.
“Hey,” he says, voce gravelly with sleep.
“Hi.”
He looks like he’s about to say something. Then doesn’t.
No texts or calls. Well, from her sister. Flash and Betty and Ned have all reached out. She can’t string together a response for any of them.
She can feel Peter still watching her, and she can feel her stomach churn.
“Any news?” he asks, sitting up beside her. She shakes her head and puts her phone down again. She lets herself lean against Peter, and he wraps an arm around her waist.
“I’m hungry,” she says quietly. He smirks a bit.
“Want me to make you something?”
“Can we get pizza?”
---
She’s sitting on the couch in the apartment she grew up in, eating pizza with her ex-boyfriend, her nephew in his high chair picking at his own piece, when Gina texts he’s awake.
---
They arrive back at the hospital in what feels like record time, Peter holding a growing ever fussier Jesse, Michelle feeling like she’s run – or running – a marathon. She rushes to Gina, and together they go into their dad’s room.
“Hey, baby girl,” her dad greets. She chokes out a sob as she rushes to him, hugging him over the wires. He hugs her back.
“Hey, daddy,” she whispers. He kisses her hair.
“Sorry for scaring you,” he rumbles. She pulls back.
He looks felled. Her father, always a big man, strong and solid, looks frail. His face is ashen. He looks like he’s aged ten years, but it’s only been three months since she last saw him. She can feel the tears. Wade Jones has always seemed like a giant of a man, but now he looks – human. Like a cold could incapacitate him. Like a strong wind might knock him over.
“How are you feeling?” she asks, sitting in the chair next to him and scooting as close as she can and taking his hand. She feels terrified – even though he’s awake, and that’s a good sign, he looks sick, and what will recovery look like? How long is he going to be here, what –
“A little tired,” he says lightly, but her father has never admitted being tired. He must be exhausted.
The door opens slowly, and she turns to see Peter walk in with Jesse. Jesse starts reaching for Gina and crying the second he sees her, and she rushes to take him, apologizing and moving past Peter to go out into the hall.
“Peter Parker?” her dad asks. Peter steps more fully into the room. He’s wearing the same thing as yesterday – of course he is, he hasn’t left her side and isn’t that something? Doesn’t he hate her? Two weeks ago they weren’t speaking and here he is now, taking care of her nephew – and her. Looking at her dad with worry.
“Yes, sir,” Peter confirms.
Her dad may have grumbled about door open and you get her back by curfew, he may have rolled his eyes whenever Michelle told him she was going out to see Peter, and grilled him about his intentions just to see him squirm over Thanksgiving turkey, but Wade had always liked Peter. Peter, who had called him sir, or Mr. Jones. Peter, who held open doors and offered to help with the dishes, who came to the door with flowers for prom, who smiled at Michelle like he loved her –
“Taking care of my girls?” her dad asked. She bristled a little. She doesn’t need a man to –
“They’re doing pretty well taking care of themselves,” Peter tells him with a small smile and a glance to her like he knows exactly what she’s thinking, and she feels her heart swell a bit.
“’Course they are,” Wade says proudly. He coughs, his breath rattling in his chest.
“Do you need anything?” Michelle asks. He shakes his head.
“I’m okay.”
She gets up and pours him some water. Peter is still by the door, and he and her father are looking at each other, as though having a silent conversation. She sits by his bedside again and gives him the water. His breath seems more labored than normal. She knows nothing about heart attacks. She should probably learn. Recovery, will his diet need to change? Maybe she should take some time off, come back home –
“I’m gonna wait outside,” Peter tells them. She comes out of her thoughts and sees her dad nod to Peter, and him nod back. What could they possibly have communicated to each other?
“Tell Gina I want to kiss my grandson,” her father says to Peter, who smiles as he leaves. Michelle squeezes her dad’s hand.
Maybe things will be okay.
---
They spend the day with him, and he seems – he seems fine. Tired, but in good spirits. He tries to make Michelle and Gina laugh, holds Jesse, lets them fluff his pillows and pester the nurses for more jello. He looks weak, but he’s awake, and alive, and that’s something.
(They tell him they love him, and he tells them that he’s so proud of them, of the women they’ve grown up to be. It doesn’t feel like goodbye, but it feels like something. as night falls, he convinces them to go home, get real sleep, come back in the morning. He’ll be fine for a few hours, he’s just going to sleep anyway. They should go be in real beds and come back refreshed. With cards or something, he’s getting bored and he refuses to become a soap opera person. So they kiss him goodbye and take a cab back to the apartment – Peter once again going with them, just to make sure they get back okay, but Michelle asks him to stay again and they curl up on the couch with intention, her head on his chest, his arms around her, Gina and Jesse in her old room and her father’s empty.)
That night he has another heart attack.
This time when he wakes up, there are no easy smiles, no “I’m okay.” This time, he barely gets his eyes open, and he smiles at Michelle, and at Gina, and Michelle tells him how much she loves him, and he squeezes her hand, and mumbles, “love you too.” Or was it “love you two?”
And then he closes his eyes.
---
She didn’t bring a dress.
She’s standing in front of Gina’s closet as they look for a second black dress, or something suitable. She’s so unprepared for this. How could she have not thought to bring –
“Try this.”
Michelle pulls off her t-shirt and slips it over her shoulders. It’s a bit loose, but it’ll work. Gina seems to agree, nodding and closing the closet door. Michelle pulls the dress off, and grabs her shirt from the floor. It’s only as she pulls it over her head that she realizes it’s Peter’s. Somehow, this makes her feel better.
The funeral is tomorrow. She’s never dreaded anything more.
Gina sits on the bed next to her.
“Have you heard from her?”
“No. You?”
Michelle shakes her head.
“I know she’s barely on, but I posted it. I figured she might see.”
“She wouldn’t come, even if she did.”
“I know.”
She takes Gina’s hand, or maybe Gina takes her hand.
“I miss him already.”
“Me, too.”
---
Flash wraps her in a bear hug as soon as he sees her at the wake. Ned, Betty, and Harry are there, too. They take turns hugging her, Betty wiping her tears away and telling her she loves her and she’s here for her.
Peter appears out of nowhere with a plate of assorted foods. Cheese, broccoli, carrots, hummus. He doesn’t offer it to her, but she takes a carrot stick. The crunching it makes as she takes a bite is oddly grounding.
For most of the wake, she is flanked by Flash and Peter, her oldest friend and her – whatever Peter is. She’s been sleeping in a sweatshirt he left at the apartment a few days ago, and she tries not to think too hard about why.
(He hasn’t stayed in the apartment overnight since that second night. He hasn’t kissed her, hasn’t held her hand, hasn’t done anything but hug her. Every time he goes to leave, she wants to ask him not to. But that doesn’t seem fair, even if he isn’t complaining.)
At one point, as Jesse is wandering around the room, toddling and babbling, he goes up to Peter and tugs at his pant leg. Peter scoops him up without pause. They’ve become buddies this past week, and it surprised her at first, because Peter doesn’t have any experience with kids either, and yet he seemed to take to it so much easier than she has. She doesn’t know how to name the feeling in her chest. She doesn’t try.
“Peter,” Jesse says as he situates him on his hip.
“Hey, bud. You good?”
“I good.”
“Hungry?”
Jesse nods and shakes his head at the same time. Peter laughs.
“Let’s go see what’s left.”
As she watches them disappear into the dining room, her heart aches.
---
She’s standing in front of Peter’s door, his sweatshirt in her hands. She’d had no idea where he lived. She’d had to ask Ned – because Ned, she thought, would never betray this confidence. It’s only been a few hours since the last of the stragglers left their apartment – May and Peter among them, hugs and promises to call tomorrow to check in – and she needs to see him.
She’s standing in front of his door, hand raised to knock, holding his sweatshirt, knowing this is a terrible idea, knowing she’s not just here to return a sweatshirt, glued to the spot.
She knocks so softly, she’s sure he won’t be able to hear.
He opens the door.
She tries to speak but she feels the tears start. He pulls her to him without a word.
“You forgot your sweatshirt,” she says into his chest.
“Thanks for bringing it back.”
“I’ve been wearing it,” she admits. He doesn’t say anything. She squeezes her eyes shut. “Can you –? Can I stay for a little while?”
“Yeah,” he says, hugging her tighter. “You can always stay.”
She doesn’t know how long they stand there, her crying softly into his t-shirt, him holding her, rubbing her back, pressing kisses to her forehead and her temple, whispering I’m here, I’ve got you, I’m here.
She didn’t cry at the funeral. She’s barely cried this past week. Too – too shocked, or numb, or in denial to let herself feel everything. But now that they’ve gotten through the planning, and the relatives, and the service – now that she has no tasks, nothing to do, she finds herself –
Lost.
It’s like all the tears she’d forced back all week have bubbled up to the surface, and she can barely breathe. Peter sways her slightly, mumbling softly. She can barely make out the words but his voice in her ear, his breath against her skin – it’s soothing, it’s grounding.
After what feels like hours, she pulls back. Just a little, just enough.
She wants to say you make me feel safe. She wants to tell him I’ve missed you. She wants to confess that she has no idea how she would have gotten through this week without him.
She wants to say I love you.
(She wants to say don’t leave me, but that feels even more impossible.)
But she doesn’t say any of those things. Instead, she kisses him. He returns the pressure, hands cupping her face, and fuck but he touches her like she’s precious.
“MJ,” he breathes against her lips. But he’s pulling back, shaking his head.
“Please, Peter.”
“Em.”
She kisses him again.
“I just – I need to be with someone who loves me,” she says. Hoping he understands.
He looks at her and she can see how torn he is. She feels like she’s offered him up her heart, as battered and bruised as it is, and now she’s just waiting, at his mercy. Waiting to see if he’ll take it.
“This isn’t gonna make it hurt less,” he tells her. She wipes at her eyes and sighs shakily.
“I know, I know that, I just – ” She chokes out a sob. “I trust you. I want you to –”
She doesn’t know how to finish the sentence, but luckily she doesn’t have to. He wipes her tears away, and leans in to press a gentle kiss to her lips. Then he takes her hand and leads her to his bedroom. She’s still clutching the sweatshirt, and he gently pulls it from her and sets it on the dresser. Then he takes both of her hands and kisses her softly, sweetly. He kisses her like he loves her.
She needs more.
He slips his hands under her shirt, fingers gently tracing her skin. Her hands go to his cheek, his neck, the slightest stubble prickling at her. She tries to speed things up, biting at his lip, but he’s gentle, keeping control of the pace. He backs her up until she falls back onto the bed, and he’s careful not to put too much of his weight on her, but she needs it, she needs to feel how solid and real he is. She kisses him deeper and his hands are sliding against her skin, cupping her breasts, and he’s kissing down her neck, and she feels so much. But her mind is becoming blissfully blank, full only of this and him and not any of the other things that have been eating at her – it’s just this, his lips and his hands and the sounds he makes as she pulls his hair and slips her tongue in his mouth, the smell of his soap and his sheets.
She reaches for his waistband and he stills, and her heart sinks. He pulls back, just enough, and takes her hand.
“Peter –”
“Let me” he says, slowly sliding down her body, pressing kisses to her stomach, his fingers tugging down her leggings and underwear. “Let me take care of you.”
He kisses her entrance once, twice, and then slides a finger inside, his mouth moving to her clit. She’s already so wet, just from kissing him, just from feeling him on top of her, and it’s been a while but the stretch is fine, it’s great, it’s amazing to feel something that doesn’t fill her with dread. It’s amazing to just feel. Fuck, she needs this.
It’s slow, the way he works her, slow and steady, the pace making her insides seize up, because she wants more, more, more. But he’s gentle, and he keeps her just on edge, and when he finally works her up to her orgasm, the sensations sending her shaking, moaning, his name on her lips, and him looking up at her with those hooded eyes.
He presses a kiss to her inner thigh and she tugs him up to kiss her. She can feel him, and fuck she wants to feel him inside, wants to hear him gasp and moan in her ear, wants to make him feel good like he makes her feel good, wants to chase the high she gets from being with him like this, the blissful peace and pleasure, wants to lose herself in it until all she can think about is how her body feels with his. She reaches for his waistband but again he stops her.
“Peter,” she sighs, a touch impatient.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks, a little breathless, his pupils blown and his hair a mess and his cheeks pink.
“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?” she tries to joke. His eyes are serious.
“Don’t worry about me,” he says softly, his fingers traveling down to stroke her again. Her toes curl. He’s watching her as he slips another finger in, his breath uneven.
“I want you. I wanna feel you,” she breathes, her hand finding him through his pants, and he groans as she touches him, his head falling to rest on her shoulder. She kisses his hair and strokes him, but it’s awkward with the angle and him still being clothed. Finally, he seems to accept that she’s more than okay with this, and when she slips her hand into his pants he doesn’t stop her. He leans back and pulls off his t-shirt, and kicks off his pajama pants and briefs, and lifts her shirt over her head.
For all that they’ve had sex before, and seen each other this naked before, she’s never felt so exposed. She feels like a raw nerve, aching and pulsing and loaded like a spring.
When he leans in to kiss her, though, she feels it begin to unravel, the tension in her shoulders, in her stomach. He can’t stop touching her, running his hands up her sides, her breasts, her hips, kissing her like a promise. She strokes him and his hands falter, and she smiles against his mouth, and he smiles back. He presses a deep kiss to her lips and she feels him move, and she hears the slide of a drawer, and the sound of a wrapper. He’s pressed against her center, and she’s so blissed out, so out of her mind for him, that she half wants to tell him not to bother with the condom, she’s on the pill, but she knows he would never. Especially not tonight, with all the feelings swirling between them. She runs her hands along his back and sighs at the loss as he leans back and away to slide the condom on, and he looks at her, cheeks flushed, hair mussed, lips swollen.
“MJ, I –”
“I know.”
She pulls him down to kiss her and gasps out a sigh as he slides in. He breaks the kiss and buries his face in her neck, swearing under his breath, and she squeezes him, so full and content at the feel of him, the weight of him.
(He feels like coming home.)
He starts to move, but like before, his movements are slow, steady. Gentle. She tries to quicken the pace but he kisses her, presses a hand to her hip to hold her still. He moves in and out unhurriedly, like they have all the time in the world, and she’s moaning, gasping, more and Peter and fuck, and he’s kissing her neck, whispering that’s it and so good and MJ –
And she can feel it building, she can feel herself approaching the peak, squeezes herself around him as his thrusts get a little sloppier, a little less steady, and –
“Fuck, MJ –”
And she’s meeting him thrust for thrust now, fingers curled in his hair, mouth pressed to his as she breathes, moans, gasps, coming around him, writhing in pleasure as he fucks her through it, until then he’s coming, collapsing against her with a sigh, her name on his lips. She presses a kiss to the top of his head, and he pulls out and looks at her, and kisses her so sweet, so soft.
There are so many things she wants to say. So many things she should say. He beats her to it.
“I love you,” he says, like it’s a confession, like he can’t help it, like he’s tried not to and failed. “I love you so much.”
“I know,” she admits, her eyes filling with tears. Like she’s sorry.
He looks at her like he understands.
---
She takes the shirt he had been wearing and pulls it on, along with her underwear, and climbs into bed with him. Everything smells like Peter, and she feels safe and warm and, god, loved. He loves her. Had he ever stopped?
(Had she?)
He slips his briefs back on and curls himself around her, and she admits she’s barely slept all week, and he kisses her hair and tells her she can rest, he’s here, he’ll be here when she wakes up, he’s not going anywhere.
He promises.
She falls asleep in Peter’s bed, wearing his shirt, wrapped up in him, feeling like maybe it’ll be okay, maybe the world hasn’t ended, maybe the ache in her chest and the emptiness she feels when she thinks of her father will pass.
Like maybe she isn’t alone in the world.
But then she wakes up, and Peter is still there, and all the feelings come rushing back, and she –
(She can’t do this.)
---
MJ, answer your phone
MJ
Michelle
Please
I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have let it go so far
MJ please talk to me
I didn’t mean to fuck this up
Can we please talk about this?
---
Fine. I’ll stop.
Please just tell me you made it home ok
---
Betty told me you’re back in California
Have a nice life, I guess.
---
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for that to sound so dickish
just started reading we can call it even and oh? my? God?
ur amazing and the way you write is amazing and how you captured peter and mjs relationship here is amazing
i’ve never read an off again on again relationship quite like this one, it’s so complex and beautiful and irritating and perfect? and like their characters are so them yet grown up, and i love that as headstrong and like “don’t give a shit” mj is she’s still awkward and nervous around peter even as an adult
ugh i love everything about this fic and i hope you write more! i could read 100 chapters of this.
thanks, friend! i'm really loving writing this (and ignoring my responsibilities while doing so), and i'm glad people are enjoying reading.
and good news - this might just be many chapters, because i don't plan and i'm already on page 75 and panicking because, have we even reached the conflict of the story yet?
“Peter could only be hers in Queens; over time, as she visited less often, he became less hers. She decided that it was better that way.“ To quote Taylor Swift, "it always leads to you in my hometown.”
wanna catch up? one. two. three.
four.
cannot think of all the cost and the things that will be lost. oh can we just get a pause?
is there a line that i could just go cross?
-
People have asked her if she’s ever seen or met Spider-Man, and she always rolls her eyes and says no, New York is a big city. She’s seen him on TV, not up close.
Except that’s not entirely true.
Once she was home from college and she was on her way to meet up with Peter when some guy started following her, and she wasn’t too bothered at first. Don’t engage, most of them lost interest and don’t mean any harm. But this guy was different, and she could feel something settle uneasily in her gut, and, like most women, did the calculus. Had the moment of is this when I get attacked? Is this how it happens for me? Because it’s just part of being a woman at a certain point. You stop wondering if you’ll be assaulted and wonder when. And for the first time, Michelle was thinking maybe this was her moment, and she subtly reached for her keys, ready to try the key claw trick they taught women that she was like, 93% convinced would deter absolutely no one, but you’ve gotta try something, right?
So she’s ready for the inevitable, ready to fight like hell because fuck this guy, but also a little worried because she’s not, like, strong, she’s not a match for a grown man who might have more on him than dull keys –
But she never has to figure it out, because before the guy can even touch her, Spider-Man appears in a flash of red and blue, crashing into the dude and saying something snarky – with just a hint of something darker – and she didn’t think Spider-Man typically got too physical when he stopped the bad guys. He returned their fire, but he didn’t go around beating up the bad guys, either. At least, that’s not what she thought.
For her guy, though, her would-be attacker, Spider-Man let him have it, and it was almost like he was holding back even as he beat up this guy she knows would’ve hurt her.
And something went through her. She was scared, but of what, exactly, she didn’t know.
(And it’s like he could sense it. Spider-Man. Because just as quick as he started, he stopped, and webbed up the guy, and swung away before she could so much as say thank you.)
She met up with Peter, as planned, and she was still a little shaken, so she told him what had happened, and he was so – something.
They were supposed to go see a movie but they stayed in that night, and when he kissed her there was an edge to it, something desperate and not – not quite possessive? But something.
She had chalked it up, at the time, to some sort of fear response, some Peter Parker savior complex, guilt at not being there to protect her even though that was ridiculous because, one, she didn’t need a savior, and two, literally, how could he have known?
But it was weird, there was a weird charge to the whole thing, and she never told anyone else about it, and Peter never brought it up. So she told people that no, she’d never seen Spider-Man.
As she stands in Peter’s living room, staring at Spider-Man – Spider-Man, who has Peter’s face under the mask, who is Peter, apparently –
Well. Everything makes just a little more sense.
---
“MJ – ”
“What the actual fuck, Peter?”
He doesn’t try to deny it – thank God, she’s pretty sure she might actually strangle him if he did – he just sighs heavily.
There’s a bruise blooming under his right eye, and he’s got a cut lip, and the suit looks dirty up close, a couple nicks and – fuck, there’s blood.
“Peter,” she gasps, torn between wanting to shout and wanting to cry. He looks like he might cry, too. He looks down at himself, follows her eye to the gash in his suit and the blood seeping through.
“I’m okay,” he says softly. “It’s – I’ll heal, I heal pretty fast, it’s – ”
“You’re Spider-Man.”
She sees the words hit him, and she may as well have punched him in the gut for how he takes it.
“Yeah.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
They just stand there, staring at each other. It feels like hours pass. Then he winces, and without thinking she rushes to him.
“What’s –”
“It’s nothing, I just –”
“It’s not nothing, you idiot. Obviously.”
“MJ.”
She lets herself look him in the eye. There’s a look on his face, something she can’t read. Something like nervous and tender and –
“You should probably change. Let me look at these – whatever’s going on.”
He just looks at her.
“Peter.”
“You’re taking this way better than I thought.”
She chokes out a laugh but it sounds and feels more like a sob. He goes to hold her but she steps back, holds out her hands to stop him.
“You need to – not be in that – and let me patch you up, and then I’m gonna need you to explain everything because I swear to God, Peter, I could kill you but I –”
And she does actually let out a sob, because suddenly it all hits her – all the shit she never really paid attention to, because why would she? – all the shit Spider-Man and the Avengers and all them –
Everything that the world had gone through, that Spider-Man had gone through – and it wasn’t just some guy in a costume, it was Peter. Peter had been thrown around and shot at and beat up and –
“Hey, hey, I’m okay, Michelle, I’m right here, I’m right – ”
“You almost died,” she spits out. Because she remembers, so, so clearly now, May texting her that Peter was in the hospital and it was probably fine, he was most likely going to be okay, but she thought she Michelle should know – and that was – hadn’t Spider-Man just –
“I didn’t though, okay? I didn’t, I’m right here, it’s just a few scratches, I’m okay, MJ, look at me, I’m okay.”
“Motherfucker,” she says, but there’s no venom in it. He tries to pull her to him again but she pushes him away. “You need to – I can’t have this conversation with you when you look like this.”
He nods, lingering just a moment before he turns and heads to his bedroom, and she doesn’t move, just stands there. Years of memories filtering in at light speed, and she can feel a headache coming on.
(And another thought – how had I not noticed?)
And then Peter’s in front of her. Flannel pajama bottoms and bare feet and no shirt. He’s holding a first aid kit like a peace offering, and she takes it from him. They sit on the couch, and she scans his chest for damage.
There’s a cut, a few bruises but nothing terrible, and there’s no way that’s all there is but he did say he healed fast but she needs to focus on something, needs something to do with her hands, so she settles on the one cut she can see and pulls out disinfectant. Dabs at the wound, considers the band aids.
There’s a box of Star Wars band aids in the kit, and she can’t stop the smile. When she meets his eyes, he’s smiling a little, too.
“Fucking nerd,” she mutters, choosing two and applying them to the cut.
“Thank you,” he whispers. She feels her eyes well up again.
“Explain this, Peter.”
---
So he does. No bullshit, not beating around the bush. It feels like he’s been waiting to get it off his chest, but she’s too pissed to be overly concerned with how he’s feeling.
Because all she can think is, he’s been hiding this. Over ten years. Ten years of being with him and loving him and – and hadn’t she opened herself up to him? Hadn’t she let herself be more vulnerable with him than anyone else? And all this time. All this time, he’d had this secret, this life-shattering, this huge secret that could have killed him – that nearly had, a few times, from the sounds of it. She had spent years loving him and coming back to him and sleeping with him and he –
And it hits her.
“This is why.”
It’s not a question.
He doesn’t ask her what she means. He just looks at her. The weight of the world on his shoulders.
Motherfucker.
“I can’t believe – no, that’s a lie, I can absolutely believe you’d be that dumb, that – ”
“Hey, don’t – ”
“You lied to me and you broke my heart and made me feel like I wasn’t – like I – ”
But she can’t say the words, she can’t let herself say it out loud. She can’t let him know how much he had fucked her up. He doesn’t get that, especially now.
“MJ – ”
“Don’t fucking call me that!”
“You think I wanted to do this?” he shouts, and for the first time since she arrived he seems to let go. The tenuous grasp he’d had, gone. “You think I like this? Every day I think, fuck, what if I just – just hung it up, called up Tony and told him I was done, I did my duty, I need to move on, find yourself another kid to save the neighborhood –
“But I can’t do that, okay? I can’t. This is my job, this is the most important thing I’ll ever do, and if you think I don’t miss you every day – ”
It’s like their breakup all over again. They’re both shouting and they’re both crying and her heart feels like it’s being shattered. Again.
“Who knows?” she asks after a long pause.
“No one.”
“Bullshit.”
“Tony Stark. The Avengers. That’s it.”
“May?”
He sighs.
“She doesn’t know, exactly. She suspects. She basically knows. But we’ve never talked about it. I’ve never told her.”
“What about Ned, Flash, H—”
“You think I’d tell Flash before I told you?”
“I don’t know, Peter, it turns out I don’t know you at all.”
He winces. She doesn’t, in this moment, care if it hurts him, doesn’t care if she’s being unfair.
“Ned doesn’t know. He almost found out in high school. But no one – I haven’t told anyone in my life. I wasn’t keeping it from you. I keep it from everyone.”
“That’s dumb.”
“It’s for your own – ”
“I’m gonna stop you right there, Peter, because if you pull the it’s for your own good, I was protecting you, paternalistic bullshit, I’m going to scream.”
She can tell he’s holding back a retort. Part of her wants him to stop holding back, to just fucking talk to her, to let it all go. No more bullshit, no more lies.
“So all this time – you not leaving New York – this is why? You had to be Spider-Man?”
“Yeah.”
She nods.
I can’t be what you need me to be.
I’m not good for you.
She’s already been crying but it hits her again and she really feels like falling apart. Him and her and – fuck. What could’ve been, maybe, if she’d known. If he –
“All this time, I thought it was me,” she says, and she hadn’t meant it to come out, and she sees that hit him, too. His eyes go wide.
“MJ – ”
“I thought, if he really loved me, if he really wanted this, he would’ve tried. Maybe not move out west but – try. Visit. I thought – ”
“Michelle,” he breathes, moving toward her. She shakes her head. Somehow, hearing him call her Michelle hurts more than him calling her MJ.
“It wasn’t about me at all.”
“It was,” he says. “Just not like that.”
He takes a deep breath.
“I lost my parents. I lost Ben. I watched him die, Em, it was my fault, I could’ve stopped it but I didn’t – and every time I thought about telling you, or leaving the city, even for a few days –
“I can’t stop wondering who will die next, because of me. And it’s safer for you to not be here, to not be anywhere near me, and I know that, I’ve always known that, I wanted – And go ahead, yell all you want for how misogynistic and paternalistic and you can take care of yourself, I know, I know you can – but if breaking up with you meant not having to worry about you? Not putting you in harm’s way? Fuck, Em. Every day.” He looks at her and she can see the pain in his face. The worry. “I can’t lose you, too.”
Oh, Peter.
She’s so exhausted. She’s so hurt and angry and sad – and she has no idea what to say or where to go from here. But she’s wrung out. And he looks like he is, too. And they’ve barely scratched the surface of the questions she has and the things he needs to tell her.
“This isn’t over, but I think we both need to sleep, because I don’t think we’re gonna get anywhere right now.”
“Yeah.” He looks down at his hands. “Look, I know you probably don’t want to be anywhere near me right now, but please stay here tonight. It’s late, and – ”
“I’m not leaving, Peter.”
He nods, shoulders sagging in relief.
“Okay. Good. You can take the bed, I’ll stay here.”
She shakes her head. She can’t help it. She starts laughing.
“What?”
“Peter,” she breathes, still laughing but trying to get it under control.
“You’re pretty pissed at me,” he shrugs. “I figured – ”
“Yeah, stop doing that,” she says. She stands up and takes his hands. She takes a deep breath. “I don’t know – I don’t know what to do, or how we deal with this, or come back, or –
“But I – I need to know you’re here,” she explains, and she knows it probably doesn’t make any sense. She barely understands it. She should be angry, storming out, never want to see his face again. But here she is, trying not to jump into his arms and bury her head in his chest. She’s not sure she’s ever wanted to touch him, and be touched by him, more than she does now. And it’s not about sex at all. She just –
She feels so off balance, so confused. She needs something solid to hold onto.
“Okay,” he says.
He leads her to his bedroom, and she’s still in jeans and a bra and she doesn’t even think before she starts undressing, shivering at the cold air on her bare skin.
Peter watches her, and she can’t read his expression. He’s shirtless, she’s in her underwear. For all that they’ve been exactly here before, it’s never felt so vulnerable. So intimate.
“Pajamas or cuddles?” he finally asks.
“Cuddles,” she responds.
So he climbs into bed, settles under the covers as she settles against his chest, bare skin against bare skin.
“Good night,” he says softly.
“Good night,” she returns.
They don’t say I love you.
(It hangs between them like they did, though.)
---
(Michelle doesn’t usually dream. When she was younger she had the occasional nightmare, but she barely remembers any of her dreams. Peter had nightmares, though. She learned that pretty quick. In high school, fooling around was reserved for stolen moments, afternoons unsupervised. It wasn’t until college, when they existed in that limbo of not dating but hooking up whenever she was home – exclusively, because sure, they might go out with friends, and she might flirt, and he might flirt, but they always only spent the night together – it wasn’t until then that they actually spent a night together.
That’s when she learned about the nightmares. Learned to hold him through it, let him hold her or kiss her or just breathe, whatever he needed until he felt better.
Now she knows what they were about.)
---
She wakes up in a panic, and she doesn’t remember her dream but she knows it was bad. She knows because she feels clammy, panicky. Too warm and too cold at once. Her heart is racing, and she needs water, and her cheeks are wet. She can’t remember what she dreamed.
(But it was devastating.)
She sits up, takes a deep breath, catalogues her surroundings. The air is cool, and the window is open a crack, and she can hear the city outside. The alarm clock reads 3:07. Peter is still passed out. She is here. She closes her eyes and feels the sheets under her hands. Breathe in, hold. Breathe out. Hold. Repeat. Focus on the feel of the fabric, the draft from outside, the sound of his breathing.
When her heart feels like it’s beating at a normal pace again, she stands on shaky legs and walks to the kitchen. Gets a glass of water and drinks it in one go. Fills it again and drinks.
Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out. Hold.
She sets the empty glass in the sink and goes back to Peter’s bedroom and climbs back into bed. He shifts as she snuggles down under the covers, the sweat she’d woken up covered in having cooled, so now she’s freezing.
She can’t tell if he’s still asleep or not when he reaches for her and pulls her closer. She sighs and lets herself relax into him. The anger has cooled for now; now, all she wants is to be close to him.
“You okay?” he asks softly, voice scratchy from sleep.
“Yeah,” she says reflexively. “I had a bad dream.”
He pulls her a little tighter.
“’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
But it might be, and they’re both thinking it.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats.
She doesn’t think he’s talking about the nightmare anymore.
---
There’s a buzzing somewhere. The light through the window is faint, but as she opens her eyes wider, she sees it’s not because it’s early. It’s just a rainy day.
The buzzing starts up again.
Peter is pressed up against her, and doesn’t seem to have been woken by the buzzing. Michelle figures it must be her phone. The clock says 10: 07.
She gets up, trying not to wake Peter, and pulls her phone from his discarded jeans. She skims through missed texts and the missed call from Gina as she pulls a shirt out from Peter’s dresser.
You coming home soon?
Michelle?
Are you coming?
We’re going to breakfast. Text me when you can.
Michelle.
She bites her lip and looks at Peter.
Hey, sorry, slept in. I’ll be back later ok? Something came up
Ok.
Michelle can feel the disapproval, can sense the tone even in text form. She sighs.
She looks back down at her phone. Oh shit.
“Peter,” she says softly, nudging his shoulder. “Peter.”
“Mm?”
“Peter, do you have work?”
“Time?”
“It’s after 10.”
It takes a second to register, but then he’s sitting up, cursing under his breath.
“Fuck, my alarm – ”
“Nothing went – “
“I forgot to set it,” he says. “Have you seen my phone?”
“No. Did you leave it in your suit?”
He looks at her, and the moment shifts.
“We still need to talk,” he says, like for a second, he forgot that she knew, forgot about their – discussion – last night.
“You have work.”
She forgot that even though she’s on vacation, he isn’t. Her phone buzzes.
I have work at 1. Can you watch Jesse or should I find someone else?
Oh right. That was one of the things she had originally come by to talk to him about. In hindsight, it feels like a stupid thing to be upset about, but she’s upset about enough that it’s all blurred together now. Add it to the ever growing list of secrets he’s kept from her.
“Besides, I have to babysit my nephew,” she tells him, watching to see if he reacts.
“Okay.”
His poker face has improved. She can feel the anger rising up again.
“Were you gonna mention that, by the way?” she asks. He huffs out a breath, and how is he upset here?
“You mean, during our numerous phone calls and texts over the past four years?”
“I’ve been here a few times now, and you –”
“Yeah, because that’s great pillow talk,” he scoffs. He’s not wrong, and that pisses her off, too.
She takes a deep, grounding breath.
“Look, whatever. I hate that it was this fucking secret, but I’m – I’m grateful that you help out my sister,” she admits. His eyes soften.
“Of course I would.”
He says it like it’s no big deal. Like it’s natural that he should help his ex-girlfriend’s sister. Even when said ex hadn’t been in contact.
“Jesse wants you to make cookies with us,” she tells him. She’s not looking at him anymore, playing with the hem of her borrowed shirt. She can practically feel his smile.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you? Want me around, that is.”
“I don’t know.”
He nods.
“I should really – I need to find my phone. And call work, and figure out – I dunno. Stuff.”
“I get it. Like I said, I’m on Jesse duty today.”
He nods again.
“Can we talk later?” he asks, and he sounds unsure still, hesitant. He hasn’t been this hesitant since high school, back when they were still new, still realizing their feelings.
“We are not even remotely done talking, Peter. You aren’t getting off that easy.”
“Was last night supposed to be easy?” he smirks.
“I don’t think any of this is supposed to be easy.” She’d been trying to match his tone – lighten the mood just a bit – but there’s an inherent weight to this – subject. Topic. Whatever.
He looks down.
“I’m sorry, MJ. I know I should’ve told you,” he says, and she wants to agree but he continues. “But after a while, it was just – easier. The longer it got, the harder it got to – to think of how to even start, and –”
“We’ll talk later.”
“Okay.”
He looks so worried.
It’s at that moment, looking at his face, that she realizes the bruise from last night – it’s nearly gone. She tests a theory and crosses the room to him, pulls off the band aids. He hisses at the sting but she’s not paying attention to him.
Because the cut is gone.
“What the fuck,” she whispers.
“I told you I’d be fine.”
She shakes her head.
“This is way too fucking weird.”
“The existence of superheroes with powers is fine, but this is weird?” he asks, raising an eyebrow in amusement. She glares at him.
“I’ve never slept with Captain America, okay? I didn’t study for midterms with fucking Thor. How did I miss this?”
“Because I wanted you to.”
It hangs in the air.
God, she hates this. She’s going to spend the whole day – days, probably – going through her memories. Looking for signs that had to have been there. Looking for clues she could have picked up, if she hadn’t been so lovestruck and heartsick and distracted.
“Are y– I’ll tell you whatever you want. I’ll explain everything you want to know. I promise.”
“Sounds like there’s a but coming.”
“Not – ” he shakes his head. “I know you might not – you probably need time to, like, process – ”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
He takes a deep breath.
“But if we –. Can you wait, until I’ve – and if you don’t want anything else, with me, I – that’s okay. I get it. But let me explain first, okay? Then you can – you can do whatever you want.”
“Thanks for the permission.” She knows it’s probably not productive, to let the sarcasm and the annoyance seep through. She just can’t help it.
“Don’t shut me out yet. That’s all,” he says, voice pleading.
“Okay,” she agrees.
He nods.
(She knows she won’t shut him out. She doesn’t know what she’s going to do, exactly, but she definitely won’t be – they’re too – too them for her to cut him off. Forever.)
“I should – ”
“Yeah, me too.”
It’s another moment before he leaves the room again, and she starts getting dressed. She texts Gina that she’s on her way, and grabs her coat from the living room. Peter is on his phone, frowning.
“We’ll catch up later?” she says. He looks up at her, and she can see the tension in his shoulders, the stress coming off him in waves.
“Yeah.”
It’s a bad idea, but she goes to him, and she kisses him. It wasn’t supposed to be a thing, but he’s got his arms around her and she’s deepening the kiss, and fuck. She doesn’t want to go. But she can’t stay.
She pulls away and he buries his face in her neck.
“We’ll be okay,” she says. She doesn’t know why. She has no idea if they’ll be okay.
But sometimes, Peter Parker needs to be held, and this is one of those times.
---
Peter was her first boyfriend. Not her first kiss, or her first date, but her first like, relationship. He was the first boy she brought home, though by the time they were dating, her dad and Gina already knew him, because Peter and Ned had been coming over to study and hang out for a while. Peter was something of a staple at their apartment. And sure, it changed a little when they started dating – previous habits, like studying with the door closed, for instance, became off limits – but Peter hadn’t been a stranger. He was the first boy she brought home, but he was more than just a boyfriend.
Similarly, she knew May, and had been to their apartment lots of times by the time they became official. May Parker was nothing if not gracious, a perfect mix of cool, fun aunt, and strict mother-figure. She could tease Peter and they could watch stupid movies together, but she got on him for leaving his shoes in the hall, made sure he said “please” and “thank you.” She was cool enough that Peter went to her for advice and told her, honestly, about his troubles and his crushes and all the stuff teenage boys don’t usually share with their mothers; but she also put him in his place, reminded him of his responsibilities and privileges. Peter Parker was a gentleman, and a good person, and that was all down to May.
And May had always liked Michelle. She talked to her like she was a person, not a kid. She welcomed Michelle into their home and life, and they would talk about books and movies, sometimes even sharing a cup of tea while Peter and Ned played video games. And after the break-up, she told Michelle that she was still always welcome.
(“Whatever goes on between you and Peter, I’m here if you ever need anyone. Okay? I still care about you.”)
They didn’t talk often, but Michelle and May had kept in touch over the years.
All of this to say, she’d never faced any – anything – from either of their families about the fact that she was black and he wasn’t.
(An aunt had remarked, over the phone, “look at you with that white boy” upon seeing their prom pictures, but even that wasn’t really anything.)
She wondered, though.
“Do you think your parents would’ve cared that I’m not Jewish?” she’d asked him once. She didn’t just mean not Jewish. But it was easier to phrase it that way than to call it out more clearly – safer, somehow. From the glance he gave her, she knew he understood.
“No,” he’d said quickly, and then he’d run a hand through his hair. “But that’s a hard question, right? I don’t know them. I feel like they wouldn’t care about that sort of thing, like they’d be more interested in whether I’m happy. I think they’d want that more, honestly. For me to just, be in love. Whoever it was. But I don’t know, what if that’s just what I want to believe?”
She liked that he was honest with her. He didn’t just tell her what he thought she wanted to hear. He thought about her questions. He gave her thoughtful answers.
“Does it bother you, not knowing?”
He shrugged.
“I don’t know.” He had taken a deep breath. Talking about his parents didn’t come easily to him. He would, if she asked, but he almost never offered. She wondered, sometimes, if it bothered him when she asked. But he never brushed her off. He always answered. Maybe, she thought, he didn’t know how to bring it up, but appreciated the opportunities to talk.
“Sometimes I get, like. I don’t know. I missed out on, like, everything with them,” he’d said, voice lower than normal. “They never saw me – win at decathlon, or start high school, or go to Homecoming. And they’re not going to see me graduate, or get married, or anything like that. And I was just a kid, you know? I didn’t know what like, hopes and dreams they had for me, because they don’t talk about that stuff when you’re 5 years old, do they? Which maybe isn’t the worst thing, because now I don’t have to worry about disappointing them. But then there’s just so much I don’t know. And won’t ever know.”
They’d sat in silence for a while after that. She’d reached for his hand, and he squeezed it.
“I don’t care.”
“Hmm?”
“I don’t care,” he’d repeated. Looked at her with this unreadable expression, one that made her feel like, pay attention. This is important. “And I don’t care what they would’ve thought, either. Because maybe if they’d, you know. Would I even still be me? You might not like that version of me.”
“I think I might like every version of you,” she’d said, and he’d smiled sweetly and kissed her. It was a deep kiss, tinged with something new, something – something.
“You don’t have to be Jewish, or anything, for me to –” he said when he pulled back. “I think they wouldn’t have cared, but I know that if they had? I would’ve told them that it didn’t matter what they thought. Because it doesn’t.”
They hadn’t said I love you yet, but she could feel it on the tip of her tongue, could sense it on his.
“Does – does your family care that I’m – Jewish?” he’d asked suddenly, brow furrowed.
“No.”
“Do you?”
“Of course not.” She’d bit her lip. “But there are people – there are gonna be people who care.”
“Yeah, well. Fuck them,” he’d said vehemently.
“I know that.”
But it would be different for him.
“I can handle it,” he assured her.
“I know. And so can I.”
“We’ll handle it together. Because that’s what we do.”
She’d smiled then, and kissed him. It was softer than the last one, and God, how this boy gave her butterflies.
“You mean so much to me, MJ,” he’d said, forehead pressed against hers. “Nothing’s gonna – there’s nothing that could change that.”
And these were big feelings, big declarations for 17. She’d known that, but she’d known, too, that Peter meant it.
He didn’t have to tell her loved her for her to know it was true.
rereading my own writing is just a constant fluctuation between "damn, girl, you wrote this? (affectionate)" and "damn, girl, you wrote this? (derogatory)"
hello and welcome. i’m going home for a few days, so here’s an early update.
wanna catch up? one. two.
three.
remember how you watched me leave?
---
Michelle went to Stanford with the goal of pursuing something in STEM. She liked the humanities, but felt that she could make more of a difference as a woman of color in STEM, and she was good at the science and the math, so she started off as a chem major. Because there was a sort of beauty in it, in the balancing. There was a certainty, a need for precision. There were rules.
(Peter had always been more into physics. He liked that some things still couldn’t be solved. He liked the possibilities it presented.)
But then the first semester of her sophomore year she took a seminar on intellectual property and the evolving landscape for patents and technology, the questions that had never needed to be answered before but that would become integral to the future of law. She switched from chem to pre-law – which really just meant that she remained a chem major but supplemented with other courses, courses designed to get her into a top tier law program after graduation.
But then in the spring of her junior year she took a theatre class to fulfill her arts requirement. And it wasn’t so much the acting she fell in love with – though the opportunity to become someone else, to channel all the big, complicated feelings into something, to keep busy and feel while still remaining hidden –
She would have added it as a minor if she’d had the time, or the credits. Instead, she filled her spare time with as much theatre as she could, auditioning and helping with sets and costumes and props. It was the first time since the high school Academic Decathlon that she was part of a team, but she realized quickly that she had missed the camaraderie, the feeling of being part of something bigger than just herself. The feeling of being good at something, and needed.
As graduation approached, she had no idea what she wanted. She told Peter once that she felt like she was just throwing things at the wall, waiting to see what would stick.
“Flip a coin,” he’d said.
“Why?”
“Because they say when you can’t decide, you flip a coin. And when the coin is in the air, you realize what you want, because suddenly you know how you hope it lands.”
(And she hadn’t done that because one of her options was New York, for auditions, but it also meant Peter, and she didn’t need a coin to tell her that’s what she wanted. Still.)
Instead, she applied for clerkships and internships, looked at law programs and theatre programs. In the end, she got offered a prestigious clerkship in Los Angeles. It was a perfect stepping stone to a top tier program, which would put her in the perfect position for a top tier firm, so that she could pay off her loans and help her sister and take her dad on an actual vacation for once. Finally repay the people who had helped her get this far.
(Theatre was – it wasn’t practical, and Michelle was practical.)
So she took the job, and packed up her things and moved down the coast. Said goodbye to Peter for real. Shelved her dreams of the stage and bought cheap tickets to whatever was touring whenever she had time. She was making something of herself. She was on her way.
She was Michelle now, not MJ.
When her dad had his heart attack, though, she dropped everything and flew home. He lingered a few days at the hospital – long enough to say goodbye – but then he was gone. Her rock. The only parent she had had disappeared (her mother, of the sporadic phone call or text message, of unknown address and limited interest in the goings on of her daughters, didn’t count). She’d had no time to prepare. She was supposed to have time.
The week spent arranging the funeral with her sister, babysitting her nephew and greeting the cousins and aunts and uncles she barely knew who were flying in from Atlanta and taking the train up from DC – she went through in a daze.
Peter wasn’t her boyfriend when her father died. She and Peter had barely spoken in over a year when her father collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. But May made casseroles and watched Jesse so Gina and Michelle could talk to the funeral home and the cemetery. And Peter went with her to pick up the cousins and aunts and uncles, and made sure she ate. He made her aunts tea and listened to the stories of her dad as a teen, as a young man.
He was a pallbearer.
(Once, when they were together and young and fearless, she asked him what he was afraid of. Not like, afraid of spiders fear – the deep fears that keep you up at night, the existential shit. Like maybe if they said it out loud they would be less afraid.
“Failing,” he’d said after a long pause. “Not – not living up to who I’m supposed to be. Not being who I’m supposed to be. What I’m capable of.”
She’d squeezed his hand and he’d asked her the same question.
“Being alone.”
Which was funny, because she was alone so often. She was awkward – less so than she’d been at the start of high school – but she kept to herself. She barely had friends. She was, often, by herself. But that’s not what she meant.
She meant like, in the universe. She meant alone like having no one to come home to, no one to love her. Alone like everyone she knew was gone and didn’t remember her.
Peter had squeezed her hand back, and she knew he understood.
“You won’t be,” he’d whispered.)
She found herself questioning every choice she’d ever made – especially the decision to leave home. She went away to college and stayed away and her father died, and some part of her couldn’t help but wonder if he would’ve died if she’d stayed.
The week of her father’s death, she felt more lost than she’d ever felt.
It felt like her worst fears coming true.
---
(She has no idea if Peter even remembers that conversation. If he understood exactly why she sought him out. Yes, she wanted to be with someone who loved her, because really she –
It felt like the ground had opened up beneath her, like everything that made her feel stable was disappearing, and she just – she needed –
He’d told her she wouldn’t be alone, and she might hate him for breaking her heart and he might hate her for leaving and staying gone, but she just – she just needed to know if he still meant it. If he’d ever meant it.)
---
(He hadn’t even blinked when he opened the door to her, pulling her to him before she could speak, not saying any of the stupid platitudes she’d been hearing all week. He did not tell her it was okay, he did not tell her that her father was in a better place, he did not tell her it would get better.
He had held her and whispered, “I’m here, I’ve got you. I’m here.”
And for a few hours – for one night – she felt like maybe it would be okay. Because Peter loved her, Peter was steady, Peter was here.
Which is exactly why she ran.)
---
“Auntie Shelley!”
Jesse greeted her boisterously as she stepped into the apartment, feeling hungover despite not having had anything to drink.
“Morning, little man,” she returned. Gina just smirked at her.
“Did your friend like the cookies?”
It took Michelle a beat too long to respond.
“Well?”
“Yeah,” she finally says, remembering that cookies had been the pretense for visiting Peter in the first place. “Yeah. He loves cookies.”
“Mama says we’re gonna make more for Santa. Does your friend wanna help?”
Michelle shoots Gina a look, but she puts up her hands like she had nothing to do with it.
“I don’t know, he might be busy.”
“Okay,” Jesse says, already past it. He goes back to his Legos, and Michelle heads straight for the kitchen. She needs coffee. More coffee.
She’s pulling out a mug and listening to the sputter of the old machine when she hears Jesse from the living room –
“Do you think Mr. Peter wants to make cookies with us?”
She nearly drops the mug in her hand.
“He’s probably busy, sweetie,” she hears Gina say. Jesse sighs.
Michelle abandons the coffee and leans against the doorframe, staring at Gina and trying to sound as casual as possible – one of her greatest acting feats yet, given the stirring in her chest.
“Who’s Mr. Peter?”
Gina looks at her, and for the first time since Michelle arrived she doesn’t look smug or knowing, isn’t teasing or pulling her leg. She almost looks embarrassed.
“Mr. Peter is a friend of Mama, and sometimes he comes over, and we make Legos, and he takes me to the park, and we play football,” Jesse answers, not looking up from his toys.
Michelle sees red, trying not to jump to conclusions but so angry on so many levels. And really, is it jumping if the conclusions are right there?
She barely notices that Gina has approached her, not until she starts to pull Michelle away. Michelle rips her arm out of Gina’s grasp, who raises her hands in surrender.
“In here,” Gina murmurs. Jesse isn’t paying any attention to them, but Michelle feels her sister’s unspoken not where he can hear as she leads her down the hall to their father’s old room.
“What the fuck!” she hisses.
“Michelle – ”
“We’re talking about the same Peter, right? Peter Parker? My ex-boyfriend? That Peter?”
Gina sighs.
“Tell me you’re not sleeping with him.” Because friend is exactly how single parents tell their kids about partners; she can remember her dad’s first friend after Alice left, and –
“Oh my God,” Gina says, like the mere idea is ludicrous. Which, sure, but –
“Gina – ”
“I am not sleeping with Peter Parker, Jesus Christ, Michelle.”
“Then what are you – ”
“I’m a single mother with no family in the city and day care is expensive and he helps out sometimes, okay?”
Michelle takes a minute to let it sink in. The words hang uncomfortably between them. Gina won’t look at her.
“So you mean – you’re not – ”
“Ew, no, Michelle. What the fuck are you thinking?”
“What are you – ”
“He babysits Jesse for me. Not a lot, nothing – regular. May does too, by the way.” Gina suddenly looks exhausted in a way Michelle’s never seen before. “I need a little help sometimes. He’s here.”
Michelle feels a stab of guilt.
There’s an unspoken and you’re not hanging in the air, and Michelle resents the shit out of that, too. It’s not like she – it’s not her job to – to take care of her nephew, she’s not shirking some responsibility, it’s –
But still. She knows she took off for college and barely looked back. With the way things with Peter were, and her own feelings about her life and their mom and coming to terms with everything, she didn’t want to linger at home. After graduation she had a job, and she was busy. After the funeral, she went to law school and got busier. It became so easy to avoid Queens.
In the process, though, she’d avoided her sister. Her nephew. And now here she is, standing in the apartment she grew up in for the first time in four years, finding out that her sister has been so desperate for help she’d had no one to turn to but Michelle’s ex-boyfriend and his aunt.
It feels like a bucket of ice water has been dumped over her head.
“Gina, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
Gina waves her off.
“I should’ve told you. I just thought it would be weird.” She laughs. “Don’t know where I got that idea. And I figured it would be better to tell him that Peter was my friend, not Auntie Shelley’s on again off again maybe boyfriend.”
Michelle bites her lip. She feels bad for jumping to conclusions, and guilty for putting her sister in this position, and pissed at her and Peter for never saying anything. How had he –
But then, it’s not like they’d spoken.
“He doesn’t like, hang out with us or anything. But he helps out when I need it, and Jesse likes him. We’re sort of short on male role models around here,” Gina tells her. Michelle isn’t sure if that makes her feel better or worse.
She sinks onto the bed. God, this day. This trip.
Gina sits down next to her.
“What the fuck is going on with you two, Michelle?”
It’s almost seamless but she feels it, the shift from Gina as sister to Gina as mother. Michelle had never been very forthcoming about her relationship with Peter – even in sister-mode she and Gina didn’t have the sort of relationship where they talked about boys or relationships. And in mom mode – Michelle never wanted to confide. (She’s not sure she would’ve confided in their mother, had she stuck around.) So Gina knew the basics. She probably inferred more, but she and Michelle had never really talked about Peter, or Michelle and Peter.
“We broke up,” she says finally. She shrugs. “But when I’m here, it’s like nothing has changed, I can be with him and it’s –”
She doesn’t know how to explain it.
“I never cheated on Miles,” she tells her, because she feels like she needs to. She’s never cheated, in any relationship. Whatever she had with Peter was always no strings. And by the time she got together with Miles – actually together – she and Peter weren’t speaking.
“I didn’t think you had.”
“No?”
Gina shrugs.
“I know you. Besides. You haven’t been here and Peter never leaves New York.”
Michelle chuckles darkly at that.
“Before I got here, I hadn’t seen or talked to him since dad’s funeral,” Michelle confesses. “Not so much as a happy birthday text. Longest we’ve ever gone without talking. And you’d think that would, I don’t know. Matter. But no. I got home and went out to see old friends and there he was. And it was like nothing had changed. We still – ”
She closes her eyes. She can feel tears welling up, and why?
Gina wraps an arm around her and pulls her close.
“Maybe that’s okay for now. Maybe you don’t need to figure it out. Or maybe that’s its own answer,” Gina says. Michelle doesn’t want to think like that. She may not have answers, but she does not want that to be it.
(Is that an answer?)
“I’m sorry,” Michelle says, backtracking. “I should be here. You shouldn’t have to –”
“Don’t.” Gina shakes her head. “You have been out living your life, doing your thing, getting your degrees and having fun and doing exactly what you’re supposed to do. Don’t apologize for – ”
“Peter probably knows him better than I do!” she exclaims. Because somehow, this is the thing that bothers her most. “And you did it, you put off everything to raise me, why shouldn’t I have come back, and – ”
“Oh Michelle, you think I wanted that? I would’ve kicked your ass out if you tried to pull that. I made my choices. I did what I did and I did it for my reasons. Not so I could use it against you, or guilt you, or any of that nonsense.”
She knows. She knows all this.
“Sometimes I feel like – I afraid that I’m just – ”
But Michelle can’t even speak the words.
From the way Gina hugs her, though, she thinks she gets it.
---
“I’ll ask him,” she says that night, as she and Gina and washing dishes after dinner.
“Hmm?”
“Christmas cookies. Jesse wants to, and he might, I dunno. It might not be the worst thing.”
She doesn’t know what she’s doing, really. Yes, she’s back, but she’s not back. Spending time with Peter, inviting him to spend time with her family – doing decidedly non-bedroom, non-friend group activities – he’s not her boyfriend.
And yet.
“Okay,” Gina says, shooting Michelle a smile that she doesn’t want to read into.
She needs to return his key anyway.
---
(Peter wasn’t like, observant. He was Jewish, and it meant something to him, and he practiced in his own way. He ate bacon and he loved shrimp and May did the whole big Seder and he had a menorah, and it was personal.
She remembers once she was complaining about her name. Jones was so boring, but Watson – by then she was going by MJ. She tried not to use Watson at all, whenever possible. She remembers talking to Peter about naming conventions, and how she sort of appreciated that her mom had insisted on keeping her name and passing it on, but also hated it now? And what was she gonna do when she got married, drop Watson and re-hyphenate? Ignore her partner’s name altogether? It was all so strange and interesting. She loved thinking about it – about names and family trees and what it said about people.
And she had asked him why he was Peter Parker. Parker didn’t sound Jewish, and Peter seemed pretty New Testament. He’d laughed.
“Parker was something else, I dunno, I forget. Got Americanized when they got here.”
“And Peter?”
He’d worried his lip between his teeth a minute. Looked at her almost shy.
“I remember my mom told me, she did it for my grandma, for her mom. They were survivors,” he’d said, voice quiet, almost reverent. She hadn’t known that. “My mom’s parents. They met here, after. And my grandma told her this story about this boy from her village who tried to help them. His name was Peter.”
He shrugged.
“I don’t remember her or anything,” he continues, and for a minute she hadn’t been sure who he meant. “My grandma, she died when I was a baby. My mom said she was waiting for a grandchild.” He smiled, a soft thing. “There’s this thinking some of them have, I guess. That, like. Every Jewish baby born is a victory over Hitler. My mom said, she wasn’t gonna be able to rest until she saw it. Her own personal victory.” He’d shrugged. “Peter was like, a homage but also kind of a ‘fuck you,’ you know? Not only did he not win, because we’re still here, but even people who he thought should’ve been on his side – they did what they could to stop it.”
And Michelle loved Peter for a lot of reasons. He was just such a loveable person, such a good person. But somehow, knowing that – the reason behind his name, being entrusted with this knowledge – it made her understand him all the more. As long as she’d known him, he was just this – this light. People were drawn to him and they liked him and he had a smile that could brighten a room and it’s like he knew the effect he had – could have – and he only ever used it to make other people feel better.
She remembers she’d reached for his hand then, and squeezed it, and they hadn’t been, like, officially dating for very long at that point. But something about that moment, about him –
That was the moment she realized she was in love with him. Not because of anything he said or did, exactly. She just – she just sat with him and he shared a piece of himself with her, as vulnerable as it made him – he gave it to her and asked for nothing in return.
She was 16 years old and she squeezed his hand and she thought, I want to be the one who holds his hand for the rest of our lives. I want to hold his hand through whatever else life throws at him. I want to be the one he can rest with.
But she was 16 so she didn’t say that. She just squeezed his hand, and smiled at him.)
---
(On the days she missed him most, in Palo Alto and Los Angeles, in the moments of weakness when she let herself miss him –
She wondered if any of the other girls knew. The ones he hooked up with when she wasn’t there, the ones he dated and brought home to meet May as he attempted to move on – because she assumed there must have been others, he must’ve had relationships – she wondered if they knew why he was Peter. She wondered if they knew that he liked to be the little spoon, too. That he liked having his back rubbed because he got this knot in his shoulder, that he ran warm but loved snuggling up under a blanket so he’d leave the windows open, that when he was sick he only wanted matzo ball soup and hot buttered bagels. She wondered if they knew how to take care of him, because Peter – Peter was a giver. He liked taking care of people and he felt so much responsibility for everything so if you weren’t careful he’d burn himself out loving you –
But sometimes? Sometimes he needed to someone to look after him.
And did they know that, any of those women?
Did they want to hold his hand?)
---
She still has his key, and he’d said he’d text her, or maybe she said she would, she can’t remember, but it’s after dinner and Gina has put Jesse to bed and the dishes are done and she’s itching, restless and anxious and she needs to see him, talk to him, fuck, maybe they need to yell it out and see where they fall.
She just needs something.
So she gets up, and grabs her coat, and tells Gina she’ll be back later, and Gina raises an eyebrow and Michelle flips her off, and she doesn’t text him or anything, she has a key, she can surprise him, right?
And she’s walking up the stairs to his apartment, trying to figure out what she wants to say and what she wants, period, and she fiddles with the key and unlocks the door and –
And Spider-Man is laying on his couch.
“What the fuck?”
Spider-Man jumps up, wincing as he does, and she takes a step fully into the apartment and closes the door behind her, somehow understanding subconsciously that whatever is about to happen needs to stay in this room, not bleed out into the hall.
He’s standing and staring at her and she doesn’t even have words and then he’s pulling off his mask and –
“Peter could only be hers in Queens; over time, as she visited less often, he became less hers. She decided that it was better that way.“ To quote Taylor Swift, "it always leads to you in my hometown.”
chapter 2 brought to you by the cranberries. linger is a great song, just ignore the cheating vibes and focus on the yearning ones.
“Peter could only be hers in Queens; over time, as she visited less often, he became less hers. She decided that it was better that way." To quote Taylor Swift, "it always leads to you in my hometown."
chapter 2 brought to you by the cranberries. linger is a great song, just ignore the cheating vibes and focus on the yearning ones.
wanna catch up? one.
-
two.
do you have to let it linger?
---
She wakes slowly, the realization that she’s not somewhere she’s used to coming in drips. She’s naked, and exhausted, and a little hungover. But she doesn’t feel jumpy, and she’s warm, and the pillow smells familiar.
There’s a body beside her and a hand on her back, softly tracing over her skin, and just as the night before comes into her mind he stops. She keeps her eyes closed for a few moments, and he doesn’t move again. Then Peter leans over and presses a kiss to her temple. She hears and feels the dip and rise of the bed as he gets up. She continues to feign sleep as she hears him fumble with clothes.
“I’ll make coffee,” he says quietly. “Come out whenever you’re ready.”
Damn him. Of course he knew she was awake.
So she opens her eyes and glances over to the door and sees him. Hair mussed from sleep, and he’s wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a stretched out, faded white shirt, and he’s beautiful. How many times has she lived this exact moment? Waking up with Peter, seeing him sleepy eyed and tousled, drinking coffee with him in silence while they wake up properly?
“Thanks,” she says softly. He smiles and goes.
She lays there a few moments more. Takes in the room that she hadn’t really paid attention to last night.
It’s pretty sparse. There’s the bed she’s in, and a rickety chest of drawers. A laundry basket, a bedside table with a lamp. A stack of books – science textbooks mixed with comics and novels, all secondhand – and a few plants in the windowsill. Something about seeing them, and thinking of Peter tending them, makes her heart clench.
Michelle gets up and finds her underwear, and finds sweats and a shirt from Peter’s clothes. She makes a stop at the bathroom before facing him, splashes water on her face and reminds herself that it’s Peter. No reason to be weird. It’s been a while, but it’s still him, and them. No big deal.
(It’s not like they saw each other for the first time in four years and immediately fell into bed again. God, it’s like he’s a habit she can’t shake. Every trip home a fucking relapse.)
There’s a mug waiting for her on the counter, and Peter is on the couch, coffee in one hand and phone in the other. She grabs her mug and sits at the opposite end from him, pointedly making sure they’re nowhere near touching. She sips her coffee and sighs in contentment. Whatever his faults, he makes good coffee.
“Sleep ok?” he asks.
“Yeah. You?”
He nods. Looks at her. She lets herself hold his gaze.
“Wasn’t sure you’d still be here when I woke up,” he says. She can’t tell if he’s trying to pick a fight or not. She decides to play it like he’s not.
“Thought you had work this morning.” Okay, maybe she’s not not looking for a fight. He raises an eyebrow. “Or were you making that up?”
“Wanted to make sure you got home safe.”
“Kinda failed there,” she says with a playful smirk. “This isn’t home.”
She was going for humor. A joke. But his eyes darken and he looks down at his coffee.
“Yeah, no shit,” he mutters. She doesn’t know how to respond to that. Is he talking about his place not being her home? Or the city? What, exactly, is he pissed about?
“I would’ve been fine on my own,” she tells him, suddenly defensive, trying to keep this from spiraling. He snorts.
“Yeah, that’s you all around right?”
“Fuck you, Peter Parker,” she snaps, jumping up. She needs to leave. She feels like a rubber band, pulled taut and ready to break. “I’m not the one – ”
He’s standing up now too, coffees forgotten.
“Oh no? What about last – “
“You broke up with me!” she exclaims. “You’re the fucking martyr, savior complex – ”
“You came here, and let me tell you I – four years, MJ. Four years. You did that.”
“That’s who we are! We see each other, we sleep together, we go our separate ways, it was the same – ”
“It was not the same, Em, and you know it. You were hurting – ”
“Don’t tell me what I felt!”
“It was different, and you came to me and you just fucking left, MJ, you were gone, and I had no idea if you were okay.”
He’s breathing hard, like he’s just run up the stairs, and he looks so hurt. She crosses her arms, suddenly cold, trying not to think about that night and that morning and all the feelings that swirled – still swirl, if she lets herself linger on it – and she looks down at his bare feet and her bare feet. It isn’t his to be hurt about.
“It’s Michelle now,” she says finally, because it’s the only thing she can think of to say. And he keeps calling her MJ, or, God, Em, and it’s too familiar. She needs distance.
“Sorry, I don’t know Michelle. I know MJ. Seems like she’s gone.”
He looks so fucking sad, and pissed, and she feels so fucking shattered.
“What happened to you, Peter?”
It’s not what she meant to say but it’s what she says. Something in him seems to break, and she can see him visibly deflate. He sinks onto the couch. She stays standing.
“Why are you here?” he asks.
“I asked you first.”
He gives her a small smile. She returns it. She wants to crawl into his lap and kiss it better, smooth out the worry in his forehead, soothe the tension in his shoulders.
“Can we start the morning over?” he asks, burying his face in his hands. “I didn’t – I don’t want to fight with you.”
“Me neither.”
(But maybe they need to.)
Silence.
He looks up at her again, less anguished than before, but his eyes are still a little red, that red they get when he’s trying not to cry. He offers her a small smile. A peace offering. She returns it.
“So. How’d you sleep?” he asks. She takes a step closer, and instinctively he opens his legs for her to stand between them. Leans back so he can look up at her easier. This is a mistake. She should leave. She shouldn’t have let him draw her into – this, whatever this is. But it’s just so easy.
“Pretty fucking well,” she admits. He smiles wider at that. She lets her hands go to his hair, running them through, and his hands are on her waist now. “You?”
“Yeah,” he agrees. He pulls her down so she’s straddling him, her hands running along his jaw now, his hands slipping under her borrowed shirt to rub circles on her back. She meets his eye and he looks so – so uniquely Peter.
“Why do we always end up here?” she whispers.
“Can’t help it,” he answers.
“It doesn’t feel like it’s been four years,” she admits. This is the closest she’ll let herself get to anything approaching an apology.
“It’s ‘cause it’s us.” His eyes are so soft, so open. This must be what Flash meant – like you’re the fucking sun. She’s not sure they won’t both burn up. Fuck, she loves him, and fuck if he doesn’t look at her like he loves her, too.
She wishes that could be enough. Wishes that could mean something.
Instead of saying anything, she kisses him.
---
Peter was her first, and sure, teenage love or not, sex isn’t always great at the beginning. But Peter was raised by feminists and he loved and respected her, so her first experiences weren’t actually bad. As they hooked up in college, they got better. They knew each other so well in so many other ways, that it translated to good sex. They wanted it to be good for each other.
When she says that Peter ruined her – which she doesn’t, but not because it isn’t true – it’s not because he’s the best sex she’s ever had or anything. She finds those kinds of statements kind of facile. She didn’t fall into Peter’s bed over and over again because the sex was just too amazing to miss out on. The sex was good, but it was good because –
It wasn’t technique so much as it was familiarity. It’s great sex in the sense that it’s sex with someone she knows, someone she trusts, someone she loves who she knew loved her. Yes, he knew what she liked and he wanted it to be good for her, but a hook up could be attentive and check those boxes. In terms of straight up pleasure, sex with Peter was just sex with someone who cared about her getting off, too. So the him ruining her – the reason they kept coming back to each other – it was something else.
Sleeping with Peter, fooling around with Peter, is like that moment when you first wake up, comfy and warm and cozy in the blankets, still clinging to sleep, and knowing you can cling to sleep, you can snuggle into the covers more and stay cocooned. When you feel safe and sleepy and know you can drift off again and it’s okay, you don’t need to be anywhere, you can relax, you can let yourself fall asleep again. That’s what it feels like when she’s with him.
So it’s not the sex. (Not just the sex.) It’s Peter.
Which, honestly? Is so much fucking worse.
---
She feels boneless, tired and content, and all she wants to do is go back to sleep.
“How are you always so cold?” Peter teases, pulling her closer and grabbing a blanket off the back of the couch and covering them. She snuggles into his chest.
“I don’t know, how are you a fucking furnace?”
He laughs.
“At least we balance out,” he says, kissing her hair.
“God, can you imagine if we both ran hot?”
“We’d never be able to cuddle.”
“Just constantly naked and not touching.”
“Hey now, I could get on board with the naked thing.”
She swats his chest. He grabs her hand and twines their hands.
She loves him like this. After sex, when he’s sleepy and a little silly and so affectionate. Looking at her like she hung the goddamn moon.
They stay like that for a little, and she’s almost drifted off when Peter’s phone buzzes. They both jump, and he quickly grabs it.
“Tell Michelle to call her sister,” she hears Betty say in lieu of greeting. Michelle curses and jumps up, running to Peter’s room and fishing for her phone. Yep. Missed texts and calls. Growing increasingly frantic.
Peter appears in the doorway, pants on, off the phone. Running a hand through his hair and looking guilty.
“Betty said she just talked to her, said your phone was on silent and you were on your way home.”
She hates that Betty lied for her.
“I should go.”
He nods.
She gets dressed in her own clothes. She’s trying to come up with a story for Gina, trying to ignore his eyes on her, so in her own head that she barely notices when he comes up to her with her coat in his hands.
“Sorry,” she breathes.
“It’s fine.”
They stand awkwardly. They’ve had sex, but somehow a hug feels too intimate now. Whatever moment they’d had on the couch – gone. But god she wants to hug him.
“I’ll see you around?” she says, a little unsure.
“Yeah?” He seems surprised.
She nods.
He leans in and presses a quick kiss to her cheek. She wants to turn her head and kiss him for real, but she doesn’t. She needs to leave. For a lot of reasons.
“It’s good to see you again,” he whispers.
She just nods, unable to speak, and rushes out.
Fuck.
---
“Auntie Shelley!”
Jesse runs and jumps at her, and she reacts just quick enough to catch him and spin him around as she walks into the apartment.
“Hey there little man, what’s up?”
“It’s almost Christmas and you’re here!” he exclaims. She knows kids grow up fast or whatever, and it’s been a while, but fuck, her nephew is a boy now. When did that happen? Shouldn’t he still be a toddler? She’s missed –
“I know, can you believe it?” She hugs him again, squeezing until he giggles, and it’s the best sound. It almost drowns out the guilt. Almost.
“Barely.”
Gina stands in the doorway to the kitchen, arms crossed, and Michelle knows that look. She puts Jesse down and smiles at her sister.
“Good to be home,” she says. Her sister smirks.
“Mmhm.”
Michelle turns back to her nephew.
“So what’s the plan, my man?”
---
(Michelle never figured her sister would want kids. After their mom took off, she practically raised Michelle – not because their dad was a deadbeat, he was amazing – but a girl needs a mom, and Dad worked a lot to keep the apartment and the food on the table and the presents under the tree. And Gina loved her sister, so she stepped in and helped take care of her.
Nine years was a shit age difference, but Michelle was old enough now to know how much it must’ve sucked for Gina, to have to babysit and help with homework and make dinner and do all the things that a parent’s supposed to do while also juggling her own shit and personal life. By the time Michelle was in high school, Gina was finally starting to live her own life – apparently having deemed Michelle old enough to fend for herself – and it didn’t take long for her to find a boyfriend, and then a husband. Louis was nice enough, Michelle thought.
Jesse was a surprise. More surprising was Louis’ death when Jesse was only 11 months old. Gina, once again, picking up the slack. Michelle knows her sister, knows she loves Jesse more than anything, but sometimes she wonders if she ever regrets how things turned out.
That was when Gina and Jesse moved in with their dad – Gina, a widow and not even 30, and baby Jesse, barely walking but smiley enough to brighten up every room he crawled into. And it was hard, but Dad had started to slow down a bit by that point. His girls were grown; he could afford to pass up the overtime, afford to take a vacation. He focused on being a doting grandfather, on badgering Michelle about school, on getting Gina to take the leap and go to nursing school like she’d been talking about for years. It was hard, but it was good, too.
The heart attack was the biggest surprise of them all.)
---
“So how’s Peter?” Gina asked later that afternoon – after they’d had lunch and made Christmas cookies and Jesse had fallen asleep on the couch. They were in the kitchen cleaning up, and Michelle felt like a teenager again.
She resented the shit out of it.
“Fine, I guess. I saw him last night.”
Gina raises an eyebrow.
“What?”
“You’re really gonna stand there and tell me you were at Betty’s for some girl’s night, and that’s why you neglected to come home or answer any of my calls and texts? You’re really gonna pretend that you weren’t with him?”
Michelle feels her face flush and she focuses on scrubbing the plate in her hand. Gina sighs.
“Nothing happened,” Michelle lies.
“Jesse’s really excited to see you, and I’d like him to actually, you know, see you. Just promise me you’re not going to disappear on us.”
“It was one night and you guys weren’t even here.”
“I’m not talking about that.”
“No?”
“When the last time you came home?”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Mmhmm.”
“I’m not disappearing.”
“You’d better not.”
“I won’t.”
They continue washing and drying in silence. Then:
“So how is he?”
Michelle sighs.
---
Betty had been far less gentle in her interrogation than Gina. First, texts –
Call me
What happened?
You owe me details, Michelle
Don’t make me ask Ned what Peter’s saying
Michelle
Fine, I’ll ask Peter myself.
Finally Michelle responds.
Peter wouldn’t say anything
So you admit something happened
Betty.
I don’t understand what your guys’ problem is
Ask him.
Wait, please don’t.
You’re two of my closest friends, and you’re being stupid and I don’t know why
This is just how we are, ok? It’s fine
Are you though?
What happened with Miles? I liked him
Me too.
I ended it
I figured
He was talking, like, marriage.
Yikes
I’m just not there yet
Not with him
Look, just be careful, okay?
With Peter
I don’t want to see either of you hurt.
I know.
---
She’s curled up on the couch – her bed for the trip, her own former room now Jesse’s –and she’s feeling stupid and sad and she’s thinking of what Betty said and what Gina said and, despite it being the very thing they’d probably tell her not to do, she texts Peter, because of course she does.
Gina says hi.
It takes a few minutes before he responds.
Does she?
Yep.
He’s typing. Stops.
A minute passes. Two.
We made cookies today, she offers, because she’s feeling stupid and this is what she does, isn’t it? Being home brings out the – it’s like muscle memory, reaching out to him.
Nana’s snickerdoodles?
She smiles. He always did love those cookies, the recipe passed down from her father’s mother, who Michelle only vaguely remembers, who died when she was 7 but left behind a tin of recipes that Gina and Michelle have practically memorized with how much they make them.
Obviously.
What I wouldn’t give for a cookie right now
She smirks.
Maybe if you’re good
Are you saying that santa delivers cookies? I thought he ate them
That’s literally the point of santa. Bringing good boys and girls whatever they want. Even cookies
santa doesn’t deliver to jews, m, I thought we went over this
She smiles wider.
My bad.
She pauses. They’re already flirting. They already had sex. What could she possibly be holding back for?
But I do
She thinks about following it up with an emoji, but stops herself. God, why is she flirting with him? Aren’t they supposed to be mad at each other?
She’s still in her head when his response comes through –
You know where I live
Her heart is racing, blood flowing into her cheeks. God, what is she, in high school? Blushing as she texts a boy?
I do indeed
A pause. She imagines him curled up in bed – probably shirtless, because he’s his own furnace – staring at his phone and waiting, or possibly thinking up a response.
Any plans tomorrow?
I could be free
She smiles.
(This is a fucking mistake.)
---
It’s Saturday, but Gina has a shift at the hospital so after grabbing coffee and catching up one on one with Betty, Michelle heads back to the apartment to babysit Jesse. She decides to take him to the Museum of Natural History, and he holds her hand while they wander the exhibits and she loves this kid, she really does, and he’s such a stranger to her in some ways but she can see her sister in him so clearly that the whiplash is almost giving her a headache.
At six years old, Jesse remembers her, but she’s only ever been the fun aunt of sporadic visits. She is the aunt of Disneyland trips and Facetime calls and expensive presents to make up for her absence. He is the nephew of photos that hang on her fridge and hand drawn thank you cards. She has been a steady presence in his life as a long distance relative, and on days like today, she wishes she were more of a hands on aunt. But that would require a lot of things to be different, not the least of which being her address.
But they have a good day, as out of her depth as she feels at times. She holds his hand and tells him bits of trivia, and buys him a hot cocoa, and they ride the subway back to the apartment and he leans against her and smiles up at her and tells her she’s his best auntie, and her heart clenches because if he had literally anyone else to compare her to, she knows she probably wouldn’t even be in the top five.
They get back to the apartment and Michelle puts on the TV and Jesse pulls out crayons and paper and starts to draw. She smiles.
“Whatcha drawing?” she asks.
“Spider-Man,” he says.
“Oh yeah?”
“He’s my favorite.”
Michelle smiles.
Spider-Man is still something of a hero in Queens. She’d never paid much attention back in high school, and throughout college she only heard about him when her dad or someone mentioned it. In California, people find out she’s from New York and ask her if she’s ever met Spider-Man, and she rolls her eyes because no, it’s a big city, he’s not everywhere.
But apparently he’s still out there, because here’s her nephew, drawing him among skyscrapers.
He’s still drawing when Gina gets home. Michelle goes to the kitchen, fills a Tupperware with cookies, and grabs her jacket.
“I’m gonna run out for a bit, okay?”
Gina takes note of the cookies and smirks.
“Where are you going?” Jesse asks.
“Special delivery,” she tells him, holding up the cookies. “My friend loves these.”
“He loves something,” Gina murmurs.
Michelle ignores her.
---
“Fuck.”
He collapses on top of her, and she sighs, rubbing her hands along his back and kissing his hair, sweaty and sated. He kisses her collarbone and nuzzles into her neck, pulling out but not rolling off of her, not yet.
She loves the weight of him like this. She remembers telling him as much once, and he’d smiled and started talking about weighted blankets, and how some people felt calmer with them, and slept better, and maybe he should buy her a weighted blanket for Hanukkah so she wouldn’t miss him. And she’d sighed and said it wasn’t the same, and she wishes she could bring him back in her suitcase, how that would be the best Hanukkah present. And they’d both gone quiet then, and never brought it up again.
But now, she lets herself enjoy the moment, the feel of him on top of her, his skin and his breath against her neck and the curls she runs her hands through. She lets out another sigh, then reluctantly pushes him off.
“MJ,” he whines, wrapping his arms around her and not letting her go.
“Peter, I’m not about to get a UTI,” she laughs, and he sighs dramatically and rolls off, watching her as she gets up and pads down the hall to his bathroom.
It’s so easy, she thinks. So easy to just – fall back into things with him. It should scare her – it does scare her. How easily she could just pick up her life and move back into his, how easily she could fit herself here. This part has never been the problem. It’s the everything else – the jobs and the responsibilities – that’s what’s always gotten in their way. But fuck, sometimes she wishes she could just – stay. And as much as she knows – knows – how much she would hate it (him) if he ever asked her to, there’s a part of her that’s never gotten over the hurt that he hasn’t. Won’t.
By the time she gets back to the bedroom he’s put on his briefs again and he’s eating a cookie from the Tupperware she brought. He smiles sleepily at her, the look on his face so blissed out she laughs.
“I can’t tell if you’re smiling like that because of the sex or the cookies,” she teases, climbing under the covers next to him, not bothering to get dressed yet. He takes another bite.
“Why can’t it be both?” he asks, mouth full of cookie, and she goes to hit him on the chest but he catches her hand. He’s smiling and she knows she’s smiling like an idiot, too, and he holds out the remainder of the cookie and she lets him feed it to her, and when he kisses her he tastes like cinnamon.
He pulls back and snuggles down into the bed with her, throwing his arm over her and lazily drawing patterns on her side.
“Hi,” he says softly.
“Hi.” She smirks. “Happy Hanukkah.”
He laughs.
“You’re a little late.”
“It’s the thought that counts, right?”
“Yeah.”
She kisses him, even though it makes the moment – already so intimate, so domestic – even more.
When he pulls back he smiles, but she can see his mind going, can see the shift as he starts getting in his head like she is, and he’s still running his fingers along her skin but it feels tentative now.
“Are we gonna talk about this?” he asks.
“I don’t know. I feel like we should.”
“Yeah.” He pauses. “I don’t want to, though.”
“No?”
“I’m afraid if we talk about it, we’ll stop.”
Her heart clenches.
I don’t know how to quit you, she thinks, the line coming to her out of nowhere. She hasn’t even seen that movie in years, but fuck if it isn’t true.
“I miss you,” he whispers.
Her eyes well up.
(He isn’t allowed to miss her. Not when he did this to them.)
“Why didn’t you –”
He doesn’t let her ask the question. He kisses her instead, and it’s deep and slow and it’s like he apologizing and telling her he loves her all at once. When she breaks the kiss she starts to ask again but he stops her, eyes boring into her.
“Can we – can we just – not tonight? Please?” he asks. Her heart aches and she can feel the anger welling up but she doesn’t want to fight either, she wants to just pretend and let him hold her and fall asleep here with him, pretend they aren’t complicated.
“Okay,” she says finally. He sighs and pulls her closer. They shift until he’s on his back and she’s curled up on his side, resting her head on his chest.
“Do you wanna stay?” he asks softly.
What a loaded question.
She doesn’t answer. Instead, she leans over him to grab her phone and texts Gina that she’ll be back in the morning. Then she turns her phone off and resumes her place, and Peter presses a kiss to her hair, and she closes her eyes and breathes deep and tells herself she can have this one more night. Then they can talk. But just –
Just let them have this.
---
Peter’s not in bed when she wakes up, but she can hear him in the living room. She gets up, gets dressed, and finds him in a suit and tie, drinking coffee and grabbing papers and shoving them in a backpack. He smiles when he sees her, and her heart does a little flutter at that.
“Morning,” he greets.
“Morning.”
“There’s coffee.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ve gotta run, I’m sorry – ”
“That’s okay,” she says, approaching him. He looks at her like he’s waiting for something so she leans in and kisses him, just a short sweet thing.
“There’s coffee, and bagels, and I left the spare key on the counter so you can lock up when you leave, and we’ll – ”
“Okay,” she says. He smiles again, still a little unsure.
“I have to go.”
“You’ve said.”
“I don’t want to.”
She smiles and kisses him again.
“Go get ‘em, tiger,” she teases, and he smiles, the tension in his shoulders loosening just a bit.
“I’ll see you later?”
“I’ll text you,” she says. He nods, and she realizes, for perhaps the first time, that he’s afraid she’ll disappear.
She’s not sure that’s entirely fair of him, but she shoves it away.
He kisses her this time, lingering just a second long enough that she knows he’d stay home if she asked, which is why she doesn’t. He grabs his coat and shoots her another smile on his way out the door, and then he’s gone.
And she’s alone with her thoughts, in his apartment.
---
She knows she should just get dressed and leave, but she can’t help it. She lets herself linger in his apartment – the most grown up place he’s ever lived. Gone are the shoebox studios and roommates; this is a one bedroom, with a real kitchen, a real bathroom – hell, this apartment has more than one room. Furniture, not just cardboard boxes.
And yet, it’s still so Peter, in its simultaneous sparseness and mess.
She helps herself to a bagel and looks through the cabinets – clearly thrift store bowls and plates, worn pots and pans. It would seem he survives on ramen and take out, if the state of the cupboards is any indication.
But there are pictures on the walls – pictures of his aunt and uncle, him and Ned, a group photo of their friend group from college.
Her heart clenches when she sees his parents’ ketubah hanging on the wall next to a framed photo of him with them. She knows the picture: he can’t be more than 4 years old, but he’s smiling and his hair is so curly and light, and his mother is tickling him and his dad is looking at them like he’s never seen a more perfect sight. It’s a beautiful picture. She knows Peter barely has any photos of his parents, but of all of them, this is his favorite. She has to agree.
She’s never seen the ketubah before, though, and she wonders when he found it – if it had always been tucked away in his room, at May’s and at the series of places he lived after. Or maybe May found it recently and gave it to him. Michelle had seen May and Ben’s – it hung in the hallway of May’s apartment next to a photo from their wedding, and Michelle remembers how she’d look at it, try out the words on her tongue. May and Ben hadn’t been super observant, and most people didn’t even realize Peter was Jewish, but spending as much time with him as she did taught her a lot she hadn’t known. She knew the basics from the number of bar and bat mitzvahs she went to in middle school, but the details she learned from Peter. Holidays and phrases and traditions – and things like the ketubah, a marriage contract. May had explained it to her, seeing Michelle’s immediate frown. Yes, it had deeply patriarchal roots. But over time, it had evolved so where it was, or could be, more egalitarian. Like a written record of vows. Michelle had liked May and Ben’s.
She looks at this one now, Peter’s own parents’ ketubah. Like May and Ben’s, it was in Hebrew and English. She remembers Peter attempting to read some of May and Ben’s once, his religious school Hebrew rusty as he tripped over the sounds, cheeks turning red as he struggled. But it was beautiful even still.
The groom, Raviv Parker, son of Binyamin and Rachael Parker, and the bride, Miriam Reinburg, daughter of David and Ruth Reinburg, entered into the covenant of marriage before God and these witnesses and said to each other: “I betroth you to me forever. I betroth you to me in everlasting faithfulness. In the spirit of the Jewish tradition, I will be your loving friend as you are mine. Set me as a seal upon your heart, like the seal upon your hand, for love is stronger than death. And I will cherish you, honor you, uphold and sustain you in all truth and sincerity. I will respect you and the divine image within you. I take you to be mine in love and tenderness. May my love for you last forever. May we be consecrated, one to the other, by these rings. Let our hearts be united in faith and hope. May our hearts beat as one in times of gladness as in times of sadness. Let our home be built on Torah and loving-kindness. May our home be rich with wisdom and reverence.” This ketubah has been witnessed and signed according to the laws and traditions that began with Abraham and Sarah and continued through Moses and the people of Israel. It is valid and binding.
She didn’t even realize she was crying until a tear rolled down her cheek.
---
Her own parents were – well, let’s just say there were no pictures of her parents looking as happy as Peter’s did in the one on his wall. And she knows that’s not fair, because Richard and Mary Parker died in a car accident when Peter was seven so they never had a chance to grow old together or, you know, decide not to. They were forever immortalized in the few photos and memories Peter had, in the stories May shared. Peter had photos and stories and a beautiful ketubah to remind him that his parents had loved each other; had these things left behind as a testament to the home they had built for him to grow up in. They would always be happily married, frozen in time when everything was good and perfect, all the more tragic because of it. Michelle, though, had a lifetime of experiences with her parents. It was different.
Michelle came from a loving father and a mother who hadn’t really wanted the life she’d been dealt, and decided to go out and chase the one she wanted when Michelle was only six. Alice Watson had gotten pregnant young with Gina; had struggled as a single mom until she met Wade Jones. And he was a good man. He loved Gina, treated her like his daughter, even after he and Alice had their own child – Michelle. And Michelle supposes they must’ve been happy for at least a little while. She’s seen old pictures. There are a couple that feature both of them; there are a few with smiles that seem sincere.
But Wade was stubborn, the kind of man who liked what he liked and didn’t see the need to fix what wasn’t broken. He wore the same work boots, the same jeans, the same coat, buying what he’d already had when one wore out. He was a simple man. If he saw a Travel Channel special, he figured he’d all but visited the place, no need to make the actual trip. And Alice was restless. She had wanted things for her life, but having a baby at 18 had forced her to shelve her own wants and desires. She liked Wade because he was stable. He liked Alice because she was spontaneous. In the end, though, they wanted different things. She wanted different things. The life they might’ve had, had things been different, never came to pass.
When Michelle was six, her father sat her down and told her that Mom was going away for a little while, and she could still call her, and she wasn’t going forever, but she wasn’t going to live with them anymore.
Michelle was older when she found out the truth: her mother had found someone else, someone new and adventurous and exciting, and they had packed up and left for South America, to go backpacking and traveling. Alice’s calls were few and far between, but at the beginning she had sent postcards. At the beginning, she had tried. And Wade never spoke ill of her. And Gina never spoke of her at all. And Michelle waited for the cards and the calls until one day she realized that they weren’t her mother; that her mother as she’d known her had all but died when Michelle was six. Mom was gone. Alice was like a flaky aunt: family, and important, but, more often than not, absent.
Peter had parents who had vowed faithfulness, to cherish and honor and respect; who promised to be loving friends. Michelle had parents who used to yell and stew; a mother who left and a father who died.
(Michelle was older when she realized just how shitty it had been of her mother to leave – not just her, but Gina. Of course her dad considered Gina his own, but she wasn’t. It had been Gina and mom for years before Michelle’s dad entered the picture; and then Michelle had arrived; and then Mom had left. Abandoned Gina. Sometimes Michelle thinks she hates her mom more for leaving Gina than for leaving her.)
---
Michelle has decided she’s done snooping. She’s too sad to linger any longer. Going back to her sister’s won’t necessarily help, but neither would staying here, in Peter’s space, reminded of him and them and the way she used to look at the photos of Ben and May and read their own ketubah and imagine Peter’s one day – maybe even with her. The naïve thoughts of a teenager in the throes of first love. Her heart aches just thinking about it, about her 17-year-old self.
She’s getting dressed, trying to will the memories away, when she notices the drawer on his bedside table is open, just a crack, and she’s too damn curious for her own good. So she slides it open, just a bit more. Just to peek inside. See if there’s anything more exciting than condoms.
And there isn’t, really. A box of condoms, his old glasses, a book. But there’s another picture. It’s framed, like sometimes it sits on the table, and sometimes it doesn’t.
It’s them, her and him. Probably 17. Neither of them are looking at the camera; they’re looking at each other, smiling widely. She remembers when it was taken, how happy they’d been, how easy and uncomplicated it was, back when it felt like anything was possible if he was next to her, smiling at her.
“And that’s how it was throughout college. When they were both in New York, they would fall into bed, and soon they weren’t just hooking up, they would talk and hang out and it would be like it used to be, but then she would get on a plane and he went back to being the ex she slept with sometimes. When she was at school they barely spoke. They slept with other people. (They didn’t talk about it, but they both knew. Assumed.) They compartmentalized. Peter could only be hers in Queens; over time, as she visited less often, he became less hers. She decided that it was better that way.”
a Peter/MJ fic, feat. the extended friend universe, ignoring most of MCU canon. 1/?
I haven't written for this fandom before, and I haven't posted fic in like 5 years. So be gentle? Treat this first chapter like the pilot - there's potential, but it's gonna get better as the writer's room finds its footing.
I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about these characters.
Heavily inspired by Taylor Swift's 'tis the damn season. among other songs. I have a playlist, so a new other songs might make their influence known eventually.
Enjoy.
---
one.
there’s an ache in you
put there by the ache in me
---
She can feel the cold seeping through the window as soon as the pilot comes on to announce their final descent. She knows it’s probably bullshit, just a figment of her imagination. These plane windows are heavy duty. The draft she’s feeling as she peers out the window and at the setting sun over the city she once called home – it’s probably got little to do with the temperature outside.
But it’s her first time back in the city since – well. Since the funeral. She hadn’t really had a reason to come back before. Or at least, she had better reasons to avoid it. Plus, living in California had its perks. Friends were more than happy to come to her. And since –
So this is her first time back since the funeral, and sure, she’ll be right back home, staying in her old room in her dad’s old apartment that her sister and nephew now call home, but it’s different, and she’s different.
She is.
She braces herself as the plane lands, jerky and loud and unsettling in a way she’ll never fully get over. (There’s a flash of a memory, of a boy with callused hands over hers and a bumpy landing on a different runway in what feels like a different life.) She keeps her headphones in as the flight attendant welcomes them to New York, thanks them for flying Delta, asks them to remain seated if they don’t have a connecting flight to get to. Let those in a rush exit first. Most of her neighbors ignore this, but Michelle stays seated. Switches her phone off airplane mode, watches as the time clicks over and the notifications begin streaming in.
Her sister. Work. Junk email. CNN and the LA Times. Candy Crush.
Miles.
(hey, hope you have a good flight. I’ll have my stuff out by the time you’re back. Happy holidays.)
She leaves him on read and puts her phone in her pocket, the plane almost empty by now, and gingerly stands up, grabs her bag from the overhead and the coat she’d shoved under the seat in front of her. She smiles and thanks the flight crew as she finally deplanes.
As she steps off and onto the gangway, she feels the chill for real. The crisp smell of the cold and the sharp smell of the city. She takes a deep breath.
She’s home.
-
Her sister had text that they were going out to dinner with her nephew’s hockey team, so Michelle takes the subway from the airport to the apartment and drops her bags. Ned had text her, too, telling her that the old gang was meeting up at a local bar, and she should come if she wasn’t too jetlagged. They want to see her.
She wants to see them, too, and it’s too quiet and empty and cold at her parents – sister’s – place, so she pulls on a thicker sweater and a hat and scarf from her bag and heads off, trying not to think too hard about what she’s doing and where she’s going (and who she might see). Texts her sister she’ll be back later, or she might crash at Betty’s or someone’s for the night.
(Someone.)
The bar is full when she arrives, full and dim and warm, and Ned spots her almost as soon as she walks in. He’s got a pint in one hand and waves vigorously at her with the other, motioning her to the booth full of the others, friends from high school and college, all of them smiling and laughing and standing up to greet her as she approaches.
“Ned!” she exclaims, as he pulls her into a bear hug.
“You’re actually here!” he says, eyes glassy and bright, clearly a few drinks in already. She’s eying the beer in his hand as he gesticulates wildly, filling her in on the evening so far, not looking to get drenched tonight, when another hand reaches out and easily takes it from Ned.
“Easy there,” Peter says, setting the drink down and smirking at Ned before turning his gaze to her.
It shouldn’t feel like a gut punch, not after all these years, but it still is, it always is. Sometimes just thinking about him brings on the feeling, like she’s out of breath and about to fall all at once. She thinks it’s bad just having his eyes on her, but then he smiles, soft and a little sad and a little more reserved than she’s used to, and it feels like someone’s squeezed her heart like a lemon.
“Hey, MJ,” he says, voice quiet.
“Michelle,” she corrects automatically. “I go by Michelle now.”
Someone who doesn’t know him as well would probably miss the flash of hurt, the slightest cringe, but she knows him. She misses nothing.
“Michelle,” he says. It sounds wrong on his tongue. She wonders if he feels it, too. “Long time no see, huh?”
She nods, not trusting her voice.
Whatever moment they were having is interrupted as the others (Flash and Betty and Harry and Felicia and Liz) all greet her, pulling her into hugs. Harry and Flash disappear to the bar for more drinks and Betty makes space next to her and asks about the flight and –
And out of the corner of her eye she watches Peter settle back into his seat, one hand on the table and the other on his beer, cheeks flushed from the warmth inside the bar or maybe the close quarters, and he’s clenching his fist and Felicia reaches out a hand and covers it, ever so slightly. And it’s so domestic, so – something – that Michelle almost gasps. But just as soon as her hand touched his Peter pulls away, downs the rest of his beer and stands.
“Where you going Parker?” Liz asks. Peter raises his empty pint glass.
“Another round.”
“Flash and Harry – ”
But he’s already gone, disappeared into the throng.
Michelle watches Felicia watch him go out of the corner of her eye, but when her gaze turns to Michelle she looks away quickly, focusing in on Betty.
Well fuck this, she thinks.
- --
By the time Peter comes back, Michelle’s two shots in (fuck you very much, Flash Thompson) and nursing a beer, laughing at one of Ned’s stories. Peter seems tense, and whether he notices it or not, Flash pounces.
“Come on Parker, shots!”
“Beer before liquor,” Peter says with an easy smile.
“Since when do you give a shit about that, Parker?” he asks. Flash and Harry are both drunk, looking for a target to tease and cajole and drag down with them. Peter, always the best at holding his liquor, was typically the mark.
Peter shrugs.
“Got work early tomorrow,” he says, pushing his sleeves up. Michelle tries very hard not to let her eyes linger on his forearms. How is he not boiling? Peter always ran warm, and between the alcohol and the body heat and the Henley he’s got on under his flannel –
Internally she shakes her head. Whatever. Peter isn’t her problem.
Harry and Flash are still goading Peter, and soon they’re dragging him off to play darts. She focuses on Betty and Liz, catching up, and soon Ned and Felicia have wandered off to the dart game, which is getting increasingly loud. At one point she glances over and sees Harry and Flash won him over: the three of them are getting ready for a tequila shot. Peter’s lost his flannel, and his hair is mussed, and his sleeves are pushed up to his elbows, and fuck that easy smile and the laugh she can hear from where she’s seated. She’s already drunk, too drunk for this. She should’ve eaten before she came out.
She realizes too late that Betty and Liz have stopped talking and are watching her.
“What?” she says when she notices, more defensively than she’d meant.
“So that’s still going on, huh?” Liz says.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
There’s a cheer from the dart game and she glances over and sees Peter and Ned, gleeful and mid embrace. She catches Felicia’s eye and looks away quickly.
“They’re not together,” Betty says. Liz snorts. “They’re not!”
“She just wishes,” Liz tells her. Michelle rolls her eyes. Felicia had come to the group by way of Peter and Harry. The three of them had gone to college together in the city, and she thinks Felicia and Harry may have dated briefly, but they had been a unit since sophomore year. Felicia was nice enough, but given that Peter was their link, and the only times she saw Peter in college, they had been – well. So Michelle and Felicia had never really bonded. (Michelle and Harry only became friends outside of Peter because of Flash. Somehow, of the old high school crowd, Flash had emerged as one of her best friends.) Felicia had always stuck more with the boys, as opposed to trying to get to know Betty or Liz better.
(Flash and Harry – who hadn’t been dating at the time, but fooling around when the feeling struck – came to visit her in California once, and they all got shitfaced, and Harry told them that Felicia dumped him for a shot with Peter, and he’d fucking hated Peter for that, except Peter was so far from interested in anyone that she’d been stuck pining just like he was and what the fuck did you do to Peter, Michelle? And she’d told him to fuck off, none of his business, and that’s bullshit, we’ve been over for years. And Flash had told her she was full of shit, because Peter Parker has no poker face and he looks at you like you’re the fucking sun.)
(The point is, she’s known Felicia has maybe had a thing for Peter for a while, and Michelle has no claim to him, they’re not together, so it’s fine. Peter can do what he wants. It’s fine.)
“They’ve hooked up a few times, though,” Betty adds. She’s feigning casualness, but Michelle knows her better than that. Betty’s looking for a reaction. She hardly ever drinks when they all go out, ever the mom friend, eager to make sure the others can have a good time, happy to laugh and bring up all he dumb shit they get up to because she, of course, remembers. Betty’s been nursing the same beer since Michelle arrived, and she’s watching her now, something like concern and something like anticipation. Like this is one of her soaps. “I don’t think it means much to him, but you know her.”
She doesn’t, actually. But putting her hand on his? Following him to play darts? The way she always happens to catch Michelle’s eye when Michelle looks at him? Michelle’s not stupid.
“I don’t give a shit,” she says forcefully. Like maybe if she says it like she means it, it’ll be true. “We’re adults, and we’re not – that’s been over for a long time.”
Liz raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything.
“I need another beer,” Michelle says, sliding out of the booth for the bar. Betty tries to call her back, but Michelle keeps going.
Fucking Peter fucking Parker.
She’s waiting for her drink and stewing and trying to plan an exit or – something – when Harry sidles up to her, smiling easily and sipping from a bottle.
“Uh huh.”
“Lost, huh?” she says with a smirk and motioning toward the dart board. He waves her off.
“Psh. I let Parker win. Stop his mopey ass.”
“But I’m not here to talk about Parker. How are you, Michelle?” he asks. Harry gets intense and silly when he’s drunk, a fun combination typically, but not tonight. Now he’s just staring at her all serious, like he’s waiting for her to pour out her heart to him right here on this barstool.
“I’m fine,” she says. “You?”
“You know, I bet Leeds $10 you wouldn’t show. I figured we’d see you maybe once this whole trip. But here you are.”
“Here I am.”
The bartender puts a fresh pint in front of her and she nods thanks.
“We’ve missed you,” Harry tells her. “You haven’t been back in fucking years and it’s not the same without – ”
“I’m busy,” she defends. Harry waves his hand again.
“Nah, this is about Peter.”
“No it’s not.”
She could scream. Not everything is about Peter, and she’s already talked about him more than she has in years and it’s been a fucking hour.
Harry looks her straight in the eye, and for as drunk as he is, he’s remarkably sober as he looks at her.
“Don’t let him scare you away,” he says finally.
“That’s not – ”
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on there, but I love you, we love you, and it’s fucking great all being back again, huh? We haven’t been like this, everyone, since – ”
“Hey, buddy, I think maybe it’s time you stopped, huh?” And suddenly Peter is right there, flannel over his shoulder, a few empty glasses in his hands. He sets them on the bar and then claps Harry on the back. “You keep badgering her – ”
“He’s fine,” Michelle says.
“He’s drunk,” Peter says dryly. Harry scoffs.
“How aren’t you?”
“It’s a secret,” Peter whispers, winking at Michelle, cheeks flushed and hair mussed and Henley unbuttoned the top two and pushed up his arms, and for a second, she’s years ago, a lifetime ago. He must be a little drunk, too, flirting like this. It would be so easy to –
The moment is broken when Harry, attempting to move away, stumbles. Peter puts an arm around him to steady him.
“Should we get him a cab?” Michelle asks. Peter glances back at the group and then at Harry.
“Yeah, maybe. We were here a while before – ”
“I can take care of him if you wanna stay,” she says, a sudden exhaustion overtaking her. Peter frowns.
“I’m not sure you’re much better than he is.”
“How fucking dare you,” she says, deadpan, and he barks out a laugh. It fills something in her, the sound.
“Okay, fine. Still. I’d feel better if I didn’t leave, you know, the blind to help the blind over here. If you wanna go, too – ”
“Oh fuck’s sake,” Harry mumbles. “I’m fine. I’ll call Alfred.”
Michelle mouths Alfred? And Peter mouths back his driver.
Harry pulls out his phone and starts typing, and as he does Peter leads him back to the group. Michelle follows, figuring she’ll make an excuse to go when Harry does.
Peter gets Harry into a seat and Flash starts giving Harry shit for being so drunk, but he and Ned are both pretty gone, too, and Michelle sits and basks in this, this moment and these people and the missingness of it. She’s so caught up in it that she doesn’t even realize that somehow, Peter has ended up right next to her, and fuck, she can smell his soap and feel his leg jiggling under the table against hers. Without thinking she puts her hand on his knee to steady him.
He freezes at her touch, and she does, too. And refuses to look at him. His hand covers hers for a second and then she’s the one pulling away.
“Well this has been fun,” she says loudly, downing the last of her beer. “But I’m beat, so – ”
“MJ!” Ned whines.
“Fucking lightweight,” Flash teases.
“Fucking jetlagged,” she retorts. “I’ll see you losers later, yeah?”
“You gonna be okay – ” Liz starts, but Peter’s already in motion beside her.
“I’ll walk her back, it’s on my way,” he says. She can see Betty and Liz smirking and she hates them.
“You don’t – ”
“It’s on my way, and I’ve got work early,” he insists, and she knows she’s not talking him out of this, so she sighs and shrugs her coat on. He’s pulling his flannel back on, grabbing a coat, and she sees him start to put his hand toward her, like he’s going to guide her out, like –
So she says her goodbyes and ignores the knowing looks from Betty and Liz and fucking Flash and starts for the door without waiting for him.
Fuck.
---
“Am I really on your way, or – ”
“In a sense,” he says after they’ve gotten away from the noise of the bar. There’s snow – slush, really – on the sidewalks, mixed in with the trash, and the air is crisp and she feels so warm still, and she can’t tell if it’s the alcohol or him.
“What’s that mean?” she presses.
“My apartment is on the way to your sister’s.”
“Surprised you still remember,” she says.
“You’d be amazed how much I remember.”
It feels like a challenge. She ignores it.
Silence.
“So you and Felicia – ”
“For fuck’s sake,” he breathes, and she doesn’t know why but she laughs. He gives her a look. “What?”
“Just – what a reaction. Match made in heaven,” she teases, like maybe that’ll make her heart go back to beating properly, this faux normalcy, like they’re just friends and she’s just giving him shit over just some girl.
(But he’s not just her friend.)
“We hooked up once. Twice. How did you even – ”
“I’m observant. And Betty mentioned it.”
“Betty’s a gossip,” he murmurs darkly, like the two of them aren’t thick as thieves.
“It’s harmless.”
“Is it?”
He actually stops walking to look at her, and the expression on his face –
He holds her gaze and God, she hasn’t been this close to him in so long, hasn’t looked at him up close like this since –
“Why wouldn’t it be?” she asks. He doesn’t answer right away.
“We’re not together, I’m not – I’m not seeing anyone,” he tells her.
“That makes two of us,” she offers, something inside her relaxing at his reassurance, at the fact that he wanted her to know it wasn’t –
“Yeah, I heard.”
“Betty?”
He nods. He’s so close now.
Her heart is in her throat and she wants so badly to reach for him, to feel his skin against hers, even just his hand. For just a second her eyes dart down to his lips and when she meets his eyes again they’re darker, full of –
“Peter,” she breathes, like maybe he can understand what she’s saying. Like she’s apologizing.
“How much did you have to drink?” he asks quietly, looking at her lips this time.
“I’m not drunk,” she says, because she’s not, not anymore. The cold and the walk and him –
It shouldn’t surprise her when he kisses her.
Like everything with her and Peter Parker, though, she feels both completely caught off guard and completely ready for it. The feeling of falling and the feeling of being secure in someone’s arms.
Four years later, and Peter still makes her feel like she’s loved. Despite everything.
---
It shouldn’t have surprised her when he kissed her; what should have surprised her was ending up back at his apartment, hands and tongues and something so achingly familiar she might cry.
She’s never known him in this space, she thinks as they make their way clumsily up the stairs and through the door; he lived somewhere else the last time –
But now here she is, in Peter Parker’s apartment – in this grown up apartment, her with her baggage and her guilt and her feelings, and him with his trauma and his past and their past – here they are, making out on his bed. Wandering hands and plants in the window and her name on his breath and the same alarm clock he had in high school –
“Fuck, Em,” he says as her hand slips beneath the waistband of his jeans. God she missed this. Him.
She must be a little drunk, because she tells him as much. He stills and smiles and brushes her hair out of her eyes, and takes her hand from his pants and kisses it, eyes drifting closed.
“I miss you too,” he whispers.
When the tears start he kisses them away, asking her if she’s okay, if she’s sure, and she nods and runs her hands under his shirt and he kisses her, sweet and slow and fuck.
She still loves him.
(She hates that it’s not the revelation it should be.)
---
(It started in high school, end of sophomore year, early junior year. Stupid smiles and jokes and tentative hands and plans nearly foiled by their friends, until finally, finally she kissed him – a peck really, barely a kiss – mid ramble and he blinked at her like an owl and kissed her back, and looked at her with those eyes and –
“I really like you.”
And that was it. After that, they were them. Holding hands and study dates and making out on the couch and her dad’s exclamations of door open! And it was teenage love, and it was perfect. He listened to her and he held her and made her feel safe, and she made him feel safe, too, held him, too. They were partners. She loved him. He was her first everything, almost.
When it came time for college, though, it just –
He couldn’t leave New York, he said. Even though they’d both applied to Stanford, even though they’d talked about California and new adventures, suddenly he was backing out. He couldn’t leave.
And she was dumb and he was dumb and she felt betrayed but they spent the summer in denial, fooling around and riding the subway and sitting on the roof of Midtown and talking and laughing and she thought maybe it was okay, maybe it could be okay.
They had sex that summer, and it wasn’t some big grand thing, wasn’t some attempt on her part to get him to stay with her, like if she had sex with him he’d suddenly have a change of heart and come to California. They had sex because she loved him, and he loved her, and things had been hot and heavy for a while, and one afternoon they finally had the opportunity and he had a condom and she’d never been the kind of person to put much value in virginity, or the idea that losing it is special, or first times have to be spectacular, or whatever, they were just making out in his room because Aunt May was gone, and then text that she got stuck at work, Peter was on his own for dinner, so suddenly they had the whole night, and it wasn’t a decision so much as a natural progression. They had sex and it was fine, it was good, she didn’t come from it but he did, but he made sure she got off, too, and they laid together in his bed and she could feel the clock ticking on them in her heart, and she knew he could too by the way he held her. He held onto her until May got home, and that night she cried in the shower because she loved him so much and she didn’t know what was going to happen with them but she was glad that, as dumb as the construct of virginity and the societal expectations of first times were, her first time was with someone who loved her. Because she lost her virginity to her best friend, and she knew that whatever happened, she would never regret sharing that with him.
And then a week before her flight, he broke up with her. Told her he loved her but they needed to move on. That he couldn’t be what she needed, that he was staying in New York, and she couldn’t convince him to go, and he wouldn’t ask her to stay, and she shouldn’t wait for him. He was no good for her.
The week before college, 16 days after they had sex for the first time, he broke her fucking heart, both of them crying, and she didn’t understand at all, but she did a little, too. He wasn’t completely wrong. She just couldn’t understand why he was so – why he was so adamant about staying stuck in Queens.
“Maybe I don’t feel stuck!” he’d exclaimed.
“Well you will! I know you will, Peter, I know you!”
“You don’t know everything about me!” he’d shot back, and they were both crying and red in the face and she broke then, and for the first time, he didn’t rush to her, to fix it.
“I’m always gonna love you, MJ,” he’d said. “But this is the best thing for you.”
“Motherfucker,” she’d spat. “Don’t make my decisions for me.”
“Then it’s the best thing for me,” he’d breathed, and she left.
They didn’t see each other for three months after that.
When she was home for the winter break, though, she saw him – of course she did, they shared the same friends, and they’d kept the details and the pain of their breakup to themselves – and within a week they had started hooking up again. (She referred to it as “hooking up,” always, like it was just the sex, just the hormones and tension and comfort of a warm body, and no emotions.)
And that’s how it was throughout college. When they were both in New York, they would fall into bed, and soon they weren’t just hooking up, they would talk and hang out and it would be like it used to be, but then she would get on a plane and he went back to being the ex she slept with sometimes. When she was at school they barely spoke. They slept with other people. (They didn’t talk about it, but they both knew. Assumed.) They compartmentalized. Peter could only be hers in Queens; over time, as she visited less often, he became less hers. She decided that it was better that way.
A few months before her graduation – curled up on his bed in his shitty apartment that he shared with three roommates – he asked her if she was coming back.
“I think so,” she’d said, because she did, because she wasn’t sure, because she wanted him, because she had loans and no job but a dad and a sister in the city (and him), and he’d smiled and said he’d like that. And they weren’t back together, but there was something like hope between them. (Sometimes, she’d wanted to ask him what changed. Why hadn’t he been what she needed four years ago; why was he now?)
Then she got a job. An offer too good to pass up. In LA.
When she told him, it was like breaking up all over again.
“So that’s it then.”
“I mean, I guess so.”
There were no tears this time, no shouting, no anguished embrace or final kisses. It just was. She stayed in California. He stayed in Queens. They didn’t text, didn’t call. It was over, finally, for the first time. College hadn’t counted, she decided. They had been in an unhealthy, dysfunctional relationship – but it was still a relationship. But this – this was the real break up.
Then her dad died. Suddenly, unexpectedly. She flew home, a mess, grieving and in shock and so broken. All her friends came to the funeral. Of course Peter was there, too. And his Aunt May. He didn’t sit next to her, but he was right behind her, always within her sight. She wondered what that was like for him, to be the ex-boyfriend of the deceased’s daughter. He knew her family, the few of them there were. He’d come to the hospital with her when her nephew was born. Of all her friends, Peter was the one people knew. It was easier to think about how awkward it must be for him than to think about all the feelings trapped inside her chest. It was easier to focus on him than herself.
And she’d started talking to someone, back in California. A nice guy, a smart guy. Who didn’t push her away and then pull her closer. Miles was an open book, and he liked her. And they hadn’t done anything but flirt, but he felt like possibility, like a fresh start. She wanted that, needed that.
But being back home? Back in Queens, in her childhood bedroom, mourning her father –
She ended up at Peter’s after the funeral, because she always ended up at Peter’s.
And of course he welcomed her into his apartment, into his bed. Kissed away the tears and let her cry. Tried to stop her when she reached for his waistband, made sure she was sure.
But he always made her feel better.
And after, laying together in his twin bed on sheets he’d had since middle school, he’d asked why she came to him. He knew, roughly, about Miles. Miles hadn’t come for the funeral, but Peter and Michelle shared friends, and the potential relationship hadn’t been a secret. She knew what Peter was asking.
“I just. I needed to be with someone who loves me,” she’d said softly. And he’d pulled her closer, and kissed her forehead, and told her he loved her. No matter what had happened between them – this was her constant, her north star. Peter loved her.
She woke up the next morning with panic clawing its way up her throat.
She left without waking him, and ignored his calls for the next three days. She got back to California and made things official with Miles, and she didn’t talk to Peter, and she didn’t go back home until –
I absolutely love 'something paradise' because of how well you write the development of how they become a family. How slowly Emma realizes her love for Killian and sees that he provides the family she craves. And the way you write about the house makes me so jealous of your talent. You did such an amazing job with that story. Now I need to go reread it. Oh and 'a one time thing' has got to be my favorite multi-chapter.
Thank you, friend. I really do love that story. And that house. I wanna live in a house like that house.
I will always love the transatlantic fic where Emma and Killian are never in the same place at the same time. Also, Killian being unable to have kids and they adopt and 😭
i’ve actually been thinking about writing another long distance au (because fuuuuuuuuck long distance) and i forgot about the adoption one until just now. oops.
