When Peter and Michelle did drama together–it was the first class they had ever had together, therefore the first time they’d met–they were both thirteen, a year before Peter had become Spider-Man. The school had wanted to do an old-timey themed play, and teachers put in names of students who they thought would fit the role, and then the drama teacher held auditions between those students. Ned hadn’t taken drama, instead opting for art, and Peter was small, shy and wore glasses that sometimes fell off his face. This was before Michelle acquired her contacts, wide gold rims always resting on the top of her nose.
Peter wasn’t initially meant to be in the play. Someone else had almost been casted–someone Michelle didn’t particularly care for, and as they were reading off their scripts, Michelle was finding it impossible to work with the kid. Peter was in the back with some tools, fiddling with some props to make sure they were nice and stable for the stage.
“Alright, I can’t do this.” Michelle announced suddenly, slapping her script on her leg.
“What’s the matter?” the drama teacher had asked calmly.
Michelle knew her vocabulary words–knew how to impress her teacher. “I’m not sensing any chemistry here. Isn’t this a love story?”
“A very toned down love story from the original, but yes.”
“I researched the original. School is rated G or whatever.” Michelle tells her. “I’m just–I’m finding it hard working with him.”
“Alright, he can audition with someone else later, then. Who do you think you’d rather work with?”
Michelle looked around the stage. Not many people were out here yet, waiting and rehearsing with their partners backstage, something the last boy had refused to do, saying that he’d get it either way.
She spotted Peter on his butt and legs sprawled out, tongue in between his teeth as he worked on a prop with a screwdriver.
“I’d rather kiss the loser nerd.”
“No one said anything about kissing, Miss Jones,” the drama teacher had replied. “who are you referring to?”
She gestured to Peter, who was in his own little world as he worked, occasionally stopping only to stretch his arms or to fix his glasses.
“Peter?” the drama teacher called, swapping her attention from her to him. “Peter Parker?”
Peter’s head shot up, looking for the source of the sound of his name.
“Yes, ma’am?” he answers awkwardly.
“Come here, please.” she had said, and Peter had headed over. She pointed at something on a thick stack of papers and Michelle automatically assumed it was an extra script. Their teacher said some things and Peter nodded his understanding before making his way over to stand in front of Michelle a little ways away.
“Alright, guys.” she said, and they started.
Michelle had known Peter previously–he arrived at Midtown about a year after Michelle had, moving from a standard middle school in Forest Hills. His parents were killed in an accident when he was a kid, and he lived with his aunt. He was a year late to Midtown only because of the Forest Hills transfer. Ned and Michelle had been in the school since they were twelve, Peter thirteen. He was just about to turn fourteen when they did the play, so he’d been at the school about a year or two at this point.
They hadn’t talked much, but their roles–the play was a watered down version of Dangerously Yours– came to them so naturally, and their play actually went on to win some kind of award somehow.
Even today, as college students, if Michelle hadn’t complained and said that she would rather kiss a scrawny nerd and bump their glasses together by accident–multiple times, almost always resulting in someone getting their eye poked–then she didn’t think she’d be here today.
They’d even kissed in the actual play. It had been an agreement they had come up with, to do something completely unscripted. It had been Michelle’s idea, and when she finally talked Peter into it–watering it down to just a kiss on the cheek for compromise–he’d agreed. So, while Peter was technically her first true kiss on the bridge, he’d also been her first kiss at thirteen years old in a sweaty yet freezing auditorium.
The funny thing is that they hadn’t even gotten in trouble for it. Nobody cared.
And that’s when Michelle decided that she wouldn’t care if anyone saw her kiss the scrawny loser, either.
And it just so happens, he was now her scrawny loser, her Spider-Man, her Peter Parker. And she was Peter Parker’s. It was just the way the world worked–the way it was meant to be.
After all, if it wasn’t, then why bring them back together in the first place?
Memory spells and multiverses or not, she’s Michelle Jones. The Michelle Jones who protests and leads and mouths off Doctor Strange. The one who absolutely destroyed Brad by framing him for taking pictures in the bathroom. The Michelle Jones who won an entire play an award by accident by a single unscripted moment and a simple stating of how she couldn’t work with someone.
Michelle didn’t know the word can’t.
There’s nothing we can do?
There’s nothing we can do.
Forget Strange. Forget Strange in all his glory hog hypocrisy and bullying of teenagers and favoritism and his willingness to sacrifice half of the planet for a stupid glowing rock. Forget Strange and his magic.
Michelle had Ned and Peter and a stubborn attitude and didn’t know the word can’t. Peter beat Doctor Strange in a fight. Ned is magic. MJ graduated valedictorian.
She’d fix this.
for reference i was thinking of this picture when i wrote mj's glasses in, so do with this what you will-i don't mind if you imagine something different!