Peter
Peter's POV
It had been a long evening. Rough even. Peter was used to breaking up robberies, break-ins and petty street crimes which tended to be the usual violence he came across, but on the rare occasion, he'd have to deal with something that would stay with him and be added to the long list of nightmare material he already had. Tonight's incident was one of them.
The girl was young. Probably around his age. Seventeen at the most. Peter dropped his head into his hands as he thought of the screaming that had alerted him and the way he had barely just made it before...
He dropped his hands. He wouldn't think about it.
"It's okay," he whispered to himself. "You stopped it from happening. You saved her."
But did he really? She was shaking like a leaf as he walked her home. He offered to go with her to the police station to report the crime, but she refused to go. He wasn't surprised although he still held out hope. Of all those crimes he either stopped from happening or rescued from happening, only one of them had ever chosen to go to the police. The rest went home, mumbling about how they couldn't afford it or that there was no point. And like the others, tonight's girl, Georgia, was the same.
After returning her home and locating the perpetrators and unleashing his useless anger onto them, he had decided to take the night off. It was only 11 pm and he liked to be out on the prowl until at least 12am, but he didn't have it in him. He swung around the city, not thinking about where he was going until he found this abandoned building that he sat on now. He had needed air and took his mask off to breathe it in. It wasn't cold, but it had a bitterness to it.
"Spiderman?"
Peter jumped as he whirled around, inwardly cursing at himself. He should have known he can't just switch off like this. He always needed to be on his guard and ready.
He felt his stomach drop as his fast-moving mind took in the details of the wide-eyed girl before him.
"Peter?" she asked in a whisper and his stomach dropped.
Shit. Shit. Shit. He had forgotten about his mask.
"Ummm," was all he could say as his eyes searched around the roof, looking for something, anything to help him.
"You're such a fucking idiot," he cursed at himself. "What the fuck are you going to do now?"
She already knows now, his mind whispered.
"Umm," Peter repeated as he clumsily rose to his feet. "Hi, MJ."
MJ continued to stare at him, eyes wide and jaw dropped. If it wasn't such a bad time he would have laughed. MJ was always so... stoic and stern. If she wasn't scowling, she'd be laughing at a joke that she likely made at his expense. He'd never really seen much emotion from her. He knew she liked to keep herself in control.
"You broke MJ," his mind whispered to him.
Walking slowly towards her, so as not to scare her, Peter raised the palms of his hands.
"Before you say anything, please whatever you do, don't tell anyone. No one was meant to know. I was meant to keep it a secret. Actually, I decided I wanted it to be a secret but then Mr Stark said it was a good idea because I'm so young and I was doing so well, but I guess Ned found out..."
He realised he was rambling, but he couldn't stop.
"Actually, Ned's pretty useless with secrets too, but we've both been trying so hard to keep our shit together and I was such an idiot for coming here and taking this stupid mask-"
MJ raised a palm and Peter immediately shut his mouth. As she took a few moments to think in silence, he took her in. He noticed she was wearing the clothes she had on at school, a usual combo of black ripped jeans and a graphic t-shirt. Her favourite leather jacket was left unzipped, and her hair was falling out of the ponytail she had in at school too. But what he noticed most was the deep circles under her chocolate brown eyes.
Peter frowned. She had seemed out of it today. She didn't spend lunch with them like she usually did and she was unusually quiet during those moments between shared classes where they usually bantered and she'd call him a loser or something.
"Are you okay?" he wanted to ask, but at that moment MJ began to speak.
"Okay. What the fuck, Parker?" her surprised eyes had morphed into her usual stern ones. "You're spiderman? Or is this some... did you and Ned go to a nerd conference again?"
Peter would have laughed at any other time. That would have been a perfect excuse but the damage was done.
"Wait no, of course, it's the real suit. The detailing is too exact. The way the light's filtering through the pattern is too accurate for a cosplay unless you have a lot of money but no offence you and I both know you don't have a lot of money."
He wanted to laugh again because this was classic MJ. He couldn't deny the small spark of warmth he felt in his chest as he watched her rant about the suit, beginning to formulate all of these thoughts and ideas into one cohesive statement. She noticed his suit. Whenever the kids at school brought up Spiderman she would scoff and talk about how the real heroes were those advocating for human rights and the Avengers was just one big marketing ploy by the government to encourage a false sense of safety amongst the people.
It took Peter a moment to realise she had fallen silent, a determined look on her face that was both terrifying and so MJ.
"I knew it was you," she stated flatly, eyes daring him to disagree.
"What?" he scoffed. "No, you didn't. You couldn't have."
"I'm not an idiot," she crossed her arms, frown deepening. "I've been watching you. You disappear at the right times. You're not at our Decathlon meetings half the time and when you are, your late and there's always been some sort of catastrophic event in the city that magically aligns with it. Plus," her eyes travelled up and down his body and he flushed at her evaluation. "It was really fucking obvious when you started doing more push-ups than Oliver."
"I don't do more push-ups than him," he argued, arms crossing too defensively. He deliberately made sure to act weaker in gym class knowing how obvious it would be that his clumsy self had suddenly morphed into a machine overnight.
"You did. Once." She stated matter-of-factly before he noticed some red crawl up her neck and she dropped her eyes. "It was last year, or... a few years ago, I guess with the snap. Coach put us into teams and you, and Ned were talking about Star Wars and I watched you guys. You did more than Oliver. You did double what Oliver did."
"I.." he dropped his eyes to feeling so very awkward.
"Dude," his mind whispered. "She watched you in gym class, man."
He cleared his throat.
"Oh... well..." he didn't know what to say. He felt defensive. Surely, he wasn't that useless. Ned finding out had been purely coincidently and after he had answered every question he possibly could Ned decided it would be good for them both to hold each other accountable to keeping his secret exactly that: a secret.
What a colossal failure.
Peter looked up again, jolting at the intense stare MJ was giving him. There was a dare in her eyes. A dare to tell her she was wrong and she obviously wasn't because here he was. There was no denying it.
Michelle knew.
Peter sighed, dropping his hands to his side before giving an awkward shrug.
"You're right. I'm Spiderman."