I.
Mj was bored. Bored as hell.
Acadec practice was about to start in 5 minutes and she was sitting in the zoom call, waiting for the rest of the group to join. Zoom classes were boring but at least she didn’t have to commute to school everyday. She couldn’t help but wish Covid was over though, she didn’t want to lose much of her highschool experience.
Everyone in her acadec group was almost there, they were just waiting on Peter. She couldn’t help but let out a chuckle of annoyance. You could always count on him to be the one running late, she thought.
Suddenly, she saw his name pop up, his camera following soon after.
“Sorry– am I late?” he said. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. Since when was Aunt May’s apartment so big? Didn’t they live in a two-bedroom here in queens? Then why-
Thinking about it more, there was no way this could be in Aunt May’s apartment. He must be staying at a friend’s place or something, the size of his room was absolutely ridiculous. She studied his room as he fiddled with the webcam on his monitor. His ceilings seemed to reach up 12 feet, with two wall-length windows on either side of his bed that showcased a beautiful view of New York. His bed sat atop a raised platform, and it seemed to be around king-sized. On one side of the platform there was a seating area with bean bag chairs, a circular couch, and a coffee table adorned with discarded books and looseleaf paper. Near the couches there was a closet, with one of the doors ajar leaving the class with a view of a wardrobe that seemed to be the size of her entire bedroom. On the other side there was a similar set up, although turned to face the wall housing one of the biggest TV’s she’d ever seen, along with several video game consoles.
For some reason, the wall was decorated with what looked to be sitting areas extremely high up. They seemed so impractical she thought, no one would ever be able to get up there. All that furniture going to waste as setpieces.
One thing was still the same as his old bedroom, she smiled to herself. The mess was ever-present, with clothing littering the floors of his room. Books were strewn about all around, and his bed clearly had not been made in several days. His backpack was sitting near him in the middle of the floor, its contents spilling out around him.
“Peter what the fuck?” she heard Flash scoff. “That has to be a filter. No way you and May’s poor asses can afford an apartment of that size.” The rest of the class seemed to be in agreement, with some of them looking at Peter with strange expressions.
“It’s– I’m–” he stumbled over an explanation. “I’m just staying at a friend’s house in New York is all” he shrugged, more asking than telling. She laughed.
“Whatever you say, dork. Now everyone listen up. Being online doesn’t mean we can relax practicing.”
Ii.
Several days passed, and their acadec group was once again meeting for practice. Although the practice had just started, things seemed to be going well. They were taking turns quizzing each other, and so far no one had gotten a single one incorrect. She smiled, maybe they weren’t half bad after all.
“A blank is a subatomic particle with a pos-” Cindy asked Peter. Before she could finish he chimed in with his answer.
“Proton,” he said confidently. “Now, what is the date that Martin Luther King received his Nobel Peace Prize?”
Flash, who was up next, took a pause to respond. In the time it took him, an unfamiliar robotic sounding voice chimed in.
“1994, master Peter” the whole team looked confusedly at his screen.
“Peter? Who was that? Cindy asked with a perplexed expression. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone in the room with you?”
“Nothing! Nothing it was just- it was Siri! Siri went off on my phone, my apologies.” he tried to laugh it off, nervously rubbing the back of his neck. The rest of the team seemed to accept this explanation, but MJ wasn’t totally sold. She didn’t remember Siri sounding like that.
As Flash answered and went on to ask his question, she could hear him muttering to someone off screen. None of the rest of their team seemed to be paying attention.
“Friday! I love you but please don’t answer any of my questions when I’m on call with my acadec team, you could blow my whole cover!” he whisper-shouted. Friday? Wasn’t that– no it couldn’t be.
Something was definitely going on with Peter Parker, she decided.
Iii.
Another couple days passed. Classes had started falling into routine, everyone was settling in and getting used to being online. MJ was sitting in her history class, waiting for the rest of her class to give their presentations and for it to be her turn. She had tuned most of them out, as the subject wasn’t particularly interesting to her.
She sighed and glanced at the clock. Class was almost over, it looked like she wouldn’t be able to give her presentation today. There was just enough time for one last person to go.
“Peter, it’s your turn.” her history teacher said. She tuned back into the conversation; she would at least listen to his presentation, she figured.
“Yea– hold on, just give me one second to share my screen.” he said. The zoom call buffered, and suddenly they were staring at his computer homescreen. It was littered with files everywhere, all seemingly work-related. Something in the corner of his screen caught her eye, so she took a screenshot before he could pull up his browser.
She tuned him out once again as he talked about his topic, full screening the screenshot and zooming in on the background. In the top left hand corner of his screen, there was a folder labeled “patrol data”. Now why would he have a folder with that name, she wondered. She put the photo in her own desktop folder, and waited for the zoom to be over. Something suspicious was definitely going on.
Iv.
Online classes had started to get annoying. She just wanted to be back in person, the lockdown was taking a toll on her. Although she understood the importance of the lockdown, she missed seeing her friends in person, missed the way school was in real life.
She was in another acadec meeting, quizzing her team on the practice questions. They were getting them all correct for the most part. she would never admit it out loud but she was proud of her team.
Suddenly, there was commotion from Peter’s end of the call. She watched as a little girl ran in crying, trailing a blanket behind her. The kid looked to be no more than five years old. Since when did Peter have a younger sister, she thought to herself.
“Hey hey Morgie, what's the matter?” he said, getting off his chair and walking over to her. He crouched down on the ground so he could be the same height as her.
“I was sleeping and had a n-nightmare,'' she said between sniffles. “M-mommy was busy talking to grown-ups and d-daddy is in his building r-room, so I came to see petey.” Peter pulled her into a hug, rubbing her back.
“Shhh, it's okay Morgie. I’m here. Why don’t I take you back to your room, and I can tuck you back into bed?” She nodded and he stood up, ruffling her hair.
“Hey guys? I’m gonna head out for a second. My si–, uh, morgie here needs me. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” and with that he hit the button to leave the call.
“Peter has a sister?” flash said, interrupting the silence that had enveloped their call.
“No idea..” Mj responded. The name sounded familiar to her, but she couldn’t quite place where she had heard it. She could vaguely remember Peter mentioning a Morgan before, so she jotted it down in her folder to think about later.
V.
Once again, she was sitting on a zoom call with her acadec team. They had a meet coming up, so she was grilling them to make sure they were ready. They couldn’t afford to lose this one.
She was paying special attention to Peter nowadays. Something was off about him but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She was determined to figure it out. She kept the call pinned to his screen, reading out the questions for the team to answer.
“Peter,” she said, pulling out the next flash card. “What is the average life expectancy of a woman living in a lower income country?” he took a beat to answer.
“63” he said confidently.
“That is correct Mr. Parker.” she said, pulling out the next flash card. As she looked back up at her screen, she noticed something in the background of Peter’s screen. His closet doors were ajar, and she could spot an odd flash of color mixed in with his clothes.
“Mj? Is something up?” she heard Peter say. She focused back to the call, taking a screenshot to confirm her suspicions later.
“Sorry– it's nothing. I just got a notification. Let’s get back to work.”
Later, off the call, she pulled up her file. Things were starting to add up. The little girl she remembered Peter mentioning, how his room was suddenly ginormous, and now this? Zooming in on the background of the photo, the red and blue was unmistakable.
She’d finally figured out what was going on with Peter, she was sure of it. All that was left was confirmation.
Vi.
Peter had been gone for some time now, she pondered to herself in the middle of yet another practice. He had excused himself 15 minutes ago to head to the bathroom, and hadn’t turned back up yet. Once again she had his screen pinned as their group took turns asking each other questions. She was determined to find out what was going on.
All of a sudden, she noticed something on his back window. Someone had started to climb up the side, scaling the wall like it was nothing. She stared with her mouth agape, judging by the view his room had to be countless stories up in the sky. How in the world was this possible?
“Wait is that–” she heard Cindy say in the background. The rest of their group had realized what was happening by now, and they had all abandoned their practice.
“Holy shit that’s spiderman” Flash said in awe. They all watched as Spiderman carefully opened the window and climbed into Peter’s bedroom, turning around and quietly shutting it behind him.
He turned back around and took off his mask, throwing it into the open closet. Their previously dead silent team erupted into hysterics.
“HOLY FUCKING SHIT ITS PENIS PARKER”
“Parker is spiderman?”
“What the hell just happened”
“NO WAY THERE'S NO WAY”
Peter froze. He turned to the computer with all the color visibly drained from his face.
“H-hey guys haha.. I kinda thought my camera was off. How's the practice going?” He walked over to his computer slowly, doing his best to hide his panicked expression.
“I was right,” Mj said triumphantly, “Your penthouse size apartment, Morgan Stark interrupting our practice, the suspicious files on your desktop, the weird sitting areas on your wall, it all adds up.” Mj smirked; her hunch was right the whole time, and it was confirmed in the most Parker-esque way possible.
“Friday, notify Tony of what just happened please,” Peter called to the AI, “I'll answer whatever questions you guys have while we wait for him to get here.”
“How did you get your powers?” Betty was the first one to speak up.
“Remember when we took that Oscorp field trip and after I was gone for a week? That’s because I got bit by a spider and nearly died. I didn’t though! And now I can stick to walls haha. Next question?”
“Are you close with the Avengers? Are you living with them?” someone else asked.
“Yes actually I am! This is my bedroom in Tony’s penthouse. I live here most of the time, as it’s just easier since I work here, both with the internship and the superhero stuff. As for the Avengers, they’re like one big dysfunctional family. We spend tons of time together, I’d say we’re definitely close. Anyone else?”
“How come you let me push you around all those times? You could have fought back but you just stood there and let me hit you.” Flash spoke at last, his voice a lot more timid than it usually is.
“Because,” a new voice called, “Peter here knew if he fought back you’d turn to picking on others. And since he’s an idiot, he decided to just take all the bullying himself.” The team watched in shock as Tony Stark entered the room. He walked up to Peter and messed up his hair. Peter swatted him away, groaning.”
“Of all the stupid things you’ve done kid, this one surely takes the cake. You didn’t even bother to check that your camera was off before you left? Your little Peter Feeling too strong for you to have common sense?” Tony scolded him, in a way that to most looked like he was genuinely angry, but he and Peter knew to be fake. “Anyways! I’m going to be sending you guys over some NDA’s, and if you comply you all will be getting your college education fully-funded. If any one of you speaks a word of this to the public, I will sue you and your family so fast you won’t have time to blink.”
The whole group happily agreed, promising they wouldn’t reveal Peter’s secret. Tony patted Peter on the shoulder and walked away, shouting something behind him about “tonight’s family dinner”. The group quieted down, all of them finally processing what had happened.
“Well, I think we’ve all had enough practice for one night.” Mj said, deciding to spare Peter. “I’ll see you guys next session. Everyone have a good night.”
And with that, she left the zoom meeting. She pushed back in her chair, looking up at the ceiling. A smile crept its way onto her lips. “Parker you idiot”, she whispered to herself, laughing.