Chapter 14
A week has passed.
MJ hasn’t sent one text, hasn’t liked or commented on any of his posts. Hasn’t even posted.
He did run away after she saw his Spiderman suit, but who wouldn’t? It was a knee-jerk reaction, a moment of panic.
Peter hadn’t expected her to just ghost him in return.
He scrolls through her Instagram, but can’t bring himself to ask her how she is. He assumes it’s fair to say that they’re both being stubborn about this.
Morgan climbs onto a stool at the kitchen island beside him and tugs on his t-shirt sleeve. “Petey, I wanna go to the park!”
“I can take you later, Mo.”
“I wanna see MJ, too! She’s good at playing dinosaurs!”
Peter sighs. “MJ isn’t coming.”
Tony looks up, surprised, then goes back to making breakfast, pretending not to notice.
She deflates a bit. “Why not?!”
“Morgan!” Pepper calls out. “Come make your bed before I throw all of your toys away!”
“Not my toys!” she yells, jumping off of the chair and scrambling out of the room.
Peter puts his phone down and stirs his Cheerios absentmindedly.
Tony faces him from across the kitchen island, a dish towel thrown haphazardly over his shoulder. “You gonna tell me what’s going on with your girlfriend?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Peter argues.
“Did you two break up?”
“We were barely even dating, so I wouldn’t exactly call it a breakup.”
“What’d you do, kid?” Tony jokes.
Peter holds his head in his hands. “That’s the thing! I don’t know what I did!”
“You sure about that?”
He goes back to his cereal, debates telling Tony the truth about MJ finding out his secret. On the one hand, he trusts her, even though they’re not talking, but on the other, he worries about SHIELD finding out and what that would mean for MJ.
“Is this about sex?”
“What?! No!” Peter’s spoon falls to his bowl.
“If you’re not comfortable talking to May about it, I’d be happy-”
“I promise that this has nothing to do with sex, Tony!” Peter argues, squeezing his eyes closed as his cheeks redden.
“Come on, kiddo, we’ve all been there before. It starts with consent-”
“I understand consent! I don’t need the sex talk! This isn’t even about sex!” Peter is up and halfway out of the room when Morgan and Pepper enter the kitchen.
“Mommy, what’s sex?” Morgan asks, Pepper staring daggers at Tony as she covers Morgan’s ears.
X
“And then he was like if you’re not comfortable talking to May about it, I’d be happy to! It’s all about consent! And then Morgan was asking what sex is and I had to leave the room!”
Ned looks horrified. “Yikes on bikes. That’s…rough, man.”
“Yeah, and on top of that, MJ and I haven’t spoken in over a week, so…”
Ned’s been on a camping trip with his cousins, had spotty cell service. That, and Peter didn’t want to bother him. Not when he was hoping MJ would reach out.
Only that never happened.
“Dude, what did you do?!” Ned asks.
Peter relays every detail of what happened as they make some adjustments to his suit in Tony’s lab.
“I mean,” Ned starts, typing some code into his laptop. “Did you really expect her to reach out after that?”
Peter’s taken aback, lifts the tools in his hands away from his suit. “What do you mean?”
“Peter, from what you just told me, you were a hot mess express of emotion the entire day. You called her a liar and pushed her away. And then she saw your Spidey suit, wanted to have an honest talk about it, and you ran. I don’t really blame her for being hurt. You were kind of an asshole.”
“I was not being an asshole!” Peter insists. “And I never called her a liar!”
“Did you apologize a thousand times?”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“I’m going to assume that’s a yes. You apologize profusely when you feel like you’re inconveniencing people and when you know you’re being an asshole.”
“I was inconveniencing her, that’s why I apologized.”
“While also being an ass.”
“I wasn’t!”
“Did she outwardly call you an asshole?”
Peter doesn’t answer, just goes back to tinkering.
“Man, only you could finally get a girlfriend and lose her all in one day,” Ned says, chuckling.
“Not funny.”
“It’s hilarious!”
“I’m glad someone is enjoying this.” A spark flies from where one of his tools makes contact with a connection in his suit. “Fuck!”
“Take a break before you short-circuit yourself.”
He sighs, throws the tools down. “Do you think she’ll text me? Eventually?”
“Well, she can’t avoid you forever. Not with school starting back up in three weeks.”
Shit. He hadn’t factored in having to see her at school, decathlon, and support group.
Ned shrugs. “Maybe you need to just give her some space for now. Figure your own shit out, you know?”
“I don’t have shit to figure out,” he grumbles.
“Peter,” Ned says, turning his computer chair around. “I’m saying this as your best friend: You have to stop running from important conversations. It’s why you keep exploding on everyone.”
“What?! When have I ever run away from anything?! I’m usually running toward it while everyone else is running!”
“That’s my point, Peter. You never used to be like this. Ever since you got sick, you’ve just been running away from everything.”
“Because this is hard, Ned! You have no idea what this has been like!”
“Because you won’t let me in, Peter! Look, you’re doing it right now! And you just did it to MJ, did it to Tony after everything-“
“Tony exploded on me first! And MJ kept prying, so I’m not exactly sure what she expected me to do!”
“So you admit that you exploded on her and treated her unfairly?”
Peter does not want to deal with this right now. Does not want to think about it, process it, swim in the murky pool of emotions bubbling beneath the surface.
Ned closes his laptop and stands up. “You invited me over because you wanted me to reassure you that your tiff with MJ wasn’t as big a deal as you know it is, that everything with your diabetes and Tony is fine when you know it’s not. I’m not going to stand here and lie to you, Peter. I’m your best friend. If anyone is supposed to tell you the truth, and give it to you as straight as possible, it’s me.”
“You’re jealous of me.”
It slips out despite the fact that Peter knows it’s not true.
Ned’s eyes a wide. “I’m what now?”
“You’re just jealous that I have a girlfriend, that I work with NASA, that I’m an Avenger! You’ve always been jealous!”
“Peter, I’m a lot of things, but I am not jealous.”
He knows he should stop, but he finds himself continuing with, “You should leave.”
Ned grabs his laptop and heads for the elevator, turning only when the doors open. “And you should start dealing with your shit before you lose everyone.”
X
“Your birthday’s coming up,” Tony reminds him when they return from a false alarm mission.
Peter pulls his mask down and groans. “Don’t remind me.”
Tony’s out of his suit in seconds thanks to the nanobots. “Cannoli cake filling? Ice cream cake?”
“Neither. Don’t really wanna celebrate.” Peter deflates his suit and begins to pull it away.
“How about Funfetti?” Can’t go wrong with Funfetti.”
“It’s fine, Tony. I’d rather not do anything. It’s not like I have any friends to celebrate with anyway.”
Friends he pushed away. On purpose. He thought this would be easier, not having to worry about hiding how he’s really feeling from everyone, but it’s just been lonely in a way he wasn’t expecting. He’s spent the last few days playing games with Morgan and he’s not sure he can stand one more round of Pretty Pretty Princess.
“You’ve got family,” Tony reasons. “Family who will be very upset if there’s no cake on someone’s birthday.” There’s sarcasm in his voice, and Peter knows he’s just trying to cheer him up, but the situation is way beyond that by now.
He shrugs. “Then buy a cake and eat it without me.”
Tony sighs. “Underoos. Come on. It’s-”
“I promised Morgan I’d take her to the park when we got back,” he interjects, monotone, suit limp over his arm as he goes for the elevator.
“Kid, don’t walk away from me.” Tony’s voice shifts, grows sterner. “You can’t just keep walking away when things get hard!”
Maybe Ned was right, Peter thinks. I keep walking away from everything I don’t want to face.
He knows it just makes everything harder in the end, that maybe everything that’s been happening is his fault, but he’s so numb. So tired. Feeling so guilty and like a burden that he just can’t fathom processing any of it.
So he keeps on walking.