MJ’s phone went off in the darkness of her room and she was answering it without hesitation.
“Peter?”
“Michelle,” she hears him say a little too weakly, her heart stops and she knows, this is it.
“Something’s wrong, MJ,” she hears Ned say, his voice doesn’t sound any better.
“Where are you? What’s wrong?” She’s up and out of bed, desperately looking for something to throw on. “I’m coming.”
“No,” Peter says and he sounds so far away, “is okay. They know. I just wanted to say I love you guys so much.”
“No,” Ned says and he says it a few more times, like a mantra. “You’ll be fine.”
MJ’s reaching around her room, looking for shoes. “Peter, where are you?”
“I’m okay,” he says, but his voice is betraying him, “it’s okay. They gonna come get me. The birdie will come by soon but I want to say things please.”
Neither MJ or Ned say anything, they can hear Peter’s crying and that’s not okay. He sounds so scared.
Peter sobs twice, coughs, and then starts talking. Peter rambles when he’s nervous or anxious, she used to tell him it was annoying but it never was, she never minded hearing him talk. “I’mma be okay maybe but listen, you guys are the best friends I ever had and ever will have. I love you both soooooo much. Is okay and not you guyses fault for this. I messed up and it’s okay. I mess up a lot sometimes. But I want to say I love you lots.”
Peter stops talking and MJ thinks she’s just standing here in her room like an idiot and Peter is out there, somewhere, dying and she is not doing anything. Ned lets out another loud sob. “Peter,” he says, “Peter keep talking to us. It’s okay dude, keep talking.”
And Peter is talking again but she can’t hear him very well, he cries out again and then this time, they can hear him. “Michelle,” he whines, “Ned.”
“We’re here Peter, talk to us,” Ned’s saying in between cries, he sounds as hysteric as MJ feels.
“Imma talkin okay? Imma talkin but is cold and I need a nap. Can I come over and nap? You guys are so comfy. Comfy cuddles. I like that blanket your Grandma made you Michelle. Can I have that blanket?”
MJ can’t even talk anymore but she shallows in a large amount of air, trying so hard to keep it together. “Yes, of course. The green one? I love it too. You can come over anytime and we’ll sit on the couch and watch that stupid cartoon shows you two love so much.”
“Mmmhmmm,” Peter replies, and then he makes a very wet sounding cough, “okay, Imma go now. There are a lot of birds here.”
“Peter!” Both MJ and Ned scream into the line, the name echoing through the phone, but he doesn’t reply and the line goes dead. She’s disconnected from Ned too and she fumbles with the phone in her hands. She tries to remember how to dial someone’s number, but she can’t get her fingers to hit the buttons correctly.
She realizes she’s hyperventilating and all the pent up fear starts bleeding out of her. She cries, sucks in large gulps of air but it feels like all the air in the room left when the call ended. She vaguely hears her Mom knocking on the door.
“Michelle? What happened??”
MJ’s hands are shaking and she can’t think of what to do next. She has to find Ned and Happy and May and they have to go find her stupid, stupid boyfriend who spent his last dying words asking about blankets. “Honey, tell me what’s going on?”
MJ blinks twice and her Mom stands in front of her, looking worried.
“Peter,” she blurts out, tears running down her face and how is she ever going to explain this, so she just blurts it out again. “Peter’s Spider-man and he just.. I think he's dying. Mom, I have to go, I have to find him.”
Her Mom makes a face and then reaches for her daughter’s hands. “Michelle, honey. Breath, what happened?”
MJ’s phone goes off again and she can barely slide the answer button.
“Michelle, it’s Happy. I will be at your house in 10 minutes. I have Ned and May, we’re going to the compound. They are bringing Peter there right now.”
“Peter?” she says in a tiny voice that doesn’t belong to her and she hopes Happy can hear the actual question she’s asking but she doesn't think she can ask it.
“He’s on his way to the compound, they will help him. Can you come downstairs?” Happy’s voice is strong and reassuring but it’s not going to be enough for her.
“Okay.” She hangs up and turns to her Mom. “Happy’s coming to get me, we’re going to … to..,” and she sobs again because they are taking her there to say goodbye to him? To watch him die? He called her and Ned to say goodbye. He thought he was going to die and it’s Peter, the optimist, who sees the good in everything, all the time. MJ can’t breathe still but she has to move. She has to get downstairs and get to Peter.
“Okay,” her mother says to her, “okay, let’s get you dressed and downstairs.”
When Happy’s car pulls up, she doesn’t even wait for it to stop. It’s almost 3 am, it’s still dark out as MJ fumbles for the door handle. She gets in and May and Ned are sitting in the back seat.
She’s hugging them, May’s in the middle and she’s got her arms around both kids. And it’s a disaster because MJ needs this not to be as real as it feels. She needs to wake up to his nightmare.
“It’s okay,” May says, she’s trying to soothe the crying kids but oh god, Peter and they should be the ones telling her it’s okay. “It’s okay, Peter’s in the best hands he could be in. He’ll be fine.”
Time doesn’t have meaning anymore, it could have taken them 5 hours or 5 minutes to reach the compound, all MJ can think about is Peter, Peter, Peter.
-
May doesn’t let them listen when they first get there. She goes off with the doctors while they wait in a small room that has pictures of Avengers on the walls. Names and dates, proud smiling faces. Peter’s picture isn’t up there and MJ wishes it was.
May’s gone for maybe 15 minutes but she tells them everything when she returns. She sits them down and explains what had happened to Peter and what’s happening now. She’s calm about it and it bothers MJ so much. This isn’t the first time May had to explain to crying children that no, not everything is okay right now. She can’t stop thinking about how unfair all of this is.
Whoever the villain of the week Peter was going after, stabbed him. Not a little stabbing, but straight into the gut. It was deep and bad. The guy left Peter there to die. The image is seared into MJ’s mind, of Peter Parker, alone and bleeding out and desperate to tell his friends he loves them.
The first few hours are touch and go. Peter’s healing helps but he can’t regrow or repair where the knife nicked his liver. They don’t get to see him right away, it’s almost better this way. She doesn’t know if she could even look at him without falling apart.
They are put in Peter’s room at the compound. It’s not as decorated as Peter’s actual bedroom, but it smells like him. They sit and wait, eventually Ned falls asleep with his head in MJ’s lap as she rubs his back. May keeps looking at her with a reassuring smile, but it doesn’t feel like enough.
And then, as quickly as it started, it’s over. Peter’s in the clear and he’ll be fine. MJ has to wake up Ned to hear the news and they hug each other so tightly her arms hurt.
They only see Peter for a few minutes, he’s hooked up to machines still and sleeping. He looks peaceful and whole. Happy takes them home and it’s almost lunchtime by then. They can come back tomorrow, he promises them, he will get them back.
MJ goes straight to bed, but before she can close her eyes, the phone rings.
“Hey,” Ned says to her and he doesn’t have to say anything else. She hums at him and puts her phone on speaker, leaving it on the nightstand. She only falls asleep after she can hear Ned’s breathing even out and his soft snores through the phone.
-
MJ brings Peter the blanket when they move him from the medical center to his bedroom at the compound. He’s better, not healed completely but better. He has to stay there for a few more days before he can come back to his apartment and school.
Peter doesn’t say anything when MJ throws the blanket at him, she wonders if he even remembers the conversation. None of them brought up the phone call, they don’t need to.
They sit cross-legged on his bed, Peter’s wearing the blanket as a cape. MJ and Ned bring Peter school work but it’s forgotten in favor of playing Fluxx. MJ loves this game but Peter always focuses on changing the rules and he never wins.
“That’s the point!” He whines he’s in his silly Hello Kitty pajama pants that he refuses to talk about and a black shirt. His hair is wet from the shower he had taken before they got there and he looks happy.
“The point of the game is to win, dude,” Ned laughs at him, throwing down another Keeper card. MJ might win the next round if Peter doesn’t do anything to mess it up.
Peter sticks his tongue out and puts down a card that erases all the existing rules he spent most of the game putting out. He laughs like a maniac like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever done and MJ’s heart is somewhere in her throat. She takes this picture of Peter in her mind, something to tuck away for times when she needs it.
They visit him every day after school and spend the weekends watching movies at the compound. It’s mostly empty but she catches a glimpse of others, they always come and say hi to them, ruffle Peter’s hair and make jokes.
-
When Peter returns to school, they start walking together in the mornings. It’s geographically inconvenient for all of them, but they make it work. They stay attached at the hip during school too and it’s not anything new. Peter isn’t patrolling yet, so they take turns as to whose house they go to each night. It’s never said out loud, there’s no schedule but they fall into a routine.
Her Mom is rarely home, she works a lot. After her Dad left, MJ became used to being alone all the time. She made books her friends clung to them to make it through. She never wanted Ned and Peter to be her friends, they just sort of gravitated towards her and refused to leave. And now it’s harder than ever to break from them. MJ needs them there, needs to see them, needs to touch them.
The peace she used to find in being alone, she now only finds when she’s with them.
And things are good when they are together. They don’t sit around and mope, they watch movies and TV shows. They play board games and MJ learns that Legos are sort of fun. They eat a lot of food (Peter most of all) and MJ thinks, this is what life is supposed to be like for them. This is the life of teenagers who have friends that they love.
The first day Peter goes back to patrol he calls them before he even leaves the house.
He stays on the line with them the whole time, they hear him give someone directions, stop a mugger, and then sit on a rooftop, eating a hot dog. Ned talks about their upcoming English test, they talk through the essays’ that are due in a few days.
Peter only hangs up when he’s back home. He calls the next patrol night and the next and the next until it becomes part of their routine. Sometimes they talk, sometimes MJ reads to them and other times there’s no talking, just comfortable and safe silence.
-
Two weeks go by before something changes. Peter’s on patrol and it’s the first time he’d gotten hurt since his return.
“Do you want me to come over?” Ned asks him, “Mom will drive me.”
“Nah,” Peter says, she can hear him shuffling around and then a click, he’s changed from Karen to his cell phone. “I’m good. I think it’s just a cracked rib. Ah, yeah, big bruise.”
A second later she hears her phone vibrate (it’s on speaker, on her nightstand) and she looks to see Peter had sent them a picture. It’s his reflection in the bathroom mirror, he’s standing in boxer shorts and there’s an angry red mark covering his ribs.
“Dude, ow,” Ned says, “it didn’t even sound like you got hit that hard.”
They had heard it happen, he was chasing down some mugger and when he caught up to him the guy started kicking him. The sound was terrible and MJ was hyperventilating but Ned kept telling her it was fine. It was over in minutes, Peter returning to them, sounding okay but annoyed.
“I told you, man, he had these insanely big boots on,” Peter replies and she can hear his breath catch for a second. “It only hurts when I breathe, which is all the time, so fun.”
“Hmm, maybe next time less smart ass replies and more blocking people who are kicking you,” MJ says, going for sarcastic but she doesn’t have it in her right now. “Alright, boys, bedtime.”
“Actually,” Peter says in a very quiet voice, “think we can stay on the phone?”
“I’m half asleep dude,” Ned says and to prove his point, yawns.
“Can we just… not hang up then? I mean,” Peter hesitates and MJ jumps in because Peter never asks for things like this, and Ned must have the same thought because they are talking at the same time for a second.
“Sure, of course,” they both say and then back to a comfortable silence.
They don’t talk again, instead, they are just all listening. She can tell Peter’s breathing from the shallowness of it, but eventually, it starts to even out. Ned’s always been the snoring one and she can hear the soft sounds of snoring before it gets louder and louder.
She’s the last one to fall asleep.
-
The next time Peter patrols he doesn’t even ask, he just doesn’t hang up when he gets home. They all act like staying on the phone with your best friends until you fall asleep is normal and okay. MJ tries to hang up one night before she’s asleep but she can’t get herself to do it. Rationally, she knows they are both safe, but it’s not the same anymore and she needs to hear them until she falls asleep.
On the night's Peter doesn’t patrol, they are usually together until they have to go home. And one night Ned calls her, even though she saw him 15 minutes ago and then Peter’s on the line and they pick up the conversation they stopped at. And when Ned falls asleep first, as MJ reads her book, neither her or Peter hang up.
And then just like that, it’s every night. No matter how much time they spend together during the day, at night one of them makes the call.
MJ feels like it’s a pavlovian response now, she hears the sounds of her boys breathing and she knows she can sleep. She needs it, she realizes, needs to know they are both okay or she can’t sleep anymore. Sometimes she wakes up suddenly in the middle of the night, reaching for her phone and she can only breathe again when she 's still connected to them. She sees their names on the call, the seconds ticking by. She listens until she knows she can hear them both breathing, then she can sleep.
It’s unhealthy but she doesn’t think she can break herself from it.
-
MJ feels like she’s lost her independence and she hates it. She’s always been an independent person, self-sufficient. When it was her and her parents, she was like that too. Did everything she needed to on her own. When her Dad left, her Mom fell apart and MJ had to pick up the pieces.
When Peter and Ned came crashing into her life, she was okay with helping them. Her boys, she thinks of them, they need all the help they can get. She was scared at first, with making a mistake or not being able to handle it.
Things are different than before and now she’s scared of being without them. Peter’s had an amazing streak of luck on patrols, the injuries are so minor and now that he’s with them the rest of the time, they are always there to help him.
She feels like an anchor for her boys. She holds them, keeps them from drifting away. But she’s anchoring herself there too. Rooting herself and her anxieties to the floor and they aren’t going away. She feels like everything they do makes it worse, the longer she stays anchored to them, the harder it is for her to let go.
-
They are sitting in Peter’s bedroom playing Tsuro. They are a circle around the board, their knees touching with any movement. There are discarded pizza boxes around them, MJ’s fingers are greasy and Ned still has some pizza sauce on the corner of his mouth. Peter has a bruise on his cheek from a wildly thrown punch, it’s already fading away and MJ knows it’ll be gone by morning.
“I’ve been thinking,” MJ starts, trying to find the courage to say any of the words she needs to, “that maybe we should try… spending less time together.”
“You’re breaking up with me?” Ned asks, his eyes still on the board. It’s his turn and he’s thinking before his move. He always takes so long when they play, he likes to think of all the possibilities before he puts down a single part of the map.
“I’m not dating you,” MJ supplies.
“You’re breaking up with me?” Peter then asks, she looks over and he’s smiling at her like this is a joke and she’s going to laugh and say, just kidding. His hair is still long, he complains about it when he’s on patrol when he has to wear his mask. She wonders if she should just offer to cut it for him.
“No,” she says, turning over the piece of the game board in her hand, over and over. She’s already got a place for the part on the map, it’ll help her win eventually. “I’m just saying, as much as I like you two, I also like alone time, special MJ time.”
Neither of them says anything and MJ wonders if they are even listening to her. “Is something wrong?” Ned asks, he finally makes his move on the board. It’s Peter’s turn but he’s not looking at the board or his pieces. His attention is on MJ and it takes every bit of her willpower not to cave and back down.
“No. I mean the world’s a dumpster fire but you guys didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just saying, a little time apart and maybe not on the phone every night would be good for us.”
There’s no agreement about it, Peter breaks eye contact and makes a clumsy move, the card doesn’t make sense where it lands, but he goes with it. Moves his piece down the curve and ends up farther away from the win.
That night when she gets home, she stares at her phone. It doesn’t ring and eventually, she falls asleep.
-
She knows Ned and Peter are still attached at the hip. They don’t act like she has to be and neither of them says a word to her about it. She meets them at their locker, sits with them at lunch but after that, she goes home to her empty house.
At first, it’s overwhelming, the empty silence that fills her apartment. She finds comfort in her oldest friends, her favorite books with pages bent and yellowed. Peter still has her Grandmother’s blanket and she misses the way it feels.
She slowly gets used to filling the empty space around her but she still thinks about her boys more than she wants to admit. Even when they aren’t around, they still fill her thoughts.
The worst is the first night Peter’s on patrol without being on the phone with her. She tries reading her favorite book but she can’t keep her eyes off her phone.
When it buzzes she’s reaching out, breath hitched and heart beating faster by the second.
Ned: spiderkid doing whatever a spiderkid does
MJ: okay?
Ned: yeah he’s fine i thought you’d be worried
MJ: yeah, thanks
When she gets up in the morning, she sees a text from Peter. She freezes before reading, anxiety builds a little. Did something happen? Did she miss something? Is he okay?
Peter: I’m sorry if I was being clingy. I feel better when you guys are around but I understand space is important. Can we have a date night, just you and me next week?
Peter: I’m sure you’re sleeping, shit, sorry if this woke you.
Peter: I love you.
Peter: Shit, sorry.
Peter: I’m bad at this.
Peter: Goodnight, MJ.
It’s early and she doesn’t want to wake him up so she waits to text him until she’s walking to school. She knows she’ll see him soon but it’s easier just to text.
MJ: It’s alright. I like being around you guys, you didn’t do anything wrong. Date night sounds great, whatever you want. And I do, love you. A lot. So, don’t forget that or anything. Also don’t print this text out and frame it because I feel like that’s a thing you’d do.
When she sees him a few minutes later at his locker, he smiles at her. A genuine smile and he doesn’t say anything but slips his hand into hers on their way to class.
-
Ned comes over on a Friday night Peter is on patrol. He doesn’t ask, shows up at her door with dollar store candy. They sit next to each other on the couch, crowded in a corner despite the room. She puts on Family Guy even though she hates it, she knows Ned likes it. He brought her Bullseye candy, her favorite. He’s eating an off-brand of jelly beans, he hates the orange ones and leaves them on a small pile on the coffee table.
“Do you think I should stop hanging around Peter so much?” Ned asks as the on-screen Peter Griffin starts fighting a chicken. They beat each other up, things escalate from on the ground to inside a building to in the air. It’s ridiculous and a cartoon but MJ thinks of her Peter fighting a giant chicken.
“I think that’s up to you,” she responds, not sure how she should tread on this. She loves Ned and knows he loves Peter like a brother. Ned has always been there for Peter, helping him through his bad luck life. She doesn’t want her insecurities to find their way into his life too.
“Yeah,” Ned says, “but I’m asking you for advice. I mean, I want to protect him but I also don’t want him to become so…”
“Protected?” She supplies because she feels the same way too. Peter is a baby bird that needs to fly out of the nest. But Peter is a baby bird that happens to fly straight into danger too. She often feels like she’s trying to protect Peter Parker from Spider-man sometimes.
“I guess. I feel like he’s being super careful and that shouldn’t bother me so much. I’m just worried.”
MJ hums, on-screen Peter won his fight with the bird and the show goes back to a completely unrelated scene. “Me too. I worry about both of you, all the time. That’s why I have to back up a little. It gets too overwhelming sometimes. I think we’re always going to be worried about that dumbass out there.”
Ned sighs, he leans into her side more and she reaches for his hand and squeezes.“Yeah, okay.”
MJ smiles but she doesn’t know if she even said anything that’ll help him.
Peter comes through the window an hour late, he has a black eye and bruises that look like tiny footprints up his arm. He pushes his way between them on the couch, forces them to move so he can sit in the middle. He reaches for Ned’s orange jelly beans and eats the entire handful in one go.
They finish a few more episodes of Family Guy before MJ makes them leave.
-
On a night she knows Ned and Peter are out (movies, something geeky) she goes to Peter’s apartment.
“Michelle,” May greets her, smiling and letting her in, “you just missed the boys.”
“Oh, I know,” she says, she avoided them when they left, waiting until they were down the block before she came to the front door. “I was hoping to talk to you?”
They walk to the couch and MJ sits in the spot she likes the best. May sits on the other side, where she has a book and a cup of tea on the table.
“Everything okay?” May asks her.
MJ didn’t know that May wasn’t related to Peter until after they started dating and it surprised her. Peter takes after her so much, in the way he talks, the way he looks at the world. They have the same way about them, they can both lower your defenses so easily.
“Yes and no,” MJ starts and stops.
“Alright,” May says, “take your time, it’s alright.”
“I’m worried,” MJ starts, “I’m worried about if I’m helping Peter or not. I used to worry about this in different ways before, like if we could fix him up after injuries. And now I worry about it if we’re making him worse by being there. He never wants me or Ned to leave, we spent so many nights on the phone and I couldn’t fall asleep until he was. Is that okay? Is that healthy?”
May takes a deep breath, grabs her tea, and takes a sip before talking. “When Peter’s parents died, he was only six. He didn’t really understand what was happening. When he came and lived with us, he started to not like us to leave the room without him. He clung to Ben the most, he was practically his shadow. It was fine at first, but it started getting hard for both of us to leave for work. We knew we had to help him the best way we could, but it was hard. He’d fall asleep in bed with us every night and when we’d wake up, he’d be holding Ben’s or mine’s shirt in his hand.”
MJ’s seen pictures of baby Peter, they were scattered all over the apartment. She pictures him a tiny kid, curly brown hair, big brown eyes, holding onto shirts, and not letting go. Following his new family around the house, refusing to let them out of his sight.
“It took a while and some therapy, but it eventually started to pass. We’d be able to leave his sightline and he started sleeping in his bed. We thought we’d done really well with him, so Ben and I went out for a date night and left him with a friend of ours. He cried when we left, it was heartbreaking but the therapist told us it would be normal.
“So we left, went to the restaurant. We ordered our food and…we ended up leaving before it even arrived. Neither of us could think about anything other than our kid sitting in the living room, crying. Scared that we’d never come back to him. I think we were gone for 30 minutes at the most, when we got back he was sitting on the couch eating ice cream. He wasn’t crying too much but his eyes were red. I don’t know who was more scared that night, us or Peter. Ben and I were just as scared to leave him sometimes too.”
MJ nods her head. “How do you help someone when you barely feel like you can help yourself?”
May gets up, puts her cup down, and sits beside her. She pulls her gently so her head is against May’s shoulder. She wraps her arm around her and rubs her arm. “You are a wonderful person Michelle and I have no doubt how much you love Peter and Ned. I also know how much they love you and want the best for you. There’s no perfect answer here, I wish I could tell you something wise and thoughtful. I just know that sometimes helping someone else, ends up helping yourself a little too.”
When Peter and Ned come back a few hours later, MJ and May are sitting side by side on the couch watching TV while eating handfuls of popcorn.
-
Three days later, it’s almost bedtime and MJ reaches for her phone. She dials Ned, who picks up and says, “Hold on patching you in” as a greeting.
“Hey,” Peter says when she’s clicked in.
“Hey,” she answers, “what’s up nerds?”
The boys start talking, excitedly about something. MJ really isn’t listening all that much.
This time, she falls asleep first.