It’s a Saturday night, almost 9:45 and Michelle Jones is doing what she always does. She’s sitting along the length of her couch, feet spread out under a knitted blanket, reading a book.
Her phone, which sits on the coffee table, buzzes and makes a familiar sound, she sighs and puts her book down.
Peter had changed her text message alerts several weeks earlier, so when he texts her it’s the sound of Leia saying “I love you” and then Han’s “I know”. MJ tries really hard not to read into it (how can she not).
Peter: hey
MJ: hey yourself
Peter: so, uh, you’re home right?
MJ: Saturday nights are my rave nights, sorry.
Peter: buzz me in
MJ tosses her book and phone back onto the coffee table and hits her buzzer. She opens the front door, peeking her head out into the hallway. Peter comes a few minutes later, he’s wearing a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie.
She moves aside and he walks in, she notices he’s moving a lot slower than he usually does and when she sees his face his color is all wrong.
“You alright?” she asks, he stands in the middle of the living room and drops his school bag on the floor.
“Uh, yeah, sorta. Do you think I can borrow your shower and med kit?” He asks in a sheepish kind of voice like it’s not something he desperately needs.
“Of course, you know where it’s at.”
MJ knows that if things were really bad, he’d tell her. He might keep things to himself, but he’s also not stupid. He disappears into her room and comes out with an old tattered backpack. He had started leaving them at her house a few weeks ago, some extra clothes and a medkit. She knows he has one at Ned’s house too and maybe some others.
“Bad night?” she calls out to him, he’s in the bathroom but the door’s still open.
“Not completely,” he calls back, and then she can hear the door slowly close and the sound of running water. She grabs her phone.
MJ: spiderkid is here 2 maybe 3
Ned: bleeding or?
MJ: don’t think so, looks beat up
Ned: good
It’s become a ritual to send texts like this to each other and it’s certainly not the best code system. Anyway, if someone stole any of their phones, Peter’s secret is out the door in a second based on photos alone.
The water turns off only 5 minutes later and MJ rolls her eyes at this. Peter is so worried about using up hot water that he never, ever showers as long as he should have. One day she’s going to force him to stay in there until he can prove his fingers are pruned.
She sees Peter come out over the top of her phone. He’s in his oldest pair of blue jeans, full of non-fashion related holes and starting to become maybe a bit too small for him. His hair curls so delicately when it’s wet, it’s almost sickening. He’s holding a bandage in one hand and his medkit in the other.
He’s also shirtless and bruised to high heavens. There are very little parts of him that MJ can see, that aren’t some shade of purple, green, or black.
“Do you think you can help?” Peter asks, walking over to her. He turns slightly, so she can see his side, and oh, there’s a stab wound.
“You were stabbed?” She questions, getting up and walking him over to the kitchen table. “I thought we talked about how you need to lead conversations with things like this.”
“It’s fine, it’s not deep. I would have taken care of it myself but,” he tries to turn and reach the spot, he can sort of get there but it’s clear he couldn’t have done anything on his own. He pulls out the kitchen chair and sits down, MJ can practically feel him wincing.
She grabs the other items they need, Peter has almost everything else in his small medkit. When she comes back into the kitchen Peter is sitting in the chair, his head back and his eyes closed. He looks tired, which isn’t really new, but maybe a bit more tired than he usually does. He has a series of small black and blue marks along his collarbone, it almost looks like a necklace.
“Any other parts of you stabbed?” she starts, grabbing paper towels and sitting across from him.
“Nah, I’m good. Just beat up a little.”
Peter adjusts how he’s sitting, so MJ has the best access to the deep red cut on his side. Peter’s right, it’s not very deep, but definitely needs stitches. Thankfully she knew how to do it. Peter had taught her and Ned once, showed them YouTube videos, and went over it a few times. Watching him stitch his arm once, made her heart hurt because what 16 year old should be so good at providing his own first aid. It’s definitely not fair.
She starts slowly, humming absentmindedly to herself. Peter is very clearly trying not to wince or squirm under her careful hands. She hates hurting him like this but the amount of local anesthetic Peter would need is way more than a bunch of teenagers can get. MJ pauses before the last few stitches, Peter’s breathing is still a little too heavy.
“Do you need a break?” she asks him, but she knows his answer.
“I’m good, I’m good.”
She sighs and starts again, this time trying to go even more delicately against the skin. It’s red and angry looking, but it’s clear Peter had done a good job cleaning it.
“Tell me about your day?” he asks her, his eyes closed very tightly and his voice wavering ever so.
He likes it when she does this when she talks to him. Sometimes if he’s hurt or tired, he’ll call her and ask her about her day. Most of the time he falls asleep after 15 minutes, but MJ doesn’t hate it at all. She’s happy she can provide some kind of comfort for him.
“I got up around 8 which is late for me but y’know….” and she keeps going, telling him the most minor details about her day, what she ate, what she did, how much she read. She tells him the part of the book she just finished.
She puts a bandage over the wound and puts her hand on Peter’s arm, making sure to avoid any bruising.
“Thanks,” he says in a quiet voice. They sit for a few minutes, Peter’s breathing getting more and more even, more relaxed. She keeps her hand on his arm, rubbing her thumb slowly up and down, up and down the little patch of skin. “Can I hang out and watch TV?” He finally asks her, turning his head to look at her.
“I guess,” she replied flatly but gets up, leans over, and kisses the bridge of his nose. He smells like the flowery body wash her Mom buys and antiseptic. It’s a weird but endearing combination. She cleans up the medkit and everything else, while Peter disappears back into the bathroom and comes back out with a shirt on. If this is the future, where’s my jet back? it begs across the top.
She’s already on the couch and he comes over, he sits, leans down and makes a pillow out of her lap. She turns on the TV, flips around the channels until they get to an episode of Rick and Morty.
“Ohh, I like this one,” Peter chimes in and MJ puts the remote back down. She brings her hand down to his head, carding her hand in his hair, it’s still a little wet, but it’s okay. She curls her fingers around strands of hair that’s already a bit curly. “I’ll need a haircut soon,” Peter says from beneath her, voice already covered in sleep.
“Hmm, I like it long.”
Peter’s snoring softly before the first commercial break.
-
MJ and Ned are sitting in their first-period classroom and she can’t stop looking at her phone. Peter is late, which isn’t new, but he’s also not responding to texts. She looks down at her phone again.
MJ: Are you going to be late?
MJ: I take your silence and lack of being here as a yes.
MJ: Okay, you’re 10 minutes late now. Just a heads up. I told Mr. Stifling you missed your bus.
MJ: Now it’s 20 minutes late. You have 10 minutes to text either Ned or I or we call Happy.
She’d sent the last one 5 minutes ago and she’s hoping not to go through with her threat. Ned is sitting on her right, his desk scooted a bit closer than it usually is. Their teacher is talking and MJ hasn’t heard a word of it. She wonders just how much school she’s gonna miss out on because of Peter Parker.
Ned clumsily passes her a note.
He’s fine, maybe he just fell into the river again and his phone stopped working.
MJ really hates that that’s a thing she has to be worried about. She has to worry about her boyfriend falling into the river or getting stabbed.
Her phone buzzes and she almost screams in relief.
Peter: bthrm
It’s not the best but it’s better than nothing. She gets up from her desk. “Lady problems,” she mumbles and is out the door in a second. She could hear Ned scrambling behind her and then they were taking the hallway at a light jog.
“Bathroom?” Ned asks. She nods and they turn down the hallway. There was a set of locker rooms at the school that no one used. The door had been locked for years and after they found it, they used it as their secret headquarters.
They slip into the side door of the gym, thankfully there aren’t any classes going on. They duck behind the bleachers, the entrance to the locker room was tucked forgotten behind them.
When they get in, Peter’s laying on the floor, hands covering this side. He’s suit on, but his mask is off to the side. MJ can see blood pooling behind him.
She drops beside Peter as Ned grabs a hidden medkit from a closed locker. They are a well-oiled machine at this point.
“Where?” she asks him, Peter’s face is very pale and his mouth is slack. She has no idea how he managed to get back here in this state.
“Left side. Bite,” Peter finally chokes out. He’s not crying, but his eyes are red and glossy. He moves his hand from his side and MJ can see where his suit is ripped and there’s a very angry looking bite underneath.
“Not spider this time,” he says with a smile on his face, his eyes closed. MJ is helping to get him out of the suit, it’s easier if she can have full access to his side. She’s careful in peeling back the suit from his arms and then down his side. When she’s done, he’s laying in boxers and there’s not a single hint of embarrassment between them.
“What kind of animal?” Ned asks him, they start trying to wash the wound. It’s always the first step, make sure it’s clean, make sure it can’t get infected.
“Dog,” Peter says and he coughs, “stopped a dog fighting ring.”
“How on Earth did you find yourself in the middle of stopping a dog fighting ring before 8 am?”
Peter tries to shrug but doesn’t seem to have the power to do it. He smiles and finally opens his eyes. “Skills.”
They’ve stopped the bleeding pretty well, the wound is covered in gauze. “Did you lose a lot of blood already?” Ned asks him, he’s looking over the rest of Peter’s body, carefully. This is another step, treat the worst part and then find the others. He’s got other marks, some look like smaller bites, others like nails. There are a handful of bruises right above his navel, but MJ knows those are from a week or so ago.
“Eh, not a lot,” Peter says, “it just looks worse than it is.”
He sounds rough like he’s holding back a lot but he’s fine else wise. They help clean other marks, the scratches, and bites, but none of them need stitches. MJ puts a Hello Kitty bandaid over a small cut on his knee, mostly just to see the look of annoyance on Peter’s face.
Once they can see the bite stops bleeding, Peter starts to get some color back in his face. They have to stitch it closed, not too many. Peter’s finally allowed to sit up and MJ grabs the food and drink they also hide in there.
Ned helps Peter into pants and a tee-shirt, the outline of the bandage is only visible if you know where to look. MJ hands over her hoodie, she knows Peter would feel better wearing as many layers as possible.
They chit chat throughout the whole ordeal, talking about everything and nothing. If anyone heard them talking in the locker room, they’d never believe they were cleaning blood from each other and the floor.
“You guys should go,” he says, he’s eating a protein bar and looking good. “It’s almost next period.”
“Are you coming to class?” MJ asks him, she and Ned get up and they make sure they aren’t covered in blood or anything else.
“Yeah, maybe next period.”
MJ and Ned go back to class, slip in with only 30 minutes left. After, Peter’s waiting for them by his locker, smiling and whole.
-
Over three months MJ learns how to treat poison ivy (who knew there was poison ivy in Queens?), second degree burns, concussions, and a broken wrist.
Peter can heal, but it’s not instantaneous. He still hurts like everyone else. His skin still breaks and he bleeds. He limps and he coughs and he aches. But then he leaves her apartment nursing a broken wrist and the next day he’s just a little sore with it, nothing more.
Sometimes she feels confident, Peter’s up and moving quickly and looks like he’s alive. Other times she’s not, she’s standing on a ledge waiting for a light breeze to push her off. Peter promises, promises that if it’s bad he will get actual real-life adults to help him.
MJ becomes an expert on Peter watching, she can tell when he’s hurt before he even opens his mouth. Can tell when it’s a little thing or when it’s a big one. She just keeps, waiting and waiting, until the day comes where she can’t help him. MJ learns to read Peter like a map.
She reads as much as she can on first aid. Goes to the library and checks out all the books on dealing with gunshots, electrical burns, and poison gas. She can’t be too careful. She needs to be prepared. She becomes an expert on stitches, can place them with her eyes closed.
And it hurts because MJ is in over her head and she has no idea what to do. She’s never felt like this before, she always knows the answer.
Ned helps her as much as he can but she can tell he’s scared sometimes too. Ned provides the jokes that MJ can’t make when Peter’s eye is swollen shut. Ned makes sure Peter eats when MJ is too busy being worried about the electrical burn on his leg. They pick up each other’s slack, bouncing the panic and anxiety between them. Catch each other if they stumble, if MJ’s hands are shaking too much or if Ned feels nausea from the blood.
And Peter takes it all. He takes their help, however stumbling and scary it may seem. Doesn’t complain when they accidentally hurt him or when they can’t fix it right away. He just smiles and makes a joke. He thanks them, he sits there patiently and quiet but MJ knows sometimes he’s just as scared as they are.
She doesn’t know what scares her more, the thought of having to help him or the thought of not being able to.
-
On a Tuesday in their first-period class, she notices Peter favoring his right hand a little bit more than usual. He hesitates when using his left to grab something but that’s it. Just the hand, otherwise he’s normal.
At lunch, she grabs at his left arm and holds it. “What’s wrong?”
“Huh?” Peter asks, absentmindedly, he’s trying to eat his sandwich but MJ pulls at his arm until he puts it down.
“Something is wrong with your hand, I can tell. Lemmie see.”
Peter rolls his eyes. “It’s nothing.”
Ned looks up from his sandwich. “Just let us see it.”
Peter sighs and holds his hand, palm up.
There, so tiny, is a splinter in the center of his palm.
MJ almost cries in relief. Splinter, oh thank god.
“I don’t know where it came from,” Peter says and he sounds a little embarrassed, “I noticed it when I got to school. It’s nothing.”
Neds already in his backpack and MJ knows he’s looking for tweezers. They have these kits they made, they looked up information online about medical kits and started gathering items to have on them at all times. Just in case, just in case.
Ned doesn’t even ask Peter or says anything, he leans over the table and starts going at the splinter.
“Owwwww,” Peter whines as Ned pinches the delicate skin of his palm. MJs almost laughs because just the other day she was watching Ned apply 20 layers of burn ointment on Peter’s right arm from a road rash that looked like his skin was ripped off and Peter didn’t even make a sound.
But now Ned is pinching him and Peter’s twitching and almost yanks his hand away.
“Got it,” Ned finally says and pulls the tiny splinter out. Peter’s palm looks fine, just a red mark, a tiny dot. It’ll be gone by the end of the school day. He shows MJ his palm of his hand, waves it in front of her before going back to his sandwich.
-
It’s a Saturday night and Peter is asleep between Ned and MJ. Curled into a tiny ball of a human on his bed. His head is on her knee and she’s rubbing his neck and shoulders. He isn’t hurt, he’s fine. His patrol was easy but he came into his room, saw his friends, and just crawled into bed between them and slept. It’s common, almost a comfort on nights he comes back and only wants sleep.
“What if we can’t help him?” MJ asks Ned, they are both on their phones. She doesn’t want to wake Peter but she doesn’t know if she can keep this inside anymore. There hasn’t been a disaster in weeks but it just feels like it’s looming behind them.
Ned puts his phone down and looks down at Peter. “We’re never going to let it get to that point. We’ll call someone.”
MJ’s fingers curl around the hair at the nape of Peter’s neck. He still hasn’t gotten the haircut he wants. MJ still likes it better this way. “It’s just, what if we don’t know what that point is? What if he doesn’t tell us? What if he can’t get to us? We aren’t the Avengers, we don’t have everything. We’re just teenagers.”
Her voice is coming out more panicked than she ever thought it could. She’s feeling scared and nothing is wrong, Peter is right there, she’s holding him. She can feel him breathing beneath her.
Ned’s silent and he looks scared now too and she regrets it. “Sorry,” she says softly. This isn’t her, this is someone else who is scared and worried, who doesn’t know what to do. She wants to go back to her old self and she wants to find that confidence she feels is slipping away.
“Hey, that’s my line,” Peter says from below her, he’s looking up at her with tired eyes. He sits up and lays himself against her side, reaches over and pulls Ned to his other side. They are huddled together, like tiny children.
“I don’t want you to die,” Ned says softly.
“That’s good because I really don’t want to either,” Peter says, “and you guys are doing fine. I wouldn’t be alive if I didn’t have you guys. Sorry if I don’t say that enough.”
“It’s not that simple,” MJ says, anxiety finally pulling her down, waves against the shore, “we are kids, Peter. We might be smart but we’re not good at everything and I can’t keep reading books and watching YouTube videos and just hoping you don’t show up missing a limb or something worse.”
“Hey, hey,” Peter says, he grabs her hand and holds it, “you can’t always think like that. I know you and Ned and I know you guys would never let anything really bad happen to me. If I show up missing an arm, you guys would get me to where I need to be. I don’t expect you guys to do everything,” he falters on his words for a second, “I just need you guys to be there. That’s all.”
Ned sighs loudly. “I thought this whole best friend is a superhero thing would be significantly less angst-filled.”
MJ laughs, feels the anxiety inside of her slowly sliding away. Not gone, but sliding away back into the ocean. “I thought my life would be significantly less angst-filled and then I had you start liking you two idiots and now I’m a teen movie cliche. Thanks.”
“We’ll be fine,” Peter says and yawns, “you guys forget I was doing this for like 6 months without any help.”
“Impressive,” MJ says to him, she rubs her thumb on the top of his hand, where she can reach, “I can’t promise I’m not going to freak out about this again.”
“Hmm,” Peter says, burying into her side a little more.
“You can’t fall asleep to avoid this,” MJ says, half-heartedly. She can see Ned’s eyes are closed now too.
“Mmhmm,” Peter mumbles, “less worry, more sleep.”
MJ smiles and breaths. “Yeah, okay.”