Chapter 5
spideyupdates: personal update guys--i have more than one friend! i think
Nleeeeds: @spideyupdates what does that mean. text me back whore
Truth be told, Peter wasn’t one hundred percent sure where he stood with Michelle; all he knew was they were in a better boat than they were a week ago. She doesn’t yell at him anymore. She doesn’t berate him constantly, and although she’ll still say some rude things towards him, it was sarcastic. It was funny. They were able to joke around with each other, and it felt natural.
To say that they were friends, however, was a bit of a strech. They only stuck to school topics--Decathlon, their history project, Ms. Moore’s distracting mole--after that first afternoon work session. Michelle still noticed Peter’s cuts and bruises. She would stare at them for an unnescasarily long time, biting her lip in thought, opening her mouth like she was going to say something but… Nothing ever came out. She’d smile at him and go back to drawing on the poster, like she wasn’t worried about him.
Even during snack breaks, their conversations were mind numbing. Michelle would ask how trig was, the only class Peter didn’t have with her, and he’d respond with, “It was boring. How was drawing?” And she’d say, “Fun,” and that would be it. Every day. Like clock work.
Peter didn’t know what to say to her. He knew that she knew who he was, but she didn’t know that he knew who she was. And obviously Michelle didn’t want Peter to know, otherwise she would have said something to him when she found out. His predicament for someone of his social skills was almost unnavigable.
He was trying his best to elongate the project as much as possible, so that maybe one of those days, he’d get the courage to say something meaningful. Something that would start a connection between them.
A few days after they started, Peter felt that bravery. That Thursday was going to be the day. He was going to talk to her, really have a conversation with Michelle, whether it be about his crippling fears or why Halloween was the best holiday.
When she arrived at his house that day, most of that bravery went away.
They were going to walk together after Decathlon practice, but after a cellphone conversation with her father, Michelle came up to Peter, apologizing profusley. “I am so sorry, Peter. I’ve just gotta go home for twenty minutes, and then I’ll come over. My dad is being--” She stopped herself, looking up at him like why am I telling him this? “I’m sorry.”
Peter, instead, trudged home alone. A quater of the way he walked with Ned, who boasted about his new girlfriend Betty and their next date. “She’s so awesome, Pete. Would you mind if she came to our movie night tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?” He repeated. Peter thought Betty was nice; she always said hi to him in the halls and let him copy off the homework he missed, but he’d feel awkward sitting on the same couch with the couple.
“MJ came!”
“That’s different. Michelle isn’t my girlfriend--”
Ned interrupted, “Might as well be, you hang out with her everyday.”
“Well, she’s not! And you invited her. Not me.” Ned stared up at him with pouty eyes and put his hands together, mouthing please. “She can come. Next week.”
He jumped up with pride. “You’re the best, Pete. Hey, did I tell you about the time I accidentally snorted ketchup? Well, I did it again.”
When Peter got home, he quickly patroled, succsesfully helping a pregnant woman carry her groceries for a few blocks and stopping a purse theft. He took a shower after that, made a PB&J, shoved it down his throat, and waited for Michelle. He waited and waited and waited.
Well, he didn’t wait that long. Peter was “incredibly impatient,” as May and many of his teachers described him. So what was actually an hour, felt like six.
Michelle texted him, Around the crnr. He ran down the stairs, deciding to wait for her outside, and heard her before he saw her.
“I’m not a child!” she shouted.
“Then maybe you should stop acting like one,” a male voice retorted. Mr. Jones. Peter looked down the side walk and saw Michelle--in the same yellow sweater she wore at school--angerly walking in front of her father.
She whipped around. “No, you need to stop treating me like one. I make mistakes, dad. I’m not always the perfect little girl you think I am.”
Michelle started walking again, and when she spotted Peter, her face dropped. Her father took the oppurtunity to take a jab at both of them. “This all started when you became friends with him. You are so much better than this stupid boy, Michelle, stop wasting your energy on him.”
“I--” her face turned red. Now on the bottom of the steps, she glanced at Peter. “I don’t waste my energy on him! Peter has nothing to do with this.”
“I’d beg to differ. He is ruining you.” Mr. Jones scoweled at him; Peter stayed perfectly still, afraid that if he moved, they would both team up on him.
Michelle straightened her posture, a mischievous grin sprouting. She looked at her dad, then at Peter, and back to her father. “You want to see me wasting my energy, dad? You wanna see what it really means to waste my energy?”
“Michelle--” he scolded, not liking her tone. Peter was lost. What was she going to do?
She walked up the steps hastily, placing her hands on Peter’s shoulder as soon as he was in reach. And before he knew it, Michelle’s lips were against his, her fingers in his hair, her vanilla scent overcoming him. Peter slightly jerked back in surprise. However, he still found himself placing his hands on Michelle’s hips. He found himself bringing her closer, he found himself kissing back, he found himself wanting more when she pulled back.
When she did, they both kept their eyes closed, but only for a moment. Her thumb trailed across his jaw, her left hand entagled in his curls. Her body was pressed against his and it felt… It felt right.
“Now that,” she said once pulling back, at a loss of breath. Michelle looked over at her father, who wore a permanate scowl on his face. “Now that was a waste of my energy.” Then, she stormed inside Peter’s apartment complex.
The way she said it, though--you could tell that she was lying.
spidermfans: i messed up @ spider-man please drop kick me into hell
Michelle got a B+ on her English exam.
Her father went balistic when he found out; yelling about how she didn’t apply herself anymore, now that she had Peter, and that Peter was corrupting her mind. It was all about Peter. It was a foreign idea, apparently, that Peter Parker was the only source of her troubles. As if her father wasn’t overbearing and controlling. As if she didn’t miss her mother.
If Michelle wanted to prove how Peter wasn’t a bad influence, she wouldn’t have kissed him. It was a crazy, bat shit idea that she would be punished for for the rest of her life. But when she saw him--standing there awkwardly, in an outfit he hadn’t worn at school, and a growing sympathetic expression--it was the only thing she could think of. To get her dad off her back, at least. Michelle didn’t have a burning desire to make out with Peter Parker.
At least, she didn’t before she kissed him.
The problem was that Peter kissed her back. He made an effort to pull her close and move his head in sync with her’s. The hem of Michelle’s shirt was raised just a tiny bit, but Peter’s pinky fingers had managed to touch her bare skin, sending shivers down her spine. He smelt good; freshly showered, with cologne she would normally make fun of. And oh god-- Peter’s hair was soft, so soft Michelle would later dream about playing with it. Although she only had one other person to compare it to, Peter was an amazing kisser. Harry Osborn had nothing on him.
They entered his apartment and started working as if nothing happened. Peter offered her a soda, she accepted, and then they debated if Michelle should draw a rat on the poster or not. You could cut the tension with a butter knife, but neither of them said a word about it.
They took turns staring at each other. Michelle could feel his eyes on her when she had her head down, probably judging her for her bad choices. When she stared at him, though, Michelle thought about where he learned how to kiss like that. She thought about kissing him again.
Jesus, maybe her dad was right. Peter was corrupting her.
“I’m sorry, Peter,” she eventually blurted out. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Peter chewed on his pencil, only looking up at her for a second. “It’s no biggie,” he shrugged.
“You only say ‘it’s no biggie’ when it is a biggie. I mean--when it’s a big deal.” She was flustered. Maybe if he stopped chewing on that fucking pencil then Michelle would regain her composure.
“Give me one example--”
“Your weird bruises. I’ve bought the wrestling class excuse long enough, even though I saw through that bullshit immediatly. Do you know how many times you left in the middle of the day and came back with black eyes in the past two weeks alone? Six times. Wreslting class my ass.”
Peter slammed the pencil down, groaning in frustration. “Well, I mean it this time. It’s not a big deal, Michelle.”
“Yes it is!” she demanded. “I used you to piss my dad off. I shouldn’t have done that and I apologize. Peter, I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“Either tell me where you go when you ditch class or accept my apology. Look,” she continued, hesitantly, “I know a kiss might not be a big deal to you, but it is to me. I’ve only ever kissed one other boy, and--”
“Wait,” Peter spoke over her, “why wouldn’t it be a big deal to me?”
Michelle stammered to find an answer. She couldn’t flat out just say you’re an awesome kisser so you’ve obviously had practice. “W-well usually boys don’t… They don’t care as much? And I’m just assuming you and Liz--You guys were kind of a thing.”
“We never did anything,” he said matter of factly, like it was a well known thing. “I’ve never done anything.”
“That was your first kiss?” She felt about twenty times worse, but was also amazed. Peter was naturally good at everything.
“Why’d you say it like that?”
Michelle stiffled down a laugh. “It’s just--You’re a Stark internship hot shot. I thought the girls would be fighting over you. And, y’know, it was… A pretty decent kiss.”
He looked up at her, his mouth ajar, but slowly forming into a smirk. “Decent, huh?”
“Don’t get so high and mighty, Parker. I said decent. Anyways, accept my apology or tell me who beats you up every day.”
When he smiled and playfully rolled his eyes, Michelle couldn’t help but grin back. “You stole my first kiss from me, Michelle, but nevertheless, I accept your apology.”
A moment passed, and then two, and they were still locked in a gaze and smiling. “Peter,” she started, “People who have kissed me get to call me MJ. It’s a rule.”
“That’s all I had to do to get this honor?” he joked. “If I knew that, I would’ve kissed you a long time ago.”
Michelle chuckled and got back to work on the rat drawing. Eventually, she expected to hear Peter’s fingers to begin slamming on the keyboard, but it never came. When she looked up, he blurted, “Do you want to hang out sometime where we, uh, don’t do this?”
“L-like a date?”
“No! Not a date just—a friendly hang out where we don’t have to worry about a plague from hundres of years ago or other people. But not a date. No date.”
With the stunt she just pulled, her father would never let her. But Peter seemed so hopeful, so proud of himself for even asking, and she did just steal one of his important milestones… “Sure, Parker.”
He beamed. “Seriously? Awesome. How about Coney Island on Saturday?”
“Awesome,” she simply replied. They stared intensely; Michelle noticing the exact moment a new thought popped into Peter’s head, his smile fading, his breathing shallowing.
“MJ—” he started, unnaturally, not used to it yet.
“Let’s get back to work, Peter,” Michelle stopped him, nervous for what he was going to say. She didn’t want to know.
In a span of less than an hour, her relationship with Peter had grown immensely. Michelle almost trusted him—she thought about telling him about her troubles with her father a lot. And she had started to look at him differently, and not just in the “oh wow, maybe he is attractive,” kind of way. In the “oh wow, he’s actually a good person and I never should have judged him so quickly,” kind of way. He didn’t pressure her to share and he didn’t say anything that would’ve set her over the edge. Peter was funny and he was nice and…
And everything with him felt natural. Talking to him, not talking to him, kissing him—everything.