Chapter 6
@Nleeeeds sent you a message: “@spidermfans: what do you wear to a not-date with someone you could POTENTIALLY ****?” i think mj fell in love with you after she kissed you
P: shut up
At school the next day, Peter made a point to mention their Coney Island trip whenever possible. “Hey, Mich-- MJ, what’s your favorite thing to do at Coney Island?” “MJ! You like snow cones? They have those at Coney Island.” “Ned’s favorite roller coaster is The Cyclone. That’s at Coney Island, Michelle. Uh, MJ.” (Michelle thought it was cute how many times he tripped up on her name. He’d always blush and scratch the back of his neck.)
He showed her pictures of the numerous times he and Ned had gone, telling her, “This will be us in twenty eight hours. We will bond so hard, MJ.” So, as one would, Michelle thought he was excited about it. She didn’t think she would have to remind him the day of.
But, alas, she trusted Peter too much.
Michelle put on a skirt for him. A black mid-thigh skirt, with a Spider-Man t-shirt she bought on Etsy tucked in, and a red flannel over it. She wore the t-shirt because she knew he would like it, the skirt because it showed off her legs--plus she wanted him to think of her in the way she thought of him--and the flannel because it was cold. Michelle french braided her hair, and she put on lip gloss. It took more effort to plan that all than she had ever put into another outfit.
She told her father she was going to Betty’s, for an emergency decathlon meeting. As she was leaving the house, she promised herself not to lie to him anymore. Just that last one. Just to see if anything would happen with Peter that night.
Michelle knew what Peter said--“Not a date. No date.” Those words haunted her when she closed her eyes at night. However, if she had seen an opportunity, she might have, hypothetically, taken her chance. That might’ve been my holding his hand, kissing him again, or straight up saying, “I like you, Peter.” It depended on the situation.
At five o’clock, Michelle boarded the train to Coney Island. She nervously tapped her foot and bit on her nails, because as the clock ticked her stomach twisted and turn more viciously. It wasn’t a date. It wasn’t a date.
But, it could’ve been.
She arrived at the pre-agreed on meeting spot at 5:25, five minutes early. Michelle scrolled her Twitter feed while she waited. There was a Spider-Man spotting a few blocks down, apparently, and he fought one of the Mafia groups. Michelle couldn’t remember which one.
5:30, and Peter wasn’t there. Michelle dismissed it due to his usual tardiness. She texted him a few times, but he never got back to her.
She called him at 5:50. “Hey, asshole,” she started, but in a joking manner. “Where are you? It’s 10 to, and you were supposed to have won me a giant unicorn by now. Call me. Or, arrive. Y’know, which ever is faster.”
At 6:10, an hour after she had left the house, Michelle started thinking that maybe she was waiting too long for him. She got a sinking feeling deep in her stomach that maybe, just maybe, Peter forgot about her.
She called him again ten minutes later. “You’re an asshole, you know that?” Michelle said, seriously. “You got me all the way out to Coney Island just to ditch me? You are the most selfish person I’ve ever met, Parker. Go fuck yourself.”
So, Michelle got on the train to go back home. But, as she thought about how pissed off she was, she decided to get off at the wrong stop. At Peter’s stop.
Michelle slammed her fist against the Parker’s apartment door, screaming profanities, when May opened the door. “Michelle! Aren’t you supposed to be with Peter right now?”
“He never showed,” she bitterly informed her. “Why is your nephew so irresponsible?”
May ushered Michelle inside, closing the door behind them. “God, I’ll talk to him about that when he gets home. Anyways, Michelle, he’s got a lot on his plate. The, uh, Stark internship takes a lot out of him, and I keep saying, ‘Tell Mr. Stark that school comes first,’ but he never does.” May rambled when she lied. Michelle, at least, thought she was lying.
“Tony Stark is an ass,” she muttered under her breath. “Do you mind if I wait for Peter in his room? I have a few things I have to say to him in person.”
“Go ahead.” May formed a thin smile as she nodded her head. “It’s just down the hall and the first door to the right.”
As she walked down the hallway, Michelle tore out her braids, thinking, I’m not going to give him the chance to care. She swung the door open, her left one only half out, and saw a half naked Peter standing in front of her.
Michelle was immediately drawn to the stab wound on his abs. Huge, like someone twisted it around, and the flimsy piece of gauze he had on it did nothing to slow down the bleeding. Peter, red with embarrassment, covered the wound with one hand. Blood surrounded his fingers. “What are you doing in here?” he screamed at her.
“Peter…” Michelle trailled off, not knowing what to say. Seeing him like that was what she always imagined when she saw his bruises.
“Close the door,” he whispered. She obliged.
He, for the better part of five minutes, ignored her as he stitched up the wound. Every so often he would suppress a painful groan, or would clean up the area again. Peter didn’t even look at her once.
“What the fuck?” Michelle managed to eventually say. “What the fuck, Peter? Y-y-you got stabbed! You’re bleeding!”
“Yeah. This is why I didn’t go to Coney Island, which I’m really sorry about, by the way. I was really looking forward to it.” And the way he said it was like it was no big deal. Sure, the bruises were super secretive but, a stabbing? No biggie.
But perhaps he was too tired from the blood loss to come up with an excuse, or to pretend like it was fake blood for his Halloween costume. Either way, it made it worse.
He ripped the end of the string with his teeth, like they do in movies. Fury coursed through Michelle’s body.
“Is there something wrong with you? You’re acting like you got a nose bleed. Some guy tried to kill you, Peter! How many times has this happened that you know how to stitch yourself up? Do you get off on being beaten up?” Michelle looked down to Peter’s feet, which was piled under discarded bandages. “Oh my god… You’re going to the hospital.”
She lurched towards him and grabbed his arm, but Peter kept his ground when she pulled. “May can’t know,” he pleaded. “She’ll freak.”
“No shit!” Michelle screamed. She buried her head in her hands and groaned loudly. “God, Peter, I’m not letting you die tonight. I’m not letting you die period. Please, tell May, or-or I can ask her to get dinner for me and we can leave and go and she can find out later.”
“No, MJ. I… can’t.” Peter coughed onto his arm, and when Michelle peered over, she half expected it to be splattered with blood. “See? No internal bleeding. I’m fine.”
“That just means that there’s no blood in your lungs. Your liver might be punctured--”
“The liver is higher up.”
Michelle widened her eyes and felt the urge to hit him across the face, and to scream at him again and again about how much of an idiot he is. “I don’t give a shit where the liver is. You still might have internal bleeding, which is why we need to go to the hospital. God, you are insufferable. And, what do you mean you can’t?”
“I--I just can’t.”
“Peter, look,” Michelle wiped away a tear on her cheek. “I can’t keep worrying about you all the time. Do you know how many times I’ve thought, ‘What if he gets killed?’ Every single time I see a new bruise. Every single one of those nights. And, this? This is just so, so terrible. I need you to let me take you to a doctor.”
Peter, his hands only somewhat clean from the towel he rubbed them on, reached out to touch Michelle’s face. She jerked herself backwards. “Tell me what you do,” she pleaded, the tears coming faster, her mind going crazy with a million scenarios that all leaded to his death. “Tell me what you do that lets this happen to you.”
He took a heavy breath, rubbing his palm and looking everywhere but her. “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
Peter looked at her, compassion behind his eyes. He said, gently, “It requires a demonstration. And, I’m really tired right now.”
She stammered to find the right words. “Because of all the blood loss. Look, Peter, don’t be an idiot. I’m taking you to the hospital, right now. I don’t give a shit if May will freak.”
“Do you trust me?” He hobbled over to his dresser to put on a red sweatshirt.
“Not really, no.” She did trusted him, too much and too fast, but not in this situation. In this situation, she wouldn’t trust him with her life.
Peter grimaced as he threw the sweatshirt over his head, saying, “Well, too bad. I promise you that I will make it through the night. And tomorrow, super early in the morning if you want, I will tell you everything. Because I trust you, MJ.”
“Okay,” Michelle said, with a faux act of confidence. “But I’m staying the night. I’m not letting you die. Before I find out your secret, of course.”
“Of course,” he repeated, with a cocky grin. “You can borrow some clothes, the top drawer is shirts, the bottom is sweatpants, and the middle two is random. Uh, nice Spider-Man shirt, by the way.”
“Thank you.” Michelle walked over to the dresser, where Peter still stood, and felt his eyes glued on her as she chose clothes. Quickly, she was holding a pair of sweatpants and a baggy shirt. “So, do I just change here or--”
“Yeah, yeah, here is good. I’ll step out and wash up and tell May what’s going on. Yeah. Okay, cool.”
Peter left, tripping over his own pile of clothes, and closed the door behind him. She doesn’t even know that he’s home, Michelle thought as she slid her skirt off. She folded it and placed it on Peter’s desk, and put the pants on. She, finally, finished taking out the french braid and then switched shirts. Peter’s clothing fit her loosely, surprisingly. Michelle was taller, after all.
She also texted her dad, telling him she was sleeping over at Betty’s. One more lie wouldn’t hurt.
“MJ?” Peter yelled through the door. “You decent?”
“Come in.”
He laughed as he entered. “Wow, MJ. You look so good in my clothes.” Peter crashed on his bed and cuddled a pillow. “You can sleep on the top bunk, that’s where Ned always sleeps.”
“No,” she blurted. “If you won’t let me take you to the hospital, then I am staying close to you all night. I have to keep track of your breathing.” Michelle sat down at the foot of Peter’s bed, waiting for him to scoot back and make room for her.
In that moment, Peter’s health was most important to her. She wasn’t even thinking about, how in any other scenario, she would’ve loved that.
“O-Okay.” He moved so she could lay down, which, she did. With Peter straight on his back, Michelle was on her side with her ear pressed against his chest. “What are you doing?” He nervously choked down.
“Listening to your breathing.”
Peter gulped. “Cool.”
His hand cautiously rested on her waist as Michelle closed her eyes. She didn’t care that the last time she ate was before she got on the train, or that it was only 7:20, Peter’s relaxing and reassuring breaths made it those things, and her worries, go away. She was there, in his arms, and he was alive.
For now, Peter was alive.
N: peter
N: PETER are you dead?
P: shh you’re making my phone go crazy. mj is sleeping
N: WHO is WHAT?? facetime me right now
Peter, for close to an hour, was going over and over in his head about how to tell her that he was Spider-Man.
He woke up at 4:23, starving with a full bladder, but never moved from where he was. Overnight, Peter switched to his side and subconsciously brought Michelle closer to him; his arms were tight around her and her breath tickled his neck. Peter thought, There’s no where else I want to be right now. Not even the bathroom.
Peter was infatuated with her. He realized it when she first kissed him, although it started a while before that, and was planning at Coney Island to tell her. And then, he got stabbed by some of Wilson Fisk’s men. It was a struggle to get home, and all the while he got every voice mail, and every text.
He wasn’t even supposed to be out patrolling. May made him promise not to that afternoon--she promised that Sunday morning, when Michelle left, he’d be getting an earful--but then he overheard a police call, and his impulse controls sucked.
If Peter could’ve told Michelle, right then and there, he would’ve. She looked miserable with worry, as if Peter’s pain was her own. Her begging and pleading made Peter’s stomach wring, making him feel like vomiting, but he couldn’t tell her then. She wouldn’t have believed him.
When she laid her head on his chest, Peter felt his whole body come alive. His super healing worked faster. His heartbeat was loud and clear in his ears, and every moment Michelle made reactivated it.
And she was wearing his clothes! Seeing that for the first time made Peter weak in the knees.
Eventually, after coming up with nothing good, Peter gave her one last squeeze and got up. He trudged his way to the bathroom, turning the lights on, and lifted his shirt up to check the scar. Mostly healed. Peter was still going to leave the stitches in for a few hours, though, just to be safe.
He tried calling Ned, like he told him to, but he didn’t answer.
When Peter got back into his room, Michelle was sitting upright with her arms holding her knees. “You’re alive,” she said, her vocal cords scratchy.
Peter plopped back onto his bed, getting underneath the covers, his feet grazing her’s. “That I am.”
“Can I see it? The scar?”
“Later,” he told her. He extended his arm out, thinking that maybe if he did that, she would take the opportunity to rest her head on his shoulder.
He was right.
Michelle chuckled, nuzzling herself against Peter. “You’re a dick. A totally healthy, not sickly looking, dick.”
“‘Not sickly looking.’ That’s the best you can say about me?” He ran his fingers through her hair, staring into nothing.
“That’s right,” Michelle yawned. Her tone turned serious, saying, “You are the only person, other than my dad, that I really care about. Last night--”
“I’m so sorry, MJ.”
She took Peter’s hand and shushed him. “Let me talk. Last night really, really sucked. My mom was a SHIELD agent, and one day when I was like, seven, she died during a job.” He already knew that, but he wasn’t going to dare to say that. Also, hearing it in person rather than behind a screen, was so much more raw to him. She was struggling to get the words out, and Peter never woud’ve known over Twitter.
“So, I guess I just worry a lot. I worry that my dad isn’t going to come home, and then I’ll be an orphan or something. And, I know the probability of that happening is super slim, but-- But, you got stabbed. So, who knows, right?” She buried her face into the crook of Peter’s neck and murmured, “If you leave me like my mom did, I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it.”
“I won’t,” whispered Peter, playing with her hair. “I promise.”
“And don’t tell anyone about my mom. I only tell people w-who are important to me. That doesn’t mean that Ned or Betty or other people on the Decathlon team aren’t, you just--well, you get it.”
Peter, being washed over with a sense of guilt, rested his head against her’s and snuck his hand underneath her to link his hands together. Michelle didn’t just tell anyone. He could guess that she only told two people: Patrick and Peter. When she told Patrick, she just said that her mom had died a long time ago, removing any identifying details. However, it was still enough for Peter to link the two girls together. She didn’t care if he knew anymore.
“MJ, I have to tell you something.”
“Yes, you do. Why does it require a demonstration?” She perked up, now looking Peter in the eyes.
Fuck. Guess Peter would have to tell her later. “You want to do this right now?” Michelle eagerly nodded. “Alright. You should… wait outside. Next to the front steps, but in front of the alley way.”
“Outside?” Rolling her eyes, she reluctantly got off of Peter to slip her shoes on. He immediately missed her against him. “Fine, I won’t argue, but if this better not be stupid.”
“It won’t,” he promised with a smile. He watched her leave and then sprung up from his bed, grabbing the suit (that he hadn’t yet fixed,) from where he hid it in his closet. Peter rapidly undress, pulled on the Spider-Man suit, and activated it.
He nervously bounced around a bit, giving Michelle time to get there. He had timed himself before, and his record for getting on the suit was fifteen seconds, which was impressive more than anything else. Peter and Ned shared a high five over it one day, and that was all.
Soon, Peter jumped out the window, swinging over to where he told Michelle to wait. (This was going to scare the shit out of her. Maybe he should’ve thought of something different. He could’ve just jumped off the roof!) When he spotted her, he swooped down, grabbed her hips, and took her with him.
“PUT ME DOWN!” she screamed, but nevertheless held him with a death grip.
Peter set her down on his own building’s roof, waiting a bit to take off his mask. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“I was fine. Why did you do that?” She surveyed the suit, going down until she saw the rip in the side where he had gotten stabbed last night. Realization hit her. “Peter?”
He took the mask off, grinning wildly. “Hey, MJ.”