I Will Not Do Anything Stupid
Peter’s bedroom looked like a war zone.
MJ was unimpressed. She was sitting on Peter’s top bunk, legs folded beneath her, cheek propped on her fist as she watched the boys tear through the closet and dresser drawers.
She looked down at the mess on the floor and frowned. She counted three hoodies, two and a half pairs of shoes, an old Wii remote, a busted-open shoe box filled with broken bits and pieces from scavenged DVD players, an empty Mountain Dew bottle, what looked like a headless action figure that maybe used to look like Thor, some seriously dirty looking socks, several video game cases, three old notebooks, and an unknown number of t-shirts.
But no web shooters. Which was a shame, because that’s what the two dorks were looking for.
MJ’s phone buzzed with another news alert, warning her of the battle currently taking place in Brooklyn. Yeah, she was aware, thanks.
She looked up when Peter pulled down a box of burned CDs and groaned. “Are you going to explain to me why we’re looking for a pair of busted-up web shooters? What’s wrong with the ones Stark gave you?”
Ned was on the floor, head jammed beneath the bed as he sorted through dust bunnies and forgotten socks. “He doesn’t have his suit.”
MJ frowned. “Where’s your suit?”
Peter continued digging through his nearly empty closet. “Mr. Stark has it.”
That was interesting. “He took it again?”
Peter’s shoulders slumped as he gave up looking through the closet and turned to the disaster that was his desk. “No,” he said, pulling open two drawers and trying to search them both at the same time. “No, he’s just fixing it.”
MJ blinked. “Fixing it?”
“Peter broke it,” Ned offered helpfully as he moved to search through Peter’s underwear drawer.
Peter groaned again. “Dude, I didn’t break it.” He was now looking below the desk.
MJ leaned against the railing and asked, “How did you break a multi-million dollar suit?”
“I didn’t break it,” Peter repeated. He finally stopped his frantic search and actually turned to look at her. “It just…stopped working when someone tried to electrocute me. Sort of”.
Okay, MJ decided to ignore that info bomb for a moment, but only because there were more pressing matters. “New question,” she began, “How are you planning to fight without your suit?”
Peter had begun kicking through the mess on the floor, probably in the hopes he’d accidentally overlooked the web shooters the first time around. “The suit’s finished. I was supposed to pick it up yesterday, but…”
“But you had detention,” MJ finished for him.
“Yeah. Now will you please stop judging me and help me find my freaking web shooters?”
But MJ wasn’t done. “How are you planning on getting there?”
“With the web shooters,” Ned answered, tone making it very clear that it should have been obvious.
MJ didn’t even justify that with an eye roll. “Without a mask? We giving up on the secret identity thing?”
Peter frowned and looked at the mess on the floor. MJ had a feeling she was going to be asked to help look for a backup mask next.
Ned had another idea. “Can’t Doctor Strange just, like, teleport you there?”
Peter’s frown intensified. “Dude, he’s not a magical Uber.”
Peter’s phone pinged, alerting them to a text. Ned pointed to it. “What about May? She’s got a car.”
MJ did roll her eyes now.
But so did Peter. “Yeah, let me ask my aunt to drive me to a fight with killer robots. Real intimidating.”
Ned’s mouth twisted to the side and he gave a reluctant kind of shrug, like the biggest issue with that idea had been preserving Peter’s coolness factor with the other Avengers.
Complete. Losers.
And yes, she might have said it out loud, because now both Ned and Peter were frowning at her.
“You could help look, you know.”
“I know,” MJ said, but she didn’t move. Truth be told, she thought a suitless Peter Parker should sit his ass down and watch the battle on a flat screen TV like the rest of New York.
She didn’t say that out loud, but only because she was fully aware her losers had feelings.
And she was not in the mood to deal with those.
The phone pinged again, but everyone ignored it. Not because Peter was hoping to avoid having to ignore May’s order to stay home (he was), but because someone had decided to knock on the apartment’s door.
“If you’re not gonna help look, can you at least answer the door? Please?” Peter asked.
MJ only did it because he at least tried to sound polite. And because she had nothing better to do.
She expected to see one of Peter’s neighbors, a police officer advising them to stay indoors in case the battle switched burrows, maybe even the guy from Waitr who was supposed to have arrived forever ago. What she did not expect to see was an out of breath and annoyed Happy Hogan.
“Oh good. A grown up,” she deadpanned. She sort of hoped he was there to make sure Peter didn’t leave the apartment, that May and Stark had both forced him to once again act as baby-sitter.
A perfectly reasonable assumption.
But MJ had never accused Tony Stark of being reasonable.
“Please tell me the kid’s still here,” Happy huffed, giving the impression that he’d just ran there from Manhattan.
MJ didn’t have to ask which kid he was referring to. She pointed to the open bedroom door and stepped aside.
It might have been because Peter had super spider-powered hearing, or maybe it was just because the apartment was only vaguely bigger than a bread box, but Peter had obviously heard Happy at the door, because the man was no more than two steps in before Peter was there, eyes wide and hopeful.
“Happy,” he said, tripping over an empty back pack as he tried to leave his room. “Do you have my suit?”
Happy took a deep breath and shook his head. “No, Tony’s got it with him. You’re gonna meet him there.”
MJ assumed the ‘there’ was Brooklyn and the battle currently taking place near Highland Park, and judging by the excited look on Peter’s face, he did too.
“Awesome, let’s go,” Peter said. He started to make his way to the door, only to have Happy stop him with a hand to his chest. When Happy started to push Peter back, that excited look crumpled into an almost adorable look of confusion. “What...what are you doing?”
“Fire escape,” was all Happy said. He grabbed Peter’s shoulders, turned him towards the back of the apartment, and pushed. “Just trust me, Parker.”
Peter apparently did trust Happy, not enough to stop frowning, but enough to actually walk towards the window and open it.
Ned was right there, standing way too close and looking way too interested.
MJ was there, too.
Further away, less interested.
But still.
Happy took another deep breath and reached into the inner pocket of his jacket. “Alright, Parker. There are two rules. Okay? Rule number one: you are not allowed to geek out over this.”
Peter’s confused frown intensified. “Over what?”
Happy pulled his hand out of his pocket, and MJ didn’t have to be a nerdy teenage boy to recognize the newest arc reactor, complete with nanotechnology.
Peter’s frown vanished. His eyes widened, and when Happy reached forward and placed the arc reactor on Peter’s chest, the nano-particles clinging to the worn out t-shirt, MJ was pretty sure Peter had stopped breathing.
He might have for a second, maybe two, but pretty soon he took in enough air to whisper a completely awed “Holy shit.”
Happy frowned. “Remember rule number one?” he asked disapprovingly. “I literally just said it like two seconds ago.”
Peter was too busy ignoring rule number one to answer.
There was a small noise, almost like a click and then a whisper. The arc reactor began to glow, the light spreading out, little hexagonal shapes morphing and blending together, encasing Peter’s body in what was unmistakably one of Stark’s spare Iron Man suits.
Peter had stopped breathing again. Ned looked almost painfully catatonic.
“What’s rule number two?” MJ asked.
Happy sighed, reached forward and gently pushed Peter back towards the fire escape. “Don’t die.”
The helmet formed, hiding Peter’s wide, disbelieving eyes. Before anyone could say anything, the suit engaged and Peter was gone.
It took a lot to impress MJ. Always had, and while she wasn’t near the point of hyperventilating or meaningless rambling, she did feel her mouth twist into a reluctant smile.
Let’s call it a smirk.
She was too busy worrying about Peter breaking rule number two for a full smile.
Happy looked relieved. At least he did up until the point when he noticed a beaming Ned staring at him and totally breaking rule number one.
“What are you looking at me for? You don’t get one.”
Okay, now she smiled.