Author's Note:
My third Spideychelle one-shot since finishing "Affinity War"! This fic and those that will follow in the coming weeks are based off a list of prompts, posted on my Tumblr (forasecondtherewedwon). Feel free to send in a request!
19. "There's so much blood."
Friendships are something that seem to just happen to Peter. Like, boom, Mr. Stark shows up in his living room one day to recruit him to a group of professional best buddies (thinly veiled as the Avengers). Or, boom, he's a kid at science and engineering camp using Lego to assemble a scale model of the Brooklyn Bridge when his hands bump into this kid called Ned's hands, 'cause he's been building from the other end, and they meet in the middle, like Lady and the Tramp, and become best friends. Or, subtler boom, the judgemental smart girl who's always giving him the finger offers up a nickname she'd like for him to call her one day and that's how Peter finds out that MJ doesn't actively want to push him in front of a bus.
Even including the surprise mission to Germany, it's the last one that surprises Peter the most. But then she just keeps doing it. At lunch, MJ quits lurking with her novels at the far end of the table and slides down to eat with him and Ned. Every. Single. Day. She jokes with Peter between classes, which makes him start taking the scenic route from Chemistry to Spanish to give himself more time to see her smile. Without anyone really making a big deal about it, MJ becomes part of Peter and Ned's sacred ritual of Homework Night; when it devolves into Lego Night, he really has to watch to catch the moments where she can't stop herself from rolling her eyes. Soon, it feels like the three of them are as cohesive together as when it was just him and Ned. Makes sense―triangles are the strongest shape.
So, with the closeness they've all developed, it's rational that MJ would still come over for movie night after Ned has to cancel. And that Peter won't need to check with his aunt for permission to have MJ in the apartment when he knows that May's going out. Because it's just MJ. MJ's his friend, his second Ned, the person whose every appearance is the highlight of his day, the girl who makes his enhanced biology forget how to take in oxygen to let him do the breathing thing. Respiration. Right. He knew the word.
Peter is feeling very calm about this. He could sync his pulse to a meditation track of soothing beach sounds (if the beach was in the wrath-of-god grip of a cyclone). What he definitely does not do is backflip to the door when she knocks. He has restraint―not that he needs it, because, again, MJ is nothing more than a benign, Ned-type person.
…Who smells really good when she enters and brushes by him. Ned usually smells like a combination of soap, Doritos, and metal from whatever they've been covertly tinkering with in shop class.
"Come in," Peter says, about twelve seconds too late. MJ glances back at him with an expression that confirms he needs to pull himself together now.
"So, movie," he tries again, swinging his arms as he leads her to the fridge so she can select her soda of choice. He already has the snacks arrayed on the coffee table in front of the couch. May has raised an attentive host.
"Movie," MJ echoes. She lifts her eyebrows while taking a sip of some bubbly pomegranate drink his aunt has possibly recently become addicted to.
"Um, yeah, in here."
Peter stares hard at the middle distance like a furious Shakespearean actor as he walks ahead of her to the couch; this is awkward. He's awkward. No amount of junk food coated in assorted cheese powders is going to mask how severely he is failing at cultivating a regular buddy-buddy hang-out.
He halts abruptly, realizing he should let MJ pick where she wants to sit first, which just makes her run into him.
"Oh shit," she gasps, eyes on the can in her hand, but she doesn't spill a drop.
Instead, the carbonation of the drink asserts its presence through a high-pitched hiccup that reminds Peter of Dopey swallowing the soap in Snow White. (Only May knows that's his favourite Disney movie.) Instinctively, he goes to pat MJ on the back in order to―man, he really doesn't know―pop any potential bubbles still inside her body? Anyway, his arm goes up, she steps forward, and this time they collide head-on. And since they were already close, a more accurate description would be that they hug. Sort of.
Their cheeks touch when they both quickly step back. Peter's pretty sure he's doing Thor's party trick now, vibrating all over as electricity runs through him. MJ's face might be pink, but he's too overwhelmed to give it more than a glimpse. Sitting. Sitting will be better. You can't run into someone when you're nestled into a couch cushion. He coaches himself to breathe. Naturally, he does it out loud by accident, but very quietly.
MJ heads to the far end of the couch and shrugs off her jacket. Ok, good news and bad news. Good: she's protecting his sanity by leaving several feet between them. Bad: he forgot to offer to hang up her jacket when she came in.
Then she drops her jacket onto the end seat and sits on the center one, so Peter's flustered all over again. What's he going to do now? Sit on the table? The floor? The ceiling? Haha No, that would give away his superpowers.
But, seriously, is the ceiling an option?
And he does have to choose one, because he's still standing there, watching MJ's sweater slide momentarily off her shoulder as she gets comfortable on his (May's) couch in his (May's) living room and realizing that MJ might not be a Ned-person at all. It's actually looking more and more like she's an MJ, his one and only MJ, and that he's invited her into a situation that is rapidly sharpening in focus to appear like a date.
He sits next to her, trying to keep his trembling to himself as his crush hits like an earthquake.
"What are we watching?" she asks, mouth half-full of white cheddar popcorn from the bowl on the table.
Peter reflexively licks his own lip when he sees the pale powder on hers.
"Uh, it's this really old horror movie. The Shining?" he checks, like she's the one who picked it and he just found out.
"Ok, cool."
He should ask if she's seen it and, if she has, offer to pick something else, but MJ has lifted one foot off the floor to tuck her leg beneath her where she sits―thereby putting her folded leg nearer to where he sits. So, yep, it's a miracle that he can grip the handrail on one train of thought long enough to cue the movie up and press play.
Beyond a lot of creepy music and scenes with garish hotel furniture that remind him of Wes Anderson movies, Peter doesn't have much idea of what's happening on the screen. He has a few (thousand) more thoughts about what's happening on this couch. Where to start? MJ's leaned forward and back a few times, taking sips of her drink and returning it to the table, and ended up closer to him every time. Their legs are officially touching now. Peter could put a hand on her shoulder, give her a little nudge, and she would lean right into him. That's based on physics, of course. Gravity and potential energy and that kinda thing. Doesn't mean MJ wouldn't immediately brace herself and then look at him like Jack Torrance is not the only psycho in the Parker living room.
That's what Michelle would do, as she existed to him before she declared them friends. Peter sneaks a look at his MJ. Woops, he needs to quit calling her that in his head. She's leaning slightly towards him (uneven couch cushions are probably to blame) and not looking 100% relaxed. His super-senses let him hear her breathing very clearly and see, when his gaze lowers, her chest rising and falling with a heartrate too quick to be at rest.
Duh. They're watching a horror movie.
Peter exhales heavily. He wants to put his head in his hands and collect himself, but he can't do that in front of her. Can't be obvious like that.
"There's so much blood," MJ comments, making him forget his inner turmoil.
"Um, yeah. That's super gross, actually."
His face scrunches up as he watches, like, a swimming pool's worth of gore rush out of a red elevator. Was somebody murdered in there? Peter trusts his guess on that one less than on the precise shade of brown in MJ's eyes. Just when he's getting into the movie, starting to piece together the story, distinguish present from flashbacks from supernatural visions, MJ shudders next to him. His head turns so fast.
"Are… are you ok?"
He's nervous asking, not wanting to embarrass her. Peter has never see her disturbed or vulnerable. Even when he ran up to her in Washington, behind his Spider-Man mask, she didn't look afraid for their teammates stuck inside the Monument so much as determined that they should and would be rescued. But if a wave of blood is what gets to her, that's alright. It doesn't make her weak.
MJ turns her head to look at him―not quite straight-on, but more attentively than just a glance from the corner of her eye. She gives a small smile and a shrug.
"It's my first Stephen King movie."
"I think, technically, it's a Stanley Kubrick movie, since he's the director."
He feels so much relief when she rolls her eyes and calls him a dork. Then elation as MJ shifts towards him and slouches into his side.
"You want me to turn it off?" Peter asks.
Right away, he's worried his words have implied that the movie should be stopped so they can transition to something more physical. Between the two of them. In, like, a way that comes burdened with countless baseball metaphors. He fears he's created a 'Netflix and chill' atmosphere and feels abjectly douchey.
"Nah," MJ says and sighs. His eyes widen, feeling her exhale against him. "I'm just gonna… I'll just… Is it ok if I sit like this?"
Holy crap, she's close. Peter nods as his mouth goes dry. Before he presses play again, he gradually raises his arm and tucks it around MJ's shoulders. It only encourages her to snuggle (snuggle? Are they snuggling?) more tightly against him.
Once again, even the most major events of the movie elude Peter, but the plot points of what's happening between him and MJ are the easiest story he's ever followed. First, her head lowers down onto his shoulder. Second, she reaches up to feel the arm he has around her and tangles her fingers with his. Third is the twist. The bombshell. The surprise you don't see coming.
Because she mutters, "Watch out, Hallorann," right before the bald chef guy (who Peter vaguely remembers from the beginning of the movie) takes an axe to the chest.
Almost robotically, Peter straightens up and tilts his head away to give himself the distance to look at MJ. She's gone very still beside him and, though she's nowhere near as easy to read as he knows he is, he can tell from her face that she's constructing an excuse behind those warm brown eyes. His mind's moving fast now, leaving the realization that MJ's seen this movie before in the dust. That means she isn't really afraid; if Peter knows anything about her, it's that she wouldn't suffer through something that honestly terrifies her in order to impress him. She wouldn't do that for anyone. The only logical conclusion is that she wanted this outcome, him holding her.
Slowly, MJ gives Peter the closest to sheepish that he's ever seen on her face. Yeah, well, he's already blown past the thought of confronting her. She's laid out the beginning and the middle. He thinks he can manage the ending.
Peter wraps a palm around her round cheek and kisses her. She tastes like fizzy pomegranate. The second that he starts doing it, the fact that he is doing it shocks him, but by now MJ's evidently working from his script. Her hands are warm on the back of his neck as she kisses him, not letting him panic and bail out. The main thing the kiss tells him is that she's been thinking about doing this since long before the movie started. He's always known she's better at planning, plus she has that enigmatic wisdom that really throws him sometimes. Peter just didn't expect to be one of those plans. He starts to grin into the kiss at the idea of MJ considering him a wise decision.
She draws back with her eyebrows pulling together, assessing his euphoric expression.
"Show some respect, nerd. A man has just been murdered."
"He seemed like the kind of guy who'd take comfort in knowing we're continuing to live our lives," Peter argues, unable to shake his smile.
"You were barely even watching. Don't pretend like it taught you some life lesson."
"It did though! It taught me that Ned cancelling on our plans isn't always a bad thing."
MJ gives him a wry smirk.
"I guess you're not completely wrong."
"Wow, so in your book, kissing comes before cutting me some slack?" Peter grins.
"I save the slack-cutting for the second date," she informs him.
"Second date, huh? Let's have that one on purpose."
As soon as Peter says it, MJ brings her mouth back to his and they have their second kiss on purpose too.