I really I guesssssss...It could be viewed as canon, if MJ found out who Peter was before Far From Home?
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters.
Michelle Jones had figured out Peter Parkers secret quickly.
And it wasn't as though Peter would have lied to her about it, although she but she still decided to go right to the one who had absolutely no chance at bluffing.
Ned Leeds.
She cornered him after decathlon team practice and blatantly asked him 'are you, Peter Parker, the Spiderman?'.
In Neds defense, he did try and avoid the question, but MJ had a pretty deathly stare when she wanted to, and she had casually—scarily—put a hand up on the wall that Ned was trying to slide along to slip out of the room, blocking him in against the corner with a raised eyebrow. Ned continued to fluff around with a string of nonsensical words before finally blurting it out and MJ had grinned, leaned forward and given him a kiss on the cheek and left with a bounce in her step.
Ned told Peter, and Peter had done the really obvious thing of begging her not to say anything. She had just rolled her eyes at that, because of course she wasn't going to tell anyone.
And then things just...Continued as they were.
They were now in their senior year of high school, but they were still right near the beginning, so the pressure of studying and universities wasn't quite as intense as it would get later on. Ned, MJ and Peter all studied together, a couple of days a week after school, and there was a group of them, including Flash Thompson, surprisingly, who would get together in the weekends sometimes, go to the movies or out for lunch, which was fun. MJ had never really had a group of people that she considered her friends, but now she did, and she liked it.
More than she would admit.
Especially Peter.
A lot more than she would admit.
Other things were different as well, after finding out that Peter was Spiderman. Now, when she saw videos of him on the news or pictures of him on stupid tabloids online, she felt a lot more emotions. She hadn't gotten the whole obsession over Spiderman like a lot of girls, especially Liz Allan, who's adoration for the web-slinger was known throughout the school, although she had thought what he was doing was good. But now, she felt worry when she saw clips of him swinging into a burning building, and nervousness when he swung off the Brooklyn Bridge to where a boat had crashed in the water below and he was trying to get out the little girl who was trapped in the back, and pride when she saw him chasing down a guy who had stolen a purse from an older lady.
That was her friend out there, saving the citizens of the city, from both the bigger and the smaller things.
They were coming up to the Christmas break, and MJ couldn't help but be disappointed when it turned out that almost everyone had plans the whole break. It was weird, because she had never really relied on anyone else around her or had a group of people that she liked hanging out with on a regular basis. Peter had said that he and Aunt May were staying in the city, and she was working through most of the break, so he would be down to hang out.
When he wasn't busy.
Ned had about a hundred relatives coming over to stay at his place, if his complaints were anything to go by, Flash was going to Paris with his parents, Gwen Stacey was going to be there for a few days but then she was going to see her family in Boston and Harry Osborne was going to be available on and off, but that wasn't really a big deal to MJ, because MJ wasn't going to hang out with Harry one-on-one, since he didn't make his crush on her a secret and that made her a bit uncomfortable.
Especially when anyone with eyes and half a brain knew that there was only one person that she was interested in.
Peter.
Spiderman.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were spent with her family, and then it was early the next morning, her little cousins were curled up on the couch with her eyes glued to the TV, and her aunt and uncle and parents were also in there, although as New Yorkers, her parents were more used to what was on the TV and they weren't paying as close attention.
It was Spiderman.
It was Peter.
There was a burning building down town, that the reporter was saying looked as though it had been a few kids playing with matches in their home. The news presenter announced that no one had been killed, and the fire had managed to get under control pretty quickly, but the whole building had been evacuated and the shot that they were showing on the TV had flames licking at the corners of the windows and smoke was billowing out through the gaps.
MJ tried to keep her face blank, nonchalant, as they watched clips from bystanders phones, showing Spiderman swinging into the windows to get a child who was in the apartment next to where the fire was started, but she couldn't help biting down on her lower lip, worrying it with her teeth as she saw how close the flames got as Spiderman ushered the child onto the small balcony outside of the apartment, obviously trying to settle the child, assure her that she was going to be okay. By this point, even MJ's parents were looking back at the TV in interest now. Fire fighters were shooting streams of water up at the building, but there were still flames behind where Spiderman and the child were standing, and they still needed to get out of there.
A few moments later, the child climbed up, wrapping her arms around Spidermans neck, and MJ sucked in a sharp breath as he secured an arm tightly around her waist and then his arm shot out and a string of web went flying.
MJ's cousins clapped and cheered on the couch and there were relieved smiles from the adults.
MJ just swallowed hard and tried to focus back on her book.
A few hours later, her aunt and uncle and cousins were leaving to go to the airport, to go back home. Her father had to go to work that evening and her mother was going to drop of her sister and her family and then go around to see her younger brother, who really didn't like to get together when all the family was there. She asked MJ if she wanted to go, but MJ had a lot of homework that she wanted to get back to and her mother understood how serious she was when it came to her schooling, so they had left her alone in the apartment with a kiss on her forehead. MJ turned the heating up a few more notches, always preferring it to be hotter than her parents let her keep the place when they were home, and then headed back to her bedroom.
"MJ, don't freak—"
"What the hell?!" MJ screamed out as she heard a voice from inside her bedroom, jerking backwards and smacking into the door frame.
"Out," Peter finished with a wince. MJ shot him a death glare as she tried to even out her breathing and ran her fingers through her hair.
"What the hell, Peter?" She repeated in annoyance. "What are you doing here?" She couldn't actually see him properly yet, just the outline of where he was standing behind her bed, next to the window, where the curtains were drawn, pitching the room into darkness. "What's going on..." she drifted off as she slapped her hand over the light switch and actually saw Peter. "Oh, shit," she murmured.
He was wearing a pair of baggy sweatpants and a hoodie that clung to his broad shoulders and narrow waist, but the hoodie was a little unzipped near the top, and she caught a glimpse of red and blue. So he was obviously wearing his costume underneath. He wasn't wearing his mask, she was guessing that was in some pocket, and there was blood crusting under his nose that was smeared toward his cheek, and some in his mouth. And he was slumped forward a little strangely, and his pretty face was twisted in a grimace.
"What happened?" MJ asked quietly, walking over to her bed and clearing off some of her book work and papers from earlier, not caring as she dumped them onto the floor. She indicated that Peter sit down, which he did—slowly. "Is this from the fire?" She asked him as she hooked a finger underneath his chin, tipping it backwards so that she could look at his face, leaning over him. She gently rubbed her thumb over his chin before straightening up, not noticing that way Peter's eyes had begun to close when her thumb had touched him.
"The fire was the face," he nodded. "The girl—Tracey—had hidden herself under the bed and she didn't know who I was when I was trying to get her out. She kept kicking and got me in the face," Peter smiled ruefully.
"So it wasn't the fire, it was a three year old girl," MJ corrected him with a smirk, unable to help herself.
"She was four actually," Peter corrected, but without any malice in his voice, all smiles and sparkling eyes, despite the blood. "Just had her birthday last week—she told me that she had a Frozen party, but next year, she's going to have a superhero party and dress up like me."
"Little suck up," MJ grinned. "Tell me she at least went as Ana, not Elsa."
"She was Sven—the reindeer," Peter responded.
"I know who Sven is," MJ rolled her eyes and Peter just grinned again, before cringing and reaching up to touch his fingers to his lower lip. There was blood crusted there, although she couldn't see a cut, but it drew MJ's mind to more important things. "Do you need anything? Do you..." she made a face, hating to admit that she didn't know something. "Do you heal, like, super fast? Or do you need a hospital or something?" She was pretty sure that he didn't need a hospital, because his Aunt May would have noticed something was up a long time ago if he kept ending up in there, but he still looked like he was in pain.
"I don't heal...Super fast, but I heal faster than normal people," Peter said. "The cuts and stuff on my face are pretty much all healed, I just...I needed somewhere to clean up and to wait until my ribs are at least better enough that I could walk upright. Usually I go to Ned's, but his place is flooded with, like, seven different families and I'm pretty sure one of them would notice, and his mum would definitely call Aunt May. I mean, she knows what I do now, but I don't like her seeing me hurt." MJ nodded and then frowned.
"Wait, so what happened to your ribs? You said it was just your face in the fire," MJ pointed out.
"Yeah, there was a seven car pile up just down the block from the fire, people driving fast in the snow and not paying proper attention to their surroundings. Didn't realize that the traffic was all slowing down because of the fire," Peter made a face. MJ nodded and then chewed down on the corner of her bottom lip.
"Alright, well, I'll get you something to clean up with, yeah?" She suggested and Peter nodded. MJ left the room and went to the bathroom, finding a cloth and waiting for the water to warm up before soaking the cloth underneath the tap and then heading back out of the bathroom and to her bedroom. She wasn't really paying attention to much, like the mess of clothes in her room and the books and magazines that she had piled up on her desk and on the bedside table as she walked back over to Peter and handed him the cloth.
"Thanks," Peter gave her a small smile and began to wipe at his face. MJ took a step back, chewing on her lips, hand reaching up to twist a curl of hair around her finger while she waited for him to finish. When Peter pulled the cloth away, his face now blood free, he glanced around. "I've never been in your room before," he murmured, and it was then that MJ glanced around.
The place was a mess.
There were clothes everywhere, and that included a particularly frilly pink bra that her mother had insisted she buy along with all the black and green and white bras that MJ usually wore. She had never worn it, but it was there, hanging off the corner of her desk because she had been going through her underwear drawer that morning for a pair of Wonder Woman socks that had been buried at the back. But that wasn't where Peter was looking, his eyes were resting on the framed picture beside her bed, next to a pile of Astronomy books.
The picture of her and Peter, after they had gone to a baseball game. Neither of them were particularly in to sports, but Flash's dad had gotten box seat tickets, so the whole friend group had gone and it had been surprisingly fun. This picture was after it had ended, while Ned had been snapping pictures, and Peter had thrown his arm around MJ and pulled her in tight, his warm and carefree smile enough to convince her to lean into him and give a small smile to the camera.
MJ was practically gnawing so hard on her lip it was going to bleed when she looked back at Peter, who was looking right back at her, his cheeks a little red.
"I have that picture as well," Peter said to her quietly and MJ raised an eyebrow. He pulled his phone out of his pocket—his Spiderman mask falling out as well—and swiped his thumb over the sensor before turning it around to face her.
It was the background photo on his phone.
MJ couldn't help the slightly dopey smile that spread across her face. But she could comfort herself with the fact that Peter looked at least ten times dopier. Probably more.
She stared at him for a moment more before leaning down, reaching forward and pressing her lips against Peters. He returned the pressure instantly and MJ stayed there for another few beats before pulling back and giving him another quick smile, her cheeks burning.
"You want to watch a movie?" MJ asked, wanting to change up the subject.
"Sounds good," Peter readily agreed.
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