Author's Note:

So, I went and had a fast food hamburger last night for the first time in ages and the place was playing back-to-back '70s tracks. I clued in during the first bars of "Hot Stuff." Sitting at night in a bright burger joint, pitch black outside, while peppy disco blares around you is incredibly surreal. Try it and report back.

The level of romance in this chapter has not yet reached "hot stuff," but boy, was that a great segue that I had no intention of making when I started typing this sentence. Now, what was I saying?


VII

It was way too much to stand there and process those comments, so Peter leapt from the building and started swinging homeward. Lucky that his suit covered his hands, because his palms were getting sweaty with the sudden imperative to allude to the social highlight of his entire life: a date with MJ.

"I actually have plans," he informed Mr. Stark.

Peter's electric borough flickered as he made his webby commute. Streetlights, headlights, living rooms and televisions inside the apartments where people were still up. There was something so calming about all those glowing signs of life. Normally.

"Plans?" Tony pressed, sounding curious rather than annoyed. At least that meant he didn't think Peter was trying to blow him off.

"Yep," he confirmed, reaching his own apartment building and easing through the bedroom window he left unlocked for himself.

"Better, more interesting plans than a tech update and a cutthroat game of Monopoly?"

"I hate Monopoly," Peter muttered, sliding his window shut and dropping to the floor.

"I'm just going to ignore that and skip right to remarking on this being the first time ever that you weren't prepared to come when I called."

"That's a really unhealthy dynamic to make a habit of," he counselled. Maybe Peter sounded like the adult here, but Mr. Stark was acting kinda spoiled.

"Well, whatever," he replied moodily. "Tough, kid. Tell me right now who or what you're passing me over for."

"I have a… date." Quit tripping over that word, he thought to himself.

"How dare you disable 'Nanny Cam Protocol' the very week your life becomes interesting?!" Tony scolded.

"Hey," Peter complained, offended.

"Kidding, kid. You're just as interesting and special as everyone else. Didn't you get that participation trophy I had made for you after we kicked Thanos's ass?"

"Found it in my room at the compound," he grumbled.

"Really? I was hoping Barton would be a little more creative than that, or else I would've picked someone else to surprise you with it."

"Mr. Stark?" Peter interrupted as his mentor trailed off into preoccupied mumbling.

"Yep?"

"We're good about this weekend, right? I can come another time, but this is really important to me. I gotta―"

"Is it Michelle? Er, MJ?" Tony cut in. "I need to know I was right when I guessed there was something going on there."

"Some guess," Peter criticized, lowering his voice to a hiss when he heard May shuffling around in another part of their apartment. "You were listening to all my conversations!"

"Well, seeing as you weren't exactly reciting erotic poetry to this girl, I think I still deserve some credit for making that leap of understanding."

"Fine. You guessed right. I'm sorry about this weekend, but I'll get over there soon."

"What? No! Definitely this weekend," Tony insisted.

"I just explained about MJ…"

"Bring her."

"I…" Peter was genuinely speechless. The Avengers compound was sacred ground in his opinion and, while he would never categorize MJ as unworthy, it sure surprised him that Mr. Stark wasn't either. Then again, Iron Man was still the only one of the team to go around openly declaring his identity. (He'd done it once in a Starbucks drive-through with Peter in the backseat beside him. From the look on Happy's face, that wasn't the kind of thing that got easier to tolerate over time.)

"Bring. Her."

"She's not very…" Peter wracked his brain for an excuse; this was way too intense for a first date activity. "…friendly."

"Don't I know it. I've heard her shut you down a time or two. I guess persistence pays off, huh kid?"

Peter sighed, fishing his pajamas out from under his pillow, where he'd shoved them when Ned came over.

"She doesn't know, ok? How can I explain an impromptu trip to the super restricted Avengers compound when all MJ knows about my link to the Avengers is that I used to be your intern?"

"You're still obsessed with me and you miss me? No," Tony amended, "that would bode poorly for a potential future breakup between the two of you. Ok… You're coming to clean out your desk?"

"And I would want to do that on a date because…?"

"You're trying to impress her. Like, 'oops, I forgot, I better do this before that brilliant billionaire Mr. Stark gets impatient with me and oh look, MJ, is that the Black Widow walking through the lobby? Yeah, I know her. Why don't we stay awhile?'"

"Just… no," Peter groaned, trying not to yawn.

"Here's a thought," Tony piped up perkily. "Why not tell her the truth?"

"The truth?" He was fighting to keep blinking instead of letting his eyes close for seven hours like they wanted to.

"Yeah, tell her you're Spider-Man."

"Is that… I mean, is that a good idea?" Peter slapped his face gently, this sudden serious turn making him want to stay awake.

"Sure," Tony said unconvincingly. "Why not?"

"You genuinely think I should tell her?"

"You like her, don't you?"

"I really like her."

"And you trust her?"

"I think so."

"She doesn't seem the type to scratch 'Peter Parker is Spider-Man' into a bathroom stall or use this juicy piece of information to win herself a better, more interesting boyfriend?"

"Hey! But, no. MJ's so, so private," Peter promised, still trying to separate the bad advice from the outright insults.

"And this is the sort of thing that would impress her, correct?"

"I mean, probably, but I couldn't say for sure."

"Oooh, I like the sounds of this MJ. You gotta bring her over," Tony demanded.

"You sound like May."

"Did May advise you to tell this girl your secret identity?"

"Obviously not," Peter said, really tired now.

"Then I'm still the irresponsible one. Good, that should help me get to sleep."

"You never sleep."

"True," Mr. Stark immediately agreed. His voice sounded distracted, attention probably drifting to some new project he wanted to fiddle with.

"Do you mind if I do?" Peter wondered.

"Go for it. Let's talk soon though. I need to know exactly how you spring this on her. Ciao."

Peter couldn't really remember agreeing to share his greatest secret, but as soon as he shook off his suit and crawled into bed, he stopped worrying about it.


"You wanna tell me now?" MJ prompted as they squared off on opposite sides of a starting line marked by a pinnie hung from a golf club, the handle of which had been driven into the ground.

Peter chuckled and broke away from her as the gym teacher's whistle blew, performing a clean hook that left him open to receive the football―except his school's jock types only ever passed to each other (even if it meant a fumble or interception).

"How 'bout now?" she tried again, walking back to the new down several plays later after swatting the ball out of somebody's hands. Peter was pretty sure the guy had been a member of the team MJ had been assigned to, not that she seemed to care. He shook his head, then followed her with his eyes as she strode past him. Seeing her legs gave him a whole new appreciation for the mandatory, boring gym shorts.

"You've got nothing, don't you?" MJ taunted. Peter shrugged and slipped her once again as soon as the whistle sounded.

He never would've considered irritating this girl to be fun or a good idea from the standpoint of his personal safety and yet, holding back the location of their upcoming date was pretty enjoyable. Peter didn't even want to let himself think the word, but today's blended boys' and girls' gym class of touch football was, for him, bordering on… foreplay.

In spite of the 50 other people on the immaculate green field, he could only think about playing with her. And the game in his head wasn't football. The longer he put MJ off, the more she pushed back with questions until, abruptly, she switched over to her classically reticent behaviour―ignoring Peter completely. Totally unfair, he thought. Worse than that, she started focusing on the game.

"Hey!" she shouted at her team's quarterback as Peter was covering her from a touch-only football acceptable distance. "You! With the ball! I have long arms and I'm open!"

The ball came sailing in her direction and… no. An adrenaline-charged tingle went up his arms. He wasn't going to let her concentrate on football over him. What Peter did allow was MJ to catch the ball. Her gym shirt untucked from her shorts and when he dove, his palm landed on the warm bare skin of her stomach. He grabbed her around the waist and hauled her to the grass. Tangled up with him.

"Why are you so good at this?" MJ huffed, letting the ball roll away without concern.

"Which part?" Peter joked, smiling until he realized he'd unthinkingly moved his hand down to her upper thigh. Also, that he was maybe a little more pressed against her than it was really a good idea to be. Especially when MJ stopped looking into his eyes and started looking at his lips.

The gym teacher blew his whistle shrilly.

"TOUCH-ONLY! TOUCH-ONLY!"

MJ extricated herself from Peter with a sigh.

"Don't worry, Mr. Robertson," she droned to the teacher. "We definitely touched."

"Parker, I should make you sit out for the rest of the period," the teacher threatened as Peter sprang to his feet.

"Can you not?" Cindy called out wearily from several yards away. "He's the only one not tired."

Peter glanced around. It was true; the rest of his classmates were red-faced and breathing hard. Right, he should probably get better at faking physical exhaustion. He met his teacher's eye and was given a pathetic shrug that said he could stay in the game. Typical gym class―it was more important to be tough than to play fair.

"Are you ok?" Peter earnestly asked MJ when he could. He'd tried to hold her gently, but a tackle was still a tackle.

She tapped the next closest member of Peter's team on the shoulder.

"Switch with me," MJ demanded, pulling off her pinnie.

"Why?" the girl inquired suspiciously.

"Switch with me and you won't have to worry."

"About what?"

"What indeed?" MJ whispered. The girl's eyes widened and she quickly made the trade before edging along to the opposite end of the lineup.

"As you were saying?" MJ turned to Peter, dragging him a little ways off to the side so the play could go on without them.

"I wanted to make sure I hadn't hurt you when, when I…" He could feel himself turning red.

"You didn't hurt me, Peter," she assured him with a small smile. He sighed in relief. "But don't get used to being on top," MJ added, then turned and headed back towards the school. Peter was dumbstruck. The bell rang through the outdoor loudspeakers seconds later. "By the way," she shouted back at him, "what you're feeling right now? That's for not telling me what we're doing this weekend."


Peter decided to walk MJ home at the end of the day. Skipping the Spidey shift felt reasonable after he considered that he'd probably be doing an extra-long patrol the next night when pre-Saturday jitters kept him from getting to sleep. That, plus the tether she had (inadvertently? Hard to say) tied to him after her suggestive comment in gym class, had Peter practically bouncing along beside her. Only superhuman senses and reflexes could stop him from running into someone, or something, or falling down an open manhole. Everything sorta gravitated around MJ once Peter laid eyes on her, no matter where they were. He was still getting used to that.

"I'm not going to get lost, you know." She gave him a bored look after breaking the silence she'd been maintaining for blocks. Apparently, he was still being frozen out for withholding date details.

"I know," Peter lightly acknowledged.

"Are you just trying to find out where I live?"

"Come on, MJ. I know where you live," he said thoughtlessly, then saw her sharply turn her head to demand an explanation. "I mean, vaguely. Not, uh, definitely not specifically. And don't you think I should know?"

"I guess," MJ allowed.

"Then why are you giving me such a tough time?" Peter asked with a laugh, elbowing her arm.

"Because," she said coldly. He skipped ahead of her, walking backwards, and raised his eyebrows until MJ gave in with a roll of her eyes. "I can't change everything at once, Peter," she admitted. "I don't know who we are without certain ways of behaving."

"Who we are?" He didn't really get it.

"Who I am, ok? Maybe you wouldn't… maybe you wouldn't like me if I was different." MJ shoved her hands into her pockets and drifted enough away from him that some guy walking in the opposite direction squeezed between them.

"I don't know if I'd exactly miss how you hate me like 90 percent of the time," he joked, navigating back into closer proximity. "But what do you mean? That you want to be different around me?"

MJ's mouth pinched like she wanted to answer, but something in her was wrestling that urge to the ground. She turned her face away while Peter exhaled in disappointment. Just when she seemed to want to run from their conversation, they were stopped by a flashing hand as a streetlight turned from amber to red. He grabbed her forearm, not hard.

"Tell me what you mean. Please?" Peter requested.

She turned towards him with her body before she managed to look him in the eye, gaze lowered for ages while he stood there wondering.

"I think things could be different between us."

"Like the other day?" he prompted. "When you kissed me?"

Peter was shocked when MJ flushed.

"Yeah, like that for example." Their light went green and as they started to walk, MJ seemed to stay on the roll he'd gotten her on. "It's just confusing to try to guess how things would be if I let you see other parts of myself. Parts of my personality," she brusquely clarified, making Peter feel suddenly sleazy even though he hadn't even had time to start thinking of another meaning for her words. "Do you have any concept of how that might feel?"

As MJ pierced him with dark, searching eyes, Peter tried not to show how deeply he felt her question. Worries about letting her see another side of himself? Hell yes, that was something he could relate to! Naturally, he was curious as to what MJ was concealing―or at least moderating―about herself, but he really doubted it was as big a deal as a crime-fighting alter ego. Peter wanted to tell her that, but the secret felt like it was rolling around on his tongue like a gumball in one of those old, round vending machines with the metal slides, except his internal gum slide didn't have an exit. Not yet.

Peter only sighed.

"Yeah, I do."

"Do you though?" MJ pressed. She jerked on his sleeve to stop him at a street corner. He knew her apartment was just down from where they stood. "You wear everything on your sleeve." She glanced at the place she was hanging onto him and let go. "I don't know if you could really hide anything. I mean, I used to think you were hiding something…"

"Would that change anything? Between you and me?" he asked, knowing he was looking into her face with that same openness she'd just pointed out. MJ shrugged.

"I don't think any secret you could have would really be that bad. I'm interested though."

"Yeah?" He grinned.

MJ nodded confidently, squinting her eyes playfully at Peter as she seemed to assess him and decide he was worth knowing more about. He felt weirdly privileged to see all that going on in her eyes. It made him a little giddy, so before he could second-guess himself, Peter slid his hand around the back of her neck. When she didn't object to his fingers trailing higher, into her hair to hold the back of her head, Peter pulled MJ in and kissed her. Moving his mouth against hers progressed with an unearthly smoothness; in the heat of it, he wasn't even surprised when her hand found his chest and scrunched his t-shirt with fingers that gradually grasped a little more.

She drew back after a minute and, hypnotized, Peter watched her slowly roll her lips together like she was squashing their kiss into place, stamping it to make it last longer. Boy, his heart was going like one of Mr. Stark's fully-electric perpetual motors. People kept flowing around them, sometimes jostling them (the moment was magical, but hey, these were still New Yorkers), and Peter just didn't care. He stared at MJ and it felt too good.

"I'm gonna…" Her words faded and she raised a loose arm to jerk back over her shoulder with her thumb. "I should get home. I'll see you tomorrow?"

Peter was shrugging and nodding and generally reacting in every affirmative way his body could come up with without also thinking of how to act dignified or, at the minimum, normal. He was pretty sure he gave her a thumbs up. Stop, he told himself. Where's the kill switch for auto-dork?

MJ was giving him a smile and twisting away. At the last second, Peter caught her waist and dragged her back into another, briefer kiss.

"Still interested," she promised with a smirk, giving his chest a pat and heading home.

At that point, getting shoved off the sidewalk and swept into a sewer grate by a streetcleaner wouldn't have ruined Peter's day. He was too excited to continue walking back to his and May's apartment, so he ran. After two blocks, Peter ducked into a convenient alley for a quick clothing change and hurtled a rusty dumpster to climb the wall. This―MJ's tentatively-expressed yearning for them to show more of themselves to each other―could really be his opening to reveal that he was Spider-Man. It was a chance he hadn't seen coming. With the assistance of his web shooters, Peter caught himself like he always did. Even so, from the first leap, swinging felt like flying.


Author's Note:

Next chapter, these two will actually head out on their date, I swear it to you. Because I know I'll be flooded with comments if I don't tell you now, my preferred hamburger toppings are lettuce, tomato, double pickles, and mayonnaise. (Are we collectively hating my sense of humour yet? Don't answer that.)

Thoughts on Peter and Tony this chapter? Peter and MJ? There was a moment there where Peter veered dangerously towards emotional-range-of-a-teaspoon... but wait, wrong franchise.

To be continued...