Author's Note:

Comments! Thanks very much to those of you who came through on the last chapter! It really makes a world of difference to get a little positive response. Please know that it's appreciated!

XXV

She'd broken him. She'd broken Peter. Would regular-people CPR work on him if he didn't start breathing soon? MJ had always thought that being the daughter of a doctor would be an advantage, something she brought to a relationship―like people who were great at cooking or finding lost keys―but of course, she had to fall for the one guy at her school with fucking super DNA. Shit. Or maybe he could go ages without taking a breath. She guessed that was something she should find out for certain. Either way, it seemed like time to intervene because this nerd did not get to screw up the one kind of mouth-to-mouth she was hoping for this afternoon.

MJ was a little bit tense.

Her throat felt too tight with anxiety to talk to him, so she started withdrawing the sketchbook. Peter's face came with it and MJ was forced to stop, or else make him fall off the edge of her bed (which, in hindsight, would've been hilarious).

"Not done," he mumbled.

And there went her hearing, fading out with a numbing buzz of adrenaline. At least he was breathing. This was a significantly better reaction than the one she'd been trying not to spend too much time dreading since the idea to show him her sketches had come to mind―a reaction that went something like, 'What the FUCK, you pervert!' So this, yes, this she would gratefully accept, as it didn't look like Peter was building up to shouting, swearing, name-calling, or any combination of the three. Still didn't mean MJ knew what her boyfriend was thinking. Cautiously, she glanced down from his face to the page she was holding open.

"There are more," MJ quietly admitted. If she was gonna dig this hole for herself, she was gonna dig deep enough that scavengers couldn't sniff out the body, dead from embarrassment.

She tried to grab the corner of the page, but her fingers kept quivering and slipping on the paper. Peter's hand appeared, pulling hers away and linking it with his before his other hand reached up to flip to the next drawing. MJ didn't know how many minutes went by in silence, watching Peter's eyes scan every detail of the image in front of him and his mouth inhale breaths she couldn't hear. Finally, he made a humming sound when―it looked like―he tried to speak while his lips were still pressed together contemplatively.

"How?" he spluttered out on his second attempt, face lifting to meet her eyes.

Confusing question, MJ felt like, seeing as she personally would have gone the 'What the FUCK' route herself.

"I've been learning you. A little bit at a time." Peter was still staring at her, looking interested, and the nerd in her took over, eager to be credited for the hours of observation that had gone into perfecting (or working towards perfecting) his likeness. "Your hands were six months ago, when Mr. Harrington was quizzing us. You were sitting in front of me and you kept raising your hand to give answers, even though he said we could just call them out." She was smiling gently to herself, studying the lines she'd drawn. "Knees to ankles were a couple months after that. We had a combined gym class and I watched you pull yourself up a rope to the ceiling." Distractedly, MJ managed to turn another page of the book and traced the lines she'd uncovered. "Your back was during that warm week we got in the fall. I was watching you pack your books at your locker when Flash tried to yank the back of your shirt over your head."

"Yeah, I remember that."

She nearly jumped.

"God, I almost forgot you were here."

"Oh yeah? Thought you were alone with this guy?" Peter smirked and tapped the drawing. MJ rolled her eyes though her face was turning red, she could tell.

"I swear, Parker, if you start making fun of me―"

"I'm not," he said quickly. He took the sketchbook out of her hands (it took a second for her to loosen her grip on what had been her most private possession) and laid it on her nightstand, still open. "I'm not."

The way he said it, so softly, seemed like a trap to draw her in. Or that was how MJ justified to herself the way she was so easily led forward to stand between Peter's knees. He was clearly using his superhero wiles.

"How long have you been drawing me?"

"Well," she started, sort of flustered, "obviously there are certain details there that I couldn't have known before we had sex, so it should be pretty easy for you to date the sketches of us back to―"

"Not us," Peter corrected. "Me."

Oh. Uh oh.

"A while," MJ said evasively. She took a deep breath and gathered herself. "How long have you been superhuman?"

A slow grin from the nerd with the abs of steel, or whatever they were making this model of Boy out of these days.

"A while."

She exhaled in frustration, dodging the way he tried to take her hands. Those, MJ planted on her hips, but Peter pried them off and held them anyway. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

"I am prepared to answer one question about the sketches for every question you answer about being Spider-Man. Since everyone's secrets are on the table now. Deal?"

He dropped her hands so that he could extend just one of them to her. Oh, those honest brown eyes that made her such a sucker. She put her palm to Peter's, expecting a businesslike handshake, and was tugged into his lap. The fact of suddenly being in his lap was actually less surprising than how little effort he'd seemed to put into bringing her there.

"Deal," Peter agreed, chipper as fuck. MJ glared and allowed him to arrange her sideways across his thighs, their shoulders touching to form a 90° angle. Probably on purpose, knowing this math freak. "Did you want to start?" he asked innocently as she gave him nothing but dead air.

"Same question as before."

It was no use trying to squint apathetically at him. The fact that her boyfriend could climb walls was more than mildly interesting.

"It's been a couple of years now," Peter said, nodding to himself. "Maybe I wasn't doing anything huge before Mr. Stark, like, discovered me, but waking up after accidentally falling asleep on the living room ceiling, or having to sit in my closet in the dark for an hour every day after school just to give my enhanced senses a break… that stuff was still pretty monumental."

"Wow," MJ breathed, beginning to picture it, "and―"

"My question," he interrupted. A second later, his thoughtful expression was completely gone. "And it's gonna be two parts because you tried to get an extra question in." She sighed and propped her elbow up on his shoulder, waiting for him to continue. "How long have you been drawing me," Peter repeated, "and what did you draw first?"

"What part of you did I draw first?"

"Yeah."

She leaned her head over onto her arm.

"Your eyes," she whispered, because volume level somehow corresponded to embarrassment level.

Peter's arm went around her waist, holding her against him.

"Which was when?" he prompted. His head turned slightly towards her.

Dammit. Breathe in, breathe out.

"The second I got home from school on the first day of freshman year. We had science together. I was at my desk when you came through the door, and your eyes…" MJ cut herself off. "They were… memorable."

She glanced at Peter and, yeah, he was looking pretty self-satisfied, but that look was directed through those same warm eyes MJ had just wimped out and called 'memorable,' instead of alluding in any way to how she'd almost melted out of her seat―Wicked-Witch-of-the-West-style―that first day.

"I like your eyes too," he told her.

"Great," she replied tensely. Peter frowned.

"This was your idea. Is this not ok? The questions?"

MJ breathed out slowly, shaking her head, then nodding.

"You're freaking me out."

"The Spider-Man stuff?" He was really bad at hiding his hurt. She touched his face quickly, cupping his jaw.

"No. About my drawings." MJ dropped her hand. "You're pretty calm."

Peter snorted and leaned his head sideways into hers.

"I've had bigger surprises."

She was unconvinced.

"Yeah, but… nothing? Just a few minutes staring at them and you're over it? I'm not trying to push you towards crippling shame or a rant about the sanctity of your privacy, it's just… not much of a reaction."

He let his head fall forward and laughed softly, excluding her from whatever it was he was finding funny. Before MJ could complain, Peter looked up, moving his face closer to hers than it had been before.

"You want my reaction? No downplaying?"

She narrowed her eyes.

"Obviously."

Peter jerked MJ snugly into him, not leaving her casually seated, but with the side of her hip against the front of his and the outside of her thigh against… Oh. Her face twitched. He cleared his throat with precious disquiet.

"Can we go back to the questions now that you're convinced?" Peter's warm hand on her cheek got her to meet his eye. "You're convinced, right?"

"Is the suit doing the work, or is it you?" she said quickly, attempting to get a grip on her thoughts while her boyfriend's erection pressed her thigh.

"The suit helps, but it's me. My turn." MJ's heart was really pounding. Her door was shut and Peter smelled like Peter and she'd kinda been waiting for this. "How far does it go?"

"How far does what go?"

Peter grinned, looking down to her mouth and letting his nose skim her cheek.

"What you drew. Is it just drawings? Do those… get it out of your system?"

This was not fair. The who, me? way he was looking at her in contrast to the answers he was fishing for was definitely breaking some sort of Ethics of Discussions. She should've established better rules when she came up with the back and forth questions thing. Had captaining decathlon taught her nothing?

"I've had dreams," MJ said, tone borderline belligerent. "I know what you're doing."

Peter's hand glided up her back, over her sweatshirt.

"Asleep dreams or awake ones? And I'm not doing anything."

"Both. Yes, you are. This is the thing you do; you act progressively more harmless the worse you're about to behave."

"That's really interesting," Peter said sincerely. His mouth brushed across hers and the world felt small and theirs. "I think that sketchbook might be your best work."

Veins flowing with lava, MJ spoke against his lips.

"I think you're fucking biased."

"I swear," he said earnestly, as his hips rocked not subtly enough for her to miss, "I'm only fucking you."

With a groan, MJ pressed hard into the kiss. Peter got handsy with her legs, palm roughly stroking up and down her thigh. If his chest hadn't been so rigid from urgent horniness, she thought she might've been able to tip him onto his back. Her hands were buried in his hair when she got the idea to use his sexual trigger (calling him Spider-Man―which she'd kept carefully stored and labelled in her mind) to get into a position that was more like sex, but the second she opened her mouth, there was his tongue. The muscles between her legs clenched up.

"Save the dad jokes for your t-shirts," she counselled, panting hot air when he let her breathe. Peter's hand snuck under her sweatshirt, flat on the skin of her lower back.

"Gotta give you something to go after."

"Everything I want to go after is on the pages of that book." MJ unzipped his hoodie sharply. "And under here."

Peter moaned and squeezed her against him as he kissed her, which was irritating, since she was trying to get him naked. His hand slipped up higher on her back and unhooked her bra.

"You're going out of order," she critiqued.

"As long as I'm working from more clothes to less clothes, the order doesn't matter."

Well, a little chaotic for her, but the logic was solid. MJ continued kissing Peter and managed to conquer his zipper. The first one.

"Do we have to go get, um, condoms from the bathroom?" Peter asked, head back and eyes closed as she kissed down his neck, shoving the sweatshirt off his shoulders.

"I keep some in my bedside table, since…"

"Right. Great." Her arms got trapped when he raised the hem of her sweatshirt, but he removed it pretty fast. Her bra hung away from her ribcage, unclasped and unimpressed. "One more thing and then I'll shut up," Peter said.

"Doubtful," MJ snarked, grinning as she began to clamber up from his lap.

"MJ." He caught her waist to still her and did an admirable job of maintaining eye contact while her bra fell to dangle by its straps from the crook of her elbows. "I want you above me. Like in your first drawing."

Ok. That was something worth hearing. Things grew a little wetter as her muscles reacted once more.

"Not the first first one," he babbled, becoming Peter again. "The first naked one. No, there's a word for that. An art word."

"Nude," MJ supplied.

"Yeah, your first nude," he replied, voice coming more slowly now that his request had been clarified. Their gazes danced.

"'K."

After a second vibrating with giddy hesitation, MJ kissed Peter. He kept it slow as she moved from across his lap to astride it, straddling his thighs, hands mostly staying out of her way―except to gently guide her―until she tossed her bra away, which he must have felt. It was even possible that she'd made sure he'd felt it. Then, Peter's hands were on her breasts. MJ breathed heavily, open mouth bumping his, as his light touch circled her nipples. She had the crazy thought that, if they'd been a car, they would've been fogging up the windows. The crazy part being that neither of them had a car―sex inside a car (should the opportunity present itself) seemed strangely, electrifyingly plausible. Peter was Spider-Man! MJ had shown him her collection of birthday suit portraits and he wasn't seeking a restraining order! Most other things that could happen would not have the ability to surprise her.

She wiggled her hands up under his t-shirt and did her best to bend her fingers to the hot skin of his ribbed stomach. Peter really liked to be felt up, MJ was finding, and not just in the overtly dirty way. As her hands dragged north to his chest, he let out a small noise of satisfaction that just about turned her inside out. She followed the natural outline of his pecs and Peter stroked across her nipples with his thumbs.

"Only problem with this," he huffed, eyes unashamedly not on her face, "is I can't get my pants off with you on my lap."

MJ grinned superiorly, arrogant and aflame under his caress.

"I happen to be an excellent problem solver."

"Are you?"

"Mhmm. It's the main skill that recommended me as decathlon captain." She was kidding, but they were looking at one another with expressions of grave, high stakes flirtation rather than two nerds sharing a joke. Or it could've been both.

"Really?" Peter groped her breasts fully in his palms. Someone was getting impatient, not that she minded. "I just thought you got the job 'cause you're smarter than the rest of us."

MJ gasped.

"What was that?"

"I'm buttering you up," he admitted with a smile, hips jerking slightly beneath her, though they weren't pressed together well enough for it to do a hell of a lot of good for either of them. "I figure, the more you like me, the faster you'll want to prove that you can get my pants off."

"Even once I hear that I'm being manipulated?" Her eyebrows raised to hover judgmentally.

"Hey," Peter argued, "me not having pants on would be to your benefit. And I'm banking on the you-liking-me part to offset the manipulation. Perceived manipulation," he corrected.

"Uh huh."

How unmoved MJ was trying to sound was probably cancelled out by the eagerness she displayed in yanking his t-shirt over his head. Oh well. She was no martyr. Plus, Peter's oh my god, she wants me face was pretty cute and generally worth provoking. She reached between them and twisted the button of his jeans open. Unzipped.

"Guess you're lucky I like you a lot," she said. She jerked with her chin. "Scoot back."

Peter swung his legs up onto the bed and maneuvered around until he had his back to the wall. MJ crawled on her knees to keep above him, but she wasn't saying no to the way he'd grabbed the underside of her thigh to lead her either.

"Can I, this time?" he checked, putting his hands on her hips, then holding them in front of the fastening of her jeans.

Her heart was pounding as she glanced down at his hands and absorbed the fact that, minus their lower halves being clothed, this was looking a lot like the first sketch she'd drawn of them. Kudos to her horny, possibly kinky, superhero. MJ gave him the go-ahead with a nod.

Once her jeans were open―and she'd swatted away Peter's fingers, lingering on the triangle of striped underwear he'd revealed by lowering her zipper―MJ slid back on her knees. Her boyfriend looked bereft. She tugged lightly on the leg of his jeans in explanation.

"Lift your butt," MJ commanded.

Not much of a strain for a guy who could do god knew what with those muscles, but that didn't lessen her enjoyment when Peter braced his fists on her mattress so that his arms went tight with definition.

"MJ?"

Oops, she was staring at him. She inhaled to collect herself, then leaned forward to kiss him. Peter was an eager recipient of her affections. He kept himself up like that, suspended on fists and heels, and MJ laid her palms on his denim thighs. Very gradually, she brushed her hands towards his hips. Only when she'd entangled her tongue with Peter's did she slip her hands under his waistband and begin divesting. He sighed and sunk back to the bed. MJ drew away, taking his jeans with her, then returning for his boxers and snatching them down his legs as well. She sat back as he toed the socks from his feet.

Naked and, in expected Peter Parker fashion, blushing hard, he stared at her expectantly. This was… this was going to be different. He'd basically seen her body, but now, if she was on top, he was going to see her body the whole time they were having sex? Why had that seemed like such an easy thing to agree to? MJ crossed her arms awkwardly, sort of obstructing his view of her breasts without categorically hiding. Seemed like he got the hint because Peter glanced away, saw the sketchbook still lying on her nightstand and made an entire dorky show of noticing it and picking it up for inspection. She rolled her eyes, yet sat, swung her legs over the edge of the bed, and worked her jeans and underwear down her legs as surreptitiously as she could, considering they both knew what she was doing.

MJ poked his leg, just below the knee, and shifted towards him again. Peter made eye contact, then darted his gaze from the page in front of him, to her, to the page. Still staring at her drawing, he bent his knee, trying to get the angle right. It filled her with trepidation.

"It doesn't have to be perfect," she said, unsure whether her words were a plea or a demand as they left her mouth. She pulled a curly strand of her hair over her shoulder, twisting her fingers in the end.

Peter smiled and set the Night Pad back on the table.

"It's already perfect."

MJ pushed his knee down so that she could stretch to kiss him. He cupped the back of her head, then scooped both hands into her hair.

"Condom?" she asked, still outrunning that anxious feeling. It seemed to have gotten tripped up in Peter's smile and tackled by his words, but MJ was cautious.

"Just come over here," he requested.

His hands grasped her arms as she moved to sit closer, then gave up with a cleansing sigh and just straddled the guy. She kept her seat around his mid-thigh, which was about as neutral as naked straddling got, MJ figured.

"Here good?"

"Here's great."

And Peter guided her mouth back to his. Everything was alright; this was Peter. MJ's hands landed on his shoulders and squeezed gently. His hand caressed up and down the back of her neck. Slowly, they brought each other closer, MJ drawing his shoulders forward in a protective curve and Peter dropping his other hand to the middle of her bare back. She reintroduced her tongue to his mouth and he made a hungry noise; her skin prickled and sang. Then Peter ran his palm down to her ass and all hell broke loose. Relatively speaking. Super-nerd had doubtless seen more dramatic shit than this.

Something in MJ's brain said he was going to grab her, making her body pre-empt that movement by jerking forward on its own to press her hips into his. Which mostly but didn't completely work because Peter's cock was there and, and, and ready, and requisitioning space by pressing into her abdomen, since hers was significantly more yielding than his. Which caused Peter himself―the rest of Peter, mainland Peter, Peter proper―to jump and freeze before seizing her ass like he meant business and rubbing himself against her. Which made MJ instinctively tilt her hips in an attempt to get her clit in on some of this action ('Seeking a Friend for Spontaneous Adventure,' her clit's ad in the personal column would read). Which set Top MJ loose, about whom Everyday MJ would've warned Peter, had she known of her existence.

"What do you want?" this supremely confident version of her asked. Her tone of voice made Peter swear. That was a nice accent to the symphony of senses building up in and around MJ. The way they were grinding into each other was a steady constant that she was actually fairly certain wouldn't be steady very long because it felt too good to sustain.

Peter's hand shot out for the bedside table, making short work of a condom's wrapper before he interrupted their frenzied rocking to glove his erection.

"You," he breathed hotly, gripping her hair. "God, M, just you."

She scrambled onto her knees and eased into the least neutral part of his lap. Peter's hand was shaking as he lined himself up.

Sinking down wasn't as simple as MJ had thought it would be. He hadn't helped her stretch around his fingers beforehand, so she was tight. At least she was wet―spectacularly wet from being psychologically turned on by the thought of them recreating her art. That probably said something disturbing and narcissistic about her, but MJ didn't care because Peter's touch on her breasts was so teasing and her determination to fit their bodies together like Lego (far too much time eavesdropping on Peter and Ned's conversations) was so strong that it was happening. And it felt good.

"Fuck," Peter spat out as her body slowly and snugly accepted him. "Feels like you're swallowing me whole."

"Something to try another time," she joked before she could stop herself. Jesus, where was her self-discipline? Apparently that was something Top MJ had traded in during a Build Your Own Bedroom Persona, swapping control of herself for control of Peter. Not that she really wanted to control Peter, but… MJ made a hasty study of his flushed face, the tortured crimp of his eyelids. He certainly had the look of someone being controlled. She saw that look a lot when she drew people in detention―a variation of it at least, definitely not this look. There was no sign of suffering here, besides the temporary kind that Peter could probably endure and possibly welcomed.

MJ circled and experimented until she was able to slide her hips down to meet Peter's, likely putting him through the wringer in the process.

"Lie back," she told him, rubbing his chest. Peter reclined into the wall. "All the way back."

"That's not like the picture," he said, looking a little too happy to be complaining.

"We did the picture. It's static. I want to move, Peter," MJ insisted, swinging her hips forward and back gently to illustrate.

His hips snapped to hers, accompanied by a dirty grunt from his barely parted lips. Now that was a sound she hadn't known he was capable of. Her muscles tensed and she bore down hard, even though she had nowhere to go.

"Yeah, ok," Peter said, the two of them suddenly having to catch their breath. "Good idea."

"Do that again when you get down there," she requested, releasing out a long shaky exhale.

He nodded and wriggled flat to the mattress. There were numerous current events MJ was against, but the way this change in positions jostled her was not one of them. She leaned forward, hands back on Peter's chest, and played with the tilt of her hips until they both groaned.

"I like this so far," he confessed, staring up at her like there was some kind of angelic glow around her head. MJ smirked deviously.

The media had tried to whisper in her ear (and scream in her face) that sex was normal and natural and basically unavoidably intuitive for a man. She didn't get what all the backslapping was about; she'd put her body on top of Peter's and it knew what to do. Playing field levelled.

MJ rode Peter with containment at first, not in any rush, because this was new and they'd evidently both forgotten about her imperative for him to thrust sharply up into her. And then he remembered.

"Holy shit," she gasped. She could still feel his thrust. It was like a buzzer's hum, rippling endlessly after the beginning had ended.

"Too mu―?"

"Shush! I'm sorry," MJ added immediately, hips still rolling as though daring Peter's to react. Her heart felt like it was sitting unusually high inside her chest. Maybe trying to choke her with the energy it was ready to expend. "Wasn't too much. More sex, less talk."

Peter gave a gut-punch groan when she began an intense pace out of nowhere. What? She'd said more, she was damn well going to do more. Being on top was awesome! She rose and fell on him, not shy about using his chest or abs for leverage. He was obviously trying to behave himself and let her have this; his fingers wrapped around her wrists and flinched whenever she slammed her hips down especially forcefully.

"Don't be a hero, Parker," MJ taunted, high on the unwavering rub of his dick over her g-spot.

He scrunched his mouth up and eyed her carefully, taking the long route to her face. The one that started at their hands, went to the slick joining place, and swooped up her torso, his erection throbbing inside her to let her know exactly how he felt when he stared at her like this. He freed her wrists and grabbed her hips.

MJ smiled to herself, lowering her gaze, then clenched her fingers more firmly against his stomach and started a ferocious rhythm. Peter, always eager to assist, guided her up and down, back and forth until guiding became pushing and pulling and Top MJ got suspicious of a potential loss of authority.

"Hey," she warned, "I'm still―"

"Shush."

His eyes lifted to her face and he grinned at her, skating his fingers from her hip to her abdomen, then down to flick her clit. On second thought, she might let him have this one. He drilled into her from below and did an impressive job of keeping his fingertips on her clit despite the increasing wildness of their movements. Now MJ was bracing against his chest for the very practical need for stability. Her legs were burning and on the verge of the kind of cramp no one who doesn't participate in team sports rightfully deserves to get, but she kept moving on him, moaning openly when she didn't have the spare energy to bottle it up.

"Can I talk?" The formless moans were not enough.

"If it's my name," Peter replied.

It was supposed to a joke, she assumed, but his expression was focused: serious and desperate. Which kind of turned her on, seeing Peter look like that. Her muscles clenched and her boyfriend thrust and pushed and pulled, everything faster.

"Peter," gusted out from her mouth and then she imploded, everything tense and collapsing inwards. A black hole of bliss. Impossible science, like Peter was impossible science.

She was held and rolled and laid flat on her back so quickly that it might've stirred up some motion sickness had her brain and her vision not been softly hazy as her pleasure stretched like it didn't want to get out of bed. Peter's quick bucking helped draw the feeling out, ensuring MJ was warm and satisfied when he finished with a burst of exhalation. For some reason, he'd been holding his breath since flipping her under him. He dropped flat on top of MJ.

"You're going to crush me," she lied quietly, greedily hugging him and smoothing her hands across his back.

"I have a crush on you too," Peter mouthed into her neck.

"That's not what I said."

"It's what you meant," he argued, raising his head to smile at her. His brown eyes fucking sparkled.

Dammit. He wasn't wrong.

Author's Note:

Next chapter: Three nerds enjoy an American pastime. Also, matchmaking?

To be continued...