Author's Note:

Very serious chapter ahead. 100% studying. 0% funny business.

*snorts* As if.


XXIX

Peter was trying to figure out if MJ was wearing the dress on purpose. Obviously, she wore dresses. He'd seen it. But just for, like, special occasions, such as dances, academic awards nights, and International Women's Day, when she'd taped doodles she'd done of inspirational women (Michelle Obama, Katherine Johnson, and Susan Solomon were a few he remembered) all the way around her skirt and on the back of her denim jacket. The focused expression he currently had directed at the Jones's kitchen tabletop was supposed to be the result of his efforts to recall the second-longest river in Bolivia, not to decipher the motives behind his girlfriend's clothing choice.

Not that women's clothes were designed or worn for the purpose of eliciting any kind of response from men, even if it was confusion. That was absolutely not how Peter felt. It was just that… on her, his girlfriend, the dress was a choice, and he never would've thought it was about him, except that she was wearing it now and she hadn't been earlier. Not that she'd been naked earlier! No, just that MJ had worn a different outfit to school and the switch from that to this was very obvious. Peter couldn't see another motive behind it, besides himself. He wasn't sure he'd ever been a motive before.

Also, MJ kept kicking her legs up to stretch them across, under the table, to the chair opposite her, where she rested her heels. It made her skirt slide up her thighs, and―SUE HIM, OK?―Peter noticed.

It all just would've been a lot easier to deal with if her mom, June, wasn't standing in the kitchen with them, making mac and cheese from a box.

"You'd think she'd be able to do this, wouldn't you?" June asked Peter, pointing a gooey wooden spoon towards her daughter.

Next to him, MJ rolled her eyes at her mother. Peter made an odd shrugging gesture, wrong-footed by the question and unsure how to come down on the side that would allow him to be liked for agreeing while also not doing his girlfriend an unforgivable betrayal. Luckily, June was already shaking her head.

"Nope, Michelle can't cook anything that's supposed to be easy. She's not allowed near the toaster. Nearly blew up the microwave. I'm surprised she hasn't managed to set her cereal on fire."

"Well, I'll keep trying," MJ offered sarcastically. Peter laughed. "I think we could've trusted Peter with it today."

"Yeah," he jumped in. "I can totally…"

June lifted a hand to halt Peter, then raised her eyebrows at her daughter in an unimpressed face disturbingly similar to May's.

"He's your guest, Michelle." She frowned. "And I thought you were studying."

Peter glanced quickly at his girlfriend. She was narrowing her eyes.

"It's hard to study when you're criticizing my cooking skills."

"Skills?!" June burst into laughter. "That's a good one. I'm almost done anyway."

As she turned back to the stove, Peter began to rise automatically from his chair, propelled by the manners his aunt had instilled in him. He should help out. It would be rude not to. But MJ put her hand on his thigh and the whole world stopped like somebody had pulled an emergency break. Her hand was very high on his thigh.

"You do know it's Friday night though, right?" MJ's mom checked, speaking over her shoulder. "You couldn't have done something a little more fun?"

Peter thought of the recently purchased condoms―the open box at home and the one he'd removed from it, currently burning a hole in his wallet.

"We leave for Cleveland in a week," MJ reminded her mom. "Besides, this is fun. Peter's having the time of his life―right, nerd?" Her fingers gave his thigh a quick squeeze.

Cautiously, Peter snuck a look at his girlfriend from the corner of his eye. She was staring at the laptop in front of her, expression bored. Wait a second, no. There was tension around her mouth; MJ was trying not to smile. This was not a smart game she was playing. Peter's gaze zipped from daughter to mother and back. MJ was typing in the study guide they'd been compiling in between quizzing each other―something she wanted to bring in for the rest of the team to supplement their practices. She wrote: 'chicken.'

"Forks or spoons, folks?" June asked, still facing away from them as she heaped a pair of bowls with mac and cheese.

"Uh, spoon. Spoon for me," he stammered.

"Fork," MJ requested. She typed the same word again.

He would not react. Peter was better than this.

No, he wasn't.

Under the table, he bumped his leg into MJ's. Swallowed thickly. Smoothed his hand down her leg towards her knee. Her hand tumbled from his thigh into his lap, palm pressed to his crotch. Peter jumped up.

"I'm just gonna go to the bathroom before we eat," he said frantically as MJ's mom looked at him with mild confusion. "Um, where is it?"

June gave him directions and Peter skirted the table, almost tripping over his own feet as he held himself back from sprinting away. Even hurrying down the hallway, he kept his hands jammed in the pouch of his sweatshirt, stretching it low over his swelling erection. Even doing review had the potential to turn into sex now! Having a girlfriend was wild! For the sake of both himself and MJ―the whole team―he needed to find another place to study.


"You know who'd make a great study buddy? Your pal Karen!" Mr. Stark said, jabbing a conclusive finger in Peter's direction. "I can't believe you didn't think of that. All the tech I loaded into that suit to guide, instruct, and assist you!"

"And spy on me," Peter contributed, thumbing through a stack of flashcards. This was the new study plan. A great plan! Hopefully more fruitful, learning-wise, than the previous evening at MJ's.

His mentor shrugged.

"Yeah, well, multipurpose, like I was saying."

"Karen's great," Peter sighed, "but auditory learning isn't really my thing. I need interaction. I need to see somebody face-to-face asking me questions."

He continued to lay out his notes, covering the central table in the Avengers' common room.

"So what happened to whatshername?" Tony prompted. He was hanging out in the doorway now, as if Peter wouldn't noticed he'd been retreating from the room.

"Don't even try to pretend you don't know the name Michelle Jones," Pepper advised, maneuvering around Tony and into the room so gracefully that she had him turned around and approaching Peter again before he could even realize it had happened. Peter grinned. "He never forgets someone who out-sasses him," she confided to Peter.

Tony laughed mirthlessly and waggled a finger at Pepper.

"That's not what happened. What happened was―"

"So you'll be away the whole of next weekend for the tournament, huh?" Pepper asked Peter, blatantly talking over Tony.

She was so awesome at being on top of things, he wasn't surprised she knew his itinerary. Peter nodded.

"Yeah, as long as we don't get eliminated the first day, but we're pretty, uh, pretty confident."

"Great, Peter! Preparation is definitely key," she counselled. "Some people just have very short memories for how rocky things can be when they don't plan."

"Well," Tony interrupted, "let's not undervalue improvisation. Telling Peter that he has to prepare is an insult to his intelligence. Are you saying that Peter does not have the skills to think on his feet? Hmm, Pep? Do I have that right? You think that Peter isn't smart enough just to show up in Cleveland with his little green jacket―"

"Yellow," Peter reminded him.

"―and his brain and win the thing all by himself?"

Peter saw Pepper compose her annoyance with a short inhale through her nose and a little twitch of her head. His wide-eyed gaze shot back and forth between the two of them like a pinball.

"I'll set aside most of the ridiculousness that just came out of your mouth," Pepper offered, "but you raised one useful point." Tony frowned at this half-compliment. "Peter doesn't have to win by himself."

"Right," Tony piggybacked. He turned to Peter. "Good news, kid. You're part of a team."

Pepper beamed, but Peter got the feeling it wasn't really meant for him, or for Mr. Stark, so much as being self-congratulatory. She walked over to Tony and patted his chest fondly.

"Yes, he's part of the Avengers, who will be only too happy to help him when he needs them." Pepper kissed his cheek.

Tony laughed uncomfortably as she moved away.

"Ah, no, no. I'm too busy to―"

"I cleared your schedule," Pepper informed him from the doorway with a smile. "Peter's staying overnight, so you have almost two full days to help him." She raised her eyebrows. "Better get to it!"

Although he made it clear that he would have rather been in another part of the compound speed-building a condensed version of the Spidey suit that Peter could wear under his decathlon jacket, which would feed him answers as questions were asked, Mr. Stark did agree to help (after a short but inflexible lecture from Peter about cheating). He quizzed Peter while pacing, flipping a vial he'd found in Peter's backpack in his hand. Peter cringed every time he watched his mentor do it; the vial contained his latest concoction of web fluid as he worked towards something that wouldn't strip paint, but he hadn't had a chance to test this one out yet.

Maybe that was ok though, because the stress of wondering what would happen if the vial leaked or smashed kept Peter alert and on his toes, firing off answers as his mentor went through the question cards. Gradually (not that gradually), Mr. Stark got bored and deviated from the prepared questions―still ok and helpful, actually, because that's what the competition would be like. Then, the questions became less and less frequent, separated by thoughtful rants as Tony's mind wandered off, inspired by the content of the questions he'd been asking. Peter, easily influenced by his mentor and keen to keep up with him, was dragged along and sidetracked. Before he'd realized they were no longer talking about Danish communal wind turbine ownership, the two of them had turned the backs of Peter's prep cards into a dozen sketches for how wind energy might be better harnessed. That was around the time Dr. Banner walked into the room and very patiently evicted Tony so that he could tutor Peter himself until they took a break for dinner.

That night, he caught up with the rest of his team―the school one, not the superhero one. Apparently, she informed him via text, MJ had had a productive day studying with Cindy, despite the occasional break she'd taken to lie face down on Cindy's bedroom floor, waiting for her high-strung friend to stop imagining their team's crushing defeat in a hundred inventive ways. Those two balanced each other out, Peter thought, though he was glad it was MJ in the captain's seat rather than Cindy. While the former had a calm, supportive leadership style reminiscent of Liz's (if Liz had been fueled by sarcasm and aggressive apathy), the latter seemed more likely to extend study periods by forcing you to prop your eyelids open with toothpicks.

Ned he actually called, since Peter felt guilty about not camping out at his house this weekend instead of fleeing the city. (MJ had more than understood, had in fact been glad Peter was the one to go because it was more convenient for her, so there was no guilt there.) Apparently, his best friend hadn't been bereft of a study partner after all.

"Yeah, I met up with Betty at the library," Ned revealed. "She reserved a study room."

"That sounds cozy," Peter teased.

"Peter, come on, it's just for decathlon. Flash was there too."

"Was he horrible?" Peter spun in his chair, tucking his feet up.

"Well, he's more tolerable when you're not around."

"Awesome," he said flatly.

"He and Betty are friends and I guess he cares enough about winning that he was willing to study on a Saturday. Also, he couldn't be as obnoxious as usual because we were in the library."

"So that's the secret, huh?"

Ned chuckled.

"Seems like it. Anyway, don't feel bad for not having me over. I think Betty and I made real progress."

Peter wanted to turn that into a joke, but Ned had stirred up his soupy guilt into a guilt whirlpool and he was unavoidably sucked in.

"Actually, I'm not studying at home this weekend. I'm, uh, upstate?"

"FEEL BAD, PETER! FEEL VERY BAD!" Ned shouted, making Peter jump. "You should've brought me!"

"You had cozy library time with Betty!" he argued.

"Well…! Yeah, you're right, but that doesn't mean I don't also deserve a superhuman study session."

"I know, dude."

"Ugh, well, I'm coming to May's tomorrow night so we can at least watch a movie."

"We're not watching Life of Pi," Peter said quickly.

"It's inspirational!"

"We're competing at a decathlon tournament, not getting stranded in the ocean!"

Ned sighed.

"Mulan? And yes, I know, we're not saving China either."

"Fine."

"Ok, I'll see you tomorrow. Call me if you find another radioactive spider that can bite me so I get to study with the Avengers too."

Peter agreed, rolling his eyes.

All that mutative spider stuff was great, until it woke him up at 4:30am when all Avengers present at the compound were automatically summoned to respond to a threat. Peter fell out of bed (and a dream about MJ that he'd really wanted to see the conclusion to) and raced to the common room in his pajamas―better underdressed than late, he figured.

The others hashed out logistics while he got his eyes to stay open for more than a millisecond and when everyone broke apart, Peter turned to race back to his room for his suit. Tony grabbed his shoulder.

"We don't need you on this one, kid."

"What? Mr. Stark…" He was hurt.

"Not because I think you're incapable. Quit looking at me like that! This one's a cinch. Not worth dragging you away from your homework."

"Studying."

"Whatever." Tony scratched his ear and Peter wondered how many different things his mind was on right now. "It'll probably take even less time because it's early and these aren't all morning people. If Bruce was going, oh ho ho, it'd be over in a second. Sure, his anger is legendary, but you should see him when he's cranky. Point is, your lovely aunt may literally kill me if I needlessly get you involved."

"I'm an Avenger!" Peter tried. "I'm involved!"

Mr. Stark slapped him on the back and stepped around him.

"Keep the home fires burning, would ya?"

Ok, so he wasn't going. He might be more indignant if he wasn't secretly grateful for the chance to crawl back into bed. But he didn't need to let his mentor know that.

"Since you're all going to be busy today, I guess I'd better just head home."

Tony whipped around.

"Absolutely not. You're staying here where I know where you are."

"But there's no point if I don't have anyone to study with," Peter argued.

"The point is your safety. Pretty easy to remember."

"Some of you are going, some of you are staying to monitor, and research, and, and, whatever, and I'm just… here! Mixed up yet unable to help." Peter gave Tony a sly glance. "With all the parenting books she reads, I don't think May would have any optimistic theories on what that might do to a developing mind."

"What do you want me to do? Get you a pony?" Mr. Stark was looking around and past him, clearly anxious at being held up.

"Way simpler. Get me Ned. Look, he's known about Spider-Man for ages, he's mostly discrete, he's been dying to see this place. He's my guy in the chair!" Peter finished.

"Alright, I'll send a car for him." Tony jogged away. "And low blow threatening me with May!"

So it wasn't exactly setting up a meet and greet with the Black Widow or a photo with Thor, but Ned's eyes widened to a record diameter when Peter walked him through the compound's front doors. And maybe they didn't pass their day with noses to the grindstone so much as visit every bathroom that wasn't behind a restricted access door ("Thor has peed in one of these toilets, Peter. I want to pee where he peed."), sit across from each other at lunch while Ned steepled his fingers and examined the condiments he'd pulled from the fridge ("I wonder what Hawkeye's favourite kind of sandwich is?"), and race each other on wheeled conference chairs down multiple hallways (no reason for that one aside from Ned's sheer joy at finally being here), but it was a day well spent.


To be continued...