Author's Note:

We have a very interesting phone call to get to...

XIX

She confessed. Was it really her confession? No. Was there a chance that she would actually create friction by informing her boyfriend? Yes. Was there a pressing reason to share the information? None but her own conscience. So, MJ called Peter on their special phones and―in between telling him he'd been right about Brad for a long, long time―let him know that Brad had passed her off as his girlfriend. Without her permission or even her presence, she added. He said something that surprised her.

"If only there was a way we could get Brad and Flash together."

MJ had to cover her mouth when she laughed abruptly. It was late and her mom was having downtime after her shift, reading in the other room.

"I don't think there's much chance of that, since Brad's straight, but I admire your capacity for wishful thinking," she told him. Speaking of wishful thinking, her gaze slid sideways to the Night Pad lying open on the bed.

"Ah, Flash probably doesn't deserve Brad's bullshit anyway."

"Oh yeah? You warming to him now?" It was a joke. Was there any ridiculous, unfounded jealousy behind it? Fine, but it was fucking microscopic.

"Not to his flirting. But as a human being? Yeah, he's not so bad. Maybe. I don't know," Peter said on an exhale MJ could almost feel against her cheek. "He hasn't called me 'Penis' in a while."

"Moved on to other terms of endearment?"

"Hilarious."

"That's not a denial, Parker."

"You're a real investigator now, huh?" He sounded proud of her and she smiled into the phone. "That's pretty hot."

"Enough to recognize that you're trying to change the subject," she quipped, but she could feel the warmth radiating from her face.

"He called me 'Petey' once."

MJ was less successful at blocking this laugh.

"Petey?"

"He said it was a typo," Peter offered defensively.

"Sure it was."

"Are you… jealous?" His voice was incredulous over the phone.

"What, like I want Flash to start calling me 'Petey'? No way."

"I'm not flirting with him, M," Peter said. It was soft, reassuring. She rolled her eyes at herself. "You know that. You're the only one I feel… this for."

"This? Nickname tolerance?"

"Cut it out," he laughed.

"Say it," she challenged.

"I love you. So, so much. Crazy much. And, yeah, I do tolerate your nicknames."

"Because I know how to use them."

At the sound of his shaky inhale, goosebumps rose on her arms.

"Don't start," he breathed more than spoke. She got the sense that his mouth was almost against his phone and pressed her ear tighter to hers, like she might feel his lips.

"Maybe this is the perfect time to start," MJ countered, crossing her room to gently shut her bedroom door in case things... progressed. She returned to the bed, idly shading an already dark section of her latest drawing with the pencil she'd left on top of the sketchbook. "You know, reaffirm our connection in the midst of Brad calling me his girlfriend and Flash using pet names."

"Ok, it was name, singular. One time," he repeated. "And I think he only did it because of the, you know, distance and the safety net of being able to pretend it was a typo."

"I think―"

"Wait! I just remembered―sorry for interrupting you…"

"No, that's alright," she promised, sitting up straight and clutching the phone. "Is everything ok? Do you have news?"

"Not about me being the prime suspect in Beck's death, but about something else. Something dumb but also…" Peter made a noise of frustration.

"What is it?"

"Remember how it took a while for you to start getting my texts?"

"Yeah…"

"I just… I had a feeling… You know how Mr. Stark had my suit spy on me way back before you and me started going out?"

"Yeah. Prick," MJ denounced without any actual anger.

"I remembered that the other night, so I went and asked him if he had tried anything like that since then. He admitted it."

"What? And he wasn't going to tell you?"

"I guess Ms. Romanoff realized it right away. Well, after I told her you hadn't gotten my texts. And she talked to him."

"Lightly threatened would be my guess," she suggested placidly.

"Probably. Mr. Stark says it stopped then and the two of them decided not to tell me unless I figured it out. They didn't want me to feel watched, or something. As if I'm not already being watched all the time in this place. Hear that, Mr. Stark?"

MJ snorted when she heard FRIDAY reply to her boyfriend, asking if there was something he wished to communicate to Tony. Peter answered in the negative.

"What was his point?" she wondered, getting his attention back. "Like you said, you're already there, he can already keep track of you."

"I think it just drives him nuts that he can't totally keep track of me, you know? Seems like a dad thing, with his kid on the way. Although, at the same time, he helped me go see you."

"He did?"

"Oh yeah, I have a playlist to prove it."

She frowned, but decided unravelling that detail wasn't the most important thing right now.

"So he read our texts?" That filled her with horror. The pencil went motionless in her hand. They'd said so many things… they'd sexted. But Peter was certain Tony's surveillance had ended long before that. "My knowledge of super-secret spy-phones is pretty rudimentary," MJ said drily, trying to regain her calm, "but I would've thought a hacking attempt would've, I don't know, triggered some kind of alarm. Alerted Romanoff, or something."

"He didn't try a direct hack to read my texts or mirror them or recover them. He was trying not to be noticed and it just sort of created a drag. He said he was still working on it when Ms. Romanoff caught him, so it wasn't perfect."

"No kidding it wasn't perfect," she complained, meaning the snooping situation as a whole. "Why wouldn't he have done something direct and just… found out what we were saying to each other? Or, why couldn't he get in using his sneaky method without being discovered?"

"I don't know. I guess it's easier to smash a window than to pick a lock."

"Jeeze, nerd, that was actually smart."

"Yeah, well, I've been doing my reading," Peter smugly informed her.

"Wow, must really piss Tony off that you're using technology not invented by him." MJ grinned.

"I think that's at least fifty percent of his reasoning, honestly. Not his phone, not his security measures..."

"Where did Romanoff get these things?" she wondered, pulling the phone away from her ear for a minute. It was nondescript in the extreme. Nothing about the design stood out. There certainly wasn't a logo.

"They might be Wakandan tech."

"Seriously?" MJ studied her phone again. It didn't do a lot―just connected her with Peter―but that didn't mean it couldn't do a lot. Either way, it was sort of perfect in its simplicity.

"Maybe, I don't know for sure." He exhaled like he'd just thrown himself onto his bed on his back. Instantly, her excitement over the mention of Wakanda was shoved to the side by a fantasy of climbing on top of her boyfriend. "They might be coming here soon. Nobody likes to tell me things."

"That's insane. That's so fucking cool," she said hurriedly, Wakanda back in focus.

"What about me?"

"It sucks that you don't know for sure if there's a Wakandan contingent heading your way."

"But what about me being so fucking cool?" Peter wanted to know.

"Now who's jealous?"

"I just. Miss you."

"Me too," she sighed. "At least I've been really productive without you around." Gripping her pencil again, she sketched a few loose lines alongside ones she already had on the page.

"Hey! But, wait… Do you mean you're productive because I'm not around? Like, you're productive because you're trying to get me back, right?"

"Yeah, I've been productive with my investigative methods. Which you mocked earlier."

"I'm genuinely impressed!"

"I've also been productive with other things," MJ said slyly, hoping her boyfriend would ask so she didn't have to take the leap herself.

"What other things?" His tone was light and cautious. He'd clearly heard something in hers to indicate she wasn't about to tell him she'd been catching up on her reading.

"I might have some new artwork to show you."

"What? Of us?" Peter asked eagerly.

"Sometimes."

"Of me?"

"Every time."

She heard him inhale and it made her shiver. She stilled her pencil again before she could accidentally dig it into the page too hard and ruin both its precisely sharpened tip and the paper.

"Are you working on it… now?"

Had he heard her pencil stop moving? Jesus, those enhanced senses were really something.

"Are you super-eavesdropping?"

"Come on, M! I'm curious!"

MJ began to sketch again―quick, rough, trying to be heard. She'd let that be his confirmation that he'd guessed correctly.

"What are you drawing? Please… don't tease me."

"Relax, Spider-Man," she told him, knowing the command was a trap. Using that name with him was one of her favourite ways of making it impossible for him to relax. "Just drawing you."

"You implied that much already."

"Then don't ask dumb questions."

"Don't make me beg for specifics," Peter said in a low voice. Heat flared up MJ's neck into her face.

"What do you need specifics for? Can't you wait to see it in person?"

"When?"

"Sometime?"

"Not good enough," he said in that same tone. So much for begging, she thought.

"It's in my Night Pad," she offered.

"That was obvious too. I am... wearing clothes?"

"Nope."

"MJ," he groaned. By the rustle between that reaction and the next muffled one, it sounded as though he'd buried his face in a pillow. "I am jealous. I'm jealous of him."

"He is very handsome," MJ agreed.

"Are you drawing my face then?"

"No." She couldn't help laughing, her pencil skimming the side of his ribcage, up towards his armpit, where those stupid muscles curved outward.

"You have to tell me."

"Your torso," she relented.

"The top half or, uh, the bottom half?"

"Top half," she said, concentrating harder as she adjusted Peter's opposite side in the drawing to match what she'd just done. The nerd was so damn symmetrical. "I've been really into your chest and shoulders lately."

Oh god. That had just slipped out, mumbled while she focused on the sketch.

"Oh yeah?" Yep, he sounded gloaty. He was gloating. MJ moaned in embarrassment.

"I don't know if me saying that makes it better or worse."

"What? The drawing?"

She shifted, tucking one leg beneath her.

"How much I want you," she whispered, like, if she could keep the words sounding small enough, expressing her desire out loud wouldn't make her feel so fucking vulnerable. She skated the pencil across the page one last time before setting implement and sketchbook aside with a huff.

"I-I think you should say those things," her boyfriend blurted. MJ's mouth twitched up into a smile. "You should definitely always tell me that, whenever you think it."

"Whenever? So, if you were talking to Stark, I should just text you and say that I want you and you'd be fine with that?"

"Ok, not then because obviously you wouldn't know when that was happening."

"I have eyes on the inside," she reminded him, meaning Romanoff.

"Uh, can I repeat how hot that is?"

"My competency?" she laughed.

"I don't know, I guess so. Whatever it is."

"So I'm more appealing to you now that I've seen some action?"

"There was a double meaning in that," Peter pointed out, sounding a little breathless.

"You have been doing your reading."

"Told you."

She could hear him moving around, presumably still on his bed. But she could ask about that, she could just ask and clear it up, and then she'd be able to picture him. She glanced at the drawing. Yeah, being able to picture Peter was good.

"Where are you?"

"In bed. Struggling through act one, scene two of Macbeth until you called and saved me."

"It'll pick up. You get to the witches soon."

"I don't really care about that right now," Peter rushed out and her heartrate sped up. "No offence to Shakespeare."

"I'd really like to…" She folded her bottom lip into her mouth and clamped down with her teeth.

"What?"

The grate of his strained voice made it spill out of her.

"To climb on top of you."

"Were you going to add that to your drawing?"

"I don't know. I try to sketch you and…" MJ dug her fingers into her hair, restless. "…even in the ones where it's supposed to be just you, I keep adding in my hands, touching you, grabbing you…"

Her boyfriend let out a giddy laugh that ended in something more like a pant.

"Anywhere interesting?"

There was another pant and she scooted down in bed, narrowing her eyes.

"Where are your hands right now, Peter?"

"I'm… uh… holding the phone."

"With both hands?" She smirked.

"This is different than texting this stuff," he muttered. "It's harder."

"What's harder?"

When Peter groaned for several seconds, MJ jumped. She was on edge and she didn't know which of them had put her there. They'd been circling this almost since the beginning of the call, but he'd voiced the shift, how they'd become more direct with each other. And it was different from sending sexts; with those, she had time to think, to try something out and look at it, edit it, and even delete it without sending it at all if it sounded too awkward or intense. Here, she either said something or didn't say it, and it was fucking difficult to hold back with Peter groaning and gasping every time she took a chance and leaned into this.

"You know," he finally said.

"Tell me anyway."

"My... dick."

She released a shaky breath. Ok, she thought, ok, be cool about this.

"I..." Nice. Really cool, MJ.

"Did I make you uncomfortable? M, I'm sorry, I―"

"Like I said..." She cleared her throat. "...I want to climb on top of you."

He panted into the phone.

"I want that too. I want―" A grunt that had her untying the string of her pajama shorts one-handed. "―you here so bad."

MJ slipped her hand into her shorts and down between her legs.

"What're you doing with your other hand, Peter?" she whispered, insistent.

He sighed. She wanted to be making him sigh like that. Having him as her proxy was pretty good though, MJ decided, tentatively gliding wetness up over her clit and making gentle circles with her fingertips.

"St-stroking myself. Wishing my hand was yours."

"And that mine was yours, maybe," she added. She heard Peter swallow.

"What's yours doing?"

"Same thing yours is. Stroking." Her leg twitched as she pressed harder.

"You ever think about that time?" he wondered, voice somehow both soft and rough.

"I think about all of them."

"No," her boyfriend laughed breathily, "but the time in front of the mirror. You were so into it."

"When have I not been?" But MJ didn't mean to be self-deprecating. She wasn't embarrassed by how much being with Peter turned her on.

"What was it about that time?"

"Everything," she blurted, frazzled by her own actions―hair sticking to the sweaty back of her neck, index and middle fingers rubbing her clit forcefully up and down.

"But why―" Peter gasped and MJ felt herself clench. Carefully, she trapped her phone between her ear and her shoulder. With her newly-freed hand, she jerked her shorts down, then pressed a finger inside herself with a shallow hooking motion. "―did you like that so much? What was it? Me bending you over?"

That wasn't all of it, but it was enough to make MJ clamp her eyes shut and nod vehemently. When she remembered he couldn't see that reaction, she gave him a hoarse, "Yes."

"But that wasn't all of it," he guessed. "Oh god, MJ. What else? Baby, what else?"

"The mirror," she mumbled, rocking her hips in faltering time with the rhythm of her fingers.

"Why the mirror? That's what I can't figure out. Driving me nuts."

"You were just... all around... all around me. Seeing you there... feeling you everywhere..."

"Fuck, you're almost there, aren't you?" Peter demanded, voice taut. "Me too," he promised when she moaned.

MJ shifted as she brought herself to the edge and her phone slipped from where she'd been holding it. "Shit," she hissed. She didn't free her hands, just watched the phone bounce harmlessly onto the mattress, landing screen-up. Wait. It was next to her hip. With the proximity, Peter would be able to hear this even more clearly than he'd heard her sketching. Was that too much? Was it too graphic? What the hell. MJ parted her thighs wider and scrubbed faster at her clit. She still didn't let her moans get too loud, but she made sure to turn her head towards the phone. He had to hear this, how thinking about him and knowing he was over there, jerking himself off, made her feel.

She climaxed with an exhalation that started out soundless and ended in a blunt moan, like the noise abruptly hit a wall and dropped away. She opened her eyes, starting to come down.

"Be right back," MJ leaned forward and said into the phone. She put her pajamas back on, then, on unsteady legs, she darted to the bathroom, cleaned up, and returned. He was breathing thickly into the phone when she scooped it up.

"Hey," Peter said weakly. She was a little disappointed that she hadn't gotten to hear his final sounds, but they could improve their timing. Practice.

"You ok?" she asked, grinning.

"Oh yeah. Great." He gave a massive exhale. "So, that. At the end. Thank you for that."

She blushed hard.

"So you could hear...?"

"God, yes. I owe you."

"I actually think I owed you from... way back."

"Oh. Yeah. When I called you by accident as I was...?"

"Mhmm," MJ agreed.

"Let's pretend I owe you anyway."

There was a certainty in his voice that she couldn't account for.

"Did you already have something in mind?"

"I might've gotten an idea towards the end there. I don't know if it'll work yet, I'll have to..."

She laughed, practically able to hear her boyfriend's mind drifting, the wheels turning on a project. This was the influence of being around Tony Stark so much.

"Ok. Tell me when you can." Honestly, that was better for her. He could save them both his distracted half-sentences. Besides, he had Ned to work through the early stages of an idea with, right? "Maybe Ned can help."

"No," Peter said immediately. "No, this is just between you and me."

"Alright, take it easy. I won't say anything. Nerd."

He laughed and their talk eased into normal things, school things, volunteering things, until they wrapped up the call with MJ saying 'I love you' first, smug when she beat him to it. After she hung up, she smiled to herself for a few minutes―phone still in hand―until she had an insane urge. She rolled towards her nightstand and grabbed her regular phone. Quickly, she unlocked it, went to her messages, found the right thread, started texting... and stopped herself. Her and Peter's orgasms had given her a floaty kind of confidence and she'd just about fired off a text to Flash letting him know exactly whose boyfriend Peter was. She put her phone back. God, that would've been stupid.

Satisfying, though. MJ took a last look at her drawing before closing the Night Pad and returning it to its spot on her shelf. Oh yeah. Satisfying.

Author's Note:

Any ideas as to what Peter's idea might be? You won't have to wait long to find out because next week's a Peter POV chapter! Another reason to get excited for the next chapter: new characters! Not new to the MCU, but new for me writing them. Guesses? There was a hint in this chapter.

To be continued...