He's always been too prone to hope, and too slow to learn better.

The next day, the news runs a story about all the damages Spider-Man has inflicted on the city. How many times he's failed to save someone. The crimes he hasn't stopped, the criminals he couldn't catch, the collateral damage.

May Parker.

Her name flashes on the screen, as Peter waits with the pictures he printed out and came here to try to sell (a last-ditch effort to scrounge up the rent money he needs in three days), and he can't breathe.

He can't breathe (he can't catch his breath). Black spots threaten to swallow up the world (the colors are all gone), and Peter hears a clatter as the chair falls behind him, feels his shoulder bump up against the hallway, reaches out to push the door open, and spills out into the open air. His hands are empty, his photos dropped somewhere along the way, but all Peter can see is May's name, her picture. All he can hear is Jameson saying that Spider-Man was seen fleeing the scene of the crime.

The crime. The murder.

(His fault. His fault.)

When Peter finally breathes again, perched on the edge of the highest roof he can find, hunched over like a gargoyle, he pulls out his phone and tells himself to delete MJ and Ned's numbers. If he really loves them, if he wants what's best for them, he'll delete them and forget about them and never go near that café (MIT, their homes, that Thai restaurant) again.

(But he promised.)

Peter shuts his phone, his contacts intact, and promises himself he'll be braver tomorrow.

MJ watches her phone. Instead of doing everything Sasha was supposed to do but didn't, instead of her schoolwork, instead of listening to Ned's silence, she stands with her phone on the counter in front of her and stares at it (like a loser).

Peter Parker reads the contact that Ned passed along to her. No picture, no info beyond the name and number. No call history. No texts. Nothing but that name she likes for some indefinable reason and a number she's never used once but can quote in her sleep.

"Ridiculous," she scoffs at herself. Is this really what she's come to? Her? Feminism and stoicism and learned aloofness, and yet she's going to stand here and wait for a boy to call?

No way.

Decisively, MJ scoops up her phone and presses call.

Then she hangs up before it can connect, drops her phone into her pocket, and throws herself into scouring the counter clean.

She's leaving in less than a year, she reminds herself, and anyway, Peter Parker is a nobody, nothing, she doesn't need him, she can't afford to care about him, and obviously he doesn't care back, so what's even the point—

The bell rings, MJ looks up, and Peter Parker walks into the diner.

He walks in as if he's being led to the gallows. His shoulders are so rounded, his head ducked so low, that it should have taken MJ a few minutes to even recognize him. But something about his unruly curls, his stride, even the stoop of his shoulders marks him immediately as the boy she's been obsessing over (no, not obsessing, she's just observant and analytical and…and curious).

"Peter Parker," she says, like usual, but then can't help but frown when he flinches. Almost without even realizing it, MJ finds herself drifting closer to him until only the width of the counter stands between them. "Hey," she says softly, "are you okay?"

He flinches again, and MJ's hand flutters through the air between them. Thankfully, he doesn't see it, his eyes stuck to the floor. "I…I'm fine. I just…I'm so sorry, I just had to come. I…I was cold."

"Okay." MJ studies him a moment more. "Well, I'll get you a drink, then, okay?"

"Thanks," he murmurs.

Peter's cute and clumsy and awkward, and MJ's been pretending that none of those things matter (even though they obviously do if the way she's been staring at her phone is any clue), but she suddenly realizes (probably far too slow) that he's also in trouble.

Though she takes her time making his drink, he still startles when she slides the cup (a mug as heavy as the implied hint that he should sit here in the heated diner to drink it) in front of him. Immediately, almost desperately, Peter wraps his hands around the mug—and then he blinks and (finally) looks up at her.

"This isn't coffee."

"Great observational skills there," she says, deadpan, before remembering she's trying to cheer him up. Only, he smiles (MJ blinks and does her best not to betray any reaction), a wide smile he quickly hides behind the mug as he takes a sip of the dark hot chocolate she made him. A dollop of whipped cream smudges his lip before he licks it away, and MJ decides the better part of valor is definitely stepping back and focusing on brewing a new pot of coffee.

"Thanks, MJ," he says, soft and so sincere, that MJ decides valor is overrated, and goes back to standing just in front of him. (Has he ever said her name before? It sounds…familiar.) "I really needed this."

"Can I ask you a question?" She doesn't wait for his nervous nod before saying, "Why do you always order the coffee if you don't like it?"

Peter looks away, as if embarrassed, before he actually laughs. It's short and sharp and comes with hardly a hint of a smile, but it makes something in MJ ease to hear it. "Would you believe me if I said it's because I never really thought about it?"

"If anyone else said it, maybe not." MJ tilts her head. "You seem like a pretty single-minded person, though. I bet you get hyper-focused on way too many things and forget to look at a situation any other way."

When Peter stares at her, MJ feels her cheeks warm.

"Or maybe not," she says, doing her level best not to stutter. "It's not like I really know you."

"Oh. Yeah." Peter stares at his hot chocolate (which is almost gone already and MJ devotes part of her mind to planning how to slip some stale donuts into his backpack). "Right. Of course. We're not…I just come in for coffee—or maybe hot chocolate now, because this is really good, seriously, thanks, MJ—and you have to serve me, it's your job because you're going to MIT, which is amazing—unbelievably amazing, I'm so happy for you—and I…I have to—"

"Take a breath," MJ advises, and wonders at the way his next breath audibly catches in his throat. "You're not not hyper-focusing again."

His laugh, this time, is choked, and if he were to look up, MJ's uncomfortably aware of the fact that there would be tears in his eyes. Thankfully for both of them, his shoes seem to be interesting enough to demand his full attention.

"You should call me," she says abruptly.

MJ's never really liked anyone before. Not like this, where she imagines dates and walking hand in hand and calling someone up to talk about nothing while falling asleep. She always imagined that if she ever did like someone, she'd…well, probably act like a little schoolyard bully to be honest. Getting close to people has never been one of her skills (she's not even sure how she and Ned became friends), and if she ever liked a boy, she'd probably stare at him from afar, call him names to his face, do everything possible to keep her face deadpan, and draw him in her sketchbook while hoping against hope he liked her too.

(The fact that her sketchbook is currently filled with Peter Parker's face is neither here nor there.)

One thing she didn't imagine herself doing was taking the first step. But why not? Peter looks like he has far too much going on in his life to ever bite the bullet and ask her. So what's stopping her (besides MIT and homework and a life that isn't going to be stuck here)?

"Wh-what?" His astonishment has wiped away any hint of tears, leaving his eyes wide and clear. Really pretty, she thinks stupidly, and she summons up brisk impatience to hide how flustered she feels.

"Call me," she says again. "We'll plan on doing something that doesn't include coffee or tips."

Something flashes across Peter's face, then. Something so strong, so desperate, that MJ nearly trips backward.

In a flash, he covers it up again. His eyes drop, his hands fumble for change from his pockets, and he stammers quite a few half-formed words before finally managing to get out, "I…I can't really afford anything."

What little she can see of his cheeks is pink, and MJ feels her heart soften in her chest (it's not a metaphor, she literally feels it turn malleable behind her ribcage).

"It's okay," she says. "I'm saving all my money, anyway."

"MIT, right."

"There's plenty to do that doesn't require money," she says. He's about to bolt. She's not sure how she knows, but she doesn't second-guess herself. She slides a bag of three stale donuts across the counter. "My treat," she says. "I'll talk to you later. On the phone. When you call me."

"Right—okay. Okay, when I…when I call you." Peter looks as if he's in a daze as he takes the donuts (she's at least 67 percent sure he doesn't even know what it is she gave him) and backs up to the door. "Thanks, MJ."

With a clatter of the bell, he's gone. MJ sags back against the counter and lets herself savor the way he says her name.

(Familiar or not, she likes it. A lot.)

It's almost warm, the sunset a weighted heat at his back as Peter dangles his legs over a drop that once would have scared him. It's strange how heavy his phone seems, as if in direct contrast to the new emptiness of its contents (only a handful of contacts rather than hundreds; no more pictures at all; blank lines of text threads; all record of long conversations at night while drifting toward dreamless sleep erased from existence if not from his heart).

MJ. The contact stares up at him, input by her own fingers, and Peter almost brushes his gloved fingertips over the screen until he realizes how stupid that is.

You should call me, she said. (He shouldn't.) And he said he would (I promise, he told her, before he knew he was lying).

Before his better angels can win out, Peter presses call and holds the phone up to his ear. He darts a quick look around to make sure he's safe from helicopters and news cameras; with his mask laying limply over his thigh, he can't take any chances with his identity (he knows how precious it is, now, even though no one even knows who Peter is anymore).

"Hey, loser," MJ answers the phone, and Peter feels deeply buried tension leak out of him.

"Hi. Hey. Hi, MJ. This is Peter. Peter Parker. From the diner—"

"I know," she says. "Peter Parker, the guy who drinks coffee he doesn't like because he's hyper-focused on other things."

On her. He wonders if she's already guessed that secret of his. Wonders if she knows that he loves her (he never told her, after all, but MJ's always been so good at seeing through him; he hopes she knows/knew).

"Not anymore," he says. "That hot chocolate was really good."

"Too bad." MJ pauses just long enough for him to be worried before she says, "I'm not working right now, so no hot chocolate in sight."

"Oh."

What's he supposed to say? She told him to call, and she mentioned that they could get together and do something (hang out; date; either-or, he almost doesn't care which), but as far as she knows they've only talked a couple times and he's just the weird guy at her diner and maybe she didn't mean it, maybe she didn't mean that he should actually endanger her all over again—

"What are you doing?" she asks.

Peter looks around him. The sun sets the horizon on fire, the water sparkles between lines of traffic, white headlights parallel to red brake-lights, the lanes of traffic creating their own rivers of motion—and Peter sits above it all, far up on the edge of a skyscraper, the wind a constant hum in his ears. So many colors bleeding through his bi-chromatic world. It's beautiful. The first beautiful thing he's noticed in a while (since the last time he saw MJ).

"Working," he says. (It's not a lie; he's stopped four muggings, three robberies, two jaywalkers, and given directions to a couple lost tourists.)

If it were possible to hear an eyebrow rising, then he knows that's what he'd be hearing now. "Great work ethic," MJ says. "Calling on the job is always a quality potential employers look for."

"I'm on break," he says. Ordinarily, he might feel a bit defensive, but he's so glad to be talking to MJ (so overjoyed that she knows his name again) that he sounds happy.

He sounds happy.

His breath scrapes against his throat. (How can he be happy when May's gone and Happy's probably crying in the cemetery right now? It's not fair. It's not right. But he is.)

"Well, when's your next day off?"

"I don't…" Peter swallows. "I just kind of work odd jobs whenever I can get them, so…I don't know." He's faced down aliens in space and his own death, held more than one loved one in his arms as they died, watched reality bleed around him while he struggled to retain his own sanity…none of that took as much courage as it does for him to say, "When's your next day off? We should…we should do something."

"The library," she says. "Two days from now. Ten o'clock good?"

"Okay." Peter feels as if he might hyperventilate. "Ten o'clock."

"Don't forget," MJ says, and Peter actually laughs (is it the first time he's laughed since he saw two other versions of himself and thought maybe he could be okay one day? since he had to be ripped from the world's consciousness to save it from himself and felt MJ's kiss for the last time?).

"Trust me, MJ," he says, "I could never forget."

"Sure. We'll see." Her tone is guarded, but that's okay. He knows that the more excited MJ wants to be about something, the more she makes herself think she doesn't care (better than being disappointed, she said). Which means…she's looking forward to this…appointment (date).

She wants to see him. To spend time with him.

She likes him. Again.

"I'll see you then," he says and hangs up before she can hear him have a panic attack.

They have a date. She knows his name. He's almost happy.

(This was a huge mistake.)

It's been hard, lately, to keep up Spider-Man's penchant for wisecracks and jokes. He hadn't even attempted it at first, but then he noticed the worried looks from even the people he was saving. The newspapers started mentioning it, people on TV began theorizing about his 'grim silence,' and even a couple bystanders asked him what was wrong. Apparently, it was a bit scary for people to be approached by a guy in a mask who didn't say a word.

Spider-Man doesn't want anyone to be afraid of him (except, you know, maybe a couple bad guys here and there, sometimes, when it might discourage them from being worse criminals). This is who he is now, all he has left, and the last thing Peter wants is to be hated again. When the whole world knew his name, he was scared and the people were angry. Now, they're scared and he can't afford to be angry (he tried that already and the memory of Spider-Man 2's eyes, so clear and concerned and caring are still as vividly colored as any of his dreams).

It was easy to find the humor, before, when every joke made him imagine Ned laughing or May joining in with her own dry retorts. It'd been easiest of all when MJ knew (when she was, no matter how temporarily, his), because even though she rolled her eyes at him, he could see his smile, the one she saved just for him, spreading out from the corners of her mouth to curve the rest of her lips. And no matter how bad everything got, she kept smiling at him, kept looking at him with a sparkle in her eyes and her hand reaching for his. That made it easy for him to keep upbeat and hopeful even as bricks rained down on them and public opinion turned on a dime.

But that was before (his whole life, he thinks, is a before-and-after picture, one side colored, the other sepia-toned). Now, he struggles to reach for humor, sometimes goes too far to appear light-hearted, has to remember Spider-Man 3's flippant earnestness to dredge up a few jokes. It's been enough, anyway, to make everyone stop talking about Spider-Man's new mutism (for them to go back to lambasting him for property damage and lives lost, as if he doesn't remember that cost with every breath he takes).

All that disappears in the two days between the phone-call and their appointment (date). He can't say anything. He can hardly breathe. His mouth is welded shut to keep the sobs locked up inside.

It doesn't hurt anymore, she assured him, but it did. It had hurt before he was dissolved out of her life. But now he's forced his way back in and what was he thinking? How could he endanger her all over again? Why did he ever think this was a good idea?

(He never did, not really. He's just so weak, so lonely, so desperate for any kind of human connection at all. For MJ.)

He should have remembered the cost of him ever forgetting his responsibilities.

Don't forget, MJ told him with her guarded hope.

Being forgotten is the worst pain of all, he knows, and he'd never wish that on MJ. So as dangerous as this is, as much as he knows it's a terrible idea, he can't just ghost her. Not without warning. Not without first going to the library to meet her. (Not without getting to talk to her and maybe getting to see her smile and hearing her say his name like she never forgot it.)

"I'm only doing this for her," he tells his reflection as he tries to tame his hair and straightens his nice sweater. "Just this once. It won't hurt."

Funny. That sounds like a better joke than any other he's ever told.

(This is for him. Because he wants to. Because he can't bear not to. And it's going to hurt all over again when he walks away like he should have already done.)

Peter's late. MJ watches him run down the street, his backpack slung over one shoulder and bouncing with every hasty footfall, his hair askew. He's dressed up, she notices even before he catches sight of her; a sweater over a collared shirt, dark jeans, shoes only slightly scuffed. Something in MJ eases, and she feels a little better about the flowered dress she'd pulled from the back of her closet (after far too long a time waffling back and forth like an idiot) that's pretty much hidden beneath her coat.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, there was a traffic accident—three cars, and one had a baby—and I thought it would be quick, but there was a mug—" His eyes go wide, a deer-in-the-headlights look that makes MJ reconsider her feelings about the Bambi movie. "Uh, something else came up, but I should have been here. I'm sorry."

"It's okay." She gives a half-shrug, too deadpan, too somber (he won't call again, won't come back, she needs to relax). The smile she tries to give him is tight and small (but only because if she wasn't restraining it, it'd be too big, too wide, too much). "You're here now."

"Yeah." Peter's smile is even worse (better) than hers. "I'm here."

"So. You want to go in?"

"Okay."

The doors are automatic, which makes the way Peter tries to open them for her even more adorable. He tucks one hand around the strap of his backpack, lets the other hang awkwardly at his side (she wonders if he's as hopeful as she is; if he feels the magnetism that seems to radiate from her palm to his), and watches her closely.

"Do you like books?" she asks abruptly. She should have asked before. If he's not a reader, this is the worst—

"I like books. Science-fiction—well, I used to. Lately, I've only been reading textbooks and GED stuff and…yeah. Anyway. I like books. You do."

MJ stares at him. "How do you know that?"

"Well…" He smiles at her, this one a bit wider, marginally more real. "You invited me to a library. Plus, you're going to MIT on a scholarship."

"Okay, Sherlock." She rolls her eyes (tucks away how pleased she feels that he's been noticing things about her too).

"Elementary, my dear Watson," Peter says, and laughs so hard that his backpack slides down to his elbow, his expression so proud, his eyes sparkling brighter than she's ever seen, that MJ has to laugh at the ridiculous joke.

(She doesn't remember telling him her full hyphenated name. Did she? She must have. How else would he know?)

"Yeah, no one's ever made that joke before," she says, and nudges his elbow with her own.

His laughter fades. Quickly, like the flap of a hummingbird's wings, his eyes flick down to where they touched. There's something so wistful, almost painful, in his eyes, that MJ has to look away to grant him some privacy.

"I'm sure I'm the first," he finally says, but he sounds as if he hardly knows what he's saying (as if he's just quoting from a script they've already memorized and played out before).

"Only because most people don't know my full name."

Peter looks away. The air between them feels heavy, charged with tension she can't explain (it frustrates her, this constant ambiguity, and maybe she should cut her losses, but it's only a passing thought, more quickly gone than that hummingbird, and she knows she won't).

"Well, if you like books, and I obviously do, I thought we could do something of a scavenger hunt."

"Yeah?" Peter perks up, equally hopeful as he is guarded (a strange, inexplicable combination). "Okay, what are the rules?"

"Why? Are you a rule-follower, Peter Parker?"

His shrug is shy (shamed?). "I try to be. I'm supposed to be. It doesn't always work out well for me."

"Highly intelligent people often have a hard time being confined by limitations they can easily exceed," she says off-handedly (but watches him, carefully, out of the corner of her eye).

"Oh?" Peter says before he halts mid-step. "Wait. You think I'm highly intelligent?"

"You read textbooks," she reminds him.

"Oh, right." A hint of mischief slides past Peter's sadness. "Great deduction, Watson."

It's strange. Before that moment, MJ thought she had enough self-respect not to laugh at bad jokes (especially twice). Turns out there's a lot she still doesn't know about herself.

Peter smiles at the sound of her laughter, and soon, they're both dancing through the aisles (well, Peter rushes, clumsily, here and there, and MJ walks pointedly unhurriedly). He guesses her favorite book, but gets her least favorite genre wrong before picking out a book for her to read ("One you think I'll like," she specifies, and he spends almost half an hour deliberating over it).

MJ guesses his favorite book (he says it's one of his top five and claims it counts; MJ will do better next time), picks him out a book in seconds, but deliberates over his least favorite genre for nearly as long as he did over his recommended reading.

"Romance," she finally guesses.

It's a cop-out. So cliché as to be cringy. But just when she opened her mouth to give her answer (Fiction, she meant to say, the kind with mothers and fathers and happy endings and too many contrived interactions in the middle), she chickened out (the answer's too specific, will call up too many bad memories, she feels sure for some reason she can't explain).

"Who doesn't love a good love story?" Peter asks with a headshake.

"Lots of people. They can be really sappy."

"Those are the best parts." Peter looks away. They're sitting side by side on the floor in the stacks, science-fiction books at their backs, fantasy ahead. "It's the endings that are the worst."

"Why? Happily-ever-after offends you?"

He's silent so long that MJ has time to focus on his hand, resting on his backpack between them. So close. So tempting a target. Impossible as it is, she'd swear her hand actually tingles with the desire to touch his.

"I don't think happily-ever-after exists," Peter says suddenly. "I think for every happy moment, there's a bad one. Like, you know, for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction, and I think life is like that—if you're happy for ten minutes, then you're doomed to be just as unhappy for another ten minutes. And sometimes maybe they're right after the other, but sometimes maybe you use all your happy moments at the beginning of your life, just all clumped together, and then all you have left to look forward to are the bad times."

MJ takes his hand. Slots her fingers through his. Looks up to meet his startled eyes.

"That's stupid," she tells him. "Don't just be sad. Make your own happiness."

"But what if my happiness means ruining someone else's?"

There's a lot of subtext here (MJ's not an idiot: there's subtext every time Peter opens his mouth), but for the first time, she doesn't care.

"You deserve to be happy," she whispers.

It's a blur, then, Peter disentangling their hands, rising, gathering his backpack, stammering out some excuse about him having to go.

None of it's fast enough. Despite his ducked head and his flailing gestures and everything else he does to distract her, MJ still sees it.

The tears brimming in his eyes.

(The guilt. The denial.)

"You deserve to be happy," she says again, but he's gone and there's no one in front of her (and she doesn't feel happy).