A/N: Should I be writing this when I have other WIP going on? No. Am I writing it anyway? You bet. I love the Spider-Man movies, and the ending of No Way Home destroyed me, as I'm sure it did everyone, so here's me trying to process all of it. I hope it makes sense, and that it isn't too much of stuff that everyone else has probably already written.
As a general disclaimer, I don't watch a lot of Marvel movies (as you might be able to guess from my pen-name, I usually stick to the Distinguished Competition), and everything I know about the Avengers timeline is what I get from the Tom Holland movies and what my sister tells me. So, if there are any mistakes that contradict the Avengers movies, please forgive me and enjoy the story for what it is!
Chapter 1
Peter dreams in color.
Bright, vivid color almost surrealistic in its hyper-focus. Terrible colors that make him flinch: grays so heavy, so ponderous, they slam him down into the lobby of his (their) building. Greens so poisonous that he barely survives them, choking, hacking, spewing out his insides. Purples so deep it swallows up everything he loves. Everything that matters. Everything that made life worthwhile.
Brown hair, familiar and beautiful (too beautiful,he sometimes believed, except how could he have ever thought that, ever begrudged her any of the attention she drew like the sun attracting planetary bodies into its orbit?). Dark eyes, nearly black, reflecting back possibilities, containing whole worlds within. Pale skin, a shade that should have been bronzed turned instead white and unfamiliar (sallow, empty, unmoving).
And of course, a splash of red.
Not Spider-Man red. Blood-red.
Just a bump, she said, and he believed her (I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry).
He believed her and those potential worlds, those endless possibilities, were cloaked in gray, buried in green and purple, blotted out by the red turning his glove dark and sticky and too warm.
The colors he dreams hurt. They sear and burn and seep through his bloodstream like foreign invaders intent on destroying everything in their path. They sting so badly that Peter almost wants to forget (but he can't, he can't, he has to remember, he's the only one left who does and the memories he holds must be kept safe and sacred and intact).
His dreams are nightmares are memories are punishment are penance are all he has left.
(I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.)
He wakes up sobbing out endless apologies, but they change nothing and make up for nothing and are poor company in his new, lonely apartment.
Peter dreams in color, but every day, he wakes up to a black-and-white world.
Dull. Monotone. Flat. Static. Monotonous—all the words he studies for his GED test and already knew but never once had to use because (with her, with them) his life hadn't supported them (before he messed it all up, and is one lifetime really enough time to make up for everything he's touched, everything he's turned to ruin with his presence?). Now, they are all that is left, his life just as static and dull.
The sky is white. The buildings stand between like black teeth glinting with flashing lights that could easily be traps (poison colored green and bruised purple). The people are a blur. No one calls his name. The accusations have simmered down a bit, which is good, but now no one individually stands out. Everyone's just the same. They're all just more people (helpless, deserving people, his responsibility because he has the power but has done nothing with it except get people killed). People he can't know, can never be allowed to know, because if he does, calamity and chaos will inevitably ensue.
To counter the endless shades of gray (like dust, like ash, like plaster dirt raining down on staring eyes he couldn't bring himself to close because then he'd never get to look in her eyes again and how can this be the world he lives in?), Peter makes his suit brighter.
He buys, measures, cuts, sews, hems, tucks, until the bright red and blue trick him into seeing flashes of color against the dullness. When he swings between the buildings, he becomes a streak of color so stark (ha! Stark! What a laugh, a tragedy, another bitter joke his luck sees fit to play on him while yet another stone is raised in another cemetery), so brilliant, that it shines against the darkness, against the light. A moving target of nearly neon color amid the bi-chromatic world. Heroic. Bold. Eye-catching.
A warning sign alerting anyone and everyone that his very touch is ruin (he messes up, he tries too hard, he gets too far ahead of himself, he doesn't deserve the power but now he's responsible and a responsible person would make sure everyone knows when there's danger near).
Besides, if everyone's looking at Spider-Man, he can almost forget (ha! Forget! His life is as much a comedy as it is a tragedy) that there's no one looking at (for, toward, missing) Peter Parker.
There's one other spot of color amid the haze. An oasis of hues and shades and tints he can find nowhere else.
Pale blue worn as a uniform, hints of pink breaking it up, like a diluted (safer) version of his eye-catching blue and red. Beige walls and tan counters and tiny, non-threatening shades all camouflaging the most precious things left to him in the world. Offering safety and refuge and soft, peeking hints of hope (that he doesn't deserve).
"Peter Parker," says MJ (the waitress, just the waitress, no name tag, no reciprocal introduction, no memories, so he can't know her name) when his will falters and he slips inside the diner like a scorpion pretending to be harmless enough to cross the river on the back of a frog (so stupid, that makes MJ the frog and he can't sting her, Ned, because he's not actually a spider or a scorpion or anything but a boy who bumps into multiverse walls and topples them all over like dominoes).
She says his name lightly, pointedly, and he knows she's just teasing him because he was weird the first time he came to see her (after), but he doesn't care. She's the only one who says his name (except in the early morning hours, after he's finally collapsed into bed hoping for dreamless sleep, after he's woken sobbing apologies wrung from him by surrealistic dreams, after he folds in on himself and breaks up the sorrys with his own name spoken like a talisman against the void).
"Just a coffee?" she checks every time, and every time, Peter looks hungrily at the donuts. At the milkshakes that are listed on the menu but that he's never actually seen any sign of. At all the choices his rumbling stomach and devouring metabolism yearns for.
"Just a coffee, please, thank you, I…" he stammers out, like always, and while she pours it, he stares (too long, too hard, it's dangerous being here, he shouldn't come again, he won't, he won't, he will) at Ned.
At the person who was once his best friend. The person who once colored all his past and every one of his future plans and each of his present moments. The person who fades from his life—still vibrant, still bright (oh so bright and brilliant and everything Peter Parker wishes he could be outside the mask but can never actually be because the mask is all that's left to him), but not for Peter.
In Peter's world, Ned can only ever be a passing shadow.
"Coffee for Peter Parker," calls the waitress (she's MJ, his MJ, how can he ever think of her as a stranger when his necklace bumps against her collarbone and his smile, the one she reserves just for him, still hides in the corner of her mouth—and the proof of his unspoken love for her is marked in red on her temple beneath a band-aid?).
It's just a bump.
(Why did he believe her?)
I'm fine. I'm fine, I promise.
(Peter made promises, too, but that's not always enough.)
I just need to catch my breath.
(No, no, he should have swept her up and taken her to an ambulance, a hospital, anywhere but beside him where she died in his arms.)
It doesn't hurt anymore.
(And it won't. He won't let it. MJ will never, ever, ever have to catch her breath over a bump on the head.)
Peter very carefully takes the coffee without grazing his fingers against MJ's. He very carefully drops his gaze so not even his eyes flit across her. "Th-thank you," he blurts, and he walks away.
(This is what heroes do: they walk away. They stand alone. They invite no one close. No hugs, not there yet, never getting to that point, because when they do, they die. All the other heroes, the Avengers, none of them have secret identities because they're strong, they don't need to lean on others, know better than to smudge bullseyes over the backs of the innocent. They aren't weak like him, and it's time he grows up and stands alone too.)
The door closes behind him. Peter wraps his hands around the warm cup he just spent the last of his money on, and trudges off into the black-and-white world.
(It doesn't hurt anymore. It doesn't. It doesn't because he doesn't feel anything anymore.)
He won't go back again, he decides for the dozenth time, and adds lying to his list of faults.
(He's no hero.)
The holidays pass. MJ notes their passing with detached apathy. She has this idea that she was looking forward to them, but she can't remember why and there's no reason (no person) to make them noteworthy. She can't even remember where she spent Thanksgiving. At least she knows she spent Christmas Eve with Ned and his Lola, Christmas Day with her dad, and New Year's Eve with Ned at the diner, making fun of the drunk people all stumbling past. They were…fine. Nothing memorable. Nothing important. Just fine.
In fact, as sign of just how little the holidays really mean, MJ pays more attention to the few, scattered visits of her strange new regular than she does to the days marked special on the calendars.
Peter Parker.
She knows his name because he told her, that first time he came in and stared. She knows because every time he comes back, so much more hesitant and quiet and shy than he was that first visit, she says it out loud.
It's probably just because it's funny, a full introduction for a cup of barely drinkable coffee, but for some reason, MJ likes the feel of his name. She likes saying it. She likes thinking it. She likes having a reason to say and think it every time he comes in, which, unfortunately, isn't often.
There's no real particular reason she looks for him. He's pretty, sure, and he's cute with all the stammering and the staring at her that turns into staring at his shoes, the blushing and the awkward pauses (MJ's awkward herself, she's always been awkward, slightly out of step with the rest of the world, so she's drawn to awkward people in a way she never is to suave or smooth). But she's leaving in six months, and her life is full with Ned and the diner and her dad's post-Blip efforts and the big Mom-shaped void she Snapped back to, and soon there will be homework she'll need to do well enough to earn MIT-worthy grades for and….and the point is that MJ doesn't have time for anything (anyone) else.
So she can't explain why she looks up every time the door opens and feels disappointed when it's not Peter Parker. She can't really figure out why when it is him, she has to tuck a smile back into the corner of her mouth as she says his name and wishes he'd stay long enough to eat a donut or something (he's too thin, too tired, sometimes bruised, sometimes limping, always looking desperate, and it's such a contrast to his first job-interview-put-together look that MJ can't help but notice).
He always stammers when he thanks her, avoids her touch, leaves a tip he probably can't afford, and exits like he's fleeing the scene of a crime.
"It's weird, don't you think?" she asks Ned, but he just shrugs.
Ned's been extra quiet lately, which is another thing MJ can't entirely figure out. She has memories of sitting at their lunch table and listening to him babble on and on about things that don't matter to anyone rational and grown up. She can all but hear him ping-ponging ideas and plans and rants and half-articulated fanboy speeches off of… (well, someone). She knows that he used to already be talking whenever he entered the diner, always hyped up and ready to be more enthused by whatever… (well, not her, but someone) says.
But lately, though he comes in looking excited, he has nothing to say. He tells her whatever he's happy about, and she responds in her usual deadpan way, and… (hmm, there used to be something). But what else is there for him to say? They don't have the same interests, and though they both are supportive of the other, MJ doesn't exactly have a lot to say about Legos and their recent commercial endeavors.
So they sit in silence, and they're best friends, and somehow this isn't weird (it is; it really, really is).
Peter's always cold now. The landlord said his apartment has questionable heating, which he's come to learn means practically non-existent, and his homemade suit isn't as warm as the ones gifted him by Mr. Stark (another victim, another person who didn't have to die if only Peter hadn't gotten too close). He only packed a few blankets from the wreckage of home (except it's not home anymore, not when it's empty and erased of every visible reminder of him; not when he let the only thing that made it home die in his arms), and sometimes he's in so much of a hurry to go on patrol (to be someone memorable, to remind himself he still exists) that he forgets to shut the window behind him. It doesn't help that his hot water lasts only long enough for the shortest showers and he can't afford to pay for a portable space heater and all the electricity bills that would come with it.
Maybe he should have asked his other selves what kind of jobs they have (he should have asked them so many questions about how to keep people safe and how to be a real hero and how to not mess up, over and over again, but instead he wasted his time asking about villains and bragging about a team that doesn't even really remember him anymore). How do they get by? They definitely must be warm enough, must know how to make enough money to pay the rent and satisfy his always-hungry belly.
(They must know how to protect the people they love. They still have people who know their name and love them and would never, never forget them.)
Too late now.
Peter layers his suit with insulation—he has room now and it helps prevent people from noticing how much weight Spider-Man's lost, and besides, sewing it in helps fill up the empty hours when he's trying to keep himself to the black parts of life (trying to keep away from that oasis of color he shouldn't return to and sully with the danger he tows in his wake).
It's not enough. He still shivers his way through his patrols and finds himself curled up into a tight ball whenever he manages to sleep.
So one day, after he's finally earned some money by fixing printers and computers in the office of that lawyer who helped him (but not anymore, that might as well not have happened except it did, Peter remembers, and he wishes he didn't have to charge Mr. Murdock anything, but he's hungry and the rent's due and he'll have to find some other way to pay the lawyer back), Peter pays his bills and buys some groceries and restocks on suit material and has just enough left over to pay for one night's stay in a semi-nice hotel.
People are supposed to be strangers in a hotel, passing guests never staying long enough for anyone to learn names, so it's okay that no one knows him here. It's okay that he's only transient, one more anonymous face in a long line of them filling up this room for a night.
He runs the water so hot it steams up the whole room and sits under it until he's pruned and shriveled and completely dry of tears that no one can prove he's shed. He rolls himself up in all the blankets, the heater turned as high as it will go, and shakes and shakes until he feels like he'll fly apart into a million pieces.
It's not enough to make him feel warm.
He wishes, very suddenly, that he had a cup of coffee from MJ's diner. His hands are freezing, that's why he's still cold. The hot coffee she pours him with that hidden smirk, better used as handwarmers than actual drink, would be just perfect. It's why he always orders the coffee instead of food (he's such a liar, always, always lying, because it's not warmth he craves, but for the saying printed on every cup, We are happy to serve you, to be actually true, as much personal mission statement as it is empty promise).
Peter closes his eyes and tries to imagine a cup in his hands. He even goes so far as to curve his palms around the imaginary cup, but it's not coffee he sees imprinted on the backs of his eyelids. It's another hand in his, weaving fingers through and through like a web, clasping and squeezing tight (I wouldn't change anything, she said—but he would).
The blankets feel heavy and Peter thinks of a rooftop, of a double-sandwiched hug. Of love on every side of him, filling him nearly as quickly as the black hole devoured him from the inside out (I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry). He breathes in sharply and smells rain and blood and smoke, and can nearly feel MJ's breath ghost against his cheek.
His eyes snap open.
He's alone (he will always be alone because that's what heroes are and he's not a hero for all he's tried, but he has to try again because Aunt May told him he's supposed to help; he has to try because it's all that's left to him).
There's no one left to hug him. To offer him forgiveness or comfort or just simple companionship.
The cold sits like a shriveled stone in the pit of his stomach. Peter sweats and gasps for air and flees the whole failed experiment early in the morning with the excuse of patrolling.
The next time he makes extra money, he buys some flowers for May's grave and leaves them there for Happy (he never did find out why he's called that and now he never will, but maybe it will suit him again, without Peter's chaos near enough to destroy him) to find and appreciate.
He'll get used to being constantly frozen. Eventually.
(He'll have to, because one day soon, MJ and Ned will leave for Boston and MIT and an apartment together and he'll be left alone in the cold.)
The restaurant is too much. Peter knows as soon as he steps inside that it's a mistake. This won't end well. He can all but see the bright splash of red (the wrong kind of red, dark and sticky rather than neon and bright) seeping through into the monochrome surroundings.
But it's an anniversary. The anniversary of the crime he'll never forget. It's an occasion and it matters and he needs to do something to mark the event and this was her favorite restaurant and he set money aside specifically to order their favorite meal and he can't leave now.
It's like lifting that warehouse Liz's dad dropped on him once, making himself move toward their usual table, but he does it because she deserves the effort. However, before he can reach his seat, the waiter steps in front of him and gestures to a smaller table (a table for one because that's all there will ever be).
Peter sits down and orders and twiddles his thumbs as he waits for the food he doesn't want. Excess energy is radiating out from him, making his leg jiggle, his wrists to bump against the edge of the table, his shoulders to rise and fall with fluctuating tension.
He can't believe how long it's been since May last breathed. Since he's been able to look in her eyes and sees her love for him written there. Since he's felt known and loved and remembered. (Months? He was so sure, when he had to leave her alone on that dirty, broken floor with bullets flying in every direction, that he couldn't exist minutes without her, let alone hours, days, weeks, and now he's measuring in months?)
The air seems to be shrinking. He can't take in a whole breath. The lump in his throat is choking him, suffocating him, and he can't do this (just let me catch my breath, and he told her okay, but no, no, no, he didn't realize then that she meant her last breath).
All the effort he put into this suddenly seems ridiculous. He's dressed in the wrinkled suit that should be too small for him now (minus the tie because Doc Ock cut it in half, but that's okay, that's better, he never could have stood in front of a mirror to put it on when he's the reason May isn't there to help him tie it correctly) and he made sure he was clean and smells nice (no more smelling like garbage, bumping into things and falling and messing up and letting May down; it's past time to make her proud of the nephew she took in out of the kindness of her heart, being responsible with her power—the nephew who got her murdered). He even gelled his hair like he hasn't since…well, that's probably measured in months too.
And all for what? So he can come and enjoy May's favorite food when she's not alive to enjoy it ever again (I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry)?
"Your food," the waiter says, setting it down with a flourish.
Tears sting his eyes so abruptly that Peter has to duck his head nearly to his chest in order to not make a scene. The smell of the food coats his nostrils, sends him reeling back into a time when his dreams were hazy shadows and the world was bright and full of possibilities.
(I larb you, she said and why couldn't he just say it back? Why hadn't he laughed and joked with her and told her just how much he larbed her too? It's not fair that she died without him ever saying it back or telling her how funny she was or giving her another hug or helping her more at F.E.A.S.T. or doing anything but bringing supervillains home with him.)
"I'm sorry," he whispers, but then he clamps his mouth shut because once he starts apologizing for what he can never make up for, he can get caught repeating it endlessly, obsessively, for hours and hours, the taste of blood on his lips and cold seeping into him from that final kiss he placed on her forehead.
But how can he help it? She didn't deserve this. She only ever wanted to help others, even those who didn't deserve it. Especially those who didn't deserve it (like an ungrateful nephew who got Uncle Ben killed and then invited her murderer to follow him home like a puppy).
"Hey, Peter Parker. Are you cheating on us?"
His name.
An almost visceral thrill shudders through Peter. Someone knows his name. And that voice. Her voice. Her voice saying his name.
Peter's head snaps up, and oh, no wonder his tingle didn't warn him (it never does, not with her, not with the people he loves most, because they can't just hurt him, they can destroy him and who needs a warning for that?).
MJ and Ned are standing next to a table. The table. The table for two with room for a third for whenever Ned came and who knows? If Peter hadn't ruined everything, maybe a fourth chair could have fit too and MJ could have held his hand under the table.
(In a different world. In a better world. Or maybe it's a worse one. A world where he would have gotten all of them killed before he realized just how dangerous his attention, his touch, his love, really is.)
Though, he thinks, he shouldn't be surprised. This is Ned's favorite Thai place too. He comes here a lot. Peter should have realized that it was too risky to come here (or maybe he did know, is he sabotaging himself? How could he, how could he, when it is Ned and MJ who will pay the price for his weakness?).
Abruptly, like a banana thrown past his tingle and straight into his face, Peter finally processes what MJ said and his eyes widen. He jerks to his feet, clipping his knee and jostling the coffee he ordered mainly just to keep his hands warm. "Wh-what? You…you said…you know…I would never cheat—"
MJ's brows rise in an expression so familiar that color spreads from her dark eyes to radiate outward, turning Ned's skin gold, teasing glints of light from her black dahlia necklace, making pink flush through Peter's cheeks.
"The coffee," she says in that matter-of-fact tone he wishes he could wrap around himself like armor against the harsh world. "You haven't been by the diner lately. I guess you found a place with better coffee."
She doesn't have to be here. Peter tries to focus on the conversation, really, he does, but all he can think is that she doesn't have to be standing here and talking to him. MJ doesn't believe in wasting her time. She could have ignored him, pretended not to recognize him, just avoided him and enjoyed her quiet evening with Ned. But instead she stepped toward him, she's talking to him…she's waiting for him to answer her.
"I larb you," he mutters.
(He promised he'd tell her.)
Even Ned startles at that, and Peter fakes a laugh with a wave to his food. "Sorry, sorry, it's just…my aunt used to say that. I'm actually…I came here to remember her. It's stupid, really, I mean, wasting money on food she used to love, it's just that she used to come here a lot—"
"Dude, that's not stupid," Ned says. Peter nearly crumbles under the attention Ned gifts him. "I come all the time too, and trust me, I larb it here."
Peter hopes his laugh isn't too watery, though MJ's eyes sharpen on him (and he has to be careful, so careful, she'll figure it out, she did it before, she can do it again, and he wants her to, oh how he wants her to, but it's too dangerous, it doesn't hurt anymore and he can't ruin that for her).
"In fact," Ned says, "I come here so often that I've probably seen your aunt here even if I didn't know her. If that makes any sense. We could remember her, or almost remember her, together."
It's such a kind gesture, as generous as Ned himself, that Peter can't say no. He can't. (He won't. It's an anniversary and he dressed up and he wants something to mark it and Ned should remember her and they all three would be grieving for her if he hadn't broken the universe so it's okay just this once.)
"I…do you mind?" Peter looks to MJ. She's reserved, guarded, cautious in who she allows close (it took over a year of sitting at the same table every lunch for her to start talking enough that they could become friends), and he doesn't want to make her uncomfortable.
"Yeah, sure," she says with a shrug as she looks away. Which is strange because he's nobody now and she doesn't care about him, but he knows MJ only looks away when she's hiding what she feels. Otherwise, she stares and studies and scrutinizes (and he knows which is more dangerous; which is more horrible to live with).
"I don't want to intrude, I can—"
"It's no problem," Ned says. "There's room at our table."
Peter focuses on moving his food over to their table (the table, the one he always sat at) to keep himself from breaking down into tears or grabbing Ned up in a hug or babbling out endless words trying to get them to remember him.
"I'm Ned Leeds," Ned says when they're all sitting. "Just, I can't remember if I said that yet, and we should probably all know who we're sitting with."
His throat closes up. He and Ned have been friends for so long that he doesn't remember them ever being introduced. They just…always knew each other, from school and shared playtimes that grew into real friendship.
"That's Peter Parker," MJ says and Peter realizes he's been quiet too long. He overcompensates and throws his hand out for Ned to shake (bad idea, no special handshake, no, no, abort, abort!), then yanks it back to his lap and ends up spilling his coffee all over the white tablecloth.
"Oh, no, I'm so sorry! Sorry! Sorry! I didn't mean to—"
"It's okay," MJ says, so gently that Peter is struck mute. She twitches, as if she means to take his hand, but Peter already has them clasped tightly together, hidden in his lap to keep from making any more mistakes (this whole thing is a mistake, he knows it, he just can't bring himself to end it). "Really, don't worry about it."
And she throws her napkin over the mess, hiding it away, a move so easy, so simple that Peter feels breathless.
"Hey, Peter, you mind if I steal a bite of your food while we wait for ours?" Ned asks.
"Please." Peter pushes his whole plate toward Ned, and he loves his friend, he misses his friend so badly it feels like he's missing a limb and experiencing phantom pains, but he can't tear his eyes from MJ. "I like your necklace," he says, a bit more shyly than he would have preferred.
Hope (stupid, stupid hope) makes him wait, tense and expectant, for her answer.
MJ raises a hand to cover it, a crease marring her brow. "Thanks. I…I like it too."
"The real question," Ned says a minute later when silence that is probably awkward (but it'ssharedand that's a novelty Peter can't help marveling at) expands around them, "is do you like Star Wars?"
"Uh, excuse me," Peter says with a smile that grows so quickly he knows he probably looks stupid, "I am a rational human being so of course I love Star Wars."
"Yes!"
And as easily as that, the conversation flows. Peter knows he messes it up occasionally. He gets stuck in his head, stumbles when something seems too familiar, too strange, too much, but Ned keeps it moving and MJ interjects her usual darkly funny comments, and Peter feels as if May has granted him this one last evening as a gift for all his sacrifices.
A final goodbye, really. Like a last supper. The farewell they didn't have time for under the shadow of Lady Liberty.
And for once, Peter lets himself enjoy the moment. Until Ned pushes back his chair. Until MJ gathers up her to-go box. Until he realizes the moment is ending and this is it.
He stares down at the plate he actually emptied, the coffee mug he never bothered to get refilled, the napkin still covering the mess he made. A temporary solution. It will have to eventually be moved to reveal the stain.
"Hey, Peter, let me get your number and we can hang out sometime."
The restaurant is filled with colors (how did he not notice?). So many they swirl all together in a big goopy mess that's hazed over with tears he can't let himself shed.
This isn't his life anymore.
His name. His friends. His mask hidden away. Sirens silent long enough not to interrupt this (or maybe they've been shrieking all along and he just tuned them out because he's been Spider-Man so long that he's afraid Peter Parker is nothing more than a fading memory, one only he remembers).
He shouldn't. He shouldn't. He can't. He won't.
"Okay," he hears himself say, and he makes a new contact for Ned Leeds in his magically wiped phone. That stupid hope perks up, tries to grow, tries to remind him that life can be more than Spider-Man.
(But it shouldn't be. Remember what pain, what chaos, what calamity, he brings with him.)
When he looks up, MJ looks uncomfortable. Awkward. Nearly as uncertain as she looked in that opera house where he would have given anything to be able to sit next to her for four hours and make fun of the singing they knew nothing about.
(She shouldn't look like that. She should never feel so uncertain around him. So left out. So forgotten. Not around him.)
"Can I get yours too?" he asks, and even though his voice breaks, Peter's proud he got the question out at all.
(Stupid, so stupid.)
Her expression pinches. "We're leaving for Boston in the fall," she says.
Peter blinks. "Okay. I know. I just thought, until then, we could…but you don't have to! I didn't mean that—"
MJ rolls her eyes and snatches his phone out of his hands. "Sure, loser, just don't overuse it."
"No, I won't," he blurts (he'll never use it, but he'll look at it, at whatever name she chooses for herself in his miniscule list of contacts, and be glad that in exchange for all the pictures and text threads and facetime history wiped from existence with a wave of Dr. Strange's hand, he at least has her number again).
Peter takes his phone back from MJ with all the carefulness he'd use for plutonium and waves goodbye (like a loser) as MJ and Ned walk away.
When he looks down, his heart turns over in his chest.
MJ.
(Not the waitress, not Ned's friend, not Michelle Jones. MJ. Only her friends call her MJ.)
It's a mistake. He knows he'll realize just how big a one when he's alone, when he's bruised and aching, maybe bleeding, and he remembers all the dangers that come from getting too close to him.
But for now…for now, it's a miracle. And he's needed one of those.
"Thanks, May," he whispers to the table (stained, but full with the remnants of a dinner actually enjoyed rather than just eaten out of rote instinct). "I miss you."
When he leaves the restaurant, he's not even cold.