This was it.
Today was the day he was finally going to tell MJ he's Spiderman.
It was just the two of them today, Ned begged off for a last-minute errand and May was at work until nine tonight, leaving him the perfect opportunity. Peter needed help with some homework for English, and who better to ask than MJ? She'd followed him home with hardly an eye roll or her typical sarcasm, but maybe she could sense his nerves because despite his inability to focus, she barely mentioned it.
A half hour passed, before MJ announced she was hungry and began to fish through the cupboards, pulling out all the required ingredients for peanut butter toast.
It was now, or never.
He took a deep breath and—
Promptly choked on his own saliva.
MJ shot him a raised, unimpressed eyebrow that somehow assessed at the same time whether or not he needed the Heimlich maneuver or he was just being stupid. Once she was suitably convinced he wasn't actually choking, she resumed her quest for the peanut butter.
Peter meanwhile, buried his bright pink face in his hands and bit back a soundless groan.
Why was this so hard?
"Found you." He heard MJ mutter triumphantly a moment later, before depositing the loaf of bread, peanut butter and toaster onto the cramped kitchen table.
He had to do it now, before he lost his nerve.
"Uh, MJ?"
She made a sort of soft grunt, not even looking up as she plunked two pieces of bread into the toaster and Peter took it as his cue to keep going.
"I…" He cleared his throat and tried again. It was harder still when MJ finally turned her unfathomably piercing gaze on him and any small amount of moisture he had left in his mouth vanished. "I need to tell you something... important?"
This was not how his rehearsal in the mirror went this morning. All the words he painstakingly practiced vanished without so much of a see you later!
He stopped talking for so long, a good minute passed.
"Peter." MJ prompted him dryly, "something important."
Peter startled.
And a startled Peter is not an articulate Peter.
"Me Spider-Man!" He blurted loudly just as the toast popped up.
There was a short stretch of silence before Peter's brain reconnected to his mouth and he realized what he'd just half yelled.
"I mean, I'm Spider-Man." He corrected, flushing deeply.
He was prepared for yelling.
He was prepared for MJ to scoff or to burst out laughing in disbelief.
He was not, however, prepared in any way for MJ to say:
"I know. Can you pass the peanut butter?"
Somehow, Peter's mouth got ahead of his brain and before he processed what MJ said, he was babbling.
"Now I know you probably don't believe me and you'll have a lot of questions and the answer is probably yes, I'm a sticky boy and sometimes things get stuck to my hands and I can't get them off for a few hours because—wait—what?"
He stopped and stared at MJ like a doe-eyed deer frozen in the headlights.
MJ seemed to realize that Peter was incapable of handing her the peanut butter anytime soon and sighed, reached across, and grabbed it herself.
"You knew?" Peter gasped, scandalized.
"Of course I knew." MJ muttered, slathering peanut butter across her toast, "I told you. I'm observant, and you and Ned aren't exactly subtle."
Shock. Utter shock. His mouth opened and closed approximately four times before he was able to continue.
"How long?" Peter spluttered.
"DC."
"Why didn't you tell me you knew?" He cringed as soon as the question flew past his lips. He expected her to fire the same question right back at him, but instead, for the first time since the beginning of this bizarre conversation, MJ looked uncomfortable.
"I didn't want to ruin it for you." She admitted slowly, her shoulders shrugging up to her ears.
"You didn't want to ruin it for me?"
MJ finally looked at him. "I wanted you to tell me yourself. I didn't want to ruin that choice for you."
Oh. Oh.
stopped working.
"I mean, it was fun screwing with you." She continued, smirking, though it lacked much of the bite it normally had, "but I wanted you to trust me."
There was a vulnerability in her voice that immediately made his heart clench.
"I trust you, MJ." Peter blurted out immediately, meaning every word so genuinely it hurt.
Michelle (my friends call me MJ) Jones had become a fixture in Peter and Ned's lives before they even realized what was happening. No longer was she someone who shared their lunch table periodically and snarked at them. She had become one of the most important people in Peter's life, fitting in right between Ned and May, like she'd always been there.
After he realized this, Peter knew he had to tell her. Every time he blew MJ off, every time he gave her a flimsy excuse, every time he had to ditch her but not Ned during hangouts was a strain on their friendship. He wanted to be a good friend, and above all, he knew he could trust MJ. Call it his Spidey-sense (or Peter Tingle, thanks Aunt May), but deep down Peter knew he needed to tell her.
He thought of all the times he'd been so close to telling her his secret. How many times he'd wanted to tell her so badly he thought he'd burst into a million Peter sized pieces of confetti? How many times he'd been this close to telling her, only to chicken out at the last second?
She nodded, but didn't meet his eyes. A stray curl fell into her face and he had the strongest urge to brush it behind her ear.
"I wasn't sure if you ever would tell me." She admitted, gaze shifting with uncertainty—away from him.
"I wanted to." He assured her sincerely, unconsciously reaching for her hand as though to physically transmit how badly he'd wanted to tell her. "I wanted to so many times. But I was… scared." He whispered the last word.
MJ stayed quiet, she didn't snatch her hand back, which Peter took as a good sign to keep going.
"If you knew, it would paint a target on your back… I already had to worry about Ned and May… I didn't think I could handle worrying about you too." His breath hitched when she squeezed his hand back.
"I worry just as much about you." Her cheeks pinkened, but she didn't back down from possibly the sappiest words she'd ever spoken to him and it made his chest swell. "I'm glad you told me."
"I'm glad I told you too." Peter blamed the blush that crept onto his cheeks as a symptom of him being a sympathetic blusher.
"After all, you're a very sticky boy. Who knows what you'll get stuck to in the future and need my help with."
"You're never going to let me live this down, are you?"
"I already changed your name on my phone." She flashed her phone towards him, where there was already an open contact with the name "Sticky Boi" complete with two spider emojis.
"What? When?"
MJ smirked and bit into her toast in lieu of an answer.
They got back to studying, but their hands stayed joined. If either noticed, neither of them cared.
One confession was enough for today, the other would follow another time.
.
…
(Peter would barely manage to stammer out how much he liked MJ, before she would reply: "duh loser, I feel the same" and silence any response with a long overdue kiss to seal the deal.)