I was actually going to release this the day the movie came out, but the trailer pumped me up, especially the possible Peter/MJ we might be seeing.
This idea came from the beautiful fanart that makes up the cover of this story as well as those on-set photos of Tom Holland and Zendaya swinging for the fans (for Far From Home).
Disclaimer - I do not own these characters.
Knight in Shining Spandex:
Walking home from school to the beat of the music blasting from her headphones in none other than Michelle "MJ" Jones. She bops her head up and down, knowing that the people around her are judging the entire generation Z based on how she currently looks (which is actually accurate because what teenage pays attention to the social construct called reality? The majority of them are attached to a screen in some way).
Like a cliché from the cinematic media that she loathes, she turns down a sketchy alleyway as a shortcut. In those movies and shows that she's seen for some reason, this setting would often be unnerving for the young female protagonist. The sinister music would start to play to signal the woman's transition from leading lady to damsel in distress. Then, the music amplifies because she's defenceless against a big and scary threat which she can't protect herself from. But lucky for that damsel, her knight in shining armor shows up and fight the threat. The hero's musical theme now plays as he fights the monster and once he's won, his theme is replaced with a washed-out love ballad as the woman goes to thank him with a gesture of affection. And it all ends with the hero carrying her off into the sunset where they can go live happily ever after.
All those make MJ gag in her mouth.
-o-
Elsewhere, Peter follows the path his senses lead him. His spider senses were tingling so intensely that he had no choice but to follow them just so they'll shut up. He swings all the way across town and lands on a rooftop. He ditches his schoolbag and tears off his clothes to show his Spider-Man suit, ready to fight the battle. Once his body calms down, he peers over the edge to see where his senses took him. He expects to see an armed robbery, a gang fight, aliens, robots - or better yet: a gang of robot aliens in the middle of an armed robbery.
However, all fantasies aside, it's only MJ walking home.
That's underwhelming.
Peter looks down at MJ and sees that she's listening to music. He knows that she won't be able to hear anything because she would listen to her music in a silent classroom and it'd make him feel like he was in a concert.
That gives Peter an idea. Maybe this encounter wouldn't be as unfortunate after all.
He attaches a web to the rooftop and jumps over the edge. He starts sliding down slowly, going upside down and using his feet to control his speed. His glide is so smooth and stealthy that even if MJ wasn't wearing headphones, she wouldn't notice. (Shoutout to Mr. Stark for the blessed suit).
Peter suddenly stops sliding a few feet away from the ground because MJ has stopped walking. Their heads are at around the same height.
To his surprise, MJ turns around in the blink of an eye and pounces forwards, growling like an animal and having her hands out like claws. Peter screams, swinging back and forth to the beat of MJ's laughter. (Curse his spider senses for not catching that. But even with his spider senses, he never thinks of the impact of his actions or the consequences so it wouldn't have made a difference).
"Nothing to save here!" MJ exclaims at him.
Peter knows that he definitely looks like an idiot as he flails around on his web. So much for trying to scare her...at least, he wasn't saving her or else this would've been even more embarrassing for him. Once he finally stops swinging around, he repositions himself upside down so MJ's snarky grin would look like a snarky frown. If she knew that Peter was actually Spider-Man, then he would never ever hear the end of this. He already knows that she's going to tell him about all this tomorrow. He can't wait for that as well as fake a reaction.
"Just being your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man," Peter says with a deeper voice than usual to avoid being identified by her.
"Or a trapeze artist," she responds.
If only she could see his glaring through the mask. He didn't slide down only to be attacked by having his hero techniques deemed similar to a circus act. (However, he knows that she would argue that both contain costumed people for the purpose of entertaining - especially based on what just happened - which he would have trouble creating a rebuttal. That's why she's the captain of their scholastic decathlon team).
"Either way," MJ continues, "while your outdated sense of chivalrous masculinity is precious yet unnecessary, I still owe you for your valiant intention."
"Oh no, MJ - I mean ma'am..." He's glad she didn't notice that slip. "I do this stuff out of the goodness of my heart."
"Surely, that has a price tag."
"It doesn't - "
"Let me pay you, dammit!"
Peter puts his hands up in the air (which look ridiculous to her since he's upside down from her perspective), not wanting her fit to escalate. He's just going to let her pay for this even though he didn't do anything except make himself a victim of his own failure. Maybe she thought this was a comedy show and wanted to compliment his routine. He knows that she isn't going to pay him cash because she is always broke and borrowing money from him or Ned (or both).
MJ steps closer to him and Peter freezes because he has no clue what she's going to do. Her untamed hair blows in the wind as she intensely looks into his eyes through the mask. She looks alluring whereas he looks petrified. Thankfully, his mask hides his confused fear.
"Uh, MJ - ma'am," he squeaks out nervously. It sounded like he was saying 'my jam' with a southern twang.
MJ doesn't respond. Instead, she cups her hands around his chin and her fingers wrap around the edge of the mask as if she was about to take it off.
Peter's mind tells him to get the hell out of there. His brain cells are blasting alarms and waving red flags because she will find out his identity, but his spider senses neutralize his mind because they say that everything will be okay.
So, like an absolute generation Z idiot, he stays.
MJ rolls down his mask just so his lips are exposed. Her thumbs lightly trace the sides of his mouth. This is it. This is when she finds out that her nerdy-maybe-friend turns out to be a superhero. Realistically, MJ would just tell Peter to get out of his stupid cosplay costume because there is no way that she would actually believe that Peter was really Spider-Man. So, in essence, she'll never really know the truth.
But, MJ starts to lean in closer, closing her eyes.
"To my knight in shining spandex..." she mutters.
Peter holds his breath and sucks in his breath, also closing his eyes and preparing his mouth. From what it looks like, MJ was going to kiss him. Out of all people, it was going to be MJ. Or maybe, this MJ was really a shapeshifting robot alien used to distract him from a real robot alien armed robbery happening down the street.
Peter finally feels something in his mouth. He gnaws on it and his instant thought is that robot aliens kiss weird. It's not like he's an expert kisser at all. He considers himself to be unpracticed and a little spitty, but he doesn't care at all because there is suddenly a little peppermint taste in his mouth and tiny explosions going all over his body. Wow. What a kiss... His eyes open wide at the possibility of being poisoned, but he sees MJ's snarky grin again and his brain starts connecting the pieces.
He has chewing gum in his mouth. Specifically, he has MJ's chewing gum in his mouth.
She spat it in there when he thought she was going to kiss him and now, he's chewing her gum.
Peter immediately spits out the gum as he jumps down onto his feet. He starts gagging, spitting up, and rubbing his tongue to try and free himself from that horror.
Meanwhile, MJ is having a ball from her stunt. She's laughing at him. If she knew that Peter was Spider-Man, this would've added a good decade onto her life. Peter, on-the-other-hand, would have to move to a different country.
"I can still taste your spit!" Peter screams, starting to dry heave.
"See you 'round, Spider-Boy," MJ says, turning on her heel and making her way back home.
"It's Spider-Man!" Peter corrects. "I am a man!"
MJ turns back around, giving him a strange face. "You're wearing a little boy's jumpsuit pajamas."
Peter frowns because he can't believe she just insulted Mr. Stark's fashionable suit. "Oh yeah, well, I fought in Germany."
She raises in eyebrow in disbelief. "In World War Two? With Captain America? Damn, you've got some Benjamin Button lifestyle."
"Actually, it was like a month ago and against Captain America. It didn't even last that long. I swear, it took longer to get there. I'm actually not sure what was going on because that whole day was confusing."
And just like that day in Germany for Peter, MJ is confused.
"Either way..." MJ mutters. "We've come to the conclusion that you're a little boy."
Peter huffs. "How does that conclude that I'm a little boy?! You should've seen me in that fight! I took Cap's shield, stopped an awesome metal arm from punching me, took down a giant, and most important, we are the same age!"
"Tell that to the prepubescent squawk you call a voice." She smirks a little. "Did you threaten Cap with that tone?"
Peter inflates his chest to look more macho. "Actually, he did run away."
"Because he got away or because he was done babysitting you?"
Peter huffs. "I am not a baby!"
"Obviously not. That is clearly a toddler tantrum."
Peter stops himself from arguing with her because he is trying not to further portray himself as any type of child. He may not be able to grow a substantial amount of facial hair, but he is, in fact, a man. Aunt May told him that so it is true.
"Anyways, Spider-Child, I must be on my way," MJ tells him. "I have stuff besides homework to do. You better be going as well."
"Right," Peter responds, "gotta go stop crime before it happens."
"I meant to be home before bedtime."
Peter narrows his eyes at her. He crosses his arms, unknowingly looking like an angry child who just got refused to come to the grocery store. If only he had a more impressive growth spurt to look more like a knight. MJ was taller than him and she was in sneakers with no platforms.
MJ does her signature farewell: both middle fingers held high with a snarky grin before she slides her headphones back on to ignore the world.
Despite being roasted to the grave, Peter smiles to himself as he watches her go. This was definitely something he shouldn't have been doing, knowing as good as hell that it was going to bite him in the ass. But he still did it. He's only human...and sometimes his spider senses send him off to wonderful things or bad ones. He knew that this was going to be bad even if he expected alien robots in an armed robbery and ended up with MJ. This only taught him that he would've much rather encountered the alien robots because at least they wouldn't fake kiss him and infantilize him with insults.
The funny parts, aside from MJ being a tease, is that even if MJ knew she was talking to Peter as Peter Parker, the conversation would've most likely gone the same way and she would've still spat her gum into his mouth.
This ended up so much funnier than I thought it would. I hope you guys liked it as well. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and please let me know what you thought. If you have any story ideas that you would like for me to write, do not be scared to suggest it.
~ MysteryGal5