Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"You have someone?" 

Peter shook his head. The wince on his lips appeared as a smile.

"Nah. Being Peter Parker, it takes a lot."

"Not necessarily."

Peter — the other Peter, the older, calmer one, the one who's seen the most, gave a thoughtful smile. It was a sincere one. An open one. Somehow, with everything that's happened to him, and given the life that waited for every Spider-man… it was a peaceful one.

"There's moments. More than I can count," the man said. He was gazing off into the distance, his soul and his heart so far away from this school lab it could as well be in another universe. "It got better. With MJ." His eyes slowly focused back to this dimension, and they fixed on the young couple a few feet away. They were still lost in each other, forehead against forehead. Silent, unmoving, they had something Peter didn't think time could ever break. He knew that, because time had never managed to stop him from loving Gwen. "My MJ, of course," the other Peter corrected. "This is confusing."

"No, yeah, I get you," Peter said, giving another one of those fast smiles he had a dozen of in his fake smile factory. "Your MJ — and the kid's MJ's too — the way you describe her, I mean, she sounds amazing. Yeah”, he added in an afterthought that wasn’t one, because truth was, he had thought about love a lot, and happiness, and peace, “I'm happy you have her."

"Thanks," the other Peter said. He radiated warmth. Peter wondered if that could ever be him; when of course it was, if he'd just made different choices, fallen for a different person, never dooming her, never letting her fall too. "I'm sure it'll get better for you. Your story isn't done."

"Eh," Peter simply replied as he went back to the serum he had been making before the discussion had turned to painful memories.

"I mean it."

"No, I know you do, man." Peter twisted the cork inside the thermos and busied himself with making its contents spin. "Look, can we… I'm just thinking that I've cried enough for a lifetime, y'know. It was a good talk though." He quickly unscrewed the thermos from the beaker holder and put his hands on some tape. "I just miss her."

"I understand," other Peter said softly. His eyes were blue, Peter noticed then when he gave them a glance; and big, and wide. Again, that peace . "I apologize."

"yeah, and I, I appreciate it, Pete," and the way Peter said their name made the other Peter chuckle — something pure here too, and something that Peter had carefully maniganced. Because laughing was a cure. A cure to sorrow. It was as much as a means to heal as it was a means to forget.

Oh, Peter hadn't forgotten, far from that. But he hadn't healed either.

He just made others laugh so that he could pretend he was a cured man.

"So," other Peter said, once the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes had softened, "what does Peter Parker do when he's not Spider-Man? I'm a university lecturer on my off time."

"Big bucks?" 

"In all honesty, no. My wife makes triple I make." 

Peter nodded. "Oh, that’s good, good for you. I used to have a gig as a photographer a while ago."

"Really?” Other Peter dropped his current experiment and turned his whole body to Peter. “The Daily Bugle? Jonah Jameson?"

"Wha — you've got a Jameson too?" 

"Yeah, what a…" 

"...dick, huge agree.” Other Peter nodded thoughtfully. “I actually quit recently. Found out I’m not the best at taking candids and to be honest, having to share a floor with a guy who keeps screaming his head off about how he hates my second persona, it got tiring real fast. So. I’m currently looking.”

"Did you try to be a teacher?" 

Peter smiled. "A certain someone I know just told me it barely pays the bills."

"I didn’t say it wasn’t rewarding.” This smile. It could light up a room. “The kids, you're teaching them, but… I found that they teach me back just the same."

Peter considered the other him with a crooked brow. "So you're telling me that lecturing is just a way for you to keep up with the youth."

"No," he protested. A beat as he fiddled with his own serum. "Maybe. Being old kind of sucks." 

"C'mon man, what are you, thirty five?" 

Other Peter did a pout. "Add ten."

Peter’s eyes widened comically. "No freaking way, dude, I would have never thought!"

"I’m not too old to not sense sarcasm,” other Peter said, suddenly grumpy.

Arms flailed. “No, no no, no no no, that wasn’t 一 you look really good for your age.” The arms flopped to his sides, then fingers were pointed at his chest and face. “ I wish I could look like you at your age.”

“I’m not on death’s door, Peter.”

“Now you know I didn’t mean that either. And. Ah. I see. You’re playing me.”

Other Peter smiled. Cocky little bugger.

He was growing on Peter too fast to catch up. They both were, actually; and another look to other other Peter, the young one, the sad, the angry, the lover one, solidified his thoughts. They had moved away from each other, he and his MJ, and she was now perched on a stool reading instructions off of a school manual for him. He nodded or shook his head along her words. He pitched in. On the table, his hands worked on his own serum, and sometimes, when they drew closer to MJ’s hands that flipped the pages, his fingers brushed against her skin, like saying, I got you. You’re okay.

Breathe.

Stay with me.

You stay with me.

Gwen?

“Are you okay?”

Fixed in time, the photograph of younger Peter and his MJ embraced before the sunrise faded as Peter’s vision closed in on the Peter he carried. He twisted his mouth matter-of-factly. Gave a smile. He had so many to spare.

“Have you seen yourself, man? I should be asking you that.”

Other Peter pushed him softly as he tried a few tentative steps by himself. “My body’s already healing. I should be patched up by tomorrow.”

“That’s good,” Peter said.

He breathed.

The air was chilly. The sun rose on the Statue of Liberty. At its feet, the trio was hugging. Peter couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“You should find her.”

His fingers closed in on the bridge of his nose as he turned his face away, shielding the tears from the caring eyes of his second self. He brushed his palms against his cheeks, dried them on his costume before daring a look. “What?”

“Your MJ, in your universe. You should find your MJ.”

He chuckled. It was devoid of humor. “No offense, but I’ve already had my MJ, and she passed away, nothing is gonna bring her back 一”

“No, Peter, you’re not hearing me.” Other Peter inched closer, so close that Peter felt the ocean eyes could eat him alive. “It doesn't have to be Mary-Jane. Or Michelle Jones, for that matter. It just has to be a person to hold on to. A person… a person to fight for. No matter how much you care about New York, this city will never be able to measure up to the person that you love. And I think you and I both know that we Spider-Men are not much without love.”

Peter raised his chin and sank his eyes into the ocean’s. “That’s easy for you to say.”

“No it’s not,” other Peter interjected. “Trust me. It’s not.”

Peter held his stare.

Then nodded.

“A’ight, a’ight. You're the sage, here. I’ll give it a shot.”

Other Peter offered his hand. “And you try to get that job, alright? If not for you, for me.”

Peter laughed. This time, there was humor. “Sure, man. I love you.”

The stretched hand was shaken.

The split in the sky closed. Above their heads, the sorcerer’s arms worked fast, letters in an unknown alphabet circling him. Any time, now. They would get back home.

At the feet of the Statue of Liberty, symbol of new chances, the Peter of this universe gave them a wave before swinging away.

“Here we go,” other Peter said. “It was a pleasure.”

Peter looked back at him. “‘til next time,” he replied, before bringing two fingers up and watching as the world turned gold, then black.

_*_

“Hey May!”

“Peter! You know I’m at work, why are you calling me at seven in the morning…”

“Just wanted to hear your voice, May. Also, I’m kind of in campus right now.”

“Campus? What campus? I thought you were done with university! Peter…”

“No, not university, May 一 I’m almost thirty years old, why would I want to come back to college?”

“Peter, do I look like I know what goes on at all times in that thick head of yours?”

“No, you don’t,” Peter laughed. “May, I’m applying for the science teacher position in Midtown High School. I think I’ve got… I’ve got a good chance at getting it?”

The reply to his revelation came as a deafening silence.

“May?” he said before tapping the phone with one finger. “May? May, did you fall or ー” Then he heard it. The sniffling . “Oh no. May… no…”

“Oh my boy,” May said, her voice so little and frail he was thrown back ten years ago, “I am so proud of you. So, so proud of you.”

“May, I'm not even completely sure that I got it yet, I…”

“I’m going to hang the phone, and tell all my colleagues, my girl friends and the neighbors about this, and then I am going to call you back,” she said with some more heavy sniffling. Peter pictured her clear as day, her little pink face twisted with her little pink hand trying and failing to stop the tears, and his heart was suddenly lifted. His own hand rose to pat at the corner of his eyes. “I am so proud, Peter.”

“Thank you Aunt May,” he said with the speed of someone who knew there were going to burst into tears in the next ten seconds if they didn’t end the call. “I love you. I’ll bring a cake tonight. Huh, chocolate. Sprinkles on top. Bye.”

“I love you too honey一!”

Peter shoved his phone inside his jacket pocket, pinpointed one of the three trees of Midtown High’s front lawn and cried under it for the next five minutes. Then he met with the principal in his office, pretended being freshly healed of a particularly nasty conjunctivitis and absolutely nailed the job interview.

Later during the evening, he brought the cake to aunt May’s house. It was a bit mushy when he pulled it out from its box, and most of the rainbow sprinkles had slid off. When May wondered about it out loud, Peter mumbled something about having to run on his way to her place because he was deathly afraid of the dark. Maybe she didn’t buy it, maybe she did, but she stopped asking, and they ate. He told her he got the job. She asked why now, what gave him the push.

“A friend,” he replied, mouth full of cake.

“Do I know this… friend?”

May had her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand. He could almost see the glimmer in her eye as she studied her nephew. Peter just shoved another piece in his cakehole.

“No’e”, he said before swallowing. “Good guy, though. Gives good advice. You’d like him.”

“Maybe I could meet him!”

“Ah, well. Want more?” May nodded enthusiastically and Peter cut two new pieces. “He actually left town a couple weeks ago. Had to get back to his family. But, if he comes ‘round here, I’ll definitely organize a meet-up. For sure. He and his, huh, lil’ brother, they’re cool, cool guys all around.”

May’s eyes had the sparkles the cake didn’t have.

“I’m really happy you have friends, Peter.”

He nodded into his plate. “Me too. By the way, I got a meeting planned with my new colleagues this week-end.” An energetic applause; May thought she was in the theatre again, so Peter rose off the table to give a bow. “Thank you, thank you. It’s actually not really a meeting, we’re gonna go to some bar downtown and just, y’know, get to know each other.”

May stopped clapping and set her elbow back down on the table. “Oh, Peter. I’m so happy. You look happy.”

Peter’s throat closed in, and he swallowed, letting a smile bloom and stretch his lips; not one from his factory of rehearsed fake smiles, but an open one. A sincere one. It wasn’t peaceful yet, but, he was getting there.

“I am. A lot changed these past weeks."

"It's as though… you were sad one morning, and happy the next." 

"It's a bit what happened, yeah."

May started to sniffle. “It’s a good cake.”

“It is a good cake, isn’t it?”

“It’s delicious.”

_*_

“I’d like every one here to give a warm welcome to Peter Parker, our new science teacher! Mr Parker actually used to be a student at Midtown, didn’t you Mr Parker? Fond memories! I actually dug up your student records. A lot of good grades, Mr Parker. A lot of absenteeism as well 一 but then you did get a college degree in chemistry and physics so we are all hoping you’ve grown out of this phase, Mr Parker.”

Peter gave a giant grin and took the microphone out of the principal’s hands.

“I did,” he said. “We’ve actually covered that during the interview two days ago, sir. Thank you for bringing it up!”

The principal grabbed the mic back. “Okay, that’s just being unnecessarily loud now. There’s a show going on, Mr Parker.”

“Okay”, Peter simply replied as their audience of his new colleagues politely clapped, the noise barely heard under the music of the band on stage. “That was a lovely… lovely introduction.”

Hands stretched to him and he shook them one after the other. There was Mrs Kasprzak, Economics teacher, Mr Meyer for Maths, Mrs Lopez and Mrs Jones for English and then Peter’s energy went down the drain and he blacked out for the next ten or so people.

“So this is your first time in a teaching position?” asked a woman he forgot the name of even though he was pretty sure that she was the Spanish teacher and that she had been making eyes at him for the past ten minutes.

“Yeah,” he said, twisting his neck to check if there was a free spot at the bar.

“What brought you to Midtown then?”

“A close friend told me not so long ago that there’s a lot to learn from the kids you teach,” he said. Someone was rising out of their seat. “And it made me think that there’s never a day off from growing as a pers… you know what, I’m sorry, I just, I gotta, be back in a sec.”

“Oh, uh 一”

“Thank you for letting us entertain you tonight! We are Murder Face! Please give a round of applause for Wendy on drums! John on guitar! Ethan on bass! Elisa on keyboards and second mic, and me, Mike, on vocals, thank you very much!”

The half a second it took for Peter to be distracted by the sudden call was all it took for the stool at the bar to be occupied. He watched helplessly as a random man took it over and ordered his own drink. He could have been the one sitting down there. Resting for a second. A little further away from the noise, a little closer to this comfortable loneliness that had become a part of him with the years without her.

Without Gwen.

Peter swallowed. All of a sudden, even though the music had stopped playing, the talking had become overwhelming.

“You should come talk to the band with us,” the Spanish teacher said with enthusiasm. “They’re the main reason we decided to host your welcome party here!”

“Oh?” Peter said, thinking about putting on his suit and swinging this evening away.

“They’re getting pretty famous,” she continued relentlessly.

Peter absent-mindedly let himself be lead to the stage where the band was signing autographs. The Spanish teacher uncoiled herself from him to hand a napkin to the bass player and he used this moment to slip away from the crowd. Dodging a plate full of pre-dinner drinks, ducking from a nasty handbag blow that would have poked his eye, sidestepping as a particularly sharp knee came to jab him in the crotch, Peter ended up outside. Cold air met hot breath.

Breathe.

Gwen, breathe.

In and out.

“God I miss you,” he murmured to the wind.

“Never heard that one before.”

A man was standing a couple of steps away. One of his feet was propped against the wall, and he held a cigarette close to his lips. Peter gave him a lookover. On the tall side, or at least, taller than Peter was, he sported wild curly hair dyed orange, a dark complexion, and light clothing for the weather. Something about him was familiar to Peter, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what it was.

“I was huh, talking to myself,” Peter said. He had to force himself to close his mouth and gave a wave. “Hi.”

“Hi,” the man replied. It was dark around. The smile in his voice could still be seen. “No worries, I don’t judge. Just thought you were a fan and huh,” He flicked the ash off, “I like my smoke breaks.”

Peter considered the man a little longer. “You’re,” he started, taking a step closer as he pointed at the man, “you’re the singer of the band.”

“Jackpot,” the man grinned.

“That was a good concert. Good music, it was good.”

“Thanks. You’re the guy whose boss gave a speech during one of our songs.”

Peter swore he had seen this guy before. Or heard of him. One of the two. The two at once. “Yup. I’m really sorry about that one.”

“It’s cool, I don’t mind a little improv.”

“Nah, it’s not, it’s not cool, you guys deserved to be able to play without interference 一”

“What’s a concert without something going wrong anyways?”

“True but, it’s always nice when everything happens according to plan 一”

“Heh, that’d be pretty boring if all shows were the same.”

“I’m just saying, sorry for… accidentally troubling 一”

“Don’t say sorry, man,” the vocalist said, and Peter awkwardly shifted from foot to foot, somehow being propelled back to high school with his heart beating in his throat. “I feel like I’ve seen you before.”

Peter too. “Oscorp tower?”

“Never set foot in there.”

“The Daily Bugle?”

“You worked at the Bugle?”

“For a few years, yeah, the pay was terrible though. I don’t recommend it.”

“Impossible,” the man said with a chortle.

“I swear.”

“A media company, underpaying its employees? Never seen before. What gym do you go to? You look like you work out.”

Peter couldn’t help his eyebrows to shoot up. “Huh. Wow! No. I mean, I jog sometimes. And I have…” He thought back to his shitty, one-room appartment that was filled to the brim. “...a weight machine back home.”

“You do?” The man blew the smoke out of his mouth. He looked ethereal, in this moment, and it wasn’t the cold air’s fault that Peter’s cheeks were pink. “Did you go to ESU?

“I did, yeah. Got my major there.”

His feet were cold, but his cheeks were hot. Make it make sense.

“Me too!” More ash was flicked to the ground as he stepped closer. “I think that’s where I’ve seen you. Did you know a Flash Thompson there?”

“Eugene,” Peter laughed. “Eugene, Eugene, Eugene. Yeah, we still keep in touch.”

“He was a friend. If you want my opinion about him, he should’ve gone to Dakota like he planned. Beats me why he chose Empire State at the last minute.”

“Oh,” Peter said, and his throat tightened. “I don’t know.”

The man in front of him flicked the rest of his cigarette and crushed it under his shoe. Then he turned his whole body to Peter, and observed him for a couple of seconds, seconds that felt somehow very long and very short all the same, while he had his head cocked to the side and the tip of his wild red hair was caressing his shoulders, while he had this cheeky, playboy-like smile with white teeth blinding Peter 一 just then, he said:

“Do you wanna get a drink?”

At the back of Peter’s head, someone else’s pure words, impossible, echoed.

“Are you asking me if…?”

“I’m inviting you to a drink,” the man clarified, still with this cheeky cheeky smile. “I’m buying.”

No one had never bought Peter a drink.

“Alright,” Peter breathed out. He wasn’t able to repress the smile. “If you’re buying.”

The man stepped in front of him to hold the door of the bar open 一 and he had those wide brown eyes that could eat Peter alive.

“You’re a model. You’re a model 一 obviously . Yeah, I don’t really remember you in college, but… I was still on the lame kids’ team there, that’s probably why... but I’ve seen your face a couple times on those giant billboards in Times Square 一 and you’re also part of a band? What? What haven’t you done?”

The vocalist laughed with his nose in his cocktail.

“My agent is currently trying to get me into movies, so, there’s that.”

“Wow,” Peter said as he stirred his strawberry milk with a paper parasol. “The guy next to me’s a growing star. Who would’ve thought.”

The man raised a palm and turned his head away with a wince. “No.”

“Yeah, yes you are. A growing star.”

“That’s too early to say.”

“But you’re on a good path?” His new friend re-did that hand movement. It tore a laugh out of Peter’s throat. “You so are on a good path. That’s good for you, man, I can’t wait to see your band in Madison Square Garden, your face at the Oscars and huh…”

“Alright, that’s enough about me, what about you?”

“What about me? Well, I’m a teacher.” Using his hand that carried the milk, Peter pointed at his coworkers’ table with his pinky. “Newly appointed. I’m starting next week, actually.” The smile in the singer’s voice was too contagious. “I know, it’s pale in comparison to what, I mean, everything that you do.”

“It’s cute,” he said.

Peter’s chin dropped to his chest as he breathed in.

“Cute?” he repeated.

“It’s nerdy.”

“You’re playin’ with me.”

“I’m not, I don’t mind nerdy things.”

“Sorry, I misplaced my glasses somewhere, lemme go get them. Oh no, the world’s a blur…”

“I think there’s a limit to nerdiness.”

“Not with me, no, I’m like, the whole nerd package. Total mess.”

“Hold on, that’s not true. You look… put together?”

“Now you’re playin’ me for real.”

“I was trying to be nice, but if you prefer honesty to kindness, then I can go all in.”

“Please go all in. I can take the blow.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” Peter laughed. “I got thick skin.”

“Okay. I warned you.”

Peter shot his hands up. “I'm sorry, officer.”

“You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

Peter let his hands fall. “I think you can go harder.”

“You look like shit!” Peter covered his face with his hands and let out a strangled laugh that the man and his whitest of teeth imitated. “You do! Look at your laces, man, how didn’t you fall flat on your face on the way here? How long’s it been since you got a haircut?”

“A while,” Peter laughed, “a long while.”

“And you use spray deodorant with... what is that, talc?! Y ou might as well be a serial killer!”

“Hey there, the talc’s for the joints.” A beat. “Prevents arthritis.”

“Sorry, not serial killer,” the man said, leaning in, “pathological liar.”

“Okay, okay, someone was on time for psychology class.”

“Hell yeah I was, straight A grades too. Want me to talk about the skin care next? Or the three-day old stubble?”

Peter ashamedly grabbed at his three chin hair. “I’ve been trying to grow it for a month…”

The man laughed. “You’re a mess, dude! A total mess!”

“I did… I did warn you!” he replied, hitting his chest. “Behold the nerd package!”

Peter couldn’t stop smiling. It was above him. It was beyond him. It was like the sun, like the smile of the other Peter, the older, calmer one, with his width, and his warmth, and his peace. It was radiating, and it was familiar. He felt like he had known this peace before, and that he had simply forgotten what its kiss felt like on his skin. Well. Hello old friend. Welcome back.

I know it feels like we are saying goodbye, but we will carry a piece of each other into everything we do next. To remind us of who we are. And who we are meant to be.

Peter lowered his head onto the counter, and breathed there against the cold and the hard of the surface.

I’ve had a great four years with you, and I’ll miss you very much.

“Are you okay?”

Peter nodded. “Yeah. I just. Need a second.”

“Sure.”

But you should find your MJ now. Your story isn't done.

It took him another minute to be able to look back up. The man was still waiting at his side, gently twisting his own paper parasol.

“After all this talking," Peter said, his voice calm, and soft, "I don’t think I ever caught your name.”

“I’m Michael-James. But my friends just call me Mike.”

“Okay. Mike. I’m Peter.”

“Peter,” Mike said, “me and the band are planning on going to the club after if you’re up for it.”

Peter smiled. “Ah, it’s not really my thing.”

“Is this part of the nerd package?”

“Maybe. Could be. I can get your number instead.”

He saw Mike blink before he too smiled. “Didn’t think you had the stomach to ask.”

Mike had a sharpie in his jeans’ pocket. Peter’s uncovered forearm was right in reach. He set it on the counter before the vocalist could ask. “Glad I asked?”

Mike considered him with new eyes. Always so wide. Always so brown. “I actually am.”

The sharpie tickled Peter’s skin. His hair rose up at the touch, and he tried not to lean in when Michael tattoed him, not to twitch so it wouldn’t mess up the handwriting, not to breathe too fast or else Michael would feel it, his heart, in his wrist. The tears started to prickle at his eyes. No, not now. When it felt so good to begin anew.

“Here I am, tiger.”

Peter tore his eyes from Michael’s face to focus on the numbers, already imprinted in his memory.

“I added my autograph in case you forget who I am,” Mike added. “There.”

“MJ.”

“That’s me.”

“I won’t forget,” Peter said as he safely tucked the numbers away under his sleeve. “Text, I’ll text you. Unless you’d rather I call.”

“As long as you aren’t a stranger, Peter, whatever goes.”

They stayed like this, looking at each other, silent and smiling, while the rest of the world carried on.

“I gotta bounce. See you later, Peter.”

“Alright. See ya, MJ.”

Peter watched him as he went, neither holding him back or letting him go. He had his name on his arm, his face on his mind. Michael-James wasn’t leaving him anytime soon; he’d make sure of it.

When he stepped back into the cold air of downtown Manhattan, climbing a wall in a dark alley to reach the rooftops, he dedicated his peace to the Peters and their MJ.

Chapter Text

He was late.

Peter was late.

Peter Parker, twenty-nine aging years of age, newly appointed science teacher at Midtown High School, was late on his sixth day of class. Given the numerous occasions that the principal had used to remind him that he was still on probation until the end of the month 一 really, he didn’t know why fate always lead him to barking bosses;  Peter figured the best would be to avoid any drama like it was the plague. He needed that money. Being an adult was expensive, and if he could save himself from the embarrassment of May nose deep in his dirty underwear, he’ll take that chance. She still thought he was a US flag fanatic. God bless her.

Peter was late.

Peter was late, and as he swung by the busy post office on his way to the school, mask rolled up over the full bagel in his mouth, all he could think about was that he still had photocopies to make for his freshmen.

Peter was late and all he could think about was the mountain of dirty dishes in his sink. He thought about his faulty window that could never close, something that had cost him a good share of his savings in medicine every time he caught a nasty case of the flu. He thought about his two broken skateboards piling up dust under his bed, and how long it had been since he’d gone for a ride, he thought about the Spanish teacher’s overly flirty comments about his eyelashes. He should probably call May. He should probably pay his rent. He should probably gather up the courage to text Michael James.

Why hadn’t he texted Michael yet?

Peter almost forgot to take off his mask before he entered the school through its roof hatch. Thankfully, for him, the kids were already in class and the rare monitors pacing up and down the halls have decided not to look for a beadhead-having, bagel crusts-dusted, gangly science teacher who was currently battling against a mop in the broom closet he came out of. This was not Peter’s proudest moment. Although, there had been worse ones. Somehow pigeon-related. He entered his classroom through the chatter of the students and when he almost, just almost , headed to a vacant desk in the back to take a seat as one of the sophomores, he realized that today wasn’t his day.

“Hi,” Peter said, positioning himself in front of the black board after an hesitation. “Sorry I’m late.”

He watched the twenty sixteen-year-olds in front of him and had a vivid flashback to his own high school years and poor Mrs Leblanc trying to teach through the paper balls.

“Okay,” he said because the stress of becoming lame was getting to his head, “what if we all collectively quieted down for a moment. Jessica. Hey. Jessica.” He knocked twice on the table in front of him, startling the girl with wavy brown hair. “Eyes on me. I don’t think Nicole’s pet iguana is more interesting than molar mass.”

“We weren’t talking about that, sir,” Jessica protested. 

Peter had a laugh. “No I think you were talking about just that. I have pretty, pretty good ears.”

“All teachers say that,” she said, chin high, and Peter couldn’t help but smile at her cheek, “but it doesn’t stop Alan and Taurai from cheating off each other and never getting caught.”

“First of all, telling on your classmates is a bad look on you, second of all, information noted.” Peter knocked on her desk again. “Can we get this class started now? I have forty minutes left to maybe prep a live experiment and then I gotta run to the photocopier. Guys. You gotta help me out here.”

By some miracle, he managed to make the class to settle in five minutes and apart from a bit of snicker from Raphael Flores (who he guessed was the self-appointed trouble maker), calm made a comeback at the possibility of an experiment. Plus, they knew that Peter was both good at and liked doing demonstrations. For his first day, he had planned one for each class he had, involving glow-in-the-dark water for his first period, a fire ball that got a little out of control for his second period (he’d had to choke it out under his lab coat but the freshmen had been positively delighted), atomic worms for the next and crazy foam for the last. He had had soot around his eyes the shape of lab goggles and had totally failed to notice it until Mrs Lopez pointed it out to him in the teachers' lounge.

“I’m glad that at least someone is having fun teaching, Peter,” she’d said as he had been rubbing his face on his lab coat, which was meant to get dirtied anyway.

Were teachers on first name basis between each other and why was this the first time Peter had heard of it? Also, did that mean that he was supposed to call the kids by their last names?

“When you teach for as long as I have,” she had continued, “you’ll have less fun.”

“That’s… sad,” Peter had said, and he had been pretty sure that this exchange was the reason why Mrs Lopez 一 or Leticia, if he had to call her by her first name now? 一 was glaring at him whenever they crossed paths.

“Sir. Sir. Mr Parker, sir, I don’t understand something.”

Alan in the back row waved for him. Peter made a mental note to split him away from his partner in crime Taurai before heading over to the commotion and squatting by his desk.

“What’s up.”

He had given them exercises while he prepared the demonstration at his desk. Not something too crazy, just a little Q&A to make them figure out the mass of x number of atoms.

Alan shuffled closer to Peter, and quietly asked: “What’s an atom?”

Granted, the exercise could only be completed if the exercise-solvers understood the definition of every word in the exercise.

Peter almost had a stroke. “You don’t know what an atom is?”

Alan looked down to his textbook. “No.”

“Oh, wow. That’s… wow." And the kid just seemed to get redder by the second, and Peter thought that he had royally effed up. "You know what. Good for telling me, buddy. It's always better to ask now and look dumb now than never know and look even dumber later. Not that you are dumb right now. I mean, when I was your age, I constantly got the two written ways of the word 'your' wrong and don't get me started on the 'their', and I still get them wrong today! and it was my girlfriend who had to tutor me about…"

Peter swallowed.

"Your girlfriend had to tutor you?" Alan asked gently, so far away from him but too close at the same time.

His feet were on the hard floor. His shoes were old Converse. They were a size too big for him, the laces off on one foot, and he felt them threaten to stay behind him whenever he walked. But the floor was hard. The floor was real. He was not free-falling to ground zero. Around him, a classroom. Twenty students. A ticking. It’s okay, it was just a clock. The clock on the wall, announcing the time, not the rest of her life, no, it was just a clock. It was nothing else but a clock.

Breathe.

Peter breathed.

"Yeah," he said. "Sorry about that."

"It's okay, Mr Parker," Alan replied, clearly confused but too polite to say it.

Peter gave the kid a little pat on his back. "You should get a tutor. Midtown Science is full of that. Before that, I, huh, I'm gonna explain you what an atom is, and if you've got any question, you know, no question's a dumb question. I'm here to help."

Alan nodded, looking relieved. Peter flashed him a smile and encouraged him to take notes as he went over the definition. A few desks over, between the front and the backrow, there was a girl with a black headband in her blonde hair. Peter looked at her until she turned around, and she smiled awkwardly at the attention. She had brown eyes. Pear-shaped earrings. It wasn’t Gwen. It felt like her, for a second, but it wasn’t, because the girl with blond hair was named Trish Andrews, and she was a sophomore student in the class he taught, and Peter's own high school years laid behind him and he already knew the definition of an atom at four years old and she already knew the difference between 'your' and 'you're' at five. She always was a genius. She always knew she was.

Peter went back behind the board with wobbly legs and a fake smile, Peter 2’s words growing faint.

You should find your MJ.

His MJ had never left him. Gwen could never leave him.

Today wasn’t his day.

When the Spanish teacher (he should really remember her name, this was getting embarrassing) handed him her number in the teachers’ lounge during meal period, “in case you want to meet up and talk about how we can improve the average of the seniors’ marks”... Peter almost crumbled into a crying heap here and then. By some miracle though, he sucked it up and pretended an allergy to the chefs’ calamari to splash his face with water in the bathroom. When he came back, she was waiting for him, her number on his lunchtray on a torn piece of schoolbook paper. Peter stared at it.

“Huh,” he said. “I appreciate it. But.”

“You need allies in this field,” she said with a big grin that Peter mechanically imitated in its worse version. “There’s real sharks.”

“And plenty of other fishes,” Peter mumbled under his breath before trying his best at another smile, a less fake one, if that was possible. He took the number by the tip of his fingers and made it slide across the table. “I, huh, I can’t accept it.”

“Well why not?”

She sounded irritated. Peter winced.

“Not feeling like it?” he tried.

“It’s honestly just for work,” she insisted with a smile that alerted every hair on his body.

“Is it?” It came out meaner than he intended it,so he backtrailed as fast as he could. “I mean, I… appreciate… that… you view me… in a particular way… but I’m not… looking for, huh…”

“Oh!” She snapped her fingers. “I get it. You’re gay.”

It was Peter’s second almost-stroke of the day and the time was twelve fifteen in the morning. “What? No! What! No. I’m not. I like girls. Women . I like women .” He had a manic laugh just then that sounded manically manic even to his ears.

“Okay,” the Spanish teacher said in a tone that strongly indicated that she didn’t believe him. “Still,” and she slid back the note to him, “take it. As I said, you could use allies .”

She did a wink.

“Oh my god,” Peter did.

Because he was raised half a nice boy and not gay, he took the paper, pointedly brandished it in front of her eyes, and shoved it in his back pocket.

“Your secret’s safe with me,” she added all smile.

“Yeah, okay.”

Peter grabbed onto his lunchtray for dear life and decided to take this meal to the rooftop.

_*_

“Tell me about it.”

His aunt was watching him with her magnifying glass and a piece of her jigsaw puzzle in the other. Today was a bad day for Peter, but it was Evening at May’s day, so it wasn’t all that bad.

A pen in his mouth as he went over two of the worst science papers he had ever seen, Peter looked up. “Tell you about what?”

The glass in her hand did a couple of swings that threatened Peter’s forehead. “About today, dummy! You look under the weather.” Another swing. Peter ducked under the hit as he snorted a chuckle. “Oh, sorry 一 and that’s an understatement.”

“The ‘sorry’ or the ‘you look like crap’?”

“I did not say you look like crap, Peter.” She huffed in an exasperated way that only May could make endearing. Looking back at her puzzle, she closely examined it under the glass. “I said you look terrible.”

He smiled around the pen. “I don’t think it’s much better, May.”

“Well it is in my head!” she said as she started to energetically force a piece at the wrong spot. “Where do you think this goes? I’ve been trying to complete the cat’s face for an hour and it’s driving me crazy.”

“Isn’t that a bit of its whisker?” Peter said.

“It is a bit of its whisker,” May nodded, the piece finding its spot. “Now what’s bothering you.”

“Nothing,” he replied quickly. “Work. Stuff.”

“Is it a girl?”

His start made the pen fall. “Why is it always a girl with you?”

“Why is it always a girl with you ?” May retorted with an ease that could only mean she had had to live with Peter Parker for ten years. “You don’t talk about it with me 一 and frankly it is none of my business, thank you very much, but,” and she hammered on her words with her index at him, and Peter watched her eyes behind her reading glasses, half amused, half hoping for the conversation to move to different waters, “I know there are girls.”

“Girls, huh. Plural?”

“Oh yes. Look at you!”

“Look at me?”

“Any girl would be lucky to have you,” May said with a certainty that made Peter want to believe her. “You’re just like Ben, and more than you think. He was also a romantic at heart, couldn’t go a week without buying me flowers. God, I miss that man. So forgive me if I don’t believe for a second that there isn’t a girl. Or that there won’t be one.” She had a pause, during which Peter forcibly scrabbled a C+ on Glover Johnson’s paper. “You can’t stay mourning her forever, Peter.”

Peter took his bottom lip between his front teeth and bit down on it. “You know, you sound just like that guy.”

“Oh, the friend you told me about?”

“Yeah.”

“Then he was raised good. If you don’t follow my advice, then you should follow his.”

Peter did a pensive hem. He picked up a random puzzle piece just to twirl it between his fingers, just to think about something else than Gwen, something else than the not-so-great papers he had to grade, something else than…

“Actually I got someone’s number,” he spurted out.

“Oh!” He could see that May had tried to conceal her delight but she had failed terribly. “Is she in your school?”

“No, she… I mean, I did also get a colleague’s number actually, but I’m not gonna call her.”

“Oh,” she said again, now sounding curious. “So who is she?”

“That’s the question, May. That’s the question. It’s not a, uh…” The puzzle piece twirled and twirled in his hand. The words were stuck at the back of his throat. The piece twirled and the words were stuck. The laugh Peter let out was something little and strangled, and wet. “I haven’t even sent a text...!”

May blinked slowly.

“Well why not?”

“‘cause…”

Why hadn’t Peter texted Michael yet?

_*_

It was a Monday night at the Moondance Diner, and like every Monday night, it meant the regulars wouldn’t move their ass out no matter how hard MJ grabbed the ketchup and mustard on the table from under their nose.

“Elisa, I need a towel.”

“Again?!”

“Blame Marty over there, his ma never taught him how to drink properly.”

“Marty should go home.”

“That’s what I keep telling him!”

Marty was one of the overstaying regulars at the Moondance. His thing was chocolate frappés with heavy foam on top, and extra coffee. MJ had no problem with chocolate frappés, however the caffeinism that came with overconsumption was a big issue for him, especially when it meant that Marty was always spilling his drink all over the table because his hand was trembling so much!

MJ caught the towel Elisa threw him and came up to the culprit.

“Marty”, he said not so gently, “it’s eleven past.”

Marty looked up to him with bulging eyes and a chocolate mustache. “Can I get a refill?”

“We’re closing, Marty. Actually, we’re already closed. I think it’s time for you to go back to your kids.”

“Client is king!” Marty protested. “That guy over there’s still here!”

MJ threw a look at that guy over there who was at the bar and currently bargaining with Elisa for another fried egg, which was obviously not gonna happen since they had closed the kitchen thirty minutes ago. “Well Vincent’s gonna leave too, no favor treatment ‘round here. C’mon Marty, I know you’re a good man and you don’t really want the underpaid waiters to have to go back home at midnight.”

The gears were noticeably turning inside Marty’s head. MJ told himself that the man hadn’t given anything that much thought in his life before. He could almost see the smoke from the intense grinding of the brain cells.

“You know, I saw a leaflet for one of your shows,” Marty then said, looking all proud of his retort to MJ’s logic, “you could make a livin’ anywhere else than in this place, kid.”

“Don’t call me kid,” MJ said as he put the empty frappé on his plate. “And it’s a choice. Now go, don’t make me kick you out.”

“You wouldn’t!”

Despite all odds, both Marty and Vincent did get kicked out, because MJ had been working since 12 A.M., his patience was short, and quite frankly, he strongly believed that Marty needed to tuck his children into bed instead of wasting his salary in chocolate 一 which was better than Budweiser but still not ideal for the form and the family quality time.

MJ had strong feelings about fathers and their children.

“Marty was kinda right back there,” Elisa said after a while, when they both were elbows deep in the coffee machine, making it shine for the morning staff. “You don’t have to work here.”

“I want to,” MJ replied, obstuse as ever. “I’d miss you guys too much if I quit.”

“You already see most of us at rehearsal.”

“Emphasis on ‘most’. Besides, I’m a freelance model, not a model model.”

“Soon, nena.”

“...and the band is still existing off of tips! If I don’t have a steady contract, I’m on the street, so… might as well earn a living wage and do it with friends.”

“You’re so right.”

“I know,” MJ sighed, “it’s a curse.”

“Entonces oráculo, if you’re so right about everything, why don’t you tell me how come you were so sure last week that hot stuff would call you?”

MJ hit her hip with his hip. “You’re gonna clean this machine by yourself if you keep at it!”

“No way,” Elisa laughed, “you wouldn’t leave a princess with chores.”

“Bitch, I’m the princess,” MJ retorted, and Elisa howled.

Her words stuck, though. The guy from the bar 一 Peter, this tall, lanky white boy that fit his type in a way that surely couldn’t be legal  一, MJ had thought about him since, once or twice, alright, more. He’d always had a thing for nerds. Back in college, when he had finally come to terms that he was a hundred percent gay and could move out of his father’s place into a uni dorm, that was all he had dated. He liked them awkward, when they paced around, fixated on a subject that was beyond MJ’s grasp. It was fine, MJ liked to listen. He liked to watch. He liked to read .

Now, Peter hadn’t been an easy read. Yes, he was definitely someone MJ could see sleeping with, or even date if the guy came around, but he had been so closed on himself. Even if he had seemed open about who he was, there had been an air of sadness around him. An air of old. An air that had clearly lured MJ in, because he hadn’t seen many men his age act like Peter did, both young and mature, both hesitantly letting MJ buy him a drink and the next second asking for his number like he’d done this forever. MJ liked opposites. MJ liked a challenge.

So the fact that Peter hadn’t called him yet was disappointing to say the least, since, like an idiot, he hadn’t taken the man’s number back, when he would have definitely not left their discussion on read for a week.

So maybe it was fate when MJ’s phone buzzed in his jeans’ back pocket. He didn’t check it just then, though. He counted the cash at the register while Elisa got her stuff from her locker. She gave him a hug, yelled an ‘¡hasta mañana oráculo!’ before shutting the diner’s door behind her, and when MJ was finished with the cash, he threw his apron into the laundry basket, got the keys from under the counter, set the security system, turned the lights off and followed suit 一 and then, and only then, was when he remembered the buzz.

Walking under a street light, MJ turned his phone on, and read:

Hi. it’s peter parker   from your concert. hope its not to late to give you my number back :)

MJ smiled.

There he was.

Chapter Text

Hi. it’s peter parker from your concert. hope its not to late to give you my number back :)

Peter stared at the typos in his text and slapped himself across the forehead. Gwen would probably judge him pretty hard right now if she could read this. A full year of English tutoring, gone like it never even existed. And what the hell was that smiley at the end? Did it make him look cool or was it more perpetuating the fact that he was a grade A loser with fluctuating confidence? Besides Gwen, the other him, Peter 2, was judging him now too, he was sure of it. He could hear the words piercing through the fog between the multiverses: you’re not lame. Say it after me, you, are, not, lame, you, are, amazing.

Yeah, he was amazing! He was the amazing Peter Parker, and he’d just sent a text to the most beautiful man he’d ever met, it was a man, and he could sing beautifully, and he could model beautifully, and what couldn’t Mike do exactly? He could probably snore beautifully too. Peter was lame compared to him.

You’re not lame!

Sorry, yeah, not lame. Amazing.

He was the amazing Peter Parker and he’d just sent a text to his MJ.

Peter had googled Mike, obviously. He had opened his laptop for something other than buying spandex to fix his suit, and he had froze on the picture of Gwen as his background, of them together, with her head on his shoulder and her blue graduation cap on. He’d clicked on Bing. Typed ‘Michael James empire state university’ on the search bar, then ‘Michael James band murder face’, then ‘Michael James model’, and he had almost died just then. Really, this many heart attack scares weren’t healthy for a man his age.

The photographs were imprinted on his eye. There were a lot of them, with different lighting, styles, plenty of beauty shots, a little less full length body shots, a couple of commercial ones that had made Peter smile with the corniness of them. Most of the photos, though, showed MJ smiling. It was a wide grin, so strong it stretched the freckles on his nose, so honest it forced his eyes shut, and it added a dimple to his left cheek that Peter hadn’t seen at the bar 一 and in the occasions where MJ’s eyes were open when he smiled in those photographs, they were big, and wide, and brown. Apart from Gwen, Peter didn’t think he had ever met anyone with this kind of eyes.

Then there was one underwear shot.

Peter was screwed.

He had saved it on his laptop, on a file in a file in a file named ‘do not open’, and had tried very hard to remain calm as he’d gone to take a quick shower.

MJ didn’t reply to his text right away.

Standing on a building’s side, Peter stared at the screen of his phone as he walked up, and down, and back up again.

Maybe this was a mistake.

Maybe Mike had forgotten about him.

Maybe he somehow knew that Peter had looked him up on Google and was weirded out because of his stalker-ish behavior.

Maybe it was deserved.

And maybe, just maybe, Peter wasn’t ready to be social again, much less date anyone.

“Motherfudger,” Spider-Man said as he slipped his phone in his suit and did a flip off the wall.

Gravity propelled him fifteen stories down. As he was about to hit the first floor, the web he threw caught him, pulled on his arm and his body back up. He twisted in the air as the cold wind smoothed down the folds of his suit. Shooting two webs from his wrist, he was yanked to a traffic light that he used as a springboard. Then he swung. Right arm, left arm, web after web. Spider-Man patrolled.

It wasn’t long before his senses detected a commotion. Judging by the tense whispers, it was a break-in. 

Spider-Man landed on the street light next to the 1, 2, 3, 4, he counted 5 men, armed with pistols and batons. One of them was picking the lock of the small grocery shop, while the rest stood guard. None thought about watching for a threat from above. It was a very interesting phenomenon; after years of being Spider-Man, Peter was starting to think that criminals were as genetically close to pigs than cops were, since none of them seemed to have the capacity to look up.

He thought of the little store that was seconds away from being pillaged and turned his nervousness 一 Mike please reply to the text also please pretend like I never sent a text 一 into anger.

A web caught the top of the picklock’s bald head and hauled him under the street light where he was safely and warmly tucked into a cocoon. All at once, the thieves turned to the lamp. The Spider gave a wave.

“I think it’s fairly known by now that I really hate it when guys like you target small businesses.”

“Spider-Man!” the thieves cried out, then off they were skedaddling.

The man that was closer to him was running off one second then levitating the next. His ankle had been grabbed by a web. Spider-Man had flown up, pulled on the thread he’d thrown before delivering his foot straight to the upside down foe. The other end of the web that wasn’t attached to the ankle was tossed to the side of the nearest building, and the limp body quickly followed, slamming back first into the wall. Other webs came short after, sticking the man’s hands to the bricks in case he thought to grab the baton at his waist to free himself when he came to.

Two down, three more to go.

The third one was zigzaging in-between the parked cars of the road near the almost-break-in. He thought he was being sneaky, ducking behind the hood of a Volkwsagen, but he was proven wrong when his hand was suddenly sticking to the headlight he brushed past.

“You stay right there, I gotta deal with your crime buddies first,” the Spider advised, already swinging away.

A serie of terrified screams and insults mixed followed him to the next guy. This one was heedlessly running under the street lights ahead like the world revolved around him 一 which, alright, every person was the center of the world for someone, he wasn’t special. A weight came tumbling on top of him, slowing his helpless race down instantly as the bandit was tackled. The air escaped his body in a flattened uumph , and he was suddenly being manhandled around by two arms and two legs as Spider-Man coiled himself around him. He ended up webbed directly on the pavement, mouth obstructed, hands behind his back, cheek painfully digging into a wild pebble. Standing above him, Spider-Man, and it was the hero’s turn to swear.

“Holy shhhhoehorn, wait, wait, hold the phone,” the Spider said, frenetically patting his own waist as the bandit looked on and struggled against his gag. “Where are… okay! Okay.” He finally found what he was looking for: a phone, tucked inside a very flat pocket at his belt. “Spidey, whatever happens, you’re amazing, don’t you forget that,” he muttered to himself.

This was the weirdest arrest that had ever happened to the thug, but at least the amount of bruises had been kept to a minimum. Unusually, Spider-Man seemed to be in a good mood.

Hey Peter Parker! Perfect timing, I just got off my shift. Whats up?

Peter had to come up with an interesting, witty, seductive lie now. With one hand on the phone, he threw a web at a building and shot himself upward.

cool!! im watching action movie rn how r u

“Nailed it.”

The last thief was still on the loose. Spider-Man spotted him just as he used his pistol to shoot into the window and get on the driver’s seat. He must have found the keys somehow because the engine roared the moment Spider-Man landed on the hood and stared right through the windshield.

“Stealing property now? You realize that not all car-owners have insurance!”

The thief shrieked in terror and rammed the car into the other one parked in front of it. Spider-Man had to hang on for dear life, almost folding the aluminum of the hood under his grip.

"C'mon, man! It was perfectly parked too!"

The car stationed behind it squeaked as the thief shifted in reverse, twisted the steering wheel, then shifted back to drive.

In Peter’s left hand, his phone buzzed.

Lol I’m good :) how’s ‘action movie’ like?

The wheels screamed as the car moved from its parking spot to the thankfully empty road. Still balancing on its front, Spider-Man grinned at his screen before remembering that he was supposed to stop a break-in turned car wreck.

"I mean, they do say don't text and drive… Hey, man, that was a red light!"

Letting out a scream, the thief took a brutal left turn at the intersection. A jolt following a pothole, Spider-Man's phone escaped his grasp, and he did a yelp, instinctively throwing a web to catch it just as it was about to crash on the asphalt.

predictable but entertainingggvdxhb,,,,,gv

"Get off there, Spider-Man!" 

"Only because you ask so nicely, Mad Max!"

In a movement of the wrist, the web with his phone attached to its end was flung to the branch of a tree that passed by. In the same breath, Spider-Man jumped up and landed on the roof of the car. He sprung to the side, legs first, twisting his body in mid-air with his fingertips holding on the roof. His feet made contact with the already broken glass of the window. Then to the thief's shoulder. There was a crack, and the man was propelled in the other seat to heavily crash against the door. The action ended as Spider-Man slid at the man's ex-spot and vehemently pressed on the brakes.

The car stilled with its wheels fuming. Propped up against the door, the thug was moaning.

"You freak... broke my shoulder…"

Spider-Man brushed off a shard of glass from his suit. "Yeah, that can happen when you try to steal a car from under my nose. Let me take that away from you," he said as the man used his good arm to slowly raise the gun. One of his webs caught it and threw it out the window to the pavement. "Play nice. Don't steal the radio player," he advised, webbing the now empty hand to the man's own thigh, "wait for the police to come pick you up. I'll see you after school, son."

When Spider-Man opened the door to exit the vehicle, he distinctly heard a very bad word used to his detriment. So, as a point of principle, he webbed the thief's mouth too.

He jumped up to take out his phone from the tree on his way to the one leashed to the lamppost.

"Sorry, traffic was hell," he saluted as he landed near the man. He'd been apparently struggling against the webbing since Spider-Man had left him there: his face was red all over, eyes wild and bulging, neck ridden with veins. Under the mask, Peter cringed. "You're not gonna collapse on me, are you? I don't wanna call the cops and an ambulance, it'd be extra expensive and if you've gotta raid a grocery shop then I don't think you have the fund for it."

But the man recoiled when Spider-Man stepped forward. "Don't touch me!"

"I promise you, that really wasn't my intention—"

"What did you do to Andre?"

Spider-Man’s ears perked up at the noise. But they had heard right: it had been a sob.

He gestured at the intersection behind him. "Andre, you mean the car thief? He's fine. Probably has a dislocated shoulder but he can still walk to jail."

"You didn't kill him?" 

His blood squirmed. "No, I don't kill. That's a rule of mine. A fairly known one too —" 

"Me and the boys, we see how you treat other people. You kick em in jail all passed out and bloody. They say you a killer in the Bugle —" 

"People change," Spider-Man said. "Nice talkin' to you." He webbed this mouth too for good measure, then pointed at him. "Don't rob another small business or I'll know it. Be creative. I don't know! Go for a Walmart. And spread the word to the boys. I don't kill. Got it?" 

Peter's phone had been buzzing. The adrenaline from the chase had dissipated, replaced by the low turmoil that the thief's words had left in their wake. He didn't kill. He had never killed. Not on purpose and not for a long time.

He had turned his back on this way of life, and he had promised Peter 2 he would grow from there. 

And so he will.

Aiming for the guardrail at a rooftop, Peter squatted there and scrolled to the messages he missed from MJ.

Well ngl you sure sound like you’re having a great time!

Wanna hang out tmrw?

sorry about that last message I have slippery fingers

yea fr sure! what do you have in mind?

dw Peter Parker ;)

the band and I are rehearsing, we start at 8pm but you can come in earlier and I’ll show you around

This is the address: 251W 30th St, near Pennsylvania station

sounds awesome!

i can bring pizza?

Please yes

extra pepperoni?

A man after my own heart

:)

_*_

Peter had to have ‘I am nervous’ written all over his face because every last one of his colleagues, excluding Mrs Lopez who still refused to acknowledge his existence, asked him how he was. The mathematics teacher, Mr Meyer, approached him in the hall as Peter was speeding to his first period class, his lab coat flapping behind him 一 not as late as the previous day, but not much better. Later, two of the school monitors said hi as Peter waited for his coffee to brew when they had never spoken more than three words to him before, and five minutes later, the Spanish teacher offered him a coupon for a massage. Peter even stopped with more ease than usual what would have been the start of a brawl in the schoolyard. He suspected that the teenagers took pity on him. Then he got offered a chocolate bar by Alan Sarkouh, who then shyly told him that he had found a tutor, so Peter guessed this was more of a ‘thank you’ than a ‘get better’ kind of gift.

Alan was such a sweet kid. Peter devored the chocolate bar as soon as he was out of the classroom because fast metabolism and nerves got along very well.

There wasn’t even a reason to be nervous. Peter realized that. It was a social event like any other. Ten years ago, back when he and Gwen were dating, she was taking him on loads of social activities. He had been to a Broadway musical for the first time with her. To a four-star restaurant for the first time with her. To the Wollman Rink where they ice-skated for hours for the first time with her. She used to take him shopping often, to fill his arms with bags she knew he could carry and never tire, and to ask his opinion when she was hesitating between two of the same clothes in different colors. Peter had desastrous style. He was always pretending to know what he was talking about and pointed at the worst cloth of the bunch with the bag he had between his teeth. He was always enjoying messing with her. And to him, she was always beautiful no matter what she was wearing.

It was with him that Gwen had bought her first pair of lingerie. She had insisted on him having an opinion about it because, and he could quote her on that one: ‘building your fashion sense is important, Peter. The way you show yourself to people matters’. But he knew that the reason behind bringing him along to buy lingerie had been somewhere else; with the need for the approval, the desire to be desired and the want, simple , for him to know that she wanted him back.

The moment she was gone, Peter had just… stopped going out. He had his favored places of course: the Chinese restaurant around the corner and the laundromat at the foot of his building; but he couldn’t count them as places, where you could hang out, meet other people. When he hung out, it was by himself on rooftops. When he met other people, it was with the criminals he arrested between two fired bullets.

Basically, for the past ten years, someone had pressed ‘pause’ on the Peter Parker channel and had forgotten the remote under a cushion.

The time was 4 P.M. when the bell rang. The hallways of Midtown Science were filled with the hubbub of the teens, and the streets of Queens of the incessant life of its inhabitants. Swinging above their heads, Peter was sweating streams.

“Hey Eds!”

“Spider-Man! The usual?”

He flew himself between two buildings, his phone stuck between his ear and his shoulder. “Yeah, but an XXL this time? Double pepperoni?”

At the other end of the call, Eds from Eddie’s pizza gave a throaty laugh. “You got it, chief. You bringing your spidery friends over?”

“Something like that,” Peter huffed. He gained altitude, flinging under a crane, giving a wave to the operator in the cabin who gave a thumbs up back. “I’ll pick it up at 7 if that’s cool with you, uh… in person for the advertising.”

“You’re a life-saver, Spider-Man,” Eds said, always happy to welcome New York’s protector in his pizzeria and more than delighted at the prospect of a publicity stunt.

“Right back at ya, Eds.”

Spider-Man set his internal radar to ‘look for thugs’ and busied himself with chasing an old lady’s cats out of a tree for the next thirty minutes. She called him a nice young man and asked for his business card, which reminded him, he needed a business card. He had done next to nothing to actually redeem his public image ever since Gwen passed, and if he didn’t care about it before, he started to now.

There was still a majority of New York that believed in Spider-Man. Eds did, or otherwise he wouldn’t be offered free pizzas; that grandma did, or maybe she simply hadn’t recognized the suit. The kids who wore a t-shirt with an off-brand picture of his logo on it certainly believed in him too. But the words of that thug from last night bothered Peter, more than he showed.

It was a mixture, of the thieves from the grocery store being so deathly afraid of him that they would rather take flight than fight like they used to, and of little Peter, the sad, the angry, the lover one, curing his aunt’s killer instead of acting on rage.

You are amazing, the older Peter had said.

Yeah.

He was the amazing Peter Parker, next in line to pick up his pepperoni pizza, and he was going to meet with his MJ.

Progress.

“Here you go, Spider-Man!” Eds loudly said through the walk-up window, delivering the pizza himself. “It’s Spider-Man!!”

“Hello, citizens,” Spider-Man said, kowtowing. “This is without a doubt the best pizza in New York!”

Eds’ chest couldn’t get any more puffed if it tried. Spider-Man shot pistol fingers at him before leaping on the facade of the restaurant and trotting about upwards, making sure that the whole street could see him and the pizza in his hands. Then he grabbed the emergency backpack he had left webbed to a chimney, changed himself into the only not-torn pair of jeans and the cleanest sweatshirt he owned, and jumped back down into the deserted cul-de-sac behind the pizzeria.

“Sorry for the disturbance, buddy,” Peter told the rat he startled.

Getting over its scare, the rat sniffed in the pizza’s general direction but Peter wouldn’t hear any of it and made a quick exit into the main street.

It took him another ten minutes of light jogging to get to the address. He squeezed through the revolving doors of the building and examined the signage by the staircase. First floor, private-owned. Second floor, coworking space. Third floor, studios. Fourth floor and fifth floor, more coworking spaces, sixth floor, music school, and on and on.

Peter stared hard at the words that started to jumble together. A cough. He turned to the reception. There, the short woman behind the desk was giving him the stink eye.

“Lost?”

“Uh, yep,” he said, making the p pop. “I’ve got a… meeting, I think? With a band? Don’t know what floor.”

“Name?”

“Peter,” he replied, hopping closer to her desk, “Peter Parker.”

“No. Name of the band.”

“Oh. That could’ve been clearer… ma’am. Murder Face?”

“Is that a question?”

“It’s not a question, it’s a fact, the band’s name’s Murder Face.”

“A second.”

Click clack clack. Her nails hit the keys of her keyboard with a slowness that seemed pointedly exaggerated. Peter watched the white of the screen reflect back on her face, her eyes skimming over the infos, then skimming over his own face, then back at the screen, like she was pondering whether or not she should give him an answer. As she looked at him one last time, Peter offered her an insolent nod enlivened with a smile.

“Third floor,” she said then. “The elevator’s out of order.”

“Good thing it’s leg day,” he replied joyfully.

He spinned around and bounced to the staircase.

“Food isn’t allowed in the building!” he heard her call out right before he started his ascent.

Peter simply raised the pizza over his head and shouted back: “Thank you!”.

He climbed the steps two at a time, barely breathing until he was at the third floor. He found that it split into two directions; so he tried a right first, rapidly walking down the corridor and looking through the glass doors of the rooms, but there was nothing but groups of people he didn’t know, and absolutely no music instruments at all; then he went back to try the left side of the floor, where there there were music instruments in the rooms he walked by but still no one he could recognize 一

The hair at the back of Peter’s neck stood on end.

Five feet away from him, the corridor took a curve. He crossed those feet in a stride. His spider-sense exploded then. It wasn’t the usual warning of danger he was used to, but it was a warning nonetheless, like a premonition, a presage, a pre-something.

Peter made the pizza jump to his right hand. With his left he gripped the waist that was coming at him around the corner and shifted the two of them, with them where Peter stood and Peter where they stood. Then, just as fast as when it went off, his sense fell silent.

“Hey Peter,” Michael James said.

Peter let go of him.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Great reflexes.”

“I’m sorry, I absolutely didn’t mean to do that.”

“It’s cool, man, don’t worry about it.”

Peter let out the breath he was holding, took a step back, and slowly switched back the pizza to both his hands.

“I brought the pizza.”

Mike looked down to Peter’s hands with the look of someone who tried really hard to stifle a laugh. “Oh, yeah. Extra pepperoni, right?”

“Yeah. XXL. For everyone. Are they there yet?”

“No, not yet, you’re the first. I was actually on my way to text you outside, the service on this floor is terrible. The rest of the guys should be here in fifteen, tops.”

“Oh,” Peter said. “That’s good.”

There was a shine to MJ’s skin, different from the sweat at the bar. He wore more clothes too, less skin-tight, more comfortable 一 but still colorful just like his hair: bright red pants with a baggy white short-sleeve he had half-tucked into his pants. The first three buttons were left open. He had about five different scrunchies at his wrist, two new rings, and definitely a different ear piercing from when Peter last saw him.

He was beautiful.

Mike’s eye was on him the whole time. Peter held the stare for a couple of seconds, chin high to match his height, hoping really hard that the ZeroSweat deodorant he’d rolled all over his armpits had done its job. Looking away to wince out an apologetic smile, he raised the pizza to chest level.

“Where can I… put it?”

“Oh,” Mike said like he’d just remembered its existence, “there’s a break room, we can heat it up there once everybody’s here.”

Peter brought the pizza back to him. “Alright.”

Mike nodded without looking away. He extended a hand to pat Peter’s arm. “Come. I’ll show you around.”

Feeling on top of the world, Peter trailed along.

_*_

Peter was shown the rehearsal studio. It was a cramped room, with a small couch by the door and rows of speakers hugging every wall. In its middle, a complete drum set, two electric guitars, with one with no stand that was just laying directly on the floor; a bass, an acoustic, a synthesizer, lots and lots of wires that all directed to the speakers, and a couple of microphones.

It was messy and it was lived-in and Peter instantly liked it.

“Welcome to our space,” Mike said, spreading his arms in front of the drum set, “where we hang twice a week for the humbling price of a hundred bucks.”

“I love it,” Peter said.

Mike was beaming. “First time?”

“Yeah, actually. I’ve always wanted to try out an instrument but,” He put down the pizza on the armrest of the couch, “I’ve never really found the time for it.”

“You wanna try?”

“What?”

Mike slid to the side, opening the path to the instruments. “This is your lucky day, Pete.”

Pete.

Swallowing a smile, Peter skipped to the drum set.

“Oh, drums?” Mike said offhandedly. “Okay.”

Peter whirled to him. “I mean, I can go for…”

“No, no, drums is fine.”

Peter whirled to the drums. “Is it?”

“Oh yeah! It tells me what kind of person you are.”

Peter whirled back to him. “Are you psychoanalyzing me?”

Mike shrugged. His own smile was bright. Intoxicating. “If you go for the drums, it means you’re a loud person. And a pretty good analytic thinker. You may seem introverted, but you create extrovertedness through beats.”

Raising a playful brow, Peter jumped to the electric guitar. “What about now?”

MJ’s eyes swam in glee. “You’re a visual learner, and pretty damn good with communication. It’s like an instinct to you. Basically, you’re a team player.”

Peter whistled, then hopped to the synthesizer.

“You’re good at working on your weaknesses to match your strengths,” Mike said without missing a beat. “You’re a multi-tasker. Also, good chances are you’re ambidextrous. Pretty long fingers.”

“Pretty long fingers?”

“Am I wrong?”

Peter flexed his knuckles. “I didn’t even pick an instrument yet.”

“Well,” MJ said, inching closer, “hop on it, tiger.”

Pete, and now tiger.

If Peter didn’t know any better, he would say he was being courted.

He did a pause before going for the drums, sat on the throne and took the sticks, then paused again. “You know you sound like an horoscope, right?” Mike’s eyebrows had shot up but Peter was already well on his way. “‘The sun is definitely at twelve degrees right now, I can tell because you’re being moody’.”

“I don’t sound like that.”

“‘This is the week to abandon your… insert sign… skepticism, because Mercury’s in retrograde and Neptune’s gravitational force is pulling you towards its center!’”

“At all. What the hell, man?”

Peter lowered his face into one of the tom-toms and concealed a violent fit of laughter. It was probably the nerves. “Sorry, MJ, it just… it just needed to be said. I couldn’t let you live the rest of your life without knowing that.”

“Thanks!” Mike said, eyes wide and mouth gaping into a stunned smile. “I personally could’ve lived the rest of my life without knowing that I sound like a zodiac maniac!”

“Write a song about that,” Peter said, throwing a drumstick in the air. “Zodiac Maniac does sound like a fire song title.”

The redhead watched him catch the drumstick. He closed his mouth. “You’re a bit of an asshole, Peter Parker, you know that?”

Peter cringed. “Eh. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for who you are.” Mike brushed past him as he positioned himself behind him. Peter tried not to think about the last time he was physically close to someone, let alone someone who looked this good. And smelled this nice. “D’you know the names of every drum?”

“Kick drum,” Peter said, pointing at it with the stick, “Floor… drum?”

“Floor tom.”

“Floor tom. Tom-tom.”

“Good.”

“Snare drum, hi-hat. And…” He banged on one with the stick. “Cymbals.”

Mike took in his hand the cymbal Peter had hit and stopped it from ringing. “Like a professional. You sure you’ve never played the drums before?”

“I had a big phase in high school, was really into underground punk, so, uh, I got… violently … into instruments too. Some of the infos stuck.” He made a clicking sound with his tongue, hit his temple with the end of the stick.

“What kind of punk?” Mike seemed honestly interested.

Peter pursed his lips and played with the pedal of the kick drum with his foot. “Crass. Spacedog Experiment, Vulture State, huh… The King’s Pin. That kinda stuff. So do I just go for it?”

“I’ll add 'Peter Parker is an anarchist' to the list,” he said, smiling behind Peter. “Yeah, just try some noises.”

“Nah, not an anarchist,” he replied, and then he just slammed the sticks on the two tom-toms and at the same time pressed the pedal of the kick. The commotion that resulted pulled a grin out of him. “Whew! Just a guy that likes it when things are fair.”

“I like that. Though you should probably try being more gentle…”

Peter faked the outrage. “Excuse me, I was being very gentle!”

“It may seem like playing the drums is like punching a bag, but trust me, it’s not all muscle! The fingers stay flexible. The wrist is slightly more rigid, you can’t have a limp for it.”

“Limp Wrist too."

“The band?”

“Yeah, I used to listen to them in, uh, in junior year. ‘t’was an obsession.”

“Same,” Mike said, and he gave Peter a look Peter didn’t see, but felt anyway. It was like a prick at the back of his neck, like a tingle, his spider sense — but at the same time, it wasn't anything like it. “Okay. Up and down motion with the wrist. Forearms parallel with the floor. Don’t lift your whole arms just yet. Like…”

And then, with his hands, he touched Peter’s hands.

Every last hair on his skin stood on end. Again.

"Like that," MJ's smiling voice said, somewhere to his right, tickling him. "You gotta give it energy. Not too much, or else you’re gonna wake up the whole neighborhood. There’s only so much soundproof foam can do —" Peter stared at the hands that directed him. They were slightly bigger than his, soft on the outside, softer even on the palm, and much darker, offering a nice contrast to Peter’s overly white skin. MJ too had long fingers. Nicely cut nails. There was this gloss about them, like base polish that needed a coat, like he cared about the way they looked, the way he looked 一 the shine of his skin made sense just then. MJ, like Gwen, was a person who cared about their appearance. “— light drumming, then you can go crescendo just to feel how it feels. Try with one first.”

MJ let go.

Peter felt hot where the touch lingered.

“Uh… where do I…”

“Oh, hand it over.”

Peter gave MJ one of the sticks. Or at least, tried to.

It was stuck to his hand.

Oh, no.

“I have sticky fingers,” he said quickly because MJ was cracking a laugh when he pulled. “I’m so sorry. Oh god. I’m sorry.”

What was he, sixteen? Did he just get the bite, or—?

“I thought you said slippery?” MJ said, still laughing, still pulling, this time with a frown on. “Man, can you…”

“Yeah, well, it comes and goes with the weather,” Peter replied, panicking. “It’s, you don’t wanna know what happens on hail season…”

“Okay? Can you let go?”

The door opened just then as a tumult entered. Their hand on each end of the stick, Peter and MJ froze. His skin gave in as though it never tried to betray him in the first place, and he rose from his seat, swiping a few times on his jeans just to make sure. MJ, now sole possessor of the stick, gave him a look that could’ve meant everything and nothing at all before welcoming the five loud newcomers.

Peter, sweating all over, stared at his clenched fist.

This had never happened to him before. Not even when he started seeing Gwen, but then, they had dated months after he got his powers which had given time to figure out how to conceal them. And it’s only after he revealed his identity to her that they started being a thing. He had never tried to hide anything from her. And if he did, it would have been for her. But Peter couldn’t have history repeat itself.

It was like his body wanted MJ to know what Gwen knew - or maybe like it rejected it. Like it rejected this. Them. MJ.

“Hey guys, this is Peter. Peter?”

Peter looked up and awkwardly waved at the people. “Hi, I’m Peter.”

There was a bit of giggling from a woman on the left, before she was hushed by one of the two men.

“We know,” she said once she was calmed. “I’m Wendy. This is actually my throne.”

“Oh!” Peter left the drum set and dusted the seat with his palm. “Here. Brand new. Might be a shape still but huh…”

“I’ll get over it,” Wendy said.

Her grin meant she knew something about him that he didn’t.

“I’m Ethan, this is John,” one of the two guys said, his arm wrapped around the other’s shoulders. “And over there is Elisa.”

“Hey, hot stuff,” the aforenamed, a tall woman with short brown hair and piercings all over her face, said. Peter heard MJ’s audible groan.

“Elisa…”

“What? Just saying what we’re all thinking.”

“I’m right here,” Peter said, raising two fingers.

“Yes you are,” Elisa said.

“Alright,” MJ said loudly, “and over there, we have… uhm… sorry, I forgot your name.”

There was another woman, standing behind the pack of wolves that had entered. She was shorter than maybe all of this room combined and it seemed that she had tried to compensate in heels size. She looked just as out of place here than Peter felt.

“This is Jess,” Ethan said then as he used his free arm to push her forward, wrapping this one around her shoulders too.

“Jess, meet Peter,” MJ finished.

“Hi Peter,” Jess said.

“Hi Jess,” Peter said.

This was very awkward, even for him.

“Okay, how about you guys… sit on the couch, and… just enjoy the show. Johnny, can you put the pizza in the fridge with the rest of the food? Thanks. Actually, no, let’s open the beers right now, what d’you think. Pete, do you drink?” Peter, who had sat on the couch, dumbfounded and a little merry, shook his head. “Johnny, I think we’ve still got juice in the fridge from last time. Can you 一 you’re the best.”

Gone was the awkwardness from a few moments ago on MJ’s face. His hands, long fingers, were busying themselves with the knots in the wires that lead to the speakers. Around him, the other band members ran around. Soon enough, the beers were brought, Peter’s mango juice with them, and Jess, stiff as a board next to him, hurried to fling the cap off her bottle.

“So,” Peter slowly said, making the ‘o’ trail, “why’re you here?”

She tried to answer but, with her mouth in the bottle, it wasn’t going to be easy. 

“Uh, Ethan,” she said once she had swallowed. “Ethan invited me. And you?”

Peter pointed at the redhead. “Mike,” he replied. “Mike invited me. Look, I don’t wanna assume, but, uh… are you guys seeing each other?”

Jess turned a bright pink. Then she said, proudly: “This is our first date.”

Peter laid back into the couch. He masked the smile on his lips behind his mango juice.

_*_

Once the instruments were tuned, the band members settled. Strings were plucked. First, a guitar solo. High notes. Fast. Arpeggio, Peter recognized, the memories of his teenage musical phase coming back to him. The notes were few, peppered between D and G, with something impulsive about them, something rock, something punk, and experimental. Then, the bass joined. Fast high notes met short low staccato. One note only. An F or an E, his skills were rusty. Their heads almost touching each other’s, Ethan and John played, their foot softly beating time. Thirty seconds passed, of this building rhythm, this calm before the storm. The arpeggio grew louder. The guitars took up speed. Now, enter the drums. Wendy beat the closed hi-hat softly, and like MJ said, she was barely moving her shoulders, only her forearms, parallel with the floor, synchronized with the bass’ pulsations. Next was the synthesizer. An octave higher than the bass, it played the same rhythm, at the same pace, falling with the other instruments into an incomplete melody. Which grew louder. Which grew larger. And lower, until…

MJ started to sing.

Peter became ears. He became eyes.

It was this strong thing, Michael James’ voice. It was hoarse but soft at the same time. It wasn’t painful to listen to, like some singers that forced strength, no, it was strong without trying to be strong; it was everywhere without trying to be; it was broad, and it was thick. It expanded in the space. Unmoveable object. Untouchable matter. Like… oxygen.

Peter breathed through it, let it fill his lungs.

He was so beautiful.

Oxygen in a highly concentrated source promotes rapid combustion. Fire and eruption hazards occur when oxidant molecules and fuels are brought into close proximity. The combustion itself, is triggered by an ignition event, for example, a spark.

When MJ noticed Peter’s stare, his dumb expression, probably gaping mouth, he gave a wink, as though he knew what Peter had yet to realize.

But Peter was starting to.

And he knew that he wanted to kiss him.

When he tried to put the juice down, he found it stuck to his palm; and so he left his hand on the couch’s armrest, feeling stupid, and scared, and happy, and proud, fulfilled, all the same.

_*_

“When’s your shift babe?”

“12 tomorrow.”

“Ah, mine ends at 12. I’ll wave by…”

“You’ll be the light of my day,” MJ said as he kissed Elisa on the cheek. “See you.”

“See you, oráculo,” she smiled. She brushed past Peter, wiggling her fingers at him. “See you soon, Peter!”

Leant against the wall of the building, he returned the gesture. It was ten past according to his internal clock, the sky was dark above their heads, and when they breathed, it was like they smoked clouds.

They had reheated and eaten the pizza after the rehearsal. John had brought club sandwiches 一 a paltry reward, but Peter had eaten worse on less and he’d been very happy about the salmon one he got. He had chatted with Jess mostly, and he hadn’t felt the urgent need to disappear into the night when Mike included him every now and then in the conversation. Again, progress. It just kept happening these days.

Peter 2 would be proud.

Then, out in front of the building, they had gathered and kissed each other goodbye. Jess had left with Ethan, her hand in his hand. John and Wendy had caught a bus. Elisa was the last to leave. It was just the two of them now.

“Hey,” Peter said then. “You live nearby?”

Mike was lighting a cigarette. He took a drag out of it as he turned to Peter. “That’s forward,” he said, smiling. “Twenty minutes by foot.”

Peter pushed himself off the wall to come to his side. “Can I walk you home?”

Looking up to a lamppost as though asking the moon, MJ had a fake pout. “Yeah, okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m messing with you,” he laughed, taking another drag before tilting his head to the side. “C’mon.”

Peter walked alongside him with his hands in his sweatshirt’s pockets. For now, this side of New York was quiet. No break-in called for his aid. He didn’t feel like spontaneously running off either. He was just… good.

Please let this feeling last.

“What’d you feel about tonight?” MJ asked. “Hope that wasn’t too intimidating.”

“No, no. I’m just thinkin’ about how I’m gonna have to buy your albums now. You’ve got albums, right?”

“We’ve got one, currently working on the other. I can get you a special discount.”

“I would actually really like that.”

“Then it’s a deal.”

“As… long as you name your next song Zodiac Maniac,” Peter sassed. “It’s really important to me.”

“Asshole,” MJ replied without malice. “I’ll do that if you tell me more about your sticky hands. Or were they slippery? It’s hard to keep up.”

“Ah, ah, good one. I, huh… don’t have a good answer for that.”

“At least you’re honest.”

“Lying isn’t in my genes,” Peter lied. “By the way, this girl, Jess? With Ethan? The couch? You wanna tell me something about that?”

MJ flicked some ash off his smoke and theatrically shrugged. “I don’t know nothing.”

“You often… invite people over to watch you perform?”

Another shrug, followed by a smiling wince. “Happens from time to time… Okay, to be honest, Ethan is on a roll. That’s his fifth girl this month.”

“What about you?”

“I see what you’re doing, Pete, and you’re only going to make yourself feel jealous.”

“I’m not a jealous guy,” Peter lied again.

“Oh? What kind of guy are you, then?”

There was a cafe that hung over the tight sidewalk they were on. Their breaths, dioxide mixed, joined the heat waves of its outdoor heating. Peter’s neck burned, and he opened and closed his fists, checking to see if his skin stuck, but he’d kept it in check this time.

“I want a lawyer?”

“Do you wanna talk about… what the hell was that?”

“That was a joke,” Peter said with a contrite smile.

“A very bad one!”

“Yes. I just kinda… crack bad jokes under pressure, that’s totally on me, I’ll stop.”

“You’re a character, Pete. A real character.” When Peter looked at him, MJ’s grin was blowing a cloud. “Also, you could stop with the self-deprecation.”

“I know, I’m working on that.”

“So you wanna tell me about yourself or 一?”

“No, yeah, totally. Uh. I’m a teacher.”

“Check,” MJ said. “I think I knew that?”

“It bears repeating.”

“That’s true.”

“I’m a science nerd.”

“Okay, mister secretive. Favorite place to hang out?”

Peter winced. “There’s that… Chinese place under my apartment…”

“Peter. Man.”

He threw his hands up in the air. “The Empire State!”

MJ laughed. “What, you climb it often?”

“No, I just stare at it. I absolutely love… its… architecture. Yep. Huge fan.”

“You got any relatives?”

“Mmh,” Peter said. “My aunt. You?”

“My father,” he replied. He took a long drag. “And a couple of aunts and uncles and cousins here and there, but it’s distant. Can I ask you a personal question?”

They stopped at a red light.

“Shoot,” he said when he wanted to say no.

He leant on the pole of the traffic light, then, deciding against it, slowly spun around it.

MJ crushed his cigarette under his heel.

“Are you gay?”

Peter spun a little faster. The world got a little blurrier. So did his face, he hoped, he could wear the blur like a censor, a mask. “Uh. Why?”

“Because I am. And because I’m a non-bullshit kind of a person, and because I feel like being straightforward’s always the best option, I’m just gonna tell you… I like you.”

Peter’s throat was blocked. His hand was stuck to the pole.

“Oh,” he simply said. “Oh.”

“Yeah, so there goes my question again.”

“What… what question?”

“Peter…”

And MJ was close, and MJ was good, and MJ was beautiful, with those wide brown eyes that will eat him alive.

“I don’t know,” Peter said then haphazardly, “I don’t know, I’m not sure, I don’t…” He blew out the oxygen of his lungs into the sky as he tried to keep the creeping need to run off away. “I can’t…”

MJ looked disappointed. “I don’t date people who only see me as an experience, Peter.”

“No, I know, I know. Wait.” His hand wouldn’t leave the pole. The light for the pedestrians had turned green, but MJ wasn’t moving either. “You gotta listen to me.”

“Peter, I’m listening.”

“Okay, thank you. I don’t know.” Mike’s face dropped. “No, MJ, it’s the truth, I’ve never thought about it. I didn’t have the time for… to think about it.”

He ran a hand in his locks. “You’re telling me, that in thirty years of your life, you’ve never thought if you were qu…”

“I had a girlfriend,” Peter said then. His heart ached. His skin ached too. Out in the street, in the cold, where everyone could pass by and hear, he felt so exposed.  Unmasked. “Gwen.” Her very name ached. “I swear to God I thought I was going to marry her one day, and it’s not because we were eighteen and inexperienced and really, really cliché, but it’s because I still feel like it today.”

The bomb was dropped. The tears came. He lowered his head, face falling, obscured by the shadows, and rubbed his cheek against his shoulder to stop the rain.

“She died ten years ago.”

MJ swallowed, then nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“And it’s been ten years since I think I last felt like myself. Ah. I don’t like to talk about me, usually the me, me, it’s not what matters, you get it? So I’m having a hard time…”

But MJ nodded, again. “I get it. Wanna keep walking? I know it helps clear my head.”

“Yeah. Gimme a sec.” Peter stopped fidgeting. He looked at the pole, at the pale of his hand, at the white of his knuckles, and slowly, carefully, one finger after the other, peeled them off. The pedestrian light had turned back to green. For now, he could move on.

“So,” MJ started, like suddenly hesitant. He was walking slower too, his steps smaller. That was fine with Peter 一 really, anything was fine as long as no one was looking at his eyes. “You haven’t dated anyone in ten years?”

Peter shook his head.

“Why?”

“Not enough time,” he repeated, with a wet smile. “Not enough space. In my life.”

“You said you had an aunt. That’s all there is to your family?”

“Yes.”

“What about your other family?”

Peter kicked a pebble with his foot. “I don’t…”

“Elisa,” MJ said, “Johnny, Wendy, Ethan, these people, they’re my family too. Not my blood family but my family all the same, and even more. What d’you have?” Peter was silent. So MJ bumped him with his shoulder; it was something a little brutal, that made Peter miss a step, but that couldn’t make him crack. “This isn’t healthy, Pete.” Peter’s humorless laugh came out of his stretched lips, before a beat. “I’m serious. Why don’t you have time?”

“You’re psychoanalyzing me again.”

“Fuck yeah I’m psychoanalyzing you,” MJ spat, dead serious. It almost stopped Peter in his tracks. “Don’t make me the antagonist for this.”

“I’m not making you the antagonist 一”

“Then stop evading and say what you wanna say. I’m not walking home in silence with a dude I genuinely like.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine, I don’t make time. I don’t make it, and that’s on me. I should make it. I should make space 一”

“You keep saying ‘space’.”

“Because there hasn’t been space for anyone else but her.”

There it was. The need to run away.

Peter prayed for a siren, for a car alarm to go off, for the scream of a woman in the air, but nothing, no one, came to his aid.

Except for MJ.

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” he said. Peter met his eyes for the first time since they had started talking. Wide. Brown. Eating him alive. “I don’t believe for a second that anyone hasn’t more room in their heart for more than one person. Seeing someone else, thinking about seeing someone else. It doesn’t mean you forget her. There just isn’t only room for her. Otherwise, you’re telling me there isn’t even enough room for you. You gotta put yourself first, Pete. In ten years… you’ve never considered that? That you are worth enough space?”

Their dioxide in the air, little smoke clouds.

“I’m starting to,” Peter replied. “It’s early in development. Still… brewing.”

“Happy to add in more flavor.”

“You know,” he swallowed, “I did have a family, at one point. For a couple hours.”

“Yeah?”

“The best two men I ever knew. They’re the reason I decided to text you. Yeah. I miss them a lot.”

“I guess I should thank them,” MJ said, now soft and warm, his elbow brushing Peter’s. “By the way, this is me.”

Peter looked past him, to the entrance of the building amongst similar buildings. The twenty minutes had gone by so fast. MJ hopped on the four steps to the see-through doors. Peter stayed behind as he took his keys out of his pocket and turned to him.

“You’re not gonna answer my question, are you?”

Peter gave a toothless smile and widened his arms. “Am I gay?”

“Yeah,” he said, with a short laugh that alleviated the pressure on Peter’s shoulders. “I wanna know if there’s a chance. I’m basically shooting my shot, here.”

Peter climbed the first step. “Even after what I just told you?”

Another smile. What a beautiful, perfect man. “Who doesn’t have issues.”

He climbed the second step. “I got more than this, though.”

“What if I told you that I did too.”

Peter stopped on the third. MJ was right above him, towering over him, with the flickering lights of his building’s entrance hall as a halo. If Peter took another step, if he breached that distance between them, they would end up stuck in the small space against the doors. He didn’t think he would want to peel himself off from that one. He didn’t think he would even consider it.

“I’d reply that I like you too,” he murmured.

He took the last step.

MJ’s finger pressed against Peter’s lips.

“I’m not kissing you,” he said, gently.

Disappointed, Peter blinked. “Wha一?”

“Cool off first,” MJ replied, then he patted Peter’s shoulders amicably. “Go on a run. Work those tight muscles on that weight machine you told me about. You got my number, come back when there’s enough space.” Then he added, with a playful wink: “I don’t wanna be a sidechick, your ex sounds intimidating.”

That made a laugh break out of Peter’s throat. “She was, yeah, very dangerous. So freaking smart too.”

MJ’s thumb stroked his shoulder before his hand went up, brushing past Peter’s neck, cupping his face. He leaned in. Left a small kiss on his left cheek.

“See you soon, tiger?”

That was a question Peter could answer.

“I’ll text,” he swore, heart beating like mad.

“You better. I’ve got your number now. I’ll text first if you don’t.”

MJ’s hand had left his face. The keys juggled as he used them to open the doors to his building. Peter replied by waving when MJ looked back, before touching his cheek where the kiss lingered as he disappeared down the hall. His skin ached there. But he wasn’t stuck.

Yeah.

He was the amazing Peter Parker.

Chapter Text

Instead of doing his daily patrol this Friday afternoon as he had no class to teach, Peter took the metro north and left downtown New York. The journey took him approximately thirty minutes. It gave him enough time to think about his choices, rethink his decisions, and generally doubt about his life. After all, he could easily stay home, mope, smother his sorrows in his pillow… or fantasize about Michael and push back those sorrows deep inside, where nobody could even guess they were even there 一 just the same. But no. Peter was here. At Scarsdale, exiting the station, his backpack heavy on his back and his earbuds pushed deep inside his ears. He crossed the road in a weary jog to reach the town center of the small community. He had the address, had it memorized. His sense of direction never failed. It was one of those times where he wished it did.

Now, standing in front of the dreaded door, with his finger to the blasted bell, Peter hesitated.

He hadn’t been here in ten years. Ever since the move. He had even helped them load the boxes in the van; Peter remembered sorting the toys with Howard, carrying the long table down the apartment’s stairs with Philip, and sitting in the backseat of the car between the brothers with their mother in the front seat. As though he had his place there. He had helped them unpack at this very address he was at now. Ten years ago. Then he had left, and promised he would keep contact, only to betray that promise.

Ten years.

Peter wondered how much had changed. If he would recognize them, if they would recognize him.

He pressed on the doorbell.

Ten seconds.

The door was opened and the woman stood, silent, on the welcome mat.

“Hi Mrs Stacy”, Peter said.

There was a crack in the white paint of her face.

“Peter?”

He nodded. His backpack fell down. He unzipped it with a shaky hand. The bouquet of flowers was slightly squashed.

“I brought you… I brought you these.”

She took it. Looked at it.

“Why?”

She wasn’t asking about the flowers.

“I never kept in touch,” he replied. “And I’m really sorry about that.”

“Oh, Peter.”

She took him into her arms and crushed him against her. Peter staggered. Her perfume was the same as Gwen’s.

“You’re finally here,” she said, her voice wet on his shoulder.

Peter sobbed.

His visit at the Stacy’s went well. Helen was well. As were Philip, Howard and Simon. Philip and Howard actually weren’t there 一 they both had their own place now. Philip shared his with his pregnant fiancée and their dog, and Howard had moved out of state for his studies. Simon was the only child left. He had grown. He was nineteen now, in second year at Columbia University. He told Peter that he liked studying there. His mother told Peter that she didn’t like him studying there. She would rather have her boys staying away from midtown New York, that there was a reason why they had moved to Scarsdale, and she didn’t say it, but Peter knew, that she couldn’t lose another. However, apart from the fear, she told him that they were fine.

“What about you, honey?” Helen asked Peter then after offering him coq au vin leftoevers that he couldn’t accept. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” he repeated.

He felt like he was stuck in a loop.

“You look different.”

“It’s the chin hair, isn’t it?”

She smiled. “I was waiting for you to mention it first.”

Truth was, Peter was fine. That wasn’t a lie. And it wasn’t because he repeated it so much to himself that it somehow became truth. He was at the Stacy home, surrounded by Gwen’s family, pictures of her, memories of her, and he was fine. His heart did hurt. But seeing Simon and Mrs Stacy lessened the pain.

“How are you?” she asked again after some time.

“Fine.”

She tilted her head to the side with a weak smile. “You know what I mean.”

He knew what she meant.

“I miss her every day,” he replied. “And I think. I’ll always miss her.”

She told him that she felt the same way.

“But I think I’m moving on? Or at least trying to. Turns out feeling good’s a good feeling.”

She said she understood what he meant.

“I just gotta… remember. Remember the good. ‘cause it’s not all about the end, right? ‘cause there was a beginning too, and a pretty good middle.”

She shared his thoughts.

“So, I guess, what I’m trying to convince myself of now, is, it’s… I can’t stay… stuck. Forever. In the past, or, or, in a future where she is and I’m not. Like, sometimes, all I think about is her, and the fact that she’s not here anymore. You see? And her absence is so big and it takes so much space that it makes her be here, and it makes me forget that I am here. If that makes sense.”

It did. 

She knew.

“So yeah,” said Peter. “I was planning on going to London with her. I don’t know if I ever told you. ‘cause, I told her, that wherever she goes I go, she’s my path, I just follow, which is… really teenager, I get that now.” Helen laughed. She held his hand. “I was close to the truth back then. Not completely there, but close. She wasn’t my path. It’s crazy to put that much weight on someone’s shoulders 一  but she helped build the path. I don’t think I would’ve been the man that I am today without Gwen, Mrs Stacy.”

His hand was squeezed.

“She was your first love,” Helen said. “You were her first too. And I am just so happy that I got to see the best years of her life with you by her side. Even with all the… ups and downs you two had. You made my daughter smile and that’s all that matters to me. And please,” she added, sliding his way a plate of homemade baklava made by yours truly, “I keep telling you to call me Helen.”

_*_

Helen sent him a friend request on Facebook. Peter had to unearth his password from oblivion to accept it, and she proceeded to instantly invite him to dinner this Sunday. Howard couldn’t come, but Philip promised that he would be there this time. Helen’s smile was too big, her hugs, too crushing, for Peter to decline.

He was breaking the cycle of broken promises.

Which is why he ended up texting Michael James on the train back to Queens. They had been texting on and off the past few days, about everything and nothing, just mundane conversations, sometimes links to a new sound from an underground artist 一 Peter was ashamed to admit that he was way behind on that, he who prided himself on being quite knowledgeable. It felt good to talk to someone who wasn’t aunt May. For all her worth, she just wasn’t a guy his age. Most particularly, she wasn’t a hot, smart, funny, totally-out-of-his-league, on-his-path-to-fame singer-songwriter who made him regress back to the age of pimples and growth spurts.

can I see you?

It was a short message. Straightforward. Slightly desperate. Three days since they last saw each other, and Peter was already missing him.

I’m tied up all evening sorry

Raincheck?

how about tmorrow?

I can do tomorrow

Place & time, you pick

not fair :(

I picked last time, I think it’s fair u do now

Come on Pete, gimme a taste of who you r

yuo see the broklyn docks with the old ship thats been careened for ages?

The abandoned docks? Yes

Are you planning a murder man

i used to skate there

You skate????

Peter had fixed one of his skateboard decks. It hadn’t been perfectly broken in half, thankfully, as a bit of wood was still connecting the two pieces. The whole procedure took him two rails that he sawed in half, nails, a screwdriver, and about thirty minutes. He had no idea why he had put back the repairs for so long.

No, that wasn’t right. He knew why. He hadn’t skated in years, just like he hadn’t seen Mrs Stacy in years, just like he hadn’t allowed Peter Parker to exist for years. He was just now catching up with life.

He gave Michael an hour 一 not too late in the day so he could go out later as Spider-Man, not too early either so he could go out earlier as Spider-Man.

So here was Peter thirty minutes before the time he gave Michael, upside-down on a thread in a chicken warehouse that he was a hundred percent certain was used as a cover to make drugs. Three men were below him, passing bills and tiny see-through bags from hand to hand. There were more men in the area 一 it was hard to detect them under the noise of the trapped hens, but he counted a good well-armed twenty, which meant he either had to go in stealthily or be ready to leave with bruises and at least one gunshot wound. Eh, it was alright, he had already survived through being shot at, he could handle it again.

Peter 2’s face flashed to him. I’ve been stabbed before. Peter wondered how he was doing. If he and his wife were living a happy married life. Of course they were. He honestly believed that his other self could battle through anything.

Once the deal done, Spider-Man waited for the men to split up to take them out. He glued one to the ceiling, webbed another to one of the broken industrial lights, and knocked the third out by dropping down on him. Hushing the birds, he hid the body behind a chicken cage then sprung back up to the shadows. The birds didn’t listen though, as they were birds, and they kept screaming their head off.

This gave Spider-Man an idea.

From the ceiling, he slowly let a web guide him down and, head down, bottom up, silently opened a cage.

“Go, chickens, go,” he whispered to the tiny creatures.

Which would not budge and continued to angstily scream bloody murder.

“C’mon”, Spider-Man said, so he extended an arm again to gently tug them out. “You’ll be free whether you like it or not! This is absolutely not… a ploy to use you as a distraction.”

His fingers were pecked and Spider-Man almost yelled.

“You feathery little…! Fudge.”

He was just sensing it now; a man was behind him. He could hear him take the gun out of his holster. The movements were precise, which meant that he was a professional; but not devoid of stress. So, just as slowly, so as not to lure a torrent of bullets his way, Spider-Man carefully grabbed a chicken by the legs (it did a strangled cluck-cluck and pecked at his hand again), patted its head (another cluck-cluck, less panicked), and chucked it at the man behind him.

It landed straight across the drug dealer’s face. He had a scream before it was choked under a heap of feathers, then another when Spider-Man webbed his legs together and pulled on them, webbing himself upwards at the same time. The guard ended up trussed up near his buddy at the neon light while the chicken, safe and sound, fell back onto its feet and angrily clucked against the betrayal between the rows of cages.

“I’m very very sorry,” Spider-Man told it before going for the other cages and opening them as quickly as he could.

To hell with discretion. The others had probably heard the commotion and he was about to be surrounded in seconds if he didn’t make the floor impracticable under a wave of freed hens.

“Spider-Man, stay right there!”

He hated being right.

This was basically how Peter ended up with thirty feathers trapped inside his suit, a bump at the top of his head that his mass of hair succeeded in hiding, and a split lip. On top of that, he realized that he was fifteen minutes late.

And that his phone inbox was overflowing.

Swinging to the location he gave Mike, Peter spat out a swear that made pigeons scurry. He pressed the ‘call’ button.

MJ replied in seconds.

Oh, this was bad.

“There’s no way you ghosted me, Peter.”

Very bad.

“I didn’t ghost you,” he panted, using a lamppost as a vertical bar to turn the intersection. “Please please please stay put, I’m on my way!”

“You have five minutes and I’m out, this place is creepy as hell and I’m gonna catch tetanus just by looking at it.”

“I’m on my way!” Peter repeated desperately. “MJ I’m literally two streets away I swear 一”

“I can hear you running so I’m gonna cut you some slack but lemme just tell you that I can’t stand being stood up!”

“I didn’t stand you up, okay, I’m… one street away now, okay bye, see you in a sec, I’m so sorry!”

He hung up just in time to swing through the last buildings before the road by the water and propelled himself to the rooftop of the abandoned warehouse. Thankfully for him, he had learned from past mistakes and had stuck a spare backpack in the area in case he didn’t have time to hop by his apartment. He picked it up and quickly changed into civilian clothing, teared off the feathers the wind couldn't remove, checked his reflection in his phone’s black screen 一 good enough, his lip had stopped bleeding and was already healing, 一 grabbed his board he’d left by the bag and jumped down behind an unaware Michael James.

Who whirled around, fist raised, and almost socked him in the jaw.

Peter had to duck to avoid another black eye.

“What the f 一”

“It’s me. Hi. Nice right.”

MJ looked good. His locs were up in a bun, showing his dark roots and making it seem like the top of his head was on fire. It looked like he had moisturized: he was shiny all over, skin and lips glowing, and eyelids dark, like charcoal. Peter didn’t know a thing about the makeup lexicon but he was pretty sure that this was makeup. In addition to the glowing, MJ was glowering, and the sum of everything was somehow way hotter than Peter had expected it to be.

He remembered to breathe just as Mike lowered his fist.

“Where the hell d’you come from?”

“Uh….” Without looking, Peter pointed at a random direction behind him. “There. How you doing? You look nice.”

“Thanks,” MJ said, glaring at him before abandoning his combat posture. “I’m fine. My ass almost got mauled twice by the ghost of some Irish fisherman but I’m good. You… look terrible.”

Peter scratched the bump on his skull then flattened his hair to hide it better. “Thank you. Yeah. Not my best day.”

“What happened, man?”

MJ stepped in closer, probably to get a better look at Peter’s bruised mouth, but Peter took a step back and hid himself behind his hand.

“Fell off the stairs,” he lied quickly. “‘s fine. I’m like, super clumsy.”

MJ raised an eyebrow. “I saw you juggle with drumsticks the other day like it was nothin’.” Another step forward, another step back. “Did you get freaking jumped?”

“No!”

“I’m gonna off myself in the East River if you keep this up.”

“Okay, I got jumped, I got jumped,” Peter said quickly, pushing Mike back at arm’s length and uncovering his lip in the process. MJ stilled and glared at him. “Happy?”

“Why the hell would I be happy you got jumped?”

Peter tried shrugging. Then he gave a big, bright awkward grin. “You should’ve seen the other guys?”

Wrong answer. MJ’s eyes flared as bright as his hair. “ Guys? You mean you got ganged? ”

Peter stood there in the result of his own doing with no clue on how to get out of it. He just knew one thing: he had no desire to argue with Mike. Especially not on their second time outside with each other. So he took a deep breath in, joined his hands together under his nose, and exhaled.

“MJ, I am sorry. I didn’t mean to be late, I never wanted you to feel like I ghosted you. I would never do that to you. And it was only one guy. He was drunk which, for 4 P.M. on a Saturday, is actually pretty sad, so I didn’t hit him back. You gotta believe me.” Lying was becoming second nature now. He didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing but, anything to make MJ stay out of his own issues. To make MJ stay out of Spider-Man’s mess. Blissfully unaware. As ignorance was a life-saver. “Please,” Peter added, dropping his hands to his sides. “You gotta believe me.”

MJ stared at him with his charcoal eyes. Peter thought for a second that he was really about to jump off in the water, but instead, he raised a hand. His fingers came at Peter’s jaw. His thumb brushed against his lip.

Peter shivered.

“I ain’t mad,” Mike said in a low voice. “I’m mad at the guy who did that.”

Soft fingers. Soft voice. Peter nodded, jaw trapped under the grip. “He was drunk, man, it’s not worth it.”

“Yeah, I get that now. But if you ever get into problems with assholes who actually mean it, you give me a call. Alright? And don’t lie about that. I’m pretty good at telling when I’m being lied to.”

Obviously he wasn’t, but Peter wasn’t going to say that.

Relaxing into the grip, he nodded again. “Yeah. Okay.”

MJ released him and took a step back to look around. “So… why here?”

The abandoned docks were as lifeless as the last time Peter skated there. They were unchanged, fixed in time. That orange cone, sign of a previous construction site, was still laying sideways. The cans of paint with dirty brushes inside were still left to their own. Near those, the rusted insides of the careened ship in the warehouse still gaped open, and if they were to come closer, they would see the scratches created by the tiny wheels all those years ago.

Here was Peter’s playground.

Peter got on his board and pushed himself to the inside of the warehouse where he nonchalantly grabbed a hanging chain. It was here that he got the idea to web-swing. It was here that he practiced climbing walls, where he tested his newfound muscles; it was here that the idea of Spider-Man took seed, before it became poisoned, bitter and vengeful. Before uncle Ben’s death.

“It’s my forever place,” he said, half-joking, running his fingers over the old metal and listening to its familiar jingling.

“Love the paintwork,” MJ said, following him. He watched him play with the corner of his lips tugged upwards.

“Believe it or not, I didn’t choose it. But it’s quiet. I could be myself here.” Peter tugged on the chain then carefully lifted himself from the board. After a few seconds of hanging, he winced, pretended sore arms and let go. “I didn’t like the skateparks downtown. Too many people there.”

“So you chose a closed down shipyard for a rendezvous place? You gotta admit it’s a lil’ fishy.”

One hand still around the chain, Peter pointed at him. “You did ask me to show a bit of who I am.”

MJ pointed right back at him. “I didn’t mean this place in particular.”

“But it’s who I am,” Peter threw back, sticking his tongue out at him. He lifted himself again with the chain.

“So you’re telling me you can’t show me the real you without inviting me to a haunted shipyard where you will probably do skateboard tricks to impress me? …please let go of that, you’re gonna get at least ten different diseases.”

“What? I’m vaccinated.” Peter let go of the chain anyway. “So you want to see me do tricks?”

MJ sighed a little too loudly for it to be genuine and sank his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Sure.”

“Nuh-uh,” Peter did. He sprung a bit on his board to test the rails he’d fixed it with. “You said so yourself, you came here expecting to be impressed by me. And sighing… yeah, that’s uh, that’s off the table, man.”

MJ glared at him. Again, nothing mean. This badly-hidden smirk betrayed him. “I can’t even sigh!”

Peter bit down his tongue to stifle a cackle.  “Nope,” he said merrily. “You gotta have fun. That’s an obligation. This is a fun place. Fun people only.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so, smartass,” MJ said, and he sat on a mooring post by the water. Peter rolled to him on his board. “It’s like the scenario where the guy invites the girl over in his bedroom only to pluck three guitar strings for half an hour and sing an half-assed original, and it’s awkward as all hell for the girl. There’s no way I’ll live through that. I’d rather sit there and complain.”

Peter knew what he was doing. Gwen used to be like that sometimes, though she always liked getting caught more than she liked being chased. MJ seemed to enjoy the chase more. Fine with Peter. He needed things to be slow, and rational, or else he was probably going to do something stupid and lose it all.

He did an ollie on the spot to mask his thoughts. It was all slowly coming back to him. “You like to complain?”

“Yeah. It’s a major hobby. Takes up most of my free time.”

“You’re a spoilsport,” Peter said lightly, then he rode up to the orange cone and did another ollie over it. He made his knees buckle at the landing, swayed a little harder than necessary and flailed his arms around to catch balance that he always had.

“And you’re five,” MJ bit back playfully. “Hey, nice one.”

“Still got it,” Peter proudly said, to which Mike replied with a ‘tsk’. “Wanna hop on?”

MJ looked like he was re-considering jumping off in the water. “No thanks. I’ve never skated and I'm not about to start now. I’m a watcher.”

Peter picked up on that. He effortlessly rolled to him and did a kick up to pick up his board. “Oh? You’re a watcher?”

MJ brought a finger to his chin and looked up at the sky thoughtfully.

He was such a tease.

“I like to watch you fall on your ass.”

“I haven’t fallen yet,” Peter replied, as smug as the devil. “You sure you don’t wanna hop on?”

“Mmh. Yeah. I’m good.”

“I mean it won’t break.”

“We’re ‘round the same weight.”

“I mean, it won’t break even with us two combined 一”

“What do you… oh, you mean…?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, looking up, blinding himself with the sun just to choke his smile. “There’s plenty of space.” And he let his board fall back on the ground in front of Mike, who was still staring at him, squinting at him, studying him. “I can take you on my back.”

In a second, Mike’s face switched from serious to sly. “I’m sure you can, pretty boy.”

“Oh ah ah. No, for real, I can. C’mere.”

Peter turned around, bent his knees, and waited. It wasn’t long before he heard shuffling behind him; a short intake of air; and then, after a pause, like a wind-up, a weight fell on his back. He immediately gripped the two legs, securing his balance as the two arms came around his collar. Peter’s own big scarf. MJ’s body was warm.

“You okay back there?” he asked, turning his head to the side so Mike could see his smile. He couldn’t see him from this angle, but if MJ had agreed to climb on him without so much as a complaint, then he was probably doing something right.

“Appreciating the view,” MJ replied before patting Peter’s bicep once. Then twice. This time, a tentative poke. “And the guns 一 Jesus, Pete, you’re actually a beast.”

“It’s all in the legs,” Peter replied, reconsidering whether or not he should’ve acted weaker but then deciding that he actually didn’t give a shit. Impressing this beautiful, beautiful man was at the top of his list of priorities.

“Don’t fall, man, I like the face I got.”

“I got it, I got it.”

Peter bounced on his toes a couple times to reposition Mike’s weight higher on his back, then carefully got on his skateboard. The hands at his collar squeezed his shirt. They were wide, each as big as one of Peter’s pectorals; and his jacket was open, which meant little layers between the two skins. Instead of their width, Peter focused on the wood under his soles. He pushed on the ground with his right foot, carefully gaining the slightest bit of speed just so he could get used to the two weights, just so MJ could get used to the feeling. He carefully re-entered the warehouse, then took a large turn after the abandoned propeller. The hands on his shirt tensed.

“Still good?”

“Worry about yourself,” MJ’s voice said above his left ear. “Can’t bruise those doe eyes too.”

“Doe eyes,” Peter echoed slowly, struggling to keep his smile down. “Doe eyes yourself.”

“King of comebacks. Uh... Buckets. Buckets!”

Peter pushed the back of the board with his left foot. It rose off the ground slightly, and he threw his shoulder to the right, swinging the board in the same move. They merely avoided the collision.

“I think we almost died there,” he said with a hint of irony that was more like a chunk. One of MJ’s hands left his collar to tap at the top of his head. Right on Peter’s bump. “ Ouch. Oh. Please don’t do that again.”

“Look where you’re going.”

“Yessir.”

But it was hard to look when his other senses were so busy taking it all in. His body had barely survived taking MJ’s hand earlier this week. Peter now demanded of it not to panic, as the whole of someone else’s body was pressed against him. It felt the creases of his jeans, the ruffle of his clothes. The warmth of his flesh, the width of his hands; but in the end, everything it was, added with the oddness of everything it wasn’t. Because Peter knew what a woman’s body felt like. He knew its size, its shape, its hills and its vales, its weight and its width. It was pretty to look at. It was even prettier to touch. And he remembered falling in love every time he got his hand on it. A male body — MJ's body — was nothing like he knew.

And yet he still fell.

Uncontrollable, Peter’s thoughts whirled to the shirtless pictures of MJ he had saved on his laptop.

“Oh no,” he managed to say before colliding into the orange cone.

MJ’s short scream was what made him regain his footing so fast. He had entangled himself from Peter a short second before the crash but the momentum was throwing him forward. So Peter did the only thing that came to his mind, whirled around as he tumbled down, tugged MJ to his chest, and crashed on his back.

“Oh ‘y gaw…” MJ said, voice muffled in Peter’s shirt before he raised his head to glare at him. “Shit, Pete.”

Blinking to the falling sun, Peter simply laid there spreadeagled.

His chest was taken over by spasms.

“You good?”

He only laughed harder.

“Man. I think you hit your head pretty hard on that one.”

Tears rolled down his temples to his ears. Face red and stretched into a manic grin, Peter covered his eyes behind his elbow and tapped MJ’s face at random. His own cheek was patted right back as Mike then started to laugh alongside him.

“You’re acting a fool!” he hiccuped between Peter’s legs.

Peter couldn’t look at him. If he did, he was going to see the version of him in his laptop. So instead, he only giggled harder and dug his fingers into his eyes, pressing down on them to stop the flow.

“Like 一 really? I explicitly tell you to watch where you’re going and you crash five seconds later? No, three. Three seconds later? Peter?” Mike kept laughing, and so Peter kept laughing, which meant that Mike kept laughing as well 一 "I mean I get it, anything to get me on top of you, but, man, you could’ve just asked.” Peter violently turned his head to the right then to the left then back to the right and bit down his lower lip to stop himself from hollering. “I see you,” MJ continued, relentlessly. “I see you clear as day, tiger. I’ve unmasked you. You can’t hide nothing from me. Freakin’... idiot, ow. My knees are scratched, thank you for that.”

“I didn’t do it,” Peter finally spurted out before going right back to holding his face.

“ I-di-ot”, MJ repeated, enunciating each syllable. He put a hand down between Peter’s pectorals and pushed down on him in order to get up. This almost ended Peter. “Yeah, that’s a scratch right there. Thank you. Really.”

He gathered the strength to look up at him. “I didn’t do it,” he said again stupidly, shaking his head. “God, I’m sorry. Man,” he mumbled then before letting his head fall back on the ground.

A few seconds passed during which he heard MJ scrub on his knees. There was nothing else around them, but the sound of the waves, and the seagulls high up, and the construction site nearby, its employees wrapping up their shift. There was nothing else but the sound of Peter’s heart drumming against his ribcage, and his twenty-nine-year-old soul realizing what it already knew for a long time, deep down, buried under a decade of grief and desolation.

MJ’s outstretched hand came into his vision. He was standing above him at his side, eyebrows raised in a silent and amused question.

Peter reached for him. He let himself be helped up.

“Hey by the way,” MJ said as they were both dusting themselves, “I think your board’s done for.”

So, Peter’s skateboard was dead. Very dead, this time. Rails were not going to help resurrect it. He buried the corpse in his backpack, thinking about how it was going to join the others under his bed 一 he was never one to throw away broken things, no matter how dusty they became, because he persuaded himself that everything mattered.

“You wanna throw it a funeral?” MJ asked, staring at one of the wheels in the small of his palm.

Peter opened his bag for him and Mike dropped the wheel in its depths. “You know how to deliver an eulogy?”

“I figured now was a good time to find out. You never know how many hidden talents you might got.”

“Dude. You’re a song-writer. I bet you oration-writing’s in your blood too.”

“A big word for a big man,” MJ snickered, patting his arm again as Peter moodily kicked at his backpack on the floor, the broken halves of the board hitting each other inside. The patting lingered. Tilting his head, he threw MJ a glance. It took Mike a few seconds to pick up on it, and when he did, he retracted his fingers instantly. “Sorry Pete. Just… look at yourself.”

Peter didn’t swallow his smile. “Look at myself?”

“You’re hot, and ain’t no shame in that.”

Oh. Okay. This was where they were headed. Peter bit the inside of his cheek and raised an eyebrow high. “I should be ashamed?”

“I just told you you shouldn’t,” MJ said, like annoyed, except he clearly wasn’t because he too had this cheeky cheeky smile on.

“Well,” Peter said, kicking at his bag again as he moved past it, “thank you for giving me the authorization to not be ashamed. I needed it.”

“That’s why I gave it. Now where the hell’re you headed?”

“Just sitting… here,” he replied, letting himself fall on his ass on the quay. “Lookin’ at the view.”

He threw his legs over the drop and watched the water lick his heels. It didn’t take long before MJ joined him in front of the falling sun. The light around them had gotten darker, redder. It highlighted Mike’s jaw in a way that made Peter want to capture it, between his fingers and on a camera. He could try a different style than for the photographs of MJ’s portfolio, he thought. Those were beautiful photos, professional and well-lit, but they lacked a certain something that he couldn’t pinpoint quite yet. But Peter thought, and knew, just there, that he could show MIke under a different light.

“Wait,” Mike slowly said above him, eyes turned to the reflection of the sun in the water. “Is that why you chose here of all places?”

“Mmh?” he replied intelligently.

“The view.” Peter wedged his chin against his right shoulder where MJ wouldn’t see his face. “That’s totally why. You’re such a freakin’ romantic, Pete.”

His elbow brushed against his. Peter pointed at Mike’s knees.

“You’re gonna be okay?”

“Huh?” It had been MJ’s turn to stare at him while Peter wasn’t looking. He tried not to let it go to his head. “Oh, yeah,” MJ brushed off. “What about your back?”

“It heals,” Peter said quickly. His heart beat quicker by the second.

“And your head? And your face?”

“They heal 一 hey listen, I gotta tell you something.”

“Oh,” MJ said.

Peter breathed in.

This was a situation he’d been in before. And he’d webbed her to him, and he’d kissed her, unmasking his two truths at once in a bold, romantic, exhilarating… puerile urge. But Peter was older now. Peter knew what happened when he said too much, when he did too much, when he tried to live two lives equally.

Michael was different from Gwen. Case in point number one: Michael wasn’t going to die. Not on Peter’s watch.

“I thought about what you said the other day. About my ex. About me.” MJ nodded. Peter took another breath in and leaned backwards on his hands. “I went to see her family yesterday, to get some… closure, or, like, some peace of mind. I don’t know what to call that but, yeah, I thought back to what you said, and you were right.” MJ had a smile. It said, of course I was, I always am, and Peter, not knowing what to do with himself, fell back onto his back with the intention of drawing a dirt angel, only to sit upright a second later.

MJ set his hand down on Peter’s knee. “You gotta stop fidgeting. You’re alright.”

“Yeah, okay. Ouch. So much gravel here,” he said, picking at the tiny pebbles stuck on his palm. “You’d think the wind might…. sweep that…”

“Pete.”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

And he looked inside MJ’s eyes.

It was patience. It was openness. It was understanding. It was everything, absolutely everything that Peter needed, which was why it was terrifying.

Gwen used to look at him like that.

Instantly he felt the hair of his skin prick up, and he brought his hands to his face without touching it so he wouldn’t touch anything else, stick to anything else. He was done being stuck.

“Pete?”

Peter blinked, looked away to focus on the orange sun at the horizon. “Yeah,” he said again, calmer. “I’m okay.”

“Thought you were about to pass out or som 一”

“I’m really into you,” Peter breathed out.

“Oh, shit.” When he looked back at him, MJ had his eyebrows slightly raised. He nodded, before saying, with a smiling pout: “I mean, I kinda knew that already. You give off a whole lot of vibes. And there’s that whole, ‘I like you too’ thing from last time…”

“MJ, shut up.”

“Shit,” MJ said again, eyebrows even higher. “Alright.”

“I’ve always thought I was into women, y’know? Like that’s all I’ve ever loved.” Peter winced. “...actually that’s not true. I’ve only ever been with one person, and she was my first, and I really wanted her to be my last, which is why I never… tried to find anybody else. Or, like, like you said, tried to find myself. Which is the whole reason why I’m here today. Oh. I’m not making any sense, am I?” he said, using the tip of a nail to scratch his bruised lip with an embarrassed smile.

MJ’s hand was still on his thigh. That was distracting.

“I don’t know, I’m shutting up,” he said with insolence, and Peter wanted to make him shut up.

But the night was too young for this and he did remain a sassy asshole. “You’re great help.”

“Tiger, you’re about to do a big gay confession to me, there’s no way I step on your moment.”

Peter fell silent.

The horizon was crimson.

“Oh,” MJ slowly said then. “That’s the thing, isn’t it. You don’t know if you’re gay.”

Peter shook his head. His skin hurt. The water had soaked his soles. He looked at the hand on his knee, and wondered if MJ was stuck to him, and wondered if this was it, the moment where his two truths unveiled, the same moment that led to Gwen’s end.

When Peter looked next at the mouth of the man at his side, it was in fear.

“I think I am. Or maybe... you know, an in-between, or like, it's more about the person, I think... all I'm saying is... I don’t mind figuring it out with you,” he said. “Like… I just wanna get to know you. Get a coffee or, get ice-cream or, go to the movies or just skip rocks on the frozen Central Park pond. Whatever suits you. Whatever it is that... cool kids do these days," he laughed to himself.

“I think I’m pretty cool myself,” MJ laughed too, and he too was looking at Peter’s mouth. “And I like that. I’d like to go for a coffee with you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. So, I take it, you wanna…” There was a soft sigh from Mike, one that could easily go unnoticed, with a light crease of the brow. “You wanna go slow with this, right?”

“Maybe. Yeah. ‘s better. Slow’s better. Are you hungry?”

“I’m starving.”

“Cool. Come with.”

_*_

They left the dock back to the busy streets. Peter had an address in mind. He shared it to MJ, who cracked a laugh and accused him of being an easy lay, which was both rude and hilarious and something Peter discovered he liked being called. Mike could call him every name in the book and he would agree. He had decided Peter was an idiot? True info. He had decided Peter was a bore? Peter was only going to get bolder.

Neither Peter nor Mike had a subway ticket so they both jumped the turnstile. Peter went first, faking effort when he landed on the other side. Mike's performance was even less skillful. He threw a leg over the turnstile and bounced once on one foot before bending over to throw the other leg over. The view from that side was incredible. Peter used the seconds this took to pretend being busy with tightening his backpack around his shoulders, but the pink that was slapped on his cheeks betrayed his confusion. 

Below them, the metro screeched as it entered the station. Their hands found each other. They ran for it.

They pushed past the small crowd that had gathered by the platform, Peter apologizing for stepping on someone’s foot, and rushed into the car as the doors closed. The wagon shook and MJ latched onto the pole in the middle, panting and laughing with Peter as Peter came to his side. He took the pole as well, but a little lower. His thumb wandered up to brush against MJ’s palm. He had meant to do it. He meant everything he did, and every word he said. And MJ let him.

Then Peter took the plunge and covered MJ's hand with his hand. Neither of them looked around to see if somebody saw, if somebody cared, but nobody did, and the few that seemed like they could had their mind taken by the apathy of the New York City public transport. This was different from when Peter had kissed Gwen in front of a whole crowd made out of his old classmates and teachers 一 this was different from their public displays of affection, where he didn’t care who gawked or who talked as long as he got to touch her 一 this was different. Because Peter was a man and so was MJ. Because Peter wasn’t the same as he was back then and because MJ wasn’t Gwen. But then again, the difference had no importance. Because Peter didn't care. Because Peter was healing. Because Peter had grown from the fear. Hadn't he moved on from the grief? 

On an impulse and as an answer, just for the heck of it, he leaned in and kissed the back of MJ’s hand.

Chapter Text

“Oh, yeah, Jess and Ethan are officially a thing now. They’re gross as hell too, totally all over each other all of the time. We’ve had to set a rule, no touching during rehearsals, or else it’d end up like Lennon and Ono and the last thing our band needs is a missing group member.”

“How ‘bout the others? … Elisa, right? And John and… Winnie?”

“Oh Wendy’s gonna kick your ass.”

“Last time I forgot someone’s name, I ended up with third-degree burns.”

“Are you joking?” By way of a response, Peter offered a wince. “You know man, your life sounds made up at times.”

“I’m a serial liar.”

“It’s pathological.”

“Maybe? Who am I to say.”

“No, I mean, it’s…” Mike choked on his saliva. “Y’know what, nevermind. You’re amazing.”

Puffing up, Peter strutted forward as his name was shouted in the tiny restaurant. The old teen behind the counter (Haziba as written on her name tag) handed him his order with the recommendation to grab a discount card, something that Peter accepted gladly. He was always looking for more places where he could take food on the go, as he was growing increasingly bored of Eddie’s pizza and the Chinese restaurant under his flat. Not to say that both of them weren’t great, they absolutely were! but a man could only go so long before his stomach was churning for adventure.

Adventure being Saad’s Yam and Mike’s lovely company.

Peter twisted his neck to him, brandished his bag of food, and gave an arrogant wink. “I win.”

“I wasn’t even aware that there was a bet going on,” Mike protested. “I’d have bribed Saad for faster service.”

“Nah, too late now. You owe me like, another takeout.”

Mike rolled his eyes and slid to Peter’s side while Peter was pulling out a few crumpled bills from his equally-as-crumpled wallet. “I can just pay you this one.”

His hand went to fish for money in his own pockets. Peter instantly seized his wrist. “Hey, hey. No. Don’t do that. I got it.” He released him and finished counting twelve bucks that he then passed to Haziba. “Just because I can’t brag about my teacher salary doesn’t mean I get to ruin you too.”

“Get over yourself,” Mike threw lightly, “I ain’t broke. I used to be, though, a great deal. So if I get the chance to help friends out, trust I’m taking that chance.”

All round eyes, Peter stared at him, nodding swiftly, mouth slightly opened in a mocking expression. “Okay. Johns . Let me pay for myself this one time, and then we’ll see about the next.” Shaking his head, Mike mouthed the word ‘Johns’ with furrowed brows while Peter broke into a genuine smile and patted Mike’s shoulder before turning back to Haziba. “Oh shit. I’m missing three cents, aren’t I?”

Haziba gave a pained smile. “Yeah. Don’t take from the tip jar, please.”

Peter had a double take. “People do that?”

“More often than you think”, she despaired.

“Wow. That’s just… that’s shameless.”

MJ, who had been shuffling for the past five seconds, put three coins in Peter’s hand without a word. Peter stared at them, closed his fist on them, emptied his wallet on the counter and managed to find the missing money in the tiny hill of torn receipts.

“Here,” Peter said to Haziba.

"Thank you." 

“And here’s your change,” he said to Mike, before putting back the three coins in the rightful hand. 

“You have a hard time accepting help, Pete,” Mike said thoughtfully as he twisted a coin between two fingers.

“I’m good,” Peter replied, even though that wasn’t really a reply. With the side of his hand, he slid the hill of receipts from the counter back to his wallet.

“MICHAEL JAMES,” roared the loud voice from the kitchen just then, urging Haziba to run there. She came back two seconds later with her arms full of Mike’s bag of food.

To Peter’s surprise, MJ shouted back: “I told you to call me Mike, Saad!”

The owner’s face appeared in the opening of the kitchen door. “I call you Mike when your name is Mike, but your name is Michael James and I call you Michael James!” Noticing Peter, his face broke into a giant grin and his full body suddenly zoomed to stand behind the checkout. “Hello, Michael James’ friend! I’m Saad. Come more often!”

Peter wiggled his fingers at Saad and his eyebrows at Mike.

“We’ve known each other since I was in middle school,” Mike quickly explained.

“His father and him used to live two floors above us,” Saad said, jolly. “Michael James! How’s your baba?”

If Peter had been a less perceptive superhuman, maybe he wouldn’t have noticed the way Mike’s face fell, the way his eyes darkened and his fists tensened; like a switch, the contant aura of peace that lighted his eyes was clouded. It was unlike a storm, though. It was more like a rain.

“Haven’t talked to him in a while, Saad,” Mike replied, very simply, taking his food. “You know that.”

“Tsk,” Saad did, batting the air with his hand, “a father and a son always talk. Look at Majid. He’s twenty-five now and he still lives with me and Haziba, because he’s very happy there.”

“Emphasis on that last part, Saad,” he replied again while he paid, still looking too small for Peter's liking. “I’ll try to come by more often, though. Thanks again for the food.”

“Bring your new friend!” Saad called before stepping back in the kitchen.

Peter waved Haziba goodbye and jogged outside to meet MJ who was holding the door open for him. It was around seven in the evening now, and new-yorkers, following their daily routine to the letter, were only now coming back home after their long day of work. The streets were beginning to swarm with colors and noises, hollering and honking, as some shops closed and others opened. It still being January, the sky was already dark and their breaths stagnated in the air. The weather had dropped several degrees in the matter of an hour. The Atlantic wind could go eff itself. While Peter was basically immune to most chronic diseases, the Great Cold was still his arch-enemy número uno.

Regretting not having packed more clothes in his spare backpack, he tucked his chin under his collar and hugged himself. Next to him, Mike gave him an amused look as he closed the buttons of his vest.

The irrepressible need to babble and defend himself came to Peter.

“Not everything I do is an invitation, I can just, like, feel cold without you needing to give me your coat. I’m a big man. Let me be cold in peace, geez. Besides, I should... I should be the one to give you my coat. I should be the gentleman here. Otherwise, what's even the point, right? Tsk. I’ve got sensitive… skin, don’t stare at my nose like that or else I’ll develop another insecurity.”

Mike’s eyes were sparking with a thousand stars, and with his echoing laugh shone his teeth.

“You’re cute,” he just said, simply, like that, when Peter should be the one saying that- when Peter had no idea how to take in a compliment other than simply inflate and inflate and inflate until he burst; MJ secured his bag with one hand and raised a hand to point down the street. “My place’s that way. You’re still game?”

“Duh,” Peter said.

If he took MJ in his arms and swung on his webs, they could get there faster, he thought, and it would be a much more pleasant journey. His chest was warm with the memory of MJ’s weight, and his fingers, still, tingled when they recollected his skin. His mouth, if you excepted the scar from his brawl earlier in Spider-Man’s suit, was bruised. Back in the subway, on their way to Saad’s Yam, why, the idiot, why had he kissed Mike’s hand when he had been the one to ask for slowness out of them both?

Peter didn’t have a great track record with promises. He was aware of that. He was working on that, even though he didn’t know how to solve that.

Yet.

It turned out that keeping his true self (see here: desires, impulses, love language, and everything that he didn’t repress when he was under the suit) was a very hard thing to do during a dinner date (was it one? they didn’t put words on what it was) where he was supposed to show his true self. And MJ was either very oblivious to Peter’s many attempts at changing the subject, or very patient. Peter bet on that last one. Maybe that meant he’d hit jackpot by meeting Mike. Or maybe it just meant that fate was messing with him and that instead of forcing himself into passivity, he should go with the flow.

It had worked with Gwen, hadn’t it? He hadn’t thought; he’d webbed her. And kissed her. Now he regretted.

Speaking of fate… Peter was reminded to start his calculations and maybe, finally, understand this big play that the universe had apparently written out for people like him. Did all Peter Parkers form an attraction to people nicknamed MJ? What was it about those two, seemingly random letters? Was attraction genetic, was it cross-multiversal? Was it another one of Spider-Man’s unavoidable tragedies? This brought up more pressing questions, like: were all Peter Parkers also Spider-Man, or were there some Peter Parkers that were never bitten by a spider; could it be possible that the Spider-Man mantle wasn’t tied to Peter Parker? Were there universes where someone else was bit instead, universes where Peter Parker was unimportant, or simply nonexistant, universes where she…

“You’re thinking,” Mike said.

The return to present time was abrupt as Peter realized he’d been staring at Mike’s fridge for the past five minutes. Admittedly, the fridge had a nice collection stuck on its door, of candids taken with friends, concert tickets and photoshoot invitations, and a few colorful magnets that tied them all together. It was a nice fridge. It was a nice apartment, period, far nicer and way less cluttured than Peter’s for sure.

Mike put his Coke down on the tiny dining table they were sat at and wiped the condensation on his shirt.

“Careful, I heard it’s a hazard,” he added afterwards, voice soft and lips tugged up.

“What?”

“Thinking.”

“Oh. Sorry, I was…” Peter bit into his kebab. “ ‘hinking abou’ ma’s.” He tried again with difficulty: "Math."

Mike, who was also taking a bite out of his food, had to cover his mouth with his hand to keep it all in.

“M…” He giggled, then lowered his head, swallowed, and giggled again. “Ma… math? As in mathematics, you absolute nerd?”

Cheek bulging, Peter took a few seconds to gulp down his bite. “Okay, maths are very important on a day-to-day basis. I know you can come up with better insults than that, man.”

His smile losing shine, MJ nodded. “I mean the insult here is more you ignoring my attempts at a conversation but I guess maths like English evolve, right?”

Peter frowned. He straightened. “That’s… ouch.”

Kebab sauce was dripping down Mike’s fingers. Calmly, he reached for the paper napkins, wiped his hands, and said: “I’m annoyed, because one moment you’re here, telling me you wanna see me and kissing my hand, and the next you’re staring at the gay flag on my fridge like all you wanna do is you wanna run out.”

“Okay一” Peter started, anxiety and irritation mixed making his skin itch. He released his food. “You’re a very direct person, you know that?”

“Yeah,” MJ replied, looking at him in the eye, “and you’re still avoiding the point.”

“I wasn’t staring at your… at your gay flag,” he said while flapping his hands at the general direction of the rainbow magnet, “I was staring into the distance, thinking about maths-”

“Right.”

“Yes, right.” Peter dropped his arm. “I’m not that big of a liar as you make me out to be, you know.”

Mike looked like he was going to say something. Instead, his jaw was locked, his lips were tightened, and he fisted his Coke. It was clear more was going on. Peter stared at him, hoping he would say his mind just as much as he would keep quiet, because Peter was shit with conflict. His main solution was usually jumping out the window. It wasn’t a viable one, though, as it always brought more problems than it solved, but at least it got him away from shouting matches and crying contests.

“Okay.”

The window of the apartment was closed. Peter stared at Mike, hesitant on what to reply, but the man wasn’t finished.

“I mean you’ve clearly still got your own shit to sort out, but like you said, we’re taking things slow, which is,” and this short, humorless laugh came out of MJ, “fine by me. So I’m good. Sorry for kinda lashing out.” He paused. Pointed his Coke can at Peter. “But you did call me a Johns, so, fuck you for that.”

Just like that, the mood was lifted, and Peter let out a snort. “Yeah, that seemed appropriate in the moment.”

“It was shit. Also, no one says that anymore. Are you a time traveler, from the eighties? How was the student debt back then? Share your secrets. Help a man out.”

Peter raised a fakely offended hand to his heart. “I was raised by a sixty year old couple, man, give me a break.”

“Checks out.”

Peter’s hand squeezed his shirt and shook his head, and he looked at Mike, really looked at him for the first time since they'd sat down and spread the takeout on the table. Like defiantly, Mike threw him back the look. Peter’s heart flipped in his chest then and just like that, very stupidly, he thought of kissing him.

Nevermind that Mike had communicated mere seconds ago that Peter annoyed him. In fact, the furrow of his brows only made him hotter.

Fuck promises, Peter thought angrily.

No window to jump out of, but hey, he still had quips.

“Hey man,” he called out and MJ narrowed his eyes at him, “your truths hurt.”

Mike leaned back into his chair and spread his arms. “Better than be called fake. Gay and proud, and all that.”

The strength of Peter's eye roll was one for the books. “Can you let the flag magnet thing go?”

“I’m literally physically stopping myself from calling out your homophobia, Pete. It’s time someone said something.”

Peter hid his face behind the kebab. “Yeah, okay, okay.”

“I mean, gay people can be homophobic, so why not bi people?”

Peter revealed his face from behind the kebab. “Oh, hey, hey-”

“Am calling it as it is,” Mike said, now smiling wide again, and Peter didn’t know which version of him he preferred, the annoyed or the content one, since both of them were so criticizing of everyone and everything; and especially Peter. Peter, who had always had a thing for autoflagellation. “Call a spade a spade, a bi a bi…”

Peter’s mouth opened in a ‘o’. “Wow,” he did. “Today’s not my day. What the hell? And… why? No, seriously. If you’ve… got more to critic, the front desk’s open, man.” Peter waved two fingers as MJ chuckled. “Come at me!”

The bait was on the hook of the line, but Mike didn’t bite. Instead, he did something else, something that effectively shut down Peter’s brain. He took Peter’s hand gingerly in his, then made his fingers bend with his thumb, and proceeded to bring Peter’s hand to his mouth all the while looking at him in the eye- with his fiery, annoyed, wide black eyes- and saying: “You’re so bi that you’re one step away from admitting you’re into chicks too.”

Before releasing him, MJ gave the top of his hand a kiss.

Peter felt like taking flight and splattering on the sidewalk.

“Michael James,” he said in a breath, eyes on the eyes that bore into him, “you’re freaking vicious.”

As Peter brought his hand back to his heart, MJ gave a toothy grin and downed the rest of his Coke. “I prefer foxy.”

“Sure-” Peter said before his prickling skin reminded him of the touch of the lips. His insides suddenly dropped and he stared, frustrated and appetite six feet under, at his now dull-looking food.

He was in MJ’s apartment, he realized then, in his apartment, and the windows were locked as well as the doors were… apart from the bedroom door. It was ajar. It laughed at him. It said: open me and take what you want, break what you vow, act and don’t think.

Fuck promises.

As Peter ruminated, MJ’s hand appeared again in his field of vision. It didn’t touch him this time and instead stole a french fry.

“You know what? Let me take you somewhere.”

Miraculously, Peter managed to snap out of his trance and rubbed at the top of his hand. “Huh… I can’t tonight, I’ve got things… work to do. Papers to, to grade.”

“Yeah, no, not tonight,” MJ said, munching on his stolen prize. “Later, when you’re free.”

“Sure.” Peter frowned. “What? I mean, where?”

“You took me someplace today and showed me a bit of what you are, so I’m a fair man and I want to show you something too.” He inched forward then, like he was sharing a secret of the upmost importance, so Peter gave in and leaned in. He was so close that he could see the tiny bits of lighter brown in MJ's iris, spread apart like a multitude of freckles, small around a blown pupil. “My friend Elisa does drag whenever her club has a free spot. I’ll get you tickets to one of her shows, it’s half-price for friends, fifteen percent off for friends of friends. There can be kind of a crowd though, sometimes. Would that be okay?”

Peter’s heart swelled a little at the empathy he was given. “It should be illegal to read people like that, but yeah, I think I can keep it together for one night.”

“It’s not a matter of keeping it together, it’s a matter of comfort-”

“No, yeah, yeah, I don’t care about the crowd, I’ll come. I mean, you’ve clearly got a hidden motive, so, yeah, it’s getting me curious, obviously,” Peter added with a set of teeth.

MJ’s grin was mischevious now. He tilted his head to the side, still leant forward, and it was the perfect position to try something Peter wouldn’t try. If he considered Gwen a straightforward person, MJ’s directness bordered rudeness. “You like danger, big boy?”

They fit nicely, because Peter himself was an asshole. “Drag bars are dangerous?” he shot right back.

“Safest place on earth.”

Disappointment passed over Mike’s face when Peter reclined into the back of his chair. “Not interested then.” He grabbed a fry, sucked on it, and pushed his plate to MJ when he made another thieving attempt. Disappointment was replaced by contentment and MJ waved a fry around.

“Once, I saw a drag king beat a pervert’s ass with his own packer.”

“I’m in,” Peter said.

MJ burst into laughter then. Happy with himself, Peter joined him, watching as tears accumulated at the corner of the eyes of the man in front of him. Mike tugged on the bottom of his shirt to wipe his eyes, careful not to smudge his makeup, and in the process uncovering a good portion of his stomach. The skin there was of a beautiful and deep brown, sprinkled with the dark black of a happy trail that grew in density around a round bellybutton. The light grey of the boxer shorts’ elastic blocked any unwanted viewer from looking lower.

Peter almost choked on his fry. He stared somberly at the plenty (too little) he could see, mind thrown back to his eighteen-year-old self who wouldn’t have wasted a second to jump at the chance, at the tiny bit of innocent skin that taunted just like the ajar bedroom door taunted too.

Great.

Now his mood was going sour and he had no one but himself to blame.

It really was easier back when he’d given up on restraint and put his fists to work in the name of rage. It made him wonder about the guys he’d fought; Dr Connors and Max, the sand-man, the common robbers and the random bullies, Harry, and Harry’s father from another universe, as though madness and homicide ran in the family… what if being on the wrong side was simply an easier choice than being good? In that case, did frustration, loss and pain mean Peter was doing it right?

Was Peter really on the right path when he pushed MJ away?

“See, this is exactly why you need a night out,” sighed Mike as he pulled out his phone. “Imma text Elisa, see when she’s on stage.”

Peter blinked into focus. “What?”

“You’re totally in over your head,” Mike continued. He typed fast with one hand, another still fishing for Peter’s fries who didn’t have the heart to tell him that he probably needed the extra calories more than MJ. “You need at best a whole night of clubbing, at worse a good hungover.”

“Uh. Ah. I don’t drink.”

“And that explains why you ordered a juice the last time I offered.” There was the ‘woosh’ sound of a text that was sent, then he went right back to munching on his fries. “I guess you don’t smoke either?”

Peter sank his fists into his sweatshirt’s middle pocket. “Ah… what kinda smoke are we talking about here?”

“Cigarette, weed, pick your choice.”

“Well, neither anyway, that was dumb of me to ask.”

MJ pointed at Peter with an accusating finger. “Not dumb, man. Don’t say that.”

Peter looked cross-eyed at the finger, repressed the need to bite it and pulled one hand out of the pocket to swat it away. “Okay, Peter tw…” He closed his lips around the number and stammered. “Okay. Sure. Yeah, I’m amazing.”

There was a surprised snort from Mike, who then replied: “Yeah, you’re amazing. Do I have to repeat it until it works?”

“No, it’s working, thank you. I can already feel the magic.”

“Growth,” MJ smiled. “It’s no wonder you’re all nervous and stressed all the time, you got no hobby beside… work and… work.”

“Okay. Psh. That’s not true. Spreading... lies, left and right.”

“Debate me while I go smoke.” MJ stood up, pulling a lighter out of his pocket and a pack of cigs out of a drawer. “All this talking got me craving a good puff o’CO2.”

Peter watched him walk to his window and open it. He didn’t join him. Instead he turned on his chair and straddled it backwards, placing his forearms on the top of the backrest. He had a better view of the man there, his back and curves lightened by the yellow-ish light of his apartment while the side of his face molded the bluer, redder, whiter lights of the street below. Raising a hand to protect the fire from the wind, Mike placed the cigarette between his lips. He inhaled the smoke while Peter took in his side profile. The way his Adam’s apple bobbed as his mouth moved when he exhaled. The line of his nose, strong and straight. The arch of his brow, relaxed and full. The length of his eyelashes giving in to big, expressive, stubborn eyes.

Without a word, Peter took in hand his old phone and snapped a picture.

“I said ‘debate me’,” Mike called out, flicking a bit of ash into the red party cup on the sill that served as an ashtray, “not ‘photograph me’.” Then he turned to Peter, leant against the sill and struck a pose: face slightly turned to his left, the hand that carried the cigarette raised beside his right cheekbone, while his left arm under his chest supported his right elbow. Then he slowly exhaled. The smoke surrounded his face like a saint's halo. “How’s that?”

Peter breathed out. “That’s perfect.”

He raised his phone again, stabilized it better and reframed so that MJ looked like he was floating in the blurred street behind him. This time, he took multiple photos as MJ assumed different poses: he raised his chin and, cigarette between bared teeth, blew out the smoke一 then he shifted again, this time facing the camera but looking straight at Peter. His thumb went up to sensually brush at his plump lower lip, but his face remained serious, like searching, maybe waiting.

Face behind his phone, Peter took the shot. MJ was back to smoking normally when he lowered it.

“I’m holding myself back from calling you a perv,” he threw jokingly.

Heart beating fast, Peter regretted not having brought his analog camera. “Careful, don’t wanna get me beat up by a drag king’s wiener.”

The smoke in MJ's mouth was poured into the evening air as he laughed. He flattened the butt of the cigarette into the cup. “Your bi ass would probably enjoy it.”

It was like the rush of leaping from the Empire State. The screaming of the wind in his ears drowning out all the other noises but the blood pumping through his heart. The silence of his thoughts as he dropped to his fate. There was nothing else, but the growing vision of the ground closing in, and the eternal and fleeting knowledge that if he didn't move in the next seconds, if he didn't shoot his arm and call for a web to catch his fall, then he'd be nothing else but a splatter of mutant DNA. And it had been a comforting knowledge, sometimes, though recently, the wind was becoming a better listener.

Peter grinned at being rendered wordless.

MJ stood by the window, magnificent. It was ironic, Peter thought, that he was a model, surviving on people imprisoning his likeness, yet living off being uncatchable. It wasn't that Peter didn’t want to catch him either- he did, oh so painfully, so fearfully- but it was something he came to envy Mike. He had something Peter only had under the suit.

MJ stood by a window Peter wanted to jump out of and it was hard to say whether he shielded him from jumping or if he was going to, one day, pre-empt Peter and jump in his stead.

At that very image, cogs and gears replaced the murmur of the confidant wind and shrieked in his ear, shaking Peter into rising from the chair.

“Hey,” he called out, “I’m gonna… I’m gonna go.”

“Oh.” MJ crushed the rest of his cigarette. “Already?”

“Copies. And huh, I promised people I’d visit them tomorrow.”

“And your social battery’s on low, I get it,” he nodded, expression unreadable. “I’ll text you when I get Elisa’s answer.”

Throat tightened around the memory of a snap, Peter nodded and slung his backpack around one shoulder. “‘kay, thanks. Oh and huh…” He stopped by the door, frowning as he thought of how to say what he wanted to say next. “Thanks for being so understanding. About the taking it slow stuff. I meant what I said, I really like being with you, MJ.”

A shadow passed over MJ’s face, emotions Peter didn’t get the chance to describe, fluttering by. But as soon as they appeared they were replaced, like the flash of a picture had gone off; another pose was struck.

“I really like being with you too, bi boy,” he said, then he walked by Peter and opened the door for him. “Now get out of here before I change my mind and kiss you.”

Getting a bit cocky, Peter slung the other bag strap over his other shoulder. “I’m that irresistible?”

“Yes,” MJ said, in a strange tone that could mean a million different things, so Peter left the apartment without further ado, MJ’s hand guiding the small of his back. His skin begged to feel its warmth under the layers of clothing. “See you when I see you, Peter. Watch out for homicidal homeless men and dildo-wielding kings.”

Tapping his bruised lip, Peter made his tongue click.

He didn’t go down the stairwell but up, to the rooftop. There, on the parapet with his toes curling above the drop, he put on his mask before letting himself fall head first.

He swung by the warehouse on his way back home just to check that the dealers he’d left trapped on his webs there had been taken in by the police. For a moment now, Peter had been trying to fix his relationship with the law enforcement, even going as far as leaving anonymous online tips to random officers, a different one each time so as not to pick favorites. Lately it seemed to him that he was switching IP addresses more than he switched underwear. But at least, his plan was coming to some sort of fruition: when he arrived at the warehouse, the thugs were gone, shapes the size of human bodies in his webs the only proof that they’d ever been here. Peter cackled at the thought of policemen fighting against his webbing with their dull knives, and swung away back to busier streets.

According to his phone app, no criminal activity was really happening. He stopped by a crosswalk to help a grandpa through, kicked a ball for a few minutes with kids in a park and prevented at the last second a purse-snatching, much to the delight of the mugger herself who begged Spider-Man for an autograph while Peter was trying to lecture her on the advantage of being a good person.

“Well, you see, it’s all about restraint,” he said while the mugger lifted her shirt one-handed, her other hand webbed to a fire hydrant, “you tell yourself you won’t like what’s in the purse anyway and you just, don’t, steal itー… wow, ma’am. Please. Decency.”

“Whatever,” the mugger replied, “can you sign that on my boobs?”

Not before writing on her forearm ‘STEALING = BAD. PS: It’s Spider-Man’ (not on her boobs, he had children and their innocent eyes that looked up to him), he shot two webs up to the building, pulled hard, then propelled himself in the air. He wasn’t far away from his place and soon enough, he was landing on the side of his building, crawling down until he came within reach of his window.

Once in his bedroom, he took off his mask, plopped down on his desk chair, opened his PC and uploaded his phone gallery to his hard drive. His current background picture made him freeze for a few seconds when he minimized the folder. There, Gwen kissed his blushed cheek, her blonde hair falling on his face. He remembered the caress.

Peter thought of his next action for a moment, then eventually decided against it. Instead of replacing the background, he opened the jpeg and dragged MJ next to Gwen. In another universe, the two were probably friends. In this one, they faced each other in his computer, one smaller than the other and yet taking up a bigger and bigger place each day.

His phone vibrated.

So Elisa says she isn’t booked for another week. U ok for next Friday?

Peter couldn’t help the smile that bloomed on his lips.

yea just 1 question

what does one wear for a drag show?

_*_

MJ was on his knees, in the middle of untangling the many wires that ran from instruments to amplifiers when Elisa barged in, all nerves and excitement, and came to station herself above him with her hands on her hips.

He braced himself.

“Yes Elisa?”

“Have you kissed him yet?”

“No Elisa.”

“¡Qué hombrecito tan imbécil…!”

“Is that about me or Peter?”

“¡Los dos! It’s obvious there is attraction there, so why not go for it? It’s never taken that long before, before going for the real thing… ”

Calmly, MJ stood up, brushed the dust from his pants, and faced Elisa’s indignation. “Are you calling me a whore?”

She eyed him up and down critically. “I mean…” Cutting her mid-critic, MJ’s palm pushed her face away. “Uummph, my makeup...!”

“My vengeance,” he shot back.

She childishly pulled her tongue out. It pulled a cackle out of him, and he walked to the masterplug and powered it on by pushing the big red switch with his foot. The amps buzzed to life. Satisfied, MJ ran his fingers on the guitar’s strings, smiling at the sound.

Elisa sat down behind her keyboards with a loud huff.

“The dick better be fantastic if you don’t ride it.”

Like electrocuted, MJ released the strings and shot her a black look. “I love you, but don’t say that.”

Elisa looked at him like he was an instrument that had lost its tune. Finally, after a few seconds of this staring match, she looked down and nodded in apology. “I’m sorry. My mouth runs too fast sometimes.” Her fingers were put flat on the board and they tried a few notes, slow and apologizing. “I guess I didn’t believe you when you said you were done with hookups.”

Sighing, MJ crouched by her and laid his chin on her shoulder. She used her left hand to caress his hair, giving his scalp soft strokes, and her gentleness made his eyelids fall. “I don’t blame you,” he breathed out, “I didn’t believe me neither. I was gonna go all extreme and call it quits on men altogether.”

She had a little hiccup of a laugh. “C’mon, nena. Men are like an addiction. You can’t ever get rid of these idiots.”

“Fuck us, then.”

“Well, fuck me, yes. Fuck you, that’s another story.” Elisa had the giggle of a woman who was deliberatey putting her hand in the wrong cookie jar, so MJ pushed her fingers, making them miss a note. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. It was my last one, promise. Can you give me an A?” Rolling his eyes, MJ complied and worked his vocal chords. She pressed on the A key on the lower octave, then the higher octave, and delicately kissed MJ on the forehead. “Perfecto, como siempre. Muchas gracias.”

Her favorite song changed like the weather, and today, she had set her ears on classic pop. MJ listened intently as she struck the first notes, his senses focusing on pinpointing the song she was playing. It was in B minor. Melancholic, but also electric. Like a night out. Like a night wanted in, under warm sheets and a warm body.

“Love Game ,” MJ realized then. He snickered against her shoulder. “Jesus, we’re queer. Please tell me this is a hint for your next show."

She laughed and he started to hum the words. Her version was slower than Gaga’s, and with all the other instruments removed, the piano, alone, made her cover sound almost sad.

“Do you want love or you want fame, are you in the game, ” MJ sang. “Dans le love game.”

He didn’t fail to recognize the irony of the lyrics, obviously. Elisa had always been amazing at understanding him, but that was what being best friends since high school did to people. She knew what made him tick, with who he clicked, and foremost she knew she could count on him for everything. MJ prided himself on being available, reliable. He was the first person that she came out to and the only person she’d asked to accompany her to her first HRT appointment. But more than his presence, he knew that Elisa knew that she could count on him to give the truth at all times; he gave his opinion about others the same way he read himself. Which was why MJ wasn’t surprised when she asked. If the roles were switched, he’d have asked too.

“But you do want more, don’t you?”

MJ’s knees were starting to suffer from his crouched posture. With a few cracks, he rose and stretched his legs, wincing around his next words.

“Peter wants me to be patient, so I’m patient. Even though it’s really freaking annoying.”

“That’s a yes,” Elisa translated.

“Yeah, it’s a yes,” MJ huffed, walking up to the microphone that he angrily fixed on its stand. “Shit, Eli, you should see his fucking arms  He’s ripped. The guy looks like his momma slapped protein powder on his ass as a baby. He looks like if Symone Biles ended up with the mind of a white man that thinks I.T. is the cool kids’ club in uni. And I bet he’s got an eight-pack under this geeky outfit. I bet his pecs are squishy.”

“You sound mad,” Elisa called out, looking at him with a smirk on her devilish face, her elbow on the keyboard while her hand supported her chin.

MJ eyed her ferociously. “I’m frustrated.”

She threw her hands up in the air. “Then why agree, then? Why even offer the idea in the first place?”

“Because I can’t resist a closeted guy with doe eyes.”

MJ gave the mic a tap which, admittedly, was way more brutal than it needed to be. The noise made him grit his teeth. He muttered an apology to Elisa who had covered her ears.

“Peter Piper picked a peck’o one, two,” he said in the mic instead of slapping it this time. Then he turned back around, facing her, the need for nicotine scratching at his nerves: “Because I’m a bit of a masochist, that even though I say I’m done, I still try to fix the men I go out with, and Eli, girl, I’m serious, he fascinates me.”

Elisa tapped her nails softly on the keyboard. “Okay. So, let me get this straight: you’re inviting a guy that has probably never seen another man's junk to a drag show, and you’re still calling it slow?”

“To my standards.” MJ sucked his teeth. “Though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope he would change his mind.”

“You could also take your business elsewhere…”

MJ looked back to Elisa. She offered him a shrug with the same smile as before, the one that meant forbidden cookies in a jar.

Then, he thought about it. Enough for the silence to last ten seconds.

After all, he had never uninstalled the dating apps.

“No,” he said loudly, categorical. “I told you I was done with mindless sex. If I can have something real for once, let it be with Peter. If one thing, it’s good we’re doing it one step at a time, it means the guy’s invested and that in the end, I ain’t gonna get used.”

“But… you… wanna… get… used,” Elisa sang. Even MJ knew that there were some truths that didn’t need to be said, and he was tempted to cut the power of her keyboards. The look on his face spoke for itself and Elisa dipped her head. “Entonce, you do sound like you have a crush.”

“I always get crushes.”

“That always crush you. It’s nice to see that you’re actually, y’know, having a good feeling about a guy for once. Even if it means… waiting a little before the dicking. I’m joking,” she added quickly before he could react. Then she made a face and brought a finger to her chin. “Or am I?” He didn’t reply, instead rolling his eyes forcefully, tearing a chuckle from her. “You know, when you introduced us to him, what was the first thing I thought?”

With a sigh, MJ checked the time on his phone. It was almost time to start band practice. “What?”

“I thought,” Elisa shared, whispering like it was a secret: “oh, mi oráculo está en problemas.”

At this moment the door of the room opened, and walked in coffee in hand Wendy, John, Ethan and Jess. They waved the two hello before each merrily filled in the space. MJ lifted a hand to greet back, before dropping it to his forehead and rubbing at the temples.

“Yeah,” he murmured to himself, away from the mic, “I’m in trouble.”

Chapter Text

The day after Peter went out with MJ and a few hours after MJ’s practice with the rest of Murder Face, Peter was having dinner with the Stacy family. This time, Philip had found the time to be present. He had brought along his European fiancée that greeted Peter with a pink kiss on his cheek.

The moussaka, obviously, was delicious. He told Mrs Stacy 一 Helen! 一 so when they departed at the doorstep. Her hug was as warm as the last time, and her smile, hopeful. Simon high-fived him as a goodbye. Philip patted his arm.

“Glad you came around,” he said, not without some harshness. Peter could only nod. He had left them after Gwen’s passing, after all, barely a year after the loss of their father. What was a boyfriend next to a brother? Peter deserved the resentment.

But against all odds, Philip's next action was a smile. “Don’t be a stranger, Peter. Text me, whenever you want. You know I’ll harass you to grab a bite whenever I’m in town.”

Helen forced into his hands the dinner leftoevers and this was the story of how Peter ended up sitting atop the train back home in the Spider-Man suit, a shrink-wrapped moussaka plate under his elbow because he didn’t have the funds for public transport, and the indelible feeling of belonging in his heart.

The following week went really good, raising the bar for Parker standards. He handed out the results of the last test to his class of sophomores, showering Alan with compliments when he gave him his C plus, and he was proud to say that the class as a whole was making progress. There were a couple of little geniuses here and there as per Midtown High’s reputation and he could definitely already tell who was going to be valedictorian in a few years, so not much work was to be done with these kids except to incite them to sign up for extracurricular activities. The ones that lagged behind, at least, seemed to have taken a liking to Peter. And Peter was well placed to know that it was almost impossible to learn and grow while disliking the teacher.

“You know what, guys? If for the next test, the average of this class is above 一 or equal! or equal! Leah, please, please listen up. …above than or equal to seventy out of a hundred, I’ll do a special experiment for you. No, Taurai, I’m not asking for the moon, I’m asking for a B, I think that’s way more achievable.” 

Jessica’s hand shot up faster than Peter could say ‘achievable’. 

“Sir, what kind of experiment?”

Peter paused. He raised one finger. “Special.”

“Yes, sir, you said that.”

“Because it is. It’s special. It’s also secret. Like a… a surprise.”

“Well it’s not much of a surprise now,” Jessica protested.

“Would you look at that, you're no longer my favorite,” Peter retaliated, and that made her sulk for the rest of the hour.

However, given by the excited murmurs shared among the students, this deal was going to pay off in the long-term. Nothing like a little bit of bribery to teach young minds science.

During his lunch periods, Peter slipped away in the storeroom behind his classroom to craft more webbing. It turned out that having a science lab open just for him in total legality was really useful for his vigilante self; and as long as the school didn’t notice that particular chemicals were missing in bulk, he thought he could get away with it. There in the storeroom, he made his usual web fluid, along with what he called the G-web which was a more advanced version of the electric-proof version that Gwen came up with. He never knew when another Electro might show up and he didn’t want to end up as surprised as he was a month and a half back when he faced him, again, in another universe, and with very non-electricity-resistant webbing.

Apart from teaching, Peter also spent a lot of his time talking to MJ.

They texted each other daily now, and Peter met with him when he could after band practice, walking him home just so they could share laughter and anecdotes. Gone was the anxiety of the first week, where he was still torn over a) messing up MJ’s life by simply existing, or b) doing nothing to get out of his quarter-life crisis. Now, his heart beat with nervousness each time MJ greeted him with a kiss on the hand, but it was the kind that he had come to recognize as excitement. An excitement Peter hadn’t felt in ten years, actually. Something akin to hope for the future.

“You look so much like a kid,” Aunt May said one evening that he was spending with her at the stove. They were cutting zucchini side by side, their knives working in unison. “You look like someone took years off of you.”

Peter ran the one hand across his face that wasn’t holding the knife. “May, don’t tell me I age badly.”

“I just told you you don’t or do you not listen?”

“I listen, I listen, I just wanted to mess with you for a bit.”

“Now you’re making me grow even more white hair than I have,” she complained, sliding the zucchini into the pot. “I try to compliment you, Peter, let me compliment my boy.”

Passing by her to empty his own chopping board, Peter bent to her height to quickly give her forehead a peck. “I’m sorry May, go ahead, suffocate me in praises, that’s all I deserve.”

“Thank you,” she enunciated with an angry tone, though the way she rubbed her forehead and smiled indicated otherwise. “As I was saying,” she started again, now grating in a bowl some cheese, “you’re young.”

“Yes,” Peter said as he jokingly pulled on the lines at the corner of his eyes to make them disappear, “but you’re not getting grandkids any time soon, May.”

“I was not going to say that,” she huffed right back and the way she was handling the grater made Peter back away with a smirk. “Oh, you’re a nightmare to talk to, forget it.”

“No, I want you to talk, just talk, it’s okay. I’m shutting up.”

May shook her head, wildly grating the cheese now. Little bits were flying on the counter. “You’ve never shut up a day in your life.”

“No, I am right now. Look.” And Peter mimed zipping his mouth, locking it, and tossing the key over his shoulder. “Mmh? Hmm. Hmm-mmh.”

May stared at him in disbelief. “Now why you are not a drama teacher is beyond me.”

“Mmmh!”

“Oh, help me with the cheese, will you.” Nodding in response, Peter took her place as she went to wash her hands in the sink. She was annoyed, but he still saw the shine in her eyes, the same kind that had lighted them up when he had come with the cake weeks back. She hadn’t been smiling like that in a while, so he cherished the few times she did 一 but now he realized that she hadn’t been smiling the same way he had stopped living. He wished their lives were less intertwined sometimes, that his issues impacted her less, and consequently, that Spider-Man’s existence didn’t affect hers. So, as much as it was good to smile again, it was even better to see May shine.

“You’re insufferable,” she said while energetically rubbing the soap down her palms. “This is what I was talking about, you have regressed! You have jumped back in time. And I bet it’s because of a girl. No,” She cut the water and pointed a wet finger at Peter who stepped back with a muted laugh to evade the accusation, “I know it’s because of a girl. I have a feeling for that, you know. When do you invite her over? And don’t say never, I want to see what’s getting my nephew all younger.”

Peter could only smile secretly and say: “Hm hmm mm mmhh,” before flicking grated cheese at her.

_*_

The next week, Friday at 4 P.M., 47 minutes, a fire started on 5th ave, causing Spider-Man to rush in and pull the trapped civilians out of the building until the firefighters could get on the scene. However, at 5 P.M., meaning in exactly 13 minutes, Peter had a rendezvous with MJ at his place.

While the flames licked his heels, Spider-Man grabbed a chihuhua under his armpit, stuck its food bowl in his other hand and the bag of pet food he could find, and jumped off the sixth floor to the street where the dog’s owner received him with open arms and a shriek.

“Here you go, ma’am. Wait, do you have the time?”

She looked at him funny, dazed and disheveled. “What? It must be around four fifty, right?”

“Motherhugger,” Spider-Man said before flinging himself back up.

Working as fast as he could, he perched himself on the side of the building on fire and stretched his webs to the lampposts and trees in front of it, sticking the other end on the wall. The translucid of the threads shone with the red and blue lights of the police cars below as the cops were stretching cordon after cordon to keep pedestrians away. Spider-Man could feel their glare on his back as he worked, but he chose to ignore them so long as they didn’t have their guns out on him. Their little war could wait for another time.

One after the other, webs tied tight enough together that a hand wouldn’t go through if it tried, Spider-Man only stopped once he was satisfied with the giant cobweb mattress he’d fabricated a little over six feet above the ground. Heads were peeking from the windows of the upper floors, distressingly watching his work. Spider-Man turned to them and put his hands up around his mouth like a megaphone.

“Okay, guys! Whoever’s feeling like they’re in need of an adrenaline rush, jump! And the ones that don’t feel like it, it’s totally fine too, I’ll come get you!”

“Are you crazy?!” hollered a man on the seventh floor.

“Don’t be stupid, just jump, Stan!” screamed back a woman a floor above him.

“Back off, I don’t trust that guy!”

“First volunteer, thank you!” shouted Peter before flying up to the man’s window. “In my arms, you grump.”

“Fine,” Stan said, “but you’re getting a bad review!”

“From Spider-Man to Uber-swinger. Jesus that sounded better in my head.”

His phone rang as he delicately set down the man on the pavement. With another swear, he fished for it as the embarrassing tune of ‘Spidey bells, spidey bells, swingin’ through Midtown’ started to raise judgemental heads his way while the first few brave people bounced on his web above.

Caller ID: MJ.

Time: 5:01.

“The guy has a clock up his一 MJ, hi! I know I’m late!”

“I think I’ve come to accept it, just tell me it’s not because you got beat up this time.”

“Well, see, there’s a big fire on fifth ave…”

“Wait, what the hell’s all that noise? ”

“That must be the fire truck, there’s like a big fire on fifth ave.”

“Wh… there’s a fire on fifth ave? ”

“Yes,” Peter said, trying not to sound so out of breath as he saluted the man behind the wheel. “There's a big fire on fifth ave.”

“What the hell are you doing on fifth ave?! ”

A firefighter approached him and nodded in thanks before looking up at his web work. “Thank you, Spider-Man, we’ll take it from here.” Peter jolted and violently pressed his phone against his chest, away from the conversation. “I just wanted to say, my colleagues and I are really glad that you’re back to your old self一”

“Thank you, thank you,” he quickly said, a little embarrassed and very jumpy, “please repeat that to the boys in blue, I don’t think they got the memo. Heya, you got the situation handled, right? Need help with the hose?”

Spider-Man started to walk away backwards, phone pressed so tight against him that adding a little more pressure would probably break it.

“It’s all good, Spidey!” the firefighter said, waving goodbye. “Go catch ‘em bad guys!”

Sticking the phone back up to his ear, Spider-Man raised a thumb and pulled himself up in the air. It took him a few seconds to realize that MJ had gone silent, but when he did, he went into panic babble mode.

“Alright, so, I just walked past the fire, I’m really sorry about the noise, I couldn’t hear you for a second, also I think the situation was handled pretty well, as far as I know, no one’s injured, so, I’m here in a flash, ’kay?”

Thankfully, MJ’s voice quickly rose back to life like nothing had happened. “I’m giving you the worst outfit of my closet as a punishment. ”

“Punishment?” Peter repeated dumbly, trying not to get too excited now.

“ Yes, punishment.” The smile in Mike’s voice was audible. Good sign, good sign. Hopefully it meant that he hadn’t heard a thing of his conversation with the fireman. “I’m tempted to make you look like a leather daddy. ”

Peter nearly missed his next web. “Holy sh… wow. Slow down, there, cowboy.”

There was yet another moment of silence before MJ’s answer came to his ear. His voice was strangely off. “Yeah, I know. Call back when you’re there. ”

On that, MJ hung up.

It took another ten minutes for Peter to land on the roof of MJ’s building. He tore his mask off and shoved it in the backpack he always carried around now, even as Spider-Man, along with his gloves and his soles, replacing the latest with old sneakers. He hurriedly tugged on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt then dropped down the fire escape, and without thinking about whether or not it was suspicious that he did so, knocked on the window.

He was welcomed by MJ’s stupefied face as he made the glass slide up.

“This bus was fast,” Peter explained, grinning as MJ just stood there, staring at him.

“Was it a flying bus? Look at your… ‘kay, get in.” Mike’s hand came to grasp at Peter’s collar and Peter let him guide him in without a complaint. “Look at your hair. Are you modeling for L’Oréal?”

“No,” Peter protested as he was released, and he ran both of his hands through his mop. “No, I’m not. You’re the model.”

“I’m the model,” MJ agreed while still staring at him like he’d just found him a second head.

“Cute model,” Peter said, now smiling wide like a fool.

“Yeah,” MJ said again. “You bet I am.”

Then he turned around and threw something that hit Peter right across the chest. Peter stumbled backwards, catching the clothes in his arms. He held them in front of his face for an examination.

“Okay,” he laughed. “What’s that?”

MJ landed on his bed with crossed arms and crossed eyes. “Your punishment. For being late and ignoring the unsaid rules of decorum by entering through my window.”

Peter raised an insolent brow at him from under the clothing. The hair of his neck went up at the sight of MJ’s cutely annoyed face, of this dark stare he sent back, darkened even more by the charcoal and the red glitter on his lids, emboldened to the extreme by long lashes. His crimson kimono complimented his hair color to perfection and his black sleeveless turtleneck and sirwal pants provoked a twinge that went down Peter’s gut. For a second he thought he was jealous of the man’s immaculate sense of style, but then Mike uncrossed his arms to lean back on his elbows in the bedsheets and all Peter could think was out of a fire into another.

MJ scrunched up his nose with an air of extreme judgement. Too bad for Peter, because it was also an air of extreme cuteness. “You smell like burnt plastic.”

“Big fire,” Peter exhaled brainlessly.

“Big fire.” MJ snapped his fingers, which brought him back to reality for a moment. “Take off your clothes, pretty boy.”

“Yeah.” He shook himself. “Yeah! Huh, where…”

“Oh,” MJ said in an exaggeratedly surprised tone, “I don’t mind turning around if…”

“I can change in the bathroom,” Peter cut forcefully. In his rush, he hadn’t bothered to take off the suit which he realized now was a pretty dumb move on his part. “I can… can I…?”

“Go right ahead.”

Peter nodded excessively and rushed in the bathroom, closing the door a bit too quickly for a man that was supposed to have no secrets. There, he grasped the sink for a moment, and watched his reflection.

At least he didn’t look like a mess like the last time.

His bruises had healed and his skin hadn’t broke out since, which was something he should consider adding to the list of Parker curses VS Parker miracles. In all honesty, Peter thought that he didn’t look too bad. Sure, his hair was wilder than usual, but that was thanks to the mask and the wind, and he couldn’t control the wind, could he? So, basing himself on uncontrollable elements, he was doing pretty good. He hoped Mike thought he was doing pretty good.

Peter kicked off his sockless sneakers and the rest of his clothes before removing the suit, careful to shove it deep inside his bag above his pencil case, six packs of gum and his father’s wallet. In the mirror, he went back to staring at his profile, flexing his naked arm for a good ten seconds and wondering with a fear that was proof of a celibacy that had dragged on for too long if MJ didn't mind that much muscle or if he was messing with him. 

(“Jesus, Pete, you’re actually a beast.”)

Gwen had loved Peter’s muscles. He knew it because he had seen the way she used to look at him in the tight suit, how she ate up his arms and his thighs and his butt during sex. MJ, in his case, was so outspoken about it that it could get Peter drunk on self-confidence if he focused on the compliments too hard.

“You’re a beast,” Peter told his reflection.

It winked back.

He put on the clothes Mike had picked out for him. It was nothing too outrageous, which Peter was thankful for: azure blue dress pants, a yellow turtleneck sweater and a vest the same color as the pants. His heart swelled when he took in his new appearance, not because of the transformation, though Peter didn’t think he had ever been that well dressed in his life; but because of the obvious care Michael James had put into picking out those specific clothes for him. The size was right, the comfort was there. The threat that was dressing Peter in all leather hadn’t been one.

The need to return MJ’s affection overwhelmed Peter and he took a deep breath in to keep a cool head.

He checked himself in the mirror one last time, ruffling his untameable hair as though that would help the situation, and walked out of the bathroom.

Mike immediately looked up from his phone at the ‘click’ of the closed door. His jaw hung comically for a few seconds.

“Oh wow. That’s the shit.”

Peter twirled on himself like a disney princess. “You like it?”

“Yeah,” MJ said and his face suddenly went all serious. “Come here.”

Peter toddled over. MJ’s hands brushed against his chest as they went up to his collar, and there, they worked to fix the fold. Two fingers on each side slid between the skin of Peter’s neck and the thick cloth. Their knuckles nudged Peter’s jaw, forcing him to look up, to the charcoal eyes. They burned holes in Peter’s neck.

He swallowed.

He didn’t have to focus to hear Michael James’ heartbeat. It was clear as day, as proud as a sunrise, climbing up in an uneven rhythm that would surely make MJ grit his teeth if he could count the disordered beats. 6 / 8 time signature, or something like that. Yes, Peter had done a bit of research. 

Moved by something stronger than his will, Peter’s hand was guided to MJ’s cheek. The fingers at his collar froze then as MJ stared back into Peter’s eyes. He had smooth skin, he always did, devoid of flaws, so rich in its warmth and copper undertones. Under his finger, Peter could feel the bone jut out. Like a scientist discovering a fascinating new formula, he tilted his head to the side so he could see the equation better and admire, below the heavy eyelid, the way the eye followed his movement, its pupil bigger than it had been five seconds ago; and the nostrils wide, sucking in shorts intake of air as though it was suddenly lacking.

MJ’s voice was raw when he spoke.

“Jesus, tiger. What happened to being slow?”

Peter swallowed again.

Even though his skin screamed at him not to let go, he retracted his hand. Air was a rarity and he stepped back to allow himself to breathe too, flashes of blonde hair and blue eyes passing by his closed eyes when he blinked. The memories were cast away, and the twinge of pain that had come with them was weaker than it had ever been.

No more of that today. 

“Did you, uhm…” Peter cleared his throat. “Did you pick a turtleneck for me so we could match?”

The tone was meant to be jokingly teasing, but somehow it came off flirtatious anyway.

“Maybe so,” Mike replied. “Careful, I think you got some glitter on you.”

“What? Oh.” Peter rubbed his fingers together, frowning when the makeup wouldn’t wear off, then tried to blow on them. In the end, after a few seconds of this losing battle, he ended up smearing the glitter fallout on his own eyelids. “There, ta-da. That works too.”

MJ was still staring at him like Peter had drop-kicked a puppy in front of him. “Real trouble”, he murmured before shaking his head and going back to his phone. “Ethan’s suggesting we join them for a few drinks at the Milk before Eli's show. You know about the Milk, right?”

“Yeah, the bar,” Peter said dismissively. He blinked furiously, trying to shake off the glitter stuck on his eyelash.

“You know, for a nerd, you know a lot of things about the outside world.”

“Since when does nerd equal… are you calling me a caveman? I think I should feel, like, offended or something.”

“I call you whatever I want,” Mike replied right back, blinking at Peter’s furious blinking because now Peter definitely was blinking because of Mike’s brutal and particularly hot comeback. Keeping the blush down was unsuccessful, so he opened and closed his mouth, stuck his front teeth into his lower lip and tried to keep the grin down to a simple and innocent smile. “Oh no,” Mike slowly said, staring at him, “you got that face.”

Peter exaggeratedly let his eyes jump around the room while brushing at his nose. “What uh, what face?”

“That I’m about to say something really dumb face.”

“I don’t,” Peter laughed. “I promise you, I’m very very serious, look.” And to express his honesty, he smiled from ear to ear, showing off dimple, blush and glitter altogether. “Serious as ever. I’m no jokester. Cross my heart.”

He did the gesture with a limp finger. As he was going for the second line up across his torso, MJ stopped it by giving a shove with his flat palm at the bullseye of Peter’s pecs. “Hope to die,” he said in a low voice that made Peter’s heart skip a beat. “Let’s head out before I’m the one who ends up saying something real stupid.”

Peter didn’t think that Mike was capable of being stupid. In fact, he was pretty sure that the man was smarter than Peter could ever be. He could articulate what he thought, what he felt, with a precision that was both frightening and enviable, without a drop of remorse or of shame; now that was a superpower worth having. Really, what good was wall-crawling in the face of healthy emotion?

Holy frigging frog, Peter wanted to shove him into the bed.

Mike’s kimono floated behind him as he went down the stairwell. Close behind, Peter watched him, a constant smile that could never be wiped on his lips. He hurtled down to open the heavy entrance door before Mike could reach it, bowing theatrically and offering a hand for a coin in the imitation of an old school doorman. With a laugh, MJ gave Peter’s hand a slap. The touch lingered. It did not leave for a while. It seemed to want to stay, or maybe, to taunt, or perhaps also, to reminisce of that moment in the subway two weeks ago, to bring it back, to encourage it for an encore. MJ tugged Peter alongside him, crossing the threshold and stepping into the street with their fingers intertwined. The rush of cold air to Peter’s cheeks was welcome. Holding MJ’s hand beat all the free-falls.

They didn't take the subway this time, but walked to their destination, shoulders hitting when their steps went out of sync. Peter's skin purred every time this happened. He tried to brush off the feeling, to let it wash over him, and the truth was it was getting easier to appreciate the lurching of his stomach and the roaring of his heart now that he knew he and MJ were on the same page. He just had to go with the flow, after all. Nothing complicated about that.

For the first time in his life, both Spider-Man and Peter Parker's lives were good at the same time.

They made a turn and were met by the wildlife that was the laughter of MJ's friends, sat at the terrace of the bar. Elisa was the only missing member as Peter figured she was probably preparing for her performance; and John, Wendy, Jess and Ethan welcomed the pair with a jolly raise of glass.

"Ayo, what's going on?" Peter said, throwing two fingers in the air and fist bumping everyone gathered around the round table. "Hi, hi! Hello. Hi, Jess, what's up? Yeah, I'm alright, I'm alright, how 'bout ya? Oh, thanks, well, actually, it’s Mike’s, but一 oh, thanks. No yeah I like it too. I thought I was gonna schvitz with it but actually I feel pretty good… aww, thanks. Yeah the colors’re nice aren’t they?”

Jess and Ethan’s compliments to Peter’s outfit were cut short by the click of a tongue. Peter, whose sleeve was currently being felt up by Jess’ curious hand, raised his head to MJ, who was still standing, squinting and smiling at the same time in a weird mix of two totally opposite emotions.

“Once you’re done being pet by the whole bar, you wanna tell me what you’re getting to drink, player?”

Biting hard the inside of his cheek, Peter stared at him. “Player?” he threw, the thrill of the taunt making his heart run.

MJ tilted his head to the side. “Johns? ”

“That was one time,” Peter said as Jess and Ethan cackled, “you never let go, don’t you? Once you find a chew toy, you just…” and he raised two hands that he bent into the imitation of claws, “grrrrrrah, you keep biting into it. Mercilessly 一 what, it’s true! Don’t act like you don’t know the guy,” he protested as the cackles of the duo got louder.

“Yeah, Michael, you’re a pain in the ass,” Ethan said loudly like only longtime friends can. Jess attempted to shush him with a nudge, unsuccessfully.

Turning back to MJ, Peter wiggled his brows in victory. Then his smile softly shrank. He returned MJ’s glare, which was actually more of a playful, but intense staring fest, mimicked his head tilt, and poked his tongue out. “Anything virgin sounds good, MJ.”

Without breaking eye contact, MJ gave a sigh. “I’m disappointed. That was too easy, even for you.”

“Again with the calling me easy,” Peter slowly said, biting down harder on his smile.

He’d forgotten how good flirting felt.

Alright, maybe MJ was right. Maybe Peter was a player.

Not without shaking his head, MJ disappeared inside the bar, leaving Peter to turn back to the table. He slipped a finger under his high collar to let the skin there breathe a little. A rush of heat had gone up to his face and unfortunately it hadn’t gone unnoticed by Jess, who kept shooting knowing glances his way.

She almost spilled her beer over herself when she went to conspiratorially lean to Peter.

"Oh, crap — so, huh, how long have you guys been… y'know, can I ask? Seeing each other?"

"How long we what we see?" Peter said words. "Huh, never. I mean we're not… technically together. I think. I… I think?" 

Oh shit.

Peter had told MJ that he liked him, sure, like a six year old told his cute classmate that he wanted to hold their hand in the playground, but they hadn't explicitly told each other what was happening. Wait, had they? Did this whole 'I wanna buy ice cream with you' thing count? Did Peter even know how to date anyone anymore or had this ten year long dry spell expell all reason from him?

Jess seemed to come to the same realization because her eyes widened.

"Oh crap," she said again. "I thought… you guys are on a date, right? Like, I thought for sure…" 

"Yes," Peter said quickly with a sharp nod. "No yeah you're right. This is a date. This is a date."

"Are you…" She narrowed her eyes at him with the politeness of a geologist who was cursed with having to change a flat earther's whole worldview. "Are you sure?" 

"Well…" 

"One Pepsi for the player," came MJ's voice right behind Peter's shoulder. Two glasses were dropped on the table in front of him as MJ settled on the seat next to him. "One Sex On The Beach for me."

"We're in February!" Wendy cried out from the other side of the table.

MJ popped the straw in his mouth. "So? The beach disappears when it's winter or something?" 

"Can't you get a beer like us normal people?" Ethan said, raising Jess' glass since his was empty.

"One, you're not normal, dumbass, you're literally the only straight in a queer band," MJ retaliated as Peter looked on, his grin widening and his thoughts circling around a jumble of words like 'cute' and 'hot' and 'cuhot' , "two, my taste is more sophisticated than watered down Bud freakin' Light, three… I'm a fancy bitch. Get that right."

There was a pang in Peter's navel, and a pool of heat, both in his neck and spreading in his stomach.

"Hey, MJ," he said before he could stop himself, "I have a question."

MJ turned to him, and no matter the harshness of his words, he always looked so happy and so full of life that it came to Peter that he could just take a bite right out of him and MJ would let him.

"Anything, tiger," he replied. His hand came to sit on the edge of the stool on which Peter sat, brushing at his butt.

Another pang in Peter's navel. Lower.

He leaned in, like it was just the two of them, until his mouth closed in on MJ's ear, and their cheekbones almost touched. "Just making sure, but, are you and I on a date?" 

He didn't have to touch MJ's wrist to know that his pulse was stammering.

MJ tilted his head to the side ever so softly, his eyes piercing into Peter as they looked at each other this way, sideways, askew, right-on. 

"Did you want it to be a date?" 

"Just answer the question, MJ." 

"Okay. For me, it's a date."

"Okay. Then it's a date."

MJ's eyes skipped down to Peter's mouth. Peter ignored the jolts of his insides. When Mike opened his mouth again, it was with a crease between his brows that betrayed an uncertainty that Peter didn’t think was possible for him.

"So… this is not too fast for you?" 

Quick in erasing MJ’s fears, Peter shook his head. "No. It's fine. It's perfect. You look perfect, by the way.”

After this, he moved away, leaving a flustered MJ to his own side of the table.

Elisa’s workplace was, big shocker, another bar. The moment Peter came in through the purple velvet curtain that marked the entrance, he was assaulted by the noises of the crowd, spread all over the place, by the bar, by the tables, near the short catwalk that evolved into a stage further back. With the cheering, the laughter and the conversations were mixed with latin music and the clinking of drinks. The only light sources were behind the bar and in the spotlights hanging from the ceiling. Purple, yellow and red danced in the air, twirling from body to body and face to face. They skimmed over Peter in the space of a second. His vision was left white and blurry, recalling a time with helicopter searchlights and a removed mask. Peter squeezed the hand that was in his.

MJ hadn’t let go of him ever since they’d left the Milk to head to the Putivuelta. Peter had been around enough Spanish-speaking people to get a rough understanding of the name, and he’d come to the conclusion that it meant ‘checking out the hotties’. Mike, looking surprised but impressed, had confirmed it, and explained that the Putivuelta was a latinx queer bar that Elisa had been doing shows in for a few years now. She’d found her style of drag to be best accepted here, but no matter how hard Peter pressed for more info about what exactly he was going to witness, MJ didn’t budge, smirking like the rascal he was.

“Hey,” MJ said, lips close to Peter’s ear so he could hear him above the noise, “I’m gonna go get something.”

He tugged Peter along as he went to order another cocktail, a Margarita this time, along with a basket of tortilla chips. Feeling like he was on the verge of drowning, Peter eargerly grabbed a few chips as MJ slid the basket his way and wolfed them  down after dipping them in the guacamole. He had very rarely been in bars, and even less in nightclubs, for the simple fact that they didn’t agree with his senses. When he was under the suit, he had the mask to help his eyes focus and to block out most of the unimportant sounds. Everything was so slow, because he was so fast, having to multitask and to pre-calculate and to foresee every possible outcome for every scenario where something went wrong. Here, he couldn’t control anything. The lights shone on him and above him, and the laughter of the crowd drowned out the chewing and the slurping drowned out the scraping of the chairs against the floor drowned out the grunting of Ethan who had his tongue down Jess’ throat drowned out the buzz of the electricity circulating in the wires…

MJ’s hand squeezed his.

“You alright there, Peter? Show’s about to start.”

The lights dimmed. The noises were whispers. MJ’s face was the one bright thing.

Peter squeezed his hand back, gave a smile, nodded. Like a thank you , thank you so much and I’m so glad you’re here with me, he released his free hand from the bar and lifted it to brush one of MJ’s wild locs out the way. He tucked it behind his ear, taking in and loving the burning of MJ’s eyes as they followed his every move. Peter just couldn’t help it when his knuckles brushed against MJ’s cheekbone, the little spider hair rising up at the tip of his fingers, and he prayed that when he dropped his hand back against his thigh MJ could forgive him.

His skin was on fire. Between two knuckles, he tweaked the material of the pants MJ lent him. Maybe that way, it would think about something else than the other man's skin, the other man's warmth, and the liquefying scald of his stare into Peter's jawline as Peter turned away.

"I've never been to a drag show before," Peter said, dropping his voice to a murmur to match the sudden atmosphere.

MJ downed his drink in one go and ordered another. The stage was still empty, but the show was going to start any second now.

"Ever seen a drag performer?" MJ asked after, voice a little rough.

"Oh yeah," Peter replied, his own a little strangled, with his fingers still pinching the soft fabric and his thoughts going up in smoke, "plenty, actually."

"Go on."

Peter kept his eyes focused forward, to the stage. One slip and he'd meet MJ, and he didn't want to know what he'd do if he looked back and saw himself and his own feelings in these black eyes. He'd maybe kiss him right there.

The thought wasn't so bad now, he realized. It wasn't as scary. Maybe the bright lights were scrambling up his brain, because he felt dizzy, and maybe a little intoxicated. But then, when was the last time he had kissed someone? When was the last time he had touched someone? The last time he had been touched?

Peter had spent ten years in a time bubble of his own loneliness and it was almost funny how suddenly everything he had missed threatened to rush at him in a flash, as though he was simply waking up from a long and dreamless coma. Hi doc, how long was I under? What happened to the world? What happened to me?

"I've huh," Peter said as he caressed MJ's hand with his thumb, almost without thinking about it, "sometimes I go for runs pretty late. To clear my mind and all. And I, you're gonna laugh, but I've met a few queens like that. Just helped them with random stuff, with…" He laughed, "errands."

MJ had already almost finished his third glass. He had a surprised hiccup. "You ran errands for drag queens?"

Peter narrowed his eyes. “Yes, what, how is that hard to believe?”

“Okay, what errands did you run?”

“Believe it or not, I bought water bottles for them,” Peter said defensively which drove Mike to hide his laughing fit into his Margarita, “yes, water bottles , and peanuts because the ladies were hungry,” he added, spasms forcing Mike into bending over, “water, peanuts, and also this one time…” Peter gave him a sidelong look, cracking up as Mike patted the tears on his cheeks with his sleeve, “...condoms…” MJ doubled right back over, “because they were too out of it to work out the vending machine.”

Peter was falling in love with MJ’s laughter. It was this loud, brazen thing, larger than life, told through every last one of his bent limbs, and Peter felt as though if it tried to make itself smaller, lesser than what it truly was, it would be denatured. No, its true form was the perfect form, Peter asserted to himself, and he craved to be the cause of its flight.

“Pathological,” MJ said after raising a hand for another drink, “patho-fucking-logical.”

“Really?”

“What?”

“You don’t believe me?”

“Oh, I believe you,” he said. “I just can’t believe that I believe you.” He received his new cocktail with a thank you, brought it to his lips and glanced over to the stage.  The drink was instantly forgotten. “Oh, this is finally it. Shhhhh.”

Peter hadn’t even said anything but he still let Mike flail his free hand around Peter’s mouth, a chortle escaping him at the attempt.

The stage lit up just then, a mix of red and white that Peter’s eyes instantly adjusted to just in time for a long and lean man, he guessed was the owner of the Putivuelta, to jog up to the front and center of the stage and do a quick bow. MJ tugged Peter again, and he followed him through the tables and to the people on their feet by the catwalk. Jess was there along with Ethan. Her hand came to brush at Peter’s shoulder, and she gave him a bright grin, seeing in her eyes the excitement that was in his. On the stage, the owner spoke Spanish quickly, thanking the regulars, the newcomers and the performers before he switched to English.

“iAhora, basta! Before we invite to the stage sweeter, saltier and sourer kings and queens, I want to welcome our opening performer. She’s a pianist, she’s a creeper, she’s a looker, but above all, she’s an artist: Elipsis!”

The curtain behind the man was lifted as he hurried off stage, revealing a synthesizer draped in red petals. Elisa sat in front of the keys, her face painted crimson and her eyes and lips glistening with black like a horrific but romantic dream, dressed in a ruby corset body from which were hanging little blood-colored jewels from thin, almost invisible strings. She was beautiful, all long legs she proudly showed off, and short, oily black hair stuck in curls on her forehead and her neck. Her piercings, on her brow, on her nose, on her dimple and on her tongue when she stuck it out reflected the light of the spots, blinding more than one.

Michael James’ euphoria was infectious.

He had gripped Peter’s hand with a strength that would’ve hurt anyone else and all Peter could do was cheer alongside him as MJ whistled loud and jumped up and down, looking absolutely unhinged and perfect and possessed. Peter understood now why he wore so much red, the glitter on his eyes looking like fire in the sudden heat of the crowd.

The wave of brutal desire hooked Peter at the gut. He gasped. It was inaudible in the cheering, yet the sound acted like an explosion in his ears.

Oh, crap.

He was in it deeper than he thought.

Elisa, or more like, Elipsis, pressed her fingers on the keys and started to play.

“I met a girl in East LA, in floral shorts as sweet as May, she sang in eights in two Barrio chords, ” A familiar voice was coming out of the speakers, but the lipsync was so precise that it fooled Peter during the first verse, “we fell in love, but not in court…”

“Is that Lady Gaga?” Peter yelped under the hollering of the crowd as Elipsis rose from the synthesizer and strutted down the catwalk, her long strides stepping on the first bills flying on her path. “I love this song!”

His hip pressing against Peter’s hip, MJ whistled even more violently than before. Screw the glitter, when Peter met his look, his whole eyes were on fire.

“Mis canciones son de la revolución” Lady Gaga sang while Elipsis twirled on herself, provocative, her long nails brushing the floor to pick up the bills, “mi corazón me duele por mi generación.”

She dropped to her knees just as the chorus came up, the pad of her high boots cushioning her fall, and she twirled her head, twirled her head, twirled and twirled  and twirled and Peter watched in amazement, his wide eyes taking in the colors and the sounds and the feeling of the man, so hot, pressed tight against him, until Peter himself felt drunk with energy.

He was in it deep. Almost too much.

He didn’t really register the next minutes. There was only MJ, really, in the swarm of the excess of it all. This bright red light that he was and stood for. A beacon the size of a king. It engulfed everything else, so good and so much that it almost scared him to think of it gone, leaving him aimless, with no cliff edge to hold on to.

There was only the infinity of what two linked hands could grow into.

MJ’s arm slung over his shoulder, Peter stumbled in the night that cradled the streets of Soho. Laughter shook them both and the ghost of the show still echoed in Peter’s ears, buzzing in his brain like a severe case of tinnitus. Elisa had joined them still in her Elipsis supersuit after her performance, and they’d thrown together bundles of tiny bills on the drag king on stage whose show included very metal air guitar. Midnight had stretched to one had stretched to two and to three, and they’d all split up after the last performance of the night; Jess, Ethan and Elisa had taken an Uber, and the others had opted for a walk in the cold air that would potentially cool them down.

It had left Peter and Mike together and Peter to wish, once more, not for the last time, that he could crush Mike against him and swing through the city.

“Oh, I’m so glad you came tonight, Pete, I’m so really glad you came,” MJ was mumbling in Peter’s ear with a drunken chuckle. “‘t’s just, the stage, the night, the showbiz, it’s just, you know, my life. It’s me, it’s like, me, bare. Without artifice. With, no, fuck, that’s not true. All artifice. Makeup and costume built-in. Like a second skin. It’s special. You get me? It’s powerful.”

Peter adjusted his grip on his arm and held him at the waist. He was no stranger any longer to the tickle in his fingers when he held onto the naked skin there as MJ’s shirt rolled up. He didn’t try to escape it. He held on tighter.

“I get it,” he replied with a shiver. It was cold, yes. He shook because of the heat. “Trust me, I get it.”

MJ smiled, and it was this marvelous thing that Peter was falling hard for. “Of course you do, bi boy,” he said. His free hand came up to Peter’s face to trace the length of his nose. “‘cuz you, you’re so bare, all the time. You show everything. Good and bad. Ups and downs and all that mess 一 you just are. You, for real, without artifice. You know,” MJ murmured, his soft and warm voice inside Peter’s ear while his hand stayed at Peter’s cheek and he realized just then in spite of the flames licking off his logical sense that they’d stopped walking in a narrow and quiet street, where it was just the two of them, faces lit by the logo of a closed shop, “you’re like a bird.”

Peter nuzzled into the hand, his lips aching to give the palm a kiss. “Is it because I’m…” His lips aching. “Because I’m free, or a metaphor like…”

“‘cause I’m always thinking I’d say somethin’ that would scare you off and make you fly away.”

Fly away. Peter felt a bubble of laughter rise in his throat. He wasn’t a bird, no, at least not one of those peace doves. In fact, he was so deeply anchored to earth and its inhabitants that if anything, he was a rat, the original New-Yorker, that people pitied when they didn’t kick him.

MJ’s hand firmed up on his skin, mooring Peter to him instead of the soiled ground.

For him, Peter could be a bird.

“I’m serious, Pete. Don’t fly away.”

“I wasn’t counting on it.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

MJ’s lips met him. It was rough and sudden like he was being kicked off a rooftop and it pushed Peter back against the wall. The hand that MJ had around his shoulder came to the back of Peter’s neck where it seized the shorter hair there, leaving Peter gasping and digging into Mike’s sides, into the curve of his hip and the dip of his waist that had been driving Peter to intoxication all evening. It took him a few seconds to gather what remained of his brain before he pushed back against the mouth, marveling at how malleable it was when he tilted his head and opened his lips against him. Breaking up for air was out of the question, so he breathed in Mike, wrapping his whole self against him, surrounded him completely, suffocating him like MJ suffocated him.

When MJ moaned on his tongue, it came from deep within his chest. Jolting like a billion volts. It was music to Peter’s ears, it was fire in his veins, it was buzzy in his brain and oh, God, he felt more alive than he’d ever been in freaking forever.

Just as fast as it had happened, MJ retracted. Peter, absolutely devastated, blinked up at him.

“Wait, I know I said I wasn’t asking, but,” MJ said, looking suddenly small which made Peter tremble with the need to revert him back to his tall and confident and shameless self, “can I actually kiss you?”

“Whー yes,” Peter said. “Yes you can.”

“Okay, good. ‘cuz, you know I did say I wouldn’t kiss you until you got your shit together, but also I couldn’t really wait when you’re out there looking like some olympic gymnast that got lead role in a rom comー”

“Oh my Gー forget about what I saidー”

Peter crashed his mouth against his. That shut MJ right up.

He swallowed Mike’s tongue and ran his hand up into the flawless mess of his thick curls. They swayed together, locked together, until the tip of Peter’s nose was red and bent against Mike’s cheek, until his mouth hurt deliciously good with how strong he pinned it.

“Shhhhit,” MJ said into Peter as he stole the rest of whatever he was going to say next by licking into MJ’s mouth. “Oh, shー”

Everything was rushing to him at once. A decade, a lifetime, of inertia, and apathy and mindless fists thrown in back alleys dyeing the blue parts of his suit red; all of this, erased and replaced in the rush of a drunken kiss. But it wasn’t enough. Peter needed more. More life to eat up and consume whole and further again, like a line drawn over a wrong equation: Peter was starting over from scratch. No more violence. No more pain. No more seeing blonde hair at every head turn, blue eyes at every shared look.

There was only this and what had yet to be written.

“Shit, Pete,” MJ moaned, out of breath as Peter peppered sloppy kisses down his jaw, “that’s one hell of a first.”

Peter chuckled against his throat.

“No more panicking, then?” MJ went on with a sigh that made every last hair on Peter’s body stand up. He kept on kissing him, focusing on a singing point that jumped beneath his teethー "Oh , that’s a no, okay. That’s good. Pete. Hey.” Peter pulled at the skin and MJ’s noise had to be silenced with a palm. “Pete, tiger, Peter.” Groaning in disappointment, Peter released him, met his drooping eyes. MJ looked wrecked. And that was Peter’s doing. A new warmth was added to the others, etching itself low. “As hot as you look right now, I still have principles.”

Peter popped a smiling kiss on where he had bit MJ. His voice was a rumble when he spoke. “You mean you’re not into dark alleys?”

“I don’t speak for young me,” MJ winked, “but now me would rather take it up someplace warmer. Where’s your place again?”

“Uh.” He racked his empty brain. “Manhattan. Chrystie Street. Around twenty minutes by foot.” Peter closed his mouth over an annoyed pout. If he could just swing…

MJ licked his bottom lip. 

“Between Greenwich and Chrystie Street, what’s your calculation?”

Watching the pink tongue dart back in the very kissable mouth, Peter leant his head against the wall and hooked his fingers to MJ’s belt, tugging him forward only an inch when MJ softly resisted. Right. He was waiting for an answer.

“You’re asking me?” 

“I’m asking the scientist,” MJ taunted. His palms were wide on Peter’s chest.

“Well the scientist says the numbers can get lost,” Peter replied quickly, the contact piercing through his skin, “let’s just flip a coin.”

MJ pointed a finger at his own torso then poked it in Peter’s ab. It made him giggle. “Eenie meenie miney mo aaand you win.”

“That was fast.”

“No time like the present.”

MJ’s palm slid down to Peter’s hand and it found once more its rightful place. A crack of fear pierced through Peter’s elation at this moment, and he resisted the tug that MJ gave his wrist. “Wait, no. Not my place, it’s a complete, total mess, you don’t wanna see it. You. You win.”

MJ raised a brow. “Eenie meenie spoke, Pete.”

“Please.”

So MJ turned away, and if there was any semblance of disappointment on his face, Peter never saw it.

“Sure,” he said, soft and rough all the same like Peter loved him to be. "I win."

For the umpteenth time of the night, Peter was tugged forward.

He ended up, a little less than half an hour later, pressed against the bouncy mattress of MJ’s bed, his thighs tucked under strong hips. He felt like he had just materialized there from thin air. And who was he to say he hadn’t? The last two months had happened in a snap from the moment he’d been brought back to his universe. He might as well have reappeared in a similar but different universe, where everything had worked out exactly the way it was supposed to be. Where he was finally, truly happy. If so, he didn’t ever want to leave. Why leave when he had found the right one?

Peter thanked MJ by dropping kisses on every spot of naked skin he could find.

Thank you, the mole above his brow. Thank you, the specks of red on his eyelids. Thank you, thank you, and hello, you, the dark patch of hair around his navel when MJ pulled his shirt over his head. Holy moly, along the width of his bare torso after Peter sat up, cradling MJ’s waist to stop him from falling backwards.

He was on foreign territory, but strangely there was no panic when old him, three weeks ago him was a struggling mess. Instead he took in the new sensations under his fingertips and buried his face in the torso of this perfect man.

The scent was different too, heavier than a woman’s on his tongue. This he welcomed too. MJ encouraged him by pushing his hair out of his eyes for him. Wrapped Peter’s mane around his fingers.

Pulled.

So this was what it felt like to finally fly.

“You’re alright there, big man?” he heard above him. MJ’s smile was so wide that it stretched Peter’s world. “Looking a lil’ out of it.”

His laugh in Mike’s collarbone was uncontrollable. “‘m turning into a bird.”

“You… what?”

“I’m,” Peter whispered, kissing one pectoral, then the other, “a bird.” He looked up to kiss the tip of MJ’s nose. “Why… ugh. Why’re you asking me if I’m alright, have you looked at you?”

MJ tugged at his hair again. Peter didn’t resist when his chin was forced up, his throat stretched and his Adam’s apple bobbing, begging for a touch.

“I’m drunk,” MJ conceded. “But I’ve wanted this for a while sober, trust me.”

“Really?”

“How many times do I have to…” And MJ groaned before pulling vehemently at Peter’s turtleneck. “Get that off and I’ll show you.”

“Okay,” Peter said.

When the shirt was off, Mike traced the hills of his spine, searing hot trenches under his nails before he went to admire Peter’s body. His eyes were so black that the iris seemed to have been swallowed up. He saw himself in them. His own face, with the same feelings that MJ’s face proudly wore, reflected back at him.

Peter let Mike fall backwards on the bed then, minding the back of his head when it reached the edge, before he climbed on top of him. Their eyes met again when Peter cupped MJ’s jaw. It was a delicious concoction of flight and fall, the clearest thing he’d felt in ten years. MJ smiled devilishly and the next thing Peter knew, his butt was grabbed between two large hands, pressing his lower body down, making his legs tangle in the other man’s legs. Peter hiccuped.

“Jesus , MJ.”

The man’s laugh was exhilarating, and Peter playfully grinded down on him to make him pay somewhat. MJ’s head was pushed further out of the bed. Called to gravity, his locs slid off the sheets as he himself succombed to its invite, offering his throat for more openmouthed kisses as his head hung over the drop一

Peter’s head swam.

“I love it when you call me by my stage name,” was all MJ whispered, his knees closing around Peter’s hips, dragging him down on him.

His vision blurred.

“Yeah?” he heard himself say, but his voice was strangely muffled, like it belonged somewhere else. “Anything else you’d like me to call you?”

A cold shiver ran down his spine. His hands on either side of Mike’s shoulders gripped the end of the sheets. Where their chests met, skin rubbing against skin, Peter had abruptly turned into sandpaper.

MJ’s next words were lost behind the veil of static growing in his ears.

His spider-sense blared.

No, he thought, refusing to look up from MJ’s face. No.

His name came through the noise. It was far away. He latched on to it desperately.

“Peter?”

Two hands came to push the hair out of his eyes.

Stiff as a board, he dropped his head into MJ’s neck, hiding himself there, hoping somehow the guilt wouldn’t find him. He’d learned. He’d grown. He’d healed一

He was healed, right?

“Peter.”

“Yeah?” he breathed out.

“Peter, look at me.”

He teared himself away from the anchor of MJ’s skin and stared into the wide blue eyes of Gwen Stacy.

Everything came to a stop, just then. Time itself froze. His shivers. His breathing. Every noise, from the outside and from the inside, reduced to a thin line on a life monitor.

All the color was drained from her face. Her head, just like MJ's, was thrown back by the lure of the ground, but she stared dead-on at him, with her dry lips parted around a muted cry, and her own tears wet her cheek. Her hair, liquid gold, floated around her head in slow-motion. Wild strands beat against her neck and against her cheek, stretched their end to him, like the necklace around her throat, like her outstretched hand, reaching for his. The dead shine in her blue, unmoving eyes were stuck around a word, a syllable, a prayer: please.

Then blood slowly ran down her nose. Slipped into her mouth. Tainted her teeth with red.

“What’s going on?”

He had been wrong. Time wasn’t frozen. It was turned back.

In his haste, ripping himself away from the naked skin, Peter fell off the bed. The wind was knocked out of him and a noise, a wrecked, wretched excuse of a sob was the only thing that could leave his throat. He scrambled to his feet, pain wrenching through his entire body, reignited, feeling the wounds in his heart tear open again.

“Peter, what theー”

MJ’s voice wasn’t enough to free him from the past. Gasping in pain, Peter picked up the clothes he could find along the way and his backpack before going for the bedroom door that taunted, ajar.

“Wait, no 一! Peter!”

As he ran down the staircase, tears streaming down his chin, Gwen and MJ’s voice chased him like the impossible merge of two realities. He didn’t respond to either.

Chapter Text

Peter spent the weekend, immobile, in his bed.

He slept.

He dreamt.

He woke to use the bathroom, ignored the mirror and its cracks, and went back to bed.

Noise roused him.

Music.

Laughing.

Footsteps making a bit of dust from his ceiling fall, shaking the cobwebs.

His upstairs neighbors had woken with their 7 A.M. alarm. He pushed the earphones deep within his ears and silenced the signs of life with a playlist on shuffle.

He tightened the sheets around him.

He slept.

He dreamt.

The journey to the fridge was slow. The light blinded him when he felt its insides for anything. He sat criss-crossed on the floor. He ate the last of the cold moussaka that Gwen's mother had made until salt filled his mouth. Wiping at his eyes, he pushed back the plate then, and brought his knees up to his chest.

He stayed there for a while.

Then he got up to go back to bed.

On Monday, Peter ditched his costume to ride the subway to Midtown High school. He couldn’t describe the day if he tried. The day simply happened. He was in class, up until he wasn’t, just like the day after, and the day after.

The suit stayed in his closet. A week ago, this might have been comical, an ironic little joke reserved for his inner voice. But today, and yesterday, and tomorrow and the days to come, that joke was just a fact, cold as stainless steel: Spider-Man and Peter Parker couldn’t co-exist. It was either one or the other, never both at the same time. Spider-Man saved New York from a mad man, he lost the Captain. People chanted his title, he lost Gwen.

So, no.

Spider-Man didn’t go out to subdue little crimes in the hideout of the night, because it wasn’t bitterness that moved the man under the mask. Sadness did. Sadness the Petrifier. Lover of lethargy, lenient in its indolence.

While the part of him that wanted to live stayed buried, Peter kept dreaming.

He dreamt that he sat in the front row of velvet chairs. The spectators surrounding him were like duplicatas of each other, every single eye including his own turned to the woman of the operetta. Her red hair shimmered under the lights on the stage. Her voice surged in the air, gaining in intensity when they locked eyes. A hand he didn't control waved for her. The smile she returned fluttered around a trill.

Peter fell into another dream.

A young waitress smiled at him behind the counter. Her broken necklace hung when she leant forward. The name tag on her chest was a scribble in cursive, like she'd purposefully made it hard to read. She looked familiar. When he held out his hand to pay for the coffee, her reaching back, the dream changed once more.

A wedding. He stomped his foot down on the glass. The audience erupted into cheers as it broke.

A kid's room. He narrowed his eyes at the train toy, split in half under his shoe, and fondled his child's head in apology.

Ruins of a collapsed Midtown High. The girl's white mask came off at his pull. Her hair of gold shrouded his eyes as her brow fell against his cheek. She was crying. He was happy she was here.

His outstretched hand dropped against the rubble.

When he left the sheets, Peter was shaking. His forehead was covered in sweat. It darkened the sleeve of his shirt when he wiped at the skin there. More beads were rolling down his back, where his shirt stuck. He needed to change. His closet was half open, and if he looked over, he could see the clean clothes on their hanger. They were a stretch of arm away. Realistically, nothing stopped him from changing.

But the dreams lingered. And this idea, this seed that had already been planted three months ago— the distracting, freeing and so blissfully logical solution that was the multi-verse, started to grow.

Peter grabbed a marker, turned to the white board that took up the length of the wall above his bed, and wrote down the first equation of many.

By all accounts, there was very obvious connection between REM sleep and universe-hopping. For one, both were an in-between; REM sleep required the person to be on the verge of wakefulness without being quite there, while multiverse traveling, according to his calculations and his own experience at least, was a split between matter. Kind of like an Einstein-Rosen bridge situation. But reduced to the scale of a single individual. However, while the dream was a case of thought displacement, hopping between universes was a matter displacement. Which shouldn’t be possible, but against all odds, was, thanks to, mind-boggingly, a sorcerer’s magic.

Magic was real in the universe of the younger Peter, magic had reached into this one universe here, which could only mean two things: either magic could get through universes (where it didn’t exist) in a linear way, like the human experience of time, a simple drive-through, come-and-go situation一 or it did exist in a stagnant state in every single universe unless probed at. Like uranium atoms in a nuclear core. The sorcerer’s spell acted as the neutron, coming to split the magic, causing the matter displacement. That was to say, magic could very well be everywhere, all of the time, even here in Peter’s sorcerer-less universe.

Assuming that number two was the correct one. According to the Quan-Wang theory, matter displacement was also a matter of viewpoint. Ants lived on a scale that differed from humans who lived on a scale that differed from stars, and particles with seemingly definite positions were suddenly capable of movement on the micro or macro levels even though they seemed unmovable on human scale. Like the frame rates of a phone, compared to the frame rate of the screen at a movie theatre. All that was missing was a sequence to make it visible. A sequence that dreams during REM sleep could theoretically unlock.

Now on to the question of practicability. He had no way of replicating magic. It didn’t work like science, with a percentage of improbability too high to take the risk, and besides, he had no teacher to lean to. What he had was a storeroom at the back of a science class and a limited access to the handful of Oscorp products allowed in B2C commercialization. Realistically, he wouldn’t be able to make a universe reactor any time soon. Even less in his shoebox apartment.

He could always get Oscorp to hire him. No company refused the free labor of an unpaid intern. He could get in there, work his way up as an assistant, get under the wing of the scientist in charge of the matter displacement branch, and on the side, whenever he had the chance, snag what he could and一

What the hell was he doing.

Peter stared at the board without seeing it.

Outside, it was night once more. Another day. Which day, he didn’t know.

What the hell was he thinking?

Travel to another universe? To join another Gwen, one that hadn’t died, maybe steal the place of an other version of him like some mad scientist? Like Dr Connors ? Like Harry?

Disgust made Peter stagger. He ran a hand across his face, forcing his thumbs into his eyes and pressing in like he could scrape the horrible thoughts off the skin of his lids. This was wrong. Worse, this was selfish, cowardly, and ill-intended. It went against the very thing that Ben had himself given his life for, the thing that took Peter months to fully understand; the thing that took only a second to crumble and ten excruciating years to be amateurishly stitched back together.

Responsability for his actions. The consequences they inflicted on others. Facing, and fixing, his mess.

But that was what Peter did, wasn’t it. What he’d always done. Promise one thing and then suffer from the whiplash of his own contradiction. Let people in only to push them away when it became too much, too risky, too perfect. The stars, aligned just this once. The universe replying to him. Giving it all to him, on a silver platter. And somehow, his mind still said no. His mind still said no. His mind still said no.

The marker in his hand broke.

Deep under the raw skin, the urge to flee scratched at his nerves.

He wore his hood up when he left through his window, scaling the outside wall of his apartment block by the tip of his fingers until he reached the rooftop.

He took a run-up. The parapet was hit under his sole. His feet left the tar. A few seconds of floating. Blissful weightlessness. Little mattered then. Only the whispering wind in his ear, and the promise of a fall.

The bricks of the neighboring building slammed into him, and he climbed that too right away and chased the end of this one roof to jump off again. And on and on. Time whirled past. Soon enough, long story, he caught himself on a window of the skyscraper. His eyes met his eyes in the glass, darkened by the shadow of his hood. He looked lost. He looked old. He looked away, stood up at the ninety degrees angle on the window, his only salvation the gift of a radioactive spider, and walked into a run, up the building.

The antenna at the very top was easily climbed. There, on its tip, he perched himself, his hands between his open knees on the metal, and he pushed the hood down.

He hadn’t been on the Empire State Building in a long while. Ever since he’d gotten back to his universe. In the past, it used to be a routine, an almost every-day occurrence, like a secret affair between him and the view. He went there to conclude  his Spider-Man patrols. As though to check if everything was alright with the city, if it could go to sleep soundly, knowing deep down that he never really slept.

The night stared back at him. He didn’t know what day it was since that night with MJ. Maybe it was a week. Maybe less. Somehow, in this infinite amount of time, New York hadn’t changed. The same lights shone below him, the same streets, the same arteries, the same people he knew inside out ever since he was a kid, four-eyed and awkward on his feet. It was still this whirlwind of millions of different lives, emotions bumping and tangling, people heckling each other, flipping the bird, making up, partying and coming up with new discoveries that would change the world someday, realizing incredible, beautiful things about themselves一 helping out their neighbor. Falling in love. Holding each other’s hand, like nothing could make them let go. Kissing the palm. Kissing the back. Kissing up the arm, up the neck, meeting them on the lips. All of this, the people and their multitude of lives, was why Peter had fallen in love with this city. Why he would never stop loving it. New York was a sanctuary of certainty in a world of constant change.

The only thing that did change was Peter. But then, he didn’t really, did he? He just looped back to square one.

Washing his bones, the cold penetrated under his hoodie. Slowly, the lethargy trickled down his fingertips with the mist of the low clouds. Only the crazed panic that had overwhelmed him in front of the white board stayed, but this time it was shrunken, controlled, conscious. The wind had always been a friend.

A moment passed.

Silence.

So.

What the hell was he supposed to do now?

Gravity called his eye. He watched the enticing drop, remembering the amount of times he had jumped from this exact spot and had counted in his head the seconds before reality finally set in ー one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight seconds, the longests of his life. Hearing the snap of her spine. The crack of her skull. Cradling the back of her head between his gloved hands, seeing them come back this darker, impossible red. He remembered carrying her to the hospital. Limp body, weightless and so heavy in his arms. He’d screamed for help in the middle of the doctors and nurses and let her be taken away in a bodybag.

Peter dropped his head onto his knee and closed his eyes.

It was awful, and he knew it, and he beat himself up over it, but his memories of Gwen were starting to blur. When he saw her at the corner of his eye, when he thought he saw a flash of her blonde hair in a passer-by, or when the lines of MJ’s face became hers, he only saw the dead girl. If he didn’t have the pictures of her in his computer, he didn’t think he could remember her smile. And maybe that was why he ran from MJ, he thought. Maybe if he had actually stayed with him and let him in, allowed himself to grieve and move on, maybe then, even Gwen’s ghost would vanish just like her smile.

Remembering her dead was better than not remembering her at all.

No, it wasn’t.

The breeze on his face made him tear his cheek from his jeans.

No, it wasn’t, and you’re a complete idiot for thinking that.

The wind murmured. Its voice was calm and low, assertive. Familiar. It brought color to the tip of his nose and brushed away the tears at his corner of his eyes.

Gwen certainly wouldn’t want any of it. In fact, he was pretty sure that she would throw his ass to the curb if she even heard the rumor that he was purposefully sabotaging his life for her. So would Michael James, actually. Deservedly so.

Finally some goddamn sense, tiger.

This was a lesson that had been pushed onto him so many times, by so many people一 Ben, and May, and Gwen, and those terrorized car thieves he’d stopped two months ago, and the distrustful innocents he wanted to save who remembered what he started off as, what he grew to become, what he tried so so hard to make amends for… you keep doing the right thing. You stay kind. Because every time you get up, you’re going to be thankful that you did, and you’re going to be stronger because of it.

Oh, shit.

He needed to apologize to MJ.

Peter pushed against the metal of the antenna, looking for the last time down to the streets a hundred and so stories below. The ground closed in in his vision, spinning, dizzying him, like a severe case of vertigo. His hand threatened to slip, his knees shook, his breaths were short. It came to him, after ten years, that he did not want to die.

“Okay,” he told himself on top of the seventh tallest building of New York City, where no one could see or hear him except for the boldest pigeons, “okay, Peter. So you got maybe sixty two percent of your crap together. Now what?”

Now he was going to go home, take a shower, plead his case as guilty and hope for forgiveness.

Now, he was going to do the right thing.

Peter slapped his hands on his face and slowly slid them down, pulling at the skin with a long sigh. Then, fixing his hood back on his head, he stood up straight on the antenna. He took a step forward. His web was shot well before the eight seconds the journey took to the ground.

The first thing Peter saw as he climbed back through his window was the state of his chock-full apartment.

The first thing Peter heard was the insistent pounding on his door.

“Peter! Please, it’s me! It’s Mike!”

He froze immediately, one leg in the air, half inside his apartment.

No. No, no, no, this wasn’t supposed to happen.

He was supposed to go to him, and explain everything, in his own time, in his own way. It wasn’t supposed to be pushed on him like that! It was supposed to be perfect!

Shutting down was easy. He wasn’t even fully inside his place. In a flash, he saw the list of all his options go by: pretending being out on a night run, faking having lost his phone, hiding in his closet until the coast was clear, taking an airplane with his savings money and leaving the country, having a panic attack, laying down on the ground, and dying.

“Please, I know you’re in there. Please, man. Please, Peter, just open up.”

Peter noiselessly swung the rest of his body inside and closed his window. He took off his hood, pulled down his sleeve to cover his webshooter. Pushed with his foot a pile of books on the floor to make a wider path to the door.

The when, the where, the how, they didn’t matter.

He was going to do the right thing.

All pretense of courage left his body when he twisted the handle and opened the door to Michael James’ face.

He didn’t look well. Eyebags, dark and heavy, sat under his long lashes. His lids, usually full of life with colors, were naked, and his black and red hair was trapped in a low bun, a few of the wilder locs framing his cheeks, making them hollow. He regarded Peter with a long and silent look, unwavering. Stronger than it had ever been, the smell of cigarette ash oozed off him.

Peter was the cause of this, and he hated himself for it.

Before he could speak, MJ’s hand shot up and reduced him to silence.

So, Peter closed his mouth, and stared, mouth quivering around broken promises and agonizing responsabilities, as Mike’s throat worked around a ball of saliva, as his gaze searched Peter’s face; Peter’s chafed lips, his rough cheeks, his red nose and his weary, waiting eyes.

Tinnitus deafened him. Again, that veil from the past was calling. Peter fought against it to remain present.

MJ, in this low, gravely, relieved and repulsed voice, spoke and said that he thought that Peter had been dead, and Peter shrunk .

“I’m sorry.”

MJ asked him if he had any idea how hurt he was.

“I’m…”

The veil tore. His ears popped. Sound rushed to Peter’s ears all at once with Mike’s reply.

“No. No, you…” Peter watched him struggle around the words, in a very non-MJ way, because the MJ he knew always knew what to say, he could always pick the right words, with the right tone, with the right people. He didn’t hesitate. Peter had caused this. “Can you let me in?”

Peter broke the stare to look off behind him. His nod was small, almost invisible.

“Yeah,” he breathed out.

He moved aside.

MJ’s first steps into Peter’s apartment were timid. He didn’t seem to know exactly where he could and should walk, so he just stood in the one spot on the floor that wasn’t covered by papers, clothes and post-its, arms crossed over his torso like they were a shield. Once the door was closed, Peter turned around, then he too, just stood there. Petrified.

He exhaled.

“How d’you, huh…” He paused to give his hands the chance to stop shaking. “How d’you figure out where I live?”

Jaw clenched, MJ was looking around now. A shadow passed over his face when he took in the impossible equations on the board, marking it more black than white.

“Eugene Thompson,” he replied, eyes locked on the zeroes and the hundreds. “He gave me your aunt’s phone number.”

Peter’s mouth felt dry. “You called aunt May?”

MJ tore his eyes off the board to look at him. “I called aunt May,” he replied. “She was sweet. Worried. Apparently, you always go to hers at least once a week to grade papers and eat meatloaf.”

Peter’s smile at this was fast and weak. “I do.”

“So, yeah. She gave me your address. Now I’m here. Asking for an explanation.” Again, he turned to the rest of the room: to the white board, to Peter’s unmade bed, to his sagging shelves too high to reach for a normal-sized person, to his brimmed closet, to the unwalkable floor. The two people on his open laptop, one yellow, the other red. “But I think I’m starting to get it now.”

“This is exactly what it looks like,” Peter said softly. “I’m sorry.”

MJ looked on and took the apology in. He didn’t correct him this time.

Silence built around them in a fog of everything that wasn’t said that pulled Peter  apart at the seams. He wanted to say sorry again, a million times and over. But MJ spoke up first.

“It’s been a…”

He paused.

Breathed out.

Opened his mouth again, and this time, didn’t stop.

“It’s been a shitty week, you know that? And on top of that it’s been a long fucking one. It’s just been me staring at my phone and hoping you’d pick up my calls or reply to my texts and thinking that just like that in two seconds nothing between us had ever mattered and I would never see you again. I think that was the plan, wasn’t it? To never see me again? Because if it wasn’t surely you’d have given me a sign or somethin’, a single sorry would’ve sufficed, or, like, we’re done, I’m tough, I can handle a no, I can…

“I have issues with abandonment. Parent issues or whatever. I’ve done enough self-reflection for a life time but uh, I think it’s important you realize that. Because it’s important that you understand why it’s… hurt me the way it did, when you left. I mean it would’ve hurt anyone honestly, but, it still sent me spiraling and shit. Like I was fucking thirteen again. I didn’t want to ever be thirteen again.” MJ’s voice split apart at the last sentence. He brushed at his eyes furiously. “For real, it’s nothing to be sad about. I was never kicked out by my father. Never been hit or anything like that. Not even when I had to come out to him, even though I really thought he would, ‘cuz he just had this look, like, you’re a fuck-up and I’ve always known, I’ve only got just now the proof. No, I need to hear me out and I need you to understand,” he said sharply, raising his hand again when Peter’s eyebrows knitted themselves together in sympathy and his mouth opened in apology一 so Peter stayed stuck by the door and kept quiet, as MJ gasped around his next words: “it took me years to rebuild my self-esteem and my confidence and just all around to build myself back up and stand, finally, fucking proud, and I refuse to let anyone try and do that again. Not even you. Especially not you. And you know I said I liked you, and I really do, Pete, but I don’t love you to the point you can do me like that. You get that? Peter?” MJ’s eyes shone. Sadness and anger mixed. “You get that? ”

“I get that,” he replied. “I didn’t mean to leave一”

“But you left!”

“I did一”

“And I don’t get a message for a whole fuckin’ week, and I start thinking, maybe Peter got ran over by a car, or maybe he got jumped again and left for dead in a park at three A.M., or maybe he’s just ghosting me period while I’m crying over maybe nothing ‘cuz maybe you don’t actually give a shit, and you never gave a shit, and I’m thirteen in my bed and my mom’s decided to quit on us on a fuckin’ Wednesday night… ”

MJ broke down.

Peter’s feet moved on their own accord. His hand brushed against his cheek, not quite touching it, just tentative, asking... Against all odds, MJ leaned in to his palm. His swollen eyes were sewn shut as the tears fell. His two hands nuzzling his cheeks, Peter collected every drop, reverential, and he murmured apologies with their foreheads pressed against each other. MJ’s fists squeezed his hoodie at his shoulder blades, twisting the fabric and pinching the skin underneath. It was the type of crying that was a long time coming. The type of crying that came from deep within. It was ugly.

Then, MJ pushed Peter away, and Peter released him, and the moment was over.

“You’re cold,” he said forcefully, eyes red but harsh, “and you smell. Go take a fucking shower.”

Peter only looked back, glassy-eyed.

“You’re making me feel bad about you when it should be the other way around, just go.”

He was turned away and tapping his sleeves against his eyes when Peter gave him a last look before locking himself in the bathroom.

He put the webshooter down on the sink and stripped. Hot water warmed up his body. He was careful to wash away the sweat that had accumulated over the last few days locked in. It cleared his head like the wind had. When he got out, condensation tinting the mirror, he let the guilty tears flow down the sink, then grabbed the towel to dry his face and wrapped it around his waist.

“Mike?” he called out. “I’m gonna have to come out.”

MJ’s voice rose, faint but, thankfully, still here. He had had in total six minutes to walk out that he didn’t use. “We all knew.”

“Whー sure, that too, uh, I just gotta grab something to wear.”

“Oh. Well. It’s your crib. Don’t mind me.”

He was standing in front of the white board when Peter tiptoed back in the room. He didn’t turn around to look at Peter, who was not sure to take this as a good or as a bad sign, so Peter just quickly slid on jogging pants and an old skate t-shirt.

He took a breath in.

MJ’s eyes were still blood-shot, but he wasn’t crying anymore. The tension of his jaw remained there along with his closed left fist that hung by his thigh. He was unpredictable like that; clearly fuming, but somehow still here, when it was so easy to run. It was remarkable. It was scary. It was painful, because Peter knew it meant they had to talk.

Peter wasn’t a talker. He said I love you the same way he breathed, but he couldn’t explain why he felt the way he did. Showing was much more simple. Gifting was even better. But words?

Words couldn’t be taken back.

He came by MJ’s side and followed where his gaze wandered.

“You’ve invented half of these, right?” The man’s finger traced over a vinculum. “Like this is… I understand some of it. I know this is a division,” he said, before brushing against a different part of the board, “and I’m pretty sure that’s vector calculus, but…” His hand dropped to his side. “That’s how far as I can read this.”

Peter’s throat was tight. It was intimidating, to let MJ this far into his head. But it could become freeing as well. If he let it be.

“That’s a Schwarzschild radius,” he gently explained. “And over here, it’s… algebraic geometry. Coupled with a Feynman diagram for clarity. It’s basically space and time science.”

“It’s insane,” MJ said. His teeth were gritted yet there was no meanness to his tone. It had been a normal, detached observation.

“Yeah, it is,” Peter exhaled, relief and tension entangling in his nerves.

“Why d’you even write all this?”

The crack of a glass under a chuppah echoed in his ears as though he had heard it with his own. Somewhere, in another universe, the green eyes of a beautiful red-headed woman always were the last thing he saw before he fell asleep.

“Because I had a dream that I was happy,” Peter replied, and the jealousy he had felt was now shame. The emotion was probably palpable because MJ looked at him for the first time since Peter had left the bathroom. “And I wanted to get back to that.”

MJ’s eyebrows went up. “You tried to invent time travel because of a dream?”

Peter had sworn honesty.

“Yes.”

“Damn. Must have been a hell of a good dream.” Mike turned back to the board. “What was in it?”

Complete honesty.

“A woman. And a man. Me. Or not really. An other me. With a whole other life where everything made sense. There was a wedding, and there was a kid, and there was..." He swallowed. "Gwen. I was the one dying and she was guiding me through it. I see her sometimes when I'm awake, when I least expect her to… to be here. It’s mostly just a flash, from just, the corner of my eye, and I get these, these, these moments where time stills and I feel like I’m falling. A big, long drop. Just, falling, forever. And then time starts again and I’m coming back to life. But other times, when I see her, and she’s right in front of me, and she’s looking at me, right at me, I feel like I’m…” The words weren’t easy. But they need out. “I feel like I’ve already touched the ground. I feel like I’m dead.”

MJ’s eyes were wide. Serious.

“You saw her in my room, didn’t you.”

It wasn’t a question.

“I panicked. I’m sorry.”

“Jesus.”

“I’m sorry.”

MJ’s head was shaking from left to right. “How… what happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“How did it get this bad? How did Gwen… how did it happen?”

Peter swallowed. “It’s… honesty?”

“Not if it comes at too big of a cost.”

“It’s fine.”

“Is it?”

“Yes,” Peter said quietly, and he pushed more papers on the floor to sit on his bed. “Wanna…?”

MJ took his place next to him.

Peter started to talk.

It was dawn when he finished. The soft amber of the sun licked at their heels, as they had retreated further into the mattress until their back touched the wall and only their feet poked out for the monster under the bed to grab. At one point, Peter didn’t know why, but MJ had taken his hand. It was to let his fingertips wander across the length of Peter’s skin, up and down, sideways, up again, as he listened. Sometimes, he squeezed Peter’s thumb to let him know he was going to ask a question. Peter could feel the gears turning in MJ’s head, hear his heart drumming against his ribcage. Most of the sadness had vanished from his features, though the anger remained, low and quiet. It stitched his eyebrows together and kept his mouth tight-lipped, locked against the remarks that most likely threatened to spill.

Mike was a stronger person than Peter if he still accepted to hear him out in spite of the pain he’d caused.

Peter told him that exactly.

Brushing a nail between Peter’s fingers, MJ shrugged.

“Just ‘cause I’m hurt doesn’t mean you aren’t.”

He was such a good person.

His heart heavy, Peter took Mike’s hand into his other hand and closed them with him in between, like a locket.

“I didn’t mean to go,” he repeated, because he needed this known. “I just didn’t know what else to do.”

Something in MJ’s eyes told him that he knew.

Only, he didn’t understand it.

“That’s not how it works,” MJ said. “That’s not how relationships work. You don’t run and leave the other stranded behind. You work it out together.”

“Are we together?” he asked before he could think.

“No, Peter. We’re not.” The sting made his jaw ache. He nodded anyway. “Relationships are balanced. Good ones. The ones that last, at least. I mean I don’t know anything, I’ve never had one that’s lasted more than a year, or one that wasn’t mutually destructive, or one that… you know. Was worth staying. Worth staying the night. Or worth coming back for. Hey, maybe that’s why I’m here now. Because I wanted to see if we were worth it.”

“Are we worth it?”

“I don’t know. I still feel there’s something you’re not telling me. Some big thing that might make the whole thing tip over.”

Even though Peter Parker could open his heart, Spider-Man still was the ultimate taboo. The first and the last of his fears. All that knew that the two were one were gone.

Peter released his hand. In spite of the choice given to him, MJ kept his grip on Peter’s wrist. Then his hand slid up his arm, to come to the back of Peter’s head. It gently lured him to his lap. Peter let himself fall, cheek against the man’s thigh. Soft fingers ruffled his hair gently.

"What did you do after I left?" he asked, his voice muffled by the position.

The hand in his hair stilled a second, before resuming the caress. "Complete honesty?" 

"Complete honesty."

“I tried to go after you. But to be honest, you ran so fast that once you left the building you could’ve just as well shot up to the sky, I wouldn’t have been able to keep up. So I went back in, I cried, I punched a pillow, I opened Grindr and I called up a guy.”

“Oh.”

“Couldn’t get through with it, though.” MJ shifted under him, so Peter raised his head a few seconds so he could sit more comfortably. “ teddybear069 wasn’t my type.”

“I’m surprised,” Peter croaked out. The fingers on his skull pushed him inside MJ’s thigh as though to punish the bad joke.

“Yeah, well,” MJ said, non-committal, “I’d be even more honest if I admitted that I had never deleted the dating apps the entire time you and I were talking. I didn’t open them, just… knowing that I had that option available was good enough for me. Hey, you know,” MJ swallowed, and Peter knew that whatever he would say next would be costly, “my father never kicked me out. He could’ve, but I don’t know why, he kept me around. He just made me feel unwanted. And in a way, I kind of was, I mean, I don't think I ever was a love child. My mother left the moment he got physical. I don't blame her. I just… wish she'd taken me with her. Or, came up to my bed that night, and just… asked me. If I wanted to go or stay. So. Having options always felt like the good call. Entertains the idea of freedom, I guess.”

“Do you still have them?”

“Mmh?”

“Grindr and the一 the dating apps.”

“Are you trying to hurt yourself through me, Pete?”

“Maybe a little.”

“I do.”

“Okay.”

MJ’s fingers massaged his skull, making his eyes close like heavy weights were attached to his lashes. It felt nice. It felt like learning how to live again, just a little bit, even through the needed pain of the conversation.

“Maybe I wanted you to hurt too when I said that,” MJ breathed. “You don’t deserve it. Honesty can be a bitch.”

“I do deserve it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck…”

Peter could feel the anger, seeping white hot from Mike, but this time, it was directed at the general broadness of everything . Which was fair. Peter had beef with the universe too.

He moved to his back to look up at Mike from his lap.

“I was going to go back for you, you know,” he said. “The moment you knocked.”

MJ smiled down to him. He brushed one of Peter’s hair strand away from his eyes. “Isn’t that cute.”

“The stars align, sometimes.”

“Don’t tell me you’re a horoscope guy.”

“I’m a Leo.”

“Leo, of course. Arrogancy and self-centeredness.”

“Warmth,” Peter tried. “Care.”

“Chivalry,” MJ conceded. “Hopeless romanticism.”

“Is that so? I’m a romantic?”

MJ’s smile faded. “Stubbornness.”

“I thought that was Tauruses.”

“Shut it. You’re stubborn. You should’ve listened to me.”

“About what?”

“When I told you to find your family, that day I introduced you to the band. I told you my family was Eli, and Wendy, Johnny and Ethan. I asked you what yours was and you couldn’t reply. Now look at you.” MJ’s fingers tapped at Peter’s temple, like he was checking if the mic was still on. “I love messes, but this is…”

Peter softly took the fingers to his lips and kissed the tips. “I found you, didn’t I?”

“Oh, Pete…”

“I found you,” Peter repeated louder, because he needed MJ not only to know but to understand, “and before you, I had my aunt. And after that, I had Gwen. And I had Eugene Thompson. Who… left a promising future at Dakota State to go to Empire State uni with me just because he was scared for me. He forced me to enroll, you know. I wouldn’t have a diploma without him. I wouldn’t have you with me right now without him. Oh, crap. God. I need to text him.”

“I have his number,” MJ offered helpfully.

“I’ll ask you again later.” Another kiss, to the knuckles this time, and he didn’t miss the way Mike shook a little. “Now, I have you, and your friends, who are my friends now too, and I have Gwen’s family and I have the kids at Midtown High that I can’t wait to see evolve like… little Pokémons...”

A laugh. Astounded. “Pokémons?”

“There’s rare ones in the bunch that I can already see going far, you know. I’ve got my eye set on a few.”

That laugh, again. Affectionate. “You’re such a nerd.”

“I’ve always had a family. I was just too lost to see it.”

The sound of lips softly pressed against skin was the only thing filling the comfortable silence that set in. It was another long moment before Peter spoke up.

“But I don’t think I’m healed. Actually I don’t think I’ll ever be healed, and I don’t think that’s possible to, to move on from… I can try , and I can get better, but… I’ll never be fully… I’m stuck, MJ. I need help.”

A noise above him startled him. He looked behind Mike’s fingers, off to his face, half-shrouded behind his free locs. There, new tears rolled. Speechless, Peter dropped MJ’s hand to leave his lap and cradle his cheek, kneeling on the mattress next to his hips. MJ’s smile was shining underneath the stream.

“You have no idea how good it is to hear you say it, Peter, I’m proud of you.”

Air rushed out of him.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Yeah,” MJ replied, so softly it could have been the wind. “And you can work out the rest, but I already have an idea on the first thing that could help.”

Peter tilted his head to the side, looking into the wet and wide and wonderful eyes of Michael James. “Yeah?”

MJ leaned in. His lips left a mark on Peter’s forehead.

“Let’s start by cleaning this place up, okay?”

Peter and MJ spent the morning, running around, in the studio flat.

Everything that should be thrown out was put in a plastic bag, and everything that needed to be cleaned got put in another. Peter’s bed sheets were thrown in there along with all the clothes on the floor and the bathroom rugs. They put all the books that had no designated spot in the bookshelves in a neat, rising pile underneath the white board. Peter worked with the broom, MJ with the sponge. They shook their dust-cloth out the window. A file box was found by Mike in the drawer of the desk, and he sorted each of the flying papers he could find in there. Peter insisted on putting them in the plastic bag but the more reasonable man refused, arguing that maybe he would need them in the future.

Peter was starting to see the advantage of having options.

The window stayed open to make the air circulate. The cold of February joined them, drying away what remained of the wet on their cheeks. One elbow propped on the sill, MJ searched his pockets for a cigarette, then decided otherwise, and instead turned around to find Peter standing by the white board.

It had been wiped clean. The old cloth that had been used was still in Peter’s fist, more black than its original color. Peter met MJ’s stare. It was neither approval nor disapproval that he saw in it; simply acceptance, emphasized by a sharp nod.

Alright.

Looping back to square one. Only, smarter this time.

“I wanna keep seeing you,” Peter said when they both sat down on the bare bed, breathing in the cool of the ordered space, “and I wanna do it right this time. I want to make it up to you, so, so much.”

“I wanna keep seeing you too,” MJ replied. Peter’s throat closed in at the idea of redemption, even for one thing out of thousands. “I’m just going to make you promise two things.”

“Anything,” Peter instantly said. He took MJ’s cheek in his hand. “Anything.”

Leaning in to the touch, MJ smiled. “Alright. Promise number one. You talk to me when something’s wrong. You don’t keep to yourself, you don’t hide that you’re not well, you don’t run. You stay put. And we talk it out. I’d rather have you have a panic attack at my place than on the streets alone.”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Promise number two.” MJ had lost his smile. He was all serious now, eyes back to charcoal and brow arched. Peter felt his heartbeat rise up. If he was going to make Peter promise to share his one, last secret; his one part of him that he couldn’t give up just yet… “You’re still a photographer, right? I saw the analog camera while we were tidying things up. I’m gonna need your help on one thing in a few weeks, and you can’t say no.”

Oh.

Peter could work with that.

He licked his lips in excitation and MJ must have noticed it because his brow arched higher, like a taunt, while a wicked hot smile stretched his lips. It was the kind of smile that was a warning. The kind that said, I know things you don’t, I have things you want, and trust I will use it all against you.

Fine by Peter. The one thing he asked for was for someone else for once to take the reins and lead him to destination.

“In a few weeks, though,” MJ dropped as he shifted away from Peter’s hand, looking at his own nails as though he didn’t actually care. “Maybe next month. After I’m persuaded to delete the apps from my phone.”

“You want me to win you over?”

MJ’s evasive shrug was the devilish answer.

Fine by Peter. The one other thing he asked was a fight worth something.

They took out the bag of garbage together and left the dirty clothes in the laundromat down the street. They watched Peter’s bed sheets swirl in the washer and the sun rise outside.

“You can delete them now”, Peter said while he was leant against the glass window of the laundromat, MJ blowing smoke into the sky.

“Jealous?” MJ said.

“Very,” he replied. “If you want me to be serious about us then so should you.”

MJ’s smile could eat up the world.

“I was waiting for this. Okay. I’ll do it.”

“Now?”

“Yes, tiger. Now.”

He pulled his phone out and in a few swipes, it was done.

“Oh, and here’s Eugene’s new number. Apparently, in his words, he… misses you.”

Peter sighed. “I’m such an idiot.”

“Nah,” MJ said, blowing in Peter’s face as a punishment, “you’re traumatized. He’ll understand.”

“Trauma’s a big word,” Peter argued.

He yielded to Mike’s glare.

“He’ll understand. Like I do.”

“I don’t deserve you.”

“Shut that up.”

Peter kissed MJ’s cheek, then went back in the Laundromat to check on his laundry.

They each went their way. MJ had to catch some sleep before his afternoon shift, and Peter had a morning class to teach. The moment he arrived home, he crashed on his bed, and slept.

The dreams stayed dreams. If they were more than that, then, he was happy for his loved other selves. But if they were indeed dreams一 alluring, easy dreams to get lost into一 they wouldn't be at the cost of his own life.

Still...

Dreaming of MJ's smile, charcoal eyes and strong thighs was a band-aid to Peter's soul.

Chapter Text

Eugene Thompson’s hair had grown. Gone was the buzzcut from high school mandated by his old man, he now sported a proud, carefully styled, gelled-to-the-side Ivy League cut that could surely impress more than one woman. Everything about his appearance screamed ex - jock, from his Empire State uni vest to his tight blue jeans, the dog tags around his neck, the Belleville boots, the bouncy walk, the way he so good-naturedly lifted a hand from his vest’s deep pockets to wave at Peter, beaming brightly like not a day had gone by.

For a moment, Peter was kicked back to high school, the hallway splitting in front of Flash and his clique as the girls around him clutched their books to their chests and said to each other you think he’s coming over to us? in antsy whispers. Peter preferred back then to keep his head down and fake rummaging in his locker, until Gwen made the two of them bury the hatchet, until he himself surprised himself by thinking, just like the girls full of hope and raging hormones, you think he’s coming over to me?. As a matter of fact, yes, Flash liked to sling an arm around Peter’s shoulders, crush him to his torso and use his fist to rub at Peter’s skull and holy fridge I am friends with Eugene “Flash” Thompson.

“Paaaaarker!” he sang, his arm still pointed to the sky like a flagpole and Peter awkwardly slapped his palm against his. “What’ve you been up to, man? Looking fresh! ”

Peter only had the time to say “oh wow” before he was suddenly squeezed against a chest almost twice as wide as he was. He patted Flash’s back as the man rocked them from shoe to shoe, and he swore he could hear a short sob before Flash pulled away, slapping Peter’s shoulder one last time for good measure and leaving his hand there. He was then admired from head to toe and tried not to feel shy under the jovial and strangely wet eye of his old high school bully.

“Looking fresh,” Flash repeated with a nod to himself. “I missed you, Parker.”

“That’s what Michael James said,” Peter replied with a short incredulous laugh.

Flash’s nodding became frantic. “Oh, he’s a smart guy that one. Lots of grey matter in his head. When he texted me about you, oh, I was so happyー and scared, yeah, obviously, because like, what the hell was that whole ghosting thing, man? Not cool. Oh and then you texted me and I texted you back and we planned this whole mini high school reunion and… phew. Look at us. Look at you.” He took a step back, arms stretched like a measuring tape, and then laughed like a madman. “I missed you, Parker!”

Peter, who had been anxiously messing with his own hair, felt like he was losing his mind. “That’s what you said, yeah!”

“Yeah!”  

Flash laughed even harder then went back to crushing Peter against him.

Oh, right. That was why Flash had been one of his best high school friends after being the worst person he thought could exist.

He too wore his heart on his sleeve.

As they walked through the park, headed for a coffee shop nearby, Flash started a monologue on how his life had been ever since Peter had fallen out of it. It turned out that after pocketing his university diploma, he had turned to the army and had climbed the ladder to the rank of Captain of his squad. An injury, like many others of this profession, was what made him return to civilian life, and he had been living in New York for four years now with his wife and hisー

“You have a what? ”

“A daughter. The light of my life, Ashley Thompson. Oh, I have pictures!”

Peter almost choked on his donut as Flash swiped through the hundreds of photographs. Most of them had a thumb shadowing the upper right of the frame, and almost all were blurry, but Flash’s love was so transparent that Peter leaned in and listened to the story behind every one of them.

It came to Peter, in the coffee shop they sat at, with their knees banging against each other and Flash’s hand excitedly squeezing his shoulder every now and then as though to keep his attention on the balloon-cheeked blonde little creature in his phone, that he should have realized way sooner that he didn’t only swing one way.

“I mean, I always knew I wanted to be a dad, like, and dress my kid up and do my kid’s hair and throw a ball around with her, or with him, and honestly, man… I’m fulfilled! She’s so bad at catching anything I throw at herー yet!ー but we’ll build that hand-hand coordination.”

“Hand-eye,” Peter corrected in a mumble like he was in a trance or more like, overwhelmed by the infodump that was Flash’s wife and Flash’s three-year-old child and his old embarrassing crush on Flash on all the people he could’ve chosen, like, what and why the hell?

Flash nodded. “Hand-eye”, he repeated as though Peter had offered him the gift of wisdom. “You haven’t changed. You’re still… so smart, man. So, so smart.”

“Oh, hum.” Peter ruffled his hair again. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Flash replied very seriously. “Watson told me you were like a scientist or something now, but I’ll be honest, I kind of forgot how much you were like that. I missed that from you. Oh, wait, I don’t remember, but did you tell me back in Midtown High or maybe in Empire State that you were a queer?”

Peter didn’t almost choke on his donut this time; it straight up wedged itself into his windpipe and it took Flash to patiently hit at his back to dislodge it. Once he’d spat it out in a napkin, Peter made the time-out gesture and wheezed.

“That’s…” he said, coughing a little bit more, “that’s inappropriate, Flash. Very…  oof. Code red, man. Crimson.”

“Oh, I can’t ask that?” Flash asked earnestly.

“No, you can,” Peter backtracked, and he was sure his cheeks were tomato-colored, but also he just couldn’t believe he was having this conversation with Flash ‘Meathead’ Thompson. “I mean, I… am… bisexual?” A pause. Peter shook himself. “Yes. I am. I’m queer. Just, dude, don’t go around asking random people that, like that . It’s not… it’s not fly.”

“Okay, cool.” Flash grinned at Peter and slapped his hand on his shoulder again. Peter was sure he was going to be bruised the day after. “It’s cool, by the way. I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks,” Peter said, absolutely stupefied. “I’m proud of you… too?”

“So how’s it been dating Empire State’s hottest shot?” He had to have noticed Peter’s saucer-wide eyes because he added: “Watson’s a legend, man. There was a rumor in second year that he was secretly a mermaid, but y’know, not the mean mermaids that kill people, the sexy mermaids like from that one kid’s movie.”

“...The Little Mermaid?”

Flash snapped his fingers. “That’s right. I think it was the singing and the body and everything. I mean I’m not gay, but like, even I could tell he had, how’d you say that, a magnet? Like people were drawn to him.”

“Charisma.”

“Uh-huh. Words, man. Anyways, yeah, you remember the parties at the Zeta frat? Ah wait, no, sorry. You didn’t go. Well, Watson used to go there, and I saved his ass so many times from alcohol poisoning that he ended up giving me his number just so he could be sure to have a semi-sober dude to hold his hair. Man, people loved him at those parties. He didn’t even have to bring anything, he had an invitation all year long like it was a Disneyworld fast pass. It wasn’t even because he drew in the chicks, no, I think it was just because he was nice. Like he was an actual good guy. And the other guys, I think they looked up to that. They always surrounded him and asked him questions, like, d’you think this girl’s into me or nah, or, I’m thinking of switching majors and like, I know because I did that too. I don’t think he remembers it, ‘cuz, you know, it was almost ten years ago but, I asked him a few questions for you.”

Peter’s heart jumped at that.

“What did you ask?” he asked softly.

Flash looked suddenly sheepish. “Oh, y’know, just random stuff. Stuff about the sad thoughts you had, to cure ‘em. You know. You know. ”

Gwen’s name hung in the air, unspoken but always present, always watching, a little angel on Peter’s shoulder.

“It helped,” Peter said. “I’m better now.”

Hope passed over Flash’s face. It forced a crease between his brows and tiny lines at the corner of his eyes into existence. He looked older than he was then, as though the effects the army had on him were finally showing… or maybe it was just Gwen and the brutal disappearance of his two closest school friends in such a short timespan. “Watson helped?” he asked, expectant. 

It made Peter feel like crap for a moment, because Flash himself had tried to help Peter in a time where he didn’t want to hear anything from anyone. And instead, it was Mike that was pulling him out of hell, out of his bed every morning, he who made him eat breakfast, who kissed his cheek three times a week before he left for his morning classes; he who he got to hold close to him. It was MJ that was saving Peter, not Flash. No matter how hard Flash had tried.

One look at the hope on the man’s face erased the guilt off of Peter’s mind. Because if Flash hadn’t been there, if he hadn’t attended these frat parties, he wouldn’t have helped MJ, and MJ wouldn’t have made friends with Flash; and MJ wouldn’t have talked to Peter about Flash that night they met at the bar, linking them both to a person they both had faith in, and Flash wouldn’t have given aunt May’s number so MJ could help Peter… and Peter wouldn’t have met today with Flash to catch up and welcome him back, and thank him, ten-ish years later, for all the help he was given that he was finally seeing now.

It was a long time coming, Peter thought, as he took Flash into a hug that was reciprocated immediately.

“MJ’s amazing and so are you,” Peter said into the crook of his neck.

Flash was sniffling when he let go.

“You’re usually the crier, Parker,” he said, twisting his face into a macho man’s idea of tough masculinity.

“It feels good to let go sometimes.”

“Maybe. Shit.” He blew his nose into the napkin. The sound reminded Peter of a foghorn. “You’re going all shrink on me, man. Watson’s got that influence.”

“He does, right? What’s up with that?”

“Dunno. Guy’s magic. Oh, you gotta tell me, dude. Tell me how it’s going, you and him. My high school right-hand man and my uni wingman. Parker and Watsonー now that’s a story.”

*_*

The day after they made up, Peter came by the Moondance Diner to gift Mike a bouquet of flowers. It was enthusiastically put in a vase on the counter until the end of his shift and Peter heard MJ brag about it to the next customer in line as he sat by the bar and waited for his omelet.

“Hands off, Marty. These are Amaryllis flowers. D’you even know what they mean?”

“Mmph, I don’t know,” the customer said. “What’d they mean?”

“They mean pride, Marty. They mean pride.”

“I think you’re seeing things that aren’t there, kid. Can I get extra sugar on that one?”

“You know what, mess up your health, I don’t care. But don’t criticize my flower-reading or my boyfriend’s the one to kick you out this time.”

“Boyfriend?” exclaimed Marty and Peter in unison.

MJ winked at Peter who felt himself grow bigger than life.

“Boyfriend,” Mike repeated with aplomb. Peter’s heart soared to the sky. “And that’s a threat.”

Which one was a threat, the kicking out or the boyfriend partー Peter didn’t know. He only smiled broadly at Mike and received his omelet from the waitress; who it turned out was Elisa who looked on, smirking.

Peter folded his arms in front of his plate and waited for the inevitable comment to come.

“You good?” she asked, mirroring his posture behind the counter. He knew what that meant.

“I’m good,” he replied simply. “Won’t happen again.”

“He was devastated. I hope it sticks, Pedrito. For him especially, but for you too.”

“Oh it’s sticking,” Peter replied, and he uncrossed his arms to grab his fork. “I don’t intend to let go this time.”

Elisa nodded and left to the kitchens with a remark in Spanish and a smile on her lips. She brushed past Mike on her way, and he turned to Peter and raised a questioning brow as he handed Marty his change. Left elbow on the counter, cheek in hand, Peter’s only reply was a tilt of his head and a glowing grin.

Boyfriend.

And so Peter was Michael James’ boyfriend, and Michael James was Peter’s boyfriend. MJ took the flowers home and the next time Peter came to visit, bringing with him a hard drive worth of movies, they were on the window sill in lieu of the red cup that served as an ashtray. Mike ended up choosing an old jazz documentary Peter had pirated forever ago but never found the time to see. They watched it in his bed, both under the covers because February and its cold wave were nearing their end, the laptop precariously balanced on their knees. At one point in the evening, MJ’s head fell on Peter’s chest and nested there. His breathing slowed. His heartbeat calmed. Peter’s galloped, gone wild and crazed, and he tugged MJ closer and let him sleepily entangle his legs with his, as Duke Ellington’s piano rocked his dreams.

Police sirens roused Peter come the early morning. He left behind him an apology note and a cup of coffee that he hoped would still be warm when MJ woke up 一 though the culpability of running away painfully scratched his bones. After Spider-Man delt with the situation (a jewelry store robbery, nothing too big but not anything unimportant), Mike called Peter to wish him a good day and to compliment him on his impression of a warm and comfy pillow. He didn’t say a peep about the escapade. It went brushed under the rug, like the many other times he had come late or left early; for a reason, it grew to be the one in the list of Peter’s impossible to forgive flaws that Mike could never come to critic very long… if at all. Still, even though somehow MJ had accepted Peter for who he was (a mad fool with chronic-tardiness, he called him once, without an ounce of bite in his tone), Peter tended to ignore the police sirens more and more simply to be rocked by Mike’s snores.

February slipped by fast and March pushed past. The weather turned from icy to lukewarm on good days. By then, the last of MJ’s resentment was thawed.

Peter documented each and every one of their dates with a photo. He had now a sizeable collection that he kept safely guarded in his drive in a folder next to the memories of Gwen. This time at a bakery MJ had thought was ‘hella cute Peter we gotta try out their cupcakes’. This time at another one of Elisa’s drag shows, where MJ, accepting her outstretched hand, had sang alongside her, dressed in a see-through black top that had made Peter want to devour him right there and then. This other time with Jess and Ethan on an awkward double-date that had concluded with the two of them skipping dessert and starting a messy makeout session in the restaurant’s men’s bathroom. This other other time, in the haven of MJ’s apartment, Mike dressing Peter up and Peter judging the way the fishnet stockings outlined his calves. According to MJ, it made him look ‘even thicker’ and he should wear it ‘all the damn time, also I wanna see you with a skirt on right now ’, so what could Peter do but dutifully give in?

It would have been a lie to say that he had never worn skirts before. He had been a bit of a punk as a teen, used to cover the paint on his walls with Ramones and Sleigh Bells posters. He’d stolen a few of May’s clothes to try them out while she was working extra hours for her hospital shifts, and he’d even tested some of Gwen’s skirts and dresses under her amused eye; up until he’d very nearly destroyed one of her favorite kilts after underestimating his buttcheeks. They’d had to call it quits while she cried with laughter on the bed.

Mike’s skirt fitted Peter perfectly. There was no tearing when he slid it on. He gave it a twirl, chuckling before turning to the mirror, the happy memories in Gwen’s bedroom brushing at his thighs as the cloth fell around him.

But happy memories were still memories, and with them came the inevitable tumble down a clock tower.

Peter wasn’t prepared when he saw her looking on, mirroring Mike behind his reflection. She stood like she had always been there, part of the decor, not an angel on his shoulder but a ghost of what could have been, a regret. Like a deer, the blinding blue of her eyes the headlights, he simply stared back.

Peter wasn’t prepared, but Michael James was.

“I’m here,” he said. “Come here. Stay here.”

They slid to the floor together. Mike’s arms wrapped around him. As stiff as the dead, the ghost of Gwen remained in the mirror. Her eyes had followed them down, her expression unreadable, and her stare meaningful of a million different things. Disappointment, judgment, just as well as raw and brute apathy. Did she even care to see them this way? Did she mind that she had been replaced, by someone as beautiful and smart and kind as she was; that she was tossed into oblivion with the last trace of her in Peter’s thoughts as this despicable apparition?

“No,” he replied, his head tucked under MJ’s chin. “No, please.”

MJ shushed him.

“I got you,” he murmured in Peter’s hair. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”

“Stay with me. Stay with me, MJ, stay with me. ”

With the sort of forgiving kindness that was reserved for loved ones, Mike undressed him and brushed away his tears under a cold wet towel. That night, when they retracted to the fortification of the bed, he squeezed Peter tight against him, arms wrapped around his middle, stomach to his back, brow to his neck. Peter felt the drumming of MJ’s heartbeat against his ribcage, something erratic and anxious like a lion pacing in its cage. It didn’t fall asleep before he did. It waited, patient and unrelenting, only letting go of him when Peter turned around to face him. MJ’s wonderful and understanding eyes lured him to kiss his lids thank you.

“Sleep,” MJ whispered. “I got you.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Peter said.

“I know.”

A rope was tied around his middle. It anchored Peter to MJ, grounded him to earth. It made him not want to take flight ever again.

Out there, through the window, into the night, the sirens sang. The city of certainty mourned yet another day without its guardian.

*_*

“Hey, it’s been a while since we’ve seen that guy,” MJ said, both hands cupping his hot coffee as they passed by a newsstand.

“What?” Peter replied smartly.

“Spandex-boy. The Amazing Bug. Our friendly-neighborhood hottie.”

“What? ” Peter said again, now sure he was going into cardiac arrest. “Bug一 man一 hottie what? ”

The strength of MJ’s eye roll could part the seas. “Come on. Spider-Man.” He nudged Peter then, pointing his coffee in the direction of a magazine print in the kiosk as Peter felt a second heart attack creep on him. “The Bugle is a piece of crap at times but if there’s something they’re always reliable about, it’s Spider-Man’s whereabouts.”

Peter took in a deep breath and paused by the stand. It was the first edition of April, and its front cover was an old picture of the masked vigilante, barred with ‘SPIDER-MAN: RETIRED OR EXPIRED?” in an obnoxiously loud font. Peter recognized the picture. He’d taken it and sold it himself a long time ago to Jameson in exchange for a freelancer’s miserable paycheck. Peter squinted as he leant forward, inspecting the bottom left of the image… Jameson may be a tyrant, but he was a fair journalist, and the photographer’s name stuck out like a sore thumb if one knew where to look.

Peter hooked his arm around Mike’s and incited him to move forward.

“I mean, it’s a tabloid,” he quickly said, “it’s always trying to stir drama.”

“Sure, but like any tabloid, it’s a pro at tracking people. And you can’t convince me the bug’s leaving the house much. A few months back, he was still all over the news, stopping crime and beating up drug lords, and now it’s just… like, we should consider ourselves lucky to hear from him once a week.”

Third heart attack in two minutes. This definitely was not healthy. “Why… why’re you interested, MJ? We don’t know what he’s doing, we don’t know the guy, besides, the一 to be real with you, I’m not sure the Bugle could tell the difference between Spider-Man’s mask and his ass.”

“I could.”

Peter’s knees almost gave in. If it were not for Mike’s arm on his elbow, he would have probably splattered on the pavement. Then, as soon as he got over the initial shock, a dangerous and playful excitation came over him. Dangerous because he could be exposed; playful, because he could be exposed.

“Really?” he said then, biting his smirk in the inside of his cheek. “You’re looking at Spider-Man’s butt often?”

“I mean…”

MJ’s suddenly coyness made Peter’s curiosity flare.

“Hey, hey, it’s fine, I’m not jealous. Just saying… he does have a great butt.”

His shoulders sagging with relief, Mike then had a long sigh that was bordering on lustful. “It’s so tight in this spandex, what the hell? And it just…” He left Peter’s arm to raise two hands at face level and squeeze the air, “it just jiggles. Like custard, with triple icing on that cake, goddamn. I mean, you got to have seen the videos. Everyone has.”

“Everyone has?” Peter echoed mockingly.

“You do not wanna know what I’ve got saved in my phone.”

“Wh一 I feel like I do, now!”

“Nope. It’s between me and God. And my search history.”

“MJ, give me your phone.”

“No!”

“MJ!”

“No一 let go of me, that’s an invasion of my privacy, you weird-ass… oh no you don’t. No you don’t… why are you so strong! ”

Peter had grabbed him from behind and snatched Mike’s phone out of the pocket of his jacket. Mike yelped some more while Peter juggled it from hand to hand, laughing before he eventually threw it back to MJ without even bothering to take a look at the screen. He had won anyway.

“Child ,” MJ spat like disgusted, but he was betrayed by the grin on his lips. He gave a shove to Peter’s torso and tucked his phone into the much safer pockets of his pants. “We’re in the middle of the street and you’re embarrassing me.”

Peter went right back to grabbing him. “Oh I’m embarrassing you?”

“No, I lied,” MJ laughed as Peter gave his neck a peck.

“You, what? Lying? I’m starting to think I’m the bad influence here.”

“Oh yeah, you’re so bad for me, PDA-godー” MJ dramatically complained. “I have a concert to get to, and you’re not helping me get into star mood. Also you’re making me drop my coffee.”

“What? No no no. I was being careful. Not a drop spilled. Look.” Peter removed the cap for Mike to take a peek in. “I have good balance. Everything’s perfect, and everything will remain perfect. Just as planned.”

Slowly taking back his coffee, MJ looked at him for a moment, the cup the only thing separating their chests. They’d moved from the middle of the pavement and no one minded them in true New-York fashion, so it felt intimate to pause and stare. It wasn’t very dark yet. Standing by the side of a building, they were both lit by a yellow blinking lamppost from one side, by the red setting sun from another. It was torn between the two colors that Mike’s eyes hesitated. He searched the ones that swam on Peter’s face, blended into a soft orange.

“Tiger, I…”

Leaning in, Peter pushed a long kiss to MJ’s lips. The resistance he met was short-lived. When he retracted, Mike’s expression had changed to the one he adopted whenever Peter was back from one of his unexplained disappearances; something between acceptance, or maybe it was resignation, before it gave way to a smile.

“Okay,” MJ said. “No problem.”

With his free hand, he pulled on the straps of his backpack that Peter was carrying for him, Peter’s own bag around his other shoulder. He then patted Peter’s chest, all the while nodding to himself.

“Let’s go?” Peter offered, questions and answers he was dreading to give beating in his ear in rhythm with his pulse.

“I’mma give you a show to remember,” Mike said, wrapping his arm around Peter’s once more.

MJ was a rockstar.

No matter how many times Peter saw him walk on the stage, strutting it like he owned it, like he’d built it with his bare hands from the ground up and sweat tears and blood and glitter all over it, it was always the same refrain: he rediscovered adoring him all over again.

Michael James was magnetic. Electric. He made Peter’s hair stand on end, not out of fear, no, but out of energy; Peter’s pure devotion that MJ held like lightning in a bottle. His voice drew in crowds. His bare torso, loose hips swinging with the beat and orchestrating the rhythm of Peter’s heart, shimmered under the spotlights, bringing all the eyes to him 一 the opera actor, body like the baton of the conductor. He beat time. He called the tune. Never breaking the harmony.

The other band members were swirling in the spotlights, at times behind MJ, at times at his side. Peter had grown to appreciate all of them for what they were, as friends that didn’t know a thing about what he went through, who didn’t treat him as a delicate orphan in need of special care. He did have pride. Too much pride, May would say. Elisa would not know for Gwen, and Peter would never tell Jess about his parents, just like he wouldn’t share his uncle’s fate to Ethan or Wendy. Behind John, Elisa gave Peter a wink from the keyboards, her fingers drumming with passion in her eyes. He remembered her standing in the middle of the stage at MJ’s exact spot; which wasn’t hers to claim tonight. It was the time for Mike to shine, it was his solo verse, his lead vocals, his reflection in Peter’s eyes burned forever in the pupil.

MJ was his superhero.

Peter let him know exactly that when he met him in the closet that served as the bar’s backstage. The look in his eye made MJ shoo John out and as soon as the door had closed behind the guitarist, Peter had Mike pressed against the dressing table. His hands wrapped at the back of his thighs, forcing him to sit up, while his mouth rediscovered his mouth, the salty taste of sweat dancing on his gums.

“What’s that for?” MJ asked after minutes of this.

Peter’s mouth split away from him and he slowly, softly rested his forehead against his. He tuned out the conversations from the inside of the bar. Focused on Mike’s skin. Its beautiful shivers as Peter tickled down his bicep with his fingers. The way the blood flowed like a current underneath the skin, darkening MJ’s complexion, the hair of his arms rising like electrified; the way his groin bumped into Peter’s and his lips shut in on a groan. A gasp cut his breath short as Peter said:

“I love you.”

MJ’s back came in contact with the mirror. He gently pushed Peter away when he leaned in to further the kiss.

“Say that again?”

Peter blinked. His fingers completed their journey to Mike’s palms. He curled them into fists and closed his own hands around them. “I love you. I’m sorry, it’s a little… a little fast. Maybe I shouldn’t… oh, God.” Face flushed with embarrassment, he buried it into the crook of Mike’s neck. “I’m doing it again,” he said, voice muffled by the bare skin as he dropped there an apologizing kiss. “Stop me if I ramble, but you’re just… the most amazing guy I’ve ever met. You’re so… colorful. Shiny. And sweaty.” Another kiss, on the collarbone, that licked off the perspiration there. “And all hot...”

MJ’s chuckle was wet. “Are you drunk?”

“I’m drunk on you, baby,” Peter said, and MJ’s hands cupped his face and made him look up and they both burst into a laughter so violent that the back of MJ’s head hit the mirror and jerked tears out of him. “Ah, crap, I’m sorry. You alright?”

“I love you too,” MJ replied.

His tears were caught between Peter’s lips.

“I think I’m ready to ask for your help,” Mike said thirty minutes later, one of his feet propped against the outside wall of the bar, blowing smoke into the night.

The déjà-vu was striking. The evening that they met, at Peter’s welcoming party into the teaching world, had looked very much the same. They held similar poses then, but today, they stood closer, as though shivering from the cold that wasn’t there.

Peter nodded.

“Promise number two?”

“Hm-mh.”

“How can I serve?”

“I may or may not have a deal with the fashion house Omnibus, and it all depends on the kind of portfolio I show them. And I’ve done semi-nude shoots before, but it wasn’t anything very… it was commercial stuff. It wasn’t sexy. It wasn’t runway sexy.”

“The photos where you’re in your underwear? I saw them,” Peter said without thinking. “Oh. I mean I didn’t. I’m… I’m actually legally blind.”

But MJ was narrowing his eyes at him already; then beaming so bright he might as well make a career as a lamppost. “Do you have skeletons in your closet, tiger, or is it just me in there?”

“Shhh, forget what I said, no?” Peter urged as he slapped a hand on his face to shield his eyes from the consequence of his words. “So you want my camera or nah?”

Mike pried Peter’s fingers open. “I want your brains and your hands operating your camera and taking photos of me, yeah.”

“Is there a deadline?”

“I got a week left to send in the portfolio.”

“That’s short. But doable.” Peter nodded, already twirling the possibilities in his head. “What’s their style like? What’d they expect from you?”

“Well, it’s queer beauty slash gloss slash sex,” Mike explained. “Out of the box stuff, sometimes provocative. They’re mostly selling lingerie for now. But what you’re gonna like, tiger, is that they’ve got a partnership with this magazine, Simple Appareil, and Simple Appareil’s a monthly that’s divided between publishing some photoshoots from Omnibus and interviews of gays who’re working to change the world for the better. It’s big stuff. Hella exciting. Maybe you’ll have your article in there someday.”

Pete’s eyebrows shot up. “Me?”

“Yes, you! A bisexual jewish man teaching the youths the merits of not burning their brows off with a chemical imbalance… That’s gotta be front page. At the very least. ”

Peter shook his head with a laugh.

“I mean, I did do journalism work for the Bugle. Maybe my name means something to the mag.”

“Oh right, the Bugle…”

Peter’s blood went cold and he slapped his hands together to cover his tracks somehow.

“Anyway, yeah! I’m all yours, me and my brains and my camera. I would love to help. As promised. And not just because I promised. Because this one guy I know, that you probably know, y’know, red hair, cute smile… this laugh so… free it makes me wanna release it into the wind… he deserves the world and I think if one day I was given the opportunity I would give it to him. In a heartbeat.”

MJ brushed under his eye with a finger. “You don’t need to make amends anymore, Pete.”

“I’m not making amends, I’m done with that, I’m past that,” Peter breathed. “I’m just speaking truthfully now. Whatever’s on my heart, I say it.”

“So you truly mean it?”

“That I love you?”

“Everything. Like…” MJ shifted from one foot to another, his cigarette he wasn’t smoking dropping ash on the ground. “Just. Everything. Like I don’t wanna force you to say things you don’t wanna. If you wanna keep things private, like, I’m saying, it’s fine. It’s okay too. And it's okay if you also wanna say things. I've got your back. For real, I don't think anything could bother me. As long as it’s not… as it’s not hurting you or hurting me in the end, as long as it’s not destroying what we got. Cuz I’m happy with what we got.”

“I’m happy too,” Peter said, like on autopilotー even though it was the truth, he was happy, as happy as he could be while the angst in his nerves gnawed at his good days bit by bit, while dread bit more and more into him every time he put on his suit as though it meant face reveal, time-turning, death sentence. “I am. I’m just…”

He heard the sirens of the ambulance before Mike did. He turned to the truck as it sped past them, blaring left into the intersection before it disappeared as fast as it came, the only proof of its presence its red and white still bouncing off the wet road. Peter blinked the lights away before turning his attention back to MJ.

MJ hadn’t stopped watching him even for a second.

It was as though he had expected Peter to run off and chase the truck, as though he was actually surprised he hadn’t, and as though it had been a bad thing for Peter to prove him otherwise.

“What?” Peter said in a short smile. “I told you, I’m not going anywhere.”

MJ made a noise, of approbation, maybe. “I’m gonna say ‘night to the band,” he said, crushing his barely-smoked cigarette under his sole. “Wanna head to mine after? Maybe we can start brainstorming on the photoshoot. I’m still in star mood, might as well use that.”

“I’ll head home and grab my gear,” Peter replied as MJ moved past him, briefly stopping to kiss his hand, something that had become a thing of theirs now, “meet you in an hour?”

MJ pulled open the door of the bar. The noise from inside flooded out. “Gonna be late?”

“For you, never again.”

Peter arrived early. He did not even bother to attempt to swing and say hi to the wind; he just walked to his apartment, got his camera, and jogged back to Mike’s place. The whole thing took him maybe forty minutes. When he knocked on his door, the Yashica proudly in his hand and the straps of his newer mirrorless camera around his neck, the sweating image of MJ was revealed to him as the door swung open. As though he'd teleported from the stage to his place, he was still shirtless but this time without the pants. His black boxers marked his navel with a strangling line and for a second (or more like ten), Peter only gaped and stared, the sudden want to tug at the elastic and let it snap crushing every other sensible thought.

“Face it, tiger,” MJ said, leaning in the entryway, as proud as a peacock, his tongue arrogantly running along his front teeth as he took a moment to gauge Peter up and down, “you hit the jackpot!”

Blood circulated back to Peter’s brain. He laughed and went to cup MJ’s cheek with his free hand. “Oh my god,” he murmured before kissing him lengthily. He tilted him backwards like they were a couple from a sixties’ movie. “I hit it, for sure.”

MJ narrowed his eyes at him playfully as Peter kicked the door closed behind him, walking him backwards to his bedroom. “Did you though?”

“I’m gonna,” Peter chuckled in his mouth.

“Okay, playboy,” was all MJ could say before Peter kissed him again.

It took him a moment to manage to split away from Mike. He was so warm, and cosy and inviting, like a well-lived home, a bedroom in the attic, its skylight that let the sun spill in. Black fur turning brown, Peter was the cat that daydreamed in the puddle of light. He rubbed his face against Mike’s, grinning against his stubble as he peppered the cheekbone with sloppy kisses that would make a granny jealous.

Mike practically purred against him, and the loss of contact when he stepped away from Peter almost made his skin ache .

“Enough games, time to work,” he said.

Peter whined. “You’re a piece of work.”

“And you’re a piece of ass, but I can still control myself.”

“Well, I can’t,” Peter argued right back. “Not when you look like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like a piece of work. I wanna work you.”

“Then take photos of me, horndog!” MJ laughed, pushing Peter into the bed and away from him.

Peter was tempted to lay there and put his hands behind his head just so he could watch, but the way MJ shot his eyebrow up made him remember his duty. He propped himself up on his elbows, carefully putting his Yashica beside him.

“Okay, what,” he started, before stopping to get rid of his other camera around his neck too, “what exactly do you have in mind?”

In front of him, MJ slowly crossed his arms. “I was actually hoping you could tell me.”

“I’m not the model, you’re the model!”

“Okay, but you’re the photographer!”

“You know what the brand wants more than I do!”

“You know composition!” MJ said, louder, and Peter loved debating with him. “You know lighting! You know what looks good and what don’t!”

“I know you look good.” MJ’s eyes rolled so far in his head that Peter only saw the whites for a moment, but his annoyance was broken by a smile as Peter shifted forward and took his hands between his. “Okay, okay. I can do it, I can lead, no big deal. We’ll just take a bunch of pics and sort through ‘em later, see what works with the brief. No big deal,” he repeated, grinning into MJ’s eyes. “See the window in your kitchen? We can start there. Retake the photos I took with my crappy flip phone, in better quality, and follow where it takes us.”

MJ beamed. “I knew you’d have ideas,” he said, jolly, and off he was disappearing in the kitchen, Peter trailing after him after grabbing his Yashica. “Want me to smoke like last time?”

“No, for now, just stand there,” he said as MJ rolled up his window. “You can… on your side profile. Your right side. Let me turn off your ceiling light real quick, maybe we can add a soft yellow-ish… do you have candles?

By chance, there was a bunch of them in a drawer. Peter lined three on the sill and lit them with MJ’s lighter before stepping back and contemplating his work. He had never done anything like this before. He knew how to take portraits and school photos, and he had grown to have an eye for photojournalism and action shots thanks to his freelance position, but… this was boudoir photography. This was new and exciting, like everything he did with him; like a gulp of fresh air after a long day bent in half over the workbench, like a skateboard launched at full speed down a ramp he had never practiced on until then… like a crowd bouncing up and down under flashing lights, the only person that mattered, the only skin he could feel Michael James’.

Yes, new and exciting were two appropriate adjectives to describe the man and everything he did. As Peter took the shots, tweaking every now and then with the settings of his camera to lengthen the focal length and add some depth of field, other words came to his mind.

Bold, when MJ leant back against the sill, the flame of the candles licking at his elbows while his pelvis was tilted up. Peter dropped to one knee and tilted his head and his camera ninety degrees to capture him.

Carefree, when MJ’s wink was immortalized in the film chamber. And another and another, MJ’s face widening and stretching and growing with his grimaces of life. He pulled his tongue out, closing his eyes as he pretended to swallow one of the flames. His laugh escaped by the window. He pressed two of his fingers flat on his tongue一 click went the shutter of Peter’s camera,一 and extinguished the candle.

Enflaming was another. Curls of smoke wrapped themselves around MJ’s locs, framing his face made of lines and furrows and dimples. He had his eyes closed now. The volutes spiraled into him as he breathed in. Click, said the shutter. I want him naked, said Peter’s inner troublemaker.

“I wanna see you naked,” he said after ten minutes of this comfortable quiet punctuated by Mike’s breathing, their laughter and the shutter.

“Already?” MJ said. He brushed a hand on top of his locs, ruffling at them, making them fall in front of his eyes. The camera inches from his boyfriend’s face, Peter captured that too. “You really want me to show my bare ass to the neighbors?”

“So let's move somewhere else.”

“Lead the way, bi boy.”

They stopped by the bathroom. The light there was yellow. It’s gonna harmonize well with the grain and my camera’s orange filter were Peter’s thoughts before MJ kicked off his boxers and threw it in the laundry basket. He paused by the window to check his face out, pursing his lips in front of a tiny blemish above his brow that Peter wouldn’t have noticed even if he was staring right at it. Peter wouldn’t have noticed anything else anyway. He had his eyes locked down to MJ’s asscheeks, torn between grinning like an idiot and putting his hand on the prize.

Unfortunately, there was work to be done.

Flawless was added to the list. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, repeated to the infinite. Peter made himself small behind Mike, twisted his body so that he wouldn’t appear in the mirror. He took another picture.

Through his lashes, MJ’s reflection stared.

“Why don’t you take that off too?”

Peter didn’t need to be asked twice. He popped open the buttons of his first layer and tugged above his head his shirt, throwing the two clothes through the door on the chair in the kitchen. His eagerness tore a chuckle out of Mike, who turned around to face him as Peter next hopped on one foot to take off his pants.

“Funny, I thought you’d be shy about that,” he said as Peter’s underwear flew.

“Me, shy?” Peter, who had not been afraid to show a bit of skin ever since a girl told him he looked good his freshman year, replied. “Baby, that’s just wrong .”

“Baby”, MJ echoed like he was tasting the word. “Baby.”

“Gotta find you a pet name too. You can’t be the only creative one here, leave some talent for me.”

“Bi-boy and baby. Oh that’s what I’m renaming Murder Face the moment I’m bored with it.”

“Or,” Peter suggested, grabbing Mike’s hip with one hand as he smiled, “baby and bi-boy.”

MJ thought about it. “I prefer the other way around.”

“You don’t like it when you’re on top?”

“Peter, I’m a switch.”

It was their first time entirely bare with each other, yet it might as well have been the hundredth with how simple everything felt. It was not embarrassing, nor was it tense. It was just them, the same as they’d always been, minus a few layers. Though Peter let his eyes wander, their adventure made legitimate by MJ’s own travels below the waist, he still raised his camera to aim at Michael’s back in the mirror. His boyfriend’s neck bent, lips meeting a pulsing point in Peter’s neck. Peter, face hidden behind the lens, found them beautiful. He pressed down on the shutter release button.

Click.

Startled by the noise, MJ looked up at him before smiling to himself. He straightened then and turned his head to the side, so it was masking a half of Peter’s. The look he shot their reflection would have made a weaker person relent; but Peter had a job to do, and a man to please, so he took a photo, and another, and another and another and another, his face masked in each of them, Michael James bare in each of them, until they grew bored of the bathroom and took it up in the bedroom.

They tried out the closet for its tiny ceiling light that activated when it opened, then decided the subtext was too on the nose. Peter pointed out the dressing table and its mirror. Taking up the idea, MJ sat there and ruffled with his makeup case while Peter worked with finding an appropriate light source. In the end he settled with simply sticking a lit cigarette between Mike’s lips and letting him do his thing while Peter disappeared into the background, became an eye, and a lid, the click of his camera’s blinks drumming like a beat.

He didn’t know how much time was spent this way. Two film cassettes got used up came one in the morning, and came two they had melted into the bedsheets, MJ’s locs falling to Peter’s face, his legs tangled with his legs… until there was no telling what was his and what was his.

“You good?” MJ asked came three, as Peter had been staring out the open window, transfixed by the red and the blue and the distant siren calls. “How d’you feel?”

The wind brushed at his face. Like a stretched hand he didn’t take.

“Good,” Peter replied.

“You look…”

But the words trailed, endless, dead-end.

“I look?”

MJ shook his head and patted the pillow next to him.

“It’s late. We can set this back a little longer.”

Swallowing his saliva a little too harshly, Peter gave the city a last glance before shutting the window and crawling to bed stomach first. His fingers closed around his camera and he turned it to the ceiling, lens backwards. He covered his own face with a hand.

“One last one, to immortalize us.”

“Tiger,” MJ said, “we’re already forever.”

Click.

_*_

Peter carried his camera on him at all times during the following week. It wasn’t due to Mike’s request, though when he told him that inspiration could strike anywhere anytime, Mike thought it was an excellent idea; so until the due date, Peter kept taking photos of MJ wherever they went. One particular time was on the front lawn at Midtown High School. MJ waited sat against a tree, nose so deep into his music notebook that he actually had ink stains on his face, like a myriad of freckles. Before he could be jostled by the high schoolers behind him eager to go home, Peter took the shot, then grinned and waved as MJ raised his head startled by the teens’ commotion.

A brown-haired head that very barely reached Peter’s elbow jeered at his left, nudging her girl friends like a paparazzi with a scoop.

“Ooh, look, Mr P has a boyfriend!”

Cringing, Peter raised high brows at Jessica. Her eyes opened so wide that he almost only saw their white, like the white billiard ball being knocked down the pocket as she realized that her teacher wasn’t deaf.

“Hold on, hold on, what’s wrong with that?” Peter exclaimed right back at the now red-faced girl.

“Nothing,” she quickly said. “Bye.”

Peter tilted his head sideways as he watched her fly down the front steps of the school to catch up with her snickering group of friends. Jessica wasn’t a mean kid at all, she just had a loud mouth that she found hard to keep in check. But other than her behavior, everything about the sixteen year old was stellar, everything pointed to her becoming valedictorian in two yearsー that was, if she could keep some things to herself.

“Sorry about that, Mr Parker,” someone else said at Peter’s other left. “She didn’t mean it like that.”

Peter shrugged.

“Eh, it’s alright,” he told Alan. “I’ll just trick her into joining us for the Super Science Club.”

“She can’t come, she already has advanced algebra at that period.”

Peter almost whirled to the sophomore. “Wait a second, do you know her schedule by heart, Alan?” In less than a minute, Peter made two teenagers blush. “I won’t tell if you don’t tell,” he added after a meaningful pause. “Good work on the test, by the way. I’m proud of your progress.”

“Thanks, sir,” Alan stuttured. “Your, huh, your experiment was cool.”

True to his promise, Peter had congratulated the good grades of his class by ‘surprising’ them with an explosive science experiment. He had actually re-used an earlier version of his web fluid, back when he was still testing (and failing) to craft his superhero self. His class dressed in oversized white coats and comically large safety goggles, Peter had chosen to duck under his desk right before the bubbling product exploded, spreading the sticky stuff everywhere and disgusting more than one teen. Alan had loved it, though. He had been the loudest to cheer. It had brought a smile to Peter’s face; if Spider-Man was currently M.I.A., at least his work tools could still prove themselves useful, and spread joy.

“Thanks, kid,” Peter replied, going to ruffle Alan’s hair before remembering that this wasn’t a very professional way to talk to a student of his. “You keep your head up, ’kay?”

“Yes, Mr Parker. See you tomorrow, sir.”

“Have a good evening!”

Leaving Alan to his embarrassment, Peter skipped down the last two steps. Under the tree, Mike was slowly standing up, stuffing his notebook inside his bag, and Peter bounced to get to him. He welcomed him with a kiss on the hand.

“Do you have it?” he asked MJ who threw him an enigmatic look before re-opening up his bag and showing its insides to Peter. Notebook, pencils, wallet, makeup, a lone earring, condoms, and… “ Yes,” he cheered, pumping his fist excitedly. “May’s gonna hate this!”

Walking into the street beside him, MJ had a breathy laugh. “Why would your aunt hate that we brought food? Sorry, that I brought food? She can’t hate me. I’m extremely loveable.”

Peter hummed. He knew his aunt, better than she knew herself. Not many things could annoy the great and patient May, except… “You know how I’m super extra annoying about matter displacement?”

“Got a whole wall covered in writing, you’re basically an asylum case,” MJ said not unkindly.

“Well May’s the same, but about food. If she isn’t the one making it, then she’s fist-fighting whoever’s in her way.”

“What I’d give to see your auntie throw fists.”

“She’d be so good at it,” Peter sighed.

“She already fist-fight you?”

“Almost did. But I’m not strong enough to face her face when she’s got this face… you know what, you’ll see. You’ll just see.”

“If she can intimidate you, Peter, then that woman already has my heart.”

Peter tried to enter Aunt May’s house silently of course, but multiple factors opposed his will. The door was one of the culprits. It squeaked like it hadn’t been oiled in years, which was probably the case considered how little time May had to take care of the place. The set of keys that Peter wriggled in the keyhole was probably the main contender (and the twitch of his stressed fingers was no help at all), as was the creaking flooring as he entered. But the biggest snitch of them all was probably Michael James himself who, doubling over in laughter as he met Peter’s widening eyes right after he did what he did: pressed on the doorbell.

Aunt May slid in the tiny entrance hall of the house as though she’d been waiting right behind the door all day long.

“Peter!” she cried out. Her eyes were already shiny when she slung two arms around Peter’s neck and kissed his cheeks. Her lips were pink and sticky, and once she stepped back after he chuckled an hello into her ear, he realized that she had pampered herself today with extra glossy lipstick and a bit of eyeshadow. “It’s so early, I didn’t expect you so soon!”

He rubbed her forearms and squinted, mouth open in a silent laugh, bending forward to her height to give her face a closer look.

“May, you look gorgeous, you didn’t have to do all that!”

She escaped his grip and swatted his hand. “Please, I’m allowed to feel like a princess for the occasion… where is… oh, there he is…! Hello, Michael James, it’s so nice to finally meet you!” She kissed Mike’s cheek like he was a long lost friend and Mike returned her energy just as eagerly. “You know, I kept asking Peter to tell me more about you, but this dummy was so secretive it was like pulling teeth! Like pulling teeth from a horse! I will bring out the truth serum on him one day, I tell you.”

“I’ll restrain him,” Michael James said in a secretive whisper. The wink he threw Peter’s way almost soothed his nerves. “He’s powerless against our forces combined.”

Peter almost pulled his hair out with the strength he used to ruffle at it. “This was a mistake,” he murmured to himself. He cleared his throat then as the best two people he knew shared facts about him that made him regret ever walking this earth. “Hey, hey, can we at least wait until dinner for the baby pics, May?” Her phone raised to Mike’s face as her finger scrolled down her gallery, May didn’t spare her nephew a glance. “Not in the entryway, people, c’mon… May. MJ. Please, can we at least move to the kitchen…”

“This is my home, Peter,” May argued even though she was taking her phone back and already pushing past him, “I can still speak wherever I want in my home.”

After hanging his coat and dropping his school bag to the floor, Peter followed her, swaying his hips to avoid hitting the large cutting board table. “I haven’t even introduced you two!”

“We already texted Peter, it’s alright!” May said, frenetically washing her hands into the sink now. “Remember, when you had this little… this little…”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember,” Peter quickly replied. His glance begged MJ for help but the man simply leant against the kitchen door, crossed his arms and smiled devilishly. All that was missing was the popcorn in his mouth. The dam of jumpiness and excitement combined leaked in Peter’s brain, drenching his fingers that twitched harder. “I just… I want you to know him. I want you to know her,” he added, waving between the two as May dried her hands with a towel she then threw on her shoulder.

May rolled her eyes with a long sigh. “It’s okay, Peter!”

“I know it’s okay,” he whined, softly pushing her to the side so he could wash his hands too, “I just, it’s a big thing for me, alright, and you know it is because I always understate stuff,” he went on, pointing at her with a wet index finger.

“Understatement,” MJ said, and Peter’s finger curved to him right away. Mike ignored him in favor of turning to his aunt. “Can I do anything for you, May?”

“You’re a sweetheart,” she replied, smiling at him like he had hung the stars. “But don’t worry, you’re my guest here. Same goes to you, Peter, you’ve stopped living here long ago and now you reap what you sow, now scoot. I have to make you boys something.”

Peter stole the towel off her shoulder and dried his hands energetically. “No, you don’t have to.”

If her eyes could spontaneously catch fire, they would. “Yes, I do!”

“We’re making you food tonight, you scoot.”

“What… no. No. This isn’t how it works, you don’t expect me to sit there and just let you, watch you burn my pans, Peter.”

“Yeah, you tell him, Mrs Parker,” MJ said.

“MJ!” Peter said.

“Sorry, Pete. You know I’m always on the winning team.”

“Please, Michael James, call me May,” May said.

“No problem, May. Call me Mike. Thank you for inviting us.”

May whirled back to Peter and patted his chest to let him know she wanted him to move. “See? We know each other, honey, it’s okay. Now let me make you food, for God’s sake!”

But Peter stood his ground. “May, no. I gotta tell you something first, and I gotta tell you something important.”

“Peter…”

“No, really! This isn’t me dodging the subject, okay, hear me out!”

“And I’m hearing you out, Peter, I am hearing you out! and I’m also telling you it’s okay that…”

“Mike’s my boyfriend.”

The dam split open. Peter’s fingers stopped twitching for the first time since they had entered the house. He breathed out, staring into May’s teary eyes like they could hold a truth in there, an answer, a relief.

May’s hands, wrinkly and spotted with brown freckles, hands that were used to kneed cookie dough for entire families, hands that were used to sew the wounds of hit-and-run victims; loving hands, tireless hands, came to a halt around Peter’s cheeks.

“I know,” she murmured like a mother. “It’s okay.”

Peter put his hands on top of hers, not to remove them, but simply to run his thumb over her skin. “Thank you.”

“I love you. I’m proud of you.”

“I love you too.”

“Also I’m sorry for using ‘she’ about him for so long,” May said. She retracted her hands and looked away, looking like Peter had caught her taking on a double shift again. “I had my doubts, it’s true, but I shouldn’t have assumed that you were dating a girl, it was not nice.”

Peter had a wet laugh. “May, it’s fine, I didn’t care.” She tilted her head sideways with a crease on her mouth. “Okay, okay, maybe I cared a little but I also should’ve said something way earlier. Point is,” he said, waving a dismissing hand, “not your fault.”

“Well, glad we could make that clear, I would have hated to hurt you that way,” she said softly before finally breaking eye contact then trying to push past him again. “Peter! ”

“MJ, I need help here!”

Mike, who had retracted to the living room to give them some space, came in with the bag of groceries and a grin stretching his smug lips. It took thirty minutes of arguing from Peter’s side and five seconds of doe eyes from MJ to convince May to let them cook in her stead; and even then, she hovered behind them like a hawk.

Every remark they exchanged and every side-eye they threw made Mike’s shoulders shake with a laughter that he very badly hid. Peter knew he and May’s relationship was like watching a tennis match go down; all ‘oooo’ and ‘aaaa’ from the crowd as the ball bounced from racket to racket. He took his competitive side after her, and subsequently, Spider-Man took after her as well. The quips, especially, were born from evenings they spent arguing over the most trivial matters. The only thing that could force an end to them used to be Uncle Ben, the sole breadwinner back then, claiming that he had to wake early in the morning to get to work. It was moments of seriousness like these that made Peter and May shake hands on a truce. But they loved the quipping. The quipping was their thing. It was their way to express love, and to bond over both being major control freaks and secretive fools, as MJ analyzed later that same night when they retracted into Peter’s childhood bedroom.

“I think I can set the preheat timer for the oven without making it blow up,” Peter insisted as May fiddled with the buttons for him.

“I don’t trust you and your experiments anymore,” she retorted without skipping a beat. “First my sewing machine, then my laundry machine, and now my oven? No, sir, no.”

Mike’s shoulders stopped to shake for a second.

“Experiments?” he echoed from his spot at the cutting board. “I wanna hear about experiments.”

“No you don’t,” Peter grimaced, coming back at his side to help with the tomatoes.

“My nephew,” May started, throwing him a fixed look, “woke up one day with the idea to learn how to sew at the ripe age of seventeen years old, without even trying to talk about it with his dear auntー who knows how to sew very well, by the way. I could have taught you so much before you broke my machine!” She slapped the potholders on Peter’s forearm before putting them down on the counter.

“Really?” MJ said. He nudged Peter who grabbed another tomato from MJ’s pile and started to cut it into even slices. “Why sewing?”

“Because… because some of my shirts had holes in them,” he quickly invented, “from all the, uh, the skating. The falling while skatingー I didn’t want to make you buy other shirts for me, May.”

“You compensated in backpacks.”

“Whー it was a few, yes.”

“More than ten bags a year isn’t a few, honey, but my nature is forgiving.”

MJ was so taken aback that his tomato slid on his knife and ricocheted off the table. “Ten bags a year? What were you doing with ‘em, selling them on the black market?”

“I won’t even start talking about the time he dyed the insides of the laundry machine blue and red. It used to only be the clothes before, but then one day I left him unattended for a single evening and it was the whole thing!”

Surprisingly, MJ didn’t react to this. His face hidden under the table, he picked up his tomato before slowly coming back up and going back to cutting.

“I already apologized for that, May, multiple times actually, and I haven’t done it since, so, why even bring it up!”

“Because you’re my kid and it’s my job to make fun of my kid,” she said, “now pass me the plate, I’m going to put the crust in.”

“That’s still a no! ”

Peter and MJ managed to end up baking the tomato pie, going so far as putting it in the oven without May’s help in spite of her insistence.

“It’ll be ready when it’ll be ready,” Peter said, shooing her away from the kitchen as Mike checked the temperature.

“Don’t you quote me to me!” May continued to argue even as she fell on her butt in the sofa. Peter tried to force a healthcare magazine into her hands but obviously she didn’t want any of it and turned her head to Michael James. “Make sure that it’s no more than 400 degrees!”

“You got it!” MJ cheerfully answered back.

May kept fighting Peter.

“Back off, I can rest by myself. No I don’t need another cushion… oh, thank you, this one is actually nice. Alright, isn’t the blanket a little bit overdoing it, now? I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to make your aunt rest, and it’s working of course, but it also doesn’t need to be working because I could also very much have been very happy cooking for you two. I don’t mind cooking! Cooking relaxes me! I could have made you a nice dessert… actually I will, nevermind, I will make you a nice dessert.”

“May,” Peter laughed, “rest up. Enjoy, please. I know you’re still standing in for some of your colleagues at the hospital, you deserve to sit down every once in a while.”

May’s fingers curled around his wrist.

“Peter, honey. There’s nothing in the world that would make me dislike Michael James.”

Winded, Peter gaped at her. His knees slowly gave in and they hit the carpet in front of her, putting him at her height, as she rubbed the skin of his forearms the same way he’d done it to her earlier, like a comfort, a tether.

May sighed.

“Listen, this was never your fault. Gwen was never your fault, sweetheart. And no one is blaming you for finding someone else, me last in line. Quite the opposite! I wanted you to find someone else, for so long. Someone other than little old me.”

“You’re not old,” he said, lips weakly quirked at the corners.

“Peter, you’re a terrible liar.” He couldn’t reply to that without lying again, so instead, he just let her continue. “I want you to stop feeling sorry for yourself and to start living again. And this handsome young man over there… from what I gathered, I think he’s helping you through this. You remember what I used to call your uncle, right?”

“Benzo?”

“No, not Benzo. This one was awful, I’ll give you that.” She scrunched up her nose. “Sounds like the name for a circus clown. No, I used to call him my rock. And I think, with Gwen you lost your rock, didn’t you? Like that one Greek story… with the man, you know, going up the hill with his rock, forever… yes, sure, the rock annoyed him at times. The rock rolled down the hill pretty often, it infuriated him. But at least he was going somewhere. He had a purpose.”

“May,” Peter slowly said, not wanting to ruin her point but forced to rectify it anyway, “Sisyphus was cursed because he was a bad man. The rock rolled down the hill no matter what he did, it wasn’t a purpose, it was torture.” As May huffed at him and started to wriggle, Peter raised a calming hand. “I know what you mean, but I can’t put the stability of my mental health on MJ the same way I did with Gwen. Look at where it got her, and me… I mean… it’s not healthy. You know? It’s for his own good. There’s some things that he… some things that he doesn’t have to know.”

May gave him a long, piercing look.

“Well the old tales are not set in stone,” she said, almost cold, “and I like my version better. Maybe this Sisyphus man chose to push his rock up the hill. Maybe he also didn’t mind when it rolled down, because it meant going back up again after. And maybe there are things that you can tell Mike that you don’t tell others. I’m getting old,” she repeated, pressing on Peter’s wrist, like inking her words there, “and you deserve someone to share your life with.”

Her finger left his wrist, marked with a splotch of red, to wipe a tear on Peter’s eyelash. In response, he gently laid his forehead against hers.

“You’re not old,” he said, throat tight.

“I am, sweetheart, and that’s okay too.”

The tomato pie ended up delicious. Mike’s idea to add smoked paprika went right into the margin in May’s cookbook. Peter used the potholders to take the pie out of the oven while the two dressed the table and discussed more cooking techniques. In spite of what Peter liked to pretend, he had been dreading their meeting; it was two entirely different parts of him, his mother and his lover, that had both seen the ugliness of his bad days. It wasn’t like it was easy, being around him. He had a deep knowledge of that fact because he was forced to live under his own skin. But the whispering voice, not unlike the wind, told him that his fear was pointless to begin with. May’s chair was the closest to Mike’s and she had her phone out again, scrolling while Peter served her the biggest slice. Fat baby, mouthed MJ to him and Peter, who couldn’t in himself the strength to be mad, served him the second biggest slice.

“And that’s Peter with his parents… and his uncle…” May said, poking her tongue out as she focused two of her fingers on zooming in. “Oh I love this one. I don’t know why I don’t have it framed.”

“Fat and cute,” MJ said out loud this time. May pressed a hand against her mouth to mask a giggle.

“He was a fat baby, it’s true.”

MJ tilted his head to the side pensively. “You look like your mom, Peter.”

“Yeah,” Peter replied, pulling his chair out so he could sit. “It’s the eyes.”

“The window to the soul,” MJ joked before leaning in again as May swiped on the next photos. “Oh, is that his first steps?"

“He was a clumsy baby. There's not a single photo in there that's not blurry because he kept falling over face first on the carpet. Oh, and that's graduation day, first day in uni, the picture I took with his roommate..."

"Whew, that whiplash. I can see he grew into a fine young man."

MJ winked at him and Peter grinned from ear to ear as May squeezed her shirt where her heart beat.

“You two are lovely. But come on. Let’s eat your pie before it gets cold.”

_*_

MJ emailed Omnibus with his portfolio on Monday, and by Thursday afternoon, at 4:30, he had an appointment with the recruiter and the creator of the brand. Peter had to let his last class go before the bell rang and when he got on site, out of breath, begging the amused receptionist to let him in, MJ jumped off the elevator.

Limbs all over the place, Peter rushed to him. “MJ?”

Mike held his bag tight against his hip, his tongue pushing his cheek from the inside of his mouth. “I got it,” he dropped then.

Roaring, Peter picked him up and twirled the both of them around. Mike’s laughter rang in his ear, high and pure before he patted Peter’s bicep and asked him to put him down because dizziness was a thing Mike was not immune to. So Peter let him go, and watched him sway on one foot to another as he struggled to catch his balance一 screw personal bubble, Peter threw himself back to him and hugged him tight to his chest, the only thing keeping MJ upright the adhesive of his skin.

“Holy crap holy crap holy crap,” he mumbled, “MJ, this is amazing, holy crap!” Hands on his shoulders, Peter unstuck himself from him just to watch his face: a grin open on white teeth, his cheeks and nose of a dark red that spread across his freckles like a galaxy, his eyes glimmering, his bottom lashes beading with an unshed tear…

“Don’t tell me you doubted me, bi-boy,” Mike said, his body light as a feather in Peter’s embrace.

“Baby, I never did.”

Peter kissed him there and then in the middle of Omnibus’ lobby. Body tipped back with his intensity, MJ laughed in his mouth and Peter used this to lick at his gums, not caring where they were or what was going on; he was so proud that his heart actually hurt. His boyfriend was hot, his boyfriend was smart, his boyfriend was a menace and they were one day going to desecrate all the broom closets of these very premises.

Their mouth made a ‘pop ’ sound when Peter abruptly let Mike go.

“I’m taking you out tonight, by the way.”

MJ and his bruised lips had a long ‘oooh’.

“Restaurant?”

Peter squeezed him at the waist. “Yup. A fancy one. Fit for a king.”

MJ hid his snort in Peter’s shoulder. “You don’t have to, y’know.”

“I wanna. Hey, I wanna. My treat. You deserve it and more.”

Looking around them and especially at the receptionist who instantly looked away, MJ sucked his teeth in and grabbed Peter’s hand. “Okay, let’s go back to mine so we can have sex, then we’re gonna get changed and be the most well-dressed, gayest couple New-York has ever seen. I wanna see bitches drop dead at our feet.”

They did all that exactly in that order. They took a shower together, Mike showing Peter how to wash his locs properly before he let him do it for him. It felt domestic, effortless, while MJ’s forehead rested against Peter’s chest as he squeezed in the shampoo into his hair. Maybe if MJ focused, he could hear the low rumbling in Peter’s ribcage, maybe he could sense the twitch of his fingers. If MJ looked up, surely he would notice the tenseness of his jaw and the busy look in his eye. These things had been going on for weeks now but had remained hidden, silenced behind the din of his devotion.

Being loud was something Peter knew how to do. Everything he did was loud. His flights just like his falls.

Peter peppered the moles on MJ’s back with wet kisses as Mike brushed his teeth in the mirror, until he was shook off and threatened with a snorting ‘I’ll whoop your ass’ to which Peter, asshole at heart, replied ‘promise?’. Then he was forced to apply face cream while MJ dictated on what they should dress like for dinner. You made the reservation, right? and Peter said, Have a little trust in me, course I did, as soon as I got the news, and MJ said, blue’s totally your color, and Peter replied, red’s yours, we could color match, and MJ said, you know you kinda got an eye for fashion design and wait how long would it take us to get there because I gotta do my makeup.

At 7, both of them were miraculously ready. Mike insisted on paying for the Uber since you’re paying for the restaurant, Pete, I know you’re still broke , and here they were thirty minutes later, ordering champagne from a bow-tie-clad waiter in the most expensive place Peter had even seen. Michael James fit right in, graceful and refined and cheeky with his half-open dress shirt that revealed the base of a full pectoral. He’d gone all out tonight. Sultry long lashes fell under a red line that sublimed the shape of his eye, meant to impress Peter who, let’s be honest, was easily impressed when it came to Mike; but also to add some color to the boring monochrome in the suits of the restaurant’s male clients. The place itself was not plain. Faking daylight, warmth poured from lights and the plants that hung from the ceiling brought in fresh air and smells of nature, creating above every table the impression that they weren’t in the middle of the city but in an airy and breathing forest. Faintly, Peter wondered how differently he would have used his powers if he had been bitten in a small town, before remembering that he wasn't even using his powers at all nowadays, while MJ kindly ordered Peter’s champagne for him since Peter had no idea what was good and what wasn’t. In fact there were many other things he hadn’t a clue about, he realized as he took a look at the menu next. Like, what was a ‘filet de dorade sébaste à l’unilatérale, crème de poivron rouge et agata fumée, écume d’une marinière’ and why was he feeling like he was losing his mind?

“It’s French,” Michael James murmured his way while hiding his growing smirk behind his own menu. “Can you speak French as good as you can speak Spanish, lil’ scientist?”

“Bonjour,” said Peter automatically and Mike lost it.

“I think there’s an app to translate, lemme find it real quick,” he giggled.

Peter flicked to another page of the menu. His breath caught in his chest when his finger didn’t slide off the paper. Instead it remained there, unmoving, sticking.

Practically vibrating with anxiety, Peter calmly focused all his will into the very tip of his digit until he felt it peel itself off hair by hair.

“You’re amazing,” he whispered to himself, the kind face of the older Peter flashing in his mind.

He wiped his hand on his pants and cleared his throat.

“So, when do you start?”

MJ, who was waiting for the menu he’d taken a photo of to be translated into English, looked up from his phone.

“Uh, next week,” he replied. “They told me my first day’s mainly gonna be testing things out with the MUA’s and the designer, see what works and what don’t, just to make sure they have an idea on what’ll fit me for their next collection. I just gotta look drop dead gorgeous, so no cheese for me today!” he added while tapping at the cheese section that occupied an entire page of the menu for some reason.

“Fromage,” Peter read, nodding as though he knew he knew a thing about it. “Morbier. ”

“The hell is Morbier?”

“It’s cheese, I guess,” Peter said while continuing to swipe his sweating palms, and oh crap, he was wearing dress pants for the occasion and now there was a big dark spot in the shape of a handprit on his thighs. “I think I aimed too high with this place.”

“No,” MJ instantly replied, grinning wide as he googled ‘what is morbier’, “this is so bougie. I love it.”

“You do? Wow, okay,” Peter said, focusing on turning his anxiety to excitement. This wasn’t his evening, it was Mike’s and he wasn’t going to let an old spider bite ruin it for them. “Cool. Cool. Huh… so, an entrée?”

Scrunching his nose at the Google results in his phone, Mike nodded enthusiastically. “I’ll take the egg in the french toast.” Now terrified of touching anything, Peter let his eyes hover over the menu instead of his fingers and narrowed them at the gibberish. He should’ve asked for the English version. “It’s the first choice, by the way.”

“Thanks. Jeez. I’m so out of my element.”

MJ’s cheeks, rounded by his perpetual smile, softened. Arms on the table, he leant forward and planted his black, so light eyes into Peter’s, forcing him to look back and see, and take what they shared.

“You ain’t, Peter,” he said, delicate and merciless. “You’re where you should be, alright? You’re with me. You didn’t leave and you’re not gonna.”

Peter took this in with a shaky smile. “I’m not having another episode,” he assured.

“I know that, I’d see it. I just want you to know you’re loved.” Mike showed his teeth, a perfect set of them, the smile white and blinding like a light to follow. “And also, it bears repeating but, that you can ask me for help anytime.”

And then, to Peter’s horror, he stretched his hand out across the table palm up for Peter to take.

He had a nervous chuckle.

“Should we order the main course with the first, huh, thing, or do we give them one by one?”

As though he was blind to the fact that Peter had very rudely ignored his hand, MJ replied: “I think it’s all at once, I mean, that’s often the case with classy restaurants.”

“Okay, sure thing, sure thing,” Peter said, forcefully looking at his menu and sweating even harder as MJ did no movement to lean back into his chair. “In that case, I’ll, huh…” His eyes ran to the ‘plats and blablas ’ section of the menu and picked the first thing he saw. “Huh, omble. Omble chevalier…. Is that a fish? Is that like branzino? Is…”

“I think it’s charr,” MJ said helpfully, and it did not help at all because Peter had very limited knowledge on how to eat branzino, even less limited knowledge on how to eat charr, and also, his palms were starting to stick to his own pants right now. “Peter, you sure you’re okay with this place?”

Spurred on by desperation, Peter’s nod was frantic.

“Hmm mhh.”

“Okay. So, charr?”

“Hmm.”

“You can choose something else if you don’t like charr.”

“I know, I know, I don’t mind charr,” Peter said while discreetly pulling at his hands, almost doing a victory dance when he finally managed to unstick a palm. “Charr’s fine, charr’s good.”

“Charr it is,” MJ said, and that was what he ordered when their waiter came by their table and served the champagne. Once the man was gone, he raised his flute while giving Peter a pointed look. “To my new job.”

Peter took in a deep breath and held it in his lungs. He took his own filled flute between two fingers.

“To you,” he said, sharing with his smile all the pride and all the love he felt for the man, as it was his day, his night, and his life, unbruised, unscarred, untouched by the prison of a cobweb and a fate of heartbreak. “To you, Michael James.”

Brighter than the sun that Peter chased when he perched himself on the highest skyscrapers一 a modern Icarus vowed to fall一, MJ glowed.

“To me,” he said.

Their glasses clinked together before they drank. Even as he let down the glass on the table, Peter left his fingers on it by fear of not being able to let go.

MJ’s own fingers circled the rim of his flute.

“So, when do you think Spider-Man’s gonna be back?”

While his heart was dropping into a dark abyss, Peter’s free hand had a jerk; he raised it to his face and chose to hide its bottom half.

His laugh came out as a wheeze.

“How would I know?”

“I don’t know,” MJ said, almost carefully, “you were his photographer, right?”

Crap.

Brushing over his mouth, his hand turned into a fist.

“I was, yeah, I was. Long, huh, long time ago, though. Back in high school.”

“A little bit after high school, too,” MJ said as though that was a well-known fact, and Peter had that laugh again, humorless and tense.

“Okay, so, it’s still been a while. It paid some bills, that’s it, it was… why are we talking about him anyways, we should be talking about you, MJ, it’s your day, enjoy your day.”

“Oh, I’m enjoying my day by talking about Spider-Man.”

“Well I think you could enjoy your day by talking about literally anything else,” Peter said, a little bit too harshly. “Who cares what the Spider-Guy’s up to, right? He doesn’t matter here. He’s not in our relationship as far as I know.”

Mike stiffened. “What the hell’s that gotta do with our relationship?”

“I don’t know,” Peter retorted, defensive, “but you brought it up, so now apparently, it is.”

Eyes widening, Mike lifted two hands in surrender. “Jesus. Okay. I was just trying to…” He paused then, and gave Peter an inscrutable look. “Nevermind. I don’t wanna, like…”

“Yeah,” Peter cut dryly.

“Yeah. So I’m excited for the…” Mike had a long sigh. He closed his eyes a moment, and when he opened them, it was like he’d glued on a new face, or more like, a mask. A mask of happiness that Peter never thought in a million years could be have been a fake. “I’m excited for the new opportunity.”

As the walls he’d put up got breached by the sudden change, Peter swallowed. His anger vanished in an instant, replaced by this low and awkward shame he was used to. The shame of lies. The shame of masks. By hiding, he was turning MJ into the version of himself he hated.

The rough edges of his worry lines melted into something softer.

“Yeah?” he breathed out.

Eyes on the table, MJ nodded. “Maybe it’s gonna get me to travel. I’ve wanted to model for a fashion week for a moment now, but I never got the chance, so maybe, with this…” It was like he was reciting a text learnt by heart. Like he was talking to fill a void. “Who knows. Maybe London’s next. Paris is a dream. And, you know, with Omnibus’ partnership with the magazine, I was thinking… it’s stupid, but I was thinking that I could try out journalism in the future, y’know, continue the modeling on the side but visit the world, and meet people, and…” A sigh. “Help people, best I can. At my level. Low as it is. But… yeah. Help.”

Heart slowly resurfacing, Peter licked his lips.

“I didn’t know you wanted to help people.”

MJ had a weak smile. “Even average Joes wanna be superheroes,” he said, then he downed his champagne.

When the waiter came to bring their food, Peter barely registered it. His thoughts, as defeaning as his spider-sense, whirled in his brain一 but unlike the screaming fall of cogs and gears which foretold only darkness, the voices were loud but limpid. Memories, again. Not ghosts, but relics. Good people. Loved people. From hot iron into cold water, each of them had marked his skin.

The old tales are not set in stone, May said.

Could it be that she was right? Could it be that Icarus chose to kiss the sun even though he knew it would be his first and last time doing so, simply because it would be his first and last time doing so? Could it be that Sisyphus never minded that the rock escaped his push because the journey upwards was a new adventure, the view a new sight at every seemingly same climb?

Your story isn’t done, old Peter said.

Could Peter, too, heal? Maybe never, not for sure, and that he knew for sure. But could he allow himself to dream for himself and share these dreams? And when said dreams morphed into nightmares, would he still be able to share them to Michael-James?

We will carry a piece of each other into everything we do next, Gwen said.

He did. He carried the older Peter’s heart with him, the younger Peter’s hope with him. He carried Ben’s teaching and Gwen’s love. He carried May’s strength. Michael James’ flame. But he also carried the pain. It stuck to him like dried blood, crushed dreams, fallen cogs, and all these had shaped him into who he was at this very instant. The good times and the bad times mixed, as not one was more important than the others. As long as he let the good be.

Maybe there are things that you can tell Mike that you don’t tell others.

Because he could all along, Peter released the glass.

“Do you need help with the charr?” came Michael James’ voice, rising high above the others.

He did.

He needed help.

You have no idea how good it is to hear you say it, Peter.

“Yes. Please.”

A timid smile was born on MJ’s lips and he delicately slid Peter’s plate closer to him, took in his hands the cutlery, and kindly, patiently taught him.

“You know,” Peter said, as he watched MJ’s hands work with expertise, “you’re kind of my superhero.”

Head still down, MJ had a breathy chuckle. “Wonder what my special powers are.”

Peter shrugged. “I don’t think the powers matter as much as what you’re fighting for. It’s like… Anyone can wear the mask. Anyone. You, or… or me. The intent’s the point. Not the person.”

“That’s a nice way to see it,” MJ said. He still hadn’t looked at him, and he still didn’t when he pushed the plate back to Peter and turned to his own food. “I’d like to fly, though. I bet the view’s good from up there.” It is, Peter wanted to say, and he opened his mouth just in time for Mike to drop his cutlery to fish for his phone. “Oh, I had something for you,” he said, scrolling through the apps. “I had it saved in my gallery for a while. I wanted to show you sooner, but honestly, it slipped through my mind and it just came up now. Here. It felt too important to erase.”

Peter took the phone.

It was open on a picture of a white board. The white board in his bedroom, but not erased like it had been for a month now, ever since they had reunited; but the way it used to be, darkened by the calculations and diagrams and unreadable chicken scratches. A mad scientist's passion project. A grieving man's dying wish. A lunatic’s last hope. Michael James had been the only one to have seen it for what it truly was: a choice, not one that negated the other options but one that branched out on every possibility imaginable, that opened up the world and made it shine a bit brighter, a bit stronger. There was beauty in the infinity of paths to take.

A bunch of emotions hit Peter all at once. More shame, more sadness. Then gratitude.

It was time, he thought. It was time.

He unstuck his eyes from the picture and looked for MJ at the other side of the table. This time, Mike too was looking at him. He blinked, like startled, when their eyes met, but Peter didn’t look away so neither did he.

“You know who I am, don’t you,” Peter said.

It wasn’t a question.

“Honesty?” Mike said shyly.

“Yes.”

Mike broke the stare to take his phone back, and he fiddled with closing the open apps for a while before he said, slowly, but resolutely:

“I can’t say it until you do.”

“Do you want me to say it?”

“I...”

Peter leaned in, his heart beating like mad against his ribcage.

“Do you want me to say it?” he repeated, begging for the choice to be ripped away from him.

The fire in MJ’s eyes burned into Peter.

“I want you to tell me,” MJ said.

The truth came out. As easy as that. It was hidden one moment and it wasn’t the next. It took flight and defied gravity to soar in the air, the mask being ripped off, a weight, taken off his shoulders; the weight of the world lightened by simply saying yes, I do, yes, I need help, yes, I’m willing to move forward and replay it all, for you, because I love you Michael James, and I want a future with you, and me, all of me, and not just the bits that I cherry-pick but the ugly and the good, and the better and the bad, the whole package, because I want to re-learn what it’s like to live a love as free as the wind.

Peter said it all. In a single sentence. Four words.

“I am Spider-Man.”

Tears bordered Michael James’ eyes. His chin was shaking, and he bit his lower lip as he nodded feverishly, his chest heaving in fits and starts.

“I know,” he murmured. “I knew.”

“How?”

MJ used the hem of his shirt to brush the tears away. Even then, they flowed.

“That day you came late before we went to Elisa’s show. You said there was a fire on fifth ave. I double-checked, there was a fire. But Spider-Man was there too.” He brushed at his eyes again. It was a river now. “And I heard something while we were on the phone together. A man called you ‘Spidey’. I knew he’d called you, because the voice was way too close to have been for someone else but I dismissed it at first, I didn’t wanna, y’know, start spiraling and doubt everything I knew about you. Because surely if you were Spider-Man, then it would change everything, right? You’d be the city’s protector. The fuckin’... Friendly Neighborhood Wall-Crawler, guardian of the poor, second coming of Christ for some peeps, all that. You’d be a lie. And I didn’t want you to be a lie.

“So I googled more about you. To put my mind at ease, or whatever.

“I googled about Peter Parker. How you went to Midtown High School when the Lizard attacked it, and then Empire State Uni around the same time that the Jackal went after members of your class. I saw that you used to work at the Bugle as a freelance photographer, and that all your shots were of Spider-Man, and they were hella good shots, close-ups and everything, taken from high buildings that don’t even have rooftops. I also read the articles about your ex-girlfriend. How Spider-Man was there when she… I documented it all. I have the pictures of the board in your room. I mean, who else but Spider-Man could be as brave or… crazy to try and invent universe travelling? And when we cleaned your room, I caught a glimpse of a red costume in your closet一 I didn’t say nothing. It wasn’t my secret. And surely you had your reasons.

“You had your reasons. I know you did.”

Peter reached deep into his chest and tore out his heart. “I didn’t want to lose you.”

“You know for a moment I really thought about packing my bags and fucking off, cuz there’s this part of me that’s damn good at throwing the garbage out, and the baggage you carry, as Peter and the spider, well, to me, it’s… it’s fucking big. It’s too much for one man. And then you left. And I came to you expecting to finally end this. And instead I found myself wanting to stay.

“‘cuz I fell in love with you, Peter.”

His face was hidden behind his hands.

“Come on. Don’t do that.”

His fingers were trembling.

“Let me see you.”

“I don’t wanna lose you,” Peter repeated, pathetically.

“You’re not losing me. I said the baggage’s too much for one man, right? Well what about two?”

“MJ…”

“What about two?”

His hands were pried open. The lights were too bright in that moment, forced his crying eyes to slits, and the plants’ perfume choked him, the food’s smell nauseated him, the surrounding discussions, though dim, still managed to deafen him. It felt like another episode, but when he glanced around, dazed, there was no sign of Gwen. No. It was just the good old cowardly urge to run away.

“Hey, look at me. Peter.”

Michael James was an angel, and there was nothing in this world that would prove Peter otherwise. The assertiveness he wore and the ardor he bore were reflected in the way he went to reach for Peter’s hands, soothing the skin between his fingers, like he knew, as he knew.

MJ, the angel on his shoulder. Gwen, on the other.

Why not two.

One man couldn’t carry it all.

Peter’s voice was choked when he said: “I don’t deserve you.”

And gently, lovingly, MJ replied: “It’s not up to you, so… fuck you.”

The laughter bubbled out of his throat in uncontrollable spurts. It was so violent it made his whole self shake. Soon enough, Michael James was joining him. Peter let the tears stream down in a free fall, too in love to care, the debilitating pressure washing off him much like the first sunrays after a storm. His snorts were ugly and when he took back a hand to brush at his nose, he must have looked like a snotty, puffy disaster of a human being. Somehow, the fondness in MJ’s eyes was unparalleled at this instant.

“You gonna be okay?” he asked softly.

Peter nodded. “I’m still…” His hand danced by the side of his head while he searched for the right words. “Still, huh, taking it all in. Absorbing the… info.” He blew out the air from his lungs in a long sigh. Fingers unmoving for the first time in the evening, his hand came back down to take Mike’s hand once more. “Hey, d’you maybe, wanna get out of here?” Mike raised a brow and Peter felt forced to explain himself. “Not saying the charr doesn’t look appetizing, it’s just… I wanna be with you. Just you. I wanna show you…”

“You wanna show me…?”

Peter hid his smile by shaking his head. “You’re the one making this kinky.”

“And that’s my fault how, when you’re out there looking like a snack?” Laughing into his sleeve, Peter rubbed at his red eyes. “Speaking of eating. The thing is, I’m a little buzzed from the champagne, and European people be crazy if they didn’t expect me to eat all the bread in the basket. They better not charge us for it, by the way. So... Lead the way, lover.”

They got up in tandem. Peter’s heart did hula-hoops when Mike instantly came to his side, his arm hooking itself around his arm like lured there. He found it hard to look away from him when Mike’s own gaze was this intense, this piercing. It was seeing him for the first time after all. The real him. All of him. And really, Peter had no idea why Mike hadn’t come out of the restaurant screaming. Others would have jumped on the occasion; shouted Spider-Man’s identity from the rooftops for a few hours of fame, or found him weird, or found him revolting, or crazed for putting his life on the line the way he did. But Mike stayed. More than that, he stuck to Peter like he hadn’t before, glued to his arm, his hand, his skin, his dazzled eyes circling Peter’s face like discovering it anew. He clinged to him like they were the only ones in the restaurant, as they might as well be, as Mike himself was the middle in Peter’s vision, the center of the room, the eye of the cyclone. Calm weather. Low pressure. The whole world could go to shit and he’d end up just fine with only MJ by his side.

“Are you sure you’re okay with it?” Peter asked as he made a beeline to the waiter.

“With you being you-know-who or you paying? Because I’m still not sure on you paying,” he replied.

“Card,” he said, handing it over. “Me being… you-know-who.”

Mike’s grin had pointy teeth. “Honey, I’m fucking excited.” Peter repeated the word dumbly before the hand that was coiled at his elbow dragged him out of the restaurant the second his card was returned to him. “And horny,” MJ added as the breeze of the outside slapped their face. “But don’t tell him, it’ll get to his head.”

“Tell Spider-Man? Oh, he knows. Your little speech about his butt, well, I’m sorry to say it, but, he kinda happened to hear all that...”

MJ bit his lip in a way that should be considered too lewd to be done out in the open. “My bad, I thought we were alone...”

“No you didn’t,” Peter replied as they hastily turned at a corner and delved into a badly lit street. Here, he brutally braked. He grabbed onto Mike’s shoulders as he forced him to a stop as well. “Can we just…  just for a second. Are you really okay with this?”

Now glaring at him, MJ shrugged off his hands. “I can tell you to get fucked. Again.”

“Okay, but一 that’s the thing, I can fuck off, do you want me to fuck off?”

“Ooh,” he drawled, “I made Spidey say ‘fuck’. Twice.”

“I’m being serious. One word from you and I’m out.”

Peter was shoved by the flat of Mike’s hand; yet the space between them hadn’t broadened. In fact, they were closer than ever before.

Mike hammered his eyes into Peter’s. “I’m staying. And you better stay too or I’ll keep finding your ass over, and over, and over again and haul you back to me.”

“I’m just…”

“You’re not gonna lose me. Not me. I’m way too stubborn for that.”

“MJ, listen to me. I don’t want to go back out there if it means having to leave you behind.”

“Then take me with you!”

“MJー”

“Nothing’s gonna happen. You and I, we gon’ be just fine. What’s the point of staying down on earth when you can fly ?”

Then and there, Peter kissed him, something slow and hesitant, the dam of nerves breaking lose in the depth of his stomach. It wasn’t a proper kiss but more of a shove, of two closed mouths against one another. Just as fast as he started it, Peter broke it short.

“MJ,” he murmured, “I’m terrified of falling.”

But Mike pressed on and pushed himself against him, sprinkled open-mouthed kisses along the light stubble of Peter’s jaw and on the circles under his eyes.

“I won’t let you fall,” he whispered. “I won’t let you fall. ”

“MJ…”

“I got you, tiger. You’re safe.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

At that moment, at the promise, Peter let go of him, leaving Mike’s eyelids to flutter open. His brow creased in enthralled focus while Peter backed up against the wall, while Peter glanced at him with a mix of trepidation and exhilaration ー see me, as no one has seen me in an eternity, as I want no one but you to see.

MJ’s gasp came out in a stutter. Both of Peter’s feet had left the ground. Hanging by the tip of his fingers on the smooth and unclimbable vertical surface, flipping the bird at gravity, his knees bent and his soles touched the wall. He knew what it looked like: a strange-looking, off-putting contortion, that made his bones jut out as though he was more insect than person. He was, actually, a perfect blend of the two. Not quite alien, not quite human. Just freaky enough to scale the wall until he stood taller than MJ by more than a head, and just cocky enough to catch the oval shape that MJ’s mouth did when it dropped to the pavement, and to lean down to it, achingly slowly, lost in the eyes that found themselves transfixed, until he was just the perfect height to hover over the lips of Michael James.

His breaths came out in shakes. Both of theirs did. But the silence that lingered gave no doubt that the unvoiced thoughts were begging to be screamed out.

Finally, after what felt like hours, one of these thoughts came out in a whisper:

“Jesus, you’re actually him.”

Peter burst into laughter.

Given by his sudden frown, Mike was offended.

“Hey, it’s one thing to talk about it and another to see it. Jesus. You’re sticking to the freaking wall, Peter, look at you! ”

“I know,” he replied, giving him an arrogant wink. “I do that.”

“Like… fuck.” MJ craned his neck. There, underneath Peter, he studied him and marveled. “And I thought the thing with the drumsticks sticking to your hand was weird.”

“Oh, that,” Peter replied quickly, “that was awkward, I didn’t mean to do it, my body was just, uh, messing with me, distracted, or, or, and, uh…”

“I was distracting you.”

He considered this for a few seconds as MJ’s stare bit into him, almost predatory. “Maybe you were.”

“Am I distracting you now?”

“No, I’m very focused,” he lied. “Super focused. Never been more focused in my life.”

“On me?”

“Who else?”

On his tiptoes, his nose inches from Peter’s nose, Mike grinned. “Don’t tell a boy that… You might just make him blush.”

The few inches that split them apart vanished. Their lips met again. It was more intense this time, more desperate, more real maybe; because it wasn’t just Peter that held MJ in that moment but Spider-Man as well. The red and the blue melted together like neon purple on his skin, dripped down to MJ, in his open mouth, his tongue that licked and swirled, MJ who collected the drops like they were holy. Oh. That was it. Peter felt revered . Revealed. Real motherdeckin’ whole.

“Hey,” he breathed into Mike, “let’s fly.”

MJ’s breathing picked up pace. “Right now?”

“Yes.”

He swallowed, glanced at Peter’s fingers on the wall, the implication when he unstuck a hand to hold it out. Then his eyes like blinding stars crinkled and his shoulders shook with an exploding laughter.

“Okay, what一” Peter started before laughing too. “What’s up?”

MJ hiccuped. “I can’t believe I bagged Spider-Man.”

“Shut up,” Peter snorted, leaning forward to seize him by the waist. With a shocked gasp, MJ was pulled up.

“The f…”

“Shut,” Peter said again, and to his satisfaction MJ opted to obey (for a few seconds, at least) and to throw his arms around Peter’s neck desperately. “Hang on.”

“Motherf… holy-!”

Peter effortlessly stood straight up on the wall and Mike wrapped his legs around his hips when gravity called to him two feet below. Calloused hands secured tight around him, Peter spun him around and started a few steps upwards. Mike’s chin came to rest at the crook of his neck. His breaths were short, like nervous shivers, much like the ones that shook his body as the ground shrank and shrank behind them during their ascent. Peter would never let him go. That was a truth so bright that it lit up his path, a guide when his middle finger pushed onto the button in his palm and called for a web; a beacon, when the wind welcomed him back into the air.

MJ didn’t say a single word during their entire escapade.

Kind enough not to do his usual pirouettes, Peter had taken the higher road, brushing past the last stories of the buildings instead of taunting the cars stuck in traffic. They were flying past dark windows and lit rooftops, occupied by busy couples and lone birdwatchers who stood agape at the sudden sight in their binoculars. MJ was silent, but his breath was warm in Peter’s neck, and his hand, protective when it came to shield the side of his face that wasn’t hidden behind the flying locs. The pang of affection in Peter’s chest was almost near painful.

The journey that would take them an hour by foot took them a few minutes from Soho to the Empire State Building. Peter landed them right above its observatory. It was colder there, and the wind slapped at him as though to punish him for being back so late, but it was like a best friend’s reproach, always forgiving in the end. Peter clung to MJ’s waist as he staggered under the gusts, and MJ hadn’t released him either. His face was turned to the horizon, the great openness of the infinite and the frighteningly finite drop below. His eyes were unblinking. He, unlike Peter, took the blow of the wind like a champ, or more like a child who was discovering for the first time that the world was much more vast than the grown people said it was. It was a sight Peter knew by heart, so he felt no need to turn and stare when his own world was already cradled between his hands.

“So this is what it’s like?” MJ said.

Overwhelmed with emotion, Peter nodded. “Do you like it?”

He hadn’t been lying when he told MJ that he would walk away and never look back if he said the word. No questions asked; no repetition of the past. He would leave his life in a flash. So if Mike were to turn away from the horizon and ask Peter to take him back to earth, he would do so, gladly.

And then…

Peter didn’t know what he would do.

He could see now limitless opportunities and paths to take with Michael James, and he didn’t want to be constricted to just one, but he wanted to walk them all. Wherever Peter looked, he too was there. Just like for every one of his other selves. There was no Peter without an MJ, or at least, he wished this was the case for all worlds, all universes, because life without him had felt grey for a life too long.

A light shake of the head, a short frown, a mere shrug were all it would take for Peter to give up.

Yet MJ smiled. In this glowing, brazing way only he could do so well.

“I love it,” he said.

So Peter stayed.

“Okay,” he murmured, lit aflame, “okay. I love it too, you know. I love being Spider-Man, I never stopped loving it. It never stopped being me.”

“I love you. The man and the spider,” said MJ. “And I’mma make sure you keep being the two. The little people need you just as much as I do.”

“It’s a great deal,” Peter said, grinning as he rested his forehead against his, “you keep me in check and kick my ass when I forget my responsabilities, and I cheer you on when you walk down the runway.”

“It’s a healthy balance.”

“Super healthy. We’re so good at this.”

“You’re welcome,” MJ replied, all soft and all smiles. “So… what do we do now?” 

Peter turned to the side, to the city below and the moon above. The wind had calmed, and his assurance was strengthened by the man at his side and his future ahead of him.

“What if we jumped?”

“Are you okay with…”

“Jumping doesn’t mean falling. And you told me we’re not gonna fall. So we won’t.”

MJ laughed and kissed him. Peter took him in his arms when he hopped on him again and threw his legs around his hips, chuckling in his mouth as he swirled them to face the edge.

Peter stepped forward.