Work Text:
i.
"She gave me my memories back." MJ is sitting on the roof with him, both of them with their feet dangling off the edge, her converse kicking against the city skyline. "All of them."
Peter eyes her. "I know."
It had been Jean's project, lately. There had been a back channel agreement between Damage Control and some supers with powerful PR weight to leave Jean alone, and as long as Jean stays out of sight and out of mind, the U.S. government seems content to let her be. MJ says this is because there are other, less noticeable telepaths and super powered individuals to disappear into government research labs/torture chambers, and Peter doesn't say anything about it at all, other than to beg Jean to please be careful, no matter how bored she gets. And she did get bored, working her barista job in the morning and sitting in Peter's apartment doing jigsaw puzzles while he swings around the city, so she took it upon herself to make people remember Peter Parker, selectively.
"No. I mean, all of them. You and me on the roof, too." She stops kicking. Peter himself goes still. "When you thought I remembered you."
"Right." Funny. The wound that that was, in the moment. How he didn't even remember it, in the end, the way it had hurt him. It was MJ that the violation had taken place against, and she had forgiven that the moment Jean came back into their lives, without hesitation. "You knew about that."
"It was different. Seeing it happen. Watching your face when you realized it wasn't me." MJ tucked her hair behind her ear. "You told her it was unforgiveable."
"I did."
"But that's not how it turned out, did it?" MJ wasn't looking at him, she was staring out over the city, jaw clenched. "You did forgive her."
"So did you."
"I didn't know really know what I was forgiving."
"Is it-," Her, in his arms. Him, kissing her. Thinking he had her back, that she loved him, too, through all the years. That she felt his absence like an ache, proof that she loved him as much as he loved her, across universes. "Do you not forgive her, now?"
"It was a complicated situation, wasn't it?" MJ stares down at her hands. "The question, of what you would be willing to do, if there was one person standing between you and saving the person you love most in the world. The right thing is always sort of relative, isn't it?"
A long time ago, a much younger Peter would have told her that there is a right thing and there is a wrong thing. A set of rules to abide by. That you don't get to call the shots, or take them, just because you think you're standing on the right side of history, that you should never mistake your powers with the right to be both judge and jury. That was what the accords were for, what Mr. Stark had fought to enshrine in the law.
But that was a long time ago.
Before Peter went to space. Before reality dissolved within the snap of Thanos' fingers, and Strange reshaped them, sand molded back to clay, given breath. Back before he was betrayed by his own power, his own body, before he sat and combed through the protected files of the Damage Containment center and found that he was just an attack dog that they had given a very long leash, and god help him if they ever decided that he was a thing that needed muzzled.
"She was doing what she had to do to save her sister." And a little bit more. Jean was a wounded thing, too, lashing out. But Peter had also been the first one she could speak to, the first one who saw her for what she was. And he had made himself an enemy. That had been a minor betrayal, in the grand scheme of things, but a betrayal nonetheless, and one she had wanted to punish. "You can't blame her for that."
"I don't. We talked about it, had a long, in depth talk about it, and she apologized. Never intended it to be something remembered, and she, um-," MJ cleared her throat, messed with her hair again. "She use me to hurt you in a really screwed up way. And it's sort of scary, remembering that. Scarier than the black out that was there. To remember and be in the memory and know that I wouldn't have been able to stop anything. Though that's how it is for us mere mortals- you can do anything you want to us. Rag dolls for all of you to play with, toys that you break in your battles."
Peter loves MJ, but she's pretentious, especially when she's trying to make a point.
"So you're angry at her now? Want to kick her out of the group?" Because they are a group. Peter, and Jean, and Ned, and MJ, and MJ's on again off again boyfriend who does not know about Spiderman but definitely knows that he's being kept out of the loop about something, and he thinks the something is that Peter had been a child prodigy that ended up doing a long stint at a rehab horse ranch in Utah, thanks to Ned, and a bunch of other people that exist in their orbit- Dr. Banner, and Ned and MJ's college friends, and Frank, and the girls that Jean works at the coffee shop with. "We all decided that she could stay. We took a vote."
"Yeah, we let her stay, but you're the one who brought her back." MJ stood up, and Peter realized than that she was the one he was mad. "You're the one who made New York safe for her. The one who let her come home. You forgave her pretty quickly, all things considered."
And he had. He had hacked into the city's facial recognition software and erased all memories of her face, got rid of every scrap of data that had been collected on Jean and her sister by Damage Control. He wiped her records from the public, and then from the back channels of every government office that the U.S. pretends not to have, and then rebuilt them, turning Jean Grey into just a regular girl. She is no one special- a kid from a series of foster homes with a lackluster academic performance and a talent for latte art and a penchant for putting holes in Peter's hoodies, somehow. The world will ignore her. It is safer, if the world ignores her.
"She needed someone to protect her." This was shining a spotlight on something that he did not want to think about too closely. "No one else was going to."
"You make it sound like she's just one of your pet projects." MJ tilts her head. She is beautiful, like this, full of righteous indignation, even when its against him, her silhouette lit by the setting sun. "But that's never been the whole story with the two of you, has it?"
ii.
It wasn't. She wasn't.
Peter did have people that he would try and protect, over the years, despite the fact that they don't need or want his protection. Frank would make fun of him for his talent at picking up strays, and how all of his tend to bite, and how many rolls of bandages would it take before he learned that some bad dogs are meant to be put down.
But Jean wasn't a rescue mission. He scrubbed the records because it was the right thing to do, but also because if she ever wanted to come back to New York, to come back to him, he wanted that to be possible.
And it's not that he loved her, in the beginning.
It was just that he thought of New York as his home base. And he had a motley collection of superheroes that drifted in and out of his orbit, and saw no reason why Jean Grey couldn't be one of them. And she would send him messages, sometimes, these telepathic post cards of where she was and what she was up to, and he would try and send her ones back, would think hard enough to give himself a head ache and hope she heard him.
He couldn't explain it, other than the fact that, if there was a person in this world that knew him, it was Jean Grey. And if there was a person in this world left that knew Jean Grey, it was him. His mind, open, her walking through it, seeing the child that he was, and the man he had become, how as a child, he thought he could save the world, how as an adult, he had no allusions that he could save anyone, really, but he would break himself open in the attempt, and it was her, the whispered presence in his mind in that hospital bed, that gave him permission to rest. She had been there, the catalyst for his becoming, into this strange new version of himself, and he had walked her through the tempest that was her own evolution.
It's just that yes, MJ and Ned loved him. And they fell back into their friendship instantly, relearning the shape of each other. Being with them was like walking through the rooms of a childhood home and finding that the new owners had done renovations over the years. Like, you know how to find the bathroom and the linen closet, but sometimes you find yourself standing in the kitchen and thinking- huh. That's not the color I would have chosen for the cabinets.
There is never any pausing with Jean. Jeans knows about pain, and bad decisions. Has dragged herself home, if not beaten and bloody, at least with a migraine that seems ripe to split her open, the phantom echo of other's pain still echoing through her body, pain she had caused and pain she had found on accident, that had been lurking in their minds and their bodies and that she has to shake off. Has sat in dark apartments and dark motel rooms and on bus station benches, alone, and knew she was going to be alone for a long, long time. Has stared at her name in a file and saw the plans for the containment center that they had built, in case she ever gets out of line again, the same way Peter has seen his own cell, a place he will one day inhibit, if he's not careful, now that Tony is not here to protect him.
Jean is Jean. A girl who could freeze New York City with a blink, but chooses to sit on his couch, in his sweat pants and the crop top he stole from the girl down the hall, and complete jigsaw puzzles. A girl he is trying very, very hard not to let know how much he loves her.
iii.
"Right." Ned blinked at him. They are in the library, after Lego night, because they found out that the local library does a lego night, and Peter has been instructed by pretty much everyone in his life that he has to become more social and find non-Spiderman related activities. The fact that he exclusively builds reconstructions of Spiderman's greatest fights, as ranked by a buzzfeed article, is his inside joke. "So you love her. But you're never going to admit you love her. Because you don't want to be happy?"
"No!" Peter hushes him, makes him lower his voice. He is twenty-six years old, and he is embroiled in high school drama. "She's best friends with all of us, and my roommate, and it would be so weird, and not to mention the power dynamic, because I'm like, a big part of all the other parts of her life and also provide her with a home-,"
"In exchange for rent, which she could find anywhere,-,"
"and there's the whole legal mess that Spiderman is actively keeping at bay for her, and it would just, I'd be taking advantage."
"Dude. She's a-," Ned mouthed the word telepath, eyes wide. "If there's a person capable of taking advantage in this relationship, I'm not sure it would be you."
Peter rolled his eyes.
"And like, who's to say she even likes me?" Which is the real thing. The more than the fear of it not working out, of ruining the friendship and the roommate situation and the security that comes with her telepathy being the best alarm system that money could buy, is the idea that she would look at him, and tell him, kindly, because she is kind, that she just doesn't see him that way. And at the end of the day, he was a twenty-six year old whose only relationship had been high school puppy love, and that only lasted about six months. He had spent four years pining after MJ, mostly because she and Ned were his only connection to the actual person he was, the person of Peter Parker, and he's spent the last year doing the same thing for Jean, in a much more real, much more pathetic way. "I might not be her type."
"Dude." Ned stared at him around a shelf. "You're Spiderman. You're everyone's type."
"No. I'm not." He looked down at his hands, his wrists, where you could see the slight indents of the new organic web shooters, indents that sometimes ache and only stop aching if you hold it with a very specific amount of pressure, a level of pressure only Jean can provide, because she can feel the ache wax and wane as she holds him. The hands that are often bruised, that are decorated with bloody knuckles more often than not, that he had thought, at one point, were going to be used for invention, and are now only used to cling onto buildings and beat up bad guys. Not like hers. She is so human. "I'm just Peter Parker."
And isn't that the trouble.
iv.
When he does tell her, it's an accident.
He has a head ache. A splitting one. It still happens, not as frequently as before, but he cannot turn off his heightened senses, cannot separate Spiderman from Peter Parker. What is useful in a fight is horrendous when he is trying to go to a party at Ned and MJ's apartment.
The music was loud, pounding in his head, and the smell of beer was rancid. Ned's skin was damp with sweat, in a way that would be unnoticeable to Peter six months ago, but now feels wrong and clammy when Ned wraps him in a hug, and Peter forced himself still even though he wanted to recoil. He could smell cigarettes from the balcony, and when Jean flips her hair, the smell of the vanilla in her shampoo, which she normally likes, wafts to him and makes him want to be sick.
He makes it twenty minutes.
Does not say good bye to anyone, does not get his coat, even though gets cold easily. Just focuses on walking in a straight line, shoulders hunched against the pain, thinks, in the capacity that he can think, which is not much over the pounding in his head, that he is an easy target, that it would be an ironic end to Spiderman, to be taken out in a mugging.
She catches up to him easy. The real her, not the distorted version of when she possesses people.
"You're doing good." She has him by the arm, helps bear his weight. "Can I help?"
And he knows what she is really asking.
"Please-," and it just a breath, his answer, but she hears, and she is there, her touch a balm, the presence of her mind a whisper against his, and then someone treading lightly through his consciousness. She does not take anything away, but it is the sensory equivalent of dimming the lights. It is enough to let him breathe without wanting to vomit, enough for him to open his eyes beyond squinting.
"You can do it." Her grip is tight. "Just a bit longer until home."
A stumble up the steps. Him, in the elevator, face white, dripping sweat. Stumbling through the apartment, the kitchen, on his knees in the bathroom, retching, her still in his mind, her hovering at the door, him, humiliated and sick and in pain, wanting her, or anyone, or more accurately, his Aunt May, but he can't have that, so anyone, to come closer, to hold him, to wipe away the tears that have appeared on his face, but more than that, he wants this weakness to be private, to belong to him alone.
But she is here.
Kneeling on the ground beside him. Pulling him to face her. She has a wash cloth in her hand, damp with cool water, and runs it over his face.
"Let me take it." Her hand is so gentle on his face, fingertips fluttering against his skin, like she is scared to touch him, as if her touch could hurt him. "Let me take the pain."
She will do nothing without permission, even to help him.
"No." He moves to the side again, gags but does not get sick. "No, it hurts you, don't want-" He stops to breathe, to focus himself. "Don't want you hurt."
"I don't want you to be hurting either." She has tears in her eyes. He can feel her worry and it warms him. "Let me take some of it. Please."
"Won't hurt forever. Just-," He reaches out, a clumsy attempt, and she his hand, holds it. "Stay. Please."
v.
So he's in a vulnerable state, is what it is. Worn out, and tired, and still with his head aching, by the time he gets off the floor, knees aching (and is this him, becoming old? Did he ever think would become old?), and moves to the couch.
His head is in her lap.
Her hand in his hair, combing through it, some nonsensical show on the tv that he has his eyes closed against but that she is watching. She's trying to be quiet, but he can still feel the slight spasm when she goes to laugh and then stops herself.
He forgets, that she is in his head. How much of his thoughts are bleeding through. And that's fine, because his thoughts are mostly- ow, ow, ow and like when she does that, feels good when she does that and please for the love of everything good, don't let there be a super alien attack tonight.
But then she laughs. And it's like, his favorite sound. And he thinks, without meaning to think it- I love you- and he knows by the way she goes still, the brief tightening of her hand in his hair and the resulting shock wave that reaches from her mind to his, that she knows exactly how he meant it.
vi.
Maybe another person could have played it cool. Maybe Spiderman could have. But Peter Parker- Peter Parker whose idea of a good time is building lego sets and who couldn't watch Backrooms with Ned because he found it too scary and who, when his telehealth therapist told him to journal, found himself staring at a line that said only I want a hug - Peter could not play it cool.
He sat up. Quicker than he should have. Moved to the other end of the couch, clutching at the blanket (his Star Wars blanket, god) in his lap and trying not to look at her.
But he has to look at her.
"Peter." She looks like someone had slapped her, that's how shocked she is. Which is probably not a good sign. "I-,"
"You don't have to say anything." His voice is small, wobbly. Not a hero voice. This is the voice of a boy standing on a bridge and hearing that the only reason the girl he had a crush on was paying attention to him was that she knew he was Spiderman. And that turned out okay, until it didn't, but still. "I wasn't going to tell you?" He says it like its a question, even though he definitely was never going to tell her. He would have moved on, eventually, probably. "I know it's an awful position to put you in, and um,"
"Peter-,"
"I can stay with Ned for a few days. If you want me to. Or even if you don't want me to, maybe it would be better?" He stands, and the room spins, so he sits back down. The light hurts. "Maybe not right this minute. But I can go."
"Peter." She reaches out to him. Cradles his jaw. He squints at her. "Can I take the pain, please? Just a bit of it." Her eyes, wide. Her hair, frizzy from the rain. And he loves her. There is no point, now, in hiding how he loves her, it bleeds from him and she gasps and he knows that she feels it. "Just enough to keep you steady."
Steady Spiderman, that's what she says to him. Sometimes, it's a whisper through the city streets, when he's standing above someone, and he's thinking, just idly, how they are a bad person, and that he would really, really like to hurt them, that he wants to know what its like to punish, just this once, a warning, a call back to himself. Sometimes, it's a joke- she watches him get hit by a bird when he's swinging or he somehow still manages to spill milk when he's pouring it into his cereal in the morning. Sometimes, rarely, but sometimes, it's her angry, a low level warning, telling him tread carefully when he pushes too far.
And Spiderman is steady.
Peter Parker isn't.
Peter Parker lets his weight fall into her hands. Lets his pain bleed from him and into her, even though that is antithetical to everything that he tries to be, but he is so tired, and wants so badly for someone to help ease the aching. Closes his eyes and thinks, again, as the pain leaves him, of how he loves her.
"See?" She has a slight wrinkle in her face, a trace of pain in her eyes, and Peter knows that she lifted more than he intended her to take. "Better now?"
"I just need a moment." He can straighten up, though its a different sort of aching, to pull away from her. "And then you can give it back."
"Not a chance, Spidey."
"Peter." He whispers it. "Please call me Peter."
Her small falters. "Peter." She reaches out to him again, and he leans away from her, so her touch falls just shy of reaching him. She freezes that way for a moment before letting her hand drop to her lap. "Did you mean it?"
"You could feel it." This might be what misery is like. He'd take getting pummeled by the Hulk a thousand times over this. "You tell me."
"That's not how I do things anymore. If you want to tell me," Her voice, too, is only a whisper. Her voice, too, sounds scared. "You have to actually tell me."
And what is there to lose, really?
"I love you." The words rush from him. "For a really, really long time now. And I haven't wanted to ruin anything. I'm sorry if I've ruined things. It doesn't have to change anything. But I do love you."
"I want-," She stops, swallows. "I don't want things to change."
"Oh." The words hit like a punch. He should know. He's taken enough of them.
But she was still talking.
"I'm scared, of things changing. Because you're really, really important to me. And I would do anything, to keep from losing you."
"You won't lose me." This time, he does let her touch him, covers her hand with his own. "I'm not going to leave just because you don't feel the same way."
"Peter," She says, and if he shocked before it is nothing to the way he has stunned her now. "Do you actually think there's a version of this where I don't love you back?"
And does he? He doesn't know.
His head hurts, and he's tired, and he's sick, and he just loves her. Those are the only truths he is capable of knowing, tonight.
I love you, and she doesn't say it, doesn't push the thought so much as let the truth of it envelope him, and he feels it, the tight comfort of a chrysalis, the elemental truth of them.
"I love you," and this, she says out loud, to him, her voice shaking.
"I love you," he says it, thinks it, and his voice as he says it, is steady, not Spiderman steady, but Peter Parker sure.