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“Show off.”
“Nerd.”
“Dumbass.”
“Loser.”
“Hey,” Peter says with a frown, Johnny barely holding back a laugh at seeing how indignant he looks, “only MJ gets to call me that.”
“Valid,” Johnny says, only to wrinkle his nose in disgust when Peter drinks milk straight out from the jug, “though the longer I live with you, the more I understand why she broke up with you.”
“ Ouch , dude. Not cool,” Peter says but there’s a lightness in his tone, sagging his shoulders as he says, “You’re right though. She’s out of my league.”
“Of course I am,” Johnny says with a grin, winking at Peter who rolls his eyes in response, “though since she’s single and all…”
“No. Absolutely not, don’t— don’t even— MJ would never —“
“What? Be into someone like me ?” Johnny says as he lifts himself from the bar, gesturing to himself as Peter seems to go through the five stages of grief in thirty seconds.
“God, you’re right. She’d love you. She already does! She talked to Sue for hours at that Christmas party and you know she doesn’t even like parties like that.”
Peter sighs dramatically, putting the milk back into the fridge and closing the door shut a little too quickly as Johnny grins.
“Can you at least invite me to the wedding?”
“Come on man, I’m kidding,” Johnny says, as Peter burrows his head into his arms - Johnny awkwardly patting his shoulder before saying, “You guys will figure it out. You always do.”
Peter sniffs a little, lifting his head up before resting his chin on his arm. “Maybe. She just… she deserves better you know?”
“If I know anything about MJ, you deciding what she deserves isn’t—“
“I know, I know,” Peter says, wiping his nose with the back of his hand as Johnny makes another face, only for Peter to look up at him and say, “Sorry. I interrupted you again. MJ says I gotta stop doing that too.”
“You do,” Johnny answers honestly, Peter looking mildly offended only to school his features as Johnny continues, “but we know it comes from a good place, man.”
Peter laughs to himself, shaking his head as he says, “Yeah, maybe.”
His phone buzzes, the two of them turning to the sound as it rattles their dingy coffee table - Peter moving towards it and picking it up.
Johnny instantly knows that it’s something serious for the way Peter’s posture changes - the subtle shift of his best friend shifting from Peter Parker to Spider-Man never failing to surprise him.
It was a feature of still feeling like he was a guest in Peter’s life, around for the past three years of college and still feeling like he’s playing catch up - fitting back into the world along with fitting into Peter’s orbit.
He’d known Peter when they were teenagers, meeting on a random rooftop back when they were just kids. But then Johnny went off into space, trapped in a nightmare that never ended, negative space that consumed his every waking moment and his every night - three years since he returned from the Negative Zone and still feeling like it had been only yesterday.
Ned, MJ, and Peter had all welcomed him back as if nothing had changed but everything had - for Johnny most of all.
It wasn’t lost on him that while Peter was Johnny’s best friend, Ned was Peter’s - just as MJ was his girlfriend (or ex, depending on the month) and up until recently, his roommate.
Peter moving in with him may have been a result of the breakup but it was a welcome one, not least of which because Johnny couldn’t stand to be alone in a dark apartment even if the idea of moving back in with Reed, Sue and the kids wasn’t exactly at the top of his priorities.
He was the cool uncle. Johnny didn’t want to mess that up with his night terrors.
“What’s up?” He asks, Peter’s frown deepening as he thumbs across the screen.
“Trouble,” Peter says dismissively, clicking his phone off and glancing around the apartment as Johnny points.
“Bathroom,” he answers the question Peter hadn’t yet had time to ask, knowing him well to recognize that when he got like this - a one-track mind to fling himself off into whatever dangerous situation that no amount of conversation could stop him from.
Johnny knows he almost never accepts it but still offers it all the same, Peter slipping a foot into his suit and jumping up a few times as he shimmies it on him as he asks, “Need a plus one?”
“Nah, it’s fine,” Peter says, slipping his arm into the rest of the suit and then pressing on the spider emblem so it can tighten, “Just Rhino being a dumbass.”
“You’d think he’d learn by now,” Johnny says breezily, as if he wasn’t already planning on obsessively watching the news to see if Peter would need help. Peter hated it, the hovering and the last minute assists - just as he hated anyone worrying about him.
But unlike Ned or MJ, Johnny could actually fly into a fight without Peter being able to stop him. It was a silent agreement between the three of them, a feature of being in Peter Parker’s orbit for any length of time.
Peter was a dumbass white boy, but he was theirs .
They had to work together to keep him alive, if only for another day.
“Yeah well, I’m not gonna hold my breath,” Peter says as he walks towards the window, grabbing his mask before turning back to Johnny. “Dumplings when I get back?”
He shakes his head. “Meeting MJ at seven, we’re going to that Ethiopian place on 87th.”
Peter sighs, shoving his mask on as he says, “See? I knew it. You’re perfect for each other.”
“Can’t argue against perfection,” Johnny calls out as Peter laughs, slipping out of the window and towards the danger waiting for him.
Johnny moves off his place at the bar, going to turn the light off only to stop - the quiet of the apartment and the threat of darkness closing in giving him pause.
Peter always got onto him about leaving the lights on until he knew the reason - Johnny’s quiet explanation of his deepest nightmares helping Peter understand.
But the instinct was still there, Johnny’s hand hovering over the light switch only to bring it down, moving towards his bedroom to change.
He wasn’t back in that dark place, he wasn’t alone. He had a family who loved him, friends who adored him and a dumbass roommate that understood him.
Johnny glanced to the light in the hallway as he fixed his jacket, smiling as he left it on - grabbing his keys and walking out of the door.
Ned clinked his beer bottle against Johnny’s, the sounds of the video game they were playing in the background and the characters animations reflecting off the darkness of the living room.
Dark, save for the hallway light — still on as it always was — something Ned had instinctively understood and never questioned.
The longer Johnny knew Ned, the more he understood why Peter loved him as much as he did.
“You think Pete will get here in time?” He asks, Ned taking a swig of his beer before bringing it down as he shrugs.
“I don’t know, man. He texted earlier that he was excited but,” Ned looks at him knowingly, “you know how that is.”
Johnny laughs just as Ned does, nodding his head in agreement as he says, “Yeah, yeah I do.”
They play the video game, including the tournament they had met up for - all without Peter who doesn’t show up until it was closer to morning. Johnny only notices because he’s woken up by Peter rummaging for something in the kitchen, blinking an eye open from his place on the floor - snacks and beer bottles strewn about.
Ned was on the couch, completely passed out and the old television Peter picked up off the street now just showing static.
Johnny glances to Peter who has the decency to look sheepish, limping from the kitchen and settling himself down on the couch as he says, “How’d it go?”
“Killed it,” Johnny says with a yawn, sitting up as Peter shoves a handful of chips into his mouth. “Missed you though.”
Peter winces as he says, “Sorry dude. You wouldn’t believe the shit Chameleon was into tonight.”
“Wanna talk about it?” Johnny asks, already anticipating Peter’s answer as he shakes his head and says, “Nah, Tony got me an appointment with Patricia on Thursday. MJ says I gotta stop using my friends for emotional labor.”
Peter makes a face, the look of it wanting to make Johnny laugh as Johnny says, “she’s right.”
Peter laughs, nudging Johnny with his elbow, “Come on man, you’re saying you don’t want to hear about all my deepest, darkest problems?”
“Nope, got enough of my own,” Johnny says a little too quickly, digging his hands into the bag of chips Peter has. He pointedly ignores the look Peter is giving him, shoving some chips in his mouth and hoping Sue doesn’t get that sixth sense she always does when he’s being influenced too much by Peter.
“You doing okay, man?” Peter whispers, partly for Ned’s benefit but mostly for the thing that neither of them had talked about - the nightmare that had pulled Johnny out of unconsciousness screaming at the top of his lungs, Peter actually being at home and running into his room with a baseball bat as if he didn’t have literal super strength.
It’d been three days and Johnny had absolutely been ignoring Peter, a part of him secretly grateful that tonight it had just been him and Ned - the kind of gentle companionship that Peter never really allowed him to have.
“I’m okay,” Johnny says as he chews the food in his mouth and swallows, “Can’t keep a Storm down.”
“You’d tell me if you weren’t though right?” Peter asks in that stupidly vulnerable way he always does, as if Johnny didn’t already know that he’d take whatever words he said and make it his problem - a good trait that still unnerved Johnny, if only because he knew there were some things that could never be fixed.
“Yeah man of course,” Johnny casually lies, Peter studying him for a beat like he doesn’t believe him. Johnny easily deflects, nudging him with his elbow as he says, “Besides, unlike you, I go to therapy regularly.”
What he doesn’t tell Peter is that his therapist wonders how healthy this is for him - living in an apartment with another superhero, especially one that Johnny so clearly cares for. Johnny had sacrificed everything to save his family - would do it again in a heartbeat - but it took a toll on him, in ways that he was still unraveling.
Living in a small, cramped apartment with someone like Peter - despite the lights they kept on, figuratively and literally - was a crisis waiting to happen.
For all the good therapy did him, this is the one thing he refused to acknowledge. He wasn’t going to move out anytime soon and despite the fact that Peter and MJ were on again, it didn’t seem as if he was yearning to leave either.
They had a good thing going, the two of them — roommates and friends and a family all on their own.
Johnny wasn’t in that dark place anymore. He was safe, he wasn’t alone - the light from the television creating shadows across Peter’s face as he cracks a smile.
“Show off,” Peter says, Johnny grinning in return.
“Nerd,” he counters, as Peter laughs.
“Dumbass.”
“Loser.”
Johnny’s hands are shaking so hard that he can barely get the lock open, taking deep, gulping breaths as he pushes the door open and closes it behind him.
He looks out to the apartment - empty except for the boxes he still hasn’t moved out - only for his breath to catch when he sees it.
The light in the hallway is off, something Johnny knows rationally that it would be. Reed had told him that the utilities were turned off, just as Sue had warned against him going back to the apartment alone - Johnny flying off the balcony before either of them could stop him.
Johnny moves on autopilot to flick the light switch on, only for his face to crumple when it stays off - moving the switch up and down as his vision blurs, desperately wishing for the light to come back into his life like it had so many times before.
He’s not surprised that she’s already there since she was the one who texted him, MJ walking in from the room that used to be Peter’s as Johnny gasps.
“MJ—“
“You came,” she said, her eyes bloodshot as she sniffs, Johnny nodding as he said, “You asked me to.”
MJ bites her lip, a tic that Johnny recognizes of her trying desperately not to cry - nodding a few times as she says, “Ned’s on his way.”
Johnny stays silent, hand still extended towards the light switch as he stares at her - only for MJ to nod pointedly towards his hand.
“Power’s out.”
“I know, I know, I know,” Johnny rambles, forcing himself to stand up straight even if everything within him wants to break down. “Habit.”
MJ just stares, taking a few steps towards him before saying, “I keep forgetting.”
“Huh?” Johnny asks, his mind and his mouth still not quite working together - overwhelmed with how empty the apartment feels, not just because of the lack of furniture but because of the lack of him .
“When I heard you walk in, I thought for a second that it was… that it was him,” she says, Johnny watching as MJ grinds her teeth - seeing the tears in her eyes. “I hate this.”
“Yeah,” Johnny replies, forcing himself to swallow down the lump in his throat. “Me too.”
They stand there for a moment, the grief between them so thick that Johnny feels like he could suffocate from it - let it put him out of his misery than deal with another second of living in a world where Peter didn’t.
MJ surprises him by walking towards him, pulling him into a hug that Johnny immediately melts into - burrowing his head into her shoulder as he takes a shaky breath.
He closes his eyes, holding MJ tighter — thinking back to the last day she’d been in the apartment, the last day before the end of everything.
The two of them had been joking as they always did, at Peter’s expense - Peter just rolling his eyes and laughing with the kind of lightness that Johnny aches to hear again.
He never would, Johnny knows this - just as he knows that even now, he’s not alone. He has a family that loves him, friends who are there for him and a home with people who understand — the darkness he carries so heavily and so deeply in his heart now a burden he shares.
Johnny hates it, more than he can even stand - the only solace he can find is that the last words he and Peter had ever said to each other were teasing but said in love - seared forever into his memory.
There’s a part of him that wishes he could go back, could warn Peter or to save him - force him to stay home, to come back and leave the light on one last time.
Instead he just plays those last words in a loop in his memory, over and over again, as he holds MJ even tighter.
Show off.
Nerd.
Dumbass.
Loser.