Chapter Text
Ned’s apartment has always been her go-to place to hang out. Even back in college when he shared a dorm with someone and the room stank so viciously of boy, she still made her perch in the corner of their room, throwing cans from Ned’s desk until he got up and cleaned. He had a better TV and had better board games, making it a convenient place for a casual hangout, and then after college his parents’ connections meant that he managed to find a central apartment for a good price, spending time there made sense.
All that time spent here and still facing a door she has no memory of ever existing doesn’t compute.
The first thing MJ notes about the room is how lived in it is, the second thing MJ notes is how much of her own stuff is inside it. For a room she had forgotten all about, there is her copy of ‘The Waste Land and Other Collected Poems’ is on the bedside. She knows it is hers because there is a time weathered bookmark tucked towards the back. There is a sweater draped over a single arm chair in the corner of the room that she gravitates towards. It is faded blue, the de of the fabric washing out from years of wear, and when she turns it over she finds the crackled logo of Midtown High staring back at her. Slowly, MJ brings the fabric up to her nose, breathing in and smiling at the warmth that envelopes her.
Comfort.
Something she’s been sorely lacking the last few days.
“Did I have a squatter?” Ned asks, sitting on the edge of the bed and looking around the room aghast.
“You had a roommate.” MJ corrects, slowly casting her eyes over the shelves that have books and folders lining them. In-between the stacks there’s figurines and lego mini-figures and photos of her and Ned along with other people too. There’s a photo from a trip Midtown had taken, a hand reaching out from behind the camera to knock Flash Thompson’s middle finger out of the frame. There are photos of an older man and woman from their wedding and separate - there’s a photo of them together on the bedside. There are polaroids that are perched in the corner of frames like whoever owned this room was trying to capture as much of the world as he could.
Her attention is drawn to one of the polaroids, smiling sadly as a younger version of her looks back. She’s cringing away, trying to hide her face in a book. There are so many photos of her like that, a small stack of people this guy must have known, and they’re all just as intimate as the one before. It was all shy smiles and fond exasperation. She can imagine herself rolling her eyes every time the camera was pointed in her direction and staring him down until the photo was taken. Whoever this person was– they were important. She let them in, let them close in ways that she didn’t normally. A pang starting to build as she wishes that she could travel back to that moment and have herself just look up and memorise the person behind the camera.
MJ’s fingers dance of the two cameras that sit on the shelves as well. One is older, more vintage looking and one is a DSLR that has a sticker reading ‘Property of The Daily Bugle’ wrapped around the lens. She imagines long fingers with bitten down nails pressing the shutter and curving around the lens to adjust the aperture.
It is a cruel joke that this person spent so long trying to remember the world around him that he was forgotten by it instead.
A pang strikes her, making her head duck and a rueful smile form. She suspects a lot of cruel jokes were played on him.
MJ reaches for the other camera, picking it up as delicately as she could and turning it over. At the bottom where the film and batteries are inserted is another sticker, this time handwritten rather than printed. This one has been cemented down by layers of tape that have yellowed with age, the words beneath still faintly visible though. It reads; ‘If found, please return to Ben Parker’.
It isn’t the answer she’s looking for, it can’t be. Everything about this man himself has been erased and ye there’s a single mention of his name? It wouldn’t be that easy… MJ accepts this for the puzzle piece that it is, able to pull back and see the bigger picture.
If this person meant something to her then he meant something to someone else. She could paint a picture of all these connections and then fill in the blanks with the missing person. MJ tries to fit this piece into everything she already knows, everything she’s already felt– the tree in her backyard, the cup in her parents’ kitchen and– She could have sworn they had different neighbours when she was a kid.
They did. They definitely did. The Parkers… Richard and Mary. They died shortly after her grandfather.
It is tenuous at best, but better than nothing.
“I think I’ve known him a while.” MJ announces to Ned, camera still in hand. He’s moved from the bed over to the small desk, trying his luck at the laptop there. It is held together by duct-tape and a dream, but her friend doesn’t seem phased.
“Pretty confident it’s a ‘him’, huh?” He replies offhandedly, distracted as he tries another passcode. His response makes her realise that she’d been slowly forming an image of this person, pulling at a thread to know this small, insignificant fact about them.
It was a start.
“I’m sure of it. I think– I think he was my neighbour growing up. Or knew my neighbours. They were the Parkers. This camera belongs to a Parker.”
“Parker is a common name.” Ned says, finally turning to face her. He accepts the camera with the same delicacy as she’d picked it up with. “Could just be a coincidence… We can’t know for certain.”
“But I do.” MJ challenges him with unearned confidence because she is growing tired of second guessing herself, she is tired of her own head feeling like a minefield. She felt safe when she’d picked up his sweatshirt, she felt safe in here. She was deciding to trust in that, trust in whoever this person was- is. Thinking of them in the past tense isn’t something she can keep doing now an image of him is building up in her mind. Believing that she ever was able to consider them as a point in her past and not a part of her future– the lump that formed in her throat told her it was inconceivable at best. Like the world shouldn’t exist without them.
Truthfully, she thinks the world has been a little duller without him. More boring for certain.
Ned lifts his eyes to meet her gaze, studying her for a second before he nods. “Okay, so he knew the Parkers. Your neighbours. That’s a start.”
“Any luck with the laptop?”
“Not yet, he’s no idiot about his password security.”
“Almost like he’s your friend or something.” MJ smirks, looking back to the shelves for a second. This guy was so set on capturing memories and ensuring that no moment was missed, she got the impression he is busy in other aspects of his life. These photos are reminders for him to slow down.
She had a hunch that he might be worried other things would slip from his mind too. Moving around Ned, MJ bent down by the drawers of the desk, beginning to rummage through the mess contained in them until she pulled out a ripped post-it note that looked as though it was a few years old. The back of it had lost all it’s tackiness like it’d been moved from place to place, notebook to notebook.
In a handwriting not too dissimilar from the one stuck to the bottom of the camera was an incoherent series of letters and numbers.
“Might be a little bit of an idiot about password security.” She says, holding the paper up to Ned’s eyeline. It is a small gesture that leaves her feeling more herself than she had in days. After all, she prides herself on being observant.
“How’s the radio coming along, Peter?” Banner asks him gently. “Any luck?”
“Finding the control room might be the only bit of luck I’m allowed, Dr. Banner.” Peter answers. The control panel in front of him is a bit of a mystery. Normally, he’d be more than happy to attack the puzzle, give it the time it deserves, but today he’s on a bit of a crunch and would much prefer the simplicity of ‘press right here to connect to the other side’.
The depressing shadow of Strange in the corner of the room doesn’t help much either.
“But as my uncle once said, the only way to figure shit out is by giving it your best shot, and the only way to do that is by starting. So.” He shrugs, smiling at the huff of laughter Banner lets out.
“I think I’d like your uncle. Is he–” The rest of his question goes unspoken; Is he out there?
They all seem so afraid to admit there’s a whole world waiting for them on the other side. Maybe it’s the stones getting them to forget as well so they’re less resistant– it seemed to be the case with Gayle– Peter on the other hand refuses to give in to that pressure. He had people he needed to get back to. He had people he wasn’t going to forget.
“No, he died a while back. I was still a kid.”
“Oh.” Banner replies. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Peter always hated when people would say that. They meant well with their condolences, and it was a hard topic to navigate. It tended to end a lot of conversations. He just hated how the words took some of the blame off of Peter’s shoulders and made it theirs for a moment, like there was something they personally could have done to stop it when that was something that would rest on his conscience alone.
He especially hates to hear it now because at least he remembered Ben.
In disappearing, he had left May alone and she didn’t even know.
A lump forms in his throat.
The laptop doesn’t prove to be a completely fruitless endeavour. They learn this man kept his filing system as chaotic as he kept his drawers, his desktop littered with files that had Ned’s jaw clenching so tightly MJ thought his teeth might shatter. They learn that he was working on the same Spider related projects that Ned had been. They learn he enjoys the same puns. They learn that he has so many more photos on his laptop; more of them and all their friends, only one of MJ’s old neighbours Mary and Richard, and plenty more of the older woman and her husband - there is one of her alone, smiling broadly with her hands held up exuberant towards a banner that reads in bolds letter ‘FEAST: Grand Re-opening!’. The meta-data on the photo tells them it was taken around nine years ago when they were still in High School.
It is likely that the woman has moved on from FEAST, but MJ makes a note to check it out anyway. She has a small suspicion that they’ve found the ‘May’ that exists as a contact in both their phones.
Like everything else, anything that might contain personal information about the man or anything identifiable is completely erased. The thing that MJ realises the more that they uncover about this person is that it’s hard to remove the impact a person made. There is a feeling in everything she finds, a deep longing that demands she find more about him, like she could remember his name and every single piece of his personal history and it still wouldn’t be enough. MJ finds a sick sort of pleasure in re-learning so much of him and finds herself falling back in love with the man she can’t even name because that sort of thing cannot be forgotten.
Ned moves away from the laptop, snapping it closed with an annoyed huff. The screen shakes and creaks under the weight of his action, protesting quietly like its owner is speaking to them through the machine and begging him not to be so angry. Ned likes to take care of his friends. Knowing he’d forgotten one is cutting deeper than his usual good humoured docile nature would allow. He marches across the room, standing in the middle and looking around as he searches for another trail to follow.
MJ has occupied the bed, pilfering through his bedside table, examining further pictures and looking through the notes he’d made in the margins of his textbooks. They’re borrowed, or maybe hand-me-downs from both her and Ned. The textbooks were to the top of the pile by his bed, just under her borrowed copy of the Wasteland. He’d been reading both recently. Their own handwriting is on some of the pages, tucked away on post-it notes that he seems to have replied to, writing to them like they’re having a conversation about the work even though he’ll get no reply.
Whoever this man is, she imagines he speaks incessantly. She imagines that itch she’s had to fill the silence would normally be occupied by him. He would bring a comfort she’d never found in sound before, and MJ starts to miss him in so many new ways.
She understands Ned’s frustration though. Relearning would be better if he were here, if they didn’t need to do this in the first place. Having answers and a solid direction to head in would be good too. They’re stuck with a paralysing helplessness that doesn’t feel too unfamiliar.
“Your notes helped him decide his final thesis, you know.” MJ tells Ned, startling him. He looks at her, confused and jaw set. She lifts the chemistry textbook up and waves it at him. It was a class Ned had taken in his final year simply for the credits since he’d been mostly focused on his major up until then, hoping for ‘an easy grade’ since he’d floated quite effortlessly through it in the past. MJ, who’d been majoring in Bio at the time, did get some sick validation watching him struggle. “I think the way you had to break everything down helped him see it from a new perspective, go back to basics.”
“Okay?”
“I just mean…” MJ sighs, not used to being so out of touch with herself that she can’t find the right words. “I don’t think we’re as helpless as this all seems. This is what we do. This is what we do… For him. We bring things back to basics and start from there.”
“What are we building towards, MJ?” Ned asks, his voice sounding a touch defeated. She can almost see as the dark cloud of doubt begins to roll into the room with them. “What does any of this actually mean?”
“Getting him back.” She says, nodding to herself and fighting to not let that fog shroud them. Hope in a dark place. “Getting everyone back. Making things right.”
Ned snorts, eyes rolling up to the ceiling. She tracks their motion upwards and notices the cobwebs up there, and dusty marks that look like… footprints accompanying them. “Mighty big spiders, huh?”
“If human sized spiders are what our normal used to be then maybe we’re better to not remember.” She says, aiming to sound lighthearted enough to bring Ned back from the brink of giving up. In the same way MJ’s pride has been wounded from all that she’s not noticed and let slide, Ned’s is crumbling from the sheer fact that he let someone he loved vanish without a second thought. Combatting their own failures isn’t an easy task, but it’s one they have to persevere against. “Or maybe you’re better off not remembering your messy roommate.” She adds on, gesturing to the dresser on the opposite wall, piled high with unfolded laundry that she isn’t entirely sure is clean or not.
Ned huffs out a laugh, sounding a little more genuine this time and turns towards it, flicking a few items of clothes off. “Some of this is ours, so don’t think he’s entirely to bla–” His words begin to fade away, brows furrowing as he uncovers something buried under all the clothes. “Why the fuck is there a police radio in here?”
MJ sits up while Ned pulls the radio free of its cloth blankets, switching it on and flicking through the channels. With each one, they intercept a new message from officers around the city; a mugging happening in Tribeca, a break-in over in Chelsea, civil disruption in West Side.
“This feels illegal to have.” MJ murmurs.
“It’s definitely illegal to have.” Ned agrees. “And apparently I helped make it.”
“What?”
“I have… Like a signature on things I make. Same as this guy with his coins? He puts the spider and the mask, right?” MJ nods. “I do same thing. Little spiral like a chair spinning? It’s dumb but easy to scratch into shit, and it’s– here, next to his spider.”
“So he’s dragged you into illegal shit.”
“Apparently...”
“You don’t seem worried about that.”
Ned looks back at her with a crooked smile, “It’s a little cool. Kinda like spy shit, right?”
MJ’s eyes widen, starting to get the slightest inclination why Tony Stark’s number might have been in her phone. The world starts to feel a little heavier on her shoulders as she realises just who they might have lost. Telling Ned her suspicions that they might be friends with an Avenger has his face lighting up even further.
“I’m the guy in the chair for the Avengers?!”
They agree to split up, which would feel otherwise like a bad idea but Ned is enamoured with the police radio while MJ thinks it’s time to pay May Parker a visit and broaden their web a little further. No one smirks or wiggles their brows or nudges her shoulder when she says this aloud - she tries not to let the hurt show.
MJ turns her phone back on, risking another hacked call from Stark now that she feels they’re possibly on more even playing fields. Both she and Ned write themselves notes, ensuring to leave out any real identifiable information about the other but enough to jog their memory and remind them what it was they were searching for should they forget while separated. They sign it, Ned staples his note to his shirt while MJ clips it to the inseam of her coat sleeve, the paper rubbing uncomfortably against her skin but impossible to ignore.
MJ takes Ben’s camera with her, holding her bag with a white knuckled grip the second she steps out of the apartment. Her memory of Ben Parker is foggy, coming to her in the form of broad smiles and booming laughter. Whenever the Parkers held BBQs next door, Ben would be there and MJ would be pulled towards him by a forgotten force that felt like warmth around her wrist. She has less memories of him after the summer of her sixth birthday. That was when the Parkers died. She knows that Ben joined them a decade later, but can’t recall how she heard the news.
The more she concentrates, she can recall that May Parker was stood next to Ben at every one of those events, however, her memories of her also fade after the Parkers’ death.
Arriving at FEAST, she shoves aside the wash of memories that begin to flood her. They all tell her the same thing - that MJ has been here before, volunteered her and sheltered where when the Avengers were out in the city. This has been happening more and more. She is a shaken soda can and by deciding to push this more and more, she’s uncapped herself, released the pressure and everything she’s shoved away before now is starting to creep back in where logic will allow. There is still the gaping hole in each of the memories, the loose thread that connects them all. She won’t stop until she’s gotten that back.
Finding May is harder than she expected. With how quiet everywhere else in the city is, she thought the Shelter would be dead, but the opposite is true. To MJ’s horror, there are so many people milling about the small auditorium. There’s cots lined up around the edges with a coffee station and a small food collection area. So many of the occupants are young , barely adults and it strikes her the consequences of people being erased from the world - it wasn’t just forgotten cars or empty offices, it was people no longer paying the bills, families apparently ‘squatting in homes’, it was kids out on their own for the first time– MJ didn’t move for college, she remained in the city she grew up in just living in a dorm closer to the island and she still went–... Her gut swoops, sorrow creeping up in her throat. She hadn’t gone home. Only visited for family functions that first freshmen year, but she’d gone– there were weekends spent at someone else’s apartment, she’s sure of it. Sharing beds and couches with a blanket her grandma had passed down and her grandfather’s art on the walls, she’s— She is sure that she had someone. She couldn’t imagine being at that age and thinking she had no one.
Watching as the kids, only a few years younger than her, move about, her determination only grows to get this fixed.
It takes her a few tries before she’s directed up to the second floor where May Parker’s office resides. MJ knocks twice before she’s called in by a weary but gentle voice. Inside, she immediately spots a corkboard that’s covered with photos, many of them likely taken with the same camera that MJ has in her bag. Buried in-between and around the photos are newspaper clippings about FEAST’s success and the Avengers– pride and placement is a slightly sun yellowed clipping that discusses a Union triumphs from the early noughties.
By the door is a ouch that has a single pillow and a blanket draped across it, both rumpled and no doubt recently used. Next to the corkboard is a desk that’s just as busy. The filler tray that May has on her desk is overflowing. Papers and folders blocking any of the personality she undoubtedly had added to it from MJ’s sight. Behind the desk is a woman in her early fifties, long brown hair and coke-bottle glasses that she slides off her face to offer MJ a tired and warm smile.
Looking at her now, it seems impossible to have ever forgotten a face like that.
“Hi there, how can I help? I know it’s a maze around here so no worries if you’re a little turned around.”
MJ smiles back. “Actually, Ms. Parker–”
“Oh please, call me May. There is no need for formalities here. Though some of those kids have yet to learn that.” She interrupts, still smiling warmly though her voice betrays her when she talks about the young people downstairs. Worry. Fear. Confusion. May Parker is scared and suddenly the world seems a whole lot more horrifying knowing that.
MJ tries to fight through that feeling.
“May, sorry. I was looking for you. I– I–” All the way here she’d rehearsed what she was going to say and looking at her now, she finds herself at a loss for words. How does she explain what they’ve all lost? “I’m Michelle. Jones-Watson. I think I used to live next to your in-laws? The Parkers? Richard and Mary, right?”
Realisation begins to dawn on May’s face, her jaw going slack and eyes going wide. A finger points out towards her and she nods. “Yes! Michelle. Of course. I’m so sorry, we’ve been so balls to the walls- excuse my language- I can barely tell my hands from my feet. Sorry, Sweetie. Sit down. What can I do for you? Are you parents alright? Your–” Her words halt. She blinks. “How’s your job?”
“They’re all good. Work’s– just as busy as it is here, I suspect. Feels like the world’s ramped up lately, right?”
“You’re telling me. I’m glad to hear it.”
“I actually– I came by because I was wondering if you could help me with something. I’ve been looking for someone. They left me with something and I can’t quite remember who they are.”
“We don’t really keep files on people. Sometimes they get a little skittish about administration, you know, and what I do have I can’t really hand out willy-nilly, but if I’ve seen them around I might be able to help?”
“I– I can’t remember, but he gave me this.” MJ places the coin on top of May’s desk. “He also gave one to Ned, you remember him, right?” The same soft expression sweeps May’s face as she nods, carefully picking the coin up and inspecting it. “I think you might have one too. It’s probably in a coat pocket or something–”
“How did you know? Is this a prank or something? Viral trend?”
“No.” MJ answers quickly, shaking her head. “This is definitely going to sound insane, but I think they were a message from this person. A message to help us remember that we forgot something. Them, and a lot of other people which is why everything is so busy, people have been taken from us and–”
May’s expression shifts, becoming softer and more pitying. Her hand extends across the desk to rest on MJ’s wrist. “Sweetheart–”
“I know how this sounds.” MJ continues, pulling her hand back. Her words fly out of her mouth quickly as she tries to get everything out. “Trust me I do, but you know I’m right that things aren’t adding up how they should be and your son tried to help us before we forgot him too.”
“I don’t have a son.” May tells her, taken aback and face guarded.
“Your nephew then!” The words feel more accurate in her mind, although MJ wouldn’t necessarily call them true.
“Michelle, I would really appreciate it if you stopped. I don’t know where you’re going with this, but you’re getting close to a touchy subject. I think we should go downstairs, get some tea and get you to calm down. I’ve never had a son or a nephew.” May’s voice as turned sterner, managing to remain kind but unmoving in her resolve to not listen to what MJ has to say.
“But you did!” MJ bursts out, tears prickling at the corner of her eyes. “You did, and I know how this sounds and I know why you don’t even want to consider it because I’m right there too. I had– I have a sister. And I forgot her, and pretending I didn’t is so much easier than facing it because it’s too much but she was– she’s real. And he’s real too. Your– you had a nephew. Just– Isn’t there a room in your apartment or–”
“Michelle–”
MJ huffs, tears slipping down her face as she shoves her bag forward. She struggles to pull the camera out of it, holding it out for May to take. Without even touching it, May immediately recognises the camera for what it is, eyes jumping to her side, glancing back at the corkboard and all its photos. “Where did you get that? We– Ben–”
“It was your husband’s, right? Ben Parker?”
“Where did you get this, MJ?” May asks again, not seeming to recognise that she’s using a nickname that Michelle hasn’t introduced herself by, familiarity between them sinking back in when distracted by another mystery. Watching it happen to someone else, MJ begins to understand how she can creep a little closer to the lost memories for herself.
“It was in his room. He lives with Ned. That was on his bookshelf with so many photos, May, he– He loves you and us. He adores his friends and his family, and he needs you to believe me or at the very least, to believe in him… I need him back, and I think you can help with that.”
“Hello? Anyone out there? Testing one, two, three. Mic check. Peter Piper picked a pickled pepper–”
Peter’s tongue twister is cut short by an aggravated sigh sounding out from the doorway. He glances to see Strange back there again, looking at him with the same pinched expression. Pointedly, he flicks to another channel and repeats himself.
He’d managed to get the radio working and they were definitely intercepting some streams, although they were mostly incoming channels from local radio stations that Ben and May used to listen to in the car. Nothing that he could respond to as of yet, and every other channel he could speak across was just met with dead air.
Even getting music to filter through the speakers was a victory that reignited Peter’s motivation. Slow progress still counted as progress.
He flicks to another channel and is met with the crooning sounds of the Carpenters. They sing sweetly and beg that ‘Please, Mr Postman’ bring them some kind of news from their boyfriend. Older now than when he’d last heard this playing through the speakers of May’s kitchen with Ben singing along out of tune, Peter can understand their desperation and need for something .
Strange doesn’t seem any more impressed.
“Not a fan of this song? Did the mystic channels not bring you the top hits of the 70’s?”
He gets no reply so Peter flicks to another channel and continues to croon lyrics out of tune into dead air.
“What is it we’re looking for then?” May asks after opening the door for MJ. Surprisingly, it’d taken less convincing than she expected to bring May around to the idea that parts of the world were disappearing before their eyes. Once she realised how invested she was to the idea, May seemed to take that as evidence enough to believe her.
“If we can find your coin, that might be a start. Ned can take a look at them all together and see if there’s a message or something in them. Aside from that is there any room you’ve never noticed. Somewhere you don’t go often? A storage cupboard?”
“Ben’s old office?” May hesitates to suggest, her eyes jumping towards it. “It’s been a while since I– Oh. I see. You think that was his– What did you say his name was?”
“I don’t know.” MJ answers, words full of regret. “We’ll figure it out though.”
May directs her towards the ‘office’, and immediately after opening the door they see the holes in the theory.
Inside there’s no signs that this was ever an office. The room has childish posters still on the walls, a school flag from both ESU and Midtown pinned to the walls. There’s photos and mess. There’s old clothes in boxes. There are signs of life that cannot be ignored.
“Something made me forget all this? This isn’t–” May starts to say. She doesn’t finish her sentence, shaking her head angrily and MJ understands. This is the room of someone loved it doesn’t make sense for all that to be shoved aside and forgotten. Once again, MJ thinks of those mugs at her parents’ place- the ‘M’ and the ‘G’. Little trinkets that her parents bought just because they saw them and thought of their children, and how that ‘G’ mug held no significance to them now.
“I’ll— I suppose I’ll look for that coin then.”
MJ doesn’t blame May for not being able to look at it directly just yet. She imagines telling her own mother her thoughts and how she might react to realising there was a child she completely forgot ever existed. She thinks how May has been denied the possibility of even grieving this loss because the memories were stolen from her.
She lays her coat over the back of the chair and turns about the room. Moving about it, she can imagine steps she’s taken here in the past. Not second guessing herself or feeling unwelcome in the space, MJ moves past all the photos that tell her a version of history she can’t remember but doesn’t dare consider untrue. Deciding instead to look through his closet for anything that might hold a name, a stone that was left unturned by whatever had swept over them.
There are boxes full of old comic books and video tapes that look like home movies or old projects by a teen who was gifted their first camera. This boy jumped across genres from what seemed like a documentary about Queens to his own Sci-Fi movie.
Hanging above the boxes are T-shirts and hoodies and coats that look well loved, patches covering the sleeves and elbows in some cases. Between them, an attire catches her eye - a red and blue sweatsuit with a pair of upgraded swimming goggles hangs limply. It looks stained and dirty, holes in the knees and threadbare around the cuff of the wrist like something had been wearing away at the fabric for years.
Inspecting the goggles, MJ holds them up to her face, frowning at how little she can see out of them before pulling them back and looking. They were black rimmed with the lenses popped out and replaced by white inlays. She squints, placing them over the red mask attached to the suit when it hits her - the symbol on the coin might have been a signature but it meant something too. It was his mask. He was an avenger– no. MJ shakes her head, the connection feels wrong as she turns it over in her mouth. Not an avenger. Everything she’d seen of him told her that he wouldn’t fit in that circle. He cared too much about the everyday. He made small moments matter and that wasn’t the scale that the Avengers worked at. He was a hero nonetheless.
A hero without a name.
The confirmed revelation has MJ sitting back on her haunches, running her hands over her arms to try and centre herself with the new information. Her fingers glide over soft, raised skin at her elbow, a sudden unexpected intrusion. She frowns, twisting her arm to look down and noticing a large scar that covers the entire bend in her arm. It almost looks like a starburst in its shape and colour, lighter than the rest of her skin, like it was shining out. It would have hurt, and yet she can’t remember the wound.
A name sits on the tip of her tongue, knowing he was the connection to its source by the sheer feeling of it against her skin.
Looking back down at the suit, she swallows. For a man that spent so much time capturing the world around him, practically had shrines to his loved ones, he couldn’t imagine him inviting them on this kind of adventure. He was dedicated to protecting the memory of other people, he wouldn’t—
It hits her all at once.
The coins weren’t symbols at all. They weren’t some coded message. They were his way of keeping track of them. It’s why MJ had put hers in her phone, it’s why Ned’s had been in his pocket, it was so that they could keep them on them at all times. He had been so focused on ensuring that he could find them that he’d forgotten to safeguard the opposite.
“You’re an idiot.” MJ laughs to the empty room. “You didn’t think we might want to remember you too?
Struck by the worst wave of deja-vu, she falls back, her ass hitting the floor. Her ears ring with a voice and a face– sharp cheekbones and a strong jawline, hair that’s never seen a brush, a scar that cuts across his brow, pink lips that she’s wanted to know the taste of–
“Just remember I love you, okay?”
Reliving the memory, she speaks her reply.
“Peter.”
Her laughter turns hysterical, hands gripping the costume tightly.
“Peter.” She repeats everything locking into place. The blurred edges of memory begins to fill, fading from black into a bright technicolour. Her excitement and awe drowns out the sound of footsteps approaching her from behind so when May speaks up, MJ jumps.
“That’s what Mary and Rich would have called their kid. Peter Benjamin Parker.” May tells her, voice wistful and distant. “That's him, right? That's my boy? That's Peter. He's real. He-- He came to live with us when he was six and then... When Ben died. It was just us. And now he's--"
"We're getting him back." MJ tells her.
Peter moves on from the Carpenters fairly quickly, jumping over to Hall & Oates, Elton John, The Who. Strange joins in with exactly none of them while Banner mutters a few of the lyrics under his breath.
Dr. Banner remains Peter’s favourite of this whole cursed trip.
On the list that Banner is writing to keep track of every channel they’ve jumped through and its outcome, Peter tells him to note that he will not be hiring Strange for any birthday parties in the future.
“He’s not done any magic tricks and a shit DJ? That’s definitely not worthy of the hundred dollar deposit - some mom actually offered that to me once, you know? I was out as Spidey and she was desperate to have me there for her kid.”
“You took it?” Banner asks, surprised.
“Nah. I have morals or something.” Peter replies quickly, jumping over to another channel, wondering if he should adjust the settings again. “Should have though, I was behind on rent that week.”
“Tony doesn’t pay your rent?”
Peter scoffs with a shake of his head. “Absolutely not. God, could you imagine how annoying he’d be about that? I’m already trying to dodge the job offers, that all comes with conditions like extra patrol oversight or extra upgrades, which probably wouldn’t go amiss, but I don’t like that lack of trust it sort of inspires, you–”
“Hello?”
Peter freezes, eyes glancing sideways to Banner then jumping over to the door where Strange has dropped his arms. “That wasn’t–”
Banner leans forward, checking the console. “We tried this channel earlier, but–”
“Hello? Did I– Are you cops? Shit. I thought I got us off–”
His radio. His radio! His fucking radio! They got nothing beforehand because Ned hadn’t turned it on because he’d forgotten but they’d fucking done it! They’d figured it out!
“Ned! Oh my god, Ned!”
“Shit, that’s– That’s real. You’re real.”
“Sure as hell am.”
“I need to call MJ. Fuck.” is gut swoops, excitement and anxiety ebbing in as he remembers what his last words to MJ were , but fuck would he give anything to hear her voice right now.
“And Stark.” Strange cuts in, suddenly by Peter’s shoulders. Straight into business then with no recognition for the work Peter had put into this– sure, why not. Seemed about right.
Ned’s phone call comes while MJ and May are struggling to share stories of Peter between themselves over a cup of tea. Every single word they say remains slightly foreign as they suss out what was real and what was still askew. The news that they’d made contact with Peter has May’s eyes turning glassy, her face resolute and MJ knows that it is time to face their demons.
On the subway over, she calls Stark again at Ned’s order.
“Nice of you to reach out again.” A snide voice says after two rings. “Care to explain how you got this number?”
“Peter Parker.” MJ answers simply. “You probably don’t remember who he is the same way that you don’t remember a lot of people–”
“Half the world to be exact.” Tony tells her, voice still clipped. Her suspicions confirmed that if she’d approached him earlier, he would have lorded the disparity in how much they knew over them. He would have finessed all their leads and scurried away with nothing left to work with. “How do you know about that? Who are you to this Peter Parker and who’s Peter Parker to me?”
“Spider-Man. He’s a vigilante and he’s– He’s good. He’s found two other Avengers where they are and he–”
“You’ve made contact with him?!”
“Yes.” MJ shrugs, glancing at May who doesn’t look too impressed at the tone she can hear filtering through the line. “You hadn’t figured out how to do that yet?”
May ducks her head with a snort, struggling not to dissolve further into laughter. The tension of their journey alleviated just a little as MJ begins to feel more and more herself. This feels right; May Parker at her side as they travel to help Peter in his adventures Tony Stark in her ear and grating up against her attitude and this– this is the life she’s built- it is busy and it is full .
When they arrive back to his apartment, Ned has moved the radio to his dining table, camped out and apparently catching Peter up on everything he’s missed in the last week. The sound of his voice lifts her stomach up making her feel afloat and at home all at once.
“Who’s that?” Peter asks immediately when the door closes behind them.
“Hi Peter.” MJ greets him. May hovers away for a second to let them have their moment. A part of MJ wants to be greedy, steal the radio away and have Peter for herself while they wait for Tony’s arrival. She can’t be that selfish, though. None of them get to be selfish like that when it comes to Peter because they’re all at risk of losing something by being in his orbit. It is something they’ve all come to accept and they navigate it the best they can, they step aside when they need to and they make the most of the time they have - balancing this is like their version of the polaroid Peter has. They all have their ways to cope with the life that he has chosen.
It’s why she comes over after work, knowing that she's more likely to see him with a bruised eye than not. It’s why she always grabs another bag of chips for him during her lunchtimes instead of eating with her co-workers because she wants to take the minutes that she can. She wants to be around him in any way that she’s able.
He is Peter Parker. He’s been her best friend for years, and she– She loves him.
She will take whatever minutes or seconds that she has. They’re all precious to her but for the moment, there’s someone who needs them more.
“MJ.” He breathes.
“Hey Loser, got someone here who might wanna talk to you.”
MJ gestures for May to take her place by the table, gently squeezing her shoulder as they switch.
“Peter?” May asks tenderly.
“May? That’s you? You–” Peter starts to say, not able to finish his question. His voice is childish and small, filled with hope. A boy happy to speak to their mother again. May’s face reflects the significance it has for her too, struggling to keep her voice in check so not to worry him.
MJ pulls Ned away for their moment. She’ll get hers in time. They always find time.
May taps out, collecting MJ and Ned from where they’ve sheltered themselves in Peter’s room to give her some privacy while they talk. It’d only been a week, but having their memories taken so quietly and having them return so unceremoniously had drawn out the time.
A day had felt like weeks and the weeks like months.
Forgetting someone wasn’t as easy as she ever thought. They left a mark. Little pieces of themselves planted in her consciousness and moving on from that meant moving on from a part of herself. Growth took time and they’d all done a speedrun of it.
Taking her seat at the table, MJ feels the weight of exhaustion, knowing that she probably only has a few minutes with Peter until Stark arrives and he’s stolen away for the whole ‘saving the universe’ thing that started this all to begin with.
“I told you that you’d figure it out.” Peter says to her,sounding more confident than MJ thinks she deserves. She knows that’s quintessentially Peter though, pulling so much of his faith in the world from his faith in his loved ones.
She bites her lip, curling over the table a little more and shielding the radio. They’re alone, MJ still wants to protect this moment though. “You told me a few other things if I remember right.”
“You uh– You do remember that right. That’s definitely a– a thing.”
“I didn’t get a chance to say it back.”
Without seeing him face-to-face, she can hear the smile in his words as he replies; “You didn’t need to. I knew.”
“Well, I want to. When you’re back because you promised that we would talk about this.”
“I did.” He agrees, the smile still there in his voice and she can feel her own expression matching it. “Once I’ve got everyone home. Your sister included. Then we’ll talk.”
“That sounds like a plan, Pete. An actual good one this time rather than leaving it to a hope and a prayer.”
Peter laughs and the sound lodges itself in her chest. The universe was never going to successfully take a feeling like that away from her.
“The stones–”
“If you mention those fucking stones again–”
“We can’t ignore them.”
“You said that Thanos’ will wasn’t strong enough to handle the stones. Sounds like he got into a pissing contest and lost, so we disregard him ‘til we got a team that we can go after him with–”
“He did destroy the Asgardians, remember?”
“Not helping my case here, Bruce.”
The universe must be laughing at him or maybe it’s some kind of cosmic punishment that despite his best efforts to avoid this whole thing, Peter does end up being in a debrief with Tony and Bruce. The addition of Strange doesn’t really help sell the idea of it to him anymore. Really the entire tete-e-tete they have via the radio - his radio- Peter keeps affirming because he’s not having Strange take any kind of credit for this after being a debby downer the entire day, week, month? (How long had they been in this station?) - is only sold to him by the fact that it will get him home.
May, Ned, MJ – based on their short conversation, his hopes to one day take her out for dinner and end that meal with her lips against his were looking rather probable. To be fair, they could probably skip the dinner part, just this once. He wouldn’t mind jumping ahead to the kissing as soon as he saw her. He really, really, really wouldn’t mind that part. Might prefer it actually. Then they do the date thing, because he’s in this for the long haul. She has to know that. He’ll make sure she knows that– they’ve got time now, they don’t need to rush through it all in one. He’d really like to tell her he loves her without the fear she’d forget it all the next day. And he will.
They have plenty of time.
“I hate to say it, but Tony’s right. Let’s ignore Thanos and the stones for now and focus on getting out of here first. We found a weakness in the whole charade, let’s exploit it.” Peter sighs, rubbing his brow, rolling his eyes at the smug noise Tony makes through the radio.
“And how do you propose we do that?” Strange asks pointedly. Frustrating as it might be, Peter can’t fault him for the clipped and annoyed words. Tony has a skill at evoking that from everyone he talks to.
“You couldn’t get any of your magic working because there was nothing to connect to, right? No one answering the phone?”
“That is a rudimentary way of putting it.”
“Well,” Peter says, fighting the urge to roll his eyes as he gestures to the console where Tony’s voice is filtering through. “There’s a whole channel wide open for you to use. If Tony can find a way to amplify your connection to the mystic from his end then we’ve sort of built a tunnel of our own and you could pull us from this plane to that plane, right?”
Strange stares at him through furrowed brows. His mouth is pinched and downturned, but behind his eyes, Peter can see an idea forming and his judgement waning. There’s a possibility, there’s hope.
“I mean, it’s all ‘metaphysical’, right? Easy stuff for the sorcerer supreme.” He can’t help but add on, grinning smugly when Banner has to hide his smile.
The world wasn’t ending. He wasn’t going to let it. He had too many things to get back to for the world to be ending - therefore, they had time for a joke.
Saving the world takes longer than MJ expects. Although, that could be because when she normally helps Peter with his superheroics, she’s either running from the problem herself or the time to find a solution is broken up by literal breaks where he crawls through her window and needs to be patched up again.
Saving the world with The Avengers is a much more… clinical endeavour that still manages to bottle up the chaos that Peter typically carries with him.
Watching Tony flit about before moving them all across to his lab exhausts her. She doesn’t look away, not for a single second. Not when Ned steps in to help, calibrating systems and speaking in a language she can barely understand because they’ve moved past just science. They’re combining it with magic and there is a lot that MJ can get behind but actual alchemy might be where she has to draw the line for her own sanity.
Being the spare pair of eyes, catching what they miss suits her better. MJ Watson is observant, after all– that statement finally feels true again.
Magic and saving the entire universe… turns out to be anti-climatic.
When Strange waves his hands, gold spirals and symbols extending out from them and the radio crackling and popping, sounding more like a bowl of rice crispies than any real machine, Peter expects something— big. He expects a light show. He expects explosions and braces for them.
He doesn’t get them.
He’s more than a little disappointed.
“I know this is a step up from the kids parties, but come on, man. Put some oomph into it. You’ve got the cape, let’s give it–”
“What the fuck?” A small voice whispers from beside them. In the corner of the control room, there is a member of the Grand Central Station Staff is cowering right next to them. Someone who hadn’t been there moments before.
“This is an announcement for passengers boarding the two-oh-six train to Pennsylvania, please be aware that due to crowding on the platforms, this train is now delayed.” A cool woman’s voice speaks out over the tannoy. Another announcement repeats a different platform with the same message. Too many people in the station. The announcements begin to lap over one another, building into a cacophony of sounds that Peter just drowns out.
They did it.
They actually fucking did.
“Metaphysical, my ass!” He shouts before ducking out the room, starting to weave between the piles and piles of people that are in the station.
“Peter, where are you going?! We need to talk about–” Bruce calls after him. Strange has a few choice words of his own too that Peter decidedly ignores. They needed to take the wins where they could get them and he was still being quite grumpy considering he was the hero of the day.
“I’ll meet you guys at the Tower. Promise.” Peter shouts back in reply, feeling a wave of deja-vu that he welcomes because he remembers having a conversation like this after Thanos’ team left Earth. After that fucking metal donut went and ruined everything. “I just– I gotta stop by home first!”
Saving the universe turns out to be anti-climatic. MJ has always thought that saving the city wasn’t as heroic as the news made it out to be because it usually ended with Peter and his black eye curled up on the couch, bemoaning all his other aches and pains.
She just expected a little… more when those theatrics were upscaled. Instead they continue to stand in Stark Tower with a fried radio and a charred console that sputters out sparks if anyone dares get too close to it.
Technology and magic don’t seem to be the greatest of friends– if they even worked together in the first place.
After a moment of silence, Tony swallows before he pulls up a map of the city. Tiny dots begin to reappear. The entire area started to flood with red.
As far as bad days go, MJ wouldn’t even place this on the scale. She decides this might actually be the best day she’s ever had because when they pour back into Ned’s apartment there is a body already waiting for them there.
May gets squeezed so tightly first. She stands back and holds Peter’s face between her hands. The pair of them are red in the cheeks and teary-eyed. They murmur words to each other that both Ned and MJ decide to look away from. Neither of them can will themselves to leave the room, scared if they let Peter out of their sight for a moment he’ll disappear from their memory again, but they will grant that tiny family this small privacy.
Ned gets a clapped hand on his shoulder, a broad smile and a congratulations for being ‘the best guy in the chair’ before he’s also pulled in for a bone crushing hug.
MJ looks on wistfully until Peter catches her eye over Ned’s shoulder. She shivers at the weight of it. A part of her is aware that the look doesn’t fit with the normal that existed before. It’s different. If something is different from before then they cannot pretend this was all a bad dream. If something is different now then there is proof of this ruin, but–
There are some changes that she’s okay with. Especially when she knows that this isn’t much of a change at all. It is just something they’re bringing to the surface.
Once separated, May looks between the pair and then pulls Ned back out the apartment, stating that they’ll need to start getting FEAST in order to act as a point of reconnection between lost families. She orders both Peter and MJ join them when they’re ready, though the look on Peter’s face tells them all that he’ll have other work to do before then.
“I–” He starts, swallowing as he watches the door close behind May and Ned’s back. Something sombre beginning to shroud him. Reality will always creep back in. “I’m gonna have to see this through. Make sure it’s really over.”
“I figured as much.” MJ nods, approaching him. She itches to touch him, and does, reaching out for him. She figures that she can still carry the burden of his impulsivity for a little longer. It might do them both some good.
With their fingers now linked, he closes into her space, pulled forward by the reassurance this is what she wants. This is what she needs.
“Are you going to let me say it back this time?”
His face breaks out into a smile, shaking off the worry of what’s to come with the stones and everything that this snowballed from. “You can say it first, if you want.”
“I love you.” MJ tells him bluntly. “I have for a while. I loved you when you were my best friend and I thought the world was ending because you got sad, moved away and I didn’t know how to fix any of that, I just knew I wanted to. I loved you when you encouraged Gayle to be an evil dictator–”
“Director.”
“Because Ben let you borrow the camera and you wanted to play movies.” She continues, rolling her eyes. “I loved you when you got bit by that spider and did something good with it. I love you because you remember the little stuff even if you can’t remember the date of your own finals. I love you, Peter Parker.”
The words aren’t necessary. Peter would have accepted the simple three. He probably would have accepted a kiss and known exactly what she meant from the action alone.MJ wanted to say them. She wanted to reaffirm what she could remember, she wanted to show to him that this wasn’t just adrenaline driving them together. It was a culmination. They were a sum of all their parts. Not just this one event.
His free hands rests on her his, tugging her closer until her chest is hitting the warmth of his, and it’s startling how overwhelming he is to every single one of her senses. His breath tickles her mouth, the smell of sweat mixes with something warmer, a musk that reminds her of fire and sparks. The skin on her arms prickles with goosebumps.
Her hand slides up to his jaw, feeling rough stubble under her fingers. She commits the smallest of details about him to memory, giving herself ample reasons to remember this.
“I love you too.” He whispers against her lips before moving forward and kissing her.
Nothing would take that feeling away.