Chapter Text
“Come on, Spider-Man.”
“You’re talking to yourself again, Peter .”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m concentrating.”
“Would you like assistance? I can–“
“No, Karen, I’m good, thanks.”
Peter continues to filter through the footage, searching for–
“Yes! Got it!”
“You have a call incoming from Tony. Would you like me to patch him through? ”
Peter leaps from his perch and sends out a web, swinging through the neighborhood in search of his mark.
“Yeah, sure.”
There’s a click, then–
“ Hey, kid. Whatcha up to?”
“Oh, nothing much.”
“ You still coming to the meeting tonight?”
“Oh crap, that’s today?”
“ What did I tell you? I told you, get a planner, use your calendar – the app on your phone, I can program it for you – hell, Karen could even – “
“Sorry, hold on–”
“ Hold on? Peter– ”
“Karen, mute Tony please?”
“Sure thing, Peter .”
Peter ignores Tony’s squawking and lands in front of the bagel shop he’d been looking for – the one he and Harry stumbled across drunk two weeks ago that had the best fucking bagels Peter’s ever had in his life. He’s been trying to find it again ever since, and as he walks into the shop – Spidey suit and all – he knows he’s in the right place.
The old man behind the counter doesn’t even bat an eye.
“What do you want?”
“ I cannot believe – no, actually, I can absolutely believe that you’d go get bagels in your suit – this isn’t a game, Peter– ”
“I’m rebranding,” he mumbles around a bite of everything bagel. “Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Man of the people. Loves Abe’s Bagels.”
Peter is sitting on a fire escape, looking out at the sun setting over Queens as Tony continues to scold him. He takes another bite of his bagel.
“ So you’re missing the meeting tonight – it better be for a real reason.”
“I’m leading a tutoring session,” he says, which isn’t a total lie. He and Harry are going to study; that they’ll probably go out to some house party or a bar afterwards, that Peter will probably stumble to his apartment in the late hours of the night and sleep off a hangover for most of tomorrow is inconsequential.
May wanted him to go to school. Tony wanted him to have a college experience. So far, Peter’s attended all of his classes, made at least two friends, and consumed as much beer as any college freshman would be expected to.
“ Oh. Well that’s– good. Smart. Classes going good still? ”
“Yeah.” Peter finishes off his bagel. “Chem is pretty easy, it’s just a lot of work. But my bioengineering seminar is kicking my ass already.”
“ You know I could’ve pulled strings and got you a spot at MIT, ESU is too– ”
“Spider-Man’s a New Yorker,” Peter says, the same argument he and Tony have been having for almost a year now. “ESU is great. I’m thriving.”
“ Well make sure to take some advil so you continue to thrive. And use protection. ”
“I’m studying tonight, Tony.”
“ Is that what the kids are calling it these days? Don’t do anything I would do. I’ll catch you up on what we discuss next week. ”
“Sounds good. I mean. It’s probably shit, right?”
Tony takes a moment before answering.
“ We don’t know what, exactly, it is yet. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Ok.”
The call disconnects. Peter sighs.
It’s been less than a month since Peter downgraded from full time Avenger to part-time Avenger, started focusing more on the street level stuff, started going to school, and he forgot how exhausting it was to juggle it all. Back in high school it was easy, because school was easy; he coasted, was able to skip class and still pass.
Well.
Like most things in Peter’s life, eventually that blew up for him, too. Almost flunked out, ruined his relationship, wound up spending a year being a full-time Avenger, being Spider-Man full-time, only to realize he– hated it.
Hate is a strong word, too strong a word, maybe. The point is, Peter barely graduated high school, watched everyone he loved move on without him, spent more time in the suit than as Peter, and woke up one day and realized that outside of the job, he had nothing.
May had never been on board with his post-high school plan to just be Spider-Man, to just be an Avenger; she’d leave pamphlets for community college or ESU around the apartment, telling him it wasn’t too late to apply.
In truth, he submitted the ESU application on a whim. His grades senior year weren’t great, and he had to take summer school to graduate. But he got in, and had a long talk with May, and with Tony, and with May and Tony, and decided –
Decided that he needed to start being Peter again. Figure out who he was outside of the suit. What he wanted, not just what he felt he needed to do.
It’s been a month, and he’s still technically part of the team, but he’s in college now. He has classes, labs, college shit to deal with. Living on his own for the first time, cooking his meals and doing laundry and homework (and hookups), trying to find the balance between Peter and Spidey.
Getting to know his neighborhood again, after a year of basically living upstate, of going off around the world on missions, seeing places he never would’ve dreamed of seeing. It had surprised him, how much he could miss his block even while halfway around the world.
Peter puts the bag of bagels in his backpack and puts it on, swinging off toward his apartment. Harry needs help with his chem homework, and Peter has a feeling he’s going to get dragged to a party on the Upper West Side.
“This is impossible,” Harry Osborn says in frustration, throwing his pen out of his hands. “I don’t even need this fucking class.”
“So why did you take it?” Peter asks in mild amusement. Harry’s unlike any other friend he’s had before— not because he was rich or self aware or because he knew where to find a party— but because he always seemed to settle on the worst possible path for himself, know it’s bad, and run straight for it anyway.
(Peter could relate.)
“Because my dad wants me to be a doctor ,” Harry says, affecting some accent that Peter can only assume is his father. “Tell me, Pete. Why should I follow what my dad wants in life? Shouldn’t I, a red blooded American man, choose my own fate? Create my own destiny? Or are we all just doomed to follow in your father’s footsteps?”
Peter shrugs.
“My dad’s dead,” he deadpans, Harry giving him a look as Peter grins.
“Okay, you know what?” He says, grabbing a bagel instead of the pen he dropped, “you only get to play the orphan card three times a week.”
Peter scoffs, Harry taking a bite of the bagel and leaning back on his absurdly expensive couch.
“Dude, are you kidding? I get to play that card all the time.”
“What would your mother think of this?” Harry says with a dramatic sigh.
“She’s dead too, Har.”
Harry snorts, Peter grinning as Harry shakes his head.
“You’re morbid as hell, dude.”
Peter just smiles, looking back at the homework and about to segue back into what he hopes is going to be a more productive discussion than his parentage (or lack thereof) when Harry launches himself up and off the couch— Peter’s eyes following him as he strolls around the room.
“Because of that, I propose we move on to something different. Something new .”
“You want to go out tonight?”
Harry claps his hands.
“I’m going to go out tonight and you , little orphan Annie, are coming with.”
“Har…” Peter says, though there’s no fight to it— Harry grinning because he knows he’s already won.
After a year of semi-self imposed loneliness— almost everyone he knew having left for college and of those who stayed in the city, he avoided at all cost— enrolling at ESU had felt like a life raft he didn’t know he needed.
Meeting Harry Osborn that first day of orientation had been the second.
Fast friends, born out of Harry’s need for tutoring and Peter’s need for a friend that wasn’t his aunt, it was easy to hang out with him— simple.
(That Harry tended to fund their endeavors, that he always knew where to go and who to go with, also helped.)
“It’s decided. We’re going. And,” he says, a mischievous glint in his eyes, “if we’re lucky, we’ll both score.”
Peter gives him a look, raising an eyebrow as Harry’s quick to shake his head.
“Nah, not— I promise, I’ll lay off on that,” he says, Peter not quite believing him on that but letting him continue, “I mean I got a friend from back home—“
“ More trust fund babies?” Peter asks, Harry rolling his eyes and continuing on as if he hadn’t spoken.
“She’s throwing a party at her place. Hooked up with her roommate a few times,” Harry says, rubbing his hands together. “Think tonight’s gonna be lucky number three.”
“Because that’s not creepy,” Peter deadpans despite the smirk on his face, Harry sighing dramatically.
“Come on man, it’s not like you’re gonna need help with this,” he says, motioning towards homework in front of them. “You could teach this fucking class.”
“I think Dr. Dobson would disagree.”
“Dr. Dobson wouldn’t know a shovel up his ass if he sat on it,” Harry says, Peter biting back a laugh solely for how much their professor bothered Harry— the one person it seemed who was unmoved with who he is and what his father’s name is.
(Harry talked a big talk but Peter knew that for as much as it bothered him, he was proud to be an Osborn.
Peter couldn’t really relate.)
“Please,” Harry says, dramatic as ever as he gets on his knee. “You’re my only hope.”
“You’re quoting Star Wars ? You hate Star Wars.”
“I hate staying in on a Thursday night more,” Harry says, wiggling his eyebrows.
Peter snorts, sighing in what Harry automatically takes as an acceptance.
He’s going to a party tonight.
Harry only takes the subway when he’s feeling like “slumming it,” as he puts it, and Peter thinks he would be annoyed at Harry’s snobbishness except that it is a lot nicer to travel by way of hired car. On the ride up to Gwen’s apartment, Harry tells Peter about Gwen – adding that maybe she and Peter will even hit it off.
“She’s amazing, you’ll love her.”
“If she’s so amazing why don’t you –”
“Ew, dude. She’s like my sister. Now, her roommate–”
And it’s not what he expects, when the car stops. It’s not an overly fancy building – no doorman – but it’s rich in one of those understated, trying not to look it ways. They’re not too far from the Columbia campus and Peter gets the feeling it’s mostly students here (and he’d worry about running into her if he thought she’d become the kind of person to go to parties in the year and a half since he’d last seen her), but the point is MJ is on his brain as he and Harry step into the apartment.
(She’s not on his brain much these days, except sometimes he’ll get struck by a wave of missing her, of regretting how royally he’d screwed it all up. But he knows she’s probably fine, probably thriving, probably doesn’t miss him at all.)
(It takes most of his self-control not to fish for details about how she’s doing when he and Ned FaceTime, when Flash jumps in to say hi.)
The party is already going, the apartment full of people and the music not too loud but still distracting. Harry makes a beeline for a girl with long hair and Peter trails along.
“Gwen, this is Peter, aka the reason I’m not failing chem.”
“ Yet ,” Peter says. Gwen laughs.
“Nice to meet you, Peter,” she says, and she’s cute. He can see why Harry would think to set them up.
“Yeah, you too.”
“Is Michelle here?” Harry asks. Peter snorts.
“Is that the roommate? Doesn’t she live here?”
“She’s not one for parties usually,” Gwen explains, rolling her eyes at Harry, trying to look casual as he obviously scans the crowd. “But I convinced her to stick around.”
“Looks like it’s your lucky night, Har,” Peter says, clapping him on the back and about to ask Gwen where he can get a drink when he sees her.
She’s approaching them but stops when she sees him, and he feels 16 all over again, breath caught in his throat.
“Peter?”
“MJ?”
“Who’s MJ?” Harry asks, and it clicks.
She’s Gwen’s roommate.
“You know each other?” Gwen asks, her tone amused. Peter has the distinct feeling that she’d like to pull out popcorn and watch this all unfold, and he’s not exactly looking for a crowd when he talks to his ex for the first time since graduation. She seems to be of a similar mind when she reaches them, nodding to Harry and shooting Gwen a look then –
And then looking at him.
(She’s beautiful.)
“Yeah, we, um. High school,” Peter says. He knows he sounds like a moron but he’s trying to process that MJ is here (and has hooked up with Harry, he cannot possibly be upset about that and yet it makes something curdle in his stomach).
“Oh, well that’s–”
“Can I talk to you?” MJ says to him, and he nods.
“Yeah, let’s–”
She grabs his hand and pulls him away from Gwen, away from Harry, through the crowd of people, and he thinks he’d have more feelings about her hand in his if he wasn’t having so many other feelings about the fact that of all the gin joints in all the world or whatever – of all the house parties, all the people Harry could’ve known from high school and all the people MJ could’ve roomed with, they still ended up here –
In her room.
MJ closes the door behind him and it’s quieter, the music and the sounds of people muted. It’s just her and him alone in her bedroom, for the first time since–
“So,” she says. Arms crossed over her chest.
“Fancy seeing you here, huh?”
MJ wasn’t even supposed to be here.
Gwen had convinced her to stay, promising that she’d enlist Harry to help her clean up which made MJ laugh because in the few times that she’s met Harry– he didn’t strike her as the kind of person to help clean up anything.
(Then again, she had reasoned, he was good with his hands and even better with his tongue. Anyone who was that giving right off the bat, in MJ’s mind, couldn’t be all that bad.)
She’s not supposed to be here, is the thing– had originally made plans to study somewhere else or to even go see a movie herself, the parties that Gwen liked to throw being far more obnoxious and far more extreme than she liked to attend.
But she’s here and so is Peter Parker – standing in her bedroom that isn’t the same bedroom he used to show up at but–
(Fuck, he looks good.)
“You’re at my apartment,” MJ responds, the instant need to grab Peter and talk to him without an audience now coming back to bite her in the ass because he’s here , in her bedroom, looking at her and making her feel sixteen again.
(She’s not sixteen, she doesn’t have fucking butterflies . She’s fine.)
“I didn’t know it was yours,” he says and it’s almost an apology, a half-smile on his face as he shoves his hands into his pockets. “Harry said–”
“How do you know Harry?” She asks, because of all the questions that she has for him ( how are you? What are you doing here? What’s your life been like since we’ve seen each other last?
Did you miss me?
As much as I missed you? )
“He’s a friend. He, um– we’re in the same chem class together,” Peter replies, MJ surprised by that even if she shouldn’t be.
“At ESU?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh,” she says, absorbing that piece of information. It wasn’t like she didn’t know that May Parker wouldn’t eventually put her foot down– assuming that’s what happened in the first place– realizing now that she’s getting the chance to really look at him that he’s… different.
He’s a little taller for one, not quite enough to tower over her but enough that it’s noticeable– to her at least. He’s more filled out, arms that she knew could catch a bus without breaking a sweat looking more toned from effort it seems than just from enhancement. If he notices that she’s checking him out, he doesn’t say– feeling a warmth creep up in her cheeks from the way that she catches his eye.
(He was checking her out too.)
“You?”
“Huh?” She feels out of her depth, caught off guard in a way that she doesn’t like to be. Not with anyone.
(Not now, with Peter Parker in her bedroom.)
“You’re a sophomore now, right? Did you um– what’d you end up majoring in?”
“Studio art,” she offers, Peter smiling at that as she continues, “and sociology.”
He grins, the stupid smile on his face doing stupid things to the feelings she has in her gut.
“Sounds perfect for you,” he says softly and she hates herself a little, for making such an effort to make her room feel homey and inviting because it’s Peter fucking Parker in her bedroom again, soft lights that twinkle around her room reflecting off of him.
“Yeah,” she says, self-consciously wrapping an arm around herself.
He nods, a vague feeling of awkwardness falling between them.
“So I was–”
“Are you–”
They both start at the same time, then stop– Peter sheepishly smiling as he nods.
“You can go ahead.”
“No, you– um, sorry. I know this is weird,” she says, motioning to the two of them– seeing something flicker on his face. “I just couldn’t– Harry and Gwen…”
Peter smirks, chewing the inside of his cheek before he says, “yeah. Harry, huh?”
MJ is not embarrassed about her love life, nor is she embarrassed by the fact that while Peter was her first he hasn’t been her only– something that must show on her face from the immediate way Peter shakes his head.
“No, not– sorry, I don’t mean it like that,” he says, though she can’t think of any other way he could mean it. “It just– I was surprised.”
“About me and Harry?”
“Seeing you,” he says, holding her gaze and settling the defensiveness she hadn’t even realized had been creeping up her spine– something open and earnest in the way that he’s staring at her. “When he said he was meeting a Michelle , I didn’t…”
He trails off, MJ feeling the need to explain herself even if she practically knows that she doesn’t have to.
“My friends call me MJ,” she says, not able to hide the smile on her face– Peter’s expression shifting. It feels like an inside joke now, some dumb comment she made sophomore year but it’s enough to help ease the tension between them.
(Not ease. Dissipate the awkwardness, maybe.
Peter Parker’s still here, in her apartment.
In her bedroom.)
“Are we still friends?” He asks lightly, aiming for a joke but just falling short– MJ inexplicably thinking of the last time that they saw each other.
Neither of them had meant to avoid each other that summer after graduation but that’s what it ended up being, Flash still holding it over her head of how much he felt like a middle man– hanging out with her and then hanging out with Ned, she nor Peter quite able to stomach the idea of being in the same room together so close to breaking each other’s hearts.
She wanted a clean break, no small feat when her ex-boyfriend was Spider-Man – taking up enough real estate in the news (and in her backyard) that anytime it got really bad, or anytime she saw Iron Man flying around, she couldn’t help but think about him.
It was a special kind of torture, for a few months anyway until she tried her hardest to push it out of her mind– throwing herself into the first semester of school and into her brand new friendship with Gwen Stacy, her randomly assigned roommate now turned intentional off-campus suitemate.
Being friends with Gwen meant that she went to (and was a sometimes reluctant co-host) to these kinds of parties, a rich girl who was quiet about her wealth– though MJ knows that she’s not really in a position to judge considering her own parents combined income.
She went to class and she went to parties, she made friends and had fun , Harry being the most recent but not the only person that she’s hooked up with in the year and a half since she was with Peter.
She was a different person, is the thing– different and yet felt so much like that same girl who knew him now, standing in her room and seeing him look at her with an expression that she can’t read anymore.
MJ shrugs. “We could be. I know it was all really dramatic back then but…” she trails off, catching herself because it felt dramatic and yet it was – Peter seemingly in agreement as he nods.
“Yeah,” he says, sounding wistful– eyes traveling away from her and looking around her room.
“Your place looks great,” he says, MJ feeling self conscious even if she shouldn’t– proud of the way that she’s decorated and of the art pieces that she has up, trying and failing to stave off the feeling of looking for his approval.
She didn’t need anyone’s approval for how to live her life, much less Peter Parker’s– that was part of the reason why they broke up in the first place.
She tells him thank you, Peter looking and then growing still– eyes landing just beyond her shoulder in a way that makes her follow his eye line, a tug in her gut when she sees what he must’ve noticed.
“You kept it,” he nearly whispers, the music from the party muffled and fading away as she looks back to him.
“Of course I did,” she says, because while she’d broken Peter’s heart (and he’d broken hers), she wasn’t that unsentimental to throw out the necklace that he got her for their first anniversary. It was a gift, one that she loved even if she didn’t wear it much these days– the questions of what it meant or where she got it from made her feel like someone desperately hanging on to her past which she wasn’t.
(Gwen had told her once that if she liked it that much that she could just lie, make up some story of getting herself the necklace or to just say that it was a gift.
It hadn’t felt right at the time, MJ choosing instead to just stop wearing it.
Now, Peter Parker in her bedroom, she’s weirdly glad that she hadn’t lied.)
He looks at her like he’s surprised by that, though she hates to think why– hates to think that in the time since they broke up that he forgot how much she hated breaking up with him. It had been good for the two of them, good for her to no longer be waiting around for Peter to make her a priority when she knew that he couldn’t.
She needed the clean break. She needed to feel like she was in control of her own life, moving on and moving forward with the rest of her life without feeling as if she was being left behind.
(She can’t help but think now, if Peter felt the same way.)
He’s staring at her, in surprise and in awe and it just causes the heat in her lower belly to flare– pushing some hair back from her face as she looks away.
“We should get back,” she says, moving forward towards the door but Peter doesn’t– staring at her like he is and it makes her breath grow thin.
“Yeah,” he says, but he doesn’t make any effort to move– MJ now closer to him, eyes searching his face.
He looks good , hair shorter than it was before but just long enough that she stupidly wants to run her fingers through it– feeling her mouth grow dry as her eyes drift down to his lips.
She doesn’t move and neither does he, feeling herself get closer to him– like magnets being pulled together as she meets his gaze and sees his eyes now are on hers, on her lips– feeling that heat flush all across her body as she moves infinitesimally closer.
MJ doesn’t think, doesn’t even try and rationalize it, moving forward the few inches it takes before her lips are pressed against his– Peter immediately leaning into it as he pulls her closer.
His hands are warm, rough as they immediately skim across her waist– his mouth opening up for her as MJ sighs and kisses him.
She walks him backwards until he’s against the door, kissing him and feeling him up– his own hands wandering from her waist, her chest, her ass, pulling her closer to him as their kisses deepen.
If she was thinking rationally– and she isn’t– she’d wonder why her body seems to move of its own accord, of why she reaches a hand down to lock her bedroom door and then pulls him in, of how easily her tongue slips into his mouth and how familiar it all feels.
Familiar and yet still new, from the way that Peter flips them– surprising her with her back against the door as Peter starts to kiss at her neck.
“Is this okay?” He asks and it tugs at something in her gut, a feeling that goes right between her legs as Peter starts to kiss downwards– MJ nodding before realizing that he can’t see her.
“Yeah,” she says and then Peter’s on his knees, the sight of it making her breath catch as he kisses across her waist, pulling down at the jeans that she has on.
MJ’s not too proud to admit that she’s fantasized about him, fantasized about this – Peter being a good first boyfriend in more ways than one. She’s had enough sex now, with other people and understanding herself, to know what she likes.
It turns her on an impossible amount for Peter to be kneeled in front of her, tongue darting out to taste her even over her underwear– MJ gasping as he mouths over the clothed fabric, the wetness from his tongue competing with her own as she softly grinds against his mouth.
“ Fuck, ” she pants, looking down at him and he has the gall to look up at her, smirking before pulling down her underwear.
“Still okay?” He asks, breath fanning over her and she could kill him now– a look in Peter’s eyes that tells her that she wasn’t the only one to have learned a thing or two since they saw each other last.
She nods, closing her eyes and hitting her head against the door when Peter’s mouth meets the space between her legs– gasping when his tongue does something that feels familiar and then–
MJ gasps, Peter doing something new that has her hands immediately going down to rifle through his hair, Peter taking that as a sign to continue and God , where did he learn this– his tongue inside of her and then on her clit.
She rocks against his face and if she was feeling rational about any of this, she would wonder why it took less than five minutes from seeing each other again for him to be on her. She’s not thinking rationally, thinking only of his tongue and then fuck his fingers too– tongue on her clit and a finger moving up at her entrance.
MJ shudders, Peter tentatively moving his fingers before he works one, then two in– MJ moving with him across her door, music from the party still going.
“Right there. Fuck ,” she pants out and Peter’s always been a good listener, even better now as he keeps his tongue right where she wants him– MJ moving his head along with her hips.
It feels like it lasts forever even if it could only be a few minutes, to have him between her legs and to feel familiar and feel new and feel so fucking good that she’s sure that if she lets him, he could make her come like this– moving his head away from her.
He looks up at her, dazed and his mouth slick and she’s going to move his head right back when something stops her– something tender tugging at her in her chest as she tells him, “stand up.”
He does immediately, turning her on even more before she moves to kiss him– tasting herself on her lips and feeling his erection between them.
(She knew– she used to know– that he got off on giving to her but this– a year or so later and to still–)
She kisses him, walks him back to her bed and strips off her shirt– moving her hands underneath his and feeling him up, hands moving across his chest and helping him take his shirt off.
She’s still in her bra, underwear somewhere on the floor but she doesn’t care, pushing him back on her bed and Peter easily complies– looking at her dazed as he works to take his jeans off.
“You’re so pretty,” he says when she crawls on top of him, grinding over him and feeling his moan in the back of her throat as she kisses him.
“You too,” she says, kissing him and moving over him– the wetness from where his mouth had been just moments before and the friction from grinding over his boxers causing her to lose her mind a little.
She leans back to take off her bra, Peter’s eyes blown and his lips swollen– sitting up and hands immediately at her chest.
“ God ,” she pants as Peter’s hands immediately cup at her breast, thumb swiping across her nipple and she kisses him again– kissing and grinding and feeling that if she doesn’t have him inside of her again that she’s going to burst.
Peter seems to feel the same, MJ biting at his lip before saying, “Condom?”
“Yeah, I have in my–”
“I got it,” she says because she does and she’s not ashamed of that, pulling off of him and reaching for her bedside table.
It’s awkward, reaching over him and stepping off the bed so she can grab one– Peter moving gracelessly to take off his boxers– laughing under her breath when she moves back to straddle over him.
“Eager?” She teases but he doesn’t take the bait, hand instead going to her clit and making her gasp as she leans over him.
She lets him tease her , lets his thumb move before she remembers that the only thing stopping them is a thin foil packet, moving his hand away and tearing open the condom packet– going to put it on him before she stops.
Peter tears his eyes away from where she’s hovered over him back up to her eyes, MJ’s chest heaving as she asks, “Okay?”
Peter nods, a smile on his face and MJ can’t help but kiss him– Peter moving back up so that he’s chest to chest with her, kissing her and pulling her close before she breaks it, moves to put the condom on.
There’s no flutter of nerves this time around, nothing but pure anticipation as she lines herself up and then sinks down– closing her eyes and hearing his punched out gasp when she slowly bottoms out.
“ Fuck .”
“ God ,” he moans, MJ letting the stretch of him– familiar and yet so fucking good – fill her before she moves, lifting herself up and then sinking back down.
If Peter’s learned some things since they’ve been together, so has she– grinding her hips in one way and then squeezing around him another, Peter’s soft moans of pleasure goading her on as she breathes into his neck.
“ Em ,” he pants out and that’s what does it for her, any shred of thinking that she would try and make this last gone as she starts moving faster– bouncing on him as his hands grip at her thighs, her ass, hips thrusting up to meet her.
“Yes, yes , fuck—”
“You’re so good, you’re so–” he’s babbling and she doesn’t care, melting into him as she moves until gravity shifts– flipped on her back and Peter immediately moving to be inside of her again.
“Peter,” she pants out as he dives into her, bed creaking against the wall. There’s some small shred of her rationality in the back of her mind, aware of the music in the background and the fact that they’re fucking in her room with Gwen’s friends in the living room.
That rationality melts away when he moves his hips, hitting at a spot inside of her once, twice and then she comes– gasping into his neck as he groans.
Peter makes a valiant effort to keep going, MJ feeling herself ripple around him as the tightness in her body loosens until she feels it– Peter’s pace increasing until it snaps, finishing with a groan as his hips move.
They both slowly move with the aftershocks, chest heaving and endorphins flowing through her system that bring her instant clarity.
She opens her eyes, hadn’t even realized that she’d closed them– staring up at the ceiling of her bedroom before Peter moves his head up from her neck, looking down at her.
“Hi,” he says, cheeks flushed and hair sticking to his forehead. It’s all so familiar it makes her heart ache, the reality of what they’ve just done hitting her between the ribs.
“Hi,” she echoes.
He’s still inside her, and there’s still a party going on, and they both seem to realize that. He flushes, which is both endearing and ridiculous— or maybe endearing because it’s so ridiculous.
Peter pulls out and rolls off of her, and her heart is still racing, and she thinks she’s supposed to regret this but honestly all she feels is that looseness, that warmth, the sweet ache that comes from good sex.
She should say something, right? But what do you say to the ex-boyfriend who’s heart you broke and haven’t spoken to in a year and a half after having sex not twenty minutes after seeing him again?
“You, um,” he starts, sitting up and looking at her. She sits up, too. “You okay?”
“Yeah. You?”
He nods.
“Um, where can I—“
“Oh, over there,” she says, pointing to the trash can by her desk. He smiles sheepishly and she finds her shirt as he gets up.
They get dressed in silence, MJ feeling the awkwardness increase with every passing second but completely blanking on any words to offer into the space between them.
Peter looks at her and then down at his feet, running a hand through his hair.
“I— sorry, I didn’t mean—“
“Don’t— you don’t have to be sorry,” she says. She feels her own face flush. “I’m the one who sort of— jumped you.”
“I was hardly unwilling,” he says with a smirk. She feels the tension start to break and she takes a step towards him. She wants to kiss him. She wants to drag him back to her bed and cuddle, wants—
There’s a crash outside, and she winces. God knows what havoc is happening at the party.
The party. Just outside her room, where she and Peter just had sex.
( Good sex.)
“We should probably—“
“Yeah,” he agrees.
And he still looks unsure, and she still feels — something — so before he can turn to open the door she presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth.
“Good talk,” she says with a smile. He looks dazed for a second, then recovers.
“Yeah. Good talk.”
“So that’s the guy?”
Gwen’s voice breaks MJ out of her thoughts, which had been, admittedly, on Peter.
(It would be embarrassing that Gwen’s caught her staring, but given that she just had sex during a party, MJ’s not so easily embarrassed anymore.)
“What guy?” She asks, playing dumb because she doesn’t really want to do this right now.
“High school guy. Sunflower guy. First love—“
“Yes, fine. That’s him.”
He’s playing beer pong with some guys from Gwen’s chemistry class, and he’s terrible , and it shouldn’t be as cute as it is.
“He’s cute,” Gwen says casually, taking a sip of her drink. “I can see the appeal.”
MJ doesn’t dignify that with a response.
And they don’t avoid each other so much as they just — interact with different people. But as the night winds down and people start to trickle out, Peter remains.
(Harry does, too, but Harry usually stays to help clean up and chat with Gwen. It’s how he’s ended up in her room, anyway.)
She’s going around the kitchen with a trash bag, grabbing bottles and recyclables when she hears Peter’s voice.
“Yeah, we, uh. We used to date.”
“ Ugh , seriously? I knew I shouldn’t have let you tag along—“
“You practically dragged— “
MJ loudly drops several bottles in her bag.
A few minutes later, Peter appears. He looks awkward, and her heart does that flippy thing it used to do when they were sixteen, and they should probably actually talk, right?
“I’m gonna go,” he says quietly. “But we should— I could— is your number the same?”
She nods.
“Cool. Um. Wanna — catch up? Later?”
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
He smiles.
“Um. It was good to see you, MJ.” He seems to realize the implication of his statement and his cheeks flush and he starts to stutter out an apology and she just laughs.
God , she likes him. Still.
( Fuck. )
“You’re fine, Peter.”
She kisses him on the cheek this time — unable to keep from touching him, apparently — and smiles.
(She’s in so much trouble.)