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maidenjediFANDOM: Spider-Man - Tom Holland Movies, Spider-Man: No Way Home
RATING: PG
PAIRING: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
SUMMARY: Michelle Jones dreams, and then, she wakes.
Archive of Our Own link
Notes: I started writing something after I saw No Way Home, and it didn't go much of anywhere, but finishing it made me feel better. So here it is, imperfect, uncomplicated sugar because that's what I wanted.
She has dreams, almost every night. She dreams of swinging through the air between New York City’s skyscrapers; she dreams of Prague and Venice. She dreams about the homecoming dance and she dreams about running through a portal onto a platform surrounding the Statue of Liberty.
She dreams of falling and being caught.
She dreams, too, of falling, and never being caught.
-
She is Michelle Jones-Watson (she never uses the Watson). But she has a dream where everyone calls her Mary Jane Watson, and she’s in love with Spider-Man and she knows who he is under the mask – kissed him, even, she’s sure of it - but she never gets to the part where she hears his real name.
-
They still talk about Quentin Beck on the news. Mysterio. He saved the world from…what was it? Drones, Stark technology, being used by Spider-Man.
Half the neighborhood thinks Spider-Man is as evil as that J. Jonah Jameson says. The other half is split between not caring at all and thinking Spider-Man is a superhero.
But what everyone has in common is being so very tired of superheroes. They’d all go for normal, really, any day now.
-
“Quentin Beck went to M.I.T., did you hear?”
“So did Tony Stark.”
“It’s like Slytherin House – ‘there’s not a witch or wizard went bad who wasn’t in Slytherin.’”
“Okay, but, it doesn’t follow that everyone in Slytherin went bad.”
A bit of thumbnail chewing, a deep sigh. “Yeah, maybe not. But are we Quentin Becks or Tony Starks?”
Most people didn’t see the difference.
-
Who are the bad guys? That’s the question most people have.
There are murmurings on Reddit about something in a Jersey town. Captain America, and then Falcon is Captain America, and there is celebrating but there are murmurs, you know? And everyone knows about the house on Bleecker Street, like it’s the house in the neighborhood where the cranky old man shakes his fist and sends his dog out to bark at you. Walk into any restaurant and you’re likely to hear whispered conversations about any and all of these things, and more. Walk past a dark alley and you’re likely to see something you think relates to any of these things, and more.
Michelle thinks Spider-Man is okay. He’s saved her and her friends more than once. She’s seen him up close and thinks, if he was one of the bad guys, like Mysterio tried to say he was, well, she’d know.
She would know.
-
An awkward guy likes to come into the shop. His name is Peter Parker. She knows it, but she always has to ask. She forgets things sometimes, now.
Now. Since when? Since when did she forget the names of customers she sees every other day?
He smiles at her and her world spins, and she feels like she does when she’s taking a test and the answer is right there, right there, but even with pen to paper she can’t write it out. She knows that smile and knows him and his name, his freaking name….
“Jones, I told you, the cleaning solution is three parts water, one part bleach! This place smells like a laundry.”
“Coming!”
She turns back and he’s gone, and she can only hope she’ll see him again tomorrow.
-
“The Avenger known as Hawkeye was at the scene, but we have not been able to reach him for comment. Police and other officials have assured the public this was not a so-called Avengers-level threat and at this time further incidents appear unlikely.”
Not a night goes by without some report of an Avenger or a new masked vigilante of some kind; the local anchors seem unable to say much about anything else in the world. Michelle goes to global news sites and finds much of the same; the world is super-powered now and nothing less is worth the ink or screen time.
But there is remarkably little (legitimate) reporting of Spider-Man, and she knows he’s out there, saving lives and helping the neighborhood. Like always. Because he swept in and stopped a mugging one week and everyone was talking about it. Because she’d see him in reflections out of the corner of her eye.
Because, and she would swear this is true even if Ned doesn’t really believe her, Spider-Man swings above her every night when she goes home, like a guardian angel swooping overhead.
She wonders if he’ll follow her to Boston.
-
“Good luck at M.I.T.,” says Peter Parker, one day as he’s paying for his coffee.
“Oh. Yeah. Um, how….”
“Oh, you, um, you were talking about it last week with, uh, that, with your friend.” He was stammering and blushing, like she’s caught him at something he was trying to hide.
“Yeah, right, of course. And thanks. I’m…it’s going to be great.”
He cocks his head and squints at her. “You okay?”
He’s never asked anything personal, never stood and had a conversation with her like this, and her heart is beating so fast. “Yes, I….”
“It’s just, you seem down.” He blushing brighter, and stuffs his hands in his pockets.
“I might be, a little. Lots to do before I leave. And I don’t…I guess it’s just hard to leave.”
“Expect disappointment and….”
“You’ll never be disappointed,” she sighs. “I think that myself, a lot. You too?”
He looks away. “I didn’t used to.”
-
Spider-Man doesn’t follow her to M.I.T.
-
She wakes one morning and she’s had a new dream, a Michelle Jones and Spider-Man dream, and she knows, she knows.
She dreamt of Venice and sneaking out of the hotel. She dreamt of the plane ride home, holding hands.
She dreamt of kissing him and flying through the city, the thrilling fear but also, the total trust.
I know him.
-
The Daily Bugle doesn’t know. She checks every post, every tweet, every video.
They love to talk about Spider-Man, but J. Jonah Jameson calls him “elusive” and “slippery.”
“The unknown vigilante must be unmasked – if the world could know that Tony Stark was Iron Man, we should know who all these masked, so-called Avengers are. They walk among us – we deserve the truth!”
-
She’s back for a semester break and working a shift at the donut shop, because she needs to keep making money, scholarship or no. Ned isn’t there, he stayed at school, a job of his own keeping him tied to campus.
She wonders – will he walk in?
Peter Parker.
She can’t quite figure out how she knows. She just…she does. The dream, yes, but, there is more to it. And she wants to see him, prays he’ll walk in the door and order a black coffee and a cruller. She’ll know for sure, then.
Ned doesn’t believe her, but he told her, if it’s true, he wants to know, too.
The door opens and in walks Peter Parker.
“Peter Parker,” she says, heart in her throat. “Long time.”
Startled, he looks at her, and they lock gazes and he sees it. Recognition.
She hopes for relief in his eyes, for a sag of the shoulders and some sort of explanation.
He swallows, hard. “How?”
She shrugs.
“I had a dream. I…came home just…well, I needed the money, to keep going, you know, but I needed….”
She walks around the counter, not feeling the ground beneath her feet. She’s afraid this is another dream.
“You are, aren’t you? Him?”
He nods, shakily.
“Okay. Okay.” She reaches out and touches his hand. “I won’t tell.”
“M.J., if they…no one can know, and I don’t…I can’t….”
He’ll spend a lot of time, trying to say he can’t do this, and she’s safer far from him, out of his life. And she’ll spend a lot of time saying she doesn’t care what the danger is, she wants to be with him, in his life.
Right now, she kisses him, and he holds on for dear life.
-
The world shakes, and almost ends, more than once. Spider-Man – Peter Parker – is there every time, and sometimes he gets the blame and sometimes the praise. Sometimes, it’s hardly known he was there.
And every time – every time – he comes home, and there is M.J., and eventually, Ned.
He needed his family, and they needed him.
On Bleecker Street, there is some disagreement, but ultimately, they’d agreed. This is the way, and the world is better for it.
-
“Who can tell, anymore, who are the bad guys and who are the good? We still don’t know the identity of Spider-Man – and whether he’s doing more harm in the long run remains to be seen. But tonight there are families reunited, and children safe at home where they belong. Even this crusty old heart can admit to being glad for that. Till next times, viewers. Friend or foe? We remain curious to find out.”
.
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Date: 2022-02-04 08:39 pm (UTC)It's nice to feel fannish enough to write again, that's for certain.