╭ ╮
━━━━  " 📂 "

𝘼 𝙋 𝙊 𝘾 𝘼 𝙇 𝙔 𝙋 𝙎 𝙀

╰ ╯

GWENDOLYNE STACY LIKED TO APOLOGISE - not really to most people, the confidence she exuded mostly came through in the facts she was often right in the things she said no matter whether they could be perceived as rude - but in case of the people who meant the most to her and she wronged them, Gwen preferred to light their worlds with countless apologies and attempts to make up for her actions even if they were minuscule and actually proved more good to the person than not.

Which was why on the following Monday morning, almost as soon as MJ passed over the threshold of Midtown High's grounds, Gwen was by her side and prattling on about making it up to her. It was sweet, except she seemed to be able to come up with the most outlandish things to do in return, which left Margot slack-jawed and staring.

"Sorry... I think I had too much coffee this morning." Gwen let out a sigh as she realised just how much she was rambling. That, and MJ was staring at her as though she was growing bunny ears, eyebrows raised and completely frozen. "Come on - tell me what you did when I was slaving away at Oscorp."

"First of all, I know you enjoyed yourself, so don't even try and say that." Margot said pointedly, falling in step alongside her best friend. "Second.. I just went to a couple shops, that record store, got some groceries, and evaded paying my train fare. It was fun."

"I always get too nervous to do that." Gwen admitted as they pushed open the main doors and stepped through, their destination the two lockers right by each other before separating for their first classes of the day.

"Plus I don't think your dad would appreciate a call when you inevitably get caught for it."

"You have no faith in me?" Gwen gasped, a hand to her heart and looking incredibly offended.

"Come on, can you see yourself hopping and climbing over turnstiles?" Margot raised an eye. "I got loads of practice as a kid, plus I'm always wearing shoes you can run in."

"Is that a necessity?"

"It is when you get off at one of the busier stations and there's a plain clothes transit cop waiting on the other side and you're suddenly sprinting through Grand Central." MJ said it casually, as though it was any other day, swerving around a group of freshmen as they began their descent down a small set of stairs to the corridors on which their lockers rested.

"What were you doing at Grand Central?" It was a fair question from the blonde; it was rare for MJ to go somewhere that required getting on or off at the famous terminal. Usually, she only took trains around the outer boroughs, only heading into Manhattan for her dad's work.

"When my dad was dating Jack's mom and she was determined to keep the family together a couple more months so she stuck us all on a train and took us to Albany." MJ shrugged.

They had broken up during the trip, and MJ had left the group as soon as they returned to the city to find her own way home, which was already being packed into boxes by the time she finally got back.

"The more you tell me about this Valerie woman, the less I like her." Gwen shuddered as they reached their lockers, putting in the combinations and opening them simultaneously. "So, tell me what you bought from this record store." She questioned, voice slightly muffled by the metal barrier of the locker door.

"Couple of records, a book, small bits and pieces that probably weren't necessary - oh, and I talked to an old friend." MJ replied, replacing the books she needed with the ones she had brought with her that day, tucking them in the crook of her elbow as she had those very records before closing her locker, waiting for Gwen to finish.

"Sometimes I live vicariously through you." The blonde sighed as she closed the door. "Who was it?"

"It was Peter. Sits next to me in English? We used to be next door neighbours but then I moved after my mom... you know but we didn't talk since then and didn't run in the same groups and..." She paused, falling silent for a moment and when Gwen followed her gaze, it landed on a certain boy as he came down the stairs, a certain disgusted expression forming as he saw a couple making out next to what was evidently his locker. "Is it weird I'm talking about him?"

"Only if you make it weird." Gwen replied with a shrug. "But you've been sitting next to him all this time and didn't say anything to him?"

"Neither of us said anything to each other." MJ corrected, her eyes landing on Peter again as he met her eyes, raising his hand in a wave which she gladly returned. "I don't know why.. he's nice, easygoing. I used to live next door and.. he hasn't changed much, he was always nice before."

"And you think he's cute." Gwen nudged her shoulder. "You do - come on, admit it. You're thinking 'Peter Parker, the dorky, sweet kid who lived next door - he grew up pretty well'. That's why you're not so upset about me missing lunch."

"I was never upset in the first-"

"Which doesn't even matter because I'll buy you lunch today. They always do the good stuff on Mondays because that's when they get the shipment in." Gwen didn't even give her a chance to explain, pushing forth her apologetic actions. "But you do think he's cute."

MJ remained silent, contemplating until she found an arm around her waist quickly squeezing her into the side of the owner and being let go, looking up to see Flash. She had to say the very sudden grasp around her waist when Peter was saving her from a certain cut-and-bruise-filled fate was much more welcome and comfortable than whatever that had been.

"Has our MJ got a crush?" He teased, but unlike the way he treated everyone else there was a small hint of somewhat respect in there.There always had been, ever since Gwen beat him up (or in more refined terms, as she preferred, 'set him straight') with threats looming above him if he was ever rude to her friends again. "Come on, who is it?"

MJ shrugged, instinctively drawing herself in, shoulders pulled together and she clutched her folder and various notebooks and textbooks to her chest. "Nobody you'd know. Or care about." She replied.

Flash scoffed, shifting on the balls of his feet and turning further towards the girl, hands pressed against the metal of her closed locker door. "MJ - who is it? If they're interesting enough for you to have a crush on them then I probably know them, right - right Gwen?" He nudged the blonde's shoulder, who nodded cautiously.

"It's no one, Flash." MJ replied, hazarding a glance over his shoulder as Peter slipped by, having managed to bypass the couple. "No one of any of your concern."

"It's someone at that school your friend goes to, isn't it." Flash guessed. He raised a hand to his brow, lips pursed as he thought. "The hot chick who lives in Brooklyn.. or was it the Upper West Side? Felicity or-"

"Felicia? She lives on the other side of Queens.. technically in Brooklyn because we went to the same middle school when I lived there." MJ's brows were furrowed in disbelief, shaking her head. "And.. sure, it's someone at her school. You figured it out. But I won't tell you a name, so you can't go and harass them."

"I won't harass them-"

Gwen cleared her throat, stepping forward. "Flash, let's go to class?" She offered, tightening her ponytail briefly before stepping forward, lowering her voice. "Talk about that homework I helped with, right?"

His eyes widened, glanced over to MJ before nodding, slipping off into the crowds of people.

"Thanks." MJ murmured, although she wasn't exactly sure why Flash was so cautious about revealling his help from Gwen in front of her - he could sometimes be not so bright, but surely he wasn't as dumb as to think Gwen didn't tell her the important things in their lives.

But seemingly he was, as he kept glancing back to the waiting Margot up until Gwen pulled him around the corner, and it was only then which she set off, bag slung around her waist practically void of most items and slumping gloomily. To fill the odd lightness of it, she ended up stuffing as much as she could fit into there from this pile enclosed around her arms.

Slipping into one of the science labs found MJ perched upon a stool near the front, fiddling with the brass handle on the wooden desk. There weren't too many people in there, yet she didn't mind it all that much and glanced up each time someone entered, until she found her interesting landing on someone she had only seen ten or so minutes before, but instead of the classroom it was a hallway, and this time didn't have Flash Thompson looming over her every move.

Peter ventured a smile as he met her eyes, skateboard clutched in his hand as he made his way through the middle aisle. "No scratches or bruises appeared since I literally swept you off your feet?" He asked as he passed.

"None that I know of." MJ followed his movement, turning in her chair. "You get all the photography stuff you needed?"

"Just missing one thing, but I got it from another place." Peter smiled. "Morning, by the way."

"Morning Pete." MJ grinned as she turned back to face the teacher as she entered, an influx of only slightly late students following in.

There was a stark image forming in her mind as she attempted to listen to whatever the woman stood behind the desk at the front had to say, the words scribbled on the board in a slightly yellow-tinted chalk barely even processing. A memory - hardly there - of one morning when she was so much younger, when that seemed to be the only thing she ever said to him before the beginning of school, when they would walk together.

Suddenly, she was thrusted back nine years, but the feeling couldn't be more warmly welcomed.

🕸

Gwen had started her reparations with ensuring Flash didn't find another chance to beat up someone considered lower than him and his friends on the social hierarchy, and MJ officially brought it to an end when she ended up getting her lunch be brought for her - which made somewhat sense, considering that was what Gwen 'owed' her in the first place.

In all honesty, MJ had been looking for a way out of her trying to repay her for something that wasn't her fault. She knew it shouldn't, and that Gwen was really just doing a nice thing, but she felt guilty to be receiving extra nice treatment when the reality was that Gwen had been overloaded with work by one of their higher-ups, not because she chose to.

And besides, MJ wanted to take on some of that workload herself later that night so she actually has something to do and Gwen hasn't completed it all - because if she had, then that was somewhat of a problem considering the amount Margot saw she had to do and the time remaining left to do them in.

But she didn't need to worry Gwen with her pointless feelings of guilt that resurfaced whenever they wanted to, completely sporadically and not triggered by anything in particular. They just liked to ruin her day, she supposed, the swirling feeling in her stomach becoming something she could put up with and concentrate on something else.

And in the span of twenty-four hours, this something else had been Peter Parker. MJ hardly even thought about him over the past few years, but now they had had a proper conversation, it seemed to be the only thing she could think of.

Albeit their only being a brief mention of their once pretty close friendship, Margot found her thoughts permeated with memories of that has once been. How he always seemed to understand that she wasn't the most talkative of people and much preferred the company of well-written books, ones in which words shouldn't make sense for the seven year old that she was. How he offered his friendship through acts of bringing cookies out to where she sat, or how they spent afternoons walking home from school before sitting at the kitchen island of his house because her parents would work until five and she had to do her homework with someone.

And in many cases, Peter had become that someone. He was so nice to her, so understanding, despite them being as young as they were. He knew what to do when her mom died, knew how to comfort her in ways that adults didn't - because he had been through it too.

She had been friends with Gwen since she was young.. but it just wasn't the same.

Although MJ did suppose that they had the same levels of comfort around each other - she hardly knew anyone else who would be willing to sit in silence, their lunch eaten and hands filled with other means of entertainment that weren't talking - they did enough of that already, and quite frankly given everything else that made their lives so busy, they didn't have enough time to read for fun like they used to.

And perhaps it was her involvement with her book that made sure Margot hardly noticed what was happening at another table in the courtyard, her mind too full of Russian literature to have seen it before. But once, when she saw someone moving rather quickly past the table top that she and Gwen were perched on, she finally moved her attention away.

Subsequently realising that a crowd had formed, a slowly amplifying chant of 'eat it' spilling from the mass of students that had circled around a scene.

"Take the picture, Parker."

Amongst the chorus of ill-meaning encouragement, MJ could have recognised the voice anywhere and she felt the bundle of nerves that permanently rested in the pits of her stomach become all the more energised and rise up like bile in her throat.

Swallowing the anxiety back, Margot's finger curled around the top of her page, folding down the corner and putting the book down, turning towards the blonde beside her. "Gwen." She urged. "Gwen - it's Flash." Finally, Gwen looked up.

"Put him down, Eugene."

Oh, Peter.

As the Stacy was pulled away from her own piece of literature and the look of silent, upset recognition flashed across her face as they heard the first sick noise of the first punch being thrown. In moments they were on their feet, neither of them waiting a moment longer to pick up their bags and hurry over to the group, pushing past the people who seemed to somehow find entertainment in Flash getting the chance to lord his popularity (which really was just a reign of terror introduced by the fact he actually blew off his school work to go to the gym).

They were too late to stop it by the time they got there, having seen several of the injuries forced from Flash, Margot first to emerge at the front of the circle, unable to actually see Peter until she looked down and saw him curled up clutching his stomach. knowing that Gwen would be able to calm Flash down - or at least use various tactics to get him further away from the scene - she didn't wait to drop down to her knees, sitting beside him.

"Oh hey, MJ." Peter was clearly forcing the words through clenched teeth. "How.. how was your lunch?"

"Shush." She ordered in the gentlest way possible. Peter winced, but didn't try to say anything else as he squeezed his eyes shut from the pain and tried to sit up. "Here. Let me help." MJ placed a hand on his back with no hesitation, aiding his attempts to no longer lay on the ground. "There."

Peter mumbled something akin to a thanks, and as the crowd dispersed thanks to Gwen's aid in getting Flash away, there was the sickening crunch of someone kicking Peter's discarded camera. His eyes opened wide at that, seeming to only get larger when he saw the girl sat beside him - on the ground, of all things - and watched quietly as she picked up the broken apart camera, cradling it in her hands as though it was something so extremely delicate.

"If you just.. push that bit back in. I'll fix it properly later." He told her, and once she had carefully done so she placed it down beside her bag, somewhat out of the way so it wasn't kicked when it came to them getting up. "Thanks."

"No problem." MJ sat back for a moment, examining his still closed-up position. "... He punched you right, then kicked you." Peter nodded, hating how weak it made him seen in front of her. "Do you mind if I take a look? At the bruise."

He nodded again, lifting his face meekly and watching as her expression changed several times over the course of the next couple seconds, from surprise to pity to wincing before settling on something a little less focused on his expression.

Carefully, she lifted his chin and made a rather quick decision in her mind. MJ knew that she would hate it to have someone doting over them like they were completely helpless, and so she cleared her throat, taking a new approach. "Hey.. nice bruise." Peter's gaze darted up to meet her own, watching as she winced once more before her hand fell away.

"Pretty good one, is it?" He asked, a smile finding his way onto his lips again.

"Very impressive." MJ nodded, folding her legs beneath her. Neither seemed to care that the bell had rung to signal the end of their lunch and decided quickly to just remain there. "Are you planning on going to see the nurse?"

"No.. I-"

"Well in that case.. I bruise like a peach." MJ admitted, reaching for her bag and beginning to search through the contents, before extracting a small pot of something. "This might be a little more extreme than the random bruises I wake up with, I have this cream-salve sort of thing." She held it out to him for a moment, before working on unscrewing the lid. "My brother's mom.. her friend owns this apothecary-type store, sells all these herbs and shit, and when I dropped him off once she handed me this massive tray of tins. I can get you some if you need."

"I don't plan on making this a regular occurence." Peter replied hastily, lifting his chin for her to hesitantly smear some of the salve over the bruise steadily forming on his chin.

"Hey - the world is very unpredictable, so don't hold the universe to it." MJ shrugged, wiping the excess on the cloth of her bag, placing the small pot by his camera. "You should at least have that pot and reapply it when you need to."

"Thanks."

"Also I've seen how Flash treats you... and I know this isn't the first time." He turned to look at her again as she shrugged. "I'm observant."

"I know.. I mean, I don't know.." There were several words repeating constantly in Peter's head as he spoke and he paused for a moment. "I know because... well - I am too."

"Right." MJ didn't take any notice of the somewhat awkward blundering, nodding as though she knew exactly what he meant from the start. "I mean, you're smart right? And quiet? Those people are always observant. Notice all sorts of things." She pulled her legs up to her chest, balancing her elbows on her knees. "I noticed, in the fight.. you didn't try to fight back. When you got up after the initial punch and went for Flash.. you weren't trying to hurt him."

Peter's head snapped up. "Yeah, I was." He replied, somewhat snappily.

"No, you weren't." Quite clearly, his tone neither disrupted her thoughts and changed her mind nor put herself off nor voicing that. "If you really wanted to hurt him you would have done it a lot differently, beginning with actually putting some force into it."

"Right, so I didn't want to hurt him." He forced himself to stop becoming so defensive - MJ was right in what she was saying, of course she was. Still, he needed to know exactly what she was getting at. "...So what?"

"And I applaud you for that." MJ hurried to reassure him without completely losing her nerve. "I'm just trying to understand how every time he beats you up you get up again and stay a pacifist."

"Less of a pacifist, more of a peacemaker."

"So you think some violence is justifiable?" She quizzed him, eyebrow raised. For a moment he worried that she was trying to deceive him into admitting something - but he knew she wasn't and he was merely being paranoid. He had known MJ for longer than anyone else he considered a friend or even acquaintance, and that just wasn't the person she was. No - she was curious, he could see that now.

"Yeah.. You know like when a cop is chasing a criminal - but only when they're dangerous.. if they weren't then it would just be police brutality and that's not good, really not good - I'm against police brutality."

He winced, wondering how she managed to reduce him to a floundering mess, unable to get his thoughts out in full sentences. He lifted a hand to his face, disguising the face-palm as something to do with his injuries. There must be something wrong with him.

It was no secret - to himself at least - that moving into his uncle and aunt's house and meeting the girl who lived next door had resulted in his first brush with the idea of crushes. Peter found that MJ Watson, who walked with him to school, helped him with his homework and seemed to have a sour tolerance that soared through the roof because he could never drink his aunt's lemonade and she could, was becoming far prettier than his childhood mind could manage and thus, she became his first crush, though he definitely didn't understand the overwhelming feelings that pushed him to try and spend more time with her and just seemed to feel as though he was her friend.

And thought that he just really liked being her friend.

But when she moved away he felt his heart ache and only when he got a little older did he know that the feeling had been a crush. He had had a crush on MJ Watson, and now he was never going to see her again.

Through the rest of elementary school and then middle school - it was almost as though MJ had never even been there. Sometimes he heard Gwen talking about seeing her, but not once had he seen her. Last he heard she was in Brooklyn, and it was a somewhat rare occurrence that May found a need to go there, and when she did, it wasn't so often that she took Peter with her.

But then, just as suddenly as John Watson had decided to move them away from Forest Hills, Peter had walked into Midtown High on the first day of his freshman year and it was like he was in third grade again, watching as MJ and Gwen walked down the hallways of their school. But now they were fourteen.

And yet, although Peter had managed to store away those feelings under the pretense that he would never see MJ again, he could feel them sparking again. But there had been a rift created over the seven years and neither knew exactly how to approach each other anymore. So even though he would be seeing her every day yet again, Peter didn't say anything.

But now they were in senior year and he had crashed into her on the sidewalk and suddenly it was like the ten years of radio silence had never even happened. And each time she smiled or spoke it was like Peter had never even tried to hide his feelings and now that he was a teenager and he understood exactly why he felt that way, it was turning him into a complete mess.

Maybe it was understandable, at least to himself, that he was stuttering and unable to speak now that he was having a proper conversation with him. That and he could feel his chin bruising and his stomach aching, so he supposed that could also affect his efforts to converse like a normal person.

"I figured, Pete." But although his inner turmoil had made his blunders become such a problem for himself, MJ was smiling. "You're right, I suppose." She added. "But he just messes with you for no reason and I.. I would be angry. so it's just impressive you don't, that's all."

"I guess." He felt himself sit a little taller. "I just would rather it would be me than the other person he's trying to bully."

"Really?" It wasn't all that surprising really, MJ knew that he had gotten involved to stop Flash from holding poor Gordon Pessoa upside down over his tray of cafeteria food.

"Yeah, that's me." Peter nodded.

"You're sweet." She smiled, reaching to pull the bag strap over her shoulder, thankfully missing the flush that warmed Peter's cheeks up to his ears. "I suppose we should go to class. We have English together, don't we?"

"Yeah, we do." For some reason, although it was no secret that Peter much preferred the science side of his classes than the others, he couldn't deny that he definitely didn't want to go to his English Literature class. At that moment, he couldn't be less interested in Shakespeare and wanted to just stay there, sitting with her on the floor of the school courtyard.

MJ pushed herself to her feet, holding a hand out. "Come on then Parker, let's go." She said, shaking her arm just slightly until he took it and with little effort she had pulled him up to his feet, his camera strap circled around his fingers.

"Yeah, okay. So why the sudden interest in me?" He asked, watching as she faltered whilst picking up his discarded skateboard for him. "I mean.. well.. we've been sat next to each other for years and the most we talked, other than yesterday, was when we had that project together in September last year.. when we were working with Gwen and - and Toby.." Peter added quickly.

MJ took a moment to answer that, tucking the board beneath her elbow before they began walking slowly towards school. "We used to live next to each other." She said, "And I suppose, after yesterday I was more curious than I have been. "I thought we should - or I should talk to you again. More than just once in a record store. You remember that, right? Living next to each other?"

"Of course I do." Peter could never forget it, he knew that for sure. He pushed the doors into the empty hallways open, gesturing for her to go in first as they made their way towards their classroom, which thankfully wasn't too far away.

"And I've seen your photos, they're amazing.. and I've seen you skating, other than almost crashing into me."

"So you've been stalking me?"

"What - no, no I haven't." MJ's eyes widened, a blush spreading across her face just as it had with Peter moments before. "I just.. photos around school.. was walking by the park... and I just.. I was interested in.. you."

The word echoed around the hallway. Peter felt a ripple of goosebumps shoot down his spine, an odd feeling washing over him. It was becoming more and more obvious to him that he wasn't the only one making a mess over their sentences - and MJ was usually so well spoken.

Her fingers curled around the ends of her hair, an alternating pattern of peach, cream and sky blue amongst brown. Peter noticed, with the feeling of utmost pride, that the butterfly claw clips that pinned areas of her hair back matched exactly.

She stared at her shoes briefly before regaining her confidence and looking back up at him. "Can you tell Miss Jameson I'm just going to the bathroom?" Her cheeks were dusted with a light pink, and she took a step back away from him, in the direction of a door just down the corridor.

Peter didn't reply for a moment, fingers clutched too tightly around the strap of his camera. He had hardly even thought of the fact he'd actually need to get it fixed. Suddenly, he realised that she had asked a question and cleared his throat.

"Sure - er - MJ?" He added, not allowing the sudden frown that wanted to form across his face to do so. Peter didn't know why he had stopped her, didn't know why he had said it, but as she looked up at him again, waiting expectantly, he understood why his body had acted of its own accord.

"Mhm?" MJ watched, expectantly as Peter rose his free hand to the back of his neck.

"It's really sudden and I.. totally understand if you wouldn't want to but.." Peter swallowed back the nerves that had stopped him from talking to her before away. He knew what he was asking though, knew why and from what he could pick up from her body language, MJ shouldn't be totally against it. Otherwise he would be ruining something that had potential to be like the friendship they shared beforehand.

"But...?"

"I don't suppose you want to go out sometime?" There, he had asked it, the question that had been on the tip of his tongue so many times. The first time he had bumped into her in freshman year and a short, awkward conversation about seeing each other again had ensured. When she wore that flower-print dress to school, when she had gotten the Oscorp internship, when she had proceeded to get a job there - all the times when she had smiled so prettily, so reminiscently of when they were kids and made his heart flutter like nobody's business. "On a date, that is?" Peter said quickly after, in case she didn't quite get it.

But it was obvious she had, the corners of her lips curving upwards in that optimistic way that made Peter think he wasn't going to get shot down by the girl he had honed and nurtured a crush for over many years.

"A date?" She repeated, eyes wide. His heart thudded sickeningly in his ears, the only thing he could hear as he waited in the empty corridor. "Yes." MJ's decision was by no means hard for her, and it had only taken a split second to decide. "Yes, I would." She confirmed, the smile in full bloom now.

Peter stared at her, dumbfounded. "You would?" He blinked, watching as a small laugh escaped her lips as she confirmed it. "Oh.. that's not the reply I was expecting. Thanks - I mean.. not thanks... well yeah, thank you. But.. that's great." Peter was stumbling over his words like never before. "Oh - and for the record, I think you're interesting too. Really interesting."

MJ's eyes flashed with undisguised amusement. "Thank you." She nodded, turning away from him and making a beeline for the bathroom door, turning around momentarily to offer the slightest wave of her hand before disappearing through into the small room.

She stopped in front of the mirror, hands pressed against the counter. There was an unrecognisable amount of joy spread across her expression and for a moment she wondered if it was really MJ Watson staring back at her.

But it was. It really was her.