Chapter Text
“Are you sure this isn’t–”
“It’s fine, MJ,” Gwen says with a smile, bright and beaming and everything that Michelle’s missed in the last two years. “More than fine. We’re gonna be roommates again.”
“And your boyfriend’s not gonna mind that I’m–” Michelle begins, Gwen rolling her eyes as she helps Michelle with one of the boxes she has to deposit to her brand new room.
“First of all, ex -boyfriend. Second of all, he’s fine. He’s hardly ever home anyway so,” Gwen says with a shrug, readjusting her weight with the box in her hand as Michelle follows after her into her own new room. “I’ll actually have someone to talk to in the morning.”
“You know I still think it’s weird that you’re living with your ex-boyfriend, right?” Michelle asks, smirking as Gwen rolls her eyes again and sets her box on the ground.
“You’re complaining a lot for someone who’s just moving in.”
“You can’t get rid of me, Stacy,” Michelle says with a smile as she drops her own box next to Gwen’s, expecting the laugh that she hears out of her.
“Me? You’re the one who left a job on the other side of the country just to get back to me!” Gwen says with a laugh, Michelle playfully shoving her as the two walk back into the living room and head back down to the moving truck that Michelle had rented– wiping the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand and that feeling in her chest loosening at the admission of that.
It wasn’t wholly wrong– Michelle hadn’t moved back to the city solely for Gwen but she was a part of it, just as she missed her family and missed what she knew. Even missed Flash Thompson though she’d never admit that to his face or she’d never live it down.
Going to MIT for college had always been the plan, just as majoring in physics was– valedictorian at Brooklyn Visions and getting a full ride to the university that had brought her and Gwen together.
Being friends with Gwen was a lot like being friends with a burst of electricity– any ambitions that Michelle had paling in comparison to that of Gwen. They’d been classmates first, paired together for a freshman level bio class that Michelle had been forced to take and one that Gwen had loved.
That the two of them hadn’t gotten along when they first met was an understatement, the memory of that tense first semester making Michelle laugh now to see where they were now. Once the two of them hadn’t been forced to work together, meeting again halfway through the spring semester of that first year at a party, Michelle found that Gwen Stacy wasn’t all that bad.
She was blunt, for one– their first moment of bonding coming from telling off a jackass that tried to hit on the two of them. She was funny, smart too though that wasn’t something that Michelle had needed a lot of convincing of at the time.
Not having to work with Gwen Stacy, all eager ambition and a little bit of a know it all, paired with her own self-reflection in being a little less inclined to speak her mind without thinking of the consequences behind it helped mellow the two of them out.
Enough that by the time they made it to the spring semester of their sophomore year and Michelle’s roommate was graduating, it made perfect sense for the two of them to think about moving in together.
Gwen Stacy might not have been someone that Michelle Jones-Watson had gotten along with at first but once she did, she couldn’t imagine her life without her.
That Gwen had decided to go to med school at Columbia instead of joining her at Stanford hadn’t been personal but it’d felt like it, like missing a limb or learning to live without a piece of herself that she hadn’t even realized she needed.
Now, newly graduated with her masters degree in physics and with no plan for what to do next, returning home– returning to Gwen – felt a little like playing it safe.
Michelle Jones-Watson hadn’t ever liked taking risks in her life. Easier to accept disappointment if you expected it, after all.
Yet laughing with her best friend and now roommate again as they headed down the stairs, sweat trickling down her back and a lightness in her step, made Michelle feel as if this wasn’t playing it safe so much as it was coming back home– in every sense of the word.
“Tell me more about this ex that you still live with then,” Michelle says as they lug up one of her last boxes, thinking to herself that it was awfully convenient that the third new roommate and relative stranger that she was about to live with had magically found himself unavailable to help her move in.
Not that he owed it to her, he didn’t even know her– but Michelle thought it was weird all the same, considering Gwen thought him to be a decent enough guy to still choose to live with him after breaking up with him.
“Peter’s a good guy,” Gwen says with a sigh, hearing something in her voice that makes her question if there was more to the story. “A little bit of a flake, but he means well.”
“Is that why you broke up with him?” Michelle teases as she puts up some of the tea that she’d gotten back in California and had refused to part with– Gwen’s silence prompting her to close the cupboard and look back over to her.
“Gwen?”
“Hm?’ Gwen says, Michelle raising an eyebrow as she sees the contemplative look on her face. “Yeah, um. Part of it.”
“Part of it? What’s the rest of it?” Michelle presses, Gwen making a face and going to say something more when the door swings open– Michelle glancing over to it and seeing someone rushing in.
“I’m late, I’m sorry. I know she’s–” he says in a rush, hair looking windswept and his clothes rumped– looking at him like she’s been sent back in time.
It’s not possible, she thinks as Gwen gestures between them.
“Peter, meet Michelle. Michelle, this is Peter,” Gwen says, an exasperated smile on her face that quickly falls as the two of them stare at each other– an instant recognition that Michelle can’t believe as she lets out a sharp laugh.
“Peter Parker ?”
“MJ Watson? You’re– you’re Gwen’s old roommate?” Peter asks incredulously, any of Michelle’s feelings of indignation melting away as she takes a few steps out of the kitchen.
“I can’t believe it–”
“How long has it been?” He asks as he pulls her into a hug, Michelle easily leaning into it and squeezing tight– a feeling that she can only describe as a puzzle piece snapping into place locking something in her chest as Gwen lets out a laugh.
“You know each other?”
Michelle and Peter break apart, mirrored grins on each other’s face as Peter shakes his head.
“MJ and I lived next door to each other, back in Forest Hills,” he says with a laugh, disbelief and earnest surprise. “Back when my parents…”
He trails off, Michelle’s memory filling in the blanks for why she lost touch with one Peter Parker– smile falling as her stomach twists into knots.
“I’m so sorry,” she goes to say, Peter shaking his head again.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s– it’s been a long time,” he says, though the way that he looks at her says something else about the way that he’s meaning it– Michelle locking eyes with him and getting sent back almost twenty years ago.
The last time she’d seen Peter Parker she’d been seven years old, watching from her living room window as Peter waved goodbye before going to spend time with his aunt and uncle– his parents waving alongside him for what was supposed to be a weekend trip for the two of them.
A weekend trip that turned into forever– Michelle learning later that his parents had died in a plane crash and that Peter, her next door neighbor and best friend, was moving to live with his aunt and uncle permanently.
If they ever came back for Peter’s stuff in their house, Michelle never saw it– remembering now as she looks into Peter’s eyes vague and fuzzy memories of sitting by her living room windowsill and waiting for Peter to come back.
“Yeah, it has,” Michelle says quietly, Peter’s eyes softening as he looks at her– wondering not for the first time if it had been just as abrupt for him to leave as much as it was for her.
“Small world then, huh?” Gwen says, throwing Michelle out of her memories and startling Peter too– sheepish as the two of them take a step back apart from each other.
Michelle hadn’t even realized they’d gotten closer in the seconds that they’d seen each other, watching as Peter’s cheeks flush a bright pink.
“Really small world. I didn’t– if you’d told me that your our roommate was MJ then I would’ve–”
“Shown up on time to help her move in?” Gwen counters, Peter’s cheeks flushing even more bright pink at that as Michelle laughs.
“Yeah, Parker,” Michelle teases, “what gives? You only help your friends?”
Peter’s mouth twitches, as if Michelle’s said something particularly funny– pursing his lips to the side before he says, “something like that.”
“Besides,” Gwen interjects, looping her arm so that it’s interlocked with Michelle’s, “I thought only your friends call you MJ.”
“Sounds like I’ve been friends longer than you , Gwennie,” Peter teases, Michelle seeing a flash of the boy that she used to know in the way that he smiles at her.
“Longevity means little to depth , Peter,” Gwen bites back, Michelle laughing at the competitiveness that so easily slips out– telling Michelle more about their dynamic than any kind of conversation could.
“Says you ,” Peter says with a wink and a waggle of his eyebrows, Michelle’s sense of coming home feeling that much stronger for how much her past and present are meshing together. “MJ and I go way back.”
“I don’t know,” Michelle replies. “You did ditch us with all the hard work of moving in.”
“I’ll make it up to you some other time,” Peter says with a grin. “I’m good for it.”
Michelle bursts out laughing, something that Peter clearly intended from the way his face lights up– Gwen nudging at her side.
“Is that some kind of weird inside joke? Are you two gonna be like this constantly?”
“Probably,” Peter jokes, any lingering awkwardness that Michelle might’ve felt at living with a stranger now melting away when that stranger ended up being someone who didn’t feel like a stranger at all.
She gets it now, even without it being Peter Parker , why Gwen would be so casual about living with her ex to see the two of them riff off of each other.
Michelle doesn’t know a lot about Peter Parker now or who he’s grown up to be, but the boy she’d known all those years ago had been kind, funny, a little dorky– Michelle not missing the way Peter Parker next door has filled out and grown in the years since.
Time’s been good to him, physically at least– Michelle smirking at him and feeling so much more like that little girl with the twists and bobbles that Peter had liked to play with as she says, “And you were worried that we wouldn’t get along.”
“ Me ?” Gwen says indignantly as she lets go of Michelle’s arm, Michelle laughing even harder at that. “You two are not going to gang up on me here.”
“Already started,” Michelle says with a wink of her own to Peter, folding her arms together over her chest. “But first, I gotta know why you broke my best friend’s heart.”
“Why do you automatically assume that?” Peter asks incredulously. “ She broke up with me?”
Michelle just shakes her head. “Typical Parker excuses. Guess some things never change.”
Peter rolls his eyes at that, Gwen gigging and Michelle feeling that much lighter as he says, “I changed my mind. I’m moving out.”
“Bye,” Michelle jokes.
“Just like last time?” Peter counter, Michelle dropping her mouth open.
“What? Too soon?” Peter teases, Gwen rolling her eyes.
“I can’t believe you two know each other.”
Michelle looks back to Peter, a smile on her face.
“Yeah,” she says as Peter smiles back, “me neither.”
Gwen’s original plan– because it was Gwen and of course there was a plan– was to host a “welcome back to New York” housewarming party for the three of them. Partly to get Michelle and Peter warmed up to each other but mostly just for the excuse to throw a party, something that Michelle can admit that she missed about her in the years that they’d been apart.
She’d liked her life and her friends out in California well enough, but there was something about being home that she missed– not just the city, but the people.
Of all the people that she could’ve imagined finding again when she moved back to the city, Peter Parker wouldn’t have been one of them.
It’s a few hours after she’s all moved in, most of her stuff still in boxes and locked away in her room. She’s showered though and dressed up a little, mingling with some of Gwen and Peter’s friends and as well as some of her own.
“Flash fucking Thomspon,” she says with a laugh, enveloping him into a hug that he freely leans into.
“Michelle Jones fucking Watson,” he says into her hair. “Been too long without you.”
“You missed me that badly?” Michelle asks with a smile, leaning out of the hug to watch as Flash rolls his eyes. “It’s only been six years.”
“Long enough for you to get that California glow or whatever the hell you’ve got going on,” he says, motioning towards her. “What are you wearing ?”
“I see you haven’t changed at all,” Michelle teases, Flash making a face as she bumps shoulders with him. “I missed you. For real.”
“Yeah well, I missed you too,” he says genuinely, bumping her shoulder right back before motioning to the filled room in front of them. “Didn’t think you’d want this to be your first night back though.”
Michelle shrugs. “I don’t mind.”
Flash looks skeptically over at her but Michelle’s honesty hasn’t faltered in the years since they knew each other– learning more on how to be tact but no less direct as repeats, “I don’t.”
“Who are you trying to convince?” Flash says with a snort, Michelle raising an eyebrow as he continues. “If I thought you didn’t want to be here, you wouldn’t be here.”
Michelle snickers at that, Flash grinning as they fall into a comfortable silence– as silent as it can be in the middle of a party.
Michelle’s always liked people watching–always liked being observant– taking in the partygoers and wondering just where she fits amongst them.
It’s not all Peter and Gwen’s friends, but the people that were there for her were a lot like Flash– people who knew a different version of herself that left New York or even the ones that she left behind at MIT.
Her eyes dance around the people in their tiny apartment, only for her eyes to land on Peter– currently nursing a drink and seemingly doing the same thing she is.
She stares at him for a while, giving herself the chance to really settle with the reality of the situation that she’s found herself in– something that in a million years, she never would’ve imagined.
Of all the people that she could’ve thought she’d see again, of all the people that she could’ve expected to live with, it wouldn’t have been Peter Parker– the boy next door. Her first friend.
Her first crush .
Peter smiles at her then, as if he could read her mind or at the very least seemed to be on the same page.
Michelle didn’t know if Peter felt the same way about her back then as she did for him, the kind of childish crush on your next door neighbor that came out of something like the cheesy YA novels she used to like making her feel like a kid again.
Of all the people in the city that she could have met again, of all the people she could be roommates with, Peter Parker ended up being right next door to her again– next door and also the ex of one of her best friends.
“What’s up with you?”
“Huh?” Michelle asks, suddenly coming back to herself and the realization that she was still at a party– Flash looking at her skeptically before his eyes skip over to where she had been looking.
“Who you looking at? First night back and already spacing out?”
“No,” Michelle counters, looking back to where Peter is only to find that he’s gone– frowning as she looks around the room.
“Sure looks like you are,” Flash replies, sounding amused as Michelle’s eyes dart across the room. “You look like you’re ready to jump out the window.”
“Ha ha,” Michelle replies, trying to contain her curiosity and her confusion.
Where did he go? She thinks but doesn’t say, Flash still looking at her expectantly.
“If I tell you something, are you going to be weird about it?”
“Probably,” Flash immediately replies, Michelle frowning as he motions towards her, “but go ahead.”
“You know how Gwen still lives with her ex?”
“Yeah, Peter. We went to Midtown together.”
“ You know him too?” Michelle asks incredulously, wondering just how small her world really is as Flash laughs.
“Yeah, I– wait,” Flash pauses, seemingly catching on to Michelle’s words as his eyes narrow. “ You know him?”
“Sort of,” Michelle says, looking around the room again and finding that he’s nowhere to be found– wondering how the hell he could disappear so quickly and more where he went in the first place. “We were neighbors.”
“Neighbors?” Flash repeats. “I thought you lived in Brooklyn.”
“I do. I did ,” Michelle clarifies, “But I used to live in Forest Hills. So did he, back then.”
“Damn,” Flash says, before he makes a face. “So was he like, your sworn enemy or something?”
“What? No,” Michelle says with a laugh, giving up on her search for Peter when she’s trying to sort out this nebulous feeling that she has in the middle of her chest. “We were friends.”
“So… what’s the problem?” Flash asks, Michelle asking herself the same thing.
“No problem, it’s just– weird, right?” She asks, already seeing from the look on Flash’s face that the only person who thought it was odd at all was her.
“That you don’t have to live with a stranger? Doesn’t sound so bad to me,” Flash says, Michelle accepting that for what it is and trying not to think about why she’s feeling the way that she does.
It was a good thing, better than what she expected to not have to live with a random guy that she might not like.
She doesn’t really know Peter anymore but she knows him– knew him, trusted Gwen enough that he couldn’t be all that bad if she broke up with him but was still willing to not just live with him, but be friends with him.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Michelle says noncommittally, ignoring the look that Flash gives her and trying hard to ignore the weirdness she feels in the pit of her stomach.
The party lasts long enough that by the time Michelle’s showered and ready for bed, she’s exhausted.
A few of their friends– Gwen’s friends– had helped with the clean up, parties in post-college somehow being that much more classy than anything the two of them ever went to at MIT.
Michelle really didn’t mind that this was Gwen’s idea of a good time, or at least a way to get all their elbows bumping up against each other– walking out of the bathroom that she shared with her and seeing her with a face mask on.
“Good night?”
“Yeah,” Michelle says tiredly, fighting back a yawn and losing as Gwen smirks at her. “Can I ask you a question though?”
“Shoot.”
“Where did Peter go?” She asks, seeing something flicker across Gwen’s masked face. “It was like he was here and then he just–”
“He does that. For work,” Gwen says quickly, a little too quickly as Michelle stares at her quizzically. “He works for the Bugle, taking pictures of Spider-Man.”
“You dated a man who works at the Bugle ? Gwendolyne.”
“Yeah okay, whatever,” Gwen says with a handwave, the towel that her hair is wrapped up in swaying slightly as Michelle smirks. “You’re not allowed to judge me for my dating choices after I had to live with the saga of you and Ophelia that one summer.”
“You’re equating Peter to Ophelia ?” Michelle asks, thinking back to that ill-fated relationship the summer between her junior and senior year.
“No,” Gwen says with a shrug, “just– he works weird hours so, don’t worry too much about it.”
Well I wasn’t going to until now , Michelle thinks but doesn’t say– studying Gwen and seeing something… different about her.
There wasn’t a lot that Gwen and her hadn’t shared in the years that they’d become friends, that initial year of opposition serving as a foundation that helped them better understand each other. She’s lived with her, fought with her, been friends with her both in close proximity and thousands of miles apart to know her– as much as anyone can know a person.
Michelle is observant and she knows Gwen Stacy.
She’s hiding something.
Michelle’s going to find out what it is.