Chapter Text
Peter rubs his hands together, blowing hot air into them as he looks out the window.
There’s a light snowfall coming down, not enough to warrant turning on the heater– at least how he reasons it. It’s too early, for the snow and for the ice. Too early for him to think of test the functionality of the crappy heater he has.
Peter rubs his hands together again, looking out over the city when he hears sirens– sighing as he looks over to where his suit was currently laid out.
It’s freezing outside and the suit needs a good wash, but swinging around was probably the best way to get his heart rate up, simple kinetics that could keep him warm without having to worry about breaking into the heating unit again and short circuiting the electrical system. Again.
Time to go , he says to himself– looking around the relatively apartment. It was small, cramped, but it was his , eyes landing on the picture of him and May that he put up on the wall opposite his bed.
He smiles, taking a deep breath before walking towards his suit.
A bright blue and deep red, running his thumb over the seams.
He makes a note of taking some time to mend it before he puts it down and pulls off his shirt.
He’s got some work to do.
There’s something different about the city when the snow comes in. Different, not just because of the increasingly lower temperatures but because of the energy of it— the preparation for the holidays and the parades, the lighting of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center sending influencers and tourists alike in a frenzy of wondering if they’ve planned their vacation in time to see it.
Peter didn’t grow up particularly religious, a bar mitzvah when he was thirteen being the most he’s done to connect with his heritage. After Ben died, he and May stopped going to temple all together.
After May died, Peter was certain there was nothing else out there for him anyway.
It’s different, is the point— the city and the snow, mixing together as he swings forward, letting the web carry his momentum until he can reach his destination.
He hears sirens, inwardly kicking himself as he looks in their direction— a debate within himself for a half second before he makes the decision to turn toward the sound.
He can’t be late. He shouldn’t be. But Spider-Man always took priority.
It’s all he had left.
“Parker…”
“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” Peter says, running a hand through his hair as he peels off his jacket. The quick change in the back of the alley— in freezing cold temperatures at that— made his cheeks flushed even more so, feeling them warm as Edgar stares at him.
“That’s the third time this week, kid,” he says, a frown forming under his thick mustache. “You been messing around?”
“Ah, come on, Edgar. You know me,” Peter says with a wink, seeing Edgar rolling his eyes as Peter rubs his hands together before putting an apron on. “I’m good for it.”
“Good for nothing is more like it,” Edgar says with a handwave, but there’s no malice in his voice— Peter grinning as he ties the back of his apron then washes his hands. Edgar might look like the kind of guy who was the handler of some mob boss in one of those old movies May used to watch but he was all bark— muttering something in Italian under his breath before he went back to the grill.
Peter washes his hands, wipes them across the front then gets to work— grabbing the piling dishes from the deck so that he can move forward.
“Hey, where we at?”
“You’re late ,” Sandra says, giving him a look as Peter grins.
“Table 4?” Peter asks, by way of response— holding the familiar plate of eggs, bacon and two slices of wheat toast up for her to see.
“And Table 2. You’re gonna give me heartburn,” Sandra says as Peter turns away, laughing as he makes his ways to the table.
“That’s the cigarettes,” he says, not having to see her to know she’s rolling her eyes at him— Peter putting on his best smile as he delivers the food.
Working at Sal’s had been an accident— Peter doing a faceplant into the back alley while chasing after a woman in a leather suit with a different kind of sticky fingers, Sandra herself looking at him in amusement with a cigarette in hand.
“You good, spidey?” She’d asked, raising an eyebrow as Peter had coughed a few times— the smell of whatever gas that had been thrown his way throwing him off.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Peter had said, waving her off before attempting to swing again— only to trip on his own legs.
“Stay right there,” she’d said, Peter feeling a little too dizzy to argue otherwise— the smell of coffee and a donut waking him up as when she’d come back out.
“On the house,” Sandra had said with her offer, the small measure of kindness buoying him more than the sugar rush had.
He might not have caught the Black Cat— that time at least— but he did catch the HELP WANTED sign in their window before he left.
Spider-Man might’ve thanked her for the food and the drink but it was Peter Parker that showed up the next day, hopeful for a job and eager to help out, in a way that might also pay his rent.
Eight months on the job and Sal’s has become one of the more stable parts of his life, the benefit of a 24 hour diner being that he could take shifts whenever he needed— Sal not asking questions about his schedule or in paying him under the table and Peter all the more grateful for it.
There was a part of him, small that it was, that wondered how long he could keep this up— the GED certificate he has framed on his bed a reminder of all that he still had to work for.
May wouldn’t have wanted this for him, he knows— but May didn’t really get an opinion anymore.
She was gone and Peter had to learn to live with that.
He pushes that away and puts a smile on his face, grabbing the coffee so that he can take the order of another customer.
It wasn’t anything he wasn’t used to, after all.
Peter’s had practice with putting on a mask.
After his shift at Sal’s is over— with a not so subtle nudge from Edgar that he shouldn’t be late again— Peter grabs his backpack and suits up, putting it on like the second skin that it is as he swings into the air. It’s nearly 2am but it’s the city that never sleeps, propelling himself through the air as he looks around.
The neighborhood that Sal’s is in is relatively quiet all things considered, sending a web out with one hand and reaching for his phone with the other— more adept at this kind of multi-tasking as he looks through the police scanner.
Before he can turn it on, he hears voices down another alley— slipping his phone back in his pocket and doing a hard left to see where it’s coming from, eyebrows raising underneath the mask when he sees a flash of purple light.
What the fuck? Peter thinks to himself, a gnawing in the pit of his stomach.
He was certain that he’d gotten all of Toomes’ tech off the ground— a year and a half before the Blip spent cleaning the streets of it and in the five years they were gone, they’d all but disappeared.
It would be just his luck to finally have found some semblance of a routine, to find some semblance of peace— only for his past to come back and haunt him again.
Peter sees another flash of light and then swings, moving himself forward to see where it was coming from.
“Shuri.”
“Coming,” she says, winking at Touissant who giggles as she presses her finger up to her lips in a shushing motion.
Neither she nor Touissant make any effort to move, hidden in the closet together with their knees pulled up to their chest. Shuri was getting too old to do this, at least to play these games in the way that she always had.
But Touissant had said please and who was she to tell him no.
She’d already wasted enough time letting T’Challa down. She wouldn’t do the same for her nephew.
“ Shuri ,” Nakia says just to the left of them, Touissant putting his hands up to his mouth to stop himself from laughing. “We have to go.”
Touissant’s eyes are filled with glee, Shuri shaking her head as she puts her hand over her mouth— a giggle erupting out of him that blows their cover just enough to hear Nakia sigh.
“You are an enabler,” Nakia says, opening up the closet to Touissant’s laughter— the sound of it tearing up Shuri’s insides just as it did the first time. “Come on. He has to go to school.”
“What will they teach him that I can’t?” Shuri counters, standing up and stepping out of the closet— Touissant following her lead. “Let him stay home with me.”
“Please, mama?” Touissant asks sweetly, as if there was any other way for him to speak. Months since she met Touissant and Shuri was convinced that her nephew was the most perfect human to have existed. It was not hard to think so, considering his parentage.
It was all Shuri could think of, most days as Nakia sighs.
“ You have to go to school because your auntie has somewhere she needs to be,” Nakia says with meaning, Shuri pressing her lips together as Touissant frowns.
“Not anywhere that is as important as me,” he says, all precocious smiles and giggles— Nakia pursing her lips as she nods her head.
“Go change,” she says, Touissant following her request without argument— leaving the two of them standing there in silence.
“Shuri—“
“No,” she says, turning away from her towards the back door— hearing Nakia come up behind her.
“They’ve been calling. Shuri, you must—“
“I must protect Wakanda,” Shuri says firmly, Nakia holding her gaze as Shuri stands taller. Nakia still has inches on her and always has, the sister she had wanted so desperately that she now clung to as a life raft all these months later.
Shuri knows that she is overstaying her welcome though Nakia would never say it, knows that her excuse at wanting to get to know her nephew didn’t account for the mess she had left behind at home.
She knows what Nakia will tell her, or at least what she believes she will.
Shuri is not ready to hear it nor does she think she has to.
“Is it in danger?” She asks, the look on Nakia’s face confirming for her what she already knows.
She leaves out of the home that’s become hers in the last few months.
It was the only home that she could claim that didn’t remind her of all that she had lost.
It’s childish of her to stomp away to the beach, like a teenager in the American movies that she used to tease T’Challa about watching.
She misses him, just as much as she misses being that girl— the one with constant jokes and a sense of herself and security in knowing who she is.
Shuri, Daughter of Ramonda, Princess of Wakanda— leader and innovator, Head Scientist of the Wakandan Royal Research Lab. All of these things were still technically true, now with the addition of a title she had never wanted nor looked for.
The Black Panther— and all that it entails.
She was still the daughter of Ramonda but what did that mean, when her mother was dead? She was still considered the Princess of Wakanda but what she did that have, when she effectively abdicated the throne by refusing to show up at the trial by combat— M’Baku stepping forward unchallenged and now ruling in her place. She was still a leader, still a scientist, still technically in charge of the research labs, but what did it matter to her now— in the aftermath, with the manufactured heart shape herb’s powers running through her veins. She pleaded to Bast for the power to save T’Challa with prayers that went unheard, now fueled by the same power as her brother, her father, and all those who came before him to be the Black Panther— only to question how much of N’jadaka’s appearance in the Ancestral plane had been real or imaginary.
Shuri’s return from dust had been what many had dubbed a miracle but was it not just science, unexplained and mysterious, that had brought her back to life?
What did it mean to be a child of invention who could not have put together the woman that she is now?
Shuri breathes— in and then out— as she looks out over the ocean, the waves lapping against the shore lulling her into a peace that she desperately wanted to be pulled under.
The ocean could not hold too much peace, not when she knew of what laid underneath— a beeping from her kimoyo beads bringing her attention down to her wrist, knowing only one would be able to get through her screening.
“Hello?”
“Shuri,” a familiar voice calls out. “You answered.”
“You surprised me,” she replies, hearing the soft laughter coming from the other end.
“I do not believe the Black Panther is ever surprised,” Okoye says easily, Shuri pursing her lips together.
“You called for a reason?” She asks, deflecting from the feelings that she can feel building in the back of her throat— a joke about the Black Panther and her brother that she can’t bring herself to say.
She misses that person, misses the mischievous and irreverent girl that she’d been.
Misses, but not enough to bring her back as Okoye continues.
“There’s some chatter about the French,” Okoye says, Shuri smirking as she looks out over the ocean.
“When isn’t there?”
“Weapons, Shuri. Chatter about weapons ,” Okoye says, the meaning behind her tone causing Shuri to still as her features harden.
“How?”
A beat. “We don’t know,” Okoye finally answers, the incredulous look on Shuri’s face mirroring the exasperation in Okoye’s tone as she continues, “the Dora Milaje—“
“Will stay in Wakanda,” Shuri interjects, sighing as she stands taller. “I can handle it.”
“Shuri…”
“It’s my duty to protect the people of Wakanda,” she says, looking out over the ocean again. “And all that it inhabits.”
“You do not have to work alone,” Okoye says, but Shuri’s mind is made up— waking back to the house as she presses one of her beads, calling for a jet from all these miles away.
“Send me the details,” Shuri replies instead before hanging up, seeing Nakia through the window as she comes back from the house.
Shuri knows she doesn’t have to work alone. But it’s better this way.
She can’t afford to lose anyone else.
“Dude.”
MJ looks up, Ned bursting through the door of their apartment with a grin.
“Yeah?”
“Not you,” Ned says, directed to Flash who makes a face– throwing his hands up from the kitchen as Ned turns back to MJ. “You’re never going to believe what I just got.”
“Probably not,” MJ deadpans as Ned closes the door behind him, slipping off his shoes as he walks towards the couch.
“Can you at least pretend to guess?” He asks, dropping his backpack and sitting down on the chair beside her– Flash popping his head in.
“ I can guess.”
Ned ignores him, something that just makes MJ try and stifle back a laugh as she gives Ned a look– communicating with each other without saying a word.
You should be nicer to him.
You be nicer to him.
MJ raises an eyebrow, Ned staring at her before he relents– MJ leaning back as Ned sighs and turns back around to the kitchen.
“ Guess who got tickets to see the Boran Gems,” Ned calls out, Flash sticking his head back in from the kitchen.
“No fucking way.”
Ned nods, turning back to MJ who looks on in amusement.
“The what?”
“Dude, are you for real? Give me her ticket, she’s not gonna understand,” Flash says as he walks towards the two of them, Ned rolling his eyes.
“She’s gonna understand—“
“ No , she won’t. Not like—“
“What is it? A concert?” MJ asks, Flash shaking his head as he moves to sit across from her.
“It’s not just a concert, it’s a fucking experience, MJ,” Flash argues, nudging Ned with his hand. “How’d you get tickets?”
“You remember Riri? From kinetics?” Ned asks, MJ looking between the two of them as Flash raises an eyebrow.
“The TA? Dude… really?”
Ned makes a face, shaking his head in annoyance. “No, we’re not— whatever. We’re in rob tech together—“
“Rob what ?” Flash asks, MJ smirking as Ned sighs.
“Robotic technology,” she offers, because despite Flash’s insistence on assuming that he knew everything there was to know, Ned’s schedule still seemed to elude him. “You know, the class he just got out of?”
“ Anyway ,” Ned says, looking back to MJ as Flash rolls his eyes. “Show’s tonight at 9. You in?”
“ I’m in,” Flash says, Ned pressing his lips together as MJ laughs.
“Sounds like a date,” she teases, relishing in the sputtering and annoyed refusals that the two of them give as she sits back.
When the three of them moved to MIT— roommates in a trio no less— there was a part of MJ that couldn’t escape the feeling that there was something missing. Flash hadn’t been her first choice of a third roommate, but it’s not as if there had been any other option— the three of them feeling like very small fish in a very big pond as soon as they arrived.
They clung together, out of familiarity and of the knowledge that despite the new people and experiences that were outside their door— they had each other. It was comforting to her, the thought that she never had a lot of luck getting close to people being subsumed with having roommates that she knew she could trust.
Now, halfway done with sophomore year and it felt more lived in and comfortable, the three of them choosing to live together off campus and fitting together like puzzle pieces she hadn’t even realized could work together.
It’s the kind of feeling that made her feel secure and yet, unbalanced— searching for meaning in something that she shouldn’t.
Searching for a sense of stability that she arguably already has.
“You don’t even know her,” Ned says, bringing MJ back into the present.
“I’m easy to love,” Flash counters, MJ biting back a laugh as the two of them start to bicker.
She subtly takes out her phone to text Riri herself, tapping out a message to let her know that the tickets she’s offered had set off yet another argument between the two of them.
Ned and Flash don’t even notice that MJ’s on her phone, watching the text bubbles pop up and then laughing when she sees her reply.
Ri: they’re so obvious
MJ: to everyone but themselves
Ri: so?? you coming???
MJ considers it, eyes flicking up as Ned and Flash get more heated— smirking as she types back a response.
MJ: idk. hate to break these two up before they even start.
MJ watches the text bubbles start, stop then start again when Riri replies.
Ri: you know I have 4 tix right?
MJ laughs, the sound causing both Ned and Flash to stop their arguing and look over to her.
“What’s so funny?”
“What?”
They both ask at the same time, MJ shaking her head in disbelief.
“Nothing,” she says, lifting herself off the couch and replying back to Riri with a few emojis— heading to her room since the chances of Ned and Flash heating up their argument was only going to increase.
She should go back in and tell them what Ned likely didn’t know, just as she should text Riri back and tell her that while she didn’t know anything about the band, it sounded fun.
MJ walks into her room and her eyes catch on the jewelry she as on her dresser, the broken glass blown dahlia causing her to pause every time she sees it. It’s lost another leaf, a part of her now so paranoid that it’ll break completely that she’s stopped wearing it.
The other part of her wonders why she cares so much about the necklace that Spider-Man gave her on a bridge in London, the urge she has to throw it out always conflicting with the unexplainable feeling that it was important.
Her dad always taught her the value of things, she reasons to herself— just as her mom taught her to never take things for granted.
MJ forces herself to look away from the necklace and back to her phone, Riri’s reply waiting for her.
Ri: well????
MJ smirks, hearing Ned and Flash argue in the background as she taps out a reply.
MJ: meet at pour over in an hour?
She puts her phone on the dresser as she goes to get ready only to get an alert— a buzzing that she checks to see that it’s a notification about some news story with Spider-Man.
I should really take that off, she thinks to herself as she puts the phone down.
Almost two years since Spider-Man had left her and Ned on Liberty Island, Doctor Strange looking on just as confused as they were for why they were there. Almost two years since radio silence from him, all the times that she or Ned had been in the wrong place at the wrong time— Spider-Man saving them at the Washington Monument and the disaster that was their trip to Europe.
Almost two years since Spider-Man seemingly disappeared from their lives, just as quickly as he had arrived, and yet MJ still had the alerts on her phone.
Every time she got one, MJ thought to herself that she should turn them off.
She never does— swiping the notification away and ignoring the feeling she can’t explain in the pit of her stomach.