Snippets of a Spiders Non-Spidey Life

Textbooks are Expensive and I'm Running Out of Coffee (Part 1)

This is going to be a short story with a few chapters, hence the part 1. In this Peter is not Spider-Man. Also on AO3.

This story is more from MJ's point of view so if you don't like that sorry but personally I love her.
------------------

MJ had set up her own little study corner in a secluded area of the library where there were little interruptions and people only passed by quickly if they were intensely searching for a certain book. This was the way she liked it; by herself; quiet; just the books and her jumbo flask of tea. Studying was becoming a critical part of her life once again and distractions were met with a death glare, something she had perfected long ago back in middle school.

Her shared apartment was currently out of bounds for peaceful studying. Her roommate was one of her best friends but tranquility was not their strong point, so the library was becoming her temporary home. The only downside to the library was that, while it had all the textbooks she needed, they only had one copy of the most important one and it was not allowed to leave the premises.

Looking up from her tenth page of notes, all highlighted and categorised by colour, she met the eyes of the boy with a mop of brown hair, who had been standing, searching the bookcase in front of her with a fine tooth comb.

'You looking for anything in particular or are you just going to stand there?' she questioned.

'No, no, no,' he said in a bit of a panic, 'there's just this one book I need but I can't find it anywhere. I know it's not supposed to leave the library but those books are too expensive and I wouldn't blame anyone for nicking it but, like, my whole college degree is riding on that book. It's the bright yellow one, have you see it?' The boy rambled.

Michelle slowly looked down at the books spread out on the table in front of her. Her eyes met with the luminous yellow book sat open in front of her. She knew full well that it was there but she was very particular in her ways and she wasn't sure whether he was going to disrupt that or not. After a long pause and a lot of thinking she finally looked up at the pleading eyes staring down at her.

'Yeah, I know that one. Someone usually has it though.' She paused. 'Luckily for you, today it's me. If you sit quietly and don't interrupt my uptake of knowledge I'll let you use it too. Deal?'

'Yes. Oh my God, thank you. You are a lifesaver.' He said stumbling into the chair located next to her.

He grabbed his pen out of his pocket and pulled a pad of paper out of his bag, which was rammed full of odds and ends. Harmoniously, they worked alongside one another with the unnamed boy respectfully following the ground rules MJ had set down earlier.

Michelle was peacefully copying out the last of the page for this section when a sudden judder of the table forced her pen over the rest of neatly laid out work, leaving a coloured trail. She whipped her head around with a death glare radiating from her eyes. She was going to have to spend extra time that she didn't have rewriting all her hard work and notes up. To say she was fuming would be a bit of an understatement.

As her head flew around to see the cause of her annoyance, her eyes landed on the boy next to her. He was lifting his head up of the table with a sort of dazed expression on his face. One of his hands went up to rub a darkening patch of skin on his forehead. When his eyes finally met Michelle's, his eyes widened to what would have been a comical size, if it were not for the situation. His eyes fell down onto the piece of paper that lay on the table and the pen gripped threateningly tight in her hand.