Shameless Shane Dawson Book Promo as the title. I'm sorry. "I'll go home." 🐖 okay I'll stop.
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"You like Peter!"
The phrase had gone over in her head a few times; she just couldn't believe what she was hearing. She was tempted to run that by her again but she was sure she had heard it right the first time and she didn't want to hear it again from Ned, especially not with the face he was making. The face of someone who had jumped to conclusions and was letting his imagination get the best of him.
MJ closed her sketchbook, slamming it a little too harsh before placing it in her backpack. "I'm not even going to respond to that." Michelle turned to leave the room but Ned's continuous chatter caused her to stop.
"Oh my god! Are you going to tell Peter?!" Ned sounded way too invested in this topic.
"Tell Peter what?" MJ refused to accept that this was happening to her. This had to be a nightmare.
"That you like him."
"I tolerate him," Michelle retorted quickly.
"That's not what your sketchbook says." Ned continued with the same topic.
"This isn't what you think it means," Michelle sighed.
"What does it mean?" Ned questioned, highly intrigued.
Michelle couldn't answer this, because she didn't even know. She had drawn these images of Peter late at night when she found she couldn't sleep. She had finished her reading and homework. That night her sister was fast asleep in her room and MJ had placed her dad's food in the microwave for him to heat up when he got home. With her responsibilities done, MJ couldn't help but let her mind wander. She hadn't started off drawing images of Peter. That night she drew various images of Spiderman after hearing more news coverage in the background about the Avenger's associate failed to make an appearance. The news coverage had subconsciously influenced her drawings. However, after minutes of drawing Spiderman in swinging positions, her thoughts switched over to Peter. This train of thought occurred because when drawing Spider-man's stature and muscles, Michelle began to draw parallels to Peter.
While Peter attempted to hide his newfound body mass under baggy clothing it did little to deter from the fact that he had bulked up a bit. Michelle instantly took noticed that he had bought clothing a size larger. However, the biggest give away that set Michelle that something was wrong was his height. He had gotten taller. Yeah, Peter was still shorter than her but he had grown a few more inches. She remembered him being smaller, but now he was taller than Ned.
Their similar body shape and height had Michelle drawing Peter and Spiderman simultaneously. There were very similar in stature and MJ would know since Spider-man had stood mere feet away from her during the DC monument accident. It had only been for a brief moment but that was enough for her to detect that.
This was Michelle reasoning for drawing Parker in her sketchbook. However, she still couldn't possibly fit all the pieces together in her mind as to why Peter came to mind when thinking of someone similar to Spiderman. There could literally be dozens of people similar to Spider-man's stature in New York. However, drawing Peter in comparison just came naturally without thinking. She didn't know what it meant just yet, but she damn well knew it didn't mean what Ned thought it did. She couldn't exactly tell him her reasoning for it either, god only knows what other conclusions he would jump to.
"I'm leaving that's what it means," Michelle stated before storming off the room.
Ned marched behind her. "MJ," Ned whispered, stopping Michelle. She stopped, not wanting him to attract May's attention. "It's okay if you like better." At his words continuing to take on the topic of Peter, Michelle rolled her eyes and walked away.
"Mrs. Parker," Michelle stepped up next to the kitchen table.
May turned to look at Michelle. "Please call me May."
"Uh," Michelle shifted uncomfortably. She didn't feel comfortable with calling her that yet; this was her second time meeting her. She would save that for a third meeting. If there ever was one. "I'm going home."
May turned off the stove before turning to look at Michelle with a disappointed face. "Oh no," She pouted. "Why? The food is finally ready."
"I'm sorry I just have some studying to do."
"On a Friday?" May questioned. "If these two," may gesture to Ned and the hall, where Peter was in the bathroom, "can finish their homework during the weekend, I'm certain that a smart young team captain like you can definitely do the same."
The compliments left Michelle embarrassed. She knew how to handle compliments she had gotten them from her teachers numerous of times, she would usually nod her head and agree with them on anything they congratulated her on. Like if they congratulated her on getting a hundred on a test, she would respond with a bland "Thanks that's what double checking is for." However, with May's compliments, it seemed awkward for her. She couldn't come up with a quip to fill in the awkward silence that she felt, and she couldn't figure out why..
"Please don't leave me alone with these two," May pleaded by pressing her palms together. "I need a break from these two with the company of another woman. Please just until dinner."
Michelle smirked and shrugged her shoulders, giving up on May's plead. "Alright."
"Yes," May cheered. "Ned could you lay out some plates."
Ned nodded as he walked past MJ to get the plates. as he walked by her Michelle whispered, "This conversation is over." He gave a shocked face as he passed her, obviously wanting to continue talking about it.
As Ned gathered the plates from the cabinets May let out a frustrated sigh. Mumbling something along the lines of "what is taking Peter so long." While Ned hadn't heard her, Michelle did and this statement caused her to question way Peter was taking so much time in the bathroom. She neared the hall and did hear the shower head on. Walking down the hall toward the bathroom door, Michelle pressed her ear against the door. she didn't hear any other noise other than the rushing water. She thought about it for a second, pulling her hand back, but ultimately ended up knocking on the door. MJ didn't say anything, just knocked. She listened for him to call out and acknowledge that he was in the bathroom. There, however, was no noise. Knocking again, this time she called out to him.
"Parker. Your aunt wants you to come eat." Again she was met with silence. Furring her eyebrows MJ Knocked three more times continuously. "Parker? You alright in there?" This caused some sense of suspicion and concern in MJ. Did something happen to this Idiot? Don't tell me he fell? "Parker," Michelle said one more time sternly. She waited a few more seconds before letting out a heavy breath. Do I want to do this, she thought as she placed her hand on the doorknob. He's not answering something must be wrong. If he was ever really in there in the first place, her mind brought forth this thought that she was refusing to acknowledge, but the evidence pointed to that possibility.
With how strange Ned and Peter acted, she wouldn't put it past them to pretend that Peter was in there. If he wasn't here than where could he be now? These guys were really driving her up a wall. He had to be in there. Please let him be in there. Michelle pushed the door open with the sound of a voice saying "MJ wait!"
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Peter had rushed home in the same method he had done to go to investigate if Toomes had escaped. Only on the way back it had been at a faster paise, worried that May would question why he was in the bathroom for so long and would barge into the bathroom to find he wasn't there. After that no lie he told her would convince her otherwise; she would know that he was out doing Spider-man related activities. Then that would be the end of everything. She would personally drive upstate to return the suit to Tony Stark. She let him keep it, as a sentimentality since he had informed her he had grown attached to Karen. When she had found out about him being spiderman he had said something along the lines of, "You can't take Karen away." After this, however, he would have to say goodbye to Karen and her helpful tactical advise and her life advise, which was bizarrely effective. It had been integral to him to ask Karen for advice before making a big decision wondering what she would come up with.
Peter finally landed on the roof of his building. He crawled down the building, rushing so people won't see him and also make in time to the bathroom before May found out he wasn't there. He crawled toward his apartment's bathroom window. It was a smaller window from the other in the apartment but he could still fit himself through the window. He closed the toilet seat so he could step down on it. He was careful not to slip since he was dripping wet from the river water. Unfortunately, on his way back, the water dripping off of him had caused him to slip while landing on a building. He had unceremoniously slipped but thankfully caught himself with his webbing. At least, the good out of being wet, it would help to sell the lie that he was showering. Although it proved to be uncomfortable to run in a wet costume.
Peter quickly worked to take his suit off which proved to be a harder task. First, he pulled off the mask throwing it in the bathtub that was getting soaked in water from the shower head. Pushing the spider on his chest was supposed to loosen the suit and it did but it also weighed it down. The suit stuck to him in some places and he worked to peel it off and threw it in the tub as well.
As Peter quickly reached to grab a towel from the towel rack, his finely tuned ears picked up a clicking sound from the direction of the door. The doorknob turning, he processed before the door pushed open. He hadn't been fast enough, only managing to cover his lower half. He had left his underwear on but it was drenched and cling to his body and another thing on his body. Peter stared wide-eyed at the person who barged in, the last person he had thought it would be.
MJ stood there at the doorframe just as stunned as Peter was. Her gaze held his afraid to let it go and have her eyes betray her. That, however was also a mistake because his eyes conveyed a true fright. MJ instead moved them behind him and noticed something red in the bathtub. The more she tried to see the more she noticed it looked like clothing.
"M-MJ," Peter stuttered, shocked. He stepped into her line of vision, obscuring her view."W-What are you....What are you," he couldn't get his thoughts out, from what could be described as a bundle of nerves and shock.
MJ didn't answer or express anything. Luckily, Ned had walked up beside her, his face full of relief when he noticed that Peter had made it back in time. Peter looked over at Ned with a questioning look. MJ let them continue there obvious staring conversation, marching off to the living room without saying a word.
"Uh wait, MJ," Ned said. Ned signaled to Peter that he was going after her before leaving Peter in the bathroom alone to pace on what to do with himself. He wasn't sure whether or not to follow after Ned and MJ, but in the end, decided on attempting to figure out what MJ was doing in is home rather than have Ned explain it to him.
Peter's first instincts were to turn off the loud shower. For the benefit to allow him to think but mostly to prevent a further increase in May's water bill. Peter scrambled to wrap a towel around himself before he noticed May's bathrobe hanging behind the door. He dropped the towel and quickly slipped on one of the sleeves on while running out of the bathroom. He worked on placing the rob on himself in the hall, so when he reached the living room he was already tying the robe off. He arrived just in time to see Michelle with her backpack looped around her arm as she marched toward the door. All the while May attempted to understand what was going on as she saw Michelle just leave the apartment. So much for trying to figure out what she was doing there, he thought. She ditched immediately after seeing him.
"What. Happened?" May looked from the door to the two boys, warranting an explanation. "Peter. Ned. Explain."
Peter opened his mouth to try to explain with only a stutter of, "I-I- Uh," coming out of his mouth.
Ned, on the other hand, stood completely frozen at May's piercing gaze, attempting to come up with an excuse, but after a full day of those, he was worn out and settled on the truth. There was only so much Ned could take. "MJ walked in on Peter in the bathroom." Ned sighed, shrugging his shoulders.
Peter turned his head, eyes wide at Ned. He gasped, not believing that Ned would just up and tell her the truth, especially when the truth was an embarrassing accident. Ned turned to look at Peter with an oops sorry face.
May sighed, gaining both their attention. May pinched the bridge of her nose before looking up at the two teenagers. "Peter how many times have I told you to look the bathroom when you're using it. I would have that that you would have learned with the amount of times Ned and I almost walk in on you." Peter ducked his head, the amount of times May had this conversation with him were far too many. He had a problem with forgetting to lock the door. "Please tell me you were at least covered up when Michelle walked in on you," May asked, her palm placed on her forehead.
Peter didn't think his aunt would be able to handle anymore if she knew he wasn't. It's not like he was naked, so he thought it was fine. "Yeah," he nodded.
"Thank goodness," May breathed. "I really don't want to have another talk with you," May whispered softly, mostly for herself but still intended Peter to hear it.
He gulped. "I'm good May. I don't need another talk." He waved his hands while shaking his head. May had the talk with him twice before. Once when he entered puberty and the other time right before he went to Liz's party. She explained the second time, that she didn't "doubt that you would make good choices but it's a party and peers tend to pressure one another in this type of circumstances." He really didn't know why she went through the trouble when in the end she just advised him to stay with Ned.
"Oh, you're getting another talk just not know. That can wait until you get a girlfriend." May explained. "Anyway hurry and get changed," May ordered Peter.
Nodding Peter made a move to the bathroom, to get his costume before getting changed. After an excruciating silent dinner, mostly because Peter and Ned were afraid to speak up knowing that May was still upset with Peter for his little stunt. After dinner, and helping May with the dishes, Peter and Ned retreated to Peter's room where they let the whole MJ fiasco on hold and spoke about their more pressing matter which was the whole Toomes prison break. Or lack thereof.
"I don't get it," Peter sighed as he threw himself on his bed. "If it wasn't Toomes, then who else could have had the equipment to execute this type of escape?"
"Rider's island houses common criminals but also high ranking ones," Ned informed him.
"So it could literally have been any criminal with connections." Peter sighed.
"Not exactly. Mac Gargan was the name of the only escaped prison, wasn't he one of the buyers on the ferrie to buy from Toomes?"
"How do you know that?"
"I went through the footage that Karen stores in the baby protocol. You know the guy-in-the-chair has to be informed on all the details of your missions. Present or past."
Peter went over to pick up his mask which he had hung up on a hanger with the fan pointed at it. He picked up the mask and put it on. "Ah," he shivered at the dampness of the fabric hitting his warm skin. "Woo, that's cold. A- Karen could you run the footage from the day of the ferr-
"-the day Peter got lectured by Tony Stark," Ned input.
Karen laughed on her part. "No- Don't encourage him."
"She laughed didn't she," Ned smiled brightly.
"Pulling up the saved files," Karen informed him.
"Thank you." Peter huffed. It didn't take long for Karen to bring up the footage but it was much later in the day when he was already fighting Toomes. "Can you rewind it to where the buyers were." Karen did as he asked and reversed the footage to a point where the buyers hadn't noticed Spiderman was there. "Pause. Run facial recognitors for Mac Gargan." Karen highlighted him out and zoomed in his face. "That's him!" Peter shouted. Peter removed his mask. "He was there. He was a buyer." Ned spread his arms out with an expression that read as 'I told you so'. "Which means they have connections. So Toomes He-"
"-lped him get out of prison," Ned fished the sentence with Peter their minds syncing in the same theory. "Would make sense if the people who helped Toomes built all the tech are still out there."
"They are definitely out there. I never saw any but one, you know the one who you helped me takedown at the dance." Ned nodded, reminiscing about his glory. "The others communicated with Toomes through a walkie-talkie or an earpiece. Though," Peter directed Ned back to the conversation, "why would Toomes help Gargan escape but not escape himself? That doesn't make any sense."
"Maybe he saw the error of his ways," Ned offered up an explanation.
"Ned bad guys don't just change and definitely not over the course of six months." He shot that idea down.
"Yeah because not all of them have a reason to," Ned explained. "If he went bad for Liz and his wife then maybe he can change back to the good side for them. His illegal activity affected them a lot."
Peter goes silent after Ned mentioning Liz. Peter had cooped with the heartbreak better then most would have. Maybe it was the fact that his crush on her was a fairly recent thing, only started to like her the beginning of sophomore year. Or maybe it was the fact that the responsibility of being Spider-Man worked to distract him. Moments like these, when he could stop and think about her, his heartbreak was brought forward.
After seeing Peter sulking face, Ned instantly thought of bringing up MJ, due to the recent revolution from earlier being prominent in his head. It had been quite a shock to him when he found out that Michelle has a crush on Peter. At first, when he ran the idea through his mind trying to rationalize it, he couldn't recall noticing any tell signs, exactly in MJ fashion. Never giving anything away. However the more he thought about it, he remembered off comments of hers about her observations on him. So that proved that she defiantly had her eye on Peter. Then the questioned remained: for how long? Since seventh grade when MJ first shared a class with them but they never really talked or was it recently? MJ was private so it was hard to pinpoint.
The privacy was what was conflicting Ned at the moment. He had accidentally found out about her crush and he was debating if he should tell Peter or not. Peter and Ned told each other everything and there was also the fact that this involved Peter.
Yeah, this involves Peter: He should have a right to know if someone likes him. I'd like to know if someone had a crush on me.
"Listen," Ned's mouth opened before he could over think it more than he had already "About MJ." Peter's expression instantly brightened but not in the way a boy hearing the name of the girl he liked but rather in a curious way. That expression gave Ned all he needed for him to not continue further with his initial idea. Peter and Michelle barely spoke. Peter was even intimidated to start up a conversation out of fear of how she might flip him off. Their friendship was constricted to small talk and academic decathlon questions; it was almost none existing. Yet somehow Michelle managed to like Peter, but she was MJ. All watching, and ever-present MJ. Along the way, she must have noticed something about Peter that made her heart flutter. Peter, on the other hand, was a skittish guy. He never noticed his surrounding and was easily distracted. He was the opposite of MJ. Peter didn't like MJ. Not in the way MJ did. With this realization striking him, Ned opted out and quickly stood from the chair to reach his backpack across the room. He took out the flash card and used them to disguise the original intention of his conversation. "MJ- She-She dropped off the practice questions you missed out on today." He handed them over to Peter. "That's why she was here."
Peter took the cards into his hands, looking them over. "Oh," he spoke briefly pausing before asking," Did she- I mean was she... angry? With me?" Peter asked.
"No. She vouched for us with the team." Ned admitted. He wasn't planning on telling Peter but felt that he should now what Michelle did.
"Sh-She did!" Peter blinked rapidly. "She saw right through my lie why wouldn't she rat me out to the team?" He couldn't believe that Michelle hadn't done something that would benefit the team. Informing them of Peter's deceptions would let them know that he was not reliable. So, in the end, he wouldn't be holding them back from attaining their success. Ever since MJ became team captain her priority has been placed solely on the success of the team; she would do anything for the whole team.
Ned shrugged. "She didn't explain." Ned zipped up his backpack and nonscilantly asked," Why don't you try asking her at school on Monday?"
"What!" Peter asked surprised. "No. No. I'm not gonna-"
"Why not?" Ned raises his eyebrow at Peter's resistance to approach MJ.
"It's just-" Peter shrugs.
"Does she intimidate you?"
"What no," Peter squeaked.
"The crack in your voice suggests otherwise." Ned voiced, smug. "You know, she won't bite despite what her attitude might suggest."
"I know that. Michelle doesn't intimidate me."
"Then why won't you ask her. Don't chicken out."
"I'm not chickening- Fine. Alright I'll ask her on Monday," Peter gave up, flopping down on the bed. "Now can you read these questions out for me." Peter handed the flash cards over to Ned to help him study. He needed to be ready for the next academic decathlon practice.
"Sure thing," Ned smiled, not at all hiding his giddiness.
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"You're making that face again."
MJ snapped out of her gaze that was permanently focused on the street in front of her. She halted from walking and looked down at her younger sister who was giving her a raised eyebrow, questioning her what the issue was this time for her facial expression.
"What face?" Michelle denied it as she continued to walk with her Tia following quickly after. She maneuvered around a person walking in the opposite direction before she walked in front of Michelle.
"The scowl that looks like you want to kick the next pedestrian who doesn't walk fast enough in front of you," Tia explained her all too well able to read her sister's face.
"It's New York; everyone is rude. It is in our genetic coding," MJ stated plainly.
"Okay point taken but you have had that face since the grocery store. Not to mention that you were staring off with an apple while picking them out and people were staring." Michelle blushed a bit. She hadn't meant to do that, she just found herself spacing out in the grocery store while thinking. Her thoughts were going back to the uncomfortable series of events of earlier that day at Peter's apartment. Not the rediculous claims of Ned, which were one of the most cringe inducing moments in her life. (One of them because being a teen was full of cringe moments.) Not even the memory when she opened the door on a half naked Peter seemed to linger in her mind. And his obviously bulging pex- yeah no! Move past that! Behind him. That's where MJ thoughts continued to bring her. Behind Peter, laying in the bathtub. A type of wet clothing sticking to the tub; Peter had moved in front of her line of vision before she could look at it in detail. The fact that he would move in front of it to ibscure her from that object was cause for suspicion. That insinuated that he didn't want her to see it. Even being so bold as to expose more of himself by leaping into her line of vision, involuntarily leading her to see Peter's v-shape. So MJ knew that whatever he had in the bathtub was something big.
Don't get her wrong, MJ don't care about other people's lives or what they were up to on their spare time. Be it on a normal circumstance, Michelle wouldn't be delving into Peter's live, but this wasn't a normal circumstance. (Nothing about Peter was normal, not from what Michelle noticed.) Peter's action inanvertedly affected the team. Stringing them along making them believe he was reliable and, not to enticing that he was also pulling Ned alone with whatever he was doing. Now they were losing not just one but two valuable teammates.
Fortunately for MJ, Peter wasn't quick enough for Michelle's truth seeking eyes. Whatever that material was in that bathtub it was undeniably red. And if Michelle wasn't mistaken, which she wasn't, it was distinguishable type of red; a bright tacky red. A red that if it could talk would in fact yell. Michelle wasn't one for bright eye catching colors in her clothing or color in general. She owned a few baby blues and deep greens. Yellow here and there, lots or greys, blacks and whites but no red. She wasn't very familiar with shades of red, not even with all of her art work.
Her dad had bought her a case of perfesional art markers for her birthday last year, which she had never gotten around to using. She wasn't ungrateful for then, she appreciated them very much. However, Michelle was much more comfortable with sketching in pencils or pens.
MJ wasn't known for stepping out of her comfort zone, even though she had been doing the opposite with the whole visit to Peter's house. Regularly she would have just given Ned and Peter their things at school on Monday. Instead she went through the trouble of bidding out in the hall of the apartment building to come up with a valid excuse for finding the apartment, other then she followed Ned, which no one asked about it the end.
"It's called getting what you pay for. There's no point in paying for rotten, bruised apples." Michelle explained. "It thanks to me that you're going to eat freshly preserved apples." She was pulling this out of her ass. None of them cared if the apples were slightly bruised. Getting the better ones when they paid for them was what they did but when it was gifted to them, they are them with bruises.
This was after every other Thursday after Michelle helped out at the nearest soup kitchen by her home. It was a soup kitchen run by Catholics but didn't limit volunteers to that qualification. Michelle was thankful for that because, when she first started to volunteer there, she needed it for school credit and her whole atheist views would have prevented her from helping out there if the slammed their believes in her face. Michelle was way past the completion of her points and now went because she had come to know and care for the regulars there. Due to her generosity of time, whenever there was left overs, MJ was given a bag of food to take home with her. She had the right mind to turn down, letting on of the sisters know that the homeless needed it more than her, but let her pride aside to think of her sister. Michelle might not have thought she needed it but her sister was growing and food was sparse at her home.
Michelle and her family weren't poor but they weren't financially stable either. With her mother no longer around, the responsibilities rested solely on her fathers shoulders. He held a good paying job as well; in construction. Although after rent, bills, and transportation expenses, there was barely enough to scrape up for food. The price of living in the city. MJ's dad had suggested to both girls the move out of the city were their money could last, but they had been unwilling. It's not that they didn't know the benefits of moving out of the city, it just that there was a lot of cons as well. Michelle and Tiana were both settled in well educated schools that have them plenty opportunities.
Also there was that one detail that lingered over them whenever the thought of moving, their mother. She had died in New York during the Invasion on New York and while that should make them feel ant to move, to a places where the ghost of their mother didn't linger and scar them, they felt close to her in the city. It's as if she was still partaking in everyday life. Michelle smelled in in the brewing of her mother's favorite small coffee shop; a mocha. She sa her in the reflection of the windows of the little book shop, browsing through the bookcases; it was one of Michelle's favorite places to accompany her mother. She had shared the same adoration for literature as her mother. Passing by Sydney's dinner two blocks from where the lived brought memories of her because that was her favorite place to go eat whenever she came home and knew dad hadn't stocked the fridge and it's any of her favorite breakfast food; only protein shakes and bars occupied the fridge.
That Dinner was, in fact, Michelle's first stop when she was looking for somewhere to work to help her father with expenses. However, when he found out, he flipped out, instructing Michelle that she was not to stray from her studies. He said the same thing he al yaw said when Michelle asked him how he was going to manage to pay their living cost. He said, with a tired smile, "I'll figure something out."
And figure something out he did. Only not in a way that pleases MJ. Months prior, while MJ was still in her sophomore year her dad was studying for the police academy. At the end of last school year, he went to training. He finally graduated from the academy during the middle of summer, making him officially apart of the NYPD. Throughout the whole process, MJ was completely against his decision. Despite this, she never distanced herself from her father's success. Michelle was there for his ceremony, even taking some of her favorite pictures to date. Her father's smile beamed in all of them as he held his daughters in each arm. She was glad to see him so happy; she just wished his happiness didn't come with her fear.
Even so, with his new job, he was still a rookie, meaning that his salary wasn't much more than what he was earning from his construction work, not while he was stuck as a ticket cop. Michelle could see how unhappy he was with that, as he changed his career to move forward, not stay stagnated with minor jobs. So they were still stuck in the same situation with not having enough money left to buy food for the time being.
"Yeah. Right," Tia didn't buy any of Michelle's attempt to change the subject. "I know what this is about," Tia laughed, skipping in her steps. Michelle appreciated that her sister was mature for her age, she understood more than children her age would, that why she wouldn't fall for evil scheming people of the world, but she didn't appreciate when Tia used her skills of observation to snoop into Michelle's life. "This is about Peter and Ned."
Michelle sighed, she knew this was coming, but she was still adamant to denying it. "What. Those two losers. I get enough of them at school why would I let them continue to bother me at home."
"You can't deny it. Every time you came home with an irritated expression, it always involves them."
Even though she wasn't admitting Tia was right, she was still curious to ask, "How do you even know that; I never explain to you why I'm upset." Michelle did this so she wouldn't go off on her sister. Her mood when she was irritated needed to cool down before she could speak to anybody. Which was the reason behind why her dad would take her to the local boxing ring ever since she was thirteen so she could let out some steam whenever she would get angered by people? Now, that he was a cop, her dad didn't take her boxing as much as he uses to. They hadn't been to the boxing ring for almost a year and she missed it. It was a way she spends time with her dad.
"You mutter. A lot," Tia explained. Michelle did do that a lot. She would be cooking or flipping through channels and she absentmindedly muttered her irritation. It seems Tia had noticed. "So she who was it this time? Ned or Peter?" Tia bounced with excitement. "I think it was Peter, it seems like he is the one you most put your focus on." Michelle stopped in front of their apartment door, their conversation had made the walk back to their home pass by that much faster. Michelle was prepared to deny the accusations, staring off with her smug looking sister.
"I could do this all day," Michelle threatened as she continued to hold her gaze with her sister's, refusing to let her cockily declare, 'I was right. It is Peter.'
"So. Could. I," Tia bit back with just as much sass with a head tilt.
So they continued with their intense staring contest, neither refusing to budge. Their faces came close, looking deep into each other's eyes as they fazed off. Their eyes at some point narrowed. However before they could cheat, since both of them were cheaters everytime they did this, two large masses of flesh engulfed both of their faces and pushed them to their normal standing position.
"Alright, you two that's enough. You better give it a rest before your eyes bulge out of your eye sockets," The thundering low voice of their dad expressed.
"Dad!"
"Dad?"
Both Tia and Michelle voiced in unison, although Michelle's was laised with much more confusing than Tia's. Tia quickly clings to her father's side, wrapping her arms around as much of his waist that she could. Michelle, however, stood to the side perplexed to her father's early day appearance.
"You're home early!" Tia voiced the question that was on Michelle's mind.
He cleared his throat. "Well, I-" He paused to look at Michelle who only raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms, waiting for his explanation. "You know it was a slow day today and I was let to go home early. So know I get the rest of the day to be with my girls." He laughed as he wrapped his arm around Tia's shoulder.
Tia, glad to have her dad home early, was none the wiser, but Michelle was not so easy to fool. "A slow day? In New York?"
yeah, you know. I'm still a rookie. I don't get to do much other than speeding tickets and it's a slow day.
does it matter Michelle dadas home takes keys from her pocket and runs to open the dor
her father takes the bags even taking the ones from Michelle's hand, not addressing the conversation further. Michelle was not keen on letting the conversation end since she knew something was up. She glouchly stepped into their apartment.
"So," her dad moved the conversation on, "what were you two arguing about this time?" Their dad didn't even have to ask what the staring contest was about. They did it too often when they got into discussions, for it to become normal.
"Michelle won't admit that Peter's been irritating her," Tia informed as she took out the groceries and put them away.
"Peter?" Michelle's dad questioned his full attention on his oldest daughter.
"It's a boy from Michelle's school," Tia interjected. Michelle sent her a dead-eyed look which Tia just snicked at.
"A boy- and you. You're hanging around a boy?"
"It's actually two-" Michelle chased after her sister to keep her from spouting any more information on her life. Tia screeched as she hides behind their dad.
"Hey hey. That's enough. Tia ran along to your room." He grabbed her from behind him and gave her a light push in the direction of her room. She looked at michelle glaring at her before she left giggling towards her room. "So," her dad spoke as he took the groceries from the bags and gathered the tote bags to place them away, "I believe you were going to explain this Peter kid."
"I'm in trouble for having a male classmate?" Michelle crossed her arms and leaned back on the kitchen counter.
Mike shook his head, "You're not in trouble. I was just curious- you know. I've never heard you mention a boy before and.." He dad was starting to mumbles as he fumbled with his hands. 'You are at the age were there's lots of presurre from your peers-"
"Let me stop you right there," Michelle held up her hand. "You think Parker ..and I," Michelle stopped to process where her dad was getting at. "Damit!" She cursed under her breath. Not him too. "Let me make it clear that I'm not dating Peter nor do I like him. He's just a teammate. I'm the decaloyn captain and it falls on me to make sure that everyone in the team is caught up with the material. Peter is- he's up to something," Michelle whispered the last part to herself with a sigh.
"Oh thank god," her father sighed. I think I understand; he's one of those smart but lazy students." The relief on her father's face was like a weight was lifted off his shoulders. "My little girl's still safe. And here I thought I was going to have to give the talk."
Michelle made a grossed out face. Her dad had never given the talk. He tried ones when she was in ninth grade, only because she was getting into high school not because she had shown any interest in a boy. The talk ended up being a whole bunch of ramblings of how bees pollinate. It had taken a drastic turn after her brought up the birds and the bees analogy. In the end, he just ended up leaving after explaining the pollination of bees. She remembered him ending the conversation with an awkward fist bump and a "good talk." Her dad was never good with boy type of conversations. or emotional conversations. Whenever they were feeling sad he would instantly try to find out the root to the problem and his version of fixing that problem was to act on it.
"It's okay dad. I don't think we ever need to have that conversation."
"Well, I wouldn't say never. God knows I won't be prepared for when the day comes, but you will eventually take an interest in dating. Then I will have to seriously have the talk with you."
"No. I don't think so. I'm asexual. " Michelle quickly came up with an excuse. "So if that's it, can I go sit in the cruiser?" Michelle held her hand out.
He through the keys at her, knowing perfectly clear why she went to sit in the cop car. "Hey," he stopped her before she could turn away, "keep your feet of the dashboard."
Michelle nodded as she headed towards her room to get her art supplies. As she walked to the hall, she pumped into her sister as she came out of the bathroom.
"Truce?" Tia smiles wirely.
"Yeah. Sure." Michelle took a step before she stopped. "How did you know about Ned and Peter." She didn't tell her sister anything that involved her school life, other than homework or decathlon work, for the reason that she liked snitching to their dad out of pure delight.
"You mutter a lot," she reaffirmed what she had said earlier. Michelle needed to work on that. In school she controlled that habit by sketching her frustration. "And I peeked in your sketch book and there were lots of drawings of a certain boy. I connected the dots and figured out it was Peter." Of course this sketchbook had caused her quit the problems lately. Tia continued on, this time with the same smirk form earlier, "At least I didn't tell dad about your crush on Spider-Man."
Michelle frowned, "Get out of here." She reaches for her sister and tickled her side. Her sister's contagious laugh rubbed off on her. Tia scurried off to her room to get away from her sister's grips.
Michelle retrieved a few pencils and also decided to get the dual head markers her dad had gotten her and on the way of taking her backpack to carry everything to the cop car. Every cop car in New York had a dashcam on the dashboard and her dad had to monitor every day after his shift to catch any cars he missed that was speeding. Michelle noticed him checking the footage and found it interesting how it caught people in troubling positions. Michelle found it hilarious to spot people dropping the coffees on themselves so she told her dad that she could go over the footage and let him know if anything sketchy went on. Of course her double checked the footage but let her see the footage because he knew she wanted to sketch from the footage.
michelle effortlessly plopped onto the passenger seat and debated if she should place her feet on the dashboard since her dad wasn't around but in the end chose not to. For the following minutes, Michelle occupied herself with drawing backgrounds and people typical misfortunes. Although along the way, while drawing a skyscraper she ended up drawing a crotchet figure, having no direction to who it would end up being until she drew enough designs on the figure. Michelle sighed.
Dammit not again.
If today had been any indication, drawing Spider-Man caused her problems. Well, that and Peter. Despite her annoyance, Michelle continued to fill in the details and after finishing she felt like something was missing. It was incomplete. Michelle reached for her markers and began to add color to her drawing. However, when she got to the filling in the rest of the sketch, she still hadn't filled in the vibrant red and blue colors of spiderman. While it seemed pretty easy to pick out the blue from the different shades of blues from the markers. It was the red that Michelle had difficulty with. There were far too many shades of red. While she had seen many images and videos of Spiderman trending on the internet, she couldn't really distinguish it since they were always a large amount of light brightening the color.
While Michelle eliminated three marker red shades, a sharp movement on the dashcam caught her attention. From the recording, it appears that he dad had parked the car in an alleyway, most likely to catch speeding cars, but he didn't seem to be in the car. The camera caught lots of New York traffic but that's not what caught her eye. From the top unseen roof of the building, feel a red and blue projectile. A dripping wet Spiderman, out of nowhere fell from the roof of the building and was three feet away from hitting the floor but he was able to catch himself with his webs on time. His whole fumbling and arms wailing, attempting to place his feet flat on the wall, was so dorky.
Despite the dorky entrance, Michelle was generally suppressed to see him make an appearance out of no where. Out of three months of Spider-Man not being in the public eye, for him to spontaneously appear on her dad's cruiser cam, was strange. MJ took her phone out of her pocket and went the internet to see what Spider-Man had done today, not stalking, just out of curiosity. However there was no new information on Spiderman. Only the same information on where Spider-Man disappeared to; nothing on his return. Meaning, that while Spider-Man was out there, he was trying to stay out of the radar. Why, she didn't know, but it sure was strange.
While watching him, after reversing the footage to him fumbling to crawl on the wall, MJ continuously asked the question: what have you been up to? While reversing the footage for a third time, MJ came to rest her eyes on the red of his suit. He was wet which, caused it to look much more darker, like a certain type of red she had seen before. Not as blinding as the Ironman red but like the type of red she had seen on fabric. More recognizably on the wet fabric looking thing in Peter's bathtub.
She knew Spider-Man's costume wasn't that type of red when dry, MJ picked out the deep red marker and placed it aside with a deep blue. After a few minutes she drew a complete new drawing of Spider-Man, one were he was dangling off a building with a dripping wet suit. While drawing in the colors, MJ was as left thinking that all these puzzle pieces, in some weird way, were interlinked. She just had to continue to untangle this web, in a non Spider-Man pun way.