#mj!reader

wanna go stargazing?

It was 7:30 PM in New York City, in the peak of summer. And still, Oscar stared at the text, threw his shoes on, and made his way out of his home. His best friend had something on her mind; surely the city had enough heroes to cover until the sun went down.

He held the door handle at the specific 36-degree angle needed to properly open the door to the rooftop. As he stepped through, his eyes landed on her, resting her elbows on the ledge and looking south towards the skyline. Her clothes were light and breathable, and her hair suffered from the humidity of summer in the city. Her focus shifted from the horizon to the boy and the clicking of his sneakers on the ground.

MJ turned back around to the city, “We have a system, Piastri...”

Oscar grimaced as he stopped in his tracks. He quickly pulled out his phone and responded:

heard they’d be bright.

MJ's phone pinged. She slowly reached into her back pocket and pulled her phone out, reading Oscar’s text. She exhaled a laugh and slightly turned her head, “I didn’t think you’d be available.”

Oscar slowly approached the girl, taking his place next to her, just far enough away to feel the heat radiate from her body. “Why would you think that?”

MJ quirked her eyebrow and unlocked her phone, “Two days ago at 8:15, me: wanna go stargazing? You: They’re not out tonight. Four days ago, I said, 'Wanna go stargazing?' You replied with, ‘they’re not out tonight.’ The week before that? I asked you every evening and you replied with—”

“They’re not out tonight,” Oscar mumbled.

“Yeah, ‘they’re not out tonight’,” MJ sighed.

Oscar fixed his gaze upon the same skyline in the distance, the same one he swings through in the night, saving a random citizen here and stopping a runaway train there. It was easier to stare at the stability of it all instead of turning his head in the direction of the girl who consumed his mind, body, and soul. The quiet consumed their space for a few moments until he summoned a short burst of his courage from the tiny voice on his shoulder, “I’m sorry I haven’t been around often. Stella’s has just been booming this summer, and suddenly they need me for every delivery— And obviously in my downtime you’re at your summer intensives at NYU, so I’m usually studying Miss Stra— I mean Missus Balotelli’s APUSH material and—”

She finally looked at him and frowned, “Oscar.”

He turned to face her and looked into her piercing eyes, the same ones he looked for in his dreams when he had trouble sleeping, “Yeah?”

She broke eye contact first and looked at her feet as they suddenly became more interesting, “Look, you don’t owe me your time—”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t,” she countered.

“You’re literally my best friend. I do,” Oscar tried to finalize.

“Again, no, you don’t,” MJ stated, “I know we both are leading very busy lives at the moment, but it wouldn’t hurt to hear from you that you’re alive.”

Oscar froze at the mention of the word alive. Surely she doesn’t know I’m Spider-Man, right?

“Like, I would hate to find out from your mom that you overworked yourself from working at Stella’s and applying for the Webber Industries internship—”

“How do you know about that?”

“Shit,” MJ froze. She held her hands out in mercy, not to ask him for forgiveness but rather— “Hattie will kill me. Please don’t tell her I told you that she told me.”

Oscar lightly groaned and tipped his head back, “I won’t. I promise—”

“Swear on the Q?”

“Cross the tracks and hope to die,” he offers, “but I will find ways to fill her week with minor inconveniences.”

MJ let out a sigh of relief and giggled, a sound Oscar had quickly learned to treasure, “fingers crossed she doesn’t kill you.”

The conversation lulled into an awkward silence, one the pair hadn’t experienced since that fateful first day they met, and that worried Oscar. MJ always said what was on her mind, at least to him she did, so why was she so quiet now?

Her eyes were back on the skyscrapers in the distance, but Oscar noticed her hands were clutching the brick like a lifeline, and he could only come to one very obvious conclusion: something was eating at her. “What’s going on, MJ?”

Her hands gripped the ledge tighter for a split second before letting go and resting her elbows again. She remained quiet, a gentle and much-needed breeze sweeping in to cool the teenagers, blowing their hair softly and tussling any loose pieces out of place. Oscar’s hand ached to reach out and use his fingers to delicately place the unruly piece of hair behind her ear, when suddenly she turned and blurted, “I’m scared.”

Oscar snorted at the sudden admission, causing MJ to roll her eyes and turn her head back to the scenery, “MJ— wait— I didn’t mean to laugh. You just—”

“Just what, Oscar?” Her eyes were aflame, rendering the boy useless for a second.

“You just... You caught me off guard.” MJ raised an eyebrow before crossing her arms across her chest. As Oscar stood straighter to address his mistake, MJ noticed just how tall he had gotten: There’s no way I’m looking up at him right now, right?

“What exactly about that caught you off guard?”

“The girl who constantly shuts down Flash Thompson as if she’s folding clothes is scared.”

“He’s not that scary—”

“MJ, he doesn’t push you into a locker with his jockstrap that he uses after basketball practice,” Oscar sassed.

MJ scrunched her nose in disgust, and Oscar couldn’t help but think: cute.

“Yeah, well, therefore invalidating your previous point,” She argues, “He doesn’t shove me in lockers so—”

“That’s besides the point,” Oscar leaned his body against the ledge, his attention fully on her, “my best friend, the same girl who convinces me to partake in the craziest schemes, like sneaking into a Horner Corp lab to go look at a fat spider, or sneaking into Principal Wolff’s office to change everyone’s grade in Mr. Callahan’s class—”

“Allegedly!”

“Allegedly,” Oscar adds. He noticed that her gaze glossed over, so he softened his posture and lowered his voice, “But it seems that whatever you are scared of is giving you a real big fright, so what is it you’re scared of? Nothing your strong best friend can’t help you with.”

MJ scoffed, transitioning off into laughter. Oscar, for what appeared to be the millionth time that afternoon, was rendered speechless at her sounds of joy, even if it was directed at his ridiculous — albeit true, unbeknownst to her— statement. She had come down from her laughing fit and let a small smile settle on her face before turning her back to the view and leaning her back on the brick. She took a breath to speak before pausing. Oscar shimmied closer, their elbows touching. “It feels like it’s all happening so fast...”

Oscar cocked his head in confusion. MJ pushed herself off the edge of the building as she started to pace and shake her hands in exasperation, “It’s like— I can’t. Ugh! I just fucking can’t.”

Oscar walked up to her and placed his arms on her shoulders; warmth not caused by the setting sun consuming him, and if it weren’t for the glow of he sun, she probably would’ve noticed the pink hue dusted across his face and the tips of his ears, “Yes, you can. The fine line between being scared and being brave is doing the scary thing...”

MJ looked into his eyes, searching for her own truth in them. He just hoped she wouldn’t look far enough to see the masked vigilante ringing cathedral bells, shouting You need to go soon!

MJ took a deep breath and confessed, “Everything is going by so fast... Once summer ends, we’re going to be seniors in high school, and then the school year is going to go by in a breeze because we’ll be consumed by tests and school events and—”

“Breathe, MJ,” Oscar pacified.

“And there is no guarantee we all get into the same school or...”

“Or what?”

MJ cleared her throat, only to whisper into the space between them, as if simply speaking would be louder than the sirens sounding off in the streets below, “or the guarantee that we would all want to go to the same school...”

Oscar stiffened at her confession, “What do you mean?” All he can remember since joining the group is how hard Logan, Gwen, and MJ were trying to get into NYU. An effort he was pulled into the minute he stepped into the circle.

MJ gently brought her arms up to remove Oscar’s hands from her shoulders and took a step back, “I’ve been looking at other schools.”

“Like, what other schools? Like Pace? Columbia? Something upstate? An hour train ride away?”

MJ kicked at invisible dirt, “More like a six-hour flight away...”

Oscar’s jaw slightly dropped, “across the pond or across the country?”

“Across the country,” she admitted, “But! I was just looking—they’re backup schools, if anything. The dream is NYU with my three best friends, right?”

“Yeah, that’s the dream...” The thought of MJ being six hours away by air travel scrambled his mind more than he could have ever expected. The possibility, although very small (yet very real), of only seeing MJ during breaks that may or may not line up adequately enough for him to properly enjoy her presence terrified him now.

MJ’s voice brought him out of his thoughts, “You alright there, Osc?”

“Yeah—” he began as his phone went off with his patrol alarm. He quickly turned it off before looking up at MJ, “Sorry, Stella calls.”

MJ scrunched her nose in curiosity, “I thought you already worked a full shift today.”

Oscar scrambled for an excuse as he began to walk backwards to the rooftop door to open it, “I— yeah, but it doesn't hurt to work doubles. Help mum out, yknow?”

He extended his hand out in invitation to the young girl. MJ walks forward to reach for his hand, squeezing it once before letting go and walking through the open door, and if Oscar felt the tingles of the pressure of her hand for the next hour, he didn’t say a thing.

Once back on the fifth floor, Oscar walked MJ back to her door and stood by, memorizing her features as she fished her key out of her pocket. As soon as MJ opened the door and walked in, Oscar began to walk away, but MJ called out to him.

Oscar stopped in the middle of the hallway. “Yeah?”

“Thanks for coming to stargaze with me...”

“Anytime,” He offered, “I swear on the Q.”

MJ’s breath caught in her throat, “cross the tracks and hope to die?”

Oscar walked backwards to his own unit, marking an X over his heart. MJ beamed her thousand-watt smile, reserved for very few people, directly at him. He tripped over nothing, and MJ just laughed as she walked back into her apartment and closed the door behind her.

As soon as she disappeared, he ran back home. His mom was out at some work dinner, Mae was sleeping over at a friend's house, and Edie was babysitting for the young mom on the tenth floor. Hattie was the only person home. “Hattie, I’m going out!”

Hattie removed her headphones, “huh?”

Oscar popped his head out of the room, half of his body in the red and blue suit, “I said I’m going out, lie to mum for me, will you?”

“As long as you don’t die,” she acquiesced, “and bring me a hot dog, no relish.”

Oscar pulled on his mask and shouted as he threw himself through an open window, “gotcha!”

Hattie put her headphones back on and kept scrolling through her phone.

***

Oscar’s patrol through the city hadn’t been too bad for the night. A mugging here, an argument between two drivers there, and accidentally running into Daredevil, to which he promptly apologized for being in his territory.

As he swung back home with Hattie’s hot dog in hand, his enhanced vision picked up a person on the rooftop of his building. He stopped at a taller building a block away to get a better look, only to see MJ leaning against the ledge again, crossing her arms to find a little bit of warmth in the surprisingly chilly night.

Oscar shot a web and softly landed on the ledge, but MJ was in her own head, “You should have brought a sweater.”

MJ whipped her body in his direction and let out a shriek.

Oscar held out his arms, trying to show her he meant no harm, not that he could ever hurt her if circumstances demanded it. “Whoa, sorry— I— I didn’t mean to scare you!”

“You’re— you’re—holy shit.”

“Actually, they call me Spider-Man,” Oscar joked.

MJ had to take a couple of deep breaths before she spoke up again, “I wasn’t gonna jump, if that’s what you were thinking.”

“I wasn’t,” Oscar began, “but now I am...”

MJ let out an exhale that sounded like a laugh, but her face returned to her RBF, the expression reserved for people she doesn’t know.

“So, what are you doing up here?”

MJ crossed her arms and avoided his gaze, “Nothing important.”

Oscar takes a seat on the ledge, his legs dangling over the edge, “Can’t be nothing if you’re on a rooftop at like, four in the morning.”

MJ let out a long exhale, “You’re just a stranger behind the mask. You don’t really care.”

Oscar’s chest tightened, “Yeah, I guess I am a stranger behind the mask... But when it’s on, I’m just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.”

She let out a noncommittal hum, “I’ll tell you why I’m out here if you tell me why you have a hot dog in your hand.”

He looks down at his hand, carefully craddling Hattie’s hot dog, “Uh, I owe... a friend.”

“The idea of Spider-Man standing and purchasing a hot dog at a cart is hilarious,” She delivers with the most deadpan voice.

Oscar had forgotten how scary MJ could be with people she didn’t know, “Yet, you’re not laughing.”

“I am laughing,” she debated, “but on the inside.”

“Right,” he began, “I told you about my hot dog, now tell me why you’re out here in the cold.”

And it felt like the conversation they had hours ago, in the same spot, “I’m scared.”

Oscar perked up at the words and turned so he was sitting on the inside part of the ledge, facing MJ, “Why?”

She let out a shaky breath and began to speak, “I think I’m losing my best friend.”

Oscar could only hope that his body language remained neutral as he panicked on the inside, “and why do you think that?”

“He’s been so distant lately,” she winced as she admitted her troubles, “and he doesn’t owe me his time, but I feel like he isn’t telling me everything, like he’s lying to me. Sometimes it feels like there’s a joke he’s told that everyone but me is in on, and I feel left out. Like, he’s my best friend and I’d like to think I’m his, too. I mean, we tell each other everything, but lately I feel like he is avoiding me. Is that dumb, Spider-Man? For me to feel this way?”

Oscar placed Hattie’s hot dog next to him and picked his knees up to tuck them under his chin, “No. not at all. He sounds like an idiot.”

MJ narrowed her eyes at him, “He’s not. He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. I just— I wonder if he’s trying to ghost me so that he doesn’t have to be my friend anymore...”

“That’s not true at all,” Oscar stands quickly, scaring MJ, “Sorry. It’s just— it sounds like he has a lot on his plate and he doesn’t wanna drag you into it.”

“He wouldn’t be dragging me into anything,” she says, “He’s my best friend. It’s what I signed up for.”

Oscar had to take a minute to gather his bearings. He never felt more blessed than to have a best friend who was a ride-or-die kind of person, like MJ, and the latter option scared him. Anyone who had found out about his hero persona was because he was too careless, and too many people knew: His sisters, Logan, and Mark Webber. He couldn’t entwine the best thing that had happened in his life into his nocturnal activities.

“I don’t know what to do, Spider-Man,” she confessed.

Oscar took a deep breath and a deep breath out and spoke, “I think everyone carries things differently. Just because he’s being an idiot doesn’t mean he wants to stop being your friend. Just have patience; some things people have to deal with on their own, but that doesn’t mean they won’t need a support system. It’s up to him if he wants to open up or not, and don’t hold it against the guy if he doesn’t; some things are hard to come clean about.”

The corner of MJ’s lip raised a fraction, “I know. I just want to make sure he’s okay.”

Oscar smiled softly behind the mask, “Trust me. He’s doing better than you can ever imagine.”

“Thanks, Spider-Man.”

“You can call me Spidey, that’s what my friends call me,” he said.

“Oh,” teased MJ, “we’re friends now?”

“If you want,” he played along.

“Thanks, Spidey,” MJ whispered, “You should get going, I’m sure your friend doesn’t want a cold hot dog.”

“Oh!” he realized, “yeah! Shit.”

“Thanks again, Spidey,” MJ said as she walked away.

“Hey,” Oscar called out, stopping MJ in her path, “for what it’s worth, anyone would be lucky to have a friend that cares like you do.”

MJ's eyes started to water. Sure, she knew that, her friends said it all the time, but to hear someone with an outside perspective say it? It felt validating, “Thank you.”

Oscar watched MJ disappear back into the building and sat for another two seconds before crawling down to his bedroom window. He opened the window and saw Hattie sitting on the floor with her headphones on, this time with her laptop open, typing. He nudged her leg with his foot as he took off his mask, handing over the cold hot dog.

“Sorry, it’s cold.”

“A hot dog is a hot dog; this is a win in my eyes,” Hattie accepted, “what happened, anyway? I thought you said you were gonna be home in five minutes.”

“...I made a new friend.”