Chapter Text
She heard the bell of the door, but she still kept her attention on Mr. Pickett, figuring that the customer that had just come in could wait a few seconds. It turned out that she was right, for the boy at the counter looked lost when she turned around to face him. His brown eyes were staring intently into her, looking almost expectantly at her. It was an odd expression yet it didn’t freak her out as much as it should have. Instead, it felt like she should know the boy at the counter, a familiarity to his features, to his stance, to his expression, and to his constant fidgety with the paper in his hands. She guessed it could be called deja vu, but it seemed more than that. It seemed like some part of her was desperate for her to figure out where she knew the boy, but it escaped her. Then, she looked behind him, her gaze falling on her best--and only--friend, who pushed the door open, causing the bell to ring for the second time in less than a minute.
She waved, causing her friend to call over to her. “Hey!” He walked past her, heading to the same spot in the café that he always sat in. She noticed that the boy’s grip on his paper tightened and he stared at her friend, looking again like a lost puppy.
“One sec,” she said to her friend while making her way over to the front counter, giving her attention solely on the strange boy. “Can I help you?”
“Hi, um,” he said, stumbling over his words while stepping closer to the counter. He shifted his hold on the paper, glancing at it and looking back up at her. He seemed almost nervous, like he was anxious about something. “My name is Peter Parker and I…” His voice trailed off while she looked awkwardly at him to finish his sentence, trying to push away her internal voice that screamed at her that she knew him, that she knew his name before he even opened his mouth, that the name should mean something to her. “Would like a coffee, please.”
“Okay, no problem, Peter Parker,” she said, laughing a little in amusement over his choice of words. If it was anyone else, she would find him weird, but, instead, she found him endearing, slightly cute in his own way. She turned, grabbing a donut from the racks filled with baked goods and heading over to her friend.
“Donut for my fellow engineer.” She leaned over the counter, feeling Parker’s gaze on the two of them. He was in eavesdropping range and, despite the fact that she yearned to ask for her friend’s opinion on the strange boy, she didn’t say a word. Besides, he was most likely oblivious to Parker’s weird actions.
“Ooo,” he said, putting his phone down. Then, seemingly comprehending what she had just said, he asked, “Wait, what?”
“MIT,” she explained, suddenly feeling self-conscious about her statement in the face of his confusion. “They’re the engineers.” She huffed a little. “The school mascot.”
“Oh!” the boy said, seemingly understanding what she had meant. “Right, right. I should probably know that. Look at you with the school spirit!”
“Tell anyone and I will deny it,” she threatened, without any true heat in her words.
“Okay,” her friend, putting his hands up. She turned away and he went back to scrolling on his phone, oblivious to the boy at the front counter that was staring at them. As she filled a coffee up for Parker, she looked over at him, finding that he was still staring at her friend, an expression on his face that she couldn’t place. Despite the knowledge that she should just be creeped out by the stranger watching her and her friend, a warm feeling grew in her chest and she found herself smiling. She didn’t smirk like she did with everyone else; she smiled, a facial expression she only reserved for her mom and her friend, yet it was pulled out from her by this stranger.
“Peter Parker,” she said, placing his finished order on the counter by the register. When he still stared at her friend, she repeated herself, causing him to turn abruptly and face her. “Peter Parker, your coffee’s ready.”
“Right, thank you,” he said, giving her a smile. “Um, are you excited for MIT?” His question revealed that he had, in fact, been listening to their conversation.
“Yeah,” she replied, glancing back at her friend before looking back at him. “Actually, I am excited, which is weird ‘cause I don’t really get excited about things. I kinda expect disappointment--”
“‘Cause then you’ll never actually be disappointed, right?” Parker interrupted, finishing her sentence. His voice was soft and his smile was as well when she looked up at him. She never heard anyone say the saying before, feeling like she was the only one to be so pessimistic. Their eyes meant again, his brown eyes striking up another wave of familiarity in her.
“Yeah, right,” she said, still trying to figure out how he knew what her friend called her life motto. “It just, um, kinda feels different this time for some reason.”
He opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying and failing to say something. She looked down, beginning to mess with the cash register in front of her. “Right, um,” he said, grabbing money from his pocket and pulling it out. “What I was--” He broke off, making her wonder what he wanted to say.
Suddenly, she found herself not wanting to know what he was trying to work up the courage to say. Suddenly, she felt like she didn’t want anything to do with this boy with his familiar face, with his brown eyes that seemed to know everything about her, with his brown hair that refused to lie flat on his head. She opened the cash register, the loud clacking stopping any words Parker could say. Wordlessly, he handed her several dollars, dollars that were severely crumpled and folded, slight tears on the corners. She didn’t comment on the terrible state of the dollars, instead putting them away in the cash register. She looked back up at Parker, some of her hair blocking part of her face from him, causing her to move them back behind her ear.
His eyes locked onto the band-aid on her forehead, pointing at the same spot on his face. “Are you okay?”
The question caught her off guard, making her blink a couple of times. He was a stranger, yet his voice was filled with concern, a concern for her, a person that he didn’t even know.
“Doesn’t really hurt anymore,” she said, shrugging. While it was true, it wasn’t the pain that bothered her. It was the lack of memory associated with the cut above her eye. Just a week ago, she woke up to her forehead bleeding, seemingly for no apparent reason.
“Is there anything else?” she asked, remembering the thing that he had been trying to say earlier and realizing that maybe she did, in fact, want to hear it.
He stared at her for a few seconds, the hands that had been fidgeting with the paper nonstop since he had walked in suddenly going still. The lost look on his face faded, the anxiety along with it.
Then, he shook his head and softly answered, “No.” Parker folded the paper into a square, slipping it into his back pocket. For the first time since entering the café, his voice didn’t shake nor did it waver. It was said with a certainty that she felt that she had heard before and a certainty that she hadn’t been expecting from the socially awkward boy in front of her. “Thank you.” He grabbed his coffee cup, smiling gratefully at her.
“No problem,” she said. With that, he took several small steps backwards, his eyes still watching her friend at the counter, staring at his phone.
“I’ll see you around,” Parker said, turning to nod at her. And then, just like that, Parker was gone.
And just as suddenly, Michelle Jones realized that she had never even told the boy her name.
⋯
“You’re going to forget who I am.”
“What?” the other boy next to her said, voicing the same disbelief she felt.
“Forget who you are?” she asked, letting her confusion flit into her voice. “What are you talking about?”
He stared at her, seemingly trying to calm the nervousness that was beginning to flood through her. “It’s okay. I’m going to come and find you. And I’ll explain everything.” He sounded sincere when he made his promise, but that did little to assuage her concerns. “I’ll make you remember me. And it’ll be like none of this ever happened, okay?”
She felt her breathing pick up, felt her heart rate increase while she looked at him. “Okay, but what if that doesn’t work?” she asked. She could feel tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, feel the tears building in her throat, constricting her voice and making it hard to tell the boy her worries about his stupid plan. “W-what if that doesn’t work? W-what if we can’t remember you? I-I don’t want to do that.” She paused, her fear for the future still coursing its way through her. “I don’t want to do that,” she repeated.
“I know, MJ, I know,” he said, speaking over her.
“I don’t want to do that,” she repeated for the third time, her voice still shaky with unshed tears. She felt the bottom of her lip quivering, a telltale sign that, any minute, she would burst into tears. Still, she tried to hold herself together enough to talk to him. “T-there’s not something we could do? W-we can’t come up with, like, a p-plan or something, y’know?” She glanced over at the other boy, noticing his own moisture in his eyes. “There’s always something we could do.”
The boy shook his head, pursing his lips as if he was trying to hold back his own tears. He looked down, not looking at her while he said, “There’s nothing we could do.” He looked up at her, his eyes filled with acceptance. “But we’ll be okay.”
“Promise?” the other boy asked, drawing the first boy’s eyes away from her and onto him.
“Yeah, I promise,” he said, his voice still breaking with emotions, emotions that were most likely identical to the ones she felt inside of her. She watched as the two friends stepped closer together, doing their handshake. She had always thought that it was dumb, that it was stupid, but--in this moment--she felt herself imprinting it to her memory, adding it to a long list of items that she didn’t want to forget, to a long list of reasons of why she didn’t want to forget the boy who had somehow become everything to her. She watched, still struggling to hold her tears at bay, still trying to push down the sobs building inside of her, as they hugged each other.
“I’ll come find you, okay?” the first boy said, his face still squashed into his friend’s jacket.
“I know you will,” the other boy said, stepping away from him.
“You better,” she said, causing her boyfriend to turn his attention back on her. Tears began to blur her vision, making it impossible for her to see the face of the boy in front her. “‘Cause, if you don’t, I’m just going to figure it out. I’ve done it before and I can do it again.”
Even to her, the words sounded hollow, a promise that she couldn’t fulfill if she would never remember him. If she would never remember how much he had come to mean to her. If she would never remember the week and a half that they had been together. If she would never remember the two years that they had been friends for.
But the boy whose face she still couldn’t make out with the tears pouring down her face only nodded his understanding, making a promise that she would never remember him making. “I promise I’ll fix this,” he whispered, his voice soft, seemingly with the emotions rolling through him.
“I really hate magic,” she whispered back.
“Yeah, me too,” he said with a small, sad laugh.
“I love you,” she said, placing her hands on either side of his face.
“I lo--”
“Just wait,” she interrupted. “Wait until you see me again.”
“Sure,” he murmured quietly, so quietly she had to strain to hear him. She stared into his face, trying to clear her vision enough to properly take in his features, to take in the color of his eyes, of his hair, of the way his hair never stayed flat, of the way he held himself. But her tears prevented her from doing so, no matter how much she tried to blink them away.
The sky crackled above them, signaling that he had to leave soon and they looked away from each until it finished. When it did, they looked back at each other and, suddenly, they fell into each other, their lips meeting in a kiss that explained everything about them and about everything they felt for each other. She poured everything about herself into the kiss and she felt him pouring his own being into it. They kissed each other for what felt like a lifetime, but it still felt like it was too short. And maybe the kiss could have never been long enough, not when the longer it was delayed the time before she would never remember him. And, after it was done, they stayed holding each other, her fingers playing with his hair. Finally, he pulled away from her, still staring at her as he backed away.
He paused suddenly, staring intently at her. “I love you,” she mouthed to him. The boy smiled tightly, but he didn’t repeat the words back to her. Not that she wanted him to. No, she would wait for his reply when they met again, in the future. She had to hold onto that thought or else she would truly, truly fall to pieces. Or else she would really feel her heart shattering as the person who she thought she would have for the rest of her life walked away from. And the worst part was that she was okay with it. She gave him her permission. She let him agree to erase her memories of him. She still had ti--
And then, just like that, the boy was gone, swinging up to where the wizard was, off to complete a spell that would wipe all of her memories of the person that she had poured her whole being into, sharing parts of herself that she had never shared with anyone else before.
And just as suddenly, MJ realized that there was nothing that could stop her heart from breaking as she fell on the ground, sobbing as she held onto the memories of him, of the boy that meant everything to her. But they were already slipping, already fading from her head.
“Pe--”
⋯
Abruptly, Michelle woke up, flashes of her dream filling her mind. Opening up her eyes, she tried to remember more details of the dream, yet the harder she tried to remember it, the more it eluded her. Michelle felt that the dream was important, that she absolutely had to remember it. But the only things that remained were the two letters of a word that felt important and felt like she should know. She knew that it started with a “P” and was followed by an “E,” but she didn’t know how long the word was nor what the word meant. And it didn’t feel like a word. No, it felt more like a na--
“Michelle!” a voice called up to her from behind her door. “The subway leaves in ten minutes! You’re going to be late!”
Michelle shoved the dream and the unknown yet familiar word away, deciding to worry about it later. Instead, she focused on moving quickly, throwing on clothes and grabbing a granola bar from the pantry. Eight minutes after her mom’s call, she opened up the door, debating about whether to skip the elevator and take the stairs.
“Where’s your backpack?” her mom asked her before she could close the door behind her.
Michelle brought her hand up to touch at the strap that should have been on her shoulder, instead meeting empty air. With a curse, Michelle ran back to her room, grabbing the backpack hanging on the side of her desk chair. Sunlight from the window caught on something on her desk, dragging her attention away from going to school and instead on the Black Dahlia necklace sitting on the desk. She had no idea how she had gotten the necklace, just knowing that it had showed up around her neck at one point in time. Strangely enough, the day it had appeared had been the day she had woken up with her head bleeding from a cut she had no idea how she had gotten.
Michelle paused, staring at the broken flower. She supposed that, at some point in its life, it hadn’t been broken. At some point in its life, it had been given as a gift from one person to another, maybe as a sign of friendship or perhaps even of love, love between a mother and a daughter or between a boyfriend and a girlfriend. Despite her hatred of anything to do with love, especially that of romantic love, Michelle found herself thinking that the broken necklace’s backstory was that it was a gift, a gift solidifying the love between a girlfriend and a boyfriend.
But that still didn’t explain the brokenness to it. Maybe that brokenness represented the failed love between those two lovers, showing that it was doomed from the start. Somehow, though, that didn't quite seem to fit. Despite not knowing how she got the necklace or anything about its backstory, she still felt a deep, strong connection with it. That connection always led to her feeling hopeful, hopeful that, one day, her life would be complete again and she would experience love again.
Michelle scoffed. Again? What was she talking about? Her life had always been complete and she had never experienced any form of attraction to another person in her life. What did she mean by again? The start of the word from her dream entered into her brain, closely followed by something someone told her yesterday at work.
“Pe--”
“Um, hi. My name is Pe--”
“Michelle! You’re going to be late!”
Michelle blinked, shaking away her thoughts and turning her focus back on getting to school on time. “Coming, Mom!” she called back to her mom, swiping the necklace off of her desk. And for some reason that she couldn’t explain, she placed it around her neck.
⋯
Somehow, Michelle managed to make it to the subway on time, slipping onto the train just as the doors were closing. She sat down on the closest seat, closing her eyes and catching her breath after the sprint she had to make to get onto the subway on time. After a few seconds, she opened up her eyes, looking around at the other passengers on the train.
Only for her gaze to fall upon the familiar figure of one Peter Parker sitting two seats in front of her.
His brown hair had been bundled up under a hat and he was staring intently at the large textbook in his lap. He had a notebook out, fiddling with a pencil in his hand. Michelle blinked, surprised to see him again so soon after meeting him for the first time. In a city with several million people in it, what were the chances of seeing him again? Suddenly, the fidgeting pencil in his hand stopped moving and Parker tensed. He turned around in his seat quickly, his wide eyes locking onto Michelle’s. Just as quickly as he had tensed, he relaxed, offering her a smile. Parker turned back around in his seat, turning his attention back onto the book in his hands.
Without even realizing what she was doing, Michelle stood up, walking to the open seat beside Parker.
“Fancy seeing you again, Peter Parker,” she said with a small smirk on her face.
He started, jostling the notebook and textbook in his lap. The pencil in his hands fell on the ground, rolling away. Michelle bent to pick it up, offering it to Parker.
Instead of taking it, he stared into her face, surprise etched everywhere in his face. “You remember my name?”
“‘Course I do,” Michelle replied. “I’m pretty good at remembering things like that.” She said it like it was no big deal, like his actions yesterday at the café didn’t confuse her and didn’t leave her with a sense that she was forgetting something very, very important. She acted like their first meeting didn’t throw her off kilter, leaving her with the feeling like she was missing some major piece of a puzzle. But she didn't let that show on her face, instead putting on the mask she always put on to prevent other people from knowing her true emotions and thoughts.
Strangely, though, she felt like she shouldn’t keep her mask on. With anyone else, she didn’t even think of not having the mask, even with her only friend. But for some reason--maybe for the same reason she couldn’t shake the letters “P” and “E” out of her head, perhaps even for the same reason why she felt like putting on the broken necklace, or maybe for the same reason as to why she felt like she should know Parker--she desperately wanted to not hide behind a mask and to tell Parker about the emotions he filled her up with. But Michelle pushed those thoughts and emotions away, instead paying attention to Parker’s reaction to her words, keeping her expression neutral.
Parker had frozen, the surprise that was on his face when she had sat down next to him coming back, this time coupled with…was that hope? She stared into his brown eyes, spotting the way they had suddenly become moist. Were those tears? Tears from what? From a person saying that they had remembered his name? That they remembered his face? And if that was true, just how hard was Parker’s life for him to be touched by Michelle sitting next to him on a subway train, saying that she had remembered him from yesterday and that she had remembered his name? Just what was going on that he would be moved to tears by that?
“Peter?” she asked, feeling her neutral expression slipping as she looked at him. But she didn’t care as she watched Peter blink rapidly, chasing away the moisture in his eyes.
“D-Do you…” his voice trailed off, its stuttering and brokenness reaching into Michelle, obliterating her decision to hide behind a mask. Peter cleared his throat, seemingly trying to calm his emotions enough to speak. “Do you remember anything else?”
Michelle frowned. Seeing his earnest expression, the hope she had noticed earlier coloring both his voice and his face, she realized that she couldn’t just smirk and shrug like she usually did, leaving him to figure out what that meant. No, that question deserved honesty, an honesty that would typically leave her shaking in fear. This time, though, it didn’t scare as much as she thought it would. Instead, the thought of expressing the numerous ways he left her feeling like she should know him, of the connection she felt with the necklace around her neck, of the cut on her forehead, of her dream with the first two letters of a very important word, of the way she felt that they were all connected, entangling her in a web that all centered around Peter Parker, it left her feeling relieved. Like she was finally understanding what was going on.
“I don’t know what you mean by that,” she said, watching his face as it fell, the hope quickly draining out of his face. “But I feel like I should. I feel like I recognize you from somewhere, like I should know you. But I don’t. And I’m sorry for that.”
The hope never came back into his face like she was hoping it would. Instead, his face fell even further, sadness filling his face. Only that emotion was suddenly replaced by a resolve, like her words had solidified an idea that he had in his head, encouraging him to go through with it.
“It’s okay,” he said, his words softly spoken. “I’m sorry for bothering you.” Michelle frowned at that. What did he mean by that? She had been the one to sit next to him, not the other way around. He started gathering his things, closing the notebook and textbook, putting them in a book bag that Michelle hadn't noticed before. “I wish you the best, but it’s probably best for me to not talk to you.”
“What?” Michelle asked, gripping the pencil that was still in her hands tightly. “What do you mean it’s best for us to not talk?”
He looked at her then, staring intently into her eyes. And all of a sudden, Michelle remembered something from her dream.
“I love you,” she said, placing her hands on either side of his face.
“I lo--”
“Just wait,” she interrupted. “Wait until you see me again.”
“Sure,” he murmured quietly, so quietly she had to strain to hear him. She stared into his face, trying to clear her vision enough to properly take in his features, to take in the color of his eyes, of his hair, of the way his hair never stayed flat, of the way he held himself. Her tears cleared enough for her to lock on his brown eyes.
Michelle blinked, coming out of the dream that felt like a memory. She looked up at Peter, meeting brown eyes that were the same shade and shape of the eyes from her dream. But before she could figure out what that meant, Peter was speaking, chasing away her thoughts.
“I’m sorry,” Peter said again. “I know you hate me for this, but trust me, it’s better this way. Goodbye, MJ.” He stood up at the same time the train stopped, its doors opening to drop passengers off and pick up more passengers. Peter headed for the open doors, Michelle jumping off of her seat to follow him.
“Peter, wait!” she called after him.
But he didn’t even pause, simply pushing past people to make it onto the station. Michelle tried to force her way through to keep up with him, but people were coming onto the train, preventing her from making any forward movement. Finally, she made it to the open doors, about to step out on the platform.
Only for the doors to slam shut in her face and the train to slowly start to move again. She peered through the glass, trying to get a final look at the boy who just walked out of her life, but it was too late. He was gone, lost in the sea of people in the station.
Snap! Looking down, Michelle opened her hand to reveal a broken pencil in her hand. Dimly, she realized that she had never given Peter back his pencil. It was broken now, broken just like the necklace around her neck and the budding friendship that would never be, if his parting words were true.
“It’s better this way. Goodbye.”
Wait, he had added a word. He had said something more, something that she couldn’t quite remember. It was a name, right? And he was addressing her, so it had to have been her name, but she had never told him her name, right? And it didn't sound like her name. No, it sounded more like a nickname.
“Goodbye, MJ.”
He had called her MJ. It was a nickname that she had thought of back in middle school, a name she had thought would be nice to be called by friends. But back then she hadn’t had any friends to call her MJ. Later, near the end of freshman year when she had met her first friend, she had entertained the idea of telling him to call her MJ, but it never felt right. It didn’t feel like a name he should be calling her. But it felt perfect falling from Peter’s lips.
But how did he know that she had thought of going by that name? How did he know that it was the initials of her name, Michelle Jones? How had he known that when she had never told him her name?
The only answer was that he had known her before she had ever known him. Or, for some reason, Michelle couldn’t remember ever knowing him. Was that why Peter had asked her if she had remembered anything else, maybe something dealing with his past? What was going on?
As the train continued to move away, she made a decision just like Peter had earlier, a decision that he would probably hate her for, as it went against his decision. But she didn’t care, not when she remembered the surprise and hope in his face when she said that he remembered his name, when she remembered the tears in his eyes when he realized that someone in the world had finally noticed him. At that moment, remembering the feeling of deja vu that swept over her when Peter Parker walked into a café, remembering the very real feeling of her dream the night before, remembering nothing of how she got a broken necklace and a cut on her forehead, Michelle decided that she would figure out the truth behind Peter Parker, regardless of how he felt that it was better for them to be apart.
And it started with pulling out her phone and sending a text to her best friend, Ned Leeds.
Today 7:13 AM
Michelle: Do you think you can find any information regarding a Peter Parker?
Seconds later came Ned’s response.
Today 7:13 AM
Ned: yeah i can see what i can do
Ned: may i ask why?
Michelle looked up, the train moving up from below ground to above ground, the rising sun sending its light through the train windows. Up ahead Michelle could see her school, the subway train beginning to slow down as it approached the school’s station. She quickly typed a response to Ned, continuing to talk to him as the train slowed to a stop.
Today 7:14 AM
Michelle: I’ll explain everything during first period. It’s too much to explain over text but it has something to do with the person I told you about at the cafe.
Ned: the one that you feel like you should know?
Michelle: Yes. His name is Peter Parker.
The train had stopped completely now, the doors opening to let students get off. Michelle paused, debating about whether or not to send the next text. She walked through the train doors, stopping once she was out on the platform. As the train pulled away, Michelle continued to stare at the unsent text, still thinking. Then, she made her decision, remembering how earnestly Peter had looked when he had asked her if she remembered anything else about him. Once made, she stuck her phone in her pocket, beginning to walk towards school.
Today 7:16 AM
Michelle: And I think he needs our help, Ned. I think he needs us.