Author's Note:

My fifth Spideychelle one-shot since finishing "Affinity War"! This fic and those that will follow in the coming weeks are based off a list of prompts, posted on my Tumblr (forasecondtherewedwon).

37. "I want to hike up your skirt and take you right here."

"You don't have to stay," MJ says without looking up.

She's been doing this every few minutes. It reminds Peter that time is, in fact, passing. He's trying so hard to be patient though, unable to completely convince himself that MJ really does want him to leave. At first, yeah, it seemed like she wanted him gone; she kept collecting his stuff―his coat and his backpack and the overnight bag he packed extremely poorly at the last possible minute―and setting it by the door. For the past half an hour, she hasn't bothered to get out of her chair.

It's dark in the kitchen, just the light on over the sink and the sleepy glow through the oven's glass door. MJ's got her chair positioned near the counter with her feet tucked up underneath her. She's wearing the fluffy socks he bought her a year ago, their last Christmas at home before college.

"I don't mind," he promises lightly. The snow catches his eye, swirling past the window. It's kind of mesmerizing. Peaceful.

"You're going to miss your train," she points out.

"I'll catch one with you in the morning."

Peter jumps up to tap his fingertips against the ceiling and MJ exhales heavily the way he might've if the motion weren't effortless. It isn't clear why she's annoyed at him (probably just pretending to be), either his stubbornness or the two other students passed out at the far end of the room, where common kitchen space becomes common living/study room. Neither he nor MJ got a great schedule for their first-ever round of college exams, but at least they don't have to sit for anything on the very last day of the term. Not like their dozing companions, cheeks stuck to the pages of open economics textbooks.

Pushing his luck with MJ and the slim chance Drooly One and Drooly Two will wake up while he does this, Peter springs to the ceiling again and lets his fingers hold this time. It's monkey bars without the rungs. Sure enough, it catches her eye. The girl who he's grown so close to since they both moved to Boston for school while Ned stayed in New York.

"You can still make yours. I'll be right behind you. Mine's only 45 minutes later."

"Yeah, but I don't want you walking to the station by yourself. It's late," he reminds her.

"I wasn't going to walk, I was going to take a bus," she mumbles.

Peter rolls his eyes. He gets to do this to her now, sometimes. Over the past few months, he's learned her dimensions and seen that she's isn't always right, and when she pretends to think she is, she isn't always sure. Turns out MJ needs somebody looking out for her. Peter's glad it's him, even though they've been dancing around it for months―around what it would mean for them to acknowledge that it's him.

Methodically, he begins to swing his legs forward and back. Three swings gives him enough momentum to touch the toes of his sneakers to the ceiling too and now he's crawling around, checking out the holes where frustrated students from bygone days have chucked their pencils through the particleboard tiles when exam stress was upon them. There's no better spot to watch history repeat itself than in the common room of a college residence. (College has already made Peter very wise.)

"I'd just double back from the train station, wait for you to leave here, and follow you. By staying, I'm actually saving myself from having to go outside."

He's cheerful in his logic. Doesn't matter that he's bending that logic around caring for MJ the way he bends every rule for her these days. He'd bend gravity for her.

She flips her book over on her lap so she won't lose her spot and her unimpressed eyes find him wandering the ceiling.

"Tell me, Parker, is the urge to protect just a Spider-Man thing or is it something you do to irritate me specifically?"

He shushes her, flipping to the ground and glancing over at the sleepers. Still out. MJ gives him a look of flat exasperation and picks up her book, ignoring him again. Childishly, Peter sticks out his tongue and inches slowly and deliberately up the wall.

It's starting to smell good in the kitchen, soothing him against his will. He had his final exam of the semester this afternoon and came back here to find MJ (who'd written her last exam in the morning). She was baking, just like she'd said she would be, trying to whip up a bunch of cookies and loaves to cart back home and take to family Christmas at her grandma's. Because MJ's mom does a lot of holiday baking too, MJ's been concerned over being allotted enough time with the oven there. Maybe more concerned about that than about her last couple of exams. Luckily, MJ is super smart (Peter still idolizes her, even though it's been a while since he watched her kick ass on their high school decathlon team).

So he sat around today, keeping her company and using a whisk to combine flour with uncooperatively firm butter when MJ's arm got tired. She made all the batters first, was convinced to take a break when Peter braved the weather to bring them a pizza to split, then started rotating her creations through the oven. A lot of it's packed already in clear plastic containers, but the stuff that apparently takes the longest to bake has been left to the end. Peter knows she'll never make her train.

It's a funny coincidence that staying up with her all night is his favourite thing in the world. He's totally sure, despite only discovering it tonight.

It would be great if MJ would talk to him though. Peter doesn't want to look at another book until January when term two begins, and there isn't much else to do in this room besides stare through the oven door and think about the chemical reactions causing MJ's baked goods to rise. (Fine―he was actually doing that for a while, but then she said it was stressing her out to see him that close to her food, like he would ruin it somehow. The real reason was her fear that he'd burn his face. It was so obvious that even Peter saw through that one.)

He straightens all the way up to standing and paces the ceiling, upside-down. Circling around MJ in her chair, he goes to the window, observing the twinkling of their adopted city through snow that's still falling sideways. Peter likes that; he can relate to an existence that doesn't have only one right way up.

In the glass, MJ's reflection sits with her back to him. Peter sweeps the room with his eyes again before giving in to the aching, adoring expression that would live on his face every time he looks at MJ if he wasn't too scared to let it. Tonight, this expression feels more precious a secret than Spider-Man. It's probably the only secret he's never told her.

MJ sighs and shifts, rolling her neck a little. Peter can see her book now, where she's propped her elbow up on the arm of the chair. Teasing her is worth a shot. It'll be good for taking his mind off his feelings for her for a solid, oh, maybe thirty seconds.

Crouching, he crawls across the ceiling. The words don't look right, even if they are upside down, so Peter dismounts with a tight flip. He's already grinning as he creeps up behind her chair.

"'I want to hike up your skirt,'" he reads confidently off her open page, "'and… t-take you right here.'"

Peter's brain links these separately innocent words with their combined filthy meaning halfway through, but he still blurts out the entire line, faltering near the end. He stumbles back from her chair, face absolutely, certainly, inescapably blushing.

"Is it… a romance novel?" he splutters.

He gets over his own reaction long enough to notice how tense MJ's jaw is as she turns her head to look at him. It's not what he should've said. Peter instantly regrets that his words weren't an apology, but he can't change them, same as he can't change the fact that he read what he read and the knowledge that, at some inevitable moment, the memory of the thought of the book held in MJ's hand is going to leave him panting between the sheets on the single bed in his dorm room.

"That is the dumbest thing you've ever asked me. Probably the dumbest thing you've ever said."

The sound of her speaking improves his own ability―to speak, not necessarily to communicate anything.

"But the front!" he argues gracelessly, using both hands to gesture too big. "It's just blue!"

"Just because it doesn't have a shirtless firefighter on the cover doesn't mean it's Austen, Peter."

He's hit, suddenly, by the realization that she's not denying anything. Not trying to tell him that he misread the line. Not that the book belongs to her roommate and MJ grabbed it on the way to the kitchen without studying it very closely, so now she's stuck with nothing else to read. Except, nope, he's the only one stuck while MJ's as sure as she always is. Maybe that means they can just talk their way through this and out the other side.

"So…" Peter tries, casually crossing his arms. "…what's it about? Not actually firefighters, right?"

She eyes him shiftily.

"That was just a clichéd example."

He waits. MJ doesn't look away, but she doesn't add anything else.

"You didn't say no," he observes.

"Maybe I can't lie when you're staring at me like that."

It's mumbled, disgruntled. It's MJ being shy as she moves to face forward again. Peter bounds onto the back of her chair, perched on his sneakers and balancing with one hand.

"Why?"

"Why what?" Oh, she won't look at him now.

"Why firefighters?"

"It's not just firefighters."

"What? No, of course. I mean, you can tell me about the plot instead." Peter sees the tiny smirk she's trying to hide at the corner of her mouth. "Character development? Philosophical issues tackled? If you want."

MJ smacks his knee with the closed book and he doesn't get out of the way because he's laughing and so is she. When she goes to do it again, Peter catches her wrist with enough precision to pin a butterfly's wing in midair.

"College has corrupted you," she accuses, not fighting his delicate grip. He can feel her pulse under his fingertips.

"I'm not the one reading dirty stories."

"Yeah, well, you're an idiot for not seeing the appeal. The series is hero-themed."

It takes a second for him to notice that her statement doesn't so much insult him as expose her. Peter swallows and lets go of her wrist.

"The hero thing is the appeal? It's appealing? To you?"

MJ is out of that chair in a hurry, abandoning her novel on the seat; with just his weight on the back of the chair, it begins to tip and he jumps down to the floor before the thing can topple and wake up the snoozing end-of-term-ers.

"I have to check these," she mutters. He never asked her what she was doing.

Peter watches, stares a little harder than he typically lets himself, as MJ leans forward, then crouches to peer through the oven door. He glances at the timer she's set. It'll be a while before anything in there has finished baking. Her white, long-sleeved shirt slides up above the waist of her sweatpants and he sees skin.

There's no plan in Peter's head as he circles the chair and stands behind her, heart racing. When MJ straightens up, he knows that she's aware of him, but he doesn't touch her. Doesn't slide his hand up her back beneath her shirt or brush her hair over her shoulder. His gaze falls like the snow outside, watching her grip the counter with both hands. She's hanging on tight. Maybe she isn't breathing significantly harder than she was a minute ago, yet Peter's enhanced senses spot the smallest differences. His own breath is heavy and tremulous as he steps even closer. If he was wearing the suit, Karen would be able to tell him exactly how much space there is between his chest and MJ's back. Without the suit lady, Peter can judge that it's fewer than six inches. He doesn't have room in his head for decimal places.

"How long have you―"

"Peter," she says.

He exhales and a shiver goes through her shoulders. This could all fall apart so fast. This fragile thing.

"I gotta know," he whispers.

"You're going to miss your train," she counters, just as soft.

It feels like his whole chest is quaking as his heart thumps around inside. MJ turns her head a few degrees, but the tension doesn't break yet.

"I told you, I'm not worried about that."

"Oh," she says, gaze lowered as she rotates her whole body to face him, "that was a promise, not a warning."

MJ raises her eyes to his, then, with identical deliberateness, touches his chin with her fingers. Peter's lips part like a lock springing open. She runs the backs of her fingers along his jaw and he tilts his head into her caress, not quite pushing, always meeting her gaze. She's never touched him like this before; it's all he can think of. When she's ready, she lets her hand travel all the way to the back of his neck and brings the other hand there too. Again, he moves with her, leaning his face forward with the lightest suggestion from her fingers. MJ gathers him in. In seconds, he's looking through lowered eyelids at her cheek as their noses rub together.

During Peter's second rushed inhalation, MJ nudges her lips into his. It's intense―no fumbling timidity, though he, personally, has never done this before. He loves how unafraid she is. It's not like there's nothing to lose, it's that they're figuring out that they can't lose it. They're kissing hard and fast, bodies in a sped-up sway. Her mouth is so eager against his.

"How long?" he asks again, blinking and tearing almost violently away from the hurricane she's stirring up. He holds her steadily by the waist. "How long―"

"Ages. I'm guessing this isn't a brand new idea for you either."

Her hips shove against his and Peter doesn't jerk away, doesn't try to hide, just stands there and lets the press of her soft body discover his rigid erection. He groans. About the pressure, the kiss, the words, all of it. MJ's lips dart forward to meet his again, quick and gone, then back for more, slower. His hands are unapologetically on her ass by the time her tongue sneaks into his mouth.

MJ breaks the kiss now, even though Peter chases her lips with his, only getting her cheek. Her fingers unzip his sweater and he's panting. He tries her neck instead and MJ rolls it to the side, her hair falling back to offer his mouth a clear path. Hands on his hips, she wiggles her thumbs below the waist of his jeans, under the elastic band of his boxers, and strokes lightly over his skin. Peter's dizzy, nose tucked beneath her jaw. After a second, he controls himself enough to drag his face up, never losing contact with hers.

"You might not be wearing a skirt," he says, speaking into her ear, "but I still want to take you right here." Peter laughs quietly at himself. "I can't believe I just said that."

"Did you mean it?" MJ asks. She clasps one of his hands and plants it on the center of her chest. Thuh-thump. "Because I want to hear you say it again… if you mean it."

He draws his head back.

"Really?"

It isn't easy not to giggle his way out of this one, give in to the awkwardness. Instead, he has to accept that, yeah, she's seriously asking. MJ has taken several risks here and it's up to Peter to decide if they pay off. He licks his bottom lip, smoothing the way for his words.

"I mean it. I want to. I really want to."

She gives him a blink-and-you-miss-it relieved smile and leans in for another kiss. The initial anxiousness behind it―a his and hers fear of rejection―burns off quickly, then Peter's tongue is stroking hers and she's unbuttoning his jeans. This kiss isn't hungry, it's starving.

"Tell me, Peter," MJ gasps. (Peter's dick would like her to make a lot more of those breathy sounds.)

"I want t―you. I want you."

His fingers trace the line of her underwear through her sweatpants. Mouth on her neck, nipping now, Peter affirms it over and over. The zipper on his jeans is only halfway down when MJ apparently decides not to waste her time on that; her hand wriggles in and brushes the rough cotton of his boxers. (Peter hasn't totally mastered the art of doing his own laundry and is looking forward to a step-by-step refresher with May over winter break.)

He can feel MJ's tentative fingers through the fabric, the heat of her palm. She closes her hand, cupping more than gripping because the crumple of his boxers prevents her fingers from connecting their circle, and Peter has to shut his eyes for a second. He opens them again―right after stuffing both of his hands down the back of her sweatpants and grabbing her ass.

She pushes her hips forward and Peter keeps them there, rubbing against her and seeing a few of those stars that normally just show up right before you faint. But he's never felt more conscious. MJ moans when they kiss and Peter's hands are out of her pants so that he can haul her up onto the counter, parting her legs. The surface isn't too high―constructed to be accessible―which puts him at a good height to step close to her. He breathes her in, hard, as his hands glide up her back. The action folds and bunches the material of her shirt and the urge to roll her around in his bed (the one in his dorm or the one back in Queens) makes his pulse slam in his groin.

Peter's thinking about how to swing a little alone time with her on New Year's Eve when MJ's elbow hits his shoulder; she's trying to peel her shirt off. His eyes widen and his palms drop to the counter. She thinks they're doing this right here. Well, that was what he'd said, but it had been an impulse, a desire, an irrational drive ignited and fueled by the words from her book. Actually doing it, out in the open, would be nuts! Peter glances sharply over his shoulder, grasping her hands to halt them. She shakes him off. The sleeping studiers! They couldn't. They absolutely couldn't. They…

The motion of MJ's fingers playing with the drawstring of her sweats draws his eye. Peter swallows.

"We shouldn't," he says. His dick is so fucking stiff.

She grabs him by the shoulders and puts her face right in front of his.

"Why not?"

The adamance in her voice surprises him and although her words were not loud, they reverberate in his head. It's late. They're more alone than they usually are (they've had a few laptop movie nights in each other's dorms, until roommates returned). Peter takes a long look into her eyes. The situation might seem hasty, more than a little reckless for two people striving to find control in their lives, but it's not. He stares at her and can't think of one reason it shouldn't happen like this.

"You're right," he agrees.

"You should really get used to that."

He compresses MJ's smug smile under his lips. When she works some space back into the tight press of mouths he initiated, Peter feels the tickle of her tongue across his lower lip. His lips part, their tongues meet, and his hands squeeze her thighs to slide her forward on the counter. She's right at the edge and her exhale wavers all over the place as she tilts her mouth away, forehead to forehead with him.

"I have a condom in my bag," Peter offers. If his hands weren't on her legs, they'd be shaking.

"You should get it." Her closed eyes don't lessen the expression of determination on her face.

Peter trails his palms to her knees before, so reluctantly, backing away towards the heap of his belongings that she created earlier in the evening. MJ's gaze is fixed on him. While the soft slouch of her body makes Peter yearn to tuck her around him, it's the possessive look in those eyes that has him almost stumbling. Ok, it's the look plus the way his undone jeans are slipping down his hips, denim catching under his heels as he retreats.

He digs through his bag like a tidy madman, aligning the spines of his books as he yanks them to one side. And there's the little square resting at the bottom. Little, but valuable. Like a diamond. Too soon for that thought; Peter might revisit it in a few years. He leaps back to MJ, the distance only a couple of strides for his zealous feet.

She lifts herself up on her palms as he unties her sweatpants and eases them down her legs. Kicking free of her socks, MJ silently directs him to pull her pants all the way off. Her underwear are navy blue; a detail he's going to hang onto tonight and every night that follows. Peter's hooking his fingers into them, hands at her hips, when she speaks.

"So, you've been… you've been seeing girls," MJ says disjointedly.

He frowns and glances up at her abruptly. She looks like she's trying to be ok with what she just said.

"What?"

MJ picks up the condom, where he tossed it onto the counter. She turns it around and around in her fingers and Peter understands.

"No," he says. His fingers rub with absent care over the slight indents at her hips where the seams of her underwear dug in. "I walked through the community centre after my exam. There was a health fair. This guy was very persistent about me not leaving without something from his booth. That―" Peter points to the condom still being twirled between MJ's fingers. "―was the only thing I could fit in my pocket."

She snorts a laugh and the relief is infectious.

"I think that guy was into you."

Peter feels, and probably looks, deeply confused.

"What? No, they're just trying to promote safe sex because―"

MJ's fingers cover his mouth.

"Let me enjoy how adorable it is that you don't realize how hot you are."

Peter glares at her, playfully. After a minute, she lowers her hand. He never fought it.

With a slow breath, he goes back to removing her underwear. The cleanliness of the counter isn't an issue―he's witnessed MJ's meticulous habits. He meets her gaze before his rushes down her body. The room is very, very warm and Peter isn't convinced it's only the oven.

"Firefighter hot?" he teases.

Her face twitches.

"Come on, MJ," Peter goads, pressing his palms to her bare thighs. He leans towards her, mouth not quite touching hers. "Firefighter hot?"

Her chest rises and falls more rapidly. He hears her set the condom back on the counter, feels her hands make contact with his hips. Gradually, she traces her fingers towards the middle of Peter's body. MJ tugs the front of his boxers down. It makes his jeans flop to his feet. With one hand, she feels for his jaw and kisses him. With the other, she finds his erection.

"I do want to take you," he assures her, licking his lip as he pulls back. "But I also want to give… give you…"

Peter's head is hazy searching for words when his body is insisting that he doesn't need to speak right now.

"Give it to me?" MJ suggests.

She takes his hand and shifts it across her thigh, bringing it between her legs. He swallows.

"Yes."

Peter moves his fingers against her. It would be foreign if he hadn't had so many, many dreams about touching her in all kinds of ways. Walking with MJ and holding her hand is still high on the list. Oh well, he doesn't mind doing things out of order.

When she's clutching the back of his neck, Peter pauses, slippery fingers trying to tear open the condom wrapper. MJ grabs it and does it for him, then hands it back so he can roll it on. Peter's staring down at his own hands until he's done, then he's kissing her again, messy and fierce. To give himself just enough concentration to get through this next part, Peter breaks off the kiss, grasping her hip and his cock. The head of his erection presses against her and they're breathing into one another's mouths.

The timer goes off and they both jolt.

"Should we let them burn?" Peter wonders aloud, not overly concerned in that moment about the doneness of the baked goods MJ has in the oven.

She jerks back.

"Some firefighter you are."

MJ guides Peter away from her, pushing his shoulders, and jumps down. While she's rotating whatever's in the oven, he emerges from the fogginess of lust enough to assess the wakefulness of their company. He's intensely grateful to see them asleep.

"I've been working on those all day, you know," MJ reminds him, shutting the oven door carefully so that it won't slam. "As if I'm going to let them burn."

"Sorry." It's hard to think of anything when she's naked from her hips down.

Interruption over, MJ flips a cluster of wavy hair away from her face and glances at him. Standing there. Jeans around his ankles. Boxers down far enough to leave him exposed, waiting, sheathed in a condom from the health fair.

"That's ok," she says, and Peter's not sure it's so much him who's being forgiven as his erect penis, but whatever.

He grabs her around the waist and muffles her gasp with a kiss, backing her into the counter. MJ's hands are caressing the back of his head, fingers running through his hair, as they suddenly hurry. The timer's been a reminder that they don't have forever. They aren't trapped inside a souvenir snow globe of Boston, microscopic beings fulfilling microscopic hopes inside a miniature building, suspended in the same endless night. All they can put off are the particulars of the train schedule they'll have to consult in the morning to get themselves back home for the holidays. Until then, time will hurtle forward.

MJ turns in his arms; rather than hopping onto the counter again, she braces her elbows there, her back to Peter. He drops his face to her back, breathing hard between her covered shoulder blades. Reaching down, the light brush of his hand gets her to widen her stance. Peter finds her entrance. He's curious about whether it can still be called fingering when he's using his thumb, pushing inside her and scrubbing against her front wall. MJ groans and jerks her hips towards him.

His breathing sounds way too loud as he straightens up, withdrawing his hand and angling his hips. Man, tonight. Tonight's been…

"Amazing," Peter mouths, pressing into her.

MJ rocks a little and he holds still, letting her become comfortable. This is the part he would never rush. Peter looks sideways, but he's too far from the window and too close to the yellow kitchen lights to see the snow. The glass is a dim reflection. He breathes in ginger and cinnamon and, once MJ's hips are doing something a little more purposeful, a little more like she's seeking what he's promised himself to give her, Peter thrusts into her.

They decipher it together, how to swing their hips so that MJ cries out and Peter forgets to inhale. Pleasure is a moving target, but they force it to slow down for them, expanding it into something viscous and syrupy. His hand sneaks around her hip and probes between her legs, in front of where he's entering her. Arousal makes his fingers pretty slick, but not too slick to keep nudging where she needs him.

There isn't a rhythm left that would mean anything to anyone but them by the time MJ has her mouth pressed to her forearm and Peter's actually sweating from the effort to not release. His fingertips are relentless on her clit, each of his thrusts full of primal determination. She orgasms right before the unsympathetic timer goes off again.

"Hurry up," MJ pants. Inside, she continues to squeeze and ripple, climax stretched by his shallow rocking.

Peter snorts a laugh and speeds up. Holy shit, she's so slick now. When bliss tackles him, he wraps his arms snugly around MJ's waist and cries her name into her back. With a sigh, she collapses forward, limp, onto the counter.

"I sort of feel like I need to get you a better Christmas present now," MJ admits.

They both chuckle, bodies shaking together. Peter props his chin on her spine. He can feel aftershocks coursing through her thighs.

"I love your Christmas presents."

"Yeah, but is another science pun t-shirt going to cut it after this?"

"I see what you're saying," Peter allows. "I bought you a book on the art of Eugène Delacroix, but now I know I was browsing in the wrong section. Romance, not Romanticism, right?"

He's expecting her to retaliate with a threat she'll never follow through on. She doesn't.

"You know, I think it was just a phase," MJ says thoughtfully. Peter's holding her, delaying pulling out until the last possible second. She turns her head just enough to catch his eye. "Now I have the real thing."

Peter makes a happy noise and kisses her shoulder.

"But don't expect me to dress up as a firefighter," he warns. "I don't think costumes are for me."

MJ's expression instantly goes flat and sarcastic.

"I retract my earlier statement. That is the dumbest thing you've ever said."