Author's Note:

THIS IS A SEQUEL! IF YOU HAVEN'T READ PART ONE (AFFINITY WAR), GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE AND COME BACK ONCE YOU HAVE!

We're picking things up from the end of Far From Home. That very day, in fact, meaning Peter's identity has just been exposed by that joker over at The Daily Bugle. The timeline of my personal canon goes: Avengers: Infinity War (but Thanos was defeated and nothing got dusty), then Affinity War, then Spider-Man: Far From Home (but Peter and MJ were already dating, per AW), and now Boyfri(endgame). All I really need for you to accept before we begin is that Tony and Nat are alive (fuck off, Avengers: Endgame, you didn't make the timeline) and that Spideychelle definitely banged their way across Europe.

Oh, and I hope you all remember the rule about no endnotes.

Let's go.

I

"Love, am I right?"

Happy nodded, chewing his toast, then wiping crumbs from his beard with finger and thumb.

"This is burnt," he pointed out, lifting the toast for MJ's inspection.

"It wasn't for you in the first place."

He shrugged and took another, more careful bite, trying not to let the charred edge poke him in the roof of his mouth again.

"I might know May significantly better than I know you―"

"She told me you're Facebook friends."

"Twitter now too."

"May tweets? Huh. Did not know that."

"Anyway," MJ pressed on, leaning back against the kitchen counter, "I think the Crown Jewels vault was exactly the kind of high-pressure situation in which a person shows their true colours. So, I'd like to conclude, to your relief―"

"My relief?" Happy appeared deeply alarmed.

"Ask your boss about the importance of making a good impression on me."

"Will do."

"I'd like to conclude," she repeated, "that I have a good feeling about you. I'm rooting for you. Even if things have just gone thoroughly to hell and your girlfriend is the one person in this apartment who doesn't know you're in love with her."

Happy sighed in an acknowledgement seemingly of mixed emotions.

"Love," MJ repeated, understanding completely.

"Now, wait a minute," he said as his face shifted into a suspicious frown. "Does that mean you and Peter have―"

"Been honest about how we feel? Built a relationship around open lines of communication? Possessed enough self-awareness to not only recognize but―"

"HEY, ARE YOU GUYS GONNA HELP?" Peter shouted from down the hall.

"YEAH, BABE," MJ called back.

Happy gave her the fed-up expression her boyfriend told her she should expect from him.

"Finish your toast."

He stuffed it grumpily into his mouth.

When they stuck their heads into May's bedroom, May flipped her hair back and squinted, in the middle of dragging a box.

"Wha―?! Are you eating? Helping, Happy, helping."

Happy glared at MJ, but she meant what she said about rooting for him, so she was willing to take his side.

"We were just using up the end of the loaf you had. It's not like you're going to pack it and we didn't want there to be any waste," she supplied.

"Oh, well, thank you, honey," May said with a tired smile. "Wanna help me move the mattress?"

"Whoa, whoa, no." Peter's voice came from the closet. He emerged, tripping, with an armful of hangers; MJ gave her idiot a fond smile. "May, we're not moving the mattress."

"You're not moving the mattress," Happy confirmed, rolling up his shirtsleeves to lift the box May kicked his way.

"They can put that in storage for us or something," Peter suggested. "There are mattresses at the compound."

"So I can't even sleep in my own bed?!" May demanded. Visibly exasperated, she sunk onto the bed and put her head in her hands.

Happy and MJ exchanged a look. Reassuring May through the transition from regular life to a hasty move into the Upstate compound because the world had just found out her nephew was Spider-Man was boyfriend territory. Happy set his box back down and approached his girlfriend with a compassionate expression. Peter discarded the hangers and flipped over the half-packed contents of his aunt's room. Interlacing their fingers, MJ used her other hand to shut the door of May's bedroom behind them. They headed to Peter's room.

"Ms. Romanoff's already in the city undercover," Peter informed her as he crammed his backpack to max capacity, "so she's gonna be dropping her SUV off and finding her own way back to the compound. She said something about trawling the Financial District for luxury cars parked in tow away zones and how the 'arrogant shitheads' who own them have it coming."

"Badass," MJ murmured. She plucked a deconstructed cardboard box off the stack Peter had gotten from Mr. Delmar's reopened store on their way back to the apartment and started folding and taping it into shape.

"Happy and May will take the SUV and fill it with as much stuff as it'll hold... and as much as we've got packed by the time it gets here. And they'll have to pack it themselves, and fast, because we don't want to attract attention. It won't take long for people to find out where I live."

"Right."

"Mr. Stark sent a self-driving car for me from the compound as soon as the Bugle story broke, and that'll take me―"

"Obviously."

"―plus the rest of our stuff." He glanced at his phone. "We have... maybe an hour and a half?"

He looked up to check with her, for some reason. MJ shrugged.

"Whatever you say, nerd."

His shoulders slumped but he grinned.

"Even now?"

"Even now. What, you thought having your identity revealed to the whole world meant you'd get sympathy from me?"

"Thanks for the consistency."

"You're welcome."

Peter sighed as he pulled out his suitcase and started filling it with clothes.

"I miss Prague."

MJ reached over to stroke his arm.

"This isn't going to be worse than fighting the fake fire monster. Maybe it's stressful getting out of the city, but once you're at the compound, you'll be totally secure. After that..." MJ didn't have a plan. She squeezed Peter's shoulder. "We'll figure it out. It's going to be fine."

Slowly, Peter nodded, then glanced at her. She didn't realize her black dahlia had swung free of the neck of her shirt until her boyfriend touched it with careful fingers.

"I was actually thinking about the other stuff that happened in Prague." With suppressed glee, MJ watched her boyfriend's face turn pink.

"Why are you blushing, Peter?" she teased. "From what I remember, you're the one who initiated a lot of the other stuff."

"You're the one who snuck into my room!"

"I had to sneak in. The Elementals were an international crisis and Mr. Harrington was on high alert."

"The method of entering the room wasn't really my point!"

"Then tell me, Spider-Man," MJ requested, wrapping her hand around Peter's to press it against her chest, the dahlia trapped under his palm as his gaze lowered, "what was your point?"

"Car's here!" Happy announced, poking his head into Peter's room, a box in his arms.

Peter huffed and pulled his hand, and his gaze, away.

"Ok," he said, rushing into the hallway ahead of MJ and scanning his eyes over scattered possessions, some packed and some not. "I'll-I'll... help you load these into the elevator," he said.

"You're staying here to pack and not be seen," MJ told him, sending him back towards his bedroom with a gentle shove. She swivelled to Happy. "I'll help."

"Great," Happy said with a nod. "Glad someone's making herself useful."

Peter frowned at him.

MJ tied her hair (still frazzled and not so much windblown as swingblown after Peter carried her back to the apartment at a frantic speed with too many tight corners) back and went to the apartment's front door, propping it open. Happy and May rushed out with boxes to stack by the elevator and MJ followed. They loaded everything inside as quickly as they could when it dinged open.

"See you soon," May promised, giving MJ a tight hug while Happy kept the door from closing.

MJ just nodded. She didn't really want to think about saying goodbye to May because right behind that was the much more difficult goodbye she'd need to say way too soon.

"If you ever want to talk..." MJ offered Happy, who looked nervous, as if she'd be stupid enough to blurt something out. "...about how to say certain things to certain people... give me a call."

"I just might," he finally agreed. He flashed her an open palm of farewell, releasing the elevator door. "Take care."

She fought against the feeling of her heart sinking with the elevator and strode briskly back to the Parkers' apartment; she hated moving briskly. It was another thing she planned to hold against the asshole who leaked that Mysterio footage to the press.

In MJ's estimation, Peter had seen enough of her carefully concealed positive emotions―her kindness, her love, her willingness (fine, her desire) to be cuddled. She didn't need to throw open the curtains on the negative stuff too, didn't need to spend their final hour together for who knew how long letting him see her worry and her heartbreak. Back in Peter's bedroom, she kicked her sneakers off and directed all of her energy into assembling and filling cardboard boxes of everything Peter thought he and May would want or need, plus a lot of extra shit, just in case. Neither Peter nor MJ wasted words lying about how the Parkers could come back to grab anything they'd forgotten.

She was getting a taste of uncertainty and it made her want to spit. Her mother, a doctor, confronted uncertainty every day and knew how to deal with it. MJ wanted to hold her boyfriend's hand, but she couldn't tell if it would be to keep him here or to run away at his side. As disgustingly, horrifically, graphically romantic as that sounded.

When they had the essentials more or less stacked in the entryway, and they were lying on their backs on the living room floor, and MJ's anxieties had been temporarily beaten back by manual labour, she rolled over and stared at Peter's sock feet.

"Not to pile on with everything that's already on your mind," she began, "but this is probably the last chance to have sex we're going to get for a while."

Peter sat bolt upright. The thought of his stomach muscles clenching under his dumb t-shirt made MJ's head spin. He looked down at her, eyes eager.

"That's the exact opposite of piling on."

Grabbing the back of MJ's neck, Peter threw himself over her, lips colliding with her smile.

To be continued...