"Ow, Miles!" MJ jerks forward, wincing, and Miles quickly lets go of her curly tresses.
They're in her dorm, and with her roommate out of town, MJ has the place to herself for her bi-weekly hair care routine—a process that, while time-consuming, she genuinely loves. It's something she plans well in advance, carving out entire evenings for washing, deep conditioning, blow-drying, and styling.
She takes pride in it—has to, really, after years of beauty pageants and her mom making sure her hair stayed perfect, her skin flawless.
But about a week ago, Miles offered to help braid her hair after she washed and detangled it. A sweet gesture, no doubt, but—well, there was just one small problem.
Miles didn't know how to braid.
He was learning, sure, but his attempts so far had been... mixed. His grip was either too tight or too loose, and sometimes he got the comb tangled in her hair, like now—for the third time in the last ten minutes.
MJ sighs but stops herself from getting too frustrated. She appreciates her boyfriend's effort, really. She knows plenty of girls who would love a guy to even attempt what Miles was doing, and would probably call her ungrateful for being anything less than thrilled. But the truth was, WatchTube tutorials weren't exactly working out the way either of them expected, and MJ wasn't sure how much longer she could sit still playing mannequin.
"My bad, M. Are you okay?" Miles asks, leaning back on the bed. The warmth from his body disappears from her back, and the comb dangles from the knotted mess he's made at the top of her head. Gently, he rubs the sore spot on her scalp before carefully working the comb free.
"The video said to make sure your hair's properly detangled first," Miles mutters distractedly.
MJ cranes her neck to meet his eyes, an incredulous look crossing her face. "My hair is properly detangled, Miles."
Miles scratches his head, looking sheepish. "Who knew crawling on skyscrapers and flipping over flying cars was easier than doing hair, huh?" he jokes, laughing weakly. He looks guilty for a second, but it quickly fades as he pulls out his phone and starts tapping furiously.
"Here, let me pull up the video again. Maybe there's something I'm missing." He's obviously determined, and MJ sighs, half-amused, half-exasperated, as she resigns herself to yet another round of WatchTube tutorials and a throbbing scalp.
•
Miles and MJ's relationship isn't perfect—far from it. Like any couple, they have their fights, and sometimes, those fights can get ugly. During those times, MJ has a habit of completely shutting down, refusing to speak or even look at him for days. The longest they've gone without talking during their relationship was two agonizing weeks. Those were some of the most stressful, gut-wrenching weeks for both of them, and all because Miles had missed her birthday party.
To this day, he still feels pretty shitty about it.
He'd done everything he could to make sure the date was burned into his memory—he circled it on his calendar, set multiple alarms, and kept reminding himself over and over. But when the day came, things took a turn for the worse in a way that only a superhero's life could.
It wasn't just any villain attack that day; it was one of the toughest he'd faced all week. In fact, the ordeal was so extreme that Miles nearly crowned the culprit "Villain of the Month."
A full-on zombie outbreak had hit downtown Brooklyn, sparked by a stereotypical mad scientist convinced that her creations would unlock immortality. The "zombies" weren't the undead, though, like in the movies; they were actually brain-dead hospital patients, hijacked into mindless aggression. The virus—or chemical, or whatever it was—drove them to attack citizens, turning ordinary people into cannibalistic monsters. It felt like a horror movie, and it took hours to subdue the havoc.
