Surrogate Son

Reveals and Revelations: SpideyChelle (MCU)

Summary: Peter finally convinces himself to tell Michelle he's secretly Spider-Man after a conversation with May informs him the secret won't last forever and waiting until further in the relationship might actually break them up. She doesn't react the way he anticipated, but that's mostly his fault. 

A/N: This one isn't IronDad, but I had it in my drafts and rather than post it as a whole separate book, I decided to add it on to this one. Enjoy!

It's okay. This was going to be okay. He could do this. It wasn't even that big of a deal; the only thing he had to do was go tell his girlfriend that he was Spider-Man and spent his nights fighting crime and getting beat up. No big deal. It would be fine.

"Tell MJ hello for me, will you?" May said, interrupting Peter's inner monologue. He blinked twice, trying to figure out how May had appeared in front of him. She smiled at him and pulled him into a hug. "It's gonna be okay," she told him, pulling back to smile encouragingly at him. "MJ's not the type to freak out about things like this."

"How do you know? This is a pretty big thing," Peter said, twisting his mask in his hands. May just kissed his cheek and nudged him toward the window.

"Just trust me," she told him. Peter nodded and before he could stop himself, he pulled on his mask and leaped out the living room window. It was well past sun-down, but he'd already told Karen not to tell him about any crime until after his talk with MJ. The last thing he wanted was to be in the middle of explaining things and have to leave.

As he swung to MJ's apartment, Karen gave him tips on what not to say. After a particularly unhelpful suggestion, he told her he'd figure it out himself.

"If that's what you want," the AI replied. Peter rolled his eyes as he came to a stop on the fire escape outside MJ's apartment. She was only two floors beneath his current location, but Peter was starting to panic again.

What if she wasn't home? What if her parents were in her room when he knocked on her window? What if she freaked out and hit him with whatever book she was reading?

"Peter?" Karen asked. Peter frowned, staring down at the fire escape as he was brought back to the current moment. "You've been standing here for five minutes. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, Karen," he replied. Taking a deep breath, he started down the fire escape until he was on MJ's floor. He carefully climbed over the rail and crawled across the wall until he was right outside MJ's window. Karen had marked it for him so he didn't accidentally knock on the wrong one, but he was still worried it was someone else's.

"Michelle Jones is currently lying on her bed and reading," Karen reported. Peter nodded and thanked her, reaching a shaky hand out to knock on MJ's window. He waited a while before knocking again. Maybe MJ hadn't heard him. He'd barely finished knocking the second time when the window flew open and he was met with MJ's worried face.

"You better not be bleeding out," she said, tugging Peter into her room. She was looking him over worriedly and Peter would be a liar if he said he wasn't confused. When she didn't receive an immediate response, MJ grabbed Peter's shoulders and tugged off his mask. "Are you okay?" she asked, "Because you don't appear to be dying, but you've never shown up like this before and I'm not gonna lie, I'm kind of freaking out, so please say something."

"I'm not dying," Peter squeaked. MJ's shoulders relaxed and she dropped down to her bed.

"Thank god," she muttered, tossing the Spider-Man mask back to Peter. He nearly dropped it but managed to keep hold of the mask. "Did May finally convince you to tell me? Is that why you're here? Assuming you're not bleeding internally and are just not telling me about it, that is."

"Yeah," Peter said. MJ lifted her head to better look at him, narrowing her eyes. "I mean, yeah, May told me to tell you. Not yeah, I'm dying, cause I'm not. I just—How long, um, have you known?" Peter finished awkwardly.

MJ took a minute to think about it then shrugged.

"Well, I didn't know for sure until last month when you called to cancel our date with some excuse about May being sick despite your location on Snap Map saying you were at Stark Tower," MJ said casually. Peter felt his face heat up. "Then the next day you were limping around school and I definitely saw you showing Ned a nasty bruise. But I've had a pretty good idea since sophomore year."

"What?" Peter exclaimed. Two years and she didn't ask him once? "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I liked hearing the excuses," she teased, sitting up on her bed. She patted the mattress beside her and Peter slumped down beside her. "You and Ned were pretty bad with them from the beginning, but you haven't really gotten better despite what one would think."

"If we were so bad with excuses, how come other people didn't find out?" Peter asked. MJ shrugged and pulled him down so his head was on her lap and she could brush her fingers through his hair.

"They're stupid," she answered. Peter rolled his eyes and she smiled. "They are! But I may have covered for you a few times when Ned's only excuse was something too stupid for even idiots to believe."

"Thanks, I think," Peter said, trying to figure out if it was an insult or not. He eventually decided it was a jab at Ned and not him, so he turned his attention back up to her. "You're really great, you know."

"Yeah, I know."

"I also love you a lot," Peter told her, smiling shyly when she grinned widely. Before she could tease him about being a sap, he blurted out, "May says hi!" before he forgot.

MJ broke off into uncontrollable laughter after that and Peter was left red-faced and wanting to crawl under her bed. When her mom came up to ask what was happening, he was finally able to hide under the bed while MJ made up some excuse about a book. At least she was better at excuses than Ned. Unfortunately, that meant he'd have to tell his best friend he could no longer make up the excuses; apparently the two of them sucked at it.