Spider-Son & Iron Dad two shots

Of Graphite and Science Notebooks

Spooktober 08: Sirens

a/n: something about how sweet these two are,,, and mj being just as silly about her crush as peter is

Her entire right hand was darkened with the familiar smooth-shininess of smeared graphite by the time Peter Parker finally trudged into the nearly empty classroom. Her eyes glance upwards nonchalantly, and took a very private pleasure at the way Peter's expression brightened when their gaze met.

Junior year and things were going pretty great for her— leader of the Decathlon team, a surprising amount of friends to chat with in the hallways between classes, and to her own surprise, a nagging crush on the same boy she always tried to be disinterested with the year before.

It really wasn't her fault. Peter Parker was wildly fascinating, as any good person with secrets usually was, and he seemed to seek out her company whenever she was around, which was something she wasn't used to.

He slid into the seat next to her and dropped his backpack on the floor between them, then smiled at her. "MJ, I didn't know you had detention."

"I don't," she said bluntly. She hesitated, then returned his smile with one that was surely much more awkward, and quickly dropped her eyes back down to her sketchbook before she could see his reaction.

"Oh," Peter said softly. It was quiet for a long moment.

"Why do you have detention?" MJ asked, hiding curiosity in her voice with a layer of what she hoped was playful accusing.

Peter laughed under his breath. He scratched the back of his neck, and MJ heard the embarrassed tapping of his shoe against the metal desk leg. "I, uh... skipped gym. I didn't have a doctor's note, so..."

She raised an eyebrow and slowly looked up from her sketch. "Did you need a doctor's note?"

"No!" Peter said, far too quickly to be truthful.

She looked him up and down for any obvious injuries. She couldn't see anything, but the way Peter sat, all fidgety again, eyes wide like a criminal on the stand very poorly trying to convince the jury he didn't commit a crime.

"So, what are you drawing?" Peter blurted out. He looked desperate to change the subject, so she reluctantly let it go.

MJ looked down at the page she'd been uselessly adding details to for the past ten minutes. The last page in her sketchbook. She held it up— a collection of faces drawn with artfully smudged pencil marks.

Peter reached his hand out and froze, looking at her with wide, questioning eyes. She realized after a moment he was asking for permission, so she nodded, and he continued reaching forward to take the book in his own hands.

He studied it over thoughtfully, a small smile on his face. His hand came up and traced over her scribbled out initials that she wrote at some point during fifth period. A messy, splotchy, warm blush found its way on her face. Embarrassing.

"No more pages?" He asked, looking up at her.

"Yeah, I, uh... I don't have any more paper," she admitted. "And I left my other sketchbook home."

"Oh," Peter commented. He handed the sketchbook over to her and then lifted his backpack up, balancing it on his thigh as he rummaged through it.

Peter Parker had a very messy backpack for someone who came in with a new one every few weeks. Textbooks and papers shoved haphazardly without thought, and things that made MJ's eyebrows furrow; like bits of dismantled technology, lots of Delmar's sandwich wrappers, and for a second she even saw a flash of vibrant red.

Finally, he pulled out one of his school notebooks, and then slid it onto her desk.

MJ stared down at it, trying to understand what the purpose was. She looked up at him and hoped her confusion was conveyed through her eyes.

"You can draw in it," Peter continued. "It's just, uh, it's my chemistry notebook, and I don't mind if you draw in it. At least you'll have something to do, right?"

He was smiling at her, and again, the splotchy blush was returning. MJ could feel her ears run hot. She could feel a siren somewhere in the back of her mind, warning her of the way her heart was beating a little faster than normal.

Her face, of course, remained neutral. Nobody would know the panic ensuing within her brain except for her, and maybe later, the plants sitting on her bedroom desk.

"Oh," MJ said blankly. "Okay. Thanks."

And, for good measure, a lighthearted "loser."

She flipped the book open, and couldn't help herself— she scanned over the pages. He had nice handwriting. He wrote very fast, that was obvious, but it was all legible. Another thing she noticed was Peter's own messes of art scattered on the page. If something needed to be put on a Bunsen burner, then there was a small Bunsen burner doodle beside the instruction. Her lip quirked upwards fondly.

She continued to flip through the notes, pausing every so often to look at more of Peter's work. It was really no wonder why he was in AP classes. He was intelligent and it showed.

She stopped on one page, and barely could read the title before Peter quickly gasped next to her. A hand reached over and turned to the next several pages, and she looked up at him in alarm.

"Sorry," Peter said with an apologetic smile. "That's for a secret, um, project. Stark Internship."

Secrets, she thought again pointedly. Lots of them.

Nevertheless, she took her pencil into her hand and began to sketch on the blank page. A basic circle. A curved line where the eyes met. An irregular triangle-esque shape for the nose. Thin lips. High cheekbones. The small freckles dotted along his cheeks...

She glanced up every few moments to look at her muse. Each time, Peter had just been sitting, unmoving, watching her work with a shyness and softness in his eyes that MJ didn't understand. She tried not to think of it too hard. If she did, her head and heart surely wouldn't take it. There was a reason she left emotions to be explained by her books.

Several minutes passed, and out of the corner of her eye, Peter flinched. She looked up to ask him what was wrong, but before the words even formed on her tongue, the school bell rang loudly in her ears.

She narrowed her eyes, taking a mental note. A piece of the puzzle, surely, of why Peter was so uniquely himself, and she would learn those secrets he had eventually, when she had all the pieces.

For now, she signed her name quickly under the sketch she had been working on. In a spark of bravery, or perhaps insanity, she also scraped out a messy heart alongside the 'MJ' cursively looped underneath sketch-Peter's sweater sleeve.

She closed the notebook shut and slid it back over to Peter in a hurry, and then stood up and looped her bookbag over her shoulder.

"Um," she said awkwardly, standing there with hesitation. "Thanks for letting me use your science notebook."

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "...Bye."

She disappeared out the door, leaving Peter Parker confused in his seat.

Good, she thought distantly, feeling flustered and more than a little insane. The mystery boy can stand to have some questions of his own for once.

Perhaps she should find a new after school hobby.