Hi. Woof.

01

Day 8 · Brand New Day

Peter woke up to sunlight on his face.

His first instinct was to touch his face. His fingers met skin, not fur. He felt for his ears. They were right where ears should be, and they weren’t perking up on their own.

He let out a breath, and then realized there was someone in his arms.

Jean was lying on his arm, her red hair spread all over him, one hand still resting on his chest. She’d been awake for a while, her face turned toward him, her eyes bright, like she was afraid he’d vanish if she blinked.

“Morning,” she said.

“Morning.” Peter’s voice came out hoarse.

Jean rested her chin on his chest and looked at him for a while, her face slowly turning pink.

“Why were you even better than in my dreams?”

Peter’s ears went hot. He tried to play it cool, but his voice wobbled the second he opened his mouth. “Y-you too. I didn’t know you could make sounds like that…”

Jean buried her face in his chest. “Shut up.”

“I’m a little worried about the soundproofing in this place.”

“Peter Parker!”

Peter laughed and pulled her a little closer. His back was stinging, probably covered in her nail marks, but he really didn’t mind.

“Seriously,” he said, resting his chin on top of her head, his voice dropping, “I didn’t think the first time would be this… mind-blowing.”

Jean was quiet for a moment, her fingers tracing slow circles on his chest.

“Same,” she said. “My legs are still jelly.”

Peter rubbed her legs for her, not sure whether to feel smug or guilty.

Jean turned her head and glanced at the books all over the floor. “Why is the bookshelf down.”

“That was your telekinesis.”

“Which, ultimately, was your fault,” she said, not sorry at all.

“Then next time we get a sturdier bookshelf.”

“Thinking about next time already?”

“I bet you are too.” Peter smiled.

Jean buried her face in the crook of his neck and laughed into his skin. “…Good guess.”

Once she’d finished laughing, she leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth. Then she propped herself up on one elbow, narrowed her eyes, and put on her interrogation face.

“Okay, you can talk now.” She poked his chest with one finger, one poke per question. “When did you get here? How did you get in? Where are your clothes? And what exactly have you been doing these past few…”

“Jean.”

Peter caught her finger.

He’d been preparing for a long time. In the dog bed, in Hank’s lab, behind the dryer in the laundry room, he’d rehearsed what he wanted to say over and over. But now, facing the girl who’d taken care of him for seven days, as himself, his mind went completely blank. He’d just have to wing it.

“You’re not a monster,” he said.

Peter felt her go stiff for a second.

“I know we’ve talked about this, and I forgave you a long time ago,” Peter said. “But I know part of you might still think that. So I’m saying it again. And every time you think it, I’ll say it again. You were never a monster.”

Jean’s eyes went red.

“You were in pain for a whole day and night to keep me alive.” His voice shook a little. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“Peter, that was…”

“And,” he took a deep breath, “after May died, I thought if I carried everything alone, I could keep the people around me safe. As long as nobody knew what I was doing, nobody would worry about me.” He looked down at her. “After Roosevelt Island, you made me realize I can’t just be Spider-Man. Peter Parker has to live his life too, and he shouldn’t be alone anymore. But the second it’s Spider-Man stuff, I still slip back into old habits.”

He scratched his head with his other hand, a little embarrassed.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have sent one text and left you here waiting for a whole week.”

He looked at her, completely resolute. “I’m never doing that to you again.”

Jean’s red-rimmed eyes welled up.

“You said the time you stayed at my place was when you slept the best,” Peter said. “Me too. You can’t imagine how good it feels to come home from patrol and hear someone say ‘welcome back.’ Especially for a guy who spent four years saying ‘I’m home’ to an empty apartment.”

He turned her hand over and laced his fingers through hers.

“Maybe I want to be a little greedier now. So, Marvel Girl,” he said, “next patrol, will you come with me?”

Jean looked into his eyes for a long time. She knew what that offer meant for him.

“I’d love to.”

The second the words were out, she couldn’t hold it in anymore. She buried herself in his arms, crying and laughing at the same time.

“That codename is still lame,” she said, muffled.

“I think it’s cute.”

“Says the guy who originally named himself ‘the Human Spider.’”

02

Jean stayed curled up against him for a long time before she finally sat up. Her eyes were still red, but her grin stretched from ear to ear.

“So how do you know exactly what’s going on in my head?” She poked his cheek. “I’m starting to think we’ve got a secret telepathic hotline I don’t know about.” She narrowed her eyes and lowered her voice on purpose. “Don’t I have to say ‘Come in, Parker’ first and invite you in?”

Peter smiled and didn’t answer.

The hotline’s name is Pita.

“Oh!” Jean suddenly sat up straight, her eyes lighting up. “You haven’t met Pita!”

A weird look crossed Peter’s face. “…Pita?”

“P-I-T-A. Pain in the ass. A total menace, just like a certain someone,” Jean said in a rush. “The dog I found! He’s a golden retriever, super smart, understands everything you say, rolls his eyes, and leaves wet tennis balls in Scott’s shoes!”

“Oh.”

“I bet you’ve never seen a dog that smart.”

“Um… I think I might have.”

Jean laughed. “Where? You only got here yesterday.”

03

Jean turned and called toward the corner. “Pita!”

No answer.

“Pita?”

The dog bed was empty. The blanket still had a dog-shaped dent in it.

Jean paused, then threw back the covers and got out of bed.

“Pita~ Quit playing hide-and-seek.”

She took two steps toward the door, and her foot kicked something. Ding.

It was the red collar. Snapped, with the little blue bell still hanging from it.

She bent down, picked it up, looked at it, and slowly turned around.

Peter was sitting in bed with the blanket pulled up to his waist, wearing an expression even he thought looked suspicious.

She ran her thumb over the break in the collar. The smile slowly faded from her face.

Peter gave her a helpless little smile.

Jean looked at the empty dog bed in the corner, then back at Peter, confusion in her eyes.

“Oh…” Slowly, Jean understood everything.

Peter’s smile froze on his face. He nodded stiffly.

“No. No. No.” Disbelief was written all over her face.

Peter’s smile hardened into a mask.

“No no no, no no no no…” Jean’s face went from red to white, then from white back to red.

Peter could no longer remember what his face was supposed to look like.

“NO!!! OMG!! Oh my God!!!”

Jean grabbed the sheet, wrapped it around herself, and bolted out the door screaming.

Peter listened to her screams fade down the entire hallway and stop dead at the stairs. A door at the end of the hall cracked open, then quickly shut.

Three seconds later, the screaming came barreling back from the stairs. Jean charged into the room wrapped in the sheet, slammed the door, and leaned against it, panting.

The bulb in the desk lamp went pop.

Then the ceiling light, then the little spider night-light in the corner, which fizzled out with a crackle. The Spider-Man pillow on top of the wardrobe lifted into the air on its own and started spinning wildly.

Before he came clean, he’d imagined a few possible endings. One of them did involve a very powerful telepath losing control.

“I slept with you in my arms!” Jean pointed at him. “I scratched your belly! You licked my hand!”

“I was planning to take that to my grave!”

“I’ll put you in it right now!” The pillow whizzed past his ear. “I almost took you to get neutered!”

“Thank you for not doing that!”

Jean’s face slowly went red again, red to her ears, red down her neck. Peter took one look at her and knew she’d remembered.

“I… I even took a shower with you…”

“I closed my eyes!” Peter threw up both hands. “…Most of the time!”

“MOST?!”

Another bulb exploded.

“And, and that night…” Jean’s voice suddenly got very small.

“I went out that night!” Peter practically shouted. “I sat outside your door guarding you! I recited the periodic table all night! You can ask Bobby!”

“You want me to ask BOBBY?!”

“Uh… actually, don’t ask Bobby.”

Jean leaned against the door and took a deep breath, a dangerous glint in her eyes.

“I’m going into your head.” She pressed her left hand to her forehead and held her right hand out toward Peter. “And I’m deleting this whole week. No, I’m deleting YOU. The whole person!”

“No way! Not this time!”

“Open the door!”

“No!”

“Peter Benjamin Parker!”

Peter looked at her: red-faced, hair a mess, wrapped in a bedsheet, furiously striking her telepathic-attack pose.

“Go ahead and delete it.” He sat on the bed, looking like a man ready to die. “Delete it, and I’ll just fall for you all over again from the start!”

The pillow froze midair.

Then it came at him with double the attack speed.

04

Peter shielded his head through three rounds of pillow attacks. With the fourth about to hit him square in the face, he knew he had one move left.

“Wait!” He threw up his hands. The pillow stopped half an inch from his nose.

Peter swallowed. “If it makes you feel any better… after you moved out, when I was… taking care of myself… I thought about you too…”

That one hit like a truck. The pillow and all the bulb shards flying around the room dropped to the floor, clatter, clatter. Jean stood there, still red from her ears all the way down to her collarbone. Silence was, as they say, golden.

“Film it for me,” Jean decided.

“What?”

“So it’s fair!”

Peter’s face went red, then white, then red again. He was clearly fighting a long and painful inner battle.

“…Fine.” It came out through gritted teeth.

Jean took a deep breath. Then another deep breath. Then another deep breath.

She finally sat down on the edge of the bed and crossed her arms. “Okay. Now start from the beginning. What happened?”

“I tried to tell you from the start!” Peter said. “I spelled out my name on the floor with dog food, and you stepped right on it!”

“That was you?”

“It was me! It took me twenty minutes!”

Jean’s stern expression seemed to crack, just a little.

“And the text?” she said. “‘Hanging out with friends’?”

“I was staking out Damage Control that week, and I didn’t want you to worry. I swear, I wasn’t with anybody.” Peter paused. “Especially not Black Cat. Felicia and I are completely over!”

“Does she know that?” Jean’s eyes narrowed.

“…She’s coming to terms with it.”

Jean glared at him for a while and grudgingly let it go.

“What about Ned? Johnny? Frank?” Jean counted them off on her fingers. “All three of them gave you an alibi. The Baxter Building needs someone to fix its oven?”

“I didn’t tell them to say that!” Peter said. “My phone was dead. I couldn’t reach anyone. They did it on their own!”

Jean stared at him. “So these three men didn’t even ask you, and they all lied to me together.”

“…Yes.”

“Ugh. Men.” Jean’s mouth twisted.

“Yep.” Peter nodded obediently. “Men.”

“So how exactly did you turn into a dog?”

“A Damage Control researcher went rogue with a knockoff species-swap gun. I tried to grab it, he panicked, and he fired.”

Jean’s eyes went suddenly sharp. “Where is he now?”

Peter knew that look way too well. It was exactly how she’d looked standing in front of Scorpion on the news.

“Jean.”

“I’m just asking.”

“We’ll find him together,” Peter said. “Next patrol. Together.”

Jean looked into his earnest eyes and finally softened. “…Together.”

She scooted closer until her shoulder was touching his. After a moment, her hand quietly found his.

Peter took it. Like it was always supposed to be this way.

Jean leaned on his shoulder. At some point her other hand had found its way to the back of his head, fingers in his hair, gently scratching the spot behind his ear.

Peter’s eyes drifted half shut, and his head nudged into her palm all on its own.

They both froze.

“Force of habit,” Jean said.

“Same.”

Jean didn’t move her hand.

Peter’s gaze drifted past her shoulder and landed on the wall: eight posters, a row of action figures, and the photo of him she’d taken leaning out of his window.

“So,” he said, “‘supporting local heroes’?”

Jean’s hand froze in his hair.

“So what if I like him!” She went all in, grabbed the pillow, and hugged it tight. “You can’t blame me for liking a hero who pulled me back from the edge of despair!”

“I don’t blame you! How could I blame you! I like him too!” Peter said, grinning, his eyes landing on the pillow. “So did you sew that pillow yourself?”

“So what if I did! Do you know how much time and effort that took me?”

“No no no, I think you did a great job! I just wanted to apologize for what I did to it…”

Jean thought back for a second. “…You owe me a new one.”

“No problem! Handmade, guaranteed!” Peter said quickly.

A moment later, he had a new idea. “Then I want something of yours, too. Some clothes.”

Jean turned to look at him.

“You stole my hoodie and told me you hadn’t seen it. I looked for it the entire winter.” Peter said it with total conviction.

Jean’s face went red again. “Oh, you want clothes, huh?” She gritted her teeth and shot him a look, and the closet door banged open.

T-shirts, sweaters, socks, scarves, everything in the closet flew out at once and pelted Peter. He dodged left and right through the clothing storm and snatched one item out of the air.

A pair of stockings.

He held them up and examined them carefully, then looked up. “These work. I can accept these.”

Jean, bright red, picked the Spider-Man pillow up off the floor and went at him for two more rounds.

When she was done, she tossed the pillow aside, panting, and sighed.

Having survived a saturation bombardment of pillows, Peter had a stroke of genius and rubbed his mop of curls against her leg. Jean automatically started ruffling his messy hair.

“…Good boy.”

Peter’s right leg started kicking again. He pinned his knee down hard.

Jean watched him holding down his knee and finally burst out laughing. Peter laughed too. In the middle of laughing, he remembered something.

“Oh yeah, what’s your laptop password anyway? I tried your birthday, ‘spiderman,’ and my name. None of them worked.”

Jean turned her face away.

“…Your birthday.”

Peter couldn’t believe she kept finding new ways to redefine cute. He leaned up toward her face.

“I’m not done being mad yet!” Jean pouted and dodged him.

Peter’s head drooped. If he still had a tail, it would have drooped too.

Jean told herself, over and over: stay strong! But Peter’s dejected little face was mercilessly demolishing her defenses.

Screw it.

In the end, it was a kiss that ended the whole circus.

05

After the two of them had said everything there was to say and done everything there was to do, and Peter had been forced to pick up every last piece of scattered clothing, they finally went downstairs for breakfast.

Peter had no clothes; his suit was still stuffed in a vent in an alley in New York. In the end Jean dug three things out of the closet: a Spider-Man merch T-shirt with a giant Spider-Man face on it, her biggest pair of sweatpants, and that gray hoodie.

Peter stared at the hoodie. “You’re finally giving it back?”

“It’s a loan,” Jean said. “You’re giving it back when you’re done.”

The sweatpants were too short, the hems hanging around his calves. At least nothing was printed across the butt.

The kitchen was packed. The second Peter walked in, all conversation stopped.

“…And this is?” Bobby’s fork froze in midair.

“This is Peter Parker,” Jean said. She paused, and her voice got a little quieter. “…My boyfriend. He got in last night.”

The kitchen went silent for a second.

“She said boyfriend,” Jubilee said.

“I heard,” said Kitty.

“I need to sit down.”

“You’re already sitting.”

Peter raised a hand and waved at the whole table. “Hi, everyone. I’m Peter. Big fan of the X-Men.”

“Big fan?” Bobby’s eyes lit up. “Jean’s told you about us?”

Peter glanced at Jean. “…A little.”

“The legendary Peter!” Jubilee finally recovered and shot to her feet. Kitty leaned halfway across the table from the other end, and the two of them looked Peter up and down from both sides.

“He’s wearing a Spider-Man shirt,” Jubilee whispered to Kitty.

“I see it,” Kitty said. “Grey, you put your boyfriend in another man’s merch?”

Peter looked down at the giant Spider-Man face on his chest. “I’m a fan too!”

Jean kicked him under the table.

Jubilee narrowed her eyes. “So you know about the wall in her room?”

“Yep.”

“And you don’t mind?”

Peter thought about it seriously. “I’m also a big supporter of local heroes.”

Kitty turned to Jean. “So is the wall coming down?”

“No,” Jean and Peter said in unison.

They looked at each other, then both went back to cutting their pancakes. Kitty and Jubilee exchanged a look that roughly meant: they’re hopeless.

Kitty took a slow sip of coffee. “Got in last night,” she repeated. “What time?”

“…Late,” Peter said.

“I know it was late,” Kitty said. “Jubilee’s room and mine are right next door.”

Jean’s fork stopped.

Jubilee pulled a pair of orange earplugs out of her pocket and set them gently next to Jean’s plate. “I dug these out of Hank’s lab at two in the morning. Next time, give us a heads-up so we can prepare.”

Peter went red all the way to his ears.

Bobby looked at the earplugs, then at them, totally confused. “Were you guys moving furniture last night? I kept hearing something banging against the wall.”

“Eat your pancakes, Bobby,” Kitty said without looking up.

“And this morning,” Bobby went on, completely oblivious, “half the bulbs and glass on the third floor blew out, and somebody ran screaming down the hall and back wrapped in a bedsheet. Were we under attack?”

“I was sleepwalking!” Peter blurted out. “I have this bad habit of getting up in my sleep, wrapping myself in a sheet, and smashing light bulbs.”

The whole table went quiet for a second.

“…Sleepwalking?” Jubilee repeated.

“Sleepwalking,” Peter said firmly.

“Pretty high-pitched voice for a sleepwalker,” Kitty said.

“Practically a soprano,” Jubilee added.

Hank pushed up his glasses, perfectly calm. “Young man, do be mindful of fragile items next time.”

Bobby turned to Jean with genuine concern. “Jean, why is your voice so hoarse? Are you getting sick?”

Jean buried her whole face in her coffee mug.

“Peter,” Bobby turned back to him, “what’s that red mark on your neck? Did something bite you? Do we have mosquitoes at the school now?”

Peter’s hand shot to his neck. Kitty and Jubilee both turned their faces away, shoulders shaking like they’d been electrocuted.

Jubilee finally pulled herself together, cleared her throat, and leaned over to whisper to Peter, “By the way, do you know she went all over New York looking for you this week?”

Peter answered solemnly: “I’m very aware.”

Jean kicked him again.

Jean cut off a small piece of pancake and, very naturally, let her hand drop under the table.

Peter’s head dipped down, just as naturally, and he snatched up the piece of pancake.

Halfway through chewing, he snapped back to reality, swiped a hand across the floor, sat up, and held up his fork. “Oops, dropped my fork.”

Luckily, Kitty was texting and Jubilee was fighting Bobby for the last piece of bacon. Nobody saw a thing.

Jean casually cut another piece of pancake, and this time she put it in her own mouth. Peter chewed away, cheeks full, extremely satisfied.

Bobby looked around. “Hey, where’s Pita? Haven’t seen him today. Did the noise keep him up last night too?”

Jean didn’t miss a beat. “He found his owner.”

Bobby looked crestfallen. Peter choked on his coffee.

Under the table, Jean’s hand quietly settled on his knee and gave it two soothing pats.

“…Good boy,” she said, in a voice only he could hear.

Peter’s right leg jerked. His knee banged into the underside of the table, and every cup on it jumped.

“Earthquake?” Bobby asked.

“No,” Jean and Peter said in unison.

Scott hadn’t said a word. He walked over with a mug of warm oat milk, and just as he was about to set it in front of Jean, Peter’s chair slid half a foot sideways, right between the two of them. He sat up straight and looked up at Scott.

“I’ll take that.” Peter put on his very best smile.

Scott looked at Peter, then at Jean, silently handed the oat milk to Peter, and went back to his seat.

“…I don’t think he likes you, Scott,” Kitty whispered.

Scott shrugged helplessly.

Jean sipped her coffee. “He’s a little shy with strangers.”

Jean leaned toward Peter’s ear and lowered her voice. “So you really were jealous that day?”

Peter stared into his cereal. “Obviously.”

Jean visibly brightened.

Hank walked by with his tea, stopped next to Peter, and looked down at him.

“It seems,” he said, “he was worth it.”

Peter froze. Hank even winked at him.

Just then, footsteps sounded at the door. Professor Xavier was back from the mission, followed by a few travel-worn X-Men.

Xavier swept his gaze across the kitchen and stopped on Peter.

“Mr. Parker.” He nodded. “Next time, before you go missing, do remember to let someone know.”

“I’ll try, Professor.” If I could let someone know, it wouldn’t be going missing, would it?

Xavier glanced at Jean and said nothing. But Jean’s spoon suddenly dropped into her cereal bowl and splashed milk all over her.

Everyone at the table exchanged looks.

Later, Jean told Peter that the Professor’s voice had spoken directly into her head right then, as calm as if he were assigning homework: Miss Grey, I see you’ve finally come around to that costume. Next time, I’ll add a few embellishments.

After the Professor and the others left, Bobby finally put down his fork and looked at Peter, dead serious.

“Peter, you should really get the sleepwalking thing checked out.” He turned. “Hank, can you prescribe him something?”

Hank pushed up his glasses. “I’m not that kind of doctor.”

Kitty and Jubilee were about to hurt themselves trying not to laugh.

Bobby looked at them, then at Jean and Peter, both red to the neck. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Poor Bobby.” Kitty and Jubilee patted him on the shoulder with deeply sympathetic expressions.

06

That evening, they went back to Queens.

Peter went to the alley first and pulled his suit and web-shooters out of the vent. His phone, smashed into a spiderweb, was still lying right where it fell. He picked it up and stuck it in his pocket. Then he went around the corner to the bodega. In the freezer, there was one tub of mint chocolate chip left. A large.

The wind on the roof of his building was a little chilly. The faded Christmas lights were still wrapped around the rusty railing. Jean sat in her old spot, hugging her knees, and took the spoon he held out to her.

“Is it a large?” she asked.

“Obviously! I didn’t get your message, but I watched you send it.”

Jean shot him a look, shoveled a huge spoonful of ice cream into her mouth, and said, muffled, “J.”

“J.” Peter grinned. “You deleted ‘Yours.’”

Jean almost choked on her ice cream. “You…”

Peter couldn’t stop grinning. “I watched you type it, stare at it for a while, and then delete it.”

Jean stuck her spoon in the ice cream and turned her head away from him. After a while, she said quietly, “Next time I won’t delete it.”

They ate it spoonful by spoonful, just like three years ago. Peter told her about listening to Hank recite Yeats in the lab, about Bobby clutching his laundry basket and backing out of the laundry room, about his entire emotional journey on the morning he almost got neutered. Jean laughed and laughed, and somewhere in the middle of laughing, she stole his half of the tub too.

When they were nearly done, Peter leaned back and, without thinking, rested his chin on her knee, just like on the bus to the school that day.

Jean looked down at him and ruffled his hair.

“Should we maybe break some of these habits?” she asked.

“Eh, we’ll see,” Peter said, eyes closed.

After a while, Peter spoke up. “You said you weren’t ready for a second heart to open itself up to you.”

Jean turned to look at him.

“So, could I be lucky enough to be the only one?” Still that same warm smile.

Jean froze, then smiled, her eyes a little red.

Peter closed his eyes and opened the door in his mind.

“Come in, Grey.”

Jean held his hand and gently stepped inside.

Everything she saw was her: the reflection of her face in the bus window, the way she’d looked hugging the hoodie and saying she wanted to hold his hand, and her, in that ridiculously lame green costume, sitting alone on a water tower hugging her knees.

When she came back out of his head, she didn’t say anything for a long time.

“This week,” she finally said, her voice a little rough, “how long were you looking at me?”

“As long as I possibly could,” Peter said.

Jean remembered something, and her face went red. “Including the bathroom?”

“I only looked ONCE in there!” Peter’s face went red too. “Though everything else, I did see that night.”

Jean punched him in the shoulder.

When it got fully dark, Peter stood up, mask in hand, and looked back at her.

“I’m heading out,” he said. “Together?”

Jean looked at him and slowly stood up. She pulled that green costume she’d shoved into the bottom of her closet out of her bag, looking at it like it was her mortal enemy.

“Just this once,” she said. “Until the Professor’s new costume is ready. Just this once.”

“Green looks good on you.”

“Shut up.”

Once they’d changed, Jean held up her phone and got them both in the frame: one red and blue, one green and yellow, with the water tower, the antenna, and that old string of lights behind them.

“Strike a good pose! I need a new wallpaper.”

Click.

That night, the Daily Bugle livestream blew up again.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Jameson’s face filled the entire screen. “That wall-crawling menace is back! And he’s patrolling Queens with that Marvel Girl! I said it! I SAID she was Spider-Man’s old flame!”

High above Queens, Spider-Man swung through the air with Marvel Girl in his arms, looking around in delight.

“Can’t you fly on your own?”

“Flying’s got nothing on web-swinging.” Jean was having the time of her life, like she was at an amusement park.

“Then let’s make it more exciting!” Peter pulled a high-difficulty swing, climbing high, then dropping and waiting until the last second to shoot a web. The two of them skimmed just above the street and nearly took out a pedestrian.

Jean swallowed her scream with great effort. “You are really a pain in the ass!”

“Admit it, you like me like this.” Even the mask couldn’t hide Peter’s grin.

Jean didn’t answer. She pulled up the bottom half of his mask and kissed that grin.

07

Group Chat

Since Peter’s phone had been smashed into a spiderweb in the alley, he had to log into his account on Jean’s phone. The group chat was already at 99+ unread messages.

Ned: SO??? Did you tell her???

Peter: Yeah.

Johnny: Tell her WHAT?? Details!!

Peter: Everything I needed to.

Yelena: So where were you this week.

Frank: …

Peter stared at the screen, his finger hovering over the keyboard, not moving.

Jean reached over from behind him and pulled the phone out of his hand.

Peter: This is Jean. He’s been with me all week.

Peter: As a dog.

Ned: ????????

Johnny: What breed?

Peter: Golden retriever.

Johnny: Makes sense.

Yelena: Makes sense.

Frank: Makes sense.

Ned: WHY DOES THAT MAKE SENSE TO ALL OF YOU???

Peter snatched the phone back.

Peter: This is Peter. She has an entire wall of Spider-Man in her room. And a pillow she sewed herself.

Johnny: I KNEW it!!

Yelena: I’ve known for ages. I bought half that merch for her.

Jean snatched the phone back again.

Peter: This is Jean. He spelled his name on the floor in dog food. It took him twenty minutes. I stepped on it.

Ned: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Peter: She named me Pain in the Ass.

Johnny: Great name.

Peter: He rolled over for belly rubs on my bed.

Peter: She calls herself Marvel Girl in New York.

Johnny: We know that one.

Ned: All of New York knows that one.

Peter: I almost got him neutered.

Ned: ????????????

Johnny: DETAILS NOW!!!!

The phone hung in the air between them, caught in a tug-of-war between telekinesis and webbing.

They looked at each other. If they kept this up, it would be mutually assured destruction.

“Truce?” Peter said quietly.

“…Truce.”

Peter: That’s it.

Johnny: ??? Why’d you stop?? Keep going!!

Ned: I feel like we missed the best part.

Frank: Don’t push your luck.

Yelena: That’s enough.

A few weeks later, the two of them walked past a pet store in Queens.

There was a golden retriever puppy lying in the window, about six months old, its paws too big for its body. The second it saw Jean, its tail turned into a blur.

Jean stopped in her tracks, her face practically pressed to the glass.

“Peter,” she said. “Should we get one?”

Peter looked at the dog in the window, then at her, and was quiet for two seconds.

“…Aren’t I enough?”

Jean turned and looked him up and down.

“You don’t guard my door.”

“I do!”

“You don’t roll over for belly rubs.”

Peter’s ears went red. “How do you know I won’t?”

Jean burst out laughing. She reached over and rubbed his stomach, like she was petting a big dog.

“Good boy.”

Peter’s right leg almost started kicking again.

“Woof!”

Bonus

In the Danger Room, Scott had been shooting targets for an hour straight. Every blast hit dead center, each one harder than the last.

Kitty and Jubilee sat on a bench at the edge of the room.

“Our condolences,” Jubilee said.

“Plenty of fish in the sea,” Kitty added.

Scott didn’t turn around. Another blast split the last target in two. “I’m fine.”

The Danger Room door opened. A blonde woman walked in, dressed head to toe in snow-white couture, completely out of place among the brightly colored X-Men. She glanced at the shattered targets all over the floor, raised an eyebrow, and walked straight up to Scott.

“Scott Summers?”

Scott paused and turned around.

“Emma Frost. The new teacher.” She smiled faintly and reached up to straighten his visor. “I think the targets have suffered enough, darling.”

She left. The Danger Room was very, very quiet.

Kitty and Jubilee looked at each other.

“…I think a fish just showed up,” Jubilee said.