Summary: She knew about Peter's sixth sense (the one that May called his Peter Tingle), but she hadn't really thought about the possibility of a seventh sense. One that was uniquely tuned in to her, apparently.

New York City was as predictable as a weather report which, on a sunny November evening, wasn't saying much. For the most part, Michelle could never be too sure what she would encounter on her daily commute from her apartment to her office, but there were some things she could swear by.

The little push-cart coffee stand she walked past every morning always had a line of at least three people, but sometimes there would be a man with blood on his face in the subway. On her way home, it took her exactly 27 minutes to walk from her desk to her apartment door, even if she had to cross the street on the other side because Spider-Man was taking up the entire sidewalk to tie up some robbers. These nights, it was up in the air as to whether Peter was bleeding when he eventually crawled through the window to their apartment or if he was relatively unscathed.

There were bits and pieces of her daily routine and New York City that would never change just like there were things like aliens and bloodied subway riders that added a bit of spice to it. There was exactly one thing, however, that Michelle could always, 100% rely on no matter how routine or strange her morning commute was: the seemingly chronic problem of night-time muggings.

She'd left the office late, which was more of an excuse than a defense. By the time she'd turned the lock and slipped the keys (given to her by her boss so he could leave early) into her bag, the sun was gone and it was closer to seven o'clock than it was to six, the time she'd told Peter she'd actually be getting home.

Michelle could do nothing if not multitask, though, so as she jogged down the stairs and pulled her coat around her tighter, she pressed on Peter's contact to let him know she was finally on her way home.

The phone rang once before she was met with the sound of rushing wind followed Peter's excited cry of "MJ! Hi! Hello!" that told her all she needed to know.

"You're out already?" She tried not to sound too disappointed, but she'd had a long day and she'd been looking forward to having dinner with Peter before he left for the evening.

"I know and I'm so sorry," Peter said over the wind, "I just―I figured I could go out early since you'd be back late and then I'd be home early, you know?"

She couldn't stop the soft smile that crept onto her face. Even though she was tired and she'd missed Peter more than should be possible for just a single day, she did appreciate the thought of an early night in. When they'd first started dating years ago, she hadn't anticipated just how big of an influence his patrol schedule would have on her sleeping habits.

"It's alright," she assured him, "I'm only just now leaving, so it was probably a good plan."

She could hear him grinning as he said, "Yeah? See, sometimes I have good ideas."

With a laugh, she agreed and crossed the street as the light changed. The walk home would be 27 minutes (if she was lucky) and the apartment would be empty, so she humored Peter when he launched into an argument about how he really did have good ideas and "Not just about patrol, MJ. About real life things too."

"I want examples, Parker," she said, biting back a laugh when he started listing them off.

His voice over her phone kept her company for three blocks before he broke off to help a lady with her bag down the subway stairs. When his chatter was once again directed at her, it took her a second to realize it.

"Em?"

"Sorry?" She shook her head, scurrying across a crosswalk as the stoplight changed from red to green.

"Where are you?" Peter repeated. There was a rush of wind and a soft thwip before he asked, "Are you―Are you okay?"

"What?" She laughed softly. "Peter, I'm fine. I'm ten minutes from the apartment."

He was silent for a moment and Michelle paused on the sidewalk, nearly getting shoved aside by a man that was clearly in a rush.

"Peter?" she asked softly. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing!" His reply was too quick for it to actually be nothing. "I just―got a weird feeling."

Michelle bit her lip, frowning, and glanced down the mostly empty sidewalk. "About me?"

She knew about Peter's extra sense, but she wasn't sure how exactly it worked. He hadn't explained it too well and she hadn't wanted to push for too many answers when he started to get worked up about not really understanding it himself, so she was left to make assumptions. Like now.

"I don't know," Peter said awkwardly.

"Well," she hummed, "I did just cross the street. The light changed and I wasn't really in the street, but someone definitely tried to run me over."

Peter chuckled and the sound made her smile.

Reassured that the world (probably) wasn't ending, Michelle resumed walking.

"I'm okay, Peter," she said. She even went as far as to promise to wait to cross the next street rather than dart across.

"You said you were ten minutes away?" Peter echoed. Michelle nodded, realized he couldn't see her, and hummed the affirmative instead, but he was already talking again.

It took a few muttered directions for Michelle to realize he was talking to himself and not her, but she simply smiled. He knew her walk to and from home as well as she did and she was certain that Karen could project a little beacon that would lead him right to her if he felt like it was necessary.

Just in case he was still worrying about what May had started calling his Peter Tingle, Michelle assured him yet again, "I'm okay, tiger. You don't need to reroute just to walk me―"

Her own sharp inhale cut off her words as something hard pressed under her ribs from the side and a hand ripped her phone from her ear. She grimaced at the sound of the screen shattering and Peter shouting her name but was given little time to worry about it before she was dragged around the corner and shoved roughly against a wall.

"Your bag," the man hissed, his gun bruising her side as he pressed closer still. "Pass it over."

As she slipped her bag from her shoulder, she belatedly wished there weren't so many disgusting murder alleys in New York. Too many chances to be mugged (like now) or killed (which she really hoped wouldn't happen).

"It's all yours," she grumbled, shrugging the bag off her shoulder.

He ripped the bag out of her hand which was, in Michelle's opinion, completely unnecessary since she'd already been giving it to him. His gun, however, did not move from her side and he made no move to leave.

"Your phone." He jerked his head in the direction where he'd tossed her phone. "Who were you talking to?"

Michelle narrowed her eyes and the man did as well. When she didn't grant him a reply, the gun clicked against her side and he repeated the question with a snarl.

"My boyfriend," she gasped. "He works a night shift."

His snarl twisted and Michelle's breath caught in her throat as his eyes darkened. She heard more than saw him drop her bag, not daring to take her eyes off him.

"So no one will miss you," he crooned, "if this took a little longer."

In what would have been comically ironic if she wasn't currently being held at gunpoint, Spider-Man dropped down beside her.

A number of things happened at once that, had Michelle had Peter's extra sense, she probably would have been able to process. As it were, it wasn't until after the gun was webbed to the alley wall behind her and her attacker was out cold that she realized Peter was in front of her.

Spider-Man dropped down beside her and the blur of red was so shocking that she screamed. In any other situation, she might have cursed herself for such a loud reaction, but her heart had been racing since the moment she had been pulled off the street and it wasn't about to slow down now.

She was shoved roughly to the right and as she hit the ground, there was an echoing bang.

Her attacker had tried to shoot her, she realized, watching as Peter ripped the gun out of the man's hand and webbed it to the wall without looking away.

She knew Peter pulled his punches as Spider-Man, but he didn't now. There was no other explanation behind the sheer force with which he swung at her attacker. His fist connected with the man's jaw and he went flying. He hit the opposite alley wall with a dull crack and slumped to the ground, unconscious in one hit.

Peter didn't turn to her.

Michelle stared at him, waiting for him to do something―web up the guy and call the police or rip off his mask and ask her a million times if she was alright. He didn't.

Slowly, she got to her feet. Her hands were shaking and her heart was still racing, but she didn't stumble when she took a step in Peter's direction.

"Peter?"

She took another small step forward, unsure of herself until she saw his shoulders shake and heard him take a shaky breath.

"Peter." She was in front of him in two steps, reaching up to gently pull off his mask and turning them so his back was to the alley entrance. No one would see him.

"MJ?" He frowned as if only just then realizing she was there and she nodded.

"Yeah, tiger," she said softly, reaching out to gently cup his face in her hands. As her fingers brushed his cheek, he took another shaky breath and blinked.

"Are you okay?" he whispered. His eyes were wide despite the tears that began to pool in the corners and Michelle nodded. He didn't believe her. "No, are you―he didn't―"

Michelle interrupted his panicked question with a soft, "No."

His shoulders dropped and his tears dropped with them. The tension that seemed to be holding him upright disappeared and he wrapped his arms around her almost greedily.

"I came as fast as I could." His voice cracked and Michelle held him tighter. "I promise."

"I know, Peter," she whispered. Her fingers snaked through his curls and she pulled him closer as she murmured, "I know you did," in reassurance.

"I could hear him," he said. His shoulders shook and his hold on her became almost suffocatingly tight, but she didn't pull away. "I could hear him and I thought I'd be too late and―"

"You weren't too late, Peter," she promised and, because it was getting a little hard to breathe, she pulled back to look at him. "You weren't too late. I even have my bag because you stopped him."

She nodded to the side where her bag had been dropped, but his eyes didn't follow hers. In her arms, he was still shaking and his hold on her was bordering on painful and Michelle knew, was absolutely certain, that he was not going to breathe again until they were both at home.

"Come on, tiger," she murmured, pulling his mask back over his mess of curls. She didn't pull it further than his forehead, though, as she said, "Walk home with me."

Peter nodded distantly but as she stepped away from him to grab her bag, he reached for her frantically.

Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she reached for Peter's hand and squeezed his fingers. He squeezed back and as he tugged his mask back in place, they walked out of the alley.

There were about a dozen worries that sprang to mind as they walked down the street―Peter still in his suit and her hand held tightly in his. Fortunately, no one seemed to take much note of their clasped hands and when they finally stepped through the door to their apartment building, it was empty.

It took precisely one minute and thirty-two seconds for Peter to pull her onto their single couch after they walked through the door. She was lucky to pull off her jacket and set down her bag before he buried them both in the old, thrift store couch and tucked his face in the crook of her neck. It was with some effort that she tugged off his mask and as soon as she did, his face was back in her shoulder.

"Your heart stopped racing," Peter murmured, his breath warm against her neck.

It had. Until the very second Peter had curled around her and trapped her between him and the cushions, her heart had been threatening to beat out of her chest.

"Yeah, well." She huffed and found his hand with hers. "I'm okay now."

Peter's only response was to pull her closer, but that was enough for Michelle. He'd kick himself for a few hours, she knew and expected nothing less, but she also knew that his guilt complex was unrivaled.

"Don't beat yourself up," she murmured, squeezing his hand until he looked at her. "You came. I don't even have a scratch."

She'd have a bruise on her ribs in a few days, but with a little luck, she could keep that bit of information away from Peter.

"Em," he sighed. His breath tickled her neck, but her heart twisted in her chest. "You could have―If I hadn't come, he could have hurt you."

"Yeah, probably," she admitted. When he stiffened, she pulled her hand out of his and ran her fingers through his curls. "The good news is, though, that nothing happened. You can't beat yourself up both when you get there in time and when you don't. Pick one, tiger."

He huffed, but his shoulders loosened and when he blinked, there weren't tears in his eyes. It was a small win, but it was something and Michelle had learned early on that when a patrol night didn't go exactly as Peter hoped it did, it took a while to bring him back to himself.

"It's different when it's you," he told her quietly. His hand moved from her side to cup the back of her head and he leaned forward, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "When it's you, I just―I can't―everything gets a little blurred and I can't breathe until we're here."

"'Here', like the apartment?" Michelle asked. "Or 'here', like a tangled mess of limbs?"

There had been many late nights on rooftops or buried under her covers where Peter had curled around her until well into the early hours of the morning, even though she had never before been a victim. He didn't always tell her what had triggered his panicked need to be near her, but she'd always recognized it as just that: a sudden, unrelenting need to be nearby, if not tucked away in her bed with no real sense of where she ended and he began.

He shrugged halfheartedly and although he tried to explain it again, Michelle doubted she fully understood what he meant.

"When it's you," he repeated without meeting her eyes, "there's no line. No good and bad, just―react." He swallowed thickly and Michelle brushed a soft kiss to his jaw. "It doesn't stop until your heart stops racing or I can blink without it sneaking back up on me."

A seventh sense. She didn't say it out loud, but she had the sinking suspicion that's what Peter was trying to describe. It wasn't black and white like his so-called Peter Tingle, and it was, apparently, uniquely attuned to her.

"It's happened before." It wasn't a question, but he still nodded. "Oh, Peter," she breathed, awkwardly attempting to wrap her arm around his shoulder and pull him closer.

"It's better now," he assured her. He still shifted on the couch and tugged her infinitely closer when she didn't succeed.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," he echoed.

"Good." She pressed a kiss to his face, only partially caring where her lips landed. "We don't have to move, though."

She felt his smile against her neck and her own found its way onto her lips. The couch was lumpier than their bed and it was unlikely either of them would sleep well on it, but Peter was still tangled around her, and yeah, her heart had stopped racing but she hadn't really relaxed yet. Until her back started to ache or Peter got too uncomfortable in his suit, they wouldn't be moving.