Summary: Michelle is exhausted, okay? All she wants to do is go home and sleep until Peter gets back from patrol. When she arrives home, though, there's already someone in their bedroom and the living room window is open.

aka, Michelle Jones and Her Arsenal of Kitchen Supply Weaponry vs the Robber in Her Bedroom

Michelle was exhausted. She'd worked late the past few evenings and although she loved Pepper and her job at Stark Industries, it was exhausting. This week had been particularly so. On both Tuesday and Wednesday, she ended up falling asleep in her office with Pepper, only to wake up and find herself in the Stark's penthouse guest room, Peter sleeping soundly beside her and his Spider-Man suit thrown haphazardly on the floor. Thursday, she managed to make it home before midnight and without falling asleep on the bus.

As Friday finally drew to an end, Pepper had promised not to contact her for anything work related and sent her out the Tower doors just after eight o'clock. It was still later than she usually worked, but it was better than staying past midnight or sleeping in the Stark's penthouse, so Michelle counted it as a win.

Unfortunately, leaving Midtown Manhattan at 8PM meant that she didn't arrive at her and Peter's apartment in Queens until nearly an hour later.

They'd toyed with the idea of moving closer―even considered Stark's offer of an entire floor in the Tower. In the end, though, Peter hadn't wanted to leave Queens and it was too far for Spider-Man to travel to and from the Tower every night.

As she stepped through the door to their apartment, she bit back a curse. Peter had left the window open and although it was April, Michelle was cold.

She dropped her bag by the door, kicked off her shoes, and crossed the apartment to close the window. Knowing Peter would be climbing back inside within a couple of hours, she left it unlocked before going into the kitchen to make herself some tea.

As she crossed into the kitchen, however, a sound from their bedroom made her pause.

It was only 9PM. Peter should still have been out on patrol, but she was certain that she'd heard someone in their bedroom.

She reached for her phone.

If Peter was home early, then he probably needed medical attention. On the off chance that it was not Peter in their room, though, she didn't want to have her phone out of reach.

She pressed on Peter's contact as she took a step towards their bedroom, letting it ring as she cautiously made her way through the small apartment.

Peter picked up on the second ring, just as she reached for the bedroom door handle.

"MJ! Hi!" he exclaimed. When his voice didn't echo on the other side of the door, Michelle froze. "What's up?"

"There's someone here," she whispered. Her hand dropped away from the bedroom door and she took a silent step backward. "Someone's―Peter, there's someone in our bedroom."

Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but the bedroom door was cracked and she didn't dare speak any louder. As silently as she could, she backed away from the door until she was in the bathroom. She closed the door and left the light off.

"Fu―Shi―The apartment?" Peter stumbled through another curse. "I'm―Shit, MJ, I'm five minutes away."

"That's―That's fine." She hoped it was, anyway. "I'm in the bathroom. I don't think they heard me."

"Good." Peter's breathing was heavy over the line as he said, "I'm coming, okay? Just stay there. I'm coming."

Outside the bathroom, Michelle heard their bedroom door pull open and heavy footsteps pass outside the bathroom. She held her breath and prayed they wouldn't notice the door had been closed. In her ear, Peter began to panic.

"MJ? Em, are you okay? Talk to me!"

She didn't. Beneath the closed door, she could make out a shadow. While she was unsure if the person was facing her or not, she was certain that they had stopped in front of the bathroom.

When the microwave dinged, announcing to both her and the intruder that her tea was fully heated, she knew she'd been caught.

The bathroom door flew open and Michelle shouted into her phone.

The man in front of her lunged forward and Michelle only managed to dodge him by dropping to the floor. She crawled as fast as she could out of the door, listening to him crash into the toilet and bring their curtain rod down with him. She left her phone behind.

Peter was five minutes away and the man in her bathroom was recovering quickly, but Michelle was always prepared. She may no longer keep a bat by the door (her boyfriend was Spider-Man, she hadn't thought it would still be necessary, okay?), she wasn't left completely weaponless.

The man came rushing out of the bathroom, forehead bleeding and a slew of profanities falling from his lips just as Michelle pulled her tea mug from the microwave.

When she'd gone to make her tea, her favorite mug hadn't been washed that morning and had still been sitting in the sink, so she'd had to grab a different mug from the cupboard to make her tea with. At the time, it had been annoying. Now, though, she had what she considered the perfect weapon.

She threw the mug at the man's face, boiling water and all, and he shrieked. The ceramic mug shattered, but Michelle didn't stop to watch as shards buried themselves in his cheeks and further scraped up his forehead. She just reached for the next nearest thing.

Later, Michelle would realize that she probably didn't need to throw the dirty bread pan and a barrage of dirty forks at the man, but in the moment, it made sense.

As the man howled, she hit him with fork after dirty fork before reaching for the heavy bottomed bread pan and slamming it down over his head. He crumpled to the floor and Michelle stared at him with wide eyes. She didn't even register Peter scrambling through the window until he was standing in front of her.

"Are you okay?" He dragged her into his arms without waiting for a response. "Are you hurt? What happened?"

"I'm okay, Peter," she assured him, staring with wide eyes over his shoulder.

"You're shaking," he said worriedly, pulling back to take her hands in his.

She was, but she hadn't realized it until Peter mentioned it. Her heart hammered in her chest and she was sure that Peter could hear the blood rushing in her ears just as well as she could.

"Oh." She tried to make the shaking stop, but was unsuccessful. "I'm okay, though," she promised.

"Are you sure?" Peter ripped off his mask to stare at her with wide, worried eyes. "I'll call Tony. We can stay in the Tower and Cho can look you over for any injuries and―"

"No, no," she interrupted with a shake of her head. "I'm not hurt at all. A little shocked, but unharmed."

His eyes flitted over her for several seconds and Michelle allowed it, waiting until he had reassured himself that she really was okay. Only then did he take his eyes off of her to look at the unconscious man on their apartment floor.

He snorted.

"Did you―use the dirty dishes as weapons?" he asked, not quite laughing.

"Not all of us have superhuman strength, Peter," she said, rolling her eyes. "I had to make do."

"I mean―" Peter broke off to chuckle― "I guess it worked. Man, MJ." He left her side to squat down next to the burglar and laughed again. "You really did a number on him with those dirty forks."

"I panicked!" she exclaimed. Peter laughed harder. "He was coming at me and I grabbed the nearest sharp thing."

"The bread pan?" Peter laughed as he gathered up the forks and shards from her mug, putting everything in the bread pan.

"Don't laugh," she grumbled. She didn't bend down to help him. "I took down a burglar faster than Spider-Man ever has."

Peter's grin was infectious and as he got to his feet, dirty bread pan, forks, and broken glass in hand, she couldn't help the small smile that crossed her face as well.

"I guess Spider-Man could use some lessons, then," he teased. He set the bread pan aside and drew Michelle back into his arms. "Maybe he should replace his web shooters with forks."

"Shut up." Michelle rolled her eyes, but when Peter leaned forward to kiss her, she didn't push him away. The moment was interrupted, however, when the man on the floor groaned and began to move.

Without breaking away, Peter webbed his face to the ground and Michelle laughed.

"You should take care of that, Spider-Man," she told him, gently pushing him back as the man began to protest louder.

"Yeah." Peter glanced down at him. "Be back in a minute."

Tugging his mask back into place, Peter hauled the man up from the floor and carried him over to the reopened window. With webbing still over his face, the man's grunts and protests were too muffled to understand.

While Peter jumped from the window to go web up the burglar somewhere for the cops to find, Michelle grabbed a broom to sweep up the remaining shards of glass from the floor. She'd just dumped them in the trash bin when Peter came crawling back through their window, a grin on his face but a desperation in the way he held her that told her he wouldn't be going back out on patrol tonight.

"You don't have to stay with me," she told him, tracing her fingers over the worried lines on his face. "I'm okay now."

"Now," he echoed. Michelle gave him a look. "Em, you know as well as I do that if I go back out, I'll lose my mind."

"You really don't need to worry about me as much as you do," she murmured. His hand on her waist was steady, but his grip was tight and she could all but hear the thoughts running through his head.

"I know." Peter pressed a kiss to her temple. "I'm not gonna go back out, though."

She could have argued more, told him that she'd be perfectly fine and that Queens needed him more right now than she did, but she didn't. She was exhausted and all she wanted was to spend the evening cuddling with her boyfriend, so she didn't try to convince him to leave and instead, pulled him with her into the kitchen so she could remake her tea.

Queens would be fine for the night.