Five Issues In Search of an Arc update

Why the hell had she done that? Why’d she picked a fight with Peter for no real reason? Just because he was being a bit smug and a bit sure of himself and a bit (like her father).

Maybe because, Mary Jane thought as she lay in bed at night with her window soundly closed and the curtains drawn, he was smug and he was sure of himself and she could yell at him all she wanted, bully him, insult him, and he’d never hurt her.

Oh, he might throw her words back in her face, look at her like she was a silly little girl playing in the mud, but his hand would never be a fist and the way he argued would never be screaming obscenities in her face and he’d forgive her, always. Maybe. Even if she was a terrible person. Even if she deserved…

She could see the foolishness of it now. She shouldn’t have provoked him, poking and prodding, just because he was too mature, too good, to take the bait. Because maybe he wasn’t that good. Maybe he was more smart than good, and if she jabbed him with a sharp stick, Peter wasn’t going to forgive her just because he wasn’t slapping her in the face. He’d cut her out of his life as neatly as she’d come into it and she’d have no one to blame but herself for him turning into a closed window again.

God, it’d been so good having that window open. Stressful and frustrating and taking up so much mental real estate that she wondered what she’d been doing all that time before she befriended him, when she’d had a life and just nothing to obsess over. Had she just been sitting down and staring at a wall with all the time she’d had?

She’d certainly been able to sleep, unlike now.

But who cared about sleep when she’d had this thing, this thing that was only hers and oh, God, what if he died? What if he died without even the little comfort of having her in his corner, knowing that she’d go to his grave and miss him, her damned idiot who kept picking fights with bank robbers and gunmen?

Mary Jane hated being tied to him like that, or at least there was an old resolve in her to hate it. This power he had to make her care about him. But that was old business, she cared, it would ruin her day, her week, her life if he got shot, que sera, sera.

She cared. End of story. And she could get over whatever deep-seated flaw had made her pick at him like a scab, tried to make him prove he would lash out if she pushed him far enough (just like anyone, just like all the rest).

The window sash squeaked. Peter cursed under his breath.

Mary Jane rose to her feet and went to open her curtains. She knew that when a guy needed to apologize to a girl he got her flowers, chocolates, but what did a girl get for a guy she was sorry to? Other than sex?

Then she saw the way Peter was moving. She actually maybe saw more of Spider-Man than of Peter. It wasn’t like she stared at Peter, but anytime Spider-Man was on the news, of course she watched it. And he was on the news a lot, in bright blue and red, moving so fluidly, so gracefully, but with such power behind his acrobatics that it seemed impossible.

Which it was, of course. Not that this stopped it from being real.

Now, though, Peter moved like an old man, like a drunk man, (like him) and Mary Jane had to tell herself to shut up. What did it matter how she felt or why she felt that way when Peter was hurt?

“Peter? Oh my God, what happened to you?” MJ said, wondering if she wasn't flattering herself, grasping for importance, making it all about her because if it was her fault, at least she mattered.

His voice was usually so light, so flip. He grunted his words out now, hurt and she didn't know how much of that was her. “I proved you right, that’s all.”

“Okay,” MJ said, deciding she'd agree with whatever he said until she knew he wasn't going to bleed out. Cowardly when she was afraid a guy would hit her. Something else when he was the one with bruises, he was the one who got hurt, and she just… she didn't know what she did.

Tried to keep him from having an ego. Like that mattered. Like anything she did mattered, this was so stupid, he couldn't have gotten beat up because she'd made fun of him!

Shut up, she told herself. Fix him. You can argue with him after.

Only he wasn't her father and she didn't kowtow to him and somehow he'd gotten to be someone she defended, even when the bullshit she fought was his.

Over in his room, the first aid kit open, she attacked his shallow cuts with butterfly bandages.

Peter kept going like it was a bleed too big to bandage. “I’m not an Avenger or one of the Fantastic Four. I’m not even an X-Man. I’m just a cheater, that’s what I am.”

“Yeah, that's how you got the crap beat out of you. Just minding your own business, not caring about anyone else, doing nothing to make the world a better place…”

“You think you're being sarcastic, but you're right.”

“Go on, I love hearing how I'm right.”

“I wasn't risking my life, doing something noble… no. No way. I was bulletproof, fighting guys with BB guns. Bullying them because they were small and weak and I had an excuse.”

“Excuse? They're criminals. They threaten people's lives.”

“I didn't care. I'm telling you, I didn't care. I don't have some inner hero. I never dreamed of being a cop or a fireman. I got a cheat code and it gave me this power, so I used it. This is me after a fair fight.”

Mary Jane put a hand on his chin. She made him look her in the eye. If she could take it, so could he.

“You lost a fight, tiger. That’s all. Arms up.” She pulled at his costume until she got him out of the top half of it. Bruises darkened and purpled the musculature she was used to seeing a cheery blue and red. “You might need to take a karate class. I don't know what you're doing now. Superpowered hair pulling?”

Peter coughed a laugh. “You know what I thought? What I kept thinking, every minute of it? ‘This isn't fun anymore.’ I thought I was doing good. I was just having fun…”

One blow or another had ripped open a gash along his chest. God, how many times had he gotten hit? How much had it hurt?

“And you're such a horrible person that you enjoy helping people.”

“I was punching people in the face…”

“Oh my God!” MJ could've pulled her hair out if she weren't too busy cleaning Peter's wounds. “Do you think it would matter to me one bit, if you saved me, why you were doing it? I have met selfish, awful men. They don't ask whether they're doing the right thing or not.“

“It takes more to be a good man than just asking if you are.”

“And it doesn't take being perfect. You’re out there every day, risking your life. That’s more than I’ve ever done. This will need stitches.”

With needle and thread, Mary Jane started pulling it back together.

Peter's expression flickered as the needle went in and out. MJ tried to ignore it. She didn't know how she'd ever managed to be mean to him without hating herself. “I have superpowers. You’d do the same if a spider had bit you.”

He really thought that. He thought he was such a piece of shit that she was as good as him. “I don’t know if I would. It’s like… telling yourself you’d run into a burning building if you heard someone screaming for help. We all like to think we’d do it. You actually do.”

Peter grabbed her hand. Stopped her from healing him. “No, no, I don’t. That’s why Uncle Ben is dead. I let him die, MJ.”

Mary Jane shook her head. There was no way. He was being too hard on himself. She was so stupid, she'd opened these floodgates, she'd wanted this… something wrong with him being good to himself, cocky, she was so fucked up she couldn't stand to see someone be as happy as she pretended to be.

Peter pressed in on her. He forced the truth into a mind she'd made up. Didn't he see how good it was to pretend nothing was wrong? “I could’ve stopped the guy who murdered him and I let him run right by me.” 

MJ went back to sewing him up. “You're going looking for reasons to hate yourself…”

“I knew, I knew he was a criminal, he robbed this wrestling promoter who screwed me over, and all I could think was that it served him right.”

“I would've done the same thing, anyone would've done the same thing.”

“MJ, stop! They didn’t, they don’t have what I have. All the power anyone could've asked for and I couldn't be good with all that. And I let the guy get away, the guy who killed my uncle, so I’m responsible. Whatever else I’m responsible for, I’m responsible for that too.”

Weren’t they a pair? Her with her dream world she liked to live in, him with his nightmare. And neither of them in reality. Was it really so bad that they each needed their own way to avoid it?

Well, if he wanted to think she was some kind of saint, he couldn’t call her on her hypocrisy. “And the people you help, that's an accident? You're not responsible for that?”

“Who cares about that? My uncle's dead.”

Peter wasn’t engaging, wasn’t arguing. He looked into the shadows of his darkened room like he could see things a million miles away. The past, maybe. They were young but they had so much past.

MJ pulled the thread through for the last time and tied it off. “I had a father who wanted me to punish myself for everything I did wrong. Your uncle was a good man. So why are you acting like he was my dad?”

“Because I miss him. And someone should pay for that.” Peter sighed. “You don't have to patch me up anymore. Bruises won't kill me.”

Mary Jane took a deep breath. “You think everyone is a good person except for you. You look in the mirror too much. You're not seeing the rest of the world, even when it's right in front of you.”

His face was rubble. It made Mary Jane think of how handsome he’d been, even with a black eye from fighting the Chameleon. She bet if he just smiled, he could light up the whole room, no matter how many bruises he had. Did he know how happy he could make her, simply by feeling better? “I'm not in the mood for a pep talk. You can't argue what I did into not being what I did.”

Maybe this was how her mom saw her dad. A troubled genius, a beleaguered hero, someone who just needed her understanding to reach his full potential. The thought was poison in Mary Jane’s belly. She wanted to throw it up. But Peter was telling her to go and maybe… maybe, if he was such a good man, she should listen to him. Spare herself the awfulness he was trying to warn her away from him.

“Try and remember, seeing yourself as the only one who doesn't deserve your mercy isn't that different from seeing yourself as the only one who gets it. You're still looking through a telescope, just the other end. It's not how things really are.”

“Maybe I don't care how things are.”

She ran her hand through his hair. It was the only way she could touch him while being sure she wouldn’t cause any pain. “Yeah, well, you're not the only one who gets a say. I think Spider-Man’s a hero. If you want to fight me on that, I've got nothing but time.”

She’d gotten some blood on her hand. It was under her fingernails.