Five Issues In Search of an Arc 6

The next time she saw Peter, he brought her boba tea.

“Just so we’re even for the sandwich,” he said, rubbing at a tender spot on his collarbone, which tugged his shirt around and showed her the chest hair underneath his V-neck. “I know girls like boba.”

Mary Jane took the tea, passed from window to window. “Yeah, we all had a vote on it. Why do boys always think girls are one big country or something that all like the same things?”

“If you don’t want it, I’ll take it.”

Mary Jane protectively sheltered the tea from him. “I like boba tea. It’s like tea with little bits of wet moss you can eat.”

“I’ve always wanted to eat wet moss. Never had the courage.”

She sat on a rocking chair that had found its way to the corner by the window, where she could sit and still see Peter. “So what’s new with you?”

Peter flopped down on the bed. If he put his feet up on the pillows, he could see Mary Jane enjoy her boba tea.

He told her about his internship with Doctor Cobbwell and how he had thwarted the alien invasion of the Terrible Tinkerer. Peter was very pleased with the internship and slightly less excited about all the little green men he’d met. (“They had antennae!”)

Mary Jane waited until she finished her boba to comment. “You must be doing well in your creative writing class.”

“Oh, come on, I could never write about the things Spider-Man has done, that would give me away so fast. Wait—”

“Waiting,” MJ chirped, poking at a boba ball with her straw.

“You don’t think I made this up, do you?”

“No, no, internship with Dr. Cobbwell, I totally buy it.”

“And the Tinkerer?”

“The Terrible Tinkerer?” Mary Jane prodded.

“He called himself that!”

Mary Jane dropped her boba in the trash and while she was up, she got a bottled water she’d never gotten around to opening and tossed it to Peter. He was so good at catching things. She imagined being an angry housewife, throwing pots and pans at him because he’d gotten home late for dinner, and Peter neatly plucking them all out of the air the way he did that Aquafina.

Then she thought of the time her father had thrown a pencil holder at her mother for interrupting him while he was trying to work and it hadn’t hit but she’d looked so scared—

“Hydrate,” she forced out, like an actress who’d frozen on stage and just remembered her line. “I don’t know about your school, but mine’s always telling me to drink more water.”

Peter played with the bottle, having an easy time peeling the plastic wrapper off of it. Had he noticed anything wrong during her pause? That she wasn’t part of the tribe, people with normal moms and dads and happy lives?

He wasn’t always the most observant person, being a boy, but he had to know what a nice, normal girl was like. At least enough to know, if he spent enough time with Mary Jane, that she wasn’t one at all.

“I don’t see why aliens are so hard to believe. You have that iron guy protecting Tony Stark, the Hulk going on rampages up and down the country. And the Fantastic Four, what haven’t they done?” Finally, Peter worked the cap off and took a drink.

“Hire you?” Mary Jane suggested sweetly.

Some water went down the wrong tube. Peter coughed, then shot a betrayed look at MJ. She giggled and all was forgiven.

“Have you ever read a history book?”

“Only about WW2 and the Roman Empire,” Mary Jane shot back, because she might as well practice playing the perfect woman in case she ever met Johnny Storm.

Peter shot a sidelong glance at her before looking up at the ceiling, the glow-in-the-dark stars that weren’t really visible this time of day. “WW2, yeah. That’s supposed to be normal, but if you dig a bit, there is so much that was declassified and no one ever talks about it! Captain America, the Submariner, all of the Invaders, and there was plenty of Nazi weirdness too. Vampires, giant robots, aliens—” he concluded with a pointed look at Mary Jane.

“Oh, I completely accept that Captain America could run into aliens. He was Captain America. But you’re… you know… you.”

“Yeah. The Amazing Spider-Man,” Peter said without irony, which had to be one of his superpowers.

Mary Jane snorted into a giggle.

“Whaat?” Peter demanded.

“I thought it was the Spectacular Spider-Man.”

“I was workshopping it when… you know.”

That was the most they ever talked about Ben Parker.

She held up her hands in surrender. “Okay. You’re amazing. Or spectacular. Whichever you want. But you’re not the kind of guy who runs into aliens. That’s more a Fantastic Four thing. You’re more… the Chameleon.”

“What’s wrong with the Chameleon? He nearly killed me! He tried to steal missile defense plans!”

“I know. I know. Missile defense plans.” He’d told her about that too, sans boba. “But Doctor Doom, right? He has the robots and the armor and everything. Remember when we had to leave school early because he launched the entire Baxter Building into space? That’s something! What can the Chameleon do? Shoot me? Anyone can shoot me. So he shoots me while looking like Jeff Goldblum. Is that supposed to impress me?”

Peter drank his water. “They can’t all be Doctor Doom. Who I could beat, by the way.”

“You couldn’t beat Doctor Doom,” Mary Jane argued reflexively. “He fights the entire FF!”

Peter sat up, relishing Mary Jane’s ire. “I pretty much beat the entire FF myself, so Doom would be a cinch. There’s four of them; they trip each other up. Me, I’m a one-man Fantastic Four. I’m smart as Reed, I’m tough as Ben, I’m good-looking as Sue…”

“That’s three,” Mary Jane reminded him, ‘helpfully.’

“And I can carry a lighter. There, that’s all four. In fact, you know what it is?” Peter jabbed a finger at her. “You’re falling for an informal fallacy.”

“An informal fallacy,” Mary Jane repeated.

“Yeah. I’m awesome, I have an easy time with the Chameleon, so you think he’s a piker. Meanwhile, the FF—they’re okay—buuuut…”

“You don’t like the FF now?” she asked, brow knitted.

“They’re fine. Pretty average, though, I think. With Iron Man showing up and have you heard about this new Daredevil guy in Hell’s Kitchen? I think they’re near the top of the scale. The FF are going to end up around the middle.”

“They’re mid, you might say.”

“Yes. You could say that. They have a hard time with Doom, from some Third World country no one’s ever heard of, and everyone thinks he’s a big deal. If I ever fight him, he’ll get sorted out pretty fast.” Peter puffed out his chest. “It’ll be embarrassing for the old FF, but what can you do? I can’t prolong a fight just to make them look good.”

“Because of the collateral damage.”

“Right you are. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s great that the FF were first on the scene, but they’re like the Hydrox cookie. No one cares once the Oreo shows up.”

“I’m going to look up at that reference later,” Mary Jane said, “but don’t you think it’s maybe a little cool how the FF saved us all from the Mole Man and Namor…?”

“Oh, the Mole Man impresses her.” Peter rolled his eyes. “I bet the Chameleon could take the Mole Man.”

Mary Jane faced him. “You know, I never thought I’d say this about you, since you do wear spandex under most of your outfits—”

Peter huffed.

“But you’re ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous? I’m epic. I saved the Space Shuttle, I trounced the Vulture, and yes, I did foil an alien invasion. The only problem left with this superhero thing is how boring it’s gotten. All I do is web up jagoffs in ski masks. There’s no challenge anymore. I bet if I fought Chameleon again, I could get him down with one hand tied behind my back!”

“Yeah, I think so too,” Mary Jane snapped.

Peter smiled callously at her. “Of course, I could see how you’d be jealous of someone who’s gotten it all figured out.”

“You haven’t figured out anything,” Mary Jane shot right back. “And you’re not as hot as Sue Storm.”

Peter raised an eyebrow. “Ooh, good comeback. Let’s do this again real soon.”

“Yeah, beep me as soon as you get your head out of your ass.”

Peter closed his window.

She closed hers.

‘Not as hot as Sue Storm’. Maybe she shouldn’t have cut Debate class.