Wedding of the Century update

“Yeah. Yeah, sure. Gimme a minute.” He buzzed her up and went to the sink, splashing cold water on his face. Before, that had helped him get to a place where he felt human instead of like a ghost that hadn’t died.

Knock at the door. He realized as he opened it that he hadn’t put on anything, that he was still in the pajama bottoms he’d been sleeping in and nothing else, but Christ, Christ, was he supposed to care about that? Gwen dead and Octavius alive and a movie star on his doorstep. What sense did any of it make? Gwen and him, that had made sense. This was after that. All a cancerous outgrowth of what should’ve been.

She must’ve seen the look on his face—not that she turned around and ran or anything. “You alright, tiger?”

“Yeah. Bad dream, is all.” Peter picked his jacket off the hall tree… like that was something to throw on… and he wrestled into it. “What’s up?”

“I didn’t like where we left things tonight,” Mary Jane said, sidling through the door.

“Oh man. We’re going back and giving the date a failing grade? Dating in 2024 really is bad.”

“The date was fine,” Mary Jane assured him, starting to lay a friendly hand on his chest before she thought better of it. Or maybe thought too better of it? “It’s just…” She waved her hands around, like she was feeling for a metaphor, before doing a little pirouette, ending in her leaning against the wall, facing him. “You let me off the hook too easy.”

“Too easy-going. Yes. I get that a lot.”

“No, I’m serious. I behaved really… like a biyatch. And I’m serious about that, I just try not to use gendered insults too readily, I worry about my influence on younger fans.”

Peter nodded. “Sensible.”

“So I wanted to really, really apologize and tell you that I am going to do better and you don’t have to take that from me, I don’t want you to take that from me. I want to be as nice to you as you are to me.”

“Don’t beat yourself up,” Peter sighed. “I accepted your apology, okay? That means it’s done with.”

“Well, I’m not done with it.” Mary Jane reached into her hoodie pocket and took out her check. “Here. This is an anonymous donation…” She bobbed her head a little in recognition of giving an anonymous donation in person. “To your school. It’s not for social media, it’s not for my brand. It’s just…”

Peter read the check. “It’s fifty thousand dollars.”

“Well, yes, yes.” Mary Jane pursed her lips. “That’s a very good way of thinking about it.”

Peter took the check casually, as if at any moment, she might snatch it back. “Well, we get so much funding from the government already, but this is great, now we can afford that European field trip.”

Mary Jane looked into his eyes, an audience waiting for a punchline.

“I’m kidding, this is all going to school lunches and textbooks.”

She greatly dignified that joke with a laugh.

“Let me go, ah, build a crude fortress to protect this…” He walked a few steps, trying to think where he put his valuables. He’d never really had any valuables to put someplace.

Just a… framed picture of Gwen. Not too many of those left in the world. And thinking about using it as a paperweight for Mary Jane’s gift made him feel queasy.

He had to sit down.

“You sure you’re alright?” Mary Jane asked. “I have a doctor, on call…”

“No, no. I think this just happens when you have pizza and coke on an empty stomach and you’ve turned thirty.” He sat down heavily.

“Yeah.” Mary Jane’s eyes raked between his unzipped jacket. “You clearly should have pizza and coke more often. Build up a tolerance.”

“I’m not gonna be a, a biyatch and turn down money for kids because of my ego, but you really don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“Peter…”

“No, I’m serious here.” He stood up, animated, breathing. “It’s part of your job to be popular, right? People pay you because you’re popular, they hire you for that. And you hire people, your stylists, your bodyguard, your… pet masseuse…”

He tittered. Then a graven calm descended over him. Gwen’s photograph. Fifty thousand dollars in his hand. Him alive and Octavius alive and Gwen dead, when he’d given his life to her. How could he still be alive when he’d promised to stay with her until the end?

“You have obligations to them!” he pressed on, jabbing a finger at Mary Jane. “Responsibilities… you have to think of them before you think of what you want, no matter how much you might want something. You have to do right by them… right?”

“That’s it exactly,” Mary Jane agreed. “Why don’t you sit back down? I’ll get you something to drink.”

Peter sat back down. She went to his kitchen. She was so beautiful and she was alive and he was alive… Gwen was dead. Was she at peace? In Heaven? Waiting for him or wanting him to move on… he didn’t know. What had he ever known?

He’d thought they would be together forever.

Something seized him. Mary Jane. He’d heard a blitz of water coming out of the tap, then nothing. She should be back by now.

He ran to the other room.

Gwen. Her photograph. Mary Jane stood in front of it, the glass of water in her hand.

“She was very pretty,” Mary Jane said.

“Yeah.”

“I heard about her.” She waved her hand as if to dispel that sentence. “I didn’t want to, I didn’t pry, someone told me… citizen journalist with a camera in my face, wanting to see what I’d say…”

“Shit,” Peter breathed.

“I didn’t want to hear it… I mean, I want to hear it, I just…” She went to him. Pressed a cool glass of water into his hands. “You don’t have to tell me anything, not right now. I understand this is hard for you. How could it not be? But you’re worth it. And I don’t know how you feel about me, but if you’re taking this chance—you make me feel like I’m worth it.”

“If you don’t know how I feel about you…” Peter shook his head. “You’re worth anything, Mary Jane. Anything at all.”

He could see it in her eyes: that staggered MJ. “Okay. Wow.” A grin teased at her lips. “That’s… thank you.”

Peter looked away. “I’m sorry, that’s dumb. You must have people complimenting you all the time, way better than that.”

“No. Not really. Not with things they mean.”

Peter pushed the heel of his hand into his eye. He was tired. He didn’t feel tired. “A guy in your face with a camera—trying to make some meme out of you. I feel like a scumbag on his behalf.”

“You’re nothing like him, Pete. You care about people, not just your camera. And he didn’t tell me anything. Just that… that she’s gone. I don’t want to know anything you don’t want to tell me.”

Peter nodded. “Her name was Gwen. You would’ve liked her.”

“Gwen’s a pretty name.”

“It is.” Peter cracked his neck. The loosed tension felt like a glacier breaking apart. “You know what I wish? I wish we could go somewhere. Just the two of us. No… groupies, no photographers, just us. Figure out who we are without a bunch of everyone to tell us.”

“My schedule’s clear. I have a honeymoon I should be on. You have any vacation days?”

“I could call in sick.” Then Peter walked away a few steps. “No, no, what is this? What’s this idea? We barely know each other.”

“We may not know each other long, but we know each other well. You know I’m the future of acting, I know you’re a secret agent so secret you might not even be a spy… yeah, yeah, let’s go somewhere.”

“Where?”

Mary Jane puffed her cheeks and blew. “I have standing invitations to half the four-star hotels north of the equator. Pick one. We’ll spend a week eating nothing but room service…”

“Crazy,” was all Peter could say. “Crazy.”

“It’ll be a working vacation. I’ll do a location shoot, show up at a destination wedding, do two scenes in a foreign film… something. C’mon, you’re a teacher, Mr. Curiosity—there must be someplace you’ve always wanted to go, somewhere you just need to see for yourself.”

“Wakanda,” Peter said, though the pit of his stomach collapsed.

Mary Jane reared back. “Wakanda? Isn’t that a dictatorship?”

“The media says so; I don’t know if I believe them. I mean,” Peter gestured at her.

Mary Jane conceded the point. “Okay, maybe CNN is full of crap. It happens. But haven’t they themselves said they hate white people? And I don’t want to make any assumptions about what’s in your coffee, but Mary Jane Watson is a white woman.”

“So is Peter Parker. Ancestors came over on the Mayflower. But you’ve said how many offers you get. Check with your agent. If they want you to come over and film a commercial, they can’t hate you too bad.”

Mary Jane stared at him, surprised and impressed. “You really wanna go there? Heart of the lion’s den to check if there really are lions?”

Peter spread his hands. “Maybe you’ve been right about me all along. I could use some more excitement in my life.”

“Okay. I’ll call Murray. We’ll check it out. And if they have so much as a walk-on role for a soap opera, I’ll be there.”

“We’ll be there,” Peter said.

Mary Jane glanced at him. Glanced at the picture of Gwen. “Okay. I gotta go. I did not mean to get this worked up. I’m pumped, this is cathartic, I’m not making a spectacle of myself.”

“You’re not,” Peter assured her.

Mary Jane started for the door, Peter following at a distance to see her out. “I might have some happy tears later. I could be going on my period. I’m going to watch a Pixar movie. Forget I said some of that, your choice what, I’m still a big believer in boundaries and I cannot talk this much about feelings and see that many of your abs and it’s this early in the relationship—I’m gonna call my mom. I’m gonna tell her we talked about having kids and you didn’t scream at all. I don’t know what I’m saying. Bye!”

She shut the door behind her.

Peter sat down on the floor.

He was a heel. He was in love. Most of all, he was in motion. Was Octavius alive? In Wakanda?

He’d find out if it killed him.

Whatever he felt for Mary Jane, it couldn’t stand in the way of making Gwen’s death right. He owed her that much. And once he’d settled that debt, then he could make it up to MJ. He’d spend the rest of his life treating her like a princess to make up for this one thing, this original sin of his.

Octavius had to die.

Mary Jane wanted to be in his world? The only world of his that made sense without Gwen was one where Octavius was dead too.

Peter laid flat on his back. He fell asleep right there on the floor. Wherever he went, his dreams couldn’t reach him.