Wedding of the Century update

Peter took her outside the city, to a stadium like an island on a sea of parking lot. Only the closest spaces were taken up by cars, but Peter still parked on the outskirts of the lot. Across the sparsely busy street was a motley collection of food stands. Peter ignored them, moving up a hill and then down a long path, leading her to a cinderblock restaurant overlooking the outfield of the baseball diamond. 

Mary Jane sat on one of the patio tables that could've come off someone's lawn. “I was a Michelin chef when I was cooking for you, just so you know.”

The cook was outside, smoking a cigarette. Peter whistled at him and jerked his head at the restaurant. The cook went inside with his cigarette behind his ear.

“You good with just pepperoni?”

“I'm not going to admit to liking pineapple pizza on a first date.”

Peter ordered for them. They got two huge slices on paper plates and a cup of soda fountain Coke big enough to drown a rat in.

MJ started to sit down, but Peter instead led her down the hillside. They sat down on the grass looking out at the field, not the equivalent of the nosebleeds, but far enough away that the sounds of the announcers and Top 40 snippets and mascot games were fluffy and muted. The only noise sharp enough to really make its way to them was the crack of the bat. 

“You like baseball?”

Peter shrugged. “I'm not a big sports guy, but my uncle used to take me. I like remembering him.”

MJ took a bite of her pizza. Grease never tasted so good. “You really like the Alien movies or is that just a general nerd thing?”

“I saw Covenant. That's how much I like the Xenomorph. You?”

“Sigourney Weaver. I'm an actress. I'm kinda obliged to be into that shit. And I think it's cool the way they have a second mouth for no reason. They could just bite people, but no, gotta be a dick about it. Literally.”

“How'd you like Romulus?”

“Well, I'm old school. I think the only place for the series to go is Alien homeworld or Aliens on Earth. So another space station and another kooky new Alien action figure.” Mary Jane pouted a little. “It's fine, but like, why couldn't it be a Dark Horse comic? Albeit a good Dark Horse comic.”

“Same. I was bored a bit by the girl.”

“You didn't like Rain?”

“I liked her fine, but she's the sixth Ripley wannabe. It's getting old.”

MJ cut off her drink of cola early. “What about the synth?”

“The synth was the synth. Cool idea, but that's another guy, that's not her.”

“Good performance though.”

“I loved the performance. She had decent chemistry with him. But if Andy dies, what does she have?”

“A good death scene! It's not a Marvel movie. I don't care if she can carry five sequels.”

“I'm just tired of one woman in a tanktop after another. They need to do something interesting instead of just the new Ripley. They had Charlize Theron in Prometheus, amoral corporate executive with daddy issues, and what'd she do? Sleep with Idris Elba?”

“Hey, don't knock that, it's a helluva accomplishment.”

Some of the Coke Peter was drinking went up his nose. When he recovered: “I'm saying they sidelined her so they could do Ripley again. It's soul crushing.”

“You didn't like Shaw?”

“I don't think there was much to feel about one way or another.”

“Let me hit you with a quick question. When Covenant came out, were you disappointed they killed her off?”

Peter bobbed a shoulder. “I suppose.”

“If you wanted to see more of her, she must've been a success as a character.”

Peter set his chin off to the side. “I'll concede the point.”

She patted his hand. “You lost, but you looked good doing it.”

“I'm an Alien fan, I've been used to losing since Alien 3.” He noticed all that was left of Mary Jane’s pizza was a snatch of crust. “Hey, you want another slice?”

“Oh no, I'm already going to have to skip my next cheat day for this. Tell me, what are your thoughts on the Predator?”

“I think in Prey, he probably should've known how his own weapons worked.”

“Hey, you know how many people accidentally shoot themselves here on Earth?”

***

They got back late, when the night had become one of those strange quiet, peaceful stillnesses that even New York had to allow now and then. It reminded Mary Jane of how soft the baseball game had been when watched from a distance. Like it wasn't a competition at all, but some dreamy motion partaken when someone was young and fit and the night was too cool and windy to make anyone feel they couldn't run forever.

“I had a nice time, even without getting any coupons for free chicken wings.”

“I was forced to reappraise Alien: Resurrection, which was painful, but I'll live.” And Peter affected a limp for a few steps.

“And I filled up on Diet Coke, but I'll also live. In fact, I could stand a little coffee, if it's free trade.”

They stopped at his stoop.

“You're a hard woman to please.”

“Worth it, though.”

“That goes without saying.”

MJ shrugged. She could stand to hear it said. “I could use a mint. And not to make you feel obligated at all, but I also need to pee.”

“You can pee in my apartment anytime, but the thing is…” Peter screwed up his lips as if what he needed to say should stay inside his mouth a little longer. “Look, it’s very flattering to have a woman like you interested in me—”

“A woman like me?” she asked leadingly 

“You know… beautiful, talented, influential, smart, wealthy… But I—”

“Wait, keep going with a woman like me. You were on a real hot streak.”

Peter grinned. “Yeah, well, you're easy to praise. And any guy… I know that if I weren't in my shoes, I'd be wishing I was in my shoes. So this isn't because I don't want to. It's just… this is a big story… there was a girl. It was a long time ago now, but it was intense. And it's over now… it took a lot out of me. I think I'm putting it past me now, the way you can only when you're actually going into something else instead of away from something. But I don't want to be with you until I'm sure I'm all with you.”

Mary Jane's expression curdled, but then she was nodding and smiling at him. It was bittersweet. She seemed surprised, if not hurt, and Peter put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her.

She leaned into the touch, grasping his arm at the elbow. “Hey. I just wanted to see your cool refurbished apartment again. But I don't need to pee that bad. And if I do need some stress relief, you can always give me a massage.”

“Anytime.”

“Good. Because I'm planning on having a kink in my neck on Wednesday.”

She kissed him goodnight. It didn't burn like the last one, but there was a sweetness, an appreciation for his presence that had nothing to do with how he could satisfy her.

“Don't forget about my kink,” she whispered to him before she'd wholly moved away.

***

At her apartment, Mary Jane peed and had a mocaccino and sat with the still-awake stragglers on her team who had a desire to dish and a desire to post that was woven together like a rope.

She told them about the pizza and how Peter thought the Alien Queen ‘demythologized’ the Alien but accepted it reluctantly because it was done with such ‘elan’ (this was a word that MJ had supplied).

Devonn curated a whole fancam thing to post out of all the fake cooking and gift-giving and Peter with the new tie that he’d never really worn because it’d never really been him. Mary Jane told him not to post it, even if it was set to a song by her close personal friend Leighton Meester. Instead, she flipped through all the photos that had been taken over the evening, seeing them less than feeling those moments with Peter.

She couldn’t even talk about them. The look in his eyes when the batter hit a homerun and he tracked the ball going up up up until it was over the floodlights and the stars wouldn’t let it come back down. Like he was connected, then, to all the other watchers in the stands and the player rounding the bases and Mary Jane had wanted to be connected to him and he’d looked at her, to share a smile, and she had been.

She stopped swiping at the tablet. There was a picture there of her with a shy smile on her lips—like she didn’t want to give away that she was smiling, she was happy, it was a dumb little moment of fun and she wanted to look cool for a boy but she couldn’t.

She remembered warmly. It was when she’d said something about Five Guys and Peter had said he couldn’t work there, it’d be Six Guys. So dumb. So perfect.

Mary Jane tapped the photo, selecting it, added the caption “I had a good time,” and sent it out onto the cloud.

“That’s all,” she said. “Don’t post anything else, just that. That’s the picture. That’s what I did tonight. I’m going to get a smoothie.”

She threw on a coat, her bodyguard falling in behind her. “I thought you were on a diet.”

“It’s my cheat day.”

Downstairs she peace-signed the photographers camping in the bushes, crossed the street, and went into the corner store. When the reporter approached her, she thought it was a fan at first. They all seemed to be hybridizing. Fans wanting a piece of her, reporters wanting a part of her fandom fueling their own careers. Like one of those deep-sea ecologies that formed up around dead whales. Peter had talked about that.

“You go on a date tonight? Peter Parker, right?”

Mary Jane flexed her fingers in case she had to autograph something. She waited in line, feeling her bodyguard’s presence behind her like a gun in a holster. “Yeah. We hung out.”

“Guess you’re not just friends now.”

“We’re still friends now.”

She tried not to look at the man, not to give him his face imprinted in her mind. They all wanted that. They wanted everything they could get. She’d give them interaction, she’d be polite, but this wasn’t a meet-and-greet. She didn’t owe anyone smiles and handshakes.

“He having a hard time getting over his loss? He must not be, not with a girl like you there for him… I wouldn’t, wouldn’t…” He sputtered like an actor reaching for a line that hadn’t been written.

Mary Jane scratched the corner of her eye to keep her fingers between him and her. “What loss?”

“He didn’t tell you? He should’ve told you. He was going to get married once. It was in all the papers. Well, the papers I found. She died, though. She died. It was very sad. Didn’t he tell you? I thought he would’ve told you. Does he not like talking about it? I wouldn’t like—well, I would, I would if it was with you…”

Mary Jane glanced at her bodyguard. He stepped in. Gave the fan/reporter/stalker a little nice and lot of nasty behind the nice. She was up at the counter, but she didn’t get her smoothie. She turned and walked back across the street and if a car had hit her, she didn’t think she would’ve noticed.