Bags of Peanuts in Pittsburgh

Their flight back to New York from Pittsburgh had reached a cruising altitude of 35,105 feet, but Peter felt like he hardly needed jet fuel to reach that height. In the airport, right next to the luggage check, Mary Jane had finally agreed to marry him. Thankfully, they had arrived early to their flight like Aunt May had always taught him—if Peter had tried to board in his present condition, he’d’ve worried the TSA would flag him as an explosive. They had celebratory drinks in the sky lounge; obscenely overpriced, but who the hell cared? And then they were onboard the 747, flying back to New York. Flying back home.

Peter was so exuberant it took him a while to notice how quiet Mary Jane was. Not sad, but deep in thought. The kind of thoughts he just knew he was obliged to have bounce off him. He’d just accepted that responsibility. He didn’t intend to shirk it now, or ever.

“Hey, you’re quiet. Quiet-quiet. Everything okay?” He grinned comfortingly at her. “It’s a bit early for regrets.”

Mary Jane flashed her own grin at him, both reassuring him and teasing him for daring to think that, now that her mind was made up, anything could dissuade her. “Couldn’t have less regrets, tiger. I was just thinking. I heard you were a little into that.”

Peter turned on his side as best as the cramped airline seat would allow. Now that he knew this was some kind of… engagement honeymoon, he wished he had sprung for first class tickets. “I’m absolutely into that. Care to lay a few of those thoughts on me? I’m running a little low.” He tapped the side of his head with his knuckles. “See? Nearly hollow.”

Mary Jane giggled. “Guess I’m going to have to get used to sharing my problems with you sooner or later. We’ll start off small—this isn’t even a real problem.”

“Awesome, I’m great at those.”

“I was just thinking that—assuming the offer is still open—I just agreed to share my life with you. And I can’t help but wonder what kind of life that’s going to be.”

“Whatever you want it to be, MJ. I’ll make it happen.”

She let out another chortle. “I don’t doubt it, Mr. Parker. But I was thinking specifics. Now, for instance, I know you can handle yourself in bed, but how are you situated for what comes after that?”

“Cuddling?”

“Children,” Mary Jane said. She had to be trying to be that deadpan—there was no way she could resist. “Do you want to have children?”

Peter had just been thinking that, after all the good karma he’d racked up, it was a shame the universe couldn’t compensate him a little with a free upgrade to first class for the happiest day of his life. But he’d never complain about Fate or the Living Tribunal or whoever was in charge of these things again, because a stewardess-flight-attendant-person showed up then, bags of peanuts and cups of Diet Coke for both of them.

Peter looked out the window to gather his thoughts. He was used to a unique outlook on the ground, but getting a cloud’s perspective on things really made him feel like small potatoes. Or maybe that was just MJ’s question.

Mary Jane patted his hand on the armrest. “Hey, tiger, this isn’t Double Jeopardy. There’s no right or wrong answer. I just want to hear your thoughts. Whenever you happen to have some.” She smiled. “I’m guessing this didn’t come up when you were dating the Black Cat.”

“Hey now, let’s not get into exes. Felicia wasn’t such a bad girl.”

“I’m sure to a guy, she wouldn’t be.” Then Mary Jane’s face froze a little. “Was… was this something you talked about with Gwen? Because I didn’t mean—”

He shook his head quickly. “No, no, nothing like that. We never talked about it. I always assumed it’d be a pretty traditional marriage. Four kids, white picket fence, family dog, she stays home wearing a sundress… I was, what, nineteen? Must seem pretty thoughtless.”

“No, I think she would’ve liked that.”

“And you?” he pressed.

“Not really. But I’m not Felicia either. I want kids, but I also want a career, and I want you to be Spider-Man. And most of all, I don’t want to bring a life into this world if we can’t be the best parents imaginable.”

“Well, you’ve got your half of that equation locked down, pretty lady.”

Mary Jane grinned, but it went only so far up her dimpled cheeks. “Don’t give me too much credit. I only just patched things up with Gayle. I’m still a stranger to her kids. I haven’t worked on family half as much as you have.”

“Still, I think you’d be a great mom. And I want you to be. I’m not going to let Spider-Man—or anything else—keep us from having a full life.”

Mary Jane nodded absently. “Full points for determination, tiger. But how about we run through the other issues?”

“Hit me. I’m sure this is exactly the kind of thing Midtown Debate Club was preparing me for.”

“Okay.” Mary Jane counted off with one finger. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but can we even have kids? That’s the medical question. I could be infertile. You could be infertile. We could need in vitro fertilization or another procedure—that costs money. Then there’s the other thing. You told me once that giving your aunt a blood transfusion nearly killed her. How will a pregnancy pan out? Will the baby be normal or like you or could it have some kind of birth defect that makes its life a living hell?”

“Hold on, hold on a minute.” Peter took both of Mary Jane’s hands. “Those are valid questions, MJ, but we’re not going to figure out the answers to any of them with a Sharper Image catalog and an in-flight movie. We’d need to see doctors, scientists. Until then, we’re just getting ourselves worked up over nothing.”

“You’re right, Pete. Let’s table that for now*. If all else fails, we can always adopt. I know one guy who wasn’t raised by his biological parents and he turned out pretty great.”

Peter blushed. “There’s no way I could be as great a… a dad as Uncle Ben was.”

“I bet he said the exact same thing when you were moving in. But assuming it’s possible, a baby’s a full-time job, full-time responsibility. Peter, I love you, but you can’t rush off to fight the Green Goblin and leave a baby alone. And I… I could see myself being a full-time mom, but not right now. Especially when my career is about the best source of income we have.”

Peter’s ears burned. That stung a little. An hour into their marriage, their engagement, and he was failing at taking care of her. No, you’re not, Parker. She needs to talk this out. That’s how you take care of her. If she just needed money, she’d be married to some batty billionaire already.

“We don’t have to start trying for a kid the moment we drive off with the cans tied to our bumper,” Peter reminded her. “We could wait until we’ve got things locked down. I could graduate college, find work at a lab. I’m sure I could ask Mr. Fantastic or Tony Stark for a job with flexible hours. We could hire a nanny, or buy a house near May or Anna. I’m sure they’d love to pitch in.”

Mary Jane frowned. “I know they would, but I don’t want to have a baby just to foist it off on our aunts.”

“We wouldn’t. This would only be for emergencies.”

“And how do we explain an emergency that needs Peter Parker, lab technician, to dump his baby on his elderly aunt?”

Peter leaned back in his chair. “Ah.” He scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I’ll have to tell her, won’t I?”

“I think that’s what would be fair to her.”

Peter lowered his hands. “I doubt the shock would really… harm her. She’s in good shape these days. But worrying about me, worrying every time I get into a fight… at her age…”

Mary Jane reached out and entwined her arm with his. “I worry about that too. But the way I figure it is… imagine we could tell her, and then give her the option of forgetting the whole thing and going back to blissful ignorance. Don’t you think she would choose to help us… to be part of your life, even this awful, wonderful part… even if it means she doesn’t live to be a hundred?”

Peter pursed his lips, chin wrinkling. He hated the thought, he hated how much sense Mary Jane made. He almost expected to feel a flash of anger towards her for bringing up the possibility of harm to his aunt—all the combustible materials were there—but he couldn’t get mad at her, not over this, not when he knew how pure her intentions were. Whatever irritation he felt dropped into her care and compassion like a lit match falling into the ocean.

“Maybe you’re right. I suppose if it comes to that, we should tell her. But not before. I don’t want her to worry unnecessarily.”

“That’s fair. We could just attach a note to some of the ultrasounds,” Mary Jane nodded. “God, how long have we been talking? I feel like we should’ve hit some turbulence or something by now.”

Peter picked up his Coke and sipped it. “Long enough for this to go flat.”

“Still good enough to wash down the peanuts.”

“You’re very pragmatic for a pretty girl.”

“That’s how I stay pretty.” She tossed him her bag of peanuts. “As long as I’m marrying you, open this for me, would ya, hon?”

It was his pleasure. He handed it back to her. Mary Jane snorted with laughter.

“What? Don’t tell me the way I did that amused you.”

“I was just thinking maybe we should get a pet first. A dog. Or a cat. What is the most baby-adjacent animal there is?”

“I don’t know. In high school, they made us carry around those egg babies—so a bird?”

Mary Jane poured the whole bag into her mouth, then leaned back with her hands behind her head as she chewed. “You know what? Speaking of Aunt May, we should talk to her about this. She always seemed to have the perfect marriage—maybe she can give us a cheat sheet.”

“Do we really need that?” Peter asked. “After all we’ve been through, you think there’s anything we can’t make work?”

“Oh hell yeah, we’re a power couple. We can power through anything. But I’m betting we can make the ‘powering through stuff’ thing much easier if we get some advice. I know you’d walk barefoot through Hell for me, tiger, but admit it, a little forewarning would be nice.”

“You’re actually misremembering some,” Peter replied. “I actually said I would walk through Hell in flip-flops for you. Big difference. I would look much less masculine. All the demons would make fun of me.”

“I’d tell them all it was the height of fashion in Milan. Who would you believe, me or Beelzebub?”

Peter gulped some Coke down to go with his peanuts. It wasn’t very refreshing, but at least it was sweet. “I’ve got some forewarning for you. This baby—when do we tell it the truth? What do we tell it?”

“I’m guessing we’re in agreement that we can’t have a preschooler telling the teacher that her daddy’s Spider-Man?”

“I would be pretty embarrassed if Doc Ock found out my home address because of that.”

“Let me turn this around on you,” Mary Jane said, primly wrapping her hands in her lap with her seriousness. “How long are you going to be Spider-Man?”

Peter blinked. “I… I never thought about it. I tend to bounce between forever and retiring right now.”

“Much as I would like it if you kept those boyish good looks forever, tiger, your body is going to give out someday. I’m assuming you’ll actually call it quits and not try to fight the Lizard with some hover-walker Mr. Fantastic made for you.”

“No, but that does sound really cool.”

“So it could be that the kid’s in high school, you’ve been retired for years—we tell him or her, and it’s a non-issue. They don’t have to worry about you because you’re not swinging off to fight anyone anymore.”

Peter grinned at the idea. Surviving to old age. Retiring. Spending the rest of his life with MJ. The ring on MJ’s finger was still absorbing her body heat, transforming from cold metal into an honest-to-God engagement ring, and already she was giving him a future.

“You bring a goodly amount of realpolitik to your honesty.”

Mary Jane shrugged. “I’m a girl. It’s what we do. Course, speaking of realpolitik—there’s the elephant in the room.”

Peter nodded glumly. There was the flipside—Mary Jane keeping him grounded when he wanted to soar up into the sky until he ran out of air. It wasn’t a bad thing. But it felt like pulling a tooth. A pained, rotting tooth. “Say it.”

“You have enemies. If one of them found out the truth about you—I can agree to the risks, Peter, but a child…”

“I’ve been thinking about that myself. A lot, actually. Wondering how the hell I can even ask you to take that risk. Forgive me if I sound confident, because I have as many doubts here as the day is long, but I had to psych myself up this much just to show my face to you… The way I figure it is this: if we wanted to be absolutely safe, what would we be doing living in New York? The place has so many supervillains. So many. All of them, the terrorists, the criminals, the maniacs, they want to take away our happiness, for one reason or another. But if we live in fear, we’re giving our happiness away to them. I can’t promise you a safe life. I can’t promise you a happy life. All I can say is I want to be there with you for every second of it. I guess that’s what a marriage is.”

Mary Jane smiled. Not the glamour smile. The real smile. The smile as perfect as she was. “No wonder you managed to convince yourself. I’m convinced. And not to ruin the moment, but take it from my ovaries—I definitely want kids.”

“Well, in lieu of getting a bird, we could at least practice.”

“Still a long way to New York, tiger. They don’t even want us to fasten our seatbelts yet.”

“The bathroom’s not occupied. And if anyone deserves to be a member of the Mile-High Club, it’s Mary Jane Watson.”

“Mary Jane Watson-Parker,” MJ corrected. “You’d better get used to it if you’re expecting me to do my wifely duties already.”

“Nah, I’ll do all the work. It’s pretty cramped in there. Not a good environment to try new things.”

Mary Jane huffed a sigh. “If we do have kids, I’m telling you right now, they’re inheriting my sense of humor.”