Ending At Beginnings update

Peter punched his code into the lock, twisted the handle, and swung the door to the safe open. He wasn’t very opinionated about gun control, especially for someone who got shot at most days of the week—a trace of self-awareness, he thought, since his feeling was that if so much as Rocket Racer came after Mary Jane, he wanted her to be able to defend herself. With a bazooka, if necessary.

Of course, the problem with that was that, liberal doctrine to the contrary, it wasn’t that easy to get a gun. Especially not in New York City. Especially not on a budget. Maybe I should ask the Punisher for one next time I’m trying to stop him from killing some criminals, Peter thought. Not that he would be stopping Frank from doing anything in the foreseeable future.

At any rate, Peter opened up the gun safe, which did double duty as a regular safe, with a mixture of go-bag and mementos he and MJ wouldn’t want to see damaged by a pumpkin bomb. Vacation photos and a Glock 17. Story of my life.

He set the canister of symbiote inside, made sure it was stable, then closed the safe. He spun the dial to a random number for good measure. That would do for now. He’d loop back around to it after this Gwen thing was resolved.

Then he felt it. His cock was growing again, pushing out against his pants as urges whirled inside him. A kaleidoscope of sexual thoughts overwhelmed his mind—Felicia, MJ, Gwen, every woman he’d ever desired or found attractive, every skimpy costume, every bad girl, every masturbatory fantasy, even the moms of kids from school, teachers he’d nursed a crush on. The urges seethed inside him… projected down his pantleg in a clear outline. 

Peter hobbled for the bathroom, trying his best not to set off the ultrasensitive third leg he was suddenly sporting. A cold shower, that was what he needed. He’d already ravaged Mary Jane like the cover of a romance novel—once more and she’d think he was becoming a sex maniac. Maybe he was. Some kind of withdrawal syndrome from radioactive blood. Maybe he should actually talk to someone about why he was having wet dreams while wide awake.

But hell, he hated asking for help to cover rent money. Now he was supposed to ask Reed Richards or Tony Stark about his boner? Maybe he could talk to Hank Pym… that guy clearly didn’t have room to talk. 

Thoughts of Hank transitioned into thoughts of the Wasp. They’d never really gotten along, but then, he and Felicia weren’t soulmates either. And if Pym particles had a way of magnifying flaws, they could showcase a lack of them too. If there wasn’t a trace of dry skin on Jan when she was fifty feet tall, how soft would she be when she was only five foot six?

Peter threw open the door to the bathroom and surprised Gwen just as she was coming out, her beautiful face gasping at the shock. And all he needed to see was those pert lips forming a round little O of intrigue.

“Oh, Peter,” she said in her breathy little voice. “Three people, one bathroom. Guess this is what they mean by two’s company, three’s a crowd.”

All Peter needed was to think about how much he, MJ, and Gwen were sharing at the moment. “Life’s full of challenges—!”

He moved to slip past her as she moved to get out of his way. They nearly collided. Gwen backed away, only seeming to occupy the doorway further. Peter was tempted to jump up and crawl across the ceiling, but that wasn’t an option anymore.

“Sorry,” Gwen said, looking him over to see how best to get by him. It was a reflex action, but it showed her the baseball bat he was smuggling in his pants. Her eyes widened. “Geez, Peter. Geez louise.”

“Yeah,” Peter muttered disgruntledly. He tried to step by Gwen, but she was motionless, and there was only so close he wanted to get to her at the moment. Even the smell of her perfume was driving him crazy. It was so thrillingly different from Mary Jane’s—for once, the girl next door seemed exotic.

“MJ’s a very lucky woman.”

“I try to make her one,” Peter said before realizing the innuendo. “I mean—look, could you move?”

Gwen moved a half-inch to the left. Even as svelte as she was, that didn’t help. “Need a hand?”

“What?” Peter asked, now frozen himself.

Gwen moved back a half-inch, firmly blocking his way, with her hands on her hips to totally span the doorway. “Would you like me to help you out with that?”

“With… what?” Peter asked numbly, not quite believing that even sweet, innocent Gwen could possibly be unaware of what she was implying.

“What do you think?” Gwen asked, glowing like she was just talking about feeding the homeless or something. “That fat cock of yours, Peter Parker.”

“Whoa,” Peter muttered. As wrong as it was, hearing her say that was… a lot. And the Whos down in Whoville say the Grinch’s balls grew three sizes that day…

Gwen leaned against the doorframe, and seemed to loom over him as she did it. Or at least, his prick. Her eyes glancing down to make certain it was still there, with a keen interest that felt like a caress… “I know MJ has dibs, so to speak, but I’m pretty sure you just wore her out with that fuckfest on the couch. So if you’re still horny, I could help. It’s the least I could do after how you’ve given me a place to crash.”

Stunned as he was, Peter instinctively shook his head. He felt like he was betraying MJ just hearing this. “Mary Jane wouldn’t like that,” he said, though from Gwen’s smile, that felt like another betrayal. Putting it all on Mary Jane, like if it weren’t for her, he would love to fuck Gwen until she couldn’t walk right.

Well, maybe he would. As sick and wrong as it was, fucking some time travel clone alternate universe doppelganger just because she looked like an old flame, a flame he’d never actually had, a flame who’d cheated on him with Norman fucking Osborn… yeah, that was complicated enough for him. As if her being some perfect halfway mark between blonde bombshell and girl next door weren’t reason enough…

And now Gwen actually put her hand on his chest, which didn’t sound like much, but felt like it should’ve been on Page 1 of the Kama Sutra. “I get it. Mary Jane’s the lady of the house. Your main squeeze. You two are endgame.” But then her eyes sidled down to his cock again. “How about just a blowjob? If she still wants to be the only one who gets your seed, that’s fine, you can just use my throat to lighten the load. You do that on this Earth, right?”

“Depends what clubs you go to,” Peter said. Marshalling all his self-control, he reached out, clasped hold of Gwen’s shoulders, and slid her out of the way. Then he raced right by her and slammed the door behind him. And even that he felt a bit guilty about.

“No offense, thank you for the offer, but I really only need one throat at the moment,” Peter said through the door. “Come back during flu season.”

He stampeded past the door to the bedroom and turned the shower on, cold as it got. Then, unthinkingly, he sat down on the toilet to wait for the water to heat up. 

Gwen fucking Stacy. ‘This Earth.’ What in the actual hell? Gwen Stacy had just made Felicia Hardy look like a Girl Scout. What gave? Was her native universe really such an orgy?

Well, no reason it couldn’t be. Maybe there, the Sexual Revolution had never ended, or AIDS had never been a thing. Who knew? Sexuality was certainly convoluted and contradictory enough in this world that it stood to reason other universes could have an entirely different, maybe even saner approach to hiding the salami. But still, that was weird. And it seemed to him that in a non-negligible amount of cases, weird sex stuff went hand in hand with evil. Felicia was a bit kinky; she stole shit. Mystique was a nymphomaniac; she palled around with every mutant terrorist in the phone book. 

That was just the girl villains. He really didn’t want to think about what Venom was into. And while Peter wasn’t Captain America or anything, the worst he was into was a little afterhours use of webbing. Not even calling MJ a whore or spanking her. Ten Shades of Gray, tops. 

Reed Richards. That was who Peter needed. He had experience with all this multiverse crap. He’d be able to tell Peter if this Gwen was just a little uninhibited or if he had to worry about a full-on Basic Instinct thing.

Irony of ironies, he’d been so put off by Gwen’s offer to have sex that he hadn’t thought about sex again until he imagined Gwen, all Sharon Stoned up, wearing no underwear. He stood up and almost ran into Mary Jane. This had to be what a heart attack felt like.

“Jeezus!” he cried.

Mary Jane backed up to give him space, closing the door to the bedroom. “Sorry, tiger. I heard the shower running but no off-key singing—wanted to know why you were wasting water.”

“I wasn’t—I’m not—just need a shower.”

“A cold shower?” MJ glanced downward. Normally, Peter wouldn’t be self-conscious about the love of his life spying his man-reaction, but given that Gwen’d had a hand in it—so to speak—he might as well have been sporting a woody in front of a nun. “Why not a hot one?”

“Hot one?”

Mary Jane pushed past him, going to the shower and twisting the dial to the other way. The water instantly warmed, soaking the room with a sweltering mist.

“I need a shower too, Peter. Remember, you just fucked my brains out? So, since we both need a shower, how about we start saving water right now?”

“I… yeah. Yeah!” As discombobulating as the Gwen weirdness was, Peter wasn’t about to let that ruin the prospect of another round with MJ. Even he wasn’t that neurotic.

Mary Jane grinned, smug about how lustful he was and excited at the prospect of sex herself. She started to undress. “Alright then. There’s just one little thing you need to know.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Mary Jane pulled her shirt off. Her bra was pure paradise. Peter stared at it until his erection felt like it would tear right through his pants. “I’m not taking my birth control anymore.”

And this must’ve been what those famous car battery electrodes felt like on a set of testicles. If Peter’s erection got any more confused, it would develop a complex. “What? When—when did this happen?”

“Today,” Mary Jane said. “Don’t worry, we still have a little more ‘coverage’. This isn’t like one of your comic books, where if Aquaman spends exactly one hour away from water, he immediately dies. But I thought you should know sooner rather than later.”

“Later?” Peter asked, now watching MJ wind her pants down her long, lean legs. She had no right to look that good while messing him up so badly. She should be wearing hijab for a conversation like this…

“I mean, c’mon Peter. We’re in love. We agreed to make a real go of this. And like we said, no status quo. That means no waiting around for some perfect, unquestionable set of circumstances that’ll never happen. We’ve been fooling around like newlyweds anyway; you can’t keep your hands off me and I haven’t minded one bit. So why don’t we let happen what’s supposed to happen when two people love each other and can’t stop loving each other?”

She undid her bra. Peter groaned. Christ, the boobs… “Wait, what about… what about… what about everything? What if I get my powers back and you’re dating Spider-Man again?”

“I’ll live with it,” MJ said. “I’ve done it before. Hell, I’ll be better at it this time. Now I know I can’t live without you.”

Peter’s brain was running low on blood. Even his neurosis could only conjure up one niggling question. “Is this because I lost my powers? Because you think if you get pregnant now, it’ll be… safe?”

Mary Jane paused as she ran her panties down her legs and if Peter thought the eroticism of the moment could eclipse the solemnness of the discussion, the look she gave him now proved him wrong. It was dead serious. 

“We went over that last time. Getting pregnant by you isn’t any more dangerous than any other pregnancy. And maybe the kid will inherit your powers and maybe he won’t. Maybe it’s still in your blood and maybe it isn’t. I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m getting older and I can either commit to this relationship, this family, which I know is right, or I can keep pretending there’s an escape hatch. There isn’t. I don’t want one. I’m all in.”

“I don’t want one either, MJ. I’ve never wanted one. But this feels… spur of the moment.”

Mary Jane stepped out of her panties. Totally bare, the steam from the shower swirled around her naked body. The temptation of her nudity trickled back into the conversation. “It’s not. And it isn’t like I’m exactly trying to get pregnant. I’m just… open to the possibility. If there’s a plan or a design or a destiny, I’m not standing in its way. But if you’re not comfortable with this, wear a condom. Hell, I only stopped taking the pill today. It probably won’t make any difference. All I’m telling you is that this is what feels right to me. You do what feels right to you. I don’t want you to go along with this just because it’s what I want. We owe our kid better than that.” Then she grinned weakly. “But you really could use a shower.”

A. Risk it.

B. Play it safe.