Ending At Beginnings Chapter 2

The weird, sickeningly sweet feel of being in constant motion, going from the equivalent of the fiftieth floor to the first in less time than it took to press an elevator button—wrenching yourself around on weblines like you were doing hairpin turns in a 100 mph car that was your body—the flex of raw power as you punched Doctor Octopus in the face and sent him flying…

Mary Jane squeezed Peter’s arm, bringing him back to earth, literally. He wasn’t up there, wearing red and blue and swinging so gracefully he might as well have been flying. He was on the sidewalk, walking with her wrapped around his arm, leaning on his tall frame.

Easy mistake to make.

“Spaced out?” Mary Jane asked. 

“Maybe.”

“Thinking about ‘Spider-Man’?”

“Yup.”

“Black Cat there?” Mary Jane asked mischievously, her eyebrows wagging.

“Nope.”

“Good,” she said, and butted her head against his shoulder. 

Jeans hugged her trim legs and supple hips, while her stomach was bare, a belly shirt embracing her chest and arms almost as tightly as Peter could, covering her in some not gingham pattern that was cute, but practically a slight against the dustily freckled creaminess of her exposed skin.

Things had been… weird between them for a while. Doc Ock and Parker Industries and Mary Jane being Iron Man’s secretary, of all things. But now it just felt nice. However weird things got, there was a magnetism between them that Peter didn’t think would ever go away. And with just a little nudge, they clicked together. Oh, they had to work at it—work really hard at it, sometimes—but as long as they didn’t lose sight of how right it was in moments like this, he didn’t think they could ever be parted. Not again.

Her fingers brushed down the arm she was clinging to, skating over his palm and then linking with his fingers. Mary Jane gave his hand a squeeze. “Spaced out again? Don’t tell me I’m losing my sex appeal.”

“Never. You’re going to be a GMILF.” He rubbed his thumb along the ridge of hers. “I was thinking about us.”

“Uh-oh. Is this the part where you say we can’t be together or I do?”

Peter shook his head. “I’m not overthinking it. I swear. I just thought that maybe we’re meant to be together. No matter how many times we get it wrong, the universe will keep giving us another shot.”

“Because we’re meant to be.” Mary Jane thought about it, seeming rueful a moment, then she grinned as easily as ever. “Not the worst thought in the world. But it’s not just gonna happen, y’know.”

“No?” Peter asked, trying to hide his worry by keeping up his end of the banter. Years of wisecracking while being in fear for his life did not come in too handy.

“No. I wanna make a real effort this time. Not just hook up, not just trust the fates or whatever. I want us both to be all in, no flip-flopping, no matter what weirdness happens.”

Peter stopped walking, his hand in Mary Jane’s pulling her to a stop as well. “In that case, there’s something I should probably tell you…”

That was when Spider-Man showed up.

Most of the New Yorkers, being New Yorkers, didn’t even look up, but you could always count on the fanboys and the tourists to point and shout—a couple screams. He swung overhead, landed on the side of a building to get his bearings, and then the flurry really started. He was wearing a new suit.

It was jet-black, with the spider-emblem big and bold and blood-red on his chest. Its lower four legs went down to extend into a belt, while the upper four legs went up to the shoulders and became the red lines running down his arms and into his gloves. Another emblem was on his back, though its legs didn’t go all Reed Richards.

Having oriented himself to his liking, Spider-Man leapt off the wall and shot out a webline, disappearing around a corner. The disapproving chorus put away their cell phones and other cameras; normal motion mostly resumed, except for the tight little knot of Peter and MJ.

She turned to him. “Please, please tell me that Matt’s costume is at the dry cleaners…”

“Maybe we should sit down.”

“I’ll even take another clone…” she said as Peter led her to a bench nestled tight against the building, out of the way of the flow of traffic and prying eyes.

There, he explained to her everything. Dr. Connors and his research into his condition, with an isotope genome accelerator experiment designed to separate mutagenic DNA from regular human genes. The supervillain heist that’d tried to nab it. And the little, teeny-tiny accident that had happened in the process.

“So you’re…” Mary Jane clapped her hands against Peter’s chest. “You… but there’s also this, just this other you out there that’s got all the spider stuff? Like… like Superman 3?”

“Yeah, it is pretty transporter accident,” Peter admitted. 

Mary Jane’s face contorted to match her boggled mind. “But… how? I realize all my science know-how is secondhand, but… If you take his mask off, does he have a face or did you get all the face?”

Peter felt irrationally offended on behalf of his super half. “He has a face, MJ. At least, I’m pretty sure he has a face. Look, I was going to tell you—literally, I was right about to tell you—“

“I know you were, Pete. For a guy with a secret identity, you’re usually a real open book. But is this why you got back together with me?”

“No, no,” Peter stressed. “But it did seem like really bad timing that three days after we’re back on, I have another crazy superhero thing. I thought I’d, uh—try to reschedule that talk a little…”

“While your double is out there, being Spider-Man 24/7?”

“Not my best plan,” Peter admitted. “I just don’t want to hobble us right out the gate.”

“Hobble us? This feels more like one of us found a genie…”

Peter blinked. “Sorry, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know how I feel about you being Spider-Man. Well, maybe you don’t. I feel… a lot of things. I’m proud of you and I’m scared for you and sometimes you just drive me crazy.” Mary Jane stood, running her hands through her famous hair. “Maybe it’s a monkey paw thing. I don’t want to change you, Peter. I don’t want you to stop being you. But haven’t there been times when you wished you weren’t Spider-Man—that you didn’t even have the option so you wouldn’t feel guilty about quitting?”

Peter winced inwardly. Sometimes, Mary Jane knew him a little too well. “I… I try not to think like that.”

Mary Jane knelt down at his feet, taking his hands. “Look, living with you, I don’t really go in for a status quo. Next month, you might be on the Fantastic Four or turned into a vampire or we could all be robots. I live in this city and I live with you and I try to enjoy the ride as much as I do the downtime. But if you’re cool with this…”

“I don’t know if cool’s the word for it. Accepting might be better.” Peter pulled Mary Jane’s hands up to his lips, kissing them each in turn. “I’ve got to admit, I always have wanted to be in two places at once.”

“Not tonight you won’t,” Mary Jane said, quirking an eyebrow. “The only place you’ll want to be is with me.”

“Why? Are you ordering a pizza?” Peter teased.

“Remember back when I’d been dead a while, and I came back, and we took a break, then we were back on? It was before you were an Avenger.”

Peter remembered. He joined the team, suddenly everyone was punching each other over signing paperwork. Typical Parker luck. “That I can remember. Can’t remember why we broke up…”

Mary Jane smirked. “And I wanted us to be back together back together. You wanted to wait. You wanted it to be special.”

“Ah.” Perhaps not one of his smarter moments, but if he was going to be an idiot, he’d rather be an idiot for love than any other reason. “Are you going to pay me back for that?”

Mary Jane shook her head. “Oh no. I’m planning to break your dick, man. Just break it.”

***

“You wanna hear something weird? Being back together with you, dealing with your craziness, feels like things getting back to normal for me.” Back inside the apartment, Mary Jane brushed her lips against Peter’s ear and squeezed his hand one last time. “Go get ready for bed. I’ll be by in a minute to tuck you in.”

Peter watched her walk away, considering the trim ass that Mary Jane showed off as she sashayed away, surprisingly voluptuous for such a slender, long-legged woman. And that was in a pair of boot-cut jeans. Sometimes, lucky didn’t seem like nearly enough of a word.

He set the dishwasher going, then brushed his teeth and changed into the boxers and plain white tee that he wore to bed. Lying down on his mattress, he put his hands behind his head and listened to the familiar, perfect sound of Mary Jane rustling about in the walk-in closet. They’d lived together in this particular apartment in a previous, abortive attempt at getting back together. It’d never felt right after she’d moved out. Now, even with just a spare toothbrush in the bathroom and a few of her clothes in the closet—it was home.

“You wanna hear something weird?” Peter echoed, staring up at the ceiling. In the corner, a spider had built its web. “It’s not that I worry you only love me for being Spider-Man—only an idiot could think that, after how many times you’ve patched me up and… But it’s like I only love me for Spider-Man. Like if I’m not making up for Uncle Ben by going on patrols and Avenging, then. Then what good am I?”

Mary Jane’s voice came through the wall. “It’s good not to rest on your laurels, tiger, but you’ve saved the world easily twenty times. Maybe God or Odin or whoever said that’s enough. You’re free and clear. Retire already.”

“I know,” Peter sighed. “It’s ridiculous. And now I am out there, so I am doing my part, more than ever. But maybe even if the city doesn’t need Spider-Man and Spider-Man doesn’t need me—maybe I need Spider-Man. Some fucked up coping mechanism.”

“As coping mechanisms go, it’s a good one,” Mary Jane told him. “But putting on a mask and beating the hell out of the Hobgoblin isn’t the only way to deal with guilt, you know.”

“I know.” Peter squeezed his eyes shut. “Maybe I should volunteer at a soup kitchen.”

“Why not?” she asked, her voice moving through the apartment. “Your Aunt May’s still running FEAST. I bet she’d love to see you helping out.”

“She’s going to think she’s gone senile when I go a week without making excuses and running off somewhere.”

“Or she’ll think I’m keeping you on the straight and narrow.”

Mary Jane came to the door of the bedroom. She wore a pink negligee that covered her like cake frosting, semi-translucent. It must’ve been more opaque in some places than others, because Peter could see every inch of her long legs as she strode to the foot of the bed, but only hints, impressions of her belly, her hips, the ghosts of her nipples through the fabric as it swathed up her chest to become a halter top. By hiding her slender body, the filmy material only accentuated it. Peter’s nostrils flared as she scented the whiff of her perfume, wafting over to him like an extension of the flimsy gown.

“And you’re right. It was never the spider I was interested in. It was always the man.”

Peter gulped. Reaching over the bed to him—and Peter had never been so glad to sleep on a single—Mary Jane grasped his boxers and pulled them down. Freed, his erection sprang up. Any concerns that Spider-Man had taken all the sex appeal in the divorce were dispelled as MJ’s eyes raked it up and down, slightly disbelieving of the sheer size she was confronted with. Then, smiling gratification as she remembered how it always proved just as big as it looked, if not bigger, throbbing inside her, flaring huger and huger until there was no more room unless it made room…

“The more things change,” MJ quipped, “the more they stay the same.”

“I, uh… might not have the staying power you’re used to,” Peter said conscientiously, worried of the disappointment Mary Jane would feel if she went in expecting some Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex action.

“Oh, tiger.” Mary Jane touched the clasp at her neck. The negligee floated to the floor. “It’s adorable you haven’t realized that’s just the effect I have on men.”

Peter unconsciously licked his lips as his eyes followed her narrow waist to her gently swelling hips. Felicia had some incredible knockers, it had to be said, but if Mary Jane ever ran around in a skintight leather catsuit, Peter could only imagine what people would make of her full ass.

“Now,” Mary Jane said, coming up on the bed on all fours. “What is it you’re going to do to welcome me back into your life?”