Snip to Chapter 42

The door to the room opens with a hiss and Mary Jane hesitatingly steps in. Gwen looks up at her and Peter can see that for a brief moment the resurrected girl does not recognize her. But after a moment her eyes widen, “Mary Jane?” She whispers in shock.

MJ gives the girl a wobbly smile, “Hey girlfriend.” She says, trying to keep her voice steady, “It’s been a while.”

Gwen’s breath hitches before she starts to cry. MJ immediately rush to her best friend and hug her, crying her eyes out herself.

“It’s okay,” she whispers to Gwen as she holds the girl tightly, “It’s okay. Let it out.”

“Why were you told?” Gwen asks the redhead.

MJ stops short. Unable to come up with an answer for the resurrected blonde.

“It has something to do with Peter, doesn’t it?”

Mary Jane looks at her friend with concern over what she will say next, “Why would you think that?”

Gwen looks down with a despondent look on her face, “That night, up on the bridge, I wasn’t completely unconscious.” She tells her friend, who becomes shocked and frightened by what she’ll say next, “I was awake enough to hear Goblin taunt Spider-Man. And I heard him shout Peter's last name.”

While MJ recoils in shock, it’s nothing compared to what Peter is feeling. At that moment, the whole world stops for him. He just stares through the glass at Gwen in horror. She knows. She died knowing his biggest secret. She died hating…

He bolts out of the room. He feels like he can’t breathe. He needs fresh air. He ignores Sue shouting his name as he heads out.

When he gets outside, he still feels like he’s choking. He is hyperventilating. He tears off his tie and even undoes the top of his shirt, showing his Spider-Man suit underneath, but even that does help him breathe any better.

He gets the railing of the roof and dry heaves.

She knows. She found out at the very end who he was, and worse still, she died hating him. Because until the end, she believed he killed her father.

He finally got his breathing under control.

“Did you know?” He asks Jean.

Jean remains silent for a moment before she answers simply with, “I did.”

He clenches his fist in anger, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“She is coming to terms with being dead for more than a decade, she has yet to be told of her new role as host to the Enigma Force, and her mind is still processing memories of the afterlife. Which is not as simple as most believe. In the grand scheme, her knowing your secret-”

“Stop.” Peter interrupts her through grit teeth, barely controlling his anger at the woman. “Stop right there.”

“You know what Jean? I was told that decisions I made in my personal life affected the whole world. Yet here you are, telling me that these little things aren’t that important!”

“Peter…”

“The world almost caught on fire because of a decision I made! Because of something I did in my personal life!

“Just go.”