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seriousficTitle: It’s The Fight That Counts
Fandom: Spider-Man comics
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,942
Characters/Pairings: Peter/MJ, Felicia Hardy, a number of surprise guests
Summary: Mary-Jane just found the perfect birthday present for Peter. The only problem is, Felicia did too.
Mary-Jane was this close to giving up. Aunt May had had no idea what Peter wanted for his birthday, and neither had Tony or Steve. She knew he would insist on Avengers Tower not making a big deal out of it, but she wanted to do something special.
It wasn’t like she took him for granted the rest of the year, but they did argue sometimes, and he spent a lot of time doing his job and she spent a lot of time doing hers (and how messed up was it that her job paid better… paid at all?), and hell, birthdays should be special. Every year since his seventeenth had been a year spent saving people, fighting evil, doing good without a thought of reward. There should be one day when he got a reward.
Mary-Jane walked through the mall, hoping that she’d stumble over the perfect gift. Heck, someone could throw it full-force into her forehead as long as it made him happy. And wasn’t a plasma TV.
She already had a romantic evening and an even more romantic night planned, but she had her doubts that the Parker luck would let poor Pete enjoy either. So she needed a gift from the heart, something that could take a day, a year, a lifetime’s worth of love and boil it down into the opening of some wrapping paper.
She looked in a shopfront. It had big metal maquettes of Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and the Fantastic Four, each about a foot high. Mary-Jane stepped inside. The shop was surprisingly large and well-lit, specializing in superheroes. Unsurprisingly, the X-Men and Spider-Man didn’t have much of a presence, although Emma Frost got a shocking amount of official merchandise. Skank.
“Excuse me,” she said to the cashier when he looked up from the guy he was chatting with. “Do you have any Spider-Man stuff?”
“Oh yeah.” He pointed. “Check in the back, second shelf from the bottom.”
Mary-Jane looked. It was a part of the store that didn’t get much foot traffic, nor was it designed to. She went past a box of Dazzler posters to see Spider-Man’s shelfspace. It was… tiny. Speedball had more of a selection. Speedball!
She looked at the merchandise. Trading cards, action figures, some arachnid-themed candy. And there, at the end of the shelf, a kind of art deco Spider-Man statue, two feet tall, made of bronze like a trophy, with rivets and gears and holy crap, it was like someone had made a Spider-Man-themed Transformer out of steampunk technology. Peter would love it. Mary-Jane reached for it.
So did Felicia Hardy.
They eyed each other. Felicia was wearing leather pants and a biker jacket over a red halter. Mary-Jane was wearing jeans and a black tee and a wedding ring. Oh, this was not going to end well.
Mary-Jane smiled, even if she didn’t go to the effort of making it look the least bit sincere. “Felicia. What a pleasant surprise.”
“Yeah, funny meeting you here. Hey, when’s Peter’s birthday again?”
“Next week.”
“Next week, whoa. You’d better start looking for a gift.” Felicia grabbed the statue—
—at the same time Mary-Jane did. “I saw it first.”
“I touched it first.”
“You did not!”
“Well, I’m prettier.” Felicia pulled on it. “Let go!”
“Felicia, come on. We’re both adults here. Let’s discuss this rationally.”
They let go of the statue at the same time, taking a step back from the shelf. Mary-Jane took a deep breath and Felicia fixed her hair.
Then Felicia stepped forward and gave Mary-Jane a shove. “Back off, soccer-mom-in-training.”
“Or what? You’ll cold-cock me?”
Felicia examined her nails nonchalantly. “I know how to. Just saying.”
Mary-Jane smiled. “I’m sure Peter would love you decking his wife.”
“Well, if he got to watch…”
“Listen, I’m married to him. If I give this to him, it’ll be a shining testament to our love.” (Felicia snorted.) “What will it accomplish if you give it to him?”
“Wellllll…” Felicia tapped her chin. “It will piss you off, and he’ll probably be imagining me while he’s having sex with you. Not bad for a day’s work. Besides, I saw it first.”
“Liar!”
“Don’t call me a liar, Mary-Plain!” And Felicia shoved her again.
“Hey, I was a supermodel, bitch.” Mary-Jane shoved her back.
***
The cashier looked over at the D-list/anti-hero section of the store. “Umm, ladies…”
“No,” his customer said. “Let them work it out.”
***
“Look,” Felicia said, in an infuriating I’m trying to be reasonable voice. “You’re married to him. You don’t need to get him anything. You can just let me have this and then you can, I don’t know, give him a blowjob if it won’t smear your K-mart store brand lip gloss.”
“I love him and I want to demonstrate how much I love him, as a man and not just as some crazy preteen Edward Cullen fantasy, like some people I could mention.”
“You did not just compare my feelings for Spider to Twilight, hooker.” Felicia’s hands were squeezed into fists of barely clenched fury.
“His name is Peter. As in ‘Mrs. Peter Parker’? As in me? Now let’s watch me buy Peter a birthday present, and you stand there looking stupid and kinda skanky.” Mary-Jane turned to the shelf to see that the statue had disappeared.
“Do you offer store wrapping?” Johnny Storm asked at the counter. “I suck at wrapping.”
“No,” MJ moaned.
“He didn’t,” Felicia muttered.
They stampeded over to him as Johnny hefted the statue in a bag.
“Oh, hey gals. You’re never going to believe what I found Peter for his birthday.”
“Uh, Johnny…” Mary-Jane gave him a cover-of-Vogue smile. “You’re never going to believe this…”
Johnny leaned forward, entranced in a vaguely guilty sort of way. “Try me, hot stuff. I mean, uh, Mrs. Parker.”
“Well, I saw that statue and I was going to get it for Peter, so maybe I could just pay you whatever it’s worth and then you could get something else for Peter?” Mary-Jane bit her lip in a heartbreaking fashion. “Please?”
“Hmmm…” Johnny hmmed, already starting to hand the bag over.
Felicia stepped in the way. “Johnny, right? I’m Felicia, hi. I think Mary-Jane here is misremembering things a bit.” Felicia ‘casually’ worked her way out of her leather jacket as she talked. She had on a very small halter-top underneath, and Johnny seemed determined to memorize it. “You see, I saw the statue first and, since I had spent my last twenty on the children’s charity outside…”
“That was nice of you,” Johnny said, barely managing not to drool.
“Why, thank you,” Felicia practically moaned, laying a hand on Johnny’s chest and keeping it there. “Oh, you’ve been keeping up your gym routine. Anyway, I went to get some money from the ATM so I could buy this statue for my good friend Peter, but when I came back Mary-Jane was here.” Felicia leaned against Johnny, staring daggers at Mary-Jane. “I tried to explain the situation to her, but no sooner had she agreed that I should have the statue when you came in and… well, you know. Maybe it’s fate. How about we go get something to drink? You can give me the statue and we can talk about what else you can get Peter… and what I can get you.”
Johnny blinked. “Oh. Uh. That’d be nice.”
“It really would,” Felicia purred, putting Mary-Jane’s arms in an outraged cross.
The redhead cleared her throat.
Johnny looked up at her, snapping out of it. As much as Johnny Storm could ever snap out of ‘it’, anyway. “Oh, you’re still here. Well, Mary-Jane, I do appreciate your counter-offer, but I couldn’t do that to Peter…”
Mary-Jane was not amused. “Give me the statue or I’ll tell him who hacked Avengers Tower to give Aunt May top clearance.”
Johnny laughed. “Ha, that was awesome! Everyone was like ‘Miss Parker, we need to get into the quinjet hanger to fight Zemo’ and she was all…” His face fell. “Hey, it’s not like anyone got hurt. Well, not anyone we like.”
Mary-Jane held her hand out.
“Sorry, kitty,” Johnny said, beginning to hand the bag over.
“But, Johnny!” Felicia ran a finger over Johnny’s lips. “What about… us?”
“You can’t control everyone through their groins,” Mary-Jane said smugly.
Felicia made a little ‘hmm’ sound of consideration, then kicked Johnny in the groin, grabbed the bag, and ran.
“Thief!” Johnny called out in a very helium-y voice.
***
Felicia ran like hell, laughing up a storm at her successful plan. It was elegant in its simplicity. Mary-Jane would never catch up to her and there wasn’t a mall-cop in America that could stop the Black Cat. Oh yeah. Peter was really going to enjoy his birthday present. And maybe the thoughtful feline who’d gotten it for him.
Then she bumped headlong into a man.
“Hey, watch where you’re—“ She broke off, noticing the long leather duster, the guns, the white skull on his T-shirt. The Punisher gave her a very, very unsympathetic look. “Hi.”
“Shop-lifting,” the Punisher said gruffly. “Not good, miss. Not good at all.”
Suddenly, Felicia felt the bag being taken off of her. “Thank you for your help,” Mary-Jane said, smiling beatifically. “I’ll just go return this to the proper owner.” She practically skipped away.
“No hard feelings, right?” Felicia said to the Punisher, trying to laugh it off.
“Everybody gets one.” The Punisher held up a finger. “One.”
“Oh, good.” Felicia sighed in relief. “So, are you doing anything this weekend?”
“Punishing the guilty.”
“Well… have fun with that.”
***
Mary-Jane smiled to herself. Peter’s party was going off without a hitch. After a very fun time with Daily Bugle employees and civilian friends at Piscary’s, he and Mary-Jane had retired to Avengers Tower for a more private celebration with friends that those in Peter Parker’s social circle couldn’t know he’d made. Matt Murdock had given him a samurai sword, which had nonplussed Peter, but was cool enough for him to appreciate it. Johnny had gotten Peter a new spider-suit made out of the latest in unstable molecules, mentioning repeatedly that “we’re best friends, even though sometimes we do things that bother each other… things that could compromise national security, even… best friends!”
And now it was time for Peter to open Mary-Jane’s present, since she obviously couldn’t give him something spidery at the civilian party. It was perfect. There were no emergencies, Logan was still sleeping it off outside a bar somewhere, and Aunt May and Jarvis were holding hands in that adorable old-person way of theirs.
“Don’t you want to see what I got you?” Felicia asked, slowly sauntering in, wearing nothing more obvious than a trenchcoat.
Mary-Jane felt like slapping her forehead. She was sure Felicia’s invitation had been lost in the shredder.
“Well, it’s not for you, really.” Felicia put an arm around Mary-Jane’s shoulders. “It’s for MJ here, but I’m sure you’ll appreciate it, seeing as how it’s lingerie. It’s still on back-order, since the manufacturers don’t have it in MJ’s size, but I’m a cup size bigger, so if you want to know what it looks like, I can always show you. Let me tell you, it’s very comfortable.” Felicia opened up her coat a little, offering Peter a damnably tantalizing glimpse. “Do you think she’ll like it?”
Mary-Jane gritted her teeth. “Fuck it,” she said, just before charging Felicia like a bull seeing red. She didn’t realize Felicia was standing in front of the birthday cake until it was far, far too late.
“Best birthday party ever!” Johnny cheered.
Fandom: Spider-Man comics
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,942
Characters/Pairings: Peter/MJ, Felicia Hardy, a number of surprise guests
Summary: Mary-Jane just found the perfect birthday present for Peter. The only problem is, Felicia did too.
Mary-Jane was this close to giving up. Aunt May had had no idea what Peter wanted for his birthday, and neither had Tony or Steve. She knew he would insist on Avengers Tower not making a big deal out of it, but she wanted to do something special.
It wasn’t like she took him for granted the rest of the year, but they did argue sometimes, and he spent a lot of time doing his job and she spent a lot of time doing hers (and how messed up was it that her job paid better… paid at all?), and hell, birthdays should be special. Every year since his seventeenth had been a year spent saving people, fighting evil, doing good without a thought of reward. There should be one day when he got a reward.
Mary-Jane walked through the mall, hoping that she’d stumble over the perfect gift. Heck, someone could throw it full-force into her forehead as long as it made him happy. And wasn’t a plasma TV.
She already had a romantic evening and an even more romantic night planned, but she had her doubts that the Parker luck would let poor Pete enjoy either. So she needed a gift from the heart, something that could take a day, a year, a lifetime’s worth of love and boil it down into the opening of some wrapping paper.
She looked in a shopfront. It had big metal maquettes of Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and the Fantastic Four, each about a foot high. Mary-Jane stepped inside. The shop was surprisingly large and well-lit, specializing in superheroes. Unsurprisingly, the X-Men and Spider-Man didn’t have much of a presence, although Emma Frost got a shocking amount of official merchandise. Skank.
“Excuse me,” she said to the cashier when he looked up from the guy he was chatting with. “Do you have any Spider-Man stuff?”
“Oh yeah.” He pointed. “Check in the back, second shelf from the bottom.”
Mary-Jane looked. It was a part of the store that didn’t get much foot traffic, nor was it designed to. She went past a box of Dazzler posters to see Spider-Man’s shelfspace. It was… tiny. Speedball had more of a selection. Speedball!
She looked at the merchandise. Trading cards, action figures, some arachnid-themed candy. And there, at the end of the shelf, a kind of art deco Spider-Man statue, two feet tall, made of bronze like a trophy, with rivets and gears and holy crap, it was like someone had made a Spider-Man-themed Transformer out of steampunk technology. Peter would love it. Mary-Jane reached for it.
So did Felicia Hardy.
They eyed each other. Felicia was wearing leather pants and a biker jacket over a red halter. Mary-Jane was wearing jeans and a black tee and a wedding ring. Oh, this was not going to end well.
Mary-Jane smiled, even if she didn’t go to the effort of making it look the least bit sincere. “Felicia. What a pleasant surprise.”
“Yeah, funny meeting you here. Hey, when’s Peter’s birthday again?”
“Next week.”
“Next week, whoa. You’d better start looking for a gift.” Felicia grabbed the statue—
—at the same time Mary-Jane did. “I saw it first.”
“I touched it first.”
“You did not!”
“Well, I’m prettier.” Felicia pulled on it. “Let go!”
“Felicia, come on. We’re both adults here. Let’s discuss this rationally.”
They let go of the statue at the same time, taking a step back from the shelf. Mary-Jane took a deep breath and Felicia fixed her hair.
Then Felicia stepped forward and gave Mary-Jane a shove. “Back off, soccer-mom-in-training.”
“Or what? You’ll cold-cock me?”
Felicia examined her nails nonchalantly. “I know how to. Just saying.”
Mary-Jane smiled. “I’m sure Peter would love you decking his wife.”
“Well, if he got to watch…”
“Listen, I’m married to him. If I give this to him, it’ll be a shining testament to our love.” (Felicia snorted.) “What will it accomplish if you give it to him?”
“Wellllll…” Felicia tapped her chin. “It will piss you off, and he’ll probably be imagining me while he’s having sex with you. Not bad for a day’s work. Besides, I saw it first.”
“Liar!”
“Don’t call me a liar, Mary-Plain!” And Felicia shoved her again.
“Hey, I was a supermodel, bitch.” Mary-Jane shoved her back.
***
The cashier looked over at the D-list/anti-hero section of the store. “Umm, ladies…”
“No,” his customer said. “Let them work it out.”
***
“Look,” Felicia said, in an infuriating I’m trying to be reasonable voice. “You’re married to him. You don’t need to get him anything. You can just let me have this and then you can, I don’t know, give him a blowjob if it won’t smear your K-mart store brand lip gloss.”
“I love him and I want to demonstrate how much I love him, as a man and not just as some crazy preteen Edward Cullen fantasy, like some people I could mention.”
“You did not just compare my feelings for Spider to Twilight, hooker.” Felicia’s hands were squeezed into fists of barely clenched fury.
“His name is Peter. As in ‘Mrs. Peter Parker’? As in me? Now let’s watch me buy Peter a birthday present, and you stand there looking stupid and kinda skanky.” Mary-Jane turned to the shelf to see that the statue had disappeared.
“Do you offer store wrapping?” Johnny Storm asked at the counter. “I suck at wrapping.”
“No,” MJ moaned.
“He didn’t,” Felicia muttered.
They stampeded over to him as Johnny hefted the statue in a bag.
“Oh, hey gals. You’re never going to believe what I found Peter for his birthday.”
“Uh, Johnny…” Mary-Jane gave him a cover-of-Vogue smile. “You’re never going to believe this…”
Johnny leaned forward, entranced in a vaguely guilty sort of way. “Try me, hot stuff. I mean, uh, Mrs. Parker.”
“Well, I saw that statue and I was going to get it for Peter, so maybe I could just pay you whatever it’s worth and then you could get something else for Peter?” Mary-Jane bit her lip in a heartbreaking fashion. “Please?”
“Hmmm…” Johnny hmmed, already starting to hand the bag over.
Felicia stepped in the way. “Johnny, right? I’m Felicia, hi. I think Mary-Jane here is misremembering things a bit.” Felicia ‘casually’ worked her way out of her leather jacket as she talked. She had on a very small halter-top underneath, and Johnny seemed determined to memorize it. “You see, I saw the statue first and, since I had spent my last twenty on the children’s charity outside…”
“That was nice of you,” Johnny said, barely managing not to drool.
“Why, thank you,” Felicia practically moaned, laying a hand on Johnny’s chest and keeping it there. “Oh, you’ve been keeping up your gym routine. Anyway, I went to get some money from the ATM so I could buy this statue for my good friend Peter, but when I came back Mary-Jane was here.” Felicia leaned against Johnny, staring daggers at Mary-Jane. “I tried to explain the situation to her, but no sooner had she agreed that I should have the statue when you came in and… well, you know. Maybe it’s fate. How about we go get something to drink? You can give me the statue and we can talk about what else you can get Peter… and what I can get you.”
Johnny blinked. “Oh. Uh. That’d be nice.”
“It really would,” Felicia purred, putting Mary-Jane’s arms in an outraged cross.
The redhead cleared her throat.
Johnny looked up at her, snapping out of it. As much as Johnny Storm could ever snap out of ‘it’, anyway. “Oh, you’re still here. Well, Mary-Jane, I do appreciate your counter-offer, but I couldn’t do that to Peter…”
Mary-Jane was not amused. “Give me the statue or I’ll tell him who hacked Avengers Tower to give Aunt May top clearance.”
Johnny laughed. “Ha, that was awesome! Everyone was like ‘Miss Parker, we need to get into the quinjet hanger to fight Zemo’ and she was all…” His face fell. “Hey, it’s not like anyone got hurt. Well, not anyone we like.”
Mary-Jane held her hand out.
“Sorry, kitty,” Johnny said, beginning to hand the bag over.
“But, Johnny!” Felicia ran a finger over Johnny’s lips. “What about… us?”
“You can’t control everyone through their groins,” Mary-Jane said smugly.
Felicia made a little ‘hmm’ sound of consideration, then kicked Johnny in the groin, grabbed the bag, and ran.
“Thief!” Johnny called out in a very helium-y voice.
***
Felicia ran like hell, laughing up a storm at her successful plan. It was elegant in its simplicity. Mary-Jane would never catch up to her and there wasn’t a mall-cop in America that could stop the Black Cat. Oh yeah. Peter was really going to enjoy his birthday present. And maybe the thoughtful feline who’d gotten it for him.
Then she bumped headlong into a man.
“Hey, watch where you’re—“ She broke off, noticing the long leather duster, the guns, the white skull on his T-shirt. The Punisher gave her a very, very unsympathetic look. “Hi.”
“Shop-lifting,” the Punisher said gruffly. “Not good, miss. Not good at all.”
Suddenly, Felicia felt the bag being taken off of her. “Thank you for your help,” Mary-Jane said, smiling beatifically. “I’ll just go return this to the proper owner.” She practically skipped away.
“No hard feelings, right?” Felicia said to the Punisher, trying to laugh it off.
“Everybody gets one.” The Punisher held up a finger. “One.”
“Oh, good.” Felicia sighed in relief. “So, are you doing anything this weekend?”
“Punishing the guilty.”
“Well… have fun with that.”
***
Mary-Jane smiled to herself. Peter’s party was going off without a hitch. After a very fun time with Daily Bugle employees and civilian friends at Piscary’s, he and Mary-Jane had retired to Avengers Tower for a more private celebration with friends that those in Peter Parker’s social circle couldn’t know he’d made. Matt Murdock had given him a samurai sword, which had nonplussed Peter, but was cool enough for him to appreciate it. Johnny had gotten Peter a new spider-suit made out of the latest in unstable molecules, mentioning repeatedly that “we’re best friends, even though sometimes we do things that bother each other… things that could compromise national security, even… best friends!”
And now it was time for Peter to open Mary-Jane’s present, since she obviously couldn’t give him something spidery at the civilian party. It was perfect. There were no emergencies, Logan was still sleeping it off outside a bar somewhere, and Aunt May and Jarvis were holding hands in that adorable old-person way of theirs.
“Don’t you want to see what I got you?” Felicia asked, slowly sauntering in, wearing nothing more obvious than a trenchcoat.
Mary-Jane felt like slapping her forehead. She was sure Felicia’s invitation had been lost in the shredder.
“Well, it’s not for you, really.” Felicia put an arm around Mary-Jane’s shoulders. “It’s for MJ here, but I’m sure you’ll appreciate it, seeing as how it’s lingerie. It’s still on back-order, since the manufacturers don’t have it in MJ’s size, but I’m a cup size bigger, so if you want to know what it looks like, I can always show you. Let me tell you, it’s very comfortable.” Felicia opened up her coat a little, offering Peter a damnably tantalizing glimpse. “Do you think she’ll like it?”
Mary-Jane gritted her teeth. “Fuck it,” she said, just before charging Felicia like a bull seeing red. She didn’t realize Felicia was standing in front of the birthday cake until it was far, far too late.
“Best birthday party ever!” Johnny cheered.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-08-05 11:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-06 02:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-06 04:14 am (UTC)Okay, just kidding (well... maybe). This was a damn funny fic and well worth my time. Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2009-08-07 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-15 12:25 am (UTC)Well done!
no subject
Date: 2009-09-07 06:48 pm (UTC)