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seriousficTitle: Love Will Come Back, Won’t It?
Fandom: Spider-Man BND
Rating: PG-13
Pairing:Peter/MJ
Word Count: 1,097
Warning: I really fucking hate BND.
Summary: If this is a life of meaning, Peter wants to know who it means something to.
The years did not pass so much as melt into each other like puddles of quicksilver. Before, Peter could delineate the years by simple labels… the year of the wedding, the year of the pregnancy, the year he lost Harry… not that he remembered them as such any more; they had gone gray. But ever since he divorced MJ… no, they’d never been married, why did he keep forgetting that?... his life had been gray.
No, gray was a mix of black and white, of good and bad. This was beige. He fought the Shocker and the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus and all the rest. His victories were hollowly inevitable. They would go to jail or “die” and be back in a few months to repeat the process.
J. Jonah Jameson would badmouth him, no matter how many times he rescued the old blowhard, and Aunt May was always getting sicker and frailer (he remembered her being so strong, but that must’ve been when he was a child) and though women came and went, they never got too close. For some reason or another they always fell through, leaving Peter in a state of emotional celibacy.
He flirted with Black Cat, the closest thing to a long-term relationship he had, until she got fed up with settling for innuendo and instead settled for a nice SHIELD agent. He tried to cultivate an air of disdain for the sentimental fools who professed love, the Reeds and Sues and Matts and Millas, but the empty apartment he came home to at night always seemed to expose his envy.
The world kept spinning, too fast for him to keep pace. Emma Frost had twins, and the implacable headmistress was turned into a maternal, but harried, bumbler by parenthood. Bruce Banner found a way to regulate his gamma radiation, controlling the Hulk. Johnny Storm got married, to She-Hulk of all people. And Peter fought the Shocker and Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus. And when they got too old, there were second- and third-generation copies, each a little more faded than the last.
He did not age so much as he tired, the years-that-were-not-years slowly bleeding him. The blood went stagnant in his veins. On the outside he had aged gracefully, with a hair dye keeping his full head of hair chestnut brown. But on the inside, repetition decayed his heart into a robot, ever paying homage to the vestiges of meaning. He spent a lot of time on the bridge.
He was still keeping a postcard from “Susan Storm, GRANDMOTHER!” in his pocket for no particular reason when he got the call. Mary-Jane. Dying. He’d either never thought of her after the break-up or never stopped thinking of her.
He flew to her side, leaving New York for the first time in an eternity. The world outside the hover-plane window was too bright, too colorful for his eyes. He hadn’t packed his spider-suit.
When he got to Mary-Jane’s side, one glance told him she had lived the same half-life as him. There were still fiery embers in her gray hair, but her eyes were colorlessly cataracted and her face was only unwrinkled in the matter of a mighty boulder eroded into a smooth pebble.
“Peter,” she croaked, her voice an asthmatic whisper of its old vibrancy. “Do you remember why we broke up? What we fought about?”
“It’s been a long time,” Peter said, in a careful voice.
“I never stopped loving you.”
“I… I don’t think I stopped either.”
“What happened to us? We were so young! We had so many dreams. We were going to name our first…” she strained to remember, her eyes falling about as if they could pick the word out of the air. “May. May, if it were a girl, Ben if it was a boy. We were going to dance to Chicago at the wedding, even though no one liked them but us.”
“Stop it!” Peter’s shout was as violent as a gun shot on a calm morning. “Those dreams died. We… failed them. The wedding, the kids, the family dog… they never happened.”
Mary-Jane inched down the bed, away from him. Peter felt his heart break the way it never had in the beige years. It was a good feeling. The pain was cathartic, bringing tears to wash the numb glaze from his eyes.
Then she offered him her hand. He sat on the foot of the bed and took it. “How can you say that when I’m wearing your ring?”
He felt along her spindly fingers until he’d convinced himself he’d found the cool warmth of the wedding ring that’d been passed down to him from his late parents. It matched the weight that didn’t circle his ring finger.
“You made a great wife,“ he told her. “I hit the jackpot.”
Something more inexorable than gravity pulled him down to the mattress beside her.
“It was a good life,” Mary-Jane said. “You made a difference. You meant something.”
“Look.” Peter pointed into the shadows. “There’s our little girl, May.”
“She’s not a little girl anymore.”
“She has your eyes.”
“She has your smarts.”
“And look, there’s that fellow she likes. Smart as a whip, him.”
”He’d have to be, to keep up with our May-Day. And look, her brother Ben made it all the way from LA.”
“He still remembers us, even with his name up in lights. And he brought the grandkids.”
“They’re just here to play with the family dog, that old mutt…” Mary-Jane closed her eyes. “Tiger?”
“Yes?”
“Tell me about all the adventures you had.”
“There isn’t much to tell,” Peter said, and realized it was far truer than he dared to admit, even to MJ. “There was one… great adventure. Bigger than all the others combined. But there was a price. I would have to give up my youth, I would have to give up some of my freedom… but that was only a pittance compared to what I ended up paying. I could’ve been so much more than what I am. But I needed help. I didn’t take it. I played it safe and did the same thing I’d always done. And now it’s too late to go on that adventure.”
“It’s never too late,” Mary-Jane said, her voice stronger… and weaker. “There’s still time for one last…”
She stopped talking and never spoke again.
Peter lay there a while, wishing the beige would come back and scab over his opened soul.
In the morning he got up, packed his things, and went home.
Fandom: Spider-Man BND
Rating: PG-13
Pairing:
Word Count: 1,097
Warning: I really fucking hate BND.
Summary: If this is a life of meaning, Peter wants to know who it means something to.
The years did not pass so much as melt into each other like puddles of quicksilver. Before, Peter could delineate the years by simple labels… the year of the wedding, the year of the pregnancy, the year he lost Harry… not that he remembered them as such any more; they had gone gray. But ever since he divorced MJ… no, they’d never been married, why did he keep forgetting that?... his life had been gray.
No, gray was a mix of black and white, of good and bad. This was beige. He fought the Shocker and the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus and all the rest. His victories were hollowly inevitable. They would go to jail or “die” and be back in a few months to repeat the process.
J. Jonah Jameson would badmouth him, no matter how many times he rescued the old blowhard, and Aunt May was always getting sicker and frailer (he remembered her being so strong, but that must’ve been when he was a child) and though women came and went, they never got too close. For some reason or another they always fell through, leaving Peter in a state of emotional celibacy.
He flirted with Black Cat, the closest thing to a long-term relationship he had, until she got fed up with settling for innuendo and instead settled for a nice SHIELD agent. He tried to cultivate an air of disdain for the sentimental fools who professed love, the Reeds and Sues and Matts and Millas, but the empty apartment he came home to at night always seemed to expose his envy.
The world kept spinning, too fast for him to keep pace. Emma Frost had twins, and the implacable headmistress was turned into a maternal, but harried, bumbler by parenthood. Bruce Banner found a way to regulate his gamma radiation, controlling the Hulk. Johnny Storm got married, to She-Hulk of all people. And Peter fought the Shocker and Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus. And when they got too old, there were second- and third-generation copies, each a little more faded than the last.
He did not age so much as he tired, the years-that-were-not-years slowly bleeding him. The blood went stagnant in his veins. On the outside he had aged gracefully, with a hair dye keeping his full head of hair chestnut brown. But on the inside, repetition decayed his heart into a robot, ever paying homage to the vestiges of meaning. He spent a lot of time on the bridge.
He was still keeping a postcard from “Susan Storm, GRANDMOTHER!” in his pocket for no particular reason when he got the call. Mary-Jane. Dying. He’d either never thought of her after the break-up or never stopped thinking of her.
He flew to her side, leaving New York for the first time in an eternity. The world outside the hover-plane window was too bright, too colorful for his eyes. He hadn’t packed his spider-suit.
When he got to Mary-Jane’s side, one glance told him she had lived the same half-life as him. There were still fiery embers in her gray hair, but her eyes were colorlessly cataracted and her face was only unwrinkled in the matter of a mighty boulder eroded into a smooth pebble.
“Peter,” she croaked, her voice an asthmatic whisper of its old vibrancy. “Do you remember why we broke up? What we fought about?”
“It’s been a long time,” Peter said, in a careful voice.
“I never stopped loving you.”
“I… I don’t think I stopped either.”
“What happened to us? We were so young! We had so many dreams. We were going to name our first…” she strained to remember, her eyes falling about as if they could pick the word out of the air. “May. May, if it were a girl, Ben if it was a boy. We were going to dance to Chicago at the wedding, even though no one liked them but us.”
“Stop it!” Peter’s shout was as violent as a gun shot on a calm morning. “Those dreams died. We… failed them. The wedding, the kids, the family dog… they never happened.”
Mary-Jane inched down the bed, away from him. Peter felt his heart break the way it never had in the beige years. It was a good feeling. The pain was cathartic, bringing tears to wash the numb glaze from his eyes.
Then she offered him her hand. He sat on the foot of the bed and took it. “How can you say that when I’m wearing your ring?”
He felt along her spindly fingers until he’d convinced himself he’d found the cool warmth of the wedding ring that’d been passed down to him from his late parents. It matched the weight that didn’t circle his ring finger.
“You made a great wife,“ he told her. “I hit the jackpot.”
Something more inexorable than gravity pulled him down to the mattress beside her.
“It was a good life,” Mary-Jane said. “You made a difference. You meant something.”
“Look.” Peter pointed into the shadows. “There’s our little girl, May.”
“She’s not a little girl anymore.”
“She has your eyes.”
“She has your smarts.”
“And look, there’s that fellow she likes. Smart as a whip, him.”
”He’d have to be, to keep up with our May-Day. And look, her brother Ben made it all the way from LA.”
“He still remembers us, even with his name up in lights. And he brought the grandkids.”
“They’re just here to play with the family dog, that old mutt…” Mary-Jane closed her eyes. “Tiger?”
“Yes?”
“Tell me about all the adventures you had.”
“There isn’t much to tell,” Peter said, and realized it was far truer than he dared to admit, even to MJ. “There was one… great adventure. Bigger than all the others combined. But there was a price. I would have to give up my youth, I would have to give up some of my freedom… but that was only a pittance compared to what I ended up paying. I could’ve been so much more than what I am. But I needed help. I didn’t take it. I played it safe and did the same thing I’d always done. And now it’s too late to go on that adventure.”
“It’s never too late,” Mary-Jane said, her voice stronger… and weaker. “There’s still time for one last…”
She stopped talking and never spoke again.
Peter lay there a while, wishing the beige would come back and scab over his opened soul.
In the morning he got up, packed his things, and went home.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-05-23 01:32 pm (UTC)Please let this not happen, true believers... D:
---
Thanks for a beautifully sad piece. (I love the strikethrough)
no subject
Date: 2008-05-26 05:47 pm (UTC)Tell that to the people buying BND. But I promise the next Spider-fic I write will be much less sad (though still hopefully beautiful).
no subject
Date: 2008-05-23 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-23 03:07 pm (UTC)Goddamn Brand New Day.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-25 08:42 pm (UTC)That was my vision statement -- "Okay, Spider-Man is single and keeps fighting the same battles he did when the writers were kids over and over again, with no change in his status quo and no relationships deeper than meaningless (hur hur) sex." -- The rest just wrote itself. Maybe Marvel should hire me as a consultant.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-24 06:34 pm (UTC)If the writers gave a damn, they would probably still be mining plenty of stories from Peter Parker living in Avengers Tower, with Aunt May who knows his secret identity and Mary-Jane his wife.
I love the idea of not gray but beige being the color of his life.
Isn't it sad when comic books make you long for the complexity and nuance of four colors? One color just ain't enough.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-23 07:29 pm (UTC)Can we retcon the retcon? Please? It's stupid! I'd like to join you in your BND hatred.
This was lovely and sad.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-24 06:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-26 01:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-24 01:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-24 06:31 pm (UTC)On second thought, I'll leave the apologizing to Marvel.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-26 01:43 pm (UTC)I like you, and I hate Joe Quesada even more.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-26 05:43 pm (UTC)Did I get recced on Scans_Daily or something? Because I seem to have a cross-over appeal outside my usual readership...
And while usually I love love and hate hate, I do love Quesada-hate. It bears many of the characteristics of lemonade on a hot day.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-26 08:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-26 08:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-26 05:34 pm (UTC)Quick, someone print this out and staple it to the Marvel Powers that Be's forehead, please!