Title: Bells

Author: Chocolatequeen

Genre: Angst

Fandom setting: Movie-verse, during the second film

Rating: G

Summary/AN: He sits there, and he can hear them all around… and he knows somewhere, they're ringing for her. I watched the movie for the first time last night, and Peter seemed so achingly sad when she showed up at his place—he was practically catatonic, staring out the window. I started thinking, what's he doing there? Of course, he was thinking about her, and her wedding… but it just seemed so heart-breaking. This is short, but hopefully it grasps the sense of his state of mind.

Bells

New York City is full of sounds, but on this particular Saturday, Peter Parker heard only one: the pealing of church bells, announcing that another couple had gotten married. Each time he heard another set ring out, he flinched, though logically he knew Mary Jane's wedding had barely started and wouldn't be over for at least a half hour.

Mary Jane. The reason he was sitting here, staring out his window and listening morosely to wedding bells. He tried to shut out the sound, but he couldn't. For the first time in two years he wondered if he'd made the right choice.

"It was the only way to keep her safe," he reminded himself, trying to tamp down the doubts that never completely stopped taunting him. "And besides, Spider-man," he sneered derisively, "it's a little late for second thoughts now. Within an hour, she'll be a married woman…"

And that was precisely what was hurting so much. "If I thought loving her and not having her was painful, what will it be like to love her and know someone else has her?" he questioned, blinking back sudden tears. Suddenly, today, it had hit him; in a very short time, not only would he be a man in love with a woman he could never have, but he would be a man in love with another man's wife.

"What did you think, Peter? She'd just be single forever, content to live alone simply because she loves you?" He'd always known that someday, someone would notice how wonderful she was and would be able to tell her that, be able to love her the way he wanted to. But somehow, deep down, he'd never expected that she would let him.

Somewhere, more bells were ringing. In his mind's eye, he could picture MJ running out of a church, hand in hand with her new husband, her skirts billowing out behind her. Time was running out; soon, that would be a reality. The view from his window disappeared, replaced with images of her cutting the wedding cake and feeding a piece to John, her throwing her bouquet, the two of them dancing their first dance as husband and wife, and then later leaving the reception all to begin their honeymoon.

He could see it all, and it killed something in him. With sudden, blinding clarity he knew… he knew he could never handle watching her, spending time with her, and knowing she wasn't and could never be his. In his quest to keep her safe, he'd lost not only the woman he loved, but his best friend.

"Good-bye Mary Jane," he said brokenly, staring out the window. "I'll never stop loving you."

A/N: Okay… I think that's it. By the way, this is my first Spider-man fic. (Not my first fic ever, but I've never written for this fandom before.) I have one other up my sleeve, but… I think it's time to go to bed now. yawn

Oh! And a plea to all you authors! Please write some more P/MJ stories set after or during this film. I loved the relationship before (Ya gotta love a guy who's willing to walk away from his heart's desire like that, even if he is being stupid) but their relationship in the second movie was so complex, it just… Yeah. Please, more stories! J