Category: Spider-man Fan-fiction
Genre: Romance/Angst
Language: English (bet you couldn't tell!)
Rating: PG-13 for mild swearing, romantic content, and dramatic situations
Summary: Explores the relationship between Peter and Mary Jane after the Spider-man movie. It has a high romance factor, high angst factor, and is lyrical, as usual.
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Days of Pretending
Chapter 1: Dying
Peter Parker was a photographer, a superhero, a young man. He was a brunette, a student, and a law-enforcer. He was quiet, speechless, intelligent, and a loner. But, most of all, he was a heartbreaker.
He had never considered himself to be a heartbreaker. After all, he was not extremely beautiful, extremely popular, or extremely talented. He was a nerd who could ramble off math equations easily and once wore the thickest-rimmed glasses in the world. He was no sharp dresser, no quick-witted, charming jock, nor a charming flirt, for that matter. Peter instead wore jeans and t-shirts and sometimes sweaters and a sad, lost smile that told the world that he didn't think he belonged.
But, despite all that, Peter was a heartbreaker, because he had broken the spirit of the woman he loved the most on the hardest day of his life: the funeral of his best friend's father. It had been a tearful, sad occasion, filled with crying and confessions and prayers and more crying still.
Peter did not like to remember that day. He did not like to look back on his friend's pale face, streaked with tears, tissues bulging out of his pockets, face grim. He did not like to see Mary Jane, her wild red hair sticking to the wetness on her cheeks, her voice screaming out for him. He did not like to return to his uncle's grave and stare at it for long, tragic moments and want to dive in the earth with the rotting body. He did not like to watch the coffin go down into the earth, sinking away from them forever.
Peter left that day in a passionate fury, aching to get away from that sight. He hated graveyards.
He spent the night rather sleeplessly. His slumber was interrupted numerous times by little thumps in the apartments surrounding his, the creaking building, water dripping, and so on. The brief moments when Peter did sleep were constantly haunted by family members who had been dead for a year and best friends who had lost their humanity and goblins, laughing and screaming with their claws outstretched, taking his life away. It was one of those nights when time couldn't move any slower, when he felt like he was a waste. Dawn came, and the light gave him no comfort. It only let him see his tearstained face in the mirror. Another day began. It was the second hardest day of Peter's life. He was tired, hopeless, and depressed.
Peter had never felt so sickly, so weak. He was recovering deep inside of him from death, on the outside from cuts and bruises and moments when he had thought he might die. He was lethargic all day and hardly fell out of bed. The shower burned his scalding hot skin, and the windows fogged up, and it made him feel swollen and inflated, as though he had been filled with some sort of acidic hate, some horrible suffering.
Classes were endless, work was endless, life was endless. He had never felt so out of himself before in his entire existence.
It was also the day that Mary Jane called. He had seen her name on the caller ID. He had felt fear swell up and choke his throat upon seeing her last name on the machine, the letters that had lingered on his brain for years, the letters he was supposed to hate but could only love. Why does love hurt?" he asked, picking it up with a shaky hand.
"Hello," he said softly.
Her voice was strained on the telephone. "Peter?" she rasped tersely.
"Mary Jane?" Peter asked her, suddenly unsure if the machine was malfunctioning. She sounded so sad, so broken, so fragile and charred. Peter's eyes danced around the room as he felt his innards twist. He was frightened of what he may have done to her. Was it his fault that she sounded to be dying quietly?
"Yeah. It's me. Hi," Mary Jane said softly. Her hands were trembling on the other side of the city. She wrung a tissue to keep herself moving so she couldn't see the shudder, the convulsing fingers. She didn't like to see herself like that.
"You sound awful," he whispered breathlessly. How could he have been so stupid to let her go?
"Yeah, I do, don't I?" she laughed nervously. "I've just been upset, you know. A lot has happened to me lately, you know? There was the… the World Unity festival, and the kidnapping, and then the funeral today, and then there was you and…well, it hasn't been a very good few weeks. I've had a lot of nightmares, you know, done too much daydreaming."
"I'm sorry. I know it's partially my fault," Peter told her sympathetically as his heart ripped open. He was bleeding inside. He was spilling over, less of a man.
"Don't be sorry. You were honest," she answered him. Her mind and heart rebelled against her overly calm words. I am a liar. I want you to be sorry, to pity me, to give up whatever grudge you hold against me for having your heart. Let go of yourself and love me.
There was an awkward, tense quiet moment. They both hated times like those, when all was too still for comfort. The only sound was that weird hum of the telephone, the one that made you know you ought to say something.
"Why did you call, Mary Jane?" Peter asked, breaking the sound of silence.
She paused briefly. "I want you to reconsider me, Peter."
Oh, sweet God, Mary Jane. Don't do this to me. I want you, but I can't have you, he thought. "Mary Jane, I'm sorry. We went over this," he said softly, kindly, much too patiently. Strings inside of him started to snap, each one plucking like a sad, lone violin by itself in a field full of crickets. A part of him died to think that he meant so much to her, and, yet, he had to mean less.
"But I know you love me," she persisted. "I know more than you think I do."
"You really think so?" he asked in a weird tone, hiding the anxiousness under his skin.
"I know so. You don't understand, Peter. I didn't sleep last night. I did a lot of thinking. And I think…well, honestly, I think you're hiding a few things. You know, it's one of those things that you just are sure about, and you know you're right," she explained in a firm, rather disoriented voice. She felt dizzy, and helpless, and like she couldn't live if he didn't take her.
"Mary Jane, really, I don't think you're thinking straight today," Peter warned, feeling his stomach twist and churn weirdly. "I can't love you." My heart is black.
Take it back, please, she thought in a passion. "But that doesn't mean you don't, Peter," Mary Jane said bluntly. She threw the tissue she had been holding and missed the wastebasket. She wanted to bawl on her floor and just sit there for the rest of time.
He didn't reply. He just sat there, dumbfounded. His face was blank.
"Answer me, Peter. Do you or don't you?" she said in the coldest voice he had ever heard. At first, he mistook the sound for anger. But he realized it was fear and tears that distorted her voice and made him not know her.
"I do," he said quietly. "As a friend…"
"Honestly, Peter!" she cried out, and she smashed down the phone.
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AN: Hope you liked it! Please review. This will be a chapter story, so keep checking back to it if you like it (or if you just want to review and criticize; I am open to that!). I have actually already written both chapters 8 and 9, the ending to the story. Hopefully this will be a help because usually I never really know quite where I'm going with my fan-fiction! Now I have a definite beginning and ending so I can just fill in the blanks, and I actually know how the heck I'm going to do that. All in all, the story is turning out pretty well so far and I'm quite proud. *beams*
What fueled me to write this story? Well, I was thinking (what else is new?) and I was flipping an idea around in my head. I have read a handful of stories where MJ finds out Peter's secret, they hook up, and live happily ever. I am not saying these stories are bad, because they are so very wonderful and beautiful, and I have written them myself. However, what I was thinking is, "What's to say that if they did get together their relationship would work out perfectly fine? What if their relationship was faulty and full of holes?" It was an idea that really solidified in my head, because, though I am extremely romantic and it would be a great ending, trial is very much expected, isn't it always? Thus, "Days of Pretending" came into existence. Now that you know that, I guess you can anticipate some, huh?
Again, please review, because feedback is what really keeps me rolling. Thanks so much, and I hope you enjoyed "Days of Pretending!"