Disclaimer:
I do not own any character herein depicted, Spider-man and all related characters are property of Marvel/Disney.
This fan-fiction is written by SmoothlyDiF and carries DeviantArt's and/or 's usual Creative Commons license.
This story has a mature rating due to sexual content, use of the naughty swears and peculiar violence unsuitable for minors.
Personal note: this may not be everybody's cup of tea and I apologise in advance if the structure reads confusingly, but it's something I've wanted to write for some time now and hopefully you will get something out of it, feedback as always is greatly appreciated.
SmoothlyDiF
Chapter 2
"Why is it always you, Mary?" Madeline Watson asked accusingly, arms folded across her chest with a look MJ hated to recall just as much as she'd hated looking at it real-time.
"Me!? But Gayle was there too!" She pleaded, stood outside her one-time school principle's office and feeling like a victim again!
"Gayle!? You need to be more like her! She never gets into trouble, works hard... what's wrong with you?" Her mom sternly huffed.
"She's an asshole..." The young teen, as smarmy and self-centred as ever, muttered under her breath.
"What was that!?" Mom asked, MJ could still (with her iron-trap memory as it was) remember the furious look on her face as she retorted:
"You're both assholes!" Maddie was clearly shocked and biting her tongue at hearing this, "She never gets blamed for anything, just me! I hate her and I hate you!" She shot up, her mom somewhere between anger and shock.
"I..." She softly said, mostly to herself.
"Mom, just..." MJ's older sister, quiet until now, spoke up. "-just leave it."
"She won't though, will she?" MJ asked sharply, "It was all your fault, but I'm in trouble for it! If it was just you..." Mary curled up her lip in disgust at her sister.
"Yeah? You ever think why that is, you little brat!?" Gayle jumped out of her seat, squaring up to her little sister.
"Oh I dunno, because I don't know how to ass kiss like you?" MJ retorted with spite, up in her sister's face. "'Cuz I don't play her like an idiot!?"
"Fuck you, Mary!" Gayle said, to both her family members' shock, MJ furrowing her brow as the insult bedded into her.
"Gayle!" Maddie snapped, about to leap up when MJ broke all the rules, launching one perfectly spherical, finely honed globule of slaver at her sister. Her mom was flattened in shock into the uncomfortable waiting-room seat.
The older Watson girl was likewise shocked, recoiling and wiping the projectile saliva out of her eyes as she screamed in disgust.
MJ remembered the scuffle that followed: scratches, hair-pulling, punching and kicking, her mother in tears and herself torn away by an astounded professor. She thought in retrospect that her relationship with Gayle had turned at that moment; they'd gone from peaceful indifference to outright hatred and MJ made it one of her missions in life to see Gayle be as unpopular as ever any chance she got!
As for her mom: worse things had happened to sour feelings between she and Mary-Jane, but this one seemed to bring it all home to woman devoid of aspiration and hope, to finally hammer in the nail that pushed her alchoholism into dangerous addiction territory and strip away the last remaining shreds of life on her bones.
Mary-Jane, despite it all didn't care back then (or all that much now really.) Lying there, thinking... she didn't want to know, even if she had asked herself about it: they'd both treated her like a black sheep for years, they deserved it... most of it anyway.
Months later, Mary-Jane remembered watched her sister crying over the spilt milk of her life, curled up on her bed weeping as little sis watched through the door crack.
MJ got the sense of Gayle locking herself away without a mother worth speaking to or a father that cared what she did. Where she once might have been interested that her sister was doing something other than mope and silently hover in public spaces like a ghost, she actually found herself taking a certain grim satisfaction she didn't understand at first.
Thinking back now as a grown adult it seemed naive the way she revelled in watching her sister's life fall apart, not quite sure why she was feeling happy, excited and tingly all-over. She thought it fitting that the one thing her big sister taught her was that she wasn't an 'ordinary' girl after she'd spent so long thinking of Gayle as some freakish social outcast.
Mary-Jane's eyes seemed rooted on that juddering point beyond the door where her sister heaved her tears into a pillow, wanting to know more, wanting to see more and hear more; she knew her parents weren't in, nobody could hear or see... she had to! Standing, the younger, forming red-head pushed the door open quickly, rushing in with a laugh as Gayle span to her with eyes red from crying and opened wide in shock.
"Haa-haa, big girl Gayle's crying like a baby!" She pointed and joked, "What's the matter, doofus? You get beat up?" Almost uncontrollably, MJ leapt on her exhausted, emotional sister and drove fists into her for her own amusement.
By this stage MJ had learnt that she was better than the other girls, that it was funny to embarrass and hurt them, but Gayle... she'd never hit her sister before and she found it... special almost!
The slightly bigger, older Watson girl fought and wrestled, even as MJ hit her roughly and aggressively, taking advantage of her trouble state. "Stop it! Stop it, Mary!" She thrust and kicked, eventually released by the red-head who stepped back laughing, heavily heaving from the effort, beaming from eye-to-eye...
Yes... yes, she could get used to this, she thought back then, but time would show that Gayle was no fun, too quiet and unresponsive. That moment started something though and the memory of standing over her bed-bound, wailing sister, knowing she had the power stayed with MJ for a very long time, elaborating within her with every telling, encouraging her like an experience to fall back on and cherished by her like the persona-forming moment it would turn into.
Spider-Man swallowed hard as he swung through the darkening city streets, ever since that chill he'd felt when he thought it was MJ standing there in that alley, he hadn't been able to get his mind off her, he felt just like he did when she'd gone away: heart-broken, self-loathing too.
It hadn't been pretty, any of it; in the days that followed he'd been inconsolable but 'the why' had taken some time to understand. Once upon a time they'd been happy, loving and the things they'd done had blown his mind, but in the end...
He wondered back then and even now he thought about it: had it been his fault? Had he caused her to snap as she did? He hadn't exactly been a pillar of strength around her and in a way he could understand it, she'd had a hard life and all, but he'd never stood up to her... or for her, maybe he was too much of a walk over and that's why it happened?
It fried Peter's brain thinking about it and all the emotions the mere mention of the young woman's name conjured in him; he missed her, there was no doubt, but in some ways he felt better off without the 'girl of his dreams'; he chuckled at that phrase.
That uncomfortable swelling in his head told Peter something was up again, his ears pricked and his eyes darted. "Oh maaan, not him again!" he complained as he dropped from the sky towards the towering grey hulk of a contract rogue calling himself 'The Rhino'.
He landed in a squat on the big guy's hunched back, getting his attention, "Haven't I told you it's rude to throw cars at people?"
"Whuh? Duh Bug!" The lump huffed and span up and around trying to snare the slippery hero.
"Sheesh! 'Hello' would suffice, y'know?" Spider-man chirped mid-flip and webbed the numb shoulders of the goliath, catapulting him feet-first into the big guy's face. The hulk of a man bounced nicely a short ways along the empty street, people hunched in the shadows watching the destruction unfold.
"What's this now, four times you've escaped and I've had to beat you down?" Peter asked with a dapper flourish as he stared down the beast, "Why don't you just give up? We both know how this is gonna end!"
"Bug, I'm gonna smash you up for all those times you landed me in the slammer! Yeah, I'm gonna smash you up gooood!" The Rhino threatened, scuffing his foot along the ground as if trying to light a wet match.
"uhh-huh, suuure you are!" Sarcasm oozing from every word, the slender man threw web splats in the eyes of the hapless, charging villain who stumbled, tripped and face-planted spectacularly. "Ouch..." Peter laughed to himself.
"Guh!" The big man began picking himself up, only to find more of his enemy's sticky stuff where he put his huge hands.
"I can't believe you still think you've got a chance! I've fought villains five times tougher and faster than you and I'm still here!" Peter shivered at the thought of the villain he had in mind.
He tried to shake it from his head, but found it lingering: a strange clinging desire to plunge into memories once again, in particular tough and unpleasant ones. He managed to ignore it long enough to launch a full-blooded kick to the face of the rising villain once again, knocking him back down.
Even with this relatively easy fight going well, Spidey was feeling all wrong, on edge as he imagined that terribly powerful enemy leaping out at any moment: The thought of his fights with them that drew out over days and ended in so many cuts and broken bones (not to mention innocent lives lost) wouldn't shake from his mind, he wished and prayed it wasn't an omen!
"Bug!" Rhino shouted, breaking into a charged sprint again, "I'm gonna gore you and wear you like a hood ornament!" He cried, tempting fate, a fate delivered with a humiliating dodge and another well placed web-shot.
Spider-man, even now, even in the heat of battle, couldn't concentrate, as if one part of his mind was obsessing on other things causing a throbbing in his head as his attention divided awkwardly! "Alright, Rhino! Stop this now before you get hurt any more! I'm not in the mood!"
"Whut you say?" The rising goliath stomped towards him, "You talkin' down to me, kid!?" He demanded, scarily huge and not so easily disposed of without his enraged charges.
Peter had no mind to be daunted, no mind to back down, just a splitting headache growing at every moment. Short on patience, short on will, Spider-man voiced his anger "I've had it with you, Rhino! All you do is smash stuff and ruin people's lives!"
The big man huffed as if amused, "If they arrest you again, what's gonna happen? You'll get out, do it all again and we're back where we god-damn started!" Peter was growing more and more pained by his pulsing temples and just as angry with the pointless fight.
"And what are you gonna do about it, bug!?" The big man laughed, "Even if you could, you ain't man enough to do anything!" The heroic vigilante gritted his teeth, his headache turned into dizziness as he fought internally, his mind split and his attention began failing.
"Not man enough? Not man enough!?" He shouted, fueled by things he barely believed he could be, finding some inner strength, just like that time... as he recalled another moment from the past his head pulsed violently as if something clung to that flicker of likening the two experience and when his skull felt ready to implode... he blacked out and found himself reliving another memory he'd buried deep:
*dock-dock-dock* A gentle knock at his bedroom door, "Peter?" Came his aunt's gentle voice, the slit of light in the dark room widening until it blinded the 35 month younger Peter. "I brought you some cocoa..." She offered, weakly displaying the mug she held.
Peter stirred slightly and pulled the covers down from over his face, looking at his surrogate maternal figure with a token, thankful smile. She laid it down on his bedside table and sat on the lip of his bed as he wriggled further up to the top of his bed, "Thanks... Aunt May."
She stroked his maned head as he sat up a little, wistful as she regarded him. "How are you feeling? Do you want to talk about it?" She looked down to his still heavily bandaged chest with a slight distaste, but Peter hadn't noticed her glance as he pulled himself up to a seated position.
"I..." He thought for a moment, then grabbed the offering in beverage form. He looked into his Aunt's eyes and recognised her pain and worry, remembering he wasn't the only one to have suffered in all this. "Aunt May?"
"Hmm?" She smiled, noting his serious expression.
"It'll be alright... won't it?" He half-reassured, half-asked. She nodded bravely.
"Of course it will, dear... You know what Ben would have told you?" She seemed to swallow hard as she said that, catching her breath. "That bad things... bad people... are put in this world so good people can know what is right. God gives us these challenges so we can prove how strong we are..."
Peter had long since realised he wasn't a religious young man, but all his life he'd been read from the deterministic hymnbook so the notion of goodness prevailing in the end resonated with him now more than ever. He nodded, "You're right. We'll be OK."
They embraced comfortingly; they'd both suffered and lost in this whole debacle, but found strength in still having each other. "Peter...?" May said, still holding him. "You can tell me what happened... if you're ready?"
The dread of humiliation reintroduced itself in Peter's demeanor as she offered this; he couldn't possibly tell her what happened between himself and Mary-Jane! She was the only family he had and telling her that, well... he sighed and pulled back from her arms. "Uh..."
"You don't have to, but you can tell me what she did to you... she was evil, Peter and I'm sorry I caused this to happen..." He was shocked.
"C-caused!? No, no! You didn't cause this, Aunt May! It was MJ's fault... and mine!" He reassured, not realising until now that she might blame herself having matchmade he and Mary Jane in the first place. "I... let her walk all over me. I let her control me and distance me from my friends. I let her... make me depend on her because she scared off everyone else. It was my fault... I should have stood up to her!" He forlornly swore at himself.
"No, Peter, it wasn't like th-" May was interupted as Peter found courage and a solution rising within him at last.
"It was, Aunt May! But it won't happen next time, I won't let myself be a victim like that again; she won't hurt or scare me anymore!" He exclaimed with resolve. "I think you were right... I was meant to meet her and be hurt, because I need to be stronger! And I will be! You just watch!" Peter pulled the covers back and swung his legs out of bed, "Starting right now, I'll be a better man!"
As Peter stood up, May smiled warmly at seeing some confidence return to her nephew at last.
"Come that field trip to the university tomorrow I'll be the best Peter Parker they've ever seen!"