Perpendicular
Harry calls the next day, and calls several times after that, but he doesn't leave any voicemails and MJ doesn't call him back. A few days pass and MJ reaches out to an old college friend about staying in her vacated apartment, knowing that she, among many other Empire State alums, has been living elsewhere since the Goblin attacks, but May insists that MJ stay with her. MJ tries to protest by saying she doesn't want to be a burden, but May puts her foot down and MJ fully understands for the first time why Peter was raised so well: whatever May says, goes.
Harry keeps calling at regular intervals, but MJ silences her phone, only picking it up for Gwen and work-related things. She gives Gwen the barest details of the fight. She tells her the stupid thing she did by flushing the pills, tells her that Harry got drunk and a little bit rough with her, and that they haven't worked it out yet. Gwen tries to insist that MJ come stay with them, shocked that Harry would ever lose control of himself like that, but MJ knows what Gwen will do if she steps foot in that apartment: she is going to tell MJ that this is not a second chance kind of thing, that a guy who is capable of getting rough once will do it again, and that she has to leave Harry, no excuses.
But it isn't black and white like that. Nothing is. The problem is that Harry is right—MJ may not have acted on her feelings for Peter, but that is not enough to dismiss the growing obsession with him and her distance from Harry. While Harry should never have let it escalate as far as it did, there are very few words he threw at her that didn't have an awful grain of truth to them.
May, for her part, doesn't ask much. MJ has the sense that she already knows the nature of what must have happened, and hates that she has turned herself into a cliché in May's eyes. It only makes sense that the girl with the drunk, abusive father would end up turning the city's most handsome and charming bachelor into a drunk, abusive boyfriend.
May works odd jobs, too, but luckily her hours tend to match up with MJ's well enough that they have breakfast together every morning and end up coming home around the same time every night. They start to take turns cooking, and leaving notes on the fridge to say where they have gone. It is tempting to fall into a routine, but MJ knows that she can't stay here long. As nice as May's company is, she could never take advantage of her, and honestly she isn't sure it is healthy for her to be in Peter's room, breathing in its achingly familiar air.
It doesn't even occur to her that it's Christmas Eve when she hears the door click open at ten in the morning.
"You're back early," says MJ.
She hears the footsteps stop. "Uh—hello?"
It's Peter. She freezes at the kitchen table. There's no point in trying to pretend she isn't here, but it takes her a few moments to summon her voice again, and by the time she does Peter has rounded the corner and taken her in.
"Hey," she says uncomfortably, feeling for the first time out of place in the Parker home.
Peter is holding a bag full of groceries and a wrapped present in his hands. "What …" he says, looking entirely bewildered. There is snow caught in his hair, starting to melt in the warmth of the house. His boots are trailing water into the front hallway. He stares at MJ. "What are you …" he manages, trying very hard not to be rude.
MJ clears her throat. "Where's Gwen?"
"With her brothers," says Peter, "but wait—what are you doing here? Was I supposed to—did someone tell me about this?"
A sharp laugh escapes MJ. "Um—no. I'm just—I've just been—" She struggles for a second, and he's staring at her expectantly. It's not like she can lie. "I've been staying with May," she mumbles.
Peter sets his bags down on the table. "Wait, what? Since when?"
"A few days ago," she says. She opens up his bag of groceries so she can busy herself with sticking things in their appropriate drawers and cupboards. "I forgot it was Christmas Eve. I should probably …" She knows that May will insist that she stay, and MJ feels bad for letting the date sneak up on her. She really wasn't trying to stay for the holidays. "Carrots? Really, Parker?"
He takes the bag of frozen vegetables out of her hands and sets it in the freezer. "What happened to Harry? I mean, Gwen mentioned a fight, but I just didn't …" he trails off, prompting her to finish before he sticks his foot in his mouth.
Gwen evidently didn't give him all the details, which MJ finds curious, given the nature of their relationship. She doubts that there are any other secrets she has told Gwen that haven't been immediately repeated to Peter. "We just need some space right now," she says carefully. She exhales the words out of her, and they feel like a lie. She doesn't want space from Harry. She wants to end it. She glances over at Peter, whose expression is a mix of bafflement and concern.
There is nothing waiting for her if she leaves Harry. But that doesn't mean she should stay. Right?
"I don't—I just—I didn't realize you and Aunt May were very close," says Peter, hedging around the real question she knows he is dying to ask, which is what the heck she is doing here.
MJ only offers him a shrug.
"You know you could have stayed with us," Peter recovers. "Gwen doesn't know you're here, does she?"
MJ shakes her head. "It's fine. Thank you," she says, even though the thought of staying in an apartment with Peter and Gwen in the three months leading up to their wedding feels like the single most unbearable thing in the world. "I just—I didn't want Harry to be able to find me."
Peter's eyebrows shoot up. "Why?"
"It's not—like that," MJ says, even though it is. She just doesn't want Peter thinking any less of her. It somehow seems important that he doesn't know about the episode, and she is grateful that Gwen decided not to tell him, or forgot to tell him in the first place.
"So … Harry doesn't know where you are, either."
"No," she says quietly.
There is a weighted silence between them then, because they are standing at an unmistakable crossroads in the conversation. Either Peter will press her further and ask for the whole truth, ask for details and understanding, or he will spare her the indignity and let this go. She doesn't know which she is hoping for. Either way, she thinks she will feel disappointed.
"Well," says Peter after a moment. "Are you going to help me make Christmas dinner or what?"
MJ ends up spending Christmas with May and Peter. It isn't a very big deal, and feels like any other day, except that there is a lot of baking and overeating and TV watching. Peter warms up to the idea of her being there and they all get a little bit tipsy off of the wine at dinner. She and May poke fun at him more than a few times, and he is too flustered by the alcohol to make his usual wry comments in return. Peter sleeps on the couch so that MJ can stay in his bed. Before she turns out the light she hears him say from the hallway, "Merry Christmas, Mary Jane."
She can't suppress the smile that bursts on her face.
A few days before New Year's she agrees to meet Harry in a coffee shop. He is grim-looking, his eyes red and tired, but he is decidedly sober. After they dump sugar packets and milk into their coffees in silence he starts to apologize, but she tells him not to.
"I don't want an apology," she says. "I want a promise. That nothing like that is every going to happen again."
She can see his shame, palpable and wrenching. He stares into his coffee cup, blinking, and she thinks for a moment that he might be holding back tears. If he is then he recollects himself to look up at her.
"I promise."
She has heard people make promises before, and she is usually the first person to mistrust them. But this is the exception. She can see how truly sorry that he is, and she can see the bare regret and honesty cracking in his face. She inspects him, taking a few seconds before she replies, and he mistakes this for disbelief.
"Please," he starts.
She shakes her head. "I believe you."
The coffee is scalding in her hands. He looks up at her warily, like he has a lot of things left to say, things he was expecting to beg and apologize for after this week apart. But she doesn't want that.
"Let's never talk about this again," she says.
"Mary Jane …" he says. It is evident that he doesn't believe this is the end of it. He is probably afraid she will bring this up in some passive-aggressive way for years if they don't work it out now, but she really and truly has no desire to dwell on it.
She offers him a small smile, hoping that it will convince him. "It's behind us." She takes a breath and adds, "And I've been thinking. You're right. About leaving the city for awhile … I think it would be good for us."
He doesn't smile back. "I don't want you to come with me unless you want to."
She slides her hand across the table. His hand is warm and the same as always, but somehow unfamiliar to her. She feels like she is comforting a stranger.
"I want to," she says. "I want to be with you always. I don't care where."
MJ moves back in with Harry, and they agree to move to Los Angeles. She thinks that Harry could use a little sun, and it would mean she didn't have to give up her acting aspirations. They start looking at apartments, deciding that they will leave after the new year, and start making arrangements to have their things packed away and shipped across the country.
It is good for them to have a project, something to work on and talk about together, because otherwise there isn't much for them to say.
They have a strange bout where they are with each other constantly, making love at the strangest times of day at the drop of a hat, as if they have something to prove to each other. They are searching for an intensity that they have lacked for months, and MJ can feel his frustration mirroring hers: it's like they are ghosts of themselves, chasing after something that used to be, so close on its heels that they can hardly stand it.
Harry stops taking the pills, and she likes to think that it helps a little. Sure, he is ornery, and quicker to irritate, but he is also more lively and present and like the Harry she first met years ago. In that week holed up in their apartment, she starts to recognize him again, and believe that Los Angeles is really the solution to all of their problems the same way other people turn to religion.
They don't tell Peter and Gwen about their plans to move, or at least MJ doesn't. Harry doesn't see or mention much of their friends, because he seems to be wrapped up in other matters. MJ just doesn't know how to tell them. She isn't used to being the one who does the leaving.
A few days into the New Year she gets a text from Peter out of the blue, asking her to meet him at a bridge where they all used to hang out in Central Park. She already knows she is going to meet him the instant that he texts her. It isn't a matter of whether or not she is going to go, but a matter of suppressing the quick beats of her heart, and the ugly, selfish thoughts that creep just under the surface of her consciousness.
She isn't doing anything wrong. She is meeting a friend, out in the open, on a Wednesday afternoon. An engaged friend, who has no interest in her whatsoever. And Peter wouldn't ask her to meet like this unless it were important, and she figures it must have something to do with Gwen.
Only it doesn't. He looks anxious when she finds him there. She is surprised to see him right at the agreed upon time—in her experience, Peter has never been on time for anything in his life.
"What's up?" she asks, trying to sound casual and failing miserably.
There is no easing into it, no beating around the bush. He takes one quick glance around to make sure that they are alone, and then says, "You can't stay with Harry."
MJ stands there, stunned, trying not to let her heart swell with a sudden and faithless hope. "Why?" she asks.
Peter looks at her earnestly. "Gwen … Gwen told me about the other week—"
MJ shakes her head. "No, no, it's not …" She shakes her head harder, feeling embarrassed that he is bringing it up, and more embarrassed by the protest coming out of her mouth: "It was a one time thing—"
"I highly doubt that," Peter interrupts, sounding more assertive than she is used to. "And if Gwen had told me sooner, then I would have said something back at Christmas, even though I know it's not my place." She opens her mouth to protest, but he cuts her off and says, "But even if—even if that hadn't happened, which I—I can't say enough, MJ, that's not right, nobody should ever treat you that way and I don't care what the excuse is—"
She feels her knees weakening. She isn't sure whether she is sick or thrilled by his concern for her. "Gwen must have told you what I did, too," she says.
"I don't care," says Peter. "It doesn't matter what you did, don't you understand? You don't deserve that. You never did."
It's the closest anyone outside of Gwen has come to acknowledging the struggles of her past, and certainly the first time somebody has ever vindicated her of them. She is so thrown by the nature of his words and the passion behind them that she is afraid to say anything, afraid that she will open her mouth and realize that she is dreaming, that she imagined this whole encounter to make herself feel important.
"I …" she starts. Her nerves feel raw, and her voice sounds louder in her head than it should.
"There's more to it," Peter says lowly. He is somewhere far away now, his eyes cast toward the ground, his expression dark. "There isn't much more I can say, but Harry is dangerous. He doesn't even know how much."
She can see his hands clenching on the railing of the bridge. His wedding ring gleams at her through the taut muscles of his fingers. She remembers the scraps of spandex in his closet and tries not to blurt a universe-shattering question that is suddenly screaming off the tip of her tongue.
"You have to leave him," Peter says again.
"You can't just ask me to do that, Peter," she says. "You can't just ask me to leave him after all this time not tell me why. Aren't the two of you friends?"
Peter doesn't answer that. Instead he says, "How long have we known each other, MJ?"
She stares at him, baffled. "I don't know," she says. "Six years? More, if you count high school, I guess."
"And you trust me."
She blinks up at him. His face is so close to hers. She feels so vulnerable and exposed on this bridge, where the intensity of his gaze is more overwhelming than the thousands of eyes she has ever had trailed on her on a stage.
"Yes," she says.
"Then please. For your own sake. Leave Harry."
The way he says it this time the motive becomes perfectly clear in her addled, lovesick brain. No. Peter doesn't want MJ, has never wanted MJ, so he must know something about Harry that she doesn't, something really terrible, and the combination of her disappointment and her fear suddenly makes her feel ill.
"Please, Mary Jane. For my peace of mind." The words are gentle and tempting. "I just want you to be safe."
It's something Harry has said to her a hundred times, but the words don't truly have any meaning until Peter says them. It doesn't take long to recognize the difference: she wants Peter to be safe, too. She cares about what happens to him, cares so desperately that she is suddenly terrified by the implications of his words, by the implication of those scraps in a shoebox above Peter's bed.
She reaches out and hugs him, fiercely. She has a sinking and ominous feeling that she cannot ignore, swelling in her gut, stealing her breath. She squeezes her eyes shut and memorizes this feeling—the sinewy muscles of his chest against her cheek, the strong beat of his heart slamming against her ear, the warmth and solidness of his arms around her shoulders.
She shudders as she draws away.
"It's going to be okay," Peter says. "You'll stay with us for a little while. It'll all get sorted out."
She looks up at him, her eyes filled with tears, and nods once. She can't tell him that she's still going to leave. She can't tell him that she is almost certain this is the last time she will see him. Because if any of her suspicions are even partially true, he could be dead long before a March wedding.
"Thank you, Peter." Her eyes are streaming. Standing a foot away from him, she suddenly feels smaller and more alone than she ever has. "I mean it."
It's the closest she can come to good-bye.
The next day Harry is out of town for business, and Peter knows this, so she has one more day before Peter realizes that she didn't listen. She hopes to be on the plane to Los Angeles by then; in the meantime, she tells Gwen that if she isn't going to have a bachelorette party, she is at least going to have one last hurrah drinking wine on the roof of their old apartment building like they did in the good old days.
They look ridiculous, out there in the frigid cold, wrapped in giant marshmallow-sized jackets and oversized hats and scarves with two bottles of cheap wine sitting between their lawn chairs. They don't bother with glasses. Gwen is stiff and unsure about the whole idea when they start out but halfway through their first bottle she loosens up a bit, and starts to laugh—then she lets out a full-on snort, the kind she hasn't heard from Gwen in so long that MJ forgets to make fun of her the way that she used to.
They talk about the past for a long time. Gwen recounts all the old familiar tales of the shenanigans she and her brothers got into growing up, the kind of stories that MJ loves and hangs on every word of, wishing she had siblings of her own. MJ remembers some of her first gigs, at the laughable outfits and horrible lines she was willing to spout off for thirty-five bucks. They talk about Richard, the boyfriend that they both had back-to-back, making derisive jokes about the severe and apparently very fertile woman he ended up marrying and having six children with, starting the year that he broke up with MJ (not necessarily on purpose).
Gwen talks about her father—her real champion, her childhood hero. She talks about him as he was, the facts plain and admirable, without any trace of tears. Time may never heal those wounds, but it is the first MJ has ever seen her talk about her father so reverently without being overcome by the loss of him.
"He didn't want me to be with Peter," she says, and this is the point in the night when Gwen's voice starts to warble, and MJ can hear the wine in it.
This is news to MJ. "I didn't even know they ever met."
Gwen nods slowly and unselfconsciously. The bottle in her hands is nearly empty. "In high school Peter came over for dinner."
"He must not have known Peter that well. Or had the wrong impression."
Gwen laughs, a full belly laugh, about something that has flown right over MJ's head. "He knew Peter," she says once she stops. "He told him to stay away from me. He made him promise."
MJ's thoughts have been thick and somewhat dulled up until this point, but Gwen's admission cuts through them like a knife. "Wait—in high school?"
"I loved him so much." There is a tear streaking down Gwen's cheek, but she doesn't seem to notice. "I couldn't stand it, MJ. I thought I would die. For two years—for two years, we barely even spoke, and he was just there, living across the hall. He was everywhere. He was so close to me but so determined to keep that stupid promise."
MJ has a hundred questions she wants to ask, but somehow manages to stop herself. She is scared to call it to Gwen's attention, that she is revealing something she has never revealed before, because then she might stop.
"And I tried so hard. To get over him, I mean. I did everything I could, I really did," she says, and MJ is not sure who she is trying to convince. "But there has never been anybody else. I can't—I can't imagine living without him. It wouldn't mean anything, without him."
MJ lets the words sink in to her addled, buzzing brain. She had always considered Peter and Gwen special, had always thought it was remarkable how far they went back, and how devoted they were to each other. But she sees now that she really didn't have a clue. Peter was claimed for Gwen from the start—this has been set in stone long before MJ even came into the picture, long before she even knew Peter's name.
She closes her eyes in the chill of the night. "You never said a word in college," MJ says, but not in accusation.
Gwen nods. "I never said a word to anybody," she says, and it sounds like an apology. MJ can't blame her, really, because there are things she will never tell Gwen herself.
If there is ever a time to ask, it's right now. Gwen would never betray Peter, but she is just drunk enough that she might betray herself. If MJ just throws it out there, unexpected and blunt, she doubts that Gwen would be able to recover herself before MJ saw the truth in her eyes.
"Is Peter—"
"I think he'd understand," Gwen says, without hearing MJ speak.
MJ's feels her pulse throbbing in her limbs, a tremor of relief flooding through her. She is glad Gwen interrupted her. She doesn't want to know.
"Who? Peter?" asks MJ.
"No. My father," Gwen elaborates, and MJ remembers that Gwen left that thought unfinished. "For a long time I—I had to learn to live with it, too. Doing something he didn't want for me. But I have to think—that if he saw us now, that if he understood how much we meant to each other, so much more than some stupid high school romance—I have to think he would change his mind."
MJ nods in agreement. "I still don't understand why he wouldn't like Peter."
Gwen lets out an amused puff of air. "You used to hate him, too."
"He almost failed us in English," she reminds Gwen, "that's different." She stretches out lazily, wiggling her toes to get some warmth back in them. "I knew Peter was a good guy, even if he annoyed me to no end."
Gwen suddenly turns to her, a sheepish smile on her face. "I was so convinced he liked you. I was going to bite his head off. I mean, I know it was all in my mind, but for a while we weren't talking and he was still talking to you and I seriously might have hated you both."
MJ isn't sure what to make of this. It seems awfully tragic to her in a personal way, the feeling-sorry-for-herself way. She also doubts that Peter ever had any ideas about her, but it is nice to think somebody could have imagined them together, even just once. MJ feels a wistful kind of yearning for the girl she was back then—how she took those moments with Peter for granted, how she took everything for granted, their youth and their time and their unmade plans—how could she ever predict that things would turn out like this?
"That's funny," MJ says tonelessly, because she is supposed to.
Gwen giggles. "Yeah. God, I thought I was so old back then. And smart."
"You were," says MJ. "You always have been."
Gwen shakes her head. "I've done some pretty stupid things."
MJ doesn't have to admit the same, because they both already know. She wonders what Gwen is talking about, but the way Gwen lets the words hang there it is clear that she isn't looking for MJ to pry.
"Marrying Peter won't be one of them," she adds, laughing again.
MJ wonders why Gwen seems a lot tipsier than she is, when they have been drinking the same amount or close to it all night. Gwen seems euphoric, and suddenly a lot more willing to say things that she has held to her chest for years. But MJ feels the same as she always has, without even a mild buzz to cushion the overload of information slamming against her like a wall.
"Do you think you'll stay in New York forever?" asks MJ, her mind on tomorrow's evening flight to California.
Gwen purses her lips, considering this. "Not for a while," she says. "With my job. And Peter … Peter's job. Keeping us here."
MJ nods.
"The city isn't ideal, but my parents raised four kids here just fine," says Gwen.
It's the first time Gwen has ever voluntarily brought up the idea of having children with Peter. The thought of it makes her throat tight with sadness. She pictures a miniature version of Peter, with Gwen's wide eyes Peter's thoughtful expressions, scrawny and excitable and curious about everything around him. For some reason MJ is certain that the first one that they'll have is a boy, and it's almost a relief. For some reason if it were a girl, a little girl who looked a lot like Gwen, it would be that much harder to bear.
If that child ever exists, MJ will be like an aunt to him. She will watch over him, send him birthday presents, give him advice about girls and tell him stories about his parents in the good old days. She would love that child no matter what. But she already knows she would never look at him without an excruciating regret for what might have been.
"How many kids do you think you'll have?"
MJ has no idea what possesses her to ask this. Whatever answer Gwen gives will only make it all the worse.
Sure enough, Gwen gives a shy and happy shrug. "I think two," she says, "or three, maybe. I like the idea of a big family. And Peter didn't like growing up by himself."
MJ nods. She knows that feeling well. It's a conversation she has never had with Peter herself, but one that they might have, if they'd ever had a chance.
MJ takes another hefty sip of wine, wishing it would do something for her and knowing that it won't.
"I know every girl says this," says Gwen, her voice kind of dreamy and far away. "But I'm just—I'm so happy to be with him. After all this time, after all the drama and the heartache and—and everything," she says, shaking her head, deciding not to elaborate. She turns to MJ, her expression so engaging and earnest that it is hard for MJ to look back. "I just feel like I'm the luckiest girl in the world."
She turns away then, staring up at the sky, and this is the image of Gwen that is burned in the back of MJ's mind for eternity. Gwen, at twenty-six, with a ring on her finger and a sweet little smile arched up at the moon. She is so captivating and alive in that moment that it seems impossible that anything bad could ever happen to her, that anything bad already had. She is so radiant in her happiness that she outshines the stars. She seems so certain, so sure, so beautiful and full of grace, everything that MJ will never be.
MJ sets her arm on Gwen's, and squeezes her hand. "I'm so happy for you."
And she is. Gwen deserves this, and more. Gwen has worked hard, and played by the rules, and stayed above the fray. Gwen has cared more fiercely and more loyally for the people around her than anyone MJ knows, and always comes up from defeat stronger than she was before. MJ cannot begrudge Gwen her happiness, and she never could.
Suddenly Gwen shivers. "I'm cold," she says. "Let's go back inside."
MJ starts collecting the chair and the bottles. Gwen leans down to help her and says, "It's late. You should stay over tonight."
Gwen must know that Peter has offered for MJ to stay permanently again—in fact, there is no doubt in her mind that this was Gwen's idea in the first place—but for some reason they are hedging around the topic tonight, which MJ appreciates, since it is supposed to be a celebration, after all.
But MJ is afraid if she stays tonight she will lose her resolve to leave. Instead she hugs Gwen tight, and kisses her on the cheek.
"I better head back to my apartment," she says. To try and alleviate some of the tension, she wiggles her eyebrows and says, "You two could use some alone time, I'm sure."
Gwen grins and looks embarrassed, but doesn't deny it. As they march down the stairwell, Gwen turns to her, her cheeks flushed from the cold and the wine, and says, "I'm really glad we did this. I've missed you. Isn't that strange? We see each other all the time, but …"
MJ nods. She knows perfectly what Gwen means.
"Let's get lunch tomorrow. At that place with the umbrellas in the drinks. Remember how we used to go there all the time?"
MJ will be boarding a plane by then. "That's a great idea. Next week would be better," she answers, without missing a beat.
Gwen stops at the twenty-eighth floor, and steps out into the hall. MJ trails after her to hit the down button on the elevator and Gwen lingers for a moment, waiting for it to arrive. Gwen makes a few more drunk and happy bits of conversation, laughing about something Peter did that morning, laughing about the puffed up Renaissance sleeves of one of the wedding dresses she tried on. She is so enthusiastic and bright that she looks like a child, wrapped up in her enormous winter coat, talking about everything and anything that comes to mind.
It probably only takes a minute for the elevator to arrive, but when MJ looks back on it, it lasts a lifetime. She wishes she had been paying closer attention to everything Gwen had said. None of it was all that important at the time, and if it had been any other day, MJ doubts she ever would have thought twice about her inattention. But by the time the elevator doors swung open, MJ was feeling guilty and restless and trying not to show how much she was ready to leave.
"Be safe," says Gwen. "Text me when you get home!"
Then Gwen waves at her as the elevator doors shut, and MJ misses it, waiting to wave back just a moment too late. The elevator creaks down to the ground floor and MJ wastes no time leaving the apartment building, hitting the street with an imbalanced kind of bravery, determined not to look back.
She knows she is being a bad friend. But in her mind it is easy to justify this, her leaving the city without saying a word: she may be a bad friend, but if she stayed she would be a terrible one. There is nothing she can do to quit Peter Parker, nothing short of flying three thousand miles away. A lump forms in her throat as she thinks about tomorrow, how the slate will be wiped clean, how everything she has ever known and worked for has the potential to slip through the cracks and count for nothing. She just has to believe her uncertainty and fear is worth the relief of leaving New York behind her.
She only hopes that someday Gwen understands.