Mary Jane goes to Hell

Summary: I admit it. It's a stinking fix-fic. I just couldn't take One More Day any more. I had it in my head, and it had to come out.

Of course, being me, that means it comes out… like this.

So, if you aren't familiar with One More Day: Spider-man made a deal with Mephisto, the devil, which undid his marriage with MJ in order to save Aunt May's life. That's all you need to know for this…

1.

She was flying.

It was the most terrifying feeling in the world. The little board under her feet was shaking and rattling, leaving a cloud of black fumes behind her. She was roaring along through the air faster than a car, easily seventy or eighty miles an hour.

She was skimming over the tops of the buildings, buzzing every camera she saw. Trying to catch somebody's attention. Anybody. She didn't care if the Avengers came back; they'd probably have some way to track Peter. They'd do, for her purposes. She didn't care if it was May and Peter. Or even the devil. She still had the knives, after all.

She couldn't tell if the stupid serum was affecting her at all. Was she light-headed? Or was that a normal sensation, like vertigo? Were her hands shaking?

It didn't help that her teeth were chattering. Even in the protective costume this was cold! The wind whipped past her hard, cutting right through the armor. Cutting through the silly green and purple costume.

This might have been the stupidest thing she did since coming back from hell. Or maybe the smartest. Right now those polar opposites seemed just as likely.

Several military helicopters had spotted her, flanked her, and then given up pursuit after she demonstrated how much better than them she was at flying between buildings, under bridges, and maneuvering quickly.

Those fast maneuvers were hard. You had to be very careful not to clip anything—there was no protection at all. You were riding a rocket. If you pulled wrong you could die here.

She managed a barrel roll, leaning forward into it. Her calves were already burning from this exertion. It was harder than running, but a million times faster. This was insanity.

Pure, sheer insanity.

She wished it would end soon. She hoped it could end soon. She had no way to tell when she would find Peter—no way to tell what would happen.

Then she felt a little twinge, at the base of her skull. A feeling of impending doom, perhaps. Spiders scrabbling through her brain.

She hoped it was some kind of heightened sense and not insanity setting in, and she slowed the glider, circling back.

Peter was there, swinging from building to building. Following her as fast as he could.

For just a second it was a dance of some macabre sort, his body flinging through the air, unguided, uncontrolled. The powerful jet under her feet throbbed and pulsed, letting her know that she could do this so much better than he could; that she had power.

She slowed down to a hover, leaning back and letting the rocket hold her in place. Trying to look like she wasn't exhausted from the effort. Trying to look as cool as he looked, as world-weary and snarky.

It was something about the mask. There was no humanity in those flat eyes, no life. He jumped up, onto a rooftop, then up from there. Each leap was powerful, inhuman. More spider than man.

He ended up on an antenna, sticking up. The big kind that had a flashing light at the top, to warn planes it was there. He perched on, lowering himself into a crouch, and she lowered herself down so that she could be close enough to hear him over the growl of the glider.

When he spoke, his voice was nothing like Peter. It was the beast in front of her, just a faceless demon. "So, who're you?" he asked. His voice was terribly cold. "I just handed the original Gobby his teeth, and you aren't him at all… You're a little too much woman to be Harry…"

"It's me, Peter," she said, taking the hideous mask off. The one that clung to her face and made her mouth look huge. The mask that made her look like a goblin in so many ways.

He just stared at her. "You're a Goblin, now?" he asked, floored by this.

"I needed to find you. I needed to find May. Where is she."

"Back at my place. Resting." His voice was a tad too hard.

"Please take me to her, Peter."

He tilted his head to one side. "Take you to her? She's just a little girl and you're twisting her all around with lies about the devil and letting her associate with baddies like Sabretooth. And he's worse than most of the ones I fight. He's a sadistic animal who enjoys his kills. I'm not letting you take her back to that."

She wasn't sure how he would take the news that she had killed the fake Sabretooth. She wasn't even sure if he would believe her, or if he would think she was making it up to get May back.

She swallowed. "Peter, she went out there to save you… doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"I noticed she was there, and you weren't, even though you have an nice goblin glider of your own that I'm sure would have been really handy in that fight with all those fliers against us," he said coldly.

Again, she knew that the truth wouldn't possibly help. She leaned away from him, letting the glider slide lower, so she was on eye level with him. "Peter… she's my daughter."

He laughed harshly. "If you really want what's best for her, then you'll fly away now. She's my daughter too."

But he was at least halfway to evil. At least. He'd been going to kill the admittedly evil Norman Osborn; he was at least halfway into a rage right now, getting ready to hit her.

She took a deep breath. "No, Peter. Because you look at me and see how evil I am, what I've become… but I look at you and see the man who nearly killed Norman Osborn. I see the man who still could snap and destroy this whole world. You think you're underappreciated, don't you? You've put a lot of evil down, in your time. You've stood in the breach. But the big heroes, they ignore you. You're small potatoes. No Tony Stark, no… no Captain America. Just a guy who slings web through New York. But that's not the sum of you, and we both know it. The first time you met the Avengers, didn't a robotic double of you beat them all? Can't you see that this is what your whole life has been about? Every single event in your life has been harder than the flimsy reasons your enemies go bad. Every single thing that happens has been a trap laid for you by a cunning enemy. An evil Spider-man… you would be a more competent villain than any villain you ever faced. Nobody could stop you. Could they?"

In that mask there was no way for her to see his face, to see how he was taking this. No way to see if she was getting through. But she had to keep trying. She continued undaunted.

"Peter, look at yourself! Living alone, in hiding, in fear. Coming closer and closer to the edge. You've stopped joking, stopped laughing. You're brutal. The criminals in this city already feared you… now they live in terror. You are in so many ways the heart of this city, all that's good in it. Don't throw that away! Don't let them make you into a villain, Peter. Not after all the good you've done!"

Those white, flat eyes stared at her. And she knew then that he wasn't going to give her May, that he was dead-set against her. And she knew that if she turned on him it would only help the devil's plans, would only accelerate him on his course.

But she couldn't let him keep May.

So she let the devil win, reaching out to grab him, thinking to fly him up, to force him to listen to her. But he was moving before her hand even twitched, and as she reached for him he'd moved, quicker than lightning.

Then something hit her in the stomach, so hard that she fell backwards, tumbling, the breath knocked out of her. If she weren't strapped into the glider she would have lost it; as it was the rocket blasted her down, towards the street, and she had try to fly it while pain screamed in her stomach.

She managed to roll, throwing her weight into it to try and get it back to flying upwards. It bucked, hard, and she felt something snap in one knee. She ignored the pain, pulling the mask back on as wind whipped past her face so hard it began to go numb.

And then he was slamming into her, feet-first, swinging out of nowhere, somehow calculating the exact trajectory he needed to interrupt her recovery, to slam into her and knock her out of the sky again.

This time the impact slammed her into the side of a building, a bone-cracking impact that would have killed her twenty minutes ago.

This wasn't twenty minutes ago. Harry's serum filled her, made her strong. Made her superhuman. The blood inside her flowed green now, blood that was twisted and wrong, terrible. Blood that should never have flowed inside of her.

She knew fighting him was going to lose him. That the devil was winning.

But right now she had only one priority. This Peter wasn't like the half-remembered memories of the man she'd married. This Peter wasn't like those memories, and saving him was only a secondary goal.

May, little fragile May, who had lived in hell for so long, was the one that MJ had to protect.

She turned and blasted away from the building, at him. She hadn't bothered familiarizing herself with the weapons Harry had given her. She didn't know how to use them, wasn't familiar with their weight. She was barely competent to fly this thing.

She turned back on weapons she was used to.

The blades came out fast, one in each hand. He wasn't vulnerable to the holy water, or the etched crosses, or anything else on them, but they were still knives.

As he swung, a long arc, she simply followed. In the air she had more maneuverability. Once he touched something he was fast, but out on that web-line, swinging, he couldn't change directions.

In the middle of his arc she rammed into him, cutting him across his back. She didn't aim for his neck—this was still Peter, after all. But she didn't hold back, either, cutting him hard. Laying him open down to the bone.

He let out a strangled cry and let go of his web-line, falling. She almost went after him, but just twenty feet down he was already twisting, firing more webs, swinging a different direction.

Instead of following she rolled the other way, trying not to throw up in her mask. She'd only used the knives on demons before, never on real people. The sword Ben had given her, as well. She'd fought all kinds of nasties, but she'd never cut anybody who bled real blood… with the possible exception of the fake Creed, but even before she'd known he was a demon she'd known he was closer to a demon than a man.

She dropped, skimming between buildings at unsafe speeds. She needed to find May, and get her away from Peter. She needed to find May and keep her safe.

Let the world burn. Let Peter self-destruct. She'd failed May once before, and she didn't plan to fail her again.

2.

She continued criss-crossing the city. Every time Peter came near her she'd fly away, faster than he could swing. She knew May had that almost-clairvoyant sixth sense. If she got close, May could find her.

Assuming Peter hadn't trussed her up so she couldn't.

MJ ground her teeth together. She wasn't going to assume the worst. She wasn't going to accept defeat.

If she had to stop running and face Peter and beat May's location out of him, she would. But for now just looking would be enough.

Nobody stepped up to stop her. No heroes, no villains. Probably they were all excessively confused. Norman's dark Avengers were licking their wounds from the brutal beatdown they'd already received—and Norman himself had to be wondering who she was, exactly. In this outfit she wasn't exactly obviously female, and he had to know his son was out there somewhere, in possession of a Goblin suit.

And the villains? They all knew Norman Osborn was the Green Goblin, and that he had the whole Avengers behind him. And they knew Spider-man was getting darker himself.

Who would dare come out and face them now?

Finally, May did come to join her. Leaping over the rooftops, easily matching pace with a jet engine. MJ swooped down to her daughter, taking off the hideous green mask.

May was wearing the Halloween spider-suit, and it was in pretty bad shape already. It hadn't been intended for combat, and it was torn all over, little cuts and tears. The mask had held up, giving May that blank face.

"May?" said MJ, uncertain.

"He'll follow us," said May. It wasn't a condemnation or a joyful proclamation; it just was.

"That's okay," said MJ quickly. "If we're together, we're safe."

"Where's Creed?"

MJ sighed. "He was a demon, May. Just another demon pretending to be something… part of the devil's trap."

May nodded. "I kind of wondered. He never did sit right with my head… buzzing like he did. I just thought it might be because he was a bad man."

"Here," said MJ. "Climb up with me."

May stood in front of her, crouching on the glider. MJ leaned, letting it go forward. It was more sluggish with two of them, but it had been designed to hold a full-grown man. Together they must have been heavier than Harry, but not by too much.

MJ wrapped her arms around May as they rocketed outward. There was so much in this world that she wanted to protect May from. And the devil was winning, had been winning all along. The rules were stacked against her.

Thwip

The getaway was spoiled before it had even begun. He was there suddenly, right on top of them, firing web like mad. Yanking May away, pushing her down to the rooftop below, and punching MJ in the face. This time she couldn't react fast enough and the whole glider went tumbling down.

When it hit the rooftop below, it blew up.

3.

It wasn't a huge explosion. The fuel tanks were nearly empty, anyway, and the bulk of the construction was designed to shield her from anything below. The glider itself became a shield, slamming into her and throwing her away from the blast.

It hit her like a brick wall at ninety miles an hour, squashing her down onto a rooftop. She couldn't even tell if it was the same one she had hit with the glider.

She rolled out from under it, trying to find her balance. Trying to find which way was up.

She could hear the noises, those stupid little noises his webs made as they fired. But she ignored that, tearing the mask away, trying to find him.

He was above her, descending fast, aiming a punch at her. But May was there, and May was faster than him, hitting him in the mid-section. Tossing him away like a rag doll.

But he hit the ground rolling, finding his feet. And MJ knew there was no stopping him. That was the thing she had always known about Peter, even if she hadn't known he was Spider-man. That he was a man who wouldn't stop, wouldn't give up. That he was a man possessed of a singular determination.

Without his usual niceness to temper it, it became something dark and ugly.

She drew the knives again, aware he was ready this time. Knowing they wouldn't help.

May stepped forward, raising her hands. "Don't do this," she said. "You don't want to hurt me… I don't want to hurt you…"

"Then don't go with her," said Peter tightly. "She's lying to you. About everything."

May's face was invisible behind that mask, even if she had been facing towards MJ. She was giving no indications of what his words meant to her, of whether she was listening. MJ's stomach clenched tightly.

"You don't know what it was like before," said May sadly. "I know she's not lying anymore… she can't be. Not about this. Not to me. Let it go, dad. Let it go."

He wasn't going to. MJ could see his muscles tightening as he got ready to make a move.

She slid the knives back into their sheathes. He had a sixth sense. She knew that. Like May's, it would warn of danger. It would tell him if she was about to do something. A precognition, a clairvoyance.

So she didn't reach for the explosives in the pouch at her side. She didn't plan to reach for them. She stood there and waited to see what he would do, trying to leave her mind blank. Open.

When it happened, when he twitched and moved, he was fast. Like a lightning strike. His whole body rolled around May, shoving her back the wrong way, and just like that he was too close to use the explosives.

She backed up, shuffling away, and then he jumped.

He jumped. Nimrod.

Her understanding of physics wasn't great. She was, after all, only an actress. He was a whiz with science, wasn't he? With all kinds of understanding of energy? Why jump, then? Why surrender his advantage? Unless there was some instinct within him that just begged for him to fly, to show off his ability to spring.

She met him in mid-air, plowing into him and knocking him down to earth. While he was jumping his clairvoyance couldn't help him. He managed to fire off a shot of webbing, but it was too late to get him out of her way. She slammed into him like a ton of hot rock, knocking him down.

He bounced up, and she hit him again, so hard that every muscle, every tendon, screamed in agony. The third hit made her bones creak. She could feel her knuckles popping with every blow.

And then he hit her.

She knew his blows were enough to take a god off their feet. She knew he had gone toe to toe with the Juggernaut at least once. She knew he wasn't an easily beaten man.

She was knocked down by it. She hadn't been bracing herself, leaning into it. She'd never done anything remotely like this. Never slung around punches like this either. She hadn't been holding back, and the pain from her knuckles let her know she hadn't been doing it right.

Then May was there, again, facing Peter. He tried going around her, but she was fast. Faster than him. She made his dazzling speed look slow. She made his graceful twists look like a linebacker learning ballet.

He took a swing at her, all that horrendous strength in a bullet-like attack. But she flowed around it, landing two blows on his ribs before he could recover. They both started reacting before the other started to throw a punch, but May's speed advantage meant she could land them, and he couldn't.

But then he got inventive.

He sprayed web fluid over her, sticking her to the ground. The web was faster than his arm, fast enough to pin her down, and take her out of the game. Then he started for MJ again.

Not that she'd been just lying on the ground waiting for him to come. She was up and moving, heading for the wreckage of the glider.

As he came at her she scattered bombs with short fuses on the ground between them, letting the rumbling explosions keep him off her. She didn't send them far enough for him to grab them, send them back. With his clairvoyance he would always know if he had time to grab it and fling it back, and with his speed he could always dodge. She had to play this differently. Had to play this smart.

He sprang then, going up over the explosions and coming down beside her. She turned, swinging one hand at him in a punch. He dodged, but that was what she had been hoping for. Knowing that he could tell it was coming, she hadn't put much force behind the first blow. She'd aimed low, trying to get him to jump over it. He did.

And her other hand was wrapped securely around one corner of the still-intact wing from the glider, swinging it around right at him. It slammed into his stomach, knocking him back twenty feet, tumbling and falling across the roof.

She dropped the heavy wing, running back towards May, who was straining against the webbing. MJ pulled her knives out, cutting through the webbing with quick swipes. After just two it was weak enough for May to pull free.

"We've gotta fly, baby," said MJ.

May nodded. "Follow me."

MJ wasn't sure she could. May ran to the edge of the roof and jumped, arcing gracefully out to the next rooftop. MJ ran out, her heart pounding. It was an awful long way down from here.

She managed to make the jump, trying not to look down. Her jumped was short and not graceful at all. She flailed a few times in mid-air, trying to reach the target roof.

She just made it, hitting the roof and rolling. May was heading for a door, and MJ struggled to her feet, following.

May kicked the heavy security door open. "We've got to go to ground… he can find us if we stay visible."

MJ followed her, trying to trust her daughter's skills.