It wasn't the first time Mary Jane had been to the ICU on what was meant to be a peaceful holiday. Granted, last time it was because she'd driven her sister to an entirely different hospital after one particularly nasty incident with her father. . This time around, she was riding in the back of an ambulance that tore down the slick streets of New York City.
She wasn't hurt, in spite of what the paramedics had tried to tell her when she'd first stumbled over the barrier at the East Projects. She was cold, more exhausted than she ever remembered being in her entire life, and was just waiting for the moment when shock finally set in. But she was alive, relatively uninjured, and hadn't wasted a moment's breath in telling the EMT's that, if they knew what was good for them, they were going to take her to the exact same hospital that they'd taken Eddie.
The ambulance all but skidded into the parking lot of the Metropolitan. The young paramedic, who had been sitting next to MJ and barraging her with the run-of-the-mill post-traumatic stress test questions, looked around as the door behind them burst open.
"You sure you're alright?" He said, looking as if he were moving against his better judgement.
MJ nodded. This wasn't her first experience in the back of an ambulance, and given her relationship with Peter, she knew it probably wouldn't be her last. The three EMT's that had been sitting in the front of the ambulance practically grabbed her and pulled her out of the back door. Mary Jane accepted the fleecy yellow blanket that one of the responder's draped over her shoulders, only just then appreciating how much she had been shivering.
However, once the well-meaning paramedics began ushering her towards a wheel-chair resting near the wheels of another ambulance, MJ drew a line.
"I don't think so," she said, jerking out of the grasp of the EMT who had been questioning her throughout the entirety of the ambulance ride.
The man fixed her with a withering look. "Look, I get that you want to be the strong, independent chick here but-"
"There are other people who actually need that wheel-chair," MJ snapped. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the older female paramedic smirk in spite of herself. "I'm perfectly capable of walking to the ER where you've got my friend."
"You won't be able to get in to see him, honey," said the female paramedic.
MJ shrugged. "I'm not going anywhere until Eddie gets better." She saw the three paramedics glance at each other furtively. MJ swallowed heavily, choosing to ignore the nagging doubt that had been burrowing in her mind ever since she'd carried Eddie down from the room where he'd been attacked.
He would survive, because...because he simply had to. She'd gotten him to Peter in the nick of time. He'd made it to the ambulance and she knew full well that he was already in the ER. MJ wouldn't allow herself to think that she'd failed, because the notion was just too damn impossible when she'd done everything right.
The older woman among the paramedics nodded, and then motioned for Mary Jane to follow her. Silently, she lead the way across the underground parkade, where ambulances were parked against the walls like sentries. Behind them, MJ heard the unmistakable sounds of yet another ambulance rolling into the garage; another soul that would hopefully be saved by the men and women working tirelessly in the hospital above.
Mary Jane pulled the blanket closer around her as she followed the paramedics into an elevator at the opposite end of the parkade. None of them spoke as the car moved upwards. Silent Night wafted gently from the speaker overhead, but it only made MJ feel all the more cold.
She thought of Peter, and made herself wonder when he would show up. Just in the way Eddie would completely recover, Peter would be triumphant over Doc Ock. That was what heroes did, after all.
MJ expected an explosion of noise to assail her the second the elevator doors slid open on the fifth floor. Chaos would add credence to all that happened to her throughout the night. But it was almost mundanely quiet as the paramedics led her into the hallway.
Granted there were several nurses running to and fro, their foreheads creased with concern, but it seemed almost quiet to her.
Nobody else got hurt, she realized as she followed the paramedic in charge to the desk where the night nurse was currently swatting a piece of tinsel dangling from a small Christmas tree.
Living in New York City all her life had taught her to appreciate the immensity of the metropolis, but the night's events had made her feel isolated, compact into a fragment of the world where the most devastating thing that could happen was what had been playing out all around her. But there were other hospitals, hospitals nearer to where the subway had been attacked. And Peter had, evidently, managed to keep things together. Otherwise the streets would have been crawling with escaped crooks from Ravencroft, and the hospitals would have been overflowing with innocent people caught in the crossfire.
Mary Jane stared at a line of paper snowflakes taped to the front of the desk as the paramedic approached the night nurse.
"Another one from the East Projects?" The woman sounded almost bored, and MJ wandered if she had people waiting for her on this Christmas Eve.
She glanced at the clock. It was nearly one-thirty in the morning, so technically it was Christmas day.
The paramedic nodded in response to the night nurse. "She's pretty beat up, but, uh, I guess she feels completely altogether."
Mary Jane felt, rather than saw the night nurse give her a quick once over. "Well, we'll put her in one of the waiting areas. Maybe some hot chocolate. But she should probably get cleaned up first."
"Wait!" MJ said, stepping forward. All four of the medical practitioners whipped their heads around to stare at her in surprise. "What about Eddie Brock? What's happening to him?" Her heart was pounding in her ears, fear rising like bile in her throat, but she wouldn't let herself get into it.
The night nurse glanced at the paramedic who had addressed her. She sighed heavily, slid in front of the monitor on the desk and began rapidly typing on the keyboard. "Psycho's don't even took the holidays off," she breathed. "Leave it to Spider-Man to stir up trouble."
Mary Jane glared at the night nurse. Years of holding her tongue under her father's abuse kept her from telling the woman just what kind of trouble an red-head could stir up.
"Eddie Brock," the night nurse said, looking down the screen. Her forehead creased momentarily, and then she gave a small nod. "He's been in the ER for about twenty minutes, hon. No word yet on his condition."
MJ closed her eyes, feeling her resolve against the pessimism of her thoughts weaken.
He'll be okay, she forced herself to think. He's been in there for a long time, medically speaking.
A warm, large hand clamped down on her shoulder.
Opening her eyes, Mary Jane saw that the young man who had been treating her throughout the ambulance ride was trying to give her a bracing smile. Something in the touch struck her as false, however, and she jerked his hand away from her, pulling the yellow, fleecy blanket protectively around her.
Speaking to the linoleum, MJ said in a quiet voice, "Thank you...I'd like to get cleaned up now."
There was a pause, in which MJ heard a rush of feet go past her, a man's voice barking out orders to somebody she couldn't see, and the Christmas carol playing on the radio behind the night desk change.
"Alright," said the voice of the woman that had helped her since leaving the ambulance. "Bathroom's through the doors on the left." To the night nurse, she added in a low voice that MJ had absolutely no difficult hearing, "Make sure she gets to the waiting room, alright?"
MJ left the paramedics as quickly as she could, walking through double doors with glass windows on either side to a long hallway. She'd never appreciated before just how much she hated hospitals. She hated the smell of disinfectant that barely concealed what she'd long ago determined was the faint aroma of general suffering. She hated that the fluorescent lights were always too bright where they didn't need to be, and too dim where light was wanted most. She remembered the few days that Peter had spent in the hospital after the attack on the mall in Queens had been bad enough for her, and she'd only visited him briefly.
The fact that the staff had tried to punctuate the spirit of the season on every free surface only made things worse.
It took Mary Jane less than a minute to find the bathroom. When she finally looked at her pale, wide-eyed reflection in the mirror, MJ felt herself jump slightly at the image she saw in the clean glass.
There was dirt smudged over her face. Tiny cuts peppered her skin, and her hair was a mess of tangled knots around her face. Her eyes, red and puffy, stared balefully back at her, and for one wild moment, MJ felt an immense desire to pull the blanket over her head and hide from her own reflection. Her grip on the fleece loosened, and the blanket slipped to the ground a flutter of yellow fabric. As battered as her face was, the front of her body was far worse. Her sweater was torn and stained with blood and dirt. But it was her hands, the hands that had been clutching the blanket to her like a shield, that finally made MJ's stoic blocking of all that had happened since she and Eddie had left Manhattan Mall, snap.
Her knuckles were torn and bloody. There was blood already drying under her fingernails. She'd fought people off with these hands, scrambled against broken glass and rock; scratched and people's skin and held grasped at thin, freezing air as she'd fallen into darkness. The rushing, infinite feeling of that fall stole over Mary Jane in a wave of awful, cold dread. With a gasp, she wrenched the hot water on, shoving her bloody hands under the scalding stream issuing from the faucet.
Steam spiraled into the air as MJ scrubbed at the blood and caked on filth on her fingers, rubbing them raw as the memories of the evening continued to flash through her mind like a traumatic grindhouse film. She could have died at multiple points throughout the evening. Eddie was already near death, and the fact that she had survived made her return right back to that stormy ocean she'd fallen in whenever she'd thought about her past. It consumed her, threatened to pull her under in it's icy-cold infinity. The hot, scalding water was all that kept her on the level. Dirt and blood pooled in the sink as MJ continued to scrub and scrub at her fingers, wincing every time she pressed down too hard on a cut or a bruise.
But the pain saved her from drowning in that vast ocean of crippling realization. Hot tears spilled down her face as she pulled her hands out from under the spray.
Through the misty and the film over her own eyes, MJ saw Eddie, lying on the ground of the dark, cold, imprisoning apartment, his body opened as he bled out.
Her fingers still trembling from the terror of the night and the force at which she had scrubbed at her hands, MJ tore several sheets of paper towel from the dispenser, ran them under the scalding water, and began to rub at her dirty, bloody face. If she could just wash the evidence of the night off of her, then she could distance herself from the events of the night itself.
Finally, when the bones in her hand felt raw from the force of her cleaning, MJ dropped the paper towel, turned the hot water off, and stared at her face once more. The mirror had fogged over from the heat of the water, and she rubbed a circle in the middle. The reflection staring back at her was pink faced, the eyes still red and exhausted, but she was clean again.
MJ rubbed her hands over her face, and then stooped down and picked up the yellow fleece blanket that the paramedics had given her. Wrapping it around her shoulders once more, she walked calmly out of the bathroom, and back into the too bright hallway.
She had no clear idea just how much time had gone by since she'd left the front reception desk, but it seemed even more still and quiet on the floor than it had when she'd first left the elevator. Her footsteps barely making a sound as she walked down the corridor, MJ glanced at every door that she past. She had to find Eddie, to make sure that he was alive. Once that piece of the puzzle was in place, she could focus her attention on Peter, wherever in the city he was.
The night nurse had told the paramedics that Eddie had been in the ER for twenty minutes, and MJ hoped against hope that he'd been moved to a recovery room. She needed to see him, had to see him, no matter who was in her way.
Near the end of the corridor, she paused, glancing at the clipboard sticking out of the wall file mounted on the door. Peering closely at it, MJ saw the name BROCK, scrawled into one of the myriads of boxes on the form at the top of the pile.
MJ glanced over her shoulder, knowing that what she was about to do violated just about every protocol that the hospital likely had. Rules, however, had scarcely ever applied to her, and she slipped quietly through the door, and found herself in a dark room.
Blinds had been drawn over the windows, but the lights of the city peeping through the slats cast shadows on the walls. MJ could just see swirling snow falling past the window, but what immediately drew her attention was the bed set against the wall in the center of the room. A faint beeping filled the air, along with a steady, pressurized, whirring sound that was coming from one of the many machines that stood on the side of the bed.
And lying there, with the crisp, white sheets pulled securely around him, was Eddie. He had an IV feed hooked into one arm. An oxygen tube covered his face. It seemed to MJ as if every medical monitor that existed had been hooked into her friend.
But the blood that had stained his body when she'd saved him from Cletus Kasady was nowhere to be found. With his blonde hair sticking out at every angle and the snow white sheets covering him, Eddie looked like a slumbering angel.
He was breathing, faintly, but evenly, and the heart monitor connected to him was beeping steadily.
He was alive, and stabily so.
MJ let out a small whimper as she walked quietly around to the side of Eddie's bed that was the least cluttered by machines and monitors. Whatever the doctors had done had saved him, but that, she knew, was only the half of it.
Peter had saved him with his webs. Hell, even she had saved him by bludgeoning Kasady hopefully to death and getting Eddie down the stairs to the one person who could help them both.
There were no chairs in the room, primarily because MJ knew that visitor's weren't supposed to be in it, even if it wasn't the OR. For a long moment, she simply stared at Eddie's face, the hypnotic beeping of the heart monitor making her feel even more exhausted than she already was. Eddie's arms were above the covers. Slowly, MJ reached out a hand, and gently brushed the back of Eddie's knuckles. She needed to touch him, just to know that this wasn't some messed up, cruel hallucination that she was having while falling through the elevator shaft of that nightmarish apartment building.
The terror of the night was over. Somehow, through Peter's ever vigilant fighting and her and Eddie's refusal to give in, they'd managed to make it through to something resembling a peaceful Christmas. Even though Mary Jane knew Eddie would be lucky to be out of the hospital until well after New Year's, he was alive, and so was she, and so was Peter.
Because he has to be, she made herself think for the umpteenth time that night. If she and Eddie could escape from the clutches of Doc Ock, than there wasn't a horse's chance in Hell that Peter hadn't.
Eddie let out a small moan. Mary Jane froze, and looked around wildly. Should she call somebody? If she did, how much trouble would she be in for having snuck into Eddie's room? She looked down at her friend, but although Eddie stirred feebly, he did not seem to be in pain.
A moment later, MJ let out a small breath of surprise as Eddie opened his eyes. His lids scarcely lifted, but she had seen that grey gaze too much not to notice the change.
There was silence for a moment, save for the beeping of the heart monitor and the whir of the other medical machines. MJ's hand covered Eddie's, gently for fear of hurting him.
Then, in a voice just barely audible, Eddie whispered, "Safe...?"
MJ nodded, her voice catching in her throat. "Yeah big guy," she said. "Safe and sound."
"Pete?"
"He's alright, Eddie. He should be here soon." Because he's the hero, and it's more his job to survive than it is ours.
"Gonna be pissed at me..."
Mary Jane frowned. "Why would you say that?"
"Presents...left them on the subway...got him some new minifigures for D and D..."
MJ laughed, unable to help herself. Either the anasthesia and pain killing drugs had muddled up Eddie's mind or he really was that concerned about having disappointed Peter on Christmas. "Nerd," she said affectionately. "I don't think Peter's going to mind when he finds out that you pulled through."
Eddie let out the best laugh that he could in his weakened state. His lolled sideways. "Tired," he murmured.
"Rest," MJ said, smoothing Eddie's blonde hair over his forehead. "You hear me, Eddie Brock? If you don't make a full recovery, I'm going to beat the shit out of you."
"Love you too," Eddie said, and Mary Jane knew that, had he been at his full health, the crack would have been dripping with sarcasm. Eddie let out a deep sigh, turned his head to the other side of the pillow, and was soon sleeping soundly again.
MJ stood over him for a moment longer, and then, realizing that she'd been violating the terms of the visiting policy long enough, she slid her hand off of Eddie's, and walked quietly out the door.
Nobody had noticed her exit. She felt overwhelmed by her exhaustion. Queitly, she walked back to the front desk, asked the night nurse where the waiting area was, and then walked down another corridor, dimmer than the one that had led to the bathroom, and found herself in a small area populated by plushy leather arm chairs, set around a circular table.
MJ crawled onto the nearest armchair, drawing the blanket even more tightly around her, and turned her head to the side. The chair she'd chosen to sit in faced the windows overlooking the streets. Snow fell outside, the shadows of it dancing around the dim waiting area. From the distant reception desk, MJ could just hear the gentle strains of another soft Christmas carol. This time, she welcomed the soft, familiar melody. It wrapped her round, warmer than the soft blanket she'd covered herself with, bringing back better memories of times when life with her mother and sister hadn't been so miserable, to days spent teasing Eddie through text messages...and to that night that seemed so long ago when Peter had finally collapsed his barriers to let her in.
Something large and shadowy crawled along the surface of the window. It stopped briefly, and even in her state of near-sleep, MJ knew that he was looking in at her.
She smiled softly to herself, closed her eyes, and was soon fast asleep.
What seemed an ungodly short time later, Mary Jane awoke with a start. She was suddenly aware of a volley of voices, not necessarily loud, but loud enough to force her into wakefulness.
Fast as a shot, she sat up, her hair falling into her eyes as she looked blearily around the waiting area.
"Oh! She's awake!"
Mary Jane recognized that voice. More to the point, she recognized the feel of the slender yet somehow strong arms that she felt thrown around her a moment later. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, MJ looked down at May Parker, holding her tightly in the warmest embrace she ever remembered feeling.
"Wha...what's going on?" MJ said, still feeling slightly dazed from how suddenly she'd woken up. The room was brighter than it had been the previous night. A glance over Aunt May's head to the windows lining the back wall showed Mary Jane that it was still snowing, and that it wasn't yet morning. The sky outside was bathed in the dark blue that preceded dawn.
"I was just about to ask you the same question young lady!"
It hadn't been Aunt May who had spoken. Mary Jane looked around, and felt her heart sink the second she saw her own Aunt Anna sitting across the circular table from her. She was wearing a stylish, light pink longcoat that barely concealed the dark green house coat she wore beneath. Her face was pale, pinched with worry, and yet she'd still had time to apply a modest layer of make-up before leaving the house.
Sitting on the arm chairs on either side of Aunt Anna were Betty Brant and Robbie Robertson, both of whom were also wearing clothes that were just a night cap shy of being pajamas. They too looked pale and worried, with heavy circles under their eyes as if they'd been up the entire night.
"I..." MJ closed her mouth the second she opened it, remembering that Peter had been outside the window just before she'd fallen asleep. Aunt May, who had been shaking with what were undoubtedly not her first sobs of the morning, pulled her arms away from Mary Jane, brushing at her eyes with the back of her hands. "What are you all doing here?" MJ finally said, trying hard to figure out how best to skirt around the real issue.
"What are we-Mary Jane, I do happen to have a telephone and several sources for finding out the news." Aunt Anna stared at her hard. The luxurious hair she usually had styled was, for the first time in Mary Jane's memory, tied in a lazy ponytail that somehow made her look her age for once.
Quickly, MJ's eyes darted to Aunt May, who, in spite of her tears, was looking at her levelly from Betty Brant's left side. One look at Aunt May told Mary Jane full well that the woman had pieced together for herself what had happened, even if she hadn't yet heard directly from Peter.
Aunt Anna didn't need any other reason to harp on Peter, not that Mary Jane was about to go even broaching the truth of the previous night's events. But knowing her aunt, MJ knew that she and the rest of the people present would be lucky to leave the waiting area without some kind of explanation.
Just because she didn't have to lie didn't mean she had to tell the whole truth either.
"Eddie and I were on the subway last night," MJ said after a split second's deliberation. She saw Betty and Robbie's eyes widen in surprise. "We left the mall and...our train got hijacked by some creeps from Ravencroft."
Aunt Anna moaned and rubbed at her tired, yet dolled up eyes with her fingers. Given that Anna Watson had never once even pulled at her lids to apply eye shadow for fear of getting wrinkles prematurely, Mary Jane knew that her aunt was genuinely moved.
"They didn't hurt you, did they?"
Mary Jane shook her head, once again glancing at Aunt May, trying to tell the woman wordlessly that there was far more to the story than she was letting everyone else know.
"They hurt Eddie pretty badly," MJ said. Once more she was unable to keep the catch out of her voice. She wasn't about to go telling anybody the extent of what had happened, not even a fabrication of it. That was Eddie's story to tell when he wanted to.
Betty Brant shuddered. "Well thank God you two managed to make it here."
Robbie nodded. "Damn good thing that they let Peter phone everybody in," he said.
MJ looked around, as if expecting to see Peter coming down the hallway any moment now. "Peter was here?" She said before she could stop herself. "When?"
Aunt Anna glanced at Aunt May. To her credit, Peter's aunt scarcely made any indicaiton that she was rattled by Mary Jane's confusion. "He went out for some fresh air a few minutes before you woke up," Aunt May said. "He was the only one they let in to see Eddie." Aunt May gave Mary Jane a pointed look, and MJ knew that the women had somehow managed to guess that Peter wasn't the only one who had visited their injured friend.
"Where the hell was Spider-Man in all of this?" Aunt Anna said hotly.
Aunt May's eyes narrowd a fraction of an inch, but she kept her voice forcibly level as she said, "He was doing his best, Anna. You weren't up as late as I was last night. It was all over every single news station."
"Right," Robbie intoned with a small nod. "Jesus, you should have seen the way he rounded those crooks up at Time Square. It was almost funny."
"Yes but-"
"Oh Anna," Aunt May said, rolling her eyes, "let Mister Jameson do the Spider-Man dissenting, why don't you? It's Christmas morning, and things are going to be bad enough without everybody getting on that heroic young man's case."
"JJ's not here, is he?" MJ said, wondering if she'd be grilled by the Daily Bugle's editor before she got a chance to find Peter.
Betty gave a soft, half-forced laugh. "Oh, he was. Robbie and I made sure to drag him out of his Christmas morning hangover. And let me tell you, I've never seen him more quiet than when he read Eddie's medical report. Y'know, I honestly think he might actually let our medical benefits cover this one."
"He let Peter's when he was in the hospital a few weeks ago," Robbie said. He frowned, turned in his seat to face Aunt May and said, "Damn May...these kids sure get in a hell of a lot more trouble than we did when we were drag racing around Jersey back in our day."
Aunt May chuckled, but said nothing.
Mary Jane got suddenly to her feet, pulling the fleece blanket that had fallen off of her in her sleep around her shoulders again. Aunt Anna and Betty both made to get to their feet, but MJ shook her head forcefully.
"I'm fine," she said, already shuffling around the table. "I, uh, have to pee." With that, she took off, walking as fast as she could, well aware that the four people gathered around the table were watching her in confusion.
She didn't spare them a passing thought. She had a sneaking suspicion that she knew exactly where Peter had gone. There was no doubt in her mind that he'd gone to see Eddie the second he'd made it to the hospital. But she knew Peter well enough by this point. The last place in the world he would want to be after seeing the extent of the damage done by the previous night's events was around people, least of all in a place where he'd feel trapped.
It took Mary Jane no time at all to find the roof access stairs. The night nurse from before had left, and there were more people walking around the corridors of the fifth floor than there had been the previous night. It suited MJ perfectly, allowing her to disappear into the steady stream of nurses, doctors and concerned visitors and sneak towards the stairs. It was a steep climb to the roof, but Mary Jane suddenly felt energized by the prospect of running into Peter. She took the stairs two at a time, grasping the cold, steel railing for support. At last, at long last, she reached the door at the topmost landing, pushed it open, and walked into the snowy morning.
Cold, white flakes were still falling softly from the sky. A thin layer of snow dusted the rooftop like icing. It was colder than MJ had anticipated, and she once more drew the yellow blanket around her. This high up, she could see the extent of Manhattan spreading out before and all around her.
And there, standing on the edge of the building, was Peter. He was wearing his Spider-Man outfit, and as Mary Jane drew closer, she could tell at once that it was a fresh costume. There had been multiple scuffs and tears in his suit when she'd last seen him. As she hurried to him, MJ noticed the dark lump of his backpack tucked under one of the large, blocky heat registers.
He didn't move. She knew that he had heard her open the door. He simply stood there, unmasked, staring out at the sky. A golden-pink tinge was creeping over the horizon, glinting the river with its pastel light.
Mary Jane stopped, just behind Peter, staring at him, waiting.
He turned to face her, and there was something in his gaze that struck her right between the ribs, something so shadowed and hurt that MJ couldn't help but walk into Peter's personal space and put a gentle hand on his cheek.
"Hey," he said, his voice hoarse and low. His eyes were bright and red. He'd obviously been crying at some point recently, something that Mary Jane didn't blame him for at all.
"Hey yourself, Tiger," MJ replied softly. The relief at seeing him again was so palpable that she could practically feel her entire body warming up. But still, the sadness in his gaze made her feel oddly tense. Peter wasn't looking directly Mary Jane, his eyes glancing almost frantically at the space around her.
And all at once, MJ knew exactly what it was that he was going to do. She wanted to silence him, to pull him to her and tell him that he was being stupid again. But this time the evidence of the dangers of his life was everywhere; it was right in front of him, visible on the cuts on Mary Jane's knuckles and face; it was floors below, hooked up to just about every other monitor this side of life support, alive but broken; it was somewhere over the river, doubtless being carted away in armored vehicles to the next best prison the NYPD could find to hold the Ravencroft inmates.
It was evident to Mary Jane in the fact that Peter had changed into a fresh suit, either before or after having called everybody to the hospital. He had planned on making a getaway before he had to face everyone, had to face her. He was trying to run away again...but he hadn't. Not yet.
"Doc...Doctor Octvavius is...dead," Peter said, sniffing awkwardly, and still not looking directly at Mary Jane. There was more to his eyes than just guilt that he'd lead her and Eddie into harm's way. He was wrestling with something else, something more than a blame that Mary Jane knew he'd battled with before.
"Good," MJ said, a little too forcefully. She'd dropped her hand from his face, feeling cold all over in spite of the warmth the blanket provided her. "I mean, I'm not going to throwing a party over it but...the man wasn't exactly gunning for my list of people of the year."
Peter chuckled, a dry laugh. That feeble barrier of trying to avoid whatever elephant was on the roof slackened, and his hung his head, his voice breaking as he said, "I'm sorry. I should never have gotten you all involved in this."
Mary Jane shrugged. "Well, you know me. Stubborn as the dickens and not exactly the smartest tool in the shed." She laughed hollowly. "I'm just the stupid, big-chested, damsel in distress, superhero's girlfriend getting kidnapped every other week because I'm just that helpless and dumb."
Peter stared at her, his eyes meeting hers finally. He looked furious for a moment, his eyes blazing with an intensity that made MJ smirk. "That is not true," he said sharply. Then, noticing her vindictive smile, he looked away, clenching his jaw. "Not fair, MJ," he said after a moment.
"Are we really going to have this conversation again, Tiger? Although last time we did, it lead to some pretty great sex so I'm all ears if you can promise me that."
"This isn't funny."
"No, it's not," MJ said, staring up at him. "And would you do me the courtesy of looking at me, please? I didn't do anything wrong here, and I really don't like you treating me like I did."
Peter blinked, and stared at her, hurt welling up in his eyes. It was a cheap shot, but if he was going to try and make this hard on her then she was all too willing to step up to the bat.
"I...I never said you did anything wrong. Any of you."
"No, you're right," MJ said. "You know who did do something wrong?" She pointed at the towering sky scrapers behind Peter. "People down there. People like Otto Octavius and all those goddamn criminals crawling over the place. They did something wrong. Sue me for being an innocent bystander, Tiger."
Peter's hands shook slightly, and as perturbed as she was that he'd tried to worm his way away from her again, MJ took his hands in hers.
"I've just...I've never come so close to losing this many people before, MJ."
"I know. But we're here now, and we're safe." She paused, and then, for the sake of realism, added, "I mean, Eddie's going to be on the mend for a while, but he's in good hands. He'll been surrounded by nurses for weeks on end. That's, like, his dream...and the plot of at least two of his Penthouse Forum stories."
Peter laughed at that, a real laugh that made his face light up like the clouds on the horizon behind them.
"Damn," he said softly, "why do you always make it hard for me to do the stupid thing and just run away?"
"Because," Mary Jane replied, grinning up at him, "it's my end of the bargain. You do all the heroics, and I make sure that you remember to have a love life." Peter's arms wrapped around her, holding her close to him as if afraid she'd fall into darkness again. It had been so long since she'd felt this safe and warm that MJ sank into Peter's embrace like a hot breath. She could feel his heart beating against his chest, feel each and every breath as he rested his chin on the top of her head.
"If you want to walk away," Peter said into her hair, "I'll understand."
"I'm not going to lie," MJ said softly, still pressed up against him as far as she could go, "last night made a lot of my nightmares look like episodes of Petticoat Junction. But I'm here, I'm alive, and I'd like to be alive with you." She gazed into Peter's eyes, and for once he didn't look away. He smiled down at her, and shook his head, but still his eyes didn't leave hers.
"This is nuts," he said.
"Yeah."
"It's gonna be hell."
"I've lived through hell." She looked over his shoulder at the sky, now a gentle rosy gold as the sun rose over the river. It's like you could live your whole life up here, she thought. She wouldn't take that away from Peter, wouldn't expect him to abandon his desire to be a force for good, to be one of the few things in the world to try and make sure everyone saw more beautiful Christmas mornings like the one they were witnessing.
"I didn't get you anything for Christmas," Peter said softly.
MJ smiled. "Yeah," she said, pulling him down to her. "You kinda did." She kissed him then, the warmth of his lips filling her with everything in that moment that she knew they both needed. He wasn't going to leave her, not ever again, and she would never give him cause to fear for her life, not after what had happened the night before.
When they broke apart, Peter wrapped on arm securely around Mary Jane as they stared out over the beautiful sunrise.
"Merry Christmas, MJ," Peter said.
Mary Jane smiled. "Merry Christmas, Tiger. Peace on Earth."
And, in spite of the world still turning around them, in spite of the long recovery Eddie had ahead of him, Mary Jane knew that there would be.
At least for one more day.