Years ago, Peter had taken pictures of the Lizard on Curt Connors' first rampage through the Florida swamplands. The first photos ever taken of the Lizard, they'd proven iconic in a prosaic way, getting trotted out for most every news story and puff piece on the Lizard. Thanks to a recent Supreme Court ruling, that came out to a hefty chunk of royalties owed to Peter. The only catch was that he had to go to Florida in person to sign for all of it. But, for several thousand dollars, Peter could do that.

Mary Jane had tagged along, wanting to check out some retirement homes on her Aunt Anna's behalf, as well as enjoy the Florida sun when New York seemed perpetually damp and gloomy. After three days of Miami beaches and Miami nightclubs, they were both over it. Maybe they were New Yorkers at heart. Or maybe it was the strain of being so close, yet so far away.

They'd both picked up admirers, sunning themselves by day and clubbing by night. Peter hadn't taken anyone up on their offers and he didn't think Mary Jane had either. Why not? He didn't have any hold on her. For that matter, she didn't have any hold on him, yet he hadn't allowed himself to be picked up. What was it that drove them together too close to be separated, but not close enough to be something more?

"Minigolf," Mary Jane said, looking radiant as ever in a tie-dye T-shirt and jean shorts that went to the very top of her long, alabaster legs. It was an outfit only the tropical heat of the golf course could love, that only MJ could pull off. "Tiger, you know how to keep a girl from getting too full of herself. I thought once I admitted I knew who you were, you'd finally take me swinging."

"That can be arranged," Peter said, lining up his shot. "Which palm tree do you want to swing off of?"

That was the other thing. Mary Jane knew he was Spider-Man. She had pretty much always known, and it'd finally shaken loose. Peter would've thought the marriage proposal would've jarred it out of place, but apparently what did the trick was a furry following him home and trying to tenderize him all while MJ was outside the apartment, hearing it blow by blow.

Peter checked his shot at the last second, scowling at his failure in concentration. She knew. She'd known all along. How many times had she been worried about him, unable to confide in even him, just suffering in silence? It was what he'd always feared for someone sharing his life and his secret, but he hadn't even been able to ask her to take on that burden. She'd found out without him knowing.

It all seemed so random, so unfair. After admitting the truth, she'd told him her own secret: the mistakes, the regrets, all the cracks in the party girl he'd been fooled by for so long. No wonder Aunt May had tried to set them up. MJ was a lot deeper than he'd given her credit for a lot of the time. Peter still didn't know if they were really right for each other. Even with this shared secret, part of him felt further away from her than ever.

He took a deep breath, lined up the shot, and managed to putt it into the crocodile's mouth before the jaws closed. The dimpled ball plinked into the hole.

"Nice shot, Peter," MJ cooed. "I really won't have to try too hard to let you win."

"Let me win? With your par?" Peter asked.

"Just a little something to assuage your masculine ego."

"I'm in Florida. I don't think there is any assuaging me."

"Oh, now the New Yorker comes out. You want to talk about how it's the greatest city in the world?"

Peter reached out with his golf club and tapped hers. "Your shot, by the way."

Mary Jane went to straddle her ball's position, winding up her swing in careful alignment with the tee. Peter tried not to admire how long her legs were, her hips jutting out as she bent over the tee. "Don't get me wrong, I like the Big Apple, but how many holes does its miniature golf courses have?"

"I don't think New York has minigolf. Too chintzy."

"Whatever you say, Queens." Mary Jane gave the golf ball a good thwack, sending it on its way, straight and true. "Okay, I might not let you win after all. You're right, you don't need your ego massaged, you're a very humble person."

Peter rested his club on his shoulder. "Maybe. I hate talking about myself. Even when I probably should."

MJ eyed him. "Ruing you missed your chance to give me the big dramatic reveal? Pull your mask off? Rip your shirt open and shown me your costume?" She bit her lip. "Although, I might've told you to keep going with the undressing."

Peter wondered if he should bring up how it felt with the costume (mostly) on. Felicia'd taught him a lot about that, but even a social clod like him could sense that would be a sore spot. And it wasn't like he wanted to hear about Mary Jane's love life either. Yeah, they were such good friends, couldn't talk about their social life without wandering into a minefield. And yet, she was his friend. He did care about her. And he didn't doubt she cared about him…

He gritted his teeth. If nothing else, this seismic shift in their relationship was ruining his golf game. On top of everything else, he had to process whatever the hell he had with Mary Jane. Friendship. It was just friendship.

But was that what she felt for him?

Peter stomped his golf club on the grass. This, this was why he had been so reluctant to tell anyone his secret. It made things ten times more complicated! The more he and MJ learned about each other, the more there was between them!

"Don't take it out on the peat just because I'm having a good game, tiger," MJ said, but with a rueful smile that told him she got it. What he was going through.

Peter smiled back at her, not knowing how to say that he sympathized—this must be a small taste of what she had gone through, all those years of knowing and not knowing, knowing part of it but not all of it. Knowing who Spider-Man was before knowing who Peter Parker was. What a mess.

Change the subject, webhead. "Say, what was the plan if I ever told you? Did you have some line ready for 'finding out' I was Spider-Man?"

"Petey, I didn't know what to say when you asked me to marry you. Don't you think I expected you to tell me you were Spider-Man before you asked me to be your wife?"

Peter's ears burned. Ouch. "I was going to tell you, it just—it didn't seem like there was much point if you said no." Words spilled out of him like a boil being lanced. "Which you did."

MJ staked her golf club on the ground and leaned on it. "I'm not blaming you for not telling me. Are you blaming me for turning you down?"

"I never said—"

"You lied to me."

"I didn't lie—"

Mary Jane's face reddened, Peter sensing he'd made a mistake with his kneejerk defense of himself. "A lie of omission. When you held out that ring, when you asked me to marry you, you were lying. How could you ask me to share your life with you when you wouldn't even tell me what that life was?"

Peter threw up his hands. "Did you ever think that maybe Spider-Man wouldn't be part of my life if you were?"

Mary Jane's eyes boggled. Peter didn't think he'd ever seen them do that before. Mary Jane Watson, queen of jaded, was taken aback. Peter quickly realized why.

"That wasn't… that's not an offer…"

"Hey, fellas?" A retiree the size of an elephant seal and four remnants of the Baby Boom approached, two of them carrying a golf bag together. "You mind if we play through?"

"Yeah," Peter said, stooping to pick up his ball. "We thought we'd go get some lemonade. Bad round anyway."

They bought two Styrofoam cups the size of blenders and took them to the enclosed patio area of the golf course's attached dining hall. An overhanging roof covered tables that already had umbrellas in them. Peter and Mary Jane set their sunglasses on the table, assured that no sunlight would be getting through to them.

"Did you think that was the deal?" Mary Jane asked once they were seated.

"I didn't think anything. I asked, you said no—we're good. That's how it's supposed to work, right?"

"But since I told you I know, you think that I said no because you were Spider-Man."

"No, no… God!" Peter nodded. "Okay, maybe a little. Maybe there've been times—a lot of times—when I would love to chuck the costume, the webshooters, everything. Move in with you and have my only alter ego be Mr. Mary Jane Watson."

"I never offered that," Mary Jane said firmly.

"I know, I know."

"It's not that it isn't tempting," she demurred. "In a world where you were just some… cute guy getting all the college credits in the world."

"Oh, now I have to ace my college courses for you too," Peter moaned, a playful smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

"Don't say that. I'd love to help motivate you." Mary Jane drew her drinking straw into her mouth before realizing how flirty she was being. "But, uh… but you are Spider-Man. You're that guy, the guy who goes into the burning building and digs up the cave-in. I couldn't ask you not to be—even if it would make me happy."

"If you want me to keep being Spider-Man—if you don't have a problem with it—why don't you want to be with me?"

In a daze, Mary Jane held up her lemonade cup and focused on it. "This is not nearly hard enough lemonade for this conversation."

Peter held up his hands defensively. "I'm not… I'm not asking-asking. I'm just. Curious."

"So then you don't want to be with me?"

Peter picked up his own lemonade. "This is really soft lemonade. The softest of all lemonades."

"Crazy how neither one of us wants to be together, but we're so afraid to tell each other we don't want to be together."

"Not afraid. We just don't want to hurt each other."

"We'd hurt each other more if we got together."

"That sounds more like acting class than you."

"Line I came up with," Mary Jane admitted. "See, I learned from not having something to say when you proposed."

"You did say something," Peter stressed.

"I said the first thing that popped into my mind! Second thing."

"Did the first have a hyphen in it?"

Mary Jane nodded with a small smile. "I kinda wanted to shove that mask over your face and yell 'now ask me. Ask me when it's for real.'" She slumped in her chair, wincing at the admission. "But let's not get into my fantasy life."

"I don't know, if you really want to assuage my male ego, you could tell me more on the whole fantasizing about me subject."

"Defusing the tension with a joke. You're picking up my bad habits."

"Oh no, that one's all me. But it's a lot easier with your average supervillain. They have loads more to make fun of."

"Right, because I'm so flawless."

"You are," Peter said, the two words coming out of him so easy, so sincere, so him that Mary Jane's heart skipped a beat.

She laughed uncomfortably. "Forgetting my dark backstory already? Abandoning my single mother sister at our mom's funeral?"

Peter only blinked once. "You remember when you found out about me?"

"Yeah. Of course." Her fingers tightened on her cup, bending the Styrofoam to the breaking point. "Peter, do we have to do this? All the drama, all the truth-telling, the olds wounds and the scars and, and sometimes I think I had the right idea, putting it all in the rear-view mirror."

Peter grinned humorlessly. "Do you really think I would stop thinking about you, about all of this, if we just played minigolf all day?"

Mary Jane sipped from her lemonade. "God, we should've just split one of these. My bladder is going to burst if I have all of this."

"Nah, you'll go into a diabetic coma first, they put a whole bag of sugar in it."

Mary Jane nodded, the smile that played on her lips so unlike the glamorous, sensual grin she used to model with—so much more beautiful than that. "Your uncle was killed. And you caught the guy who did it. You made it right. Damn, now that I say it, that's quite a guy to lay on a fourteen-year-old girl. No wonder I'm still with you, all these years later. Not with you, but with—"

"They didn't catch the guy," Peter said.

"Of course they did," Mary Jane stated. "I had to know that much. Dennis Carradine. You put him away, somehow stopped yourself from murdering the bastard."

"It's not his fault, it's mine," Peter insisted. "I saw him running from a cop before he ever came near Ben Parker. He ran right by me. I didn't even need powers to stop him. I could've stuck my foot out and my uncle would still be alive." His heart pounded like it was rattling with the force of an explosion, the blast as he finally let out what had been sealed inside him so long. "My Uncle Ben died because I let him die."

A part of him thought that would end it right there. Send Mary Jane packing and at least that would be an answer. Maybe that was why it shocked him so much when she reached out and took his hand. "You're a smart guy, Peter. You've probably told yourself it wasn't your fault so many times that the words don't even sound like words anymore, so telling you myself wouldn't help any. But for what it's worth, I've spent a lot of time trying not to let on how many parts of me are holding on by a thread. Worried people would run away screaming. It's been a long time since I worried about that with you."

Peter's awareness of her hand on his became so insistent it was like his Spider-Sense going off. He turned his hand slightly, taking her fingers in his, and squeezed, returning the pressure she was giving him. "I won't run away if you won't."