Peter awoke for the second time that night to an unfamiliar noise. He looked at the time. 4.40 am. What was it now?
Then he realised the sound was coming from Harry's room. He was alert and out of bed within moments, and mere seconds later he was striding into the bedroom down the hall.
In the darkened room, he could make out MJ's body lying tangled in the bedsheets. Every now and then she thrashed, her lips moving ceaselessly as she shook her head and mumbled incoherently. Occasionally her mumbling would become a cry of fear, or a shout of anger. This was what had woken him.
His heart pounding painfully, he crossed the room towards her, wanting desperately to give her comfort. As he got closer he saw that her sweater - well, his sweater - was riding up, and somewhere along the line she had shed the damp tank top.
He felt his body stir fiercely in automatic response. The sweater revealed the soft, pale planes of her bare stomach, all the way to her gently curving hips and up to the line of her breasts. She tossed again, and the sheet fell away from one leg. One naked leg. Peter realised with a barely suppressed groan that she had shed her jeans too, and was sleeping in no more than his sweater and her panties.
MJ whimpered in her sleep, shaking him out of his reverie. He suddenly felt dirty, standing in the dimness of the room and just staring at her while she writhed in the grip of a nightmare.
He hurried forward and leaned over her. Again, the scent of her nearly overwhelmed his senses, but he forced the sensation down.
"MJ!" He called, shaking her shoulders gently. "Mary Jane!"
She quietened for a moment, and he thought she was waking up. But suddenly she screamed, and the sound alone nearly drove him out of his mind. He pulled her into his arms, stroking her hair and calling her name over and over, begging her to wake, assuring her that he was there.
For a moment, she continued to thrash, fighting his embrace, then quietened again, her arms clinging to him. Her mumbling quietened, and became one word, repeated tearfully over and over. "Peter... Peter..."
Peter let his head fall back, battling with the storm of feelings she invoked in him. Love, protectiveness, joy, pain, adoration, guilt, incredulity, passion...
Her face rested against his still-bare torso, and he could feel her breath on his skin.
So much passion...
"I love you, Peter..."
The whispered, pain-cracked confession was more than he could bear.
"MJ, I..."
And then he was kissing her, without quite knowing how he had begun. But his lips were on hers and she was responding as she always did, with sweetness and eagerness and so much tenderness he thought his heart would break.
When did she take off the sweater? Had he taken it off? He didn't know. But she was all revealed to him now, every inch of skin was spread before him as he had so often imagined but never dreamed would happen for him. His hands explored her, worshipping every inch of her, while his own body thrilled to the feel of her small hands moving fiercely over his bared skin.
Over and over again, their lips met and parted once more. It was as though they'd never have enough. Heat, heavy breaths and tiny cries of pleasure and affirmation filled the room. And when he entered her at last, they were both awed by the sense that nothing had ever been right until this moment. That they had found all that they had ever been looking for, and could ever ask for, right here and now, within each other.
Staring straight into Peter's eyes, MJ raised a shaking hand and brushed a sweat-dampened tendril of hair back from his forehead. "I love you," she whispered again. Pride seemed a ridiculous notion at such a moment.
Peter closed his eyes. "MJ..."
Suddenly she was terrified. He couldn't be about to apologise again, surely not, not now...
"Don't!" she cried, placing her fingers against his lips, "Don't say it, I can't bear it if you..." She couldn't finish. Closing her own eyes, she moved her hips under him, and felt his breath hitch.
"Just... Keep going. Don't stop, Peter. Don't - "
And then speaking was no longer possible. Her pupils dilated sharply and her fingers dug into the skin of his strong shoulders. His state was little better. His final shout matched her last cry of ecstasy, before he collapsed over her, their perspiration-damp skin sliding slickly together.
For a long time, and MJ had no idea how long it was, they lay in silence, with only the sound of one another's slowly stabilising breathing to insulate them against the quiet.
MJ waited for him to say something, to acknowledge something… to let her know where she stood at least. Were they still just 'friends'? What was he thinking? And if the answer wasn't what she wanted to hear, did she really want to know? Could she take the pain of another rejection without shattering completely?
But he made no sound. She tried not to feel hurt by this. She lay in his arms, and wished with all that was in her that the morning would not come. This was all she really wanted. To be with him. Daylight had the power to take it all away. Things were never the same in the morning. But she loved him, and for now, she told herself, this moment was enough.
MJ was almost asleep when he finally began to speak.
"Since before I even knew what love was, I have loved you."
She was awake instantly, but did not move, afraid of breaking the spell that had fallen. It was so long before he spoke again that she began to think she had dreamed his words.
"Right through high school... You must have guessed. Surely you must have. You are the most beautiful girl I have ever known, in spirit, in mind, in ... body. MJ, I love you with all I have in me, and I always have." He took a deep, shuddering breath. "But if anything ever happened to you..."
She felt a shiver pass over his skin. Her own skin felt tight with a joy so intense she wasn't sure she would survive it.
"Peter, it's all right... Nothing's going to happen to me." She said softly, half-smiling in the darkness. "And even if it did... I seem to have attracted my own personal body-guard. Why would you worry for me?"
To her surprise, he didn't smile in return. "This ... personal body guard ... Spiderman ..."
She was sitting up now and staring down at him, her naked form radiant in the hazy dawn light, her face framed by a halo of glowing red hair.
Love and desire burned through him, and for a moment he could say no more. But MJ still looked concerned.
"I'm not in love with Spiderman, if that's what you think," she said, a little impatiently. How could he suspect that, after what they had just shared?
At that he did smile, but it wasn't a very happy expression.
"No," he agreed, "How can you love a superhero? They aren't real people."
At that MJ wanted to interrupt, and tell him that he was wrong. Spiderman, for all that he was a hero, was most definitely still a man. But some instinct stayed her tongue, and a moment later Peter resumed.
"I mean, can you imagine if Spiderman had a girlfriend? What a life she would have. She'd be a woman who deserved the best of everything, absolutely everything... And what she'd get would be a life of playing second fiddle to a duty that he never asked for but was his nonetheless, because ... there's no one else.
"Plus there would be enemies. Even now there are people out there who would stop at nothing to destroy Spiderman by any means they can. Any one he is close to is at risk. Because those enemies won't take long to figure out that there's only one thing that could destroy him, and that is the death of someone that he loves. The one person he's always loved. So superheroes don't have lovers. They don't have wives, or children, or blood brothers. All they can afford to have are..."
He took a deep breath, and met MJ's eyes directly. "...Friends."
MJ stared back into his sombre face, a strange numbness stealing over her senses.
It couldn't be.
Could it?
Pieces swirled in her head, refusing to match up. So many things she had never understood… So many tiny mysteries… So many impossible maybes… Peter? Spiderman? "Don't go into any dark alleys…" "I don't want to fight you, Flash…" "There's so much to tell..." "Let die the woman you love…" "I was in the neighbourhood…" "Friends is all I have to give…" She struggled to think logically about it all, but the images came at her too think and fast. Her mind refused to take it all in.
Then a searing memory surfaced, and she clung to it. It would be her key. It would be her answer.
Without breaking eye contact, MJ twisted on the bed until she was sitting cross-legged with Peter's head in her lap. Lowering her mouth to his, she kissed him very gently, her nose meeting his chin.
There was no rain, no cold, no mask. But she knew whom she was kissing. She would never forget these sensations. Breathing heavily, she broke the contact.
And realised before she even raised her head that all of the pieces had dropped neatly into place.
