Days of Pretending
Rated PG-13
Chapter 8: Hate
"MJ, it's Peter. I just wanted to see you today, if possible. I love you so much. Please call me back. I love you," said the voice on the answering machine. Mary Jane smiled widely and played the message again, listening to the way he had absentmindedly repeated the fact that he loved her.
"Today?" she giggled. "Why not now?" With that she swung open the door, snatched a coat, and ran down the stairs to the ground floor. A cab drove her to the apartment building that Peter lived at. The cabby fare was high, but the young woman was too delirious and sick with her love that she did not care. She paid him happily and bounded up the stairs. One week was too long to not see him.
Mary Jane unlocked the door to his apartment and entered, her eyes scanning the place for Peter. He didn't seem to be home, but his window was open, letting in icy winter air. She would have shut it, but she presumed that Peter was out as Spider-man saving someone. That fact ached, but Mary Jane left the open window as it was and sat on the couch, watching the pretty blue curtains fluttering in the chilly afternoon air.
Five minutes passed. Them the curtains blew apart and the masked superhero entered in through the window with a majestic flip. He landed in a crouch, surveying the room. He caught Mary Jane's eyes. "Hi!" he said enthusiastically through the mask. She smiled back at him.
A part of her was taken aback in the fact that he wore his costume, but she regretted that. Peter was underneath, right?
"Good afternoon," Mary Jane said, rising elegantly and closing the distance between them. "How are you, love of my life?" Peter crooned into her ear. She threw two arms around his neck and pressed her body against him, wishing that he was wearing anything but the Spider-man suit. It was digging into her skin, all the ridges making telltale indents.
"Very good," she replied with a smile. "I've missed you, though."
"So have I," Peter told her. She wished she might be able to see his eyes through the mask, but they were covered by those great silver shields that hid everything, as intended. She wanted to change that.
"I've been thinking all day about you," she said softly, slipping a finger under the edge of the mask. "I've been remembering everything that happened a few nights ago, and wanting it all over again." Mary Jane pulled up the mask past his neck, up over his mouth. She kissed him, just as she had one rainy night months before, but she continued to take off the mask, proceeding to toss it wherever it landed. She did not care at all what happened to it.
Peter's hands roamed up her back, but he paused in that motion to take off his gloves and drop them to the floor. Skin against skin felt so much better to them both than skin against fabric. It brought back so many memories for Mary Jane to feel Peter's fingertips swirling over the small of her back, tiptoeing underneath the edge of her blouse.
They broke contact, looking into each other's eyes. I love you, her brain and heart screamed. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. "So this is heaven," she told him. Peter smirked and kissed her cheek lovingly.
"Yes," he agreed. "Hold on, let me go get on some clothes."
He vanished from her view as he ran into his room to throw on a shirt and pants. He emerged, very quickly, buttoning the top of his black polo shirt, the hem of it haphazardly tucked into his jeans. "Oh, my gloves and mask," he commented, bending over to pick the discarded mask. Peter held it and fiddled with it, watching the eyes watching him, before tucking it into a back pocket. The gloves went into the other.
Mary Jane observed him as he moved gracefully and sophisticatedly across the living room, his form beautiful as it stirred up so many emotions in her gut. When Peter was finished, he shut the window and then he came to sit next to her on the couch, cuddling up against her as the chill of the room faded.
"So, Mary Jane, did you enjoy yourself last Friday?" he asked her in a voice that made shivers run all over her back. She nodded vigorously, running her fingers over his knuckles, remembering things she would never forget in all of eternity.
"I think I enjoyed you more than I enjoyed myself," she teased, toying with the wording.
"Same," he said with a smirk and a deep red blush, burying his face into her shoulder.
"Peter," Mary Jane said in a very soft voice, "I've been doing a lot of thinking today."
"Tell me about it," he said with genuine interest, resting his head on her shoulder and listening to her talk.
"Well," she started with some uncertainty, "I was thinking about the future." She bit her lip nervously, unsure of what Peter's reaction might be. "I was wondering what might eventually become of us. Do you think we might get married?"
In the heat of the night's passion, Mary Jane had seemingly blown off their conversation about their relationship, how it seemed to be fighting a losing battle against circumstances. She remembered, of course, but she felt a decision had been reached to not give up. And wasn't their attraction and pure, mutual love proof enough that they were really special? Didn't that mean they could stand up to the world? She dismissed the idea that they would end. That thought of failing had vanished with the sun the earlier evening.
Peter looked up, his head lifting from her shoulder with a start. "Married?" he asked.
She blushed. "Oh, I'm sorry I said it. We've been dating three months, and I'm already thinking about marriage-" she started, putting her hand over her eyes to shield their flickering embarrassment.
"Marriage," Peter repeated. The thought turned over in his head. His young male mind exploded in a red and orange fireball at the concept of marrying Mary Jane. Peter could see her now, in the recesses of his imagination, her red hair loosening from the pins. She would laugh and say they pricked her head, and she would rebel in leaving her hair down for the wedding ceremony. They could have a little house with a garden full of roses. And it would be better than living next to each other like they had for years, because instead of waving goodnight through the window panes, there would not be a goodnight wave but a goodnight kiss as they snuggled into their own bed. And would there be children? Mary Jane Parker, or maybe Watson-Parker. She would like to keep her name. Yes, Mary Jane Watson-Parker. It had a ring to it.
But the night's conversation had stuck with him. Though he had hope, he also had doubt. Peter had always been much more realistic than Mary Jane. He knew there would be trouble. He knew he might have to rush out of their bed at three in the morning to save a man from a burning building. He knew that maybe his kid would say, "Dad, I haven't seen you all day!" when he arrived home late that evening. Peter knew that at night, Mary Jane would stare at the ceiling and she would say very softly and emotionlessly, "Your girl missed you today, Peter." She would pause for dramatic effect and add, "And I don't mean your child. I mean me." And she would roll over and go to sleep and leave him hanging, and Peter would stay up all night feeling guilty for being himself.
"I don't think I can take you there," he explained very calmly, his eyes looking past hers to some place she didn't understand. "I don't think I'm good enough for you."
"What are you talking about?" she asked him with uncertainty lingering on the edges of her voice. "Of course you are." She scooted towards him. "Peter, I love you. You love me. That alone fulfills me and makes me happy."
"Oh, I don't know." Peter shook his head and her and rubbed his temples. "I just don't know."
"Peter, don't you love me?" she asked with fear creeping into her tone. Blackness wore away at her center, paralyzing her, making her stomach roll with a pain and a torture she had never before experienced. What was it in his tone that did this to her? Was it his hesitation, his doubt?
"Mary Jane!" he exclaimed, meeting her eyes passionately. "Of course I love you. God, I love you. How could you think that I don't?" He almost fell off of his seat from the trembling all over him. Have I not said it enough? Have I not shown it? Am I not proving it? This is truth, isn't it? I love Mary Jane, but I really cannot suffice.
"I'm sorry! You just sounded for a second there like you didn't know what you were saying, like you were unsure," she attempted to explain. Redeeming herself was not possible. He looked too hurt to be soothed by her words. "Peter, I take it back. I know you love me. I just… oh, I don't know. You looked like you might be doubting yourself."
"Loving you has been the only thing I've been sure of for all my life," he whispered, closing in on her and taking her face in his hands.
"Peter, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it."
He bit his lip. "The real question is if you love me."
"Yes," Mary Jane answered him immediately, wondering why he questioned her. Was she giving off the name weird emotion that he had been emitting? "I will never stop loving you."
"Why?" Peter asked her. "Why do you love me?"
"Because," she began, choking. "Because you're Peter, that's why I love you. You are kind, gentle, caring, courageous, brave, supportive, golden-hearted, spiritual, and beautiful in all aspects. I have never met a person who feels like such a part of me, like such a chunk of my life. I have never met a person who can so… melt me with his smile, his charm, his wit. I have never felt like I had a home until… until I found you." Mary Jane wiped her streaming eyes, unsure of why she cried. Some unnamed feeling bloomed in her heart. It was like a raw, uncontained passion that had no bounds, like she couldn't express enough of what she felt. It was a deep connection that was too beautiful to remain nonchalant about. It was almost a crying for joy, yet also for something else that she couldn't place and didn't want to place, something darker. "Peter, you are everything to me."
Peter kissed her forehead and drew her sobbing form against his chest. "I don't understand how you can love me. I don't feel like I'm good enough."
"You are, you are," Mary Jane repeated between her cries.
"Then why are you crying?"
She paused and halted her sniffing. "I don't know." It was then that it struck her. I am crying because he's right. She dared to glance up at his eyes, which looked forlorn and apart from her. She felt it, too.
Gone. He was gone from her. She loved Peter with all of her, with every fiber of her being. He was the best thing in her life. She craved him, but her thirst for him could not be quenched. He was so unfortunately right; he was falling from her. She could hear it in Peter's voice, the way he sometimes spilled himself into a pool that was alien and foreign. She could not get enough of him. It made her so easily offended when he had to rush away, and he hurt her when he couldn't make a date, and he could break her with a wrong or misspoken syllable. It was like he could not fill her cup, because he had to fill another. There was always that large red wall in front of them, that goddamn menace Spider-man, who would always be the middle man between their kisses.
He was right. He was not good enough. She was dissatisfied.
She sat up abruptly, jerking from his arms. "Peter," she gasped, her eyebrows knitted together in a pained way. "I'm sorry. It's my fault." She flung herself off of the couch and ran out of the door. She half-stumbled down the stairs, out of the door, into the winter night. Why am I not satisfied with the everything I have from Peter? He gives me everything he can. And I am still not pleased. The streets were freezing. I ask him to give me all of his time and effort, but he cannot give up Spider-man. It would be like giving up my career or my personality or my laughter. I ask him to leave part of himself for me. I give him challenges he cannot accept.
Mary Jane could not keep from moving onwards. She was breathless, but she kept going, running from what she knew was coming and what she didn't understand. She denied the little thoughts that crept into her brain, the ones that whispered that the biggest thing in her life had reached an end. She could not face them, and she sped up her pace. He is not too little for me. I am too big for him.
As she walked feverishly, shivering through the cold night, Mary Jane noticed a billboard out of the corner of her mind. She stood on the street corner and the green hue of the traffic light flashed against her hair while she stood gazing at the advertisement. The billboard pictured two young lovers scantily dressed and draped over each other on a beach of white sand. It was an ad for some type of alcohol, but that fact was immaterial to her. Mary Jane could not peel her eyes away from the couple, their smiling faces, their bodies pressed against each other. They looked so happy, but they were only actors. It wasn't real, though it looked like it. Was it just her imagination, or did the air suddenly get colder as that billboard sucked her in?
She glanced away from it. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw Peter beside her. He was looking at the billboard with the same horrified expression. He caught her eye and turned his back to the frightening image. "Hi," he said awkwardly. He fidgeted a little.
"Hello," she answered. She couldn't speak his name. An unbroken silence hung in the air.
"It's snowing," Mary Jane said suddenly, unable to stand the quiet. Indeed, it had begun to snow. They both looked up. The streetlamp bounced off the glistening flakes as they fell, casting irregular sparkles across their faces. The lamp flickered slightly as the bulb slowly died.
"It's over?" she said bluntly. It was more of a statement than a question. She could deny the demons inside of her no longer. Mary Jane could not meet his eyes and so she continued to watch the snow fall, looking up and away to greater places than where she was.
"Yeah. Yeah, I think so." He looked at his soaked shoes. The gashes on his insides were reopening. He wanted to cry because he was Peter, and Peter was Spider-man, and even he, the man in control of himself, could not control that.
"There are
no second chances?"
"I… I don't think it would be worth it," Peter answered honestly. "I mean, this failed once. What's the use of failing again?" He hated himself so much right then. He wanted to die for it, for all the mistakes he had made when he was with her, for not being good enough. He cast a bitter glance at her. Was she crying, or was it the precipitation? Maybe it was all the same, anyway.
"I don't know." She paused. "But wasn't it nice while it lasted?" she asked, unsure. Mary Jane's eyes lowered to his, pleading. Please don't tell me these past months meant nothing to you. Lie to me, but don't say it.
Peter met her eyes for the first time in long minutes. How could he explain that it had been the best three months of his life? How could he manage to express that he had lived and breathed for their relationship? Would she be able to see that it had been the sun in the center of his black hole?
"Yeah. It was nice," he responded, his words a shadow to his true emotion. He talked in that cool, untouchable way now that meant he was beyond pain and only numb like the winter night. "But it was all make-believe."
"What was?" she asked fearfully.
"Our relationship was. We imagined for so long that it would work. But the days of pretending are over," Peter said coldly. The words echoed inside his head. Over. Over. We are over. There is no more Peter and Mary Jane. Now it is Peter, Mary Jane, separated. She will never be my lover again. I will never kiss her again. She will never become Mary Jane Watson-Parker, like she did in my imagination. I have lost her, and it is my own fault.
"Yeah," she agreed. "It was… just doomed from the start. We never would have-" And that was when she lost all self-control and started to sob in deep, gasping breaths.
Peter watched Mary Jane, shocked and aloof. He could not bring himself to stop her. Mary Jane's arms were wrapped around herself because no one else would hold her, and her screams of anguish were for him, but he made no move. Peter knew that if he did, he could never look back; if he took one step closer, he would lose it, too. He would not allow himself to be seduced by her tears, though it was all he wanted.
"Why? Why didn't it goddamn work?" she cried out, choking. Her voice echoed in his brain's caverns and down the city sewers, shuddering. "We… we were perfect for each other. Why, then, was it all useless? Why?"
"Mary Jane-" he started.
She suddenly was upon him. Her hand gripped his shirt collar, shortening his breath as she pulled his face down to hers. The streetlamp dimmed and flickered again, as though it had been startled by her sudden outburst. "I loved you with all of myself. Why wasn't that enough?"
"I don't know," he gasped, tearing himself away savagely with an urgency to escape her eyes. "I don't know!" The snow fell from his hair as he shook her off, backing up into the lamp and slipping a little on the thin layer of snow that just barely covered the sidewalk.
"We just weren't meant," she said dully. She drifted towards Peter. He looked away, terrified of Mary Jane. He had never seen her so passionate, so furious. He had never seen her cry like that. He had never been so afraid of a person in his life.
"I suppose," he replied, feigning indifference. She would never understand him.
"But I can't let you go yet," she whispered. Her voice was muffled by the rain. "I can't let what we have go. I love you too much." Yes, too much for our own good.
"And I love you, Mary Jane," he confessed, "more than ever before. I will never stop loving you, not ever."
She cried out once more, the shrillness of her voice piercing all of him. "Then why must this end, Peter, if we love each other? Maybe I'm right, and we were just not meant in the long run, but why can't we just fake it for now while we're still so close to each other? Why should we give up the love we have for each other?" The lamp shuddered.
"So we might save what little we have. Mary Jane, we can pretend like we did for three months, but we will not work out. We are too different. If we remain involved with each other, we will both end up getting hurt and learning to hate each other. We'll just make everything worse. It's just best to stop now where we are so we don't ruin anything."
"I could never hate you, Peter."
"But don't you see, Mary Jane?" he argued ardently. "You hated me when I didn't show up for dinner, and when I left you alone in bed at night. Those were the worst moments of my life, when you despised me, when I thus despised myself. If we dated more, it would continue. You would become even angrier with me, and I would hate myself more. Eventually we would leave off on bitter terms."
"We could try again, start over," she begged him. "It wouldn't be the same. We could change things."
"No. We're too enslaved to situations to deny it, to stop it from happening again. I cannot help being drawn away and leaving you alone," Peter told her insistently. Don't push it. Don't push me any more, please. This hurts enough to know that I cannot be what you want. I'm not the perfect boyfriend!
"Yes, you can!" she persisted. "No one is forcing you to run off and be Spider-man and save the world. You could let it go, sometimes. You deserve a little break every once in a while anyways." Her voice fell on the last note as her emotions spilled out. She knew immediately as his eyes drew more into his face that she had made a grave mistake. She could not change who Peter was, just as she could not change her own expectations.
Peter bit his lip and clenched his fists. "I can't stop. I can't stop, Mary Jane. You should know that. I just… need to do this. My soul wants me to do it. I can't help it." He swallowed hard. "Let's just stop while we're still ahead, Mary Jane. We really will just make it worse." Now he was crying, too. It was all hopeless, the whole mess. His love life was a disaster, and he knew now that he could never love someone again. Spider-man would always get in the way, every single goddamn time. I have to be Spider-man.
"I still can't understand your hopelessness," Mary Jane rasped. "I wish you could have more faith."
"I wish so, too," Peter said. "But I can't. That's the way I am. And you can't change who a person is." His eyes met her own. "You cannot change who I am."
"Neither can you change me," Mary Jane answered.
"And that's why we're doomed," Peter told her. He rubbed his hands together in an attempt to keep them warm, but he was already so damn cold. Mary Jane thoughtfully, helplessly, began to pace very slowly across the pavement.
She turned her back to him, walking. "It was all pretend, wasn't it?" she said as the realization dawned on her. "You may have taken off your suit some nights to give the appearance of not being Spider-man, but you still were. The suit isn't Spider-man. It's you who is Spider-man. Even when the costume was gone, Spider-man still was always and will be hiding under your skin." She turned back to him, spinning on her heel. "The other night, when you said you were all mine, and Spider-man was unattached, that wasn't true, was it? Because even when it's only in the back of your mind, you're still Spider-man." She stopped in her tracks to hear him answer.
"You're right. Yes," he replied. He hadn't thought of it that way. Our relationship never did mean anything.
Help me. I am nothing! I never had him. I never will have him. Peter is forever lost to me. This is the end of us, though was there ever a beginning? she thought with a furious passion. "It really was all make-believe," she whispered, meeting his eyes. Silence fell suddenly, broken only by the faint honks of distant vehicles. The two squirmed nervously as the light dimmed.
"So, goodbye, I guess," Peter said oddly. The words felt so strange on his tongue, as if he were chewing rubber tires.
"Yeah. Goodbye, Peter," she said in an equally estranged voice. She reached out and cupped his face in her hands, resting her forehead against his own. His eyes were so sad, so longing, so regretful. Mary Jane's lashes fluttered closed, and the cooled snow fell off of them.
Peter sighed, though his heart thundered wildly with pain and grief. He took her in his arms and let his palms roam over the back of her soaked shirt. At this she let out a soft sigh. He lost it. His heart gave way and his lips met hers passionately, drinking her up, trying to make up for three months lost. They were suddenly just like the actors on the billboard, hot flesh against hot flesh, unable to contain emotion that was there but broken.
Mary Jane broke away. "You were right," she coughed out in between her tears. "I can hate you. I hate you now for leaving me only with memories of our faulty relationship and the blood we let for each other. I hate you, Peter! I hate you for being so righteous all the time, and for being sentimental, and for being too good for me, for breaking my heart, and for being so near perfect and making me love you. Oh, Peter!" With that she turned and fled.
The streetlamp died as she vanished in the distance, leaving Peter in the dark with the billboard.
A taxi cab halted at the corner next to him as the light became red. The window was opened and the black man with blue dreadlocks inside tapped his cigarette out of the window. He flicked on the radio. His wet eyes turned onto Peter, who looked dazed and confused as the song played.
So long, sweet summer.
I stumbled upon you and gracefully basked in your rays.
So long, sweet slumber.
I fell into you; now you're gracefully falling away.
Hey, thanks, thanks for that summer.
It's cold where you're going. I hope that your heart is always warm.
I gave you the best that I had.
You passed on my letters and passed on the best that I had.
So long, sweet summer.
I stumbled upon you and gracefully basked in your rays.
So long, sweet slumber.
I fell into you; now you're gracefully falling away.
I hate the winter in Lexington.
"Yeah," he mouthed. It was then that he leaned up against the dead streetlamp and cried in deep breathless sobs, and the car drove away, leaving only an echo of the melody.
~~~
AN: I did not intend for this to be a song-fic, but I heard the song and thought of Peter and stuck it in. So sue me. Eh, never mind, don't sue me. The song is "Age Six Racer" by Dashboard Confessional. I just thought of "age six" relating to how that was the age (or thereabouts) when Peter realized he loved Mary Jane. That's just nifty! And the song fits so well. "I gave you the best that I had" and "now you're gracefully falling away" just were perfect!
I hope that this was a pretty important, significant, and enjoyable chapter. It was meant to be pretty intense and emotional. I hope that this didn't seem to come out of nowhere. There was a lot leading up to this. There was the whole thing about Peter never being around, and MJ saying a lot of angry things to him, etc. I hope everyone gets the whole situation and why they're breaking up. I hope it was clear, but in case not, here are the straight facts.
Peter is Spider-man, of course, so he's not always around. Sometimes he has to run off, or miss dates, or such. He's not such a steady, dependant character because he's Spider-man. MJ is so in love with him, but that sort of thing really gets under her skin. She cannot accept it; she wants Peter to be with her all the time. That was really explored in the brief chapter 5. (Basically, it's all because MJ had such a childhood where she was never loved; now she intensely craves love and needs a lot of it to make up for what she did not get before, so she is easily offended when Peter can't come to dinner or such.) Peter feels such a need to be Spider-man; he can't give it up for her. Mary Jane, on the other hand, does not want him to be Spider-man because she feels that it takes away from them and their time together. Conflicting interests and no will to change are the source of the problem.
Chapter 8 has been written over a long period of time. I actually wrote it before any other chapter, but I only did about half of it (starting from when MJ ran into the street; the first half was originally intended for chapter 7, but I didn't care to do a cliffhanger!). Then I did chapter 9, then chapters 1, 2, and 3, and finally 7, then 4 and back to finish 8. I'm confusing myself.
I have always heard MJ referred to as "Mary Jane Watson-Parker" when she's wed to Peter. If that's how it is in the comics, so be it. That's fine. I think it has a ring to it, and I think she's the kind of girl who won't give up her name.
This is by no means the end! Chapter 9 is a-coming, though I will need more time to really complete it (as I said, I started, but I want to review and revise it). Chapter 8, however, was my baby, so I really, really would love your reviews! Okay? Please, please review. I love all my readers! I got 50 reviews!!!!