The Saddest Poem
by Nom DeNette

Summary: What Peter was thinking about right before Mary Jane showed up in his doorway in her wedding dress. (movie verse)

-----

Obviously, I don't own Spider-man; Marvel does. I don't own Pablo Neruda, either, but I recommend them both highly.

-----

He looked at the clock for the hundredth time in the last two hours. As slowly as time seemed to him to be moving, it did indeed keep advancing. It was now a full 48 seconds since the last time he had looked.

She would be married by now.

The society pages of the Daily Bugle had broadcast all the details of their upcoming wedding. "Argh, Jameson is her father-in-law by now," he thought grimacing. He figured that the ceremony would have ended by this time. He could practically see them parading down the steps of the church, John Jameson in his dress uniform, smiling as he escorted Mary Jane, his wife....

"Not mine," Peter whispered to himself. "Never mine." It would be irresponsible to even think she could be his. Unforgivably irresponsible.

He slumped on his bed, head in his hands, noting that another 36 seconds had now passed.

As he sat there listening to the ticking of his clock, he noticed a book that had slipped under the chair by his bed. The spine's label had a library call number typed on it.

He remembered the stack of books he had checked out a few weeks ago on the advice of Dr. Otto Octavius. Octavius and his beautiful wife, the picture of marital love, had so inspired Peter. Octavius was a scientist, equally geeky as Peter, who had somehow found his soul mate. It had given him hope. After all, science is all about repeating experiments, repeating the same results – how could Peter not hope that he could repeat the poetry experiment?

He picked up the book, and realized it was woefully overdue. "Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Desperation" by Pablo Neruda. Peter pursed his lips, thinking that he had no more need of the love poems. And just now he was pretty sure that he could write his own song of desperation, thank you very much...

Nonetheless, he idly paged through the book, thumbing towards the back. His eyes caught sight of a title and he paused. The left hand page was written in Spanish, on the right was an English translation. "Puedo Escribir Los Versos Más Tristes Esta Noche" - "Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Poem of All" it said.

Of their own volition, his wide sad eyes began to read.

------

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

-----

Peter Parker knew that song, the song of the night and the sky. He heard it nightly as he slung his webs through the city.

-----

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

-----

"Actually, I only kissed her twice," he thought. He sighed, eyes closing as he remembered the sensations of those two perfect kisses. But today, her wedding day, she would be kissing someone else, her new husband... His lips narrowed, he swallowed, and his eyes hardened slightly as he renewed his inner resolve to continue doing what he knew was right.

-----

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.

-----

"Not sometimes," Peter thought. "Nope, you got that part wrong, Señor Neruda. Never just sometimes."

-----

How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as the dew to the grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

-----

Instantly he saw himself sitting alone on the web that starry night above pier 56, after lowering MJ to safety, to the safety of her fiance's waiting arms. "Safety," he repeated. "She must be kept safe."

-----

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

-----

"No," he thought, "we are the same no longer. I am no longer just Peter Parker, and I never will be again. I must always be Spider-man."

-----

Someone else's. She will be someone else's.
As she once belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

-----

He moaned, casting his own infinitely blue eyes ceilingward as if some divine answer might come from above.

-----

Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

This may be the ultimate pain I suffer for her,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.

-----

He let the book fall from his small, strong hands. He stepped to the window of his pitiful room, and surveyed his city.

"The ultimate pain I suffer for her," he whispered to himself. "So be it." This was his responsibility, and he accepted it. And somehow, alone, he would survive it.

More long moments ticked by, and this time he did not turn to count them.

He did not turn until he heard another sound... the rustle of fabric. Then he saw her, MJ. She was standing in his doorway, saying that she had always been standing in his doorway. The glamorous dress was juxtaposed with her windblown hair. Her skin was flushed, and her hands were bare. There were no rings on her fingers, and she was saying that it wasn't right that they should both live only half alive.

Her declaration of love to him at that moment was more poetic than anything ever written. How could he answer her? Peter knew he was no poet. What could he say as she asked if it wasn't time for someone else to save him?

"Thank you, Mary Jane Watson."

-------