Excuses, Excuses ... (Part II)
A/N: By the way, after this point, the story becomes AU from the second movie. I should warn you that I loved the way that the movie revealed Peter's identity to MJ, and I don't normally like AU's, so I doubt there'll be a sequel. The movie did the rest of the story so well, and I have no idea how I would I continue this. That's why it ends so abruptly (and lamely ... sorry). Oh, and I do apologize if the geography of my story is far-fetched. I've only been to New York City once, for a vacation long ago, so I just shaped the distances and times involved to suit my fancy. If they are too unbelievable, I hope you'll employ a little willing suspension of disbelief.
The street musician was just winding up her song on a shrill note, when Peter heard the stage door open behind him, and felt that customary light tingle which usually signaled to him that Mary Jane Watson was nearby. He turned swiftly and found himself looking into the beautiful face that he loved so much. MJ saw him at the same moment, and her tawny eyebrows lifted in an expression of incredulity. Her lovely green eyes, which always reminded him of shady pools of water reflecting gleams of sunlight, widened in shock and she seemed completely taken aback. For a moment they stood like statues, looking at each other; then MJ drew her eyebrows together in a thunderous expression of disdain.
"You!" she said contemptuously. "What are you doing here? And don't tell me you were watching the show, because I know you weren't in the audience."
Peter felt his heart drop into his shoes at her tone of voice. Of course she was mad at him – and rightly so; he'd be mad too, if he'd been stood up by a so-called friend of his as many times as he'd stood her up. He struggled to think of something to say to make amends and to soothe her ruffled feelings.
"Hey, MJ," he started to say sheepishly, "I really tried to get here in time to see your play, but ..."
"Let me guess," she snapped, pushing past him, and beginning to walk briskly up the sidewalk. He followed her, quickly falling into step beside her. "You were on your way here, and there was an accident ... Or, no, you remembered you had a prior commitment ... you realized you'd left your hot plate on, and you had to go home and turn it off ... your Aunt called and needed you to do something for her ... What is it going to be this time, Peter?"
He looked into her animated face – oh boy, was she beautiful when she was mad, her gorgeous hair like a burning brand, her emerald eyes snapping sparks, her slim body tight and coiled with energy – and suddenly got angry himself. She may have had every right to be mad at him, but it wasn't his fault, it was never his fault, he was only trying to help people, dammit! Maybe you'd have liked me to leave those people on the street corner to be pulverized by that car, MJ? he thought sarcastically. Maybe you'd prefer it if those hooligans were still careening around, shooting at everything in their way?
"Look," he said in a terse voice, trying to keep hold of his temper, "there is a very important reason why I didn't make it to the theater on time for the play. What, do you think I like to let you down? Do you think I want you to be mad at me?" MJ huffed and sped up, but he easily matched her stride. "I'm really, really sorry about tonight. There was..." Oh no, he couldn't believe that he was actually daring to give her this worn out old excuse again "...a disturbance... and ..."
As soon as she heard that, MJ threw up her hands. "I don't know you," she interrupted sharply. Then her face crumpled, her green eyes swimming with tears, and she looked miserable. "And I can't keep thinking about you. It's too painful."
Pain squeezed Peter's heart too, and suddenly his anger was gone, as quickly as it had come. Wow, she really was hurt; she probably felt as bad as he did. He softened as he watched her profile, noticing her chin quiver for a second before she got herself under control and set her jaw in determination. "I really was planning to be there all day," Peter insisted gravely, stalling for time while he frantically tried to take another stab at explaining his tardiness. Why was he so bad at this? He'd certainly had enough practice making excuses over the past two years that he ought to be good at it by now, but here he was again trying and failing to come up with a marginally believable one. He gave a weary sigh. "It's funny how complicated something like being somewhere at eight o'clock can get. And I know you predicted I'd disappoint you..."
"Bingo," MJ retorted. She kept her face turned away from him, eyes on her feet as she walked, as if she couldn't stand to look at him.
He thought about it some more, and there was a moment of silence broken only by the sound of their feet hitting the pavement in sync. Maybe it would help if she knew that he had in fact arrived while the performance was still going on. "Well, actually, there was this one obnoxious usher who wouldn't let me in ..." he started to say with a chuckle, which died in his throat as soon as he saw MJ's frigid glare.
MJ lifted her head and turned to face him incredulously. An usher? ... Oh, brother. Were these the depths to which he would stoop, to give an interfering usher as his reason for not being able to arrive at her show on time? Peter had come up with some pathetic excuses before, but this had to be the worst. At one point two years ago, she'd actually thought for an instant that he might be Spider-Man, but a real super-hero would surely be able to come up with better reasons for his mysterious absences than this elementary school level idiocy.
Seeing the irritated expression clouding her normally radiant face, Peter gave up on trying to explain himself and another heavy silence fell. As it stretched and lengthened between them, MJ at last worked up the courage to say to Peter what she had decided to say while leaving the theater. "By the way," she said emphatically, feeling her own anger building as she thought over Peter's latest pathetic excuses, "my boyfriend, John, has seen my show five times. Harry has seen it twice. Aunt May has seen it. My sick mother got out of bed to see it. Even my dad..." Well, perhaps she shouldn't embellish her story too much. "He came backstage to borrow cash," she said ruefully. That was probably the only acknowledgment of her success that she'd ever get from her father, so she guessed it deserved a mention. She stopped walking for a moment as she concentrated on what she wanted to say, and Peter stopped with her. "But my best friend," she said quietly, meeting his eyes again with reluctance, "who cares so much about me, can't even make an 8:00 curtain. After all these years..." her voice caught "...he's nothing to me but an empty seat."
Looking into Peter's eyes, so deep, so blue, so full of emotion, MJ worried for an instant that she'd been too harsh. He looked stricken, which was a striking contrast to his usual demeanor of quiet confidence and authority. Then she became annoyed again at the thought that he had no right to look so ... so crestfallen ... so heart-broken ... when he hadn't wanted her, when he'd never wanted her, when he couldn't even be bothered to come to her show on time! But this time she didn't know whether she was annoyed with Peter or with herself, and she was starting to get confused as well. Clearly he had tried to come to the play. What was it that had gotten in his way anyway? A disturbance? What did that mean?
Shaking her head in bemusement and frustration, MJ started walking briskly away from him once more. Peter watched her go, paralyzed, and then suddenly realized that he needed desperately to keep her from leaving. He caught up to her again, and put a firm hand on her arm to slow her down. Taking a deep breath, he said, "MJ, I do care about you, more than you know, but I promise you ... there is a good reason why I was an empty seat tonight."
"Oh yeah?" said MJ challengingly, pulling away from the grasp of his warm, strong hand – a grasp that was starting to send disturbing little tingles up her arm – and folding her arms protectively over her chest. "Well, let's have it. And, if you do care about me at all, no more excuses, mind you – I want the truth. Give me any more lame excuses and I will never speak to you again."
Peter found himself shaking in his shoes. Facing a maniacal supervillain was nothing compared to the icy wrath of Mary Jane Watson, and the possibility that she might never talk to him again. He forced himself to remember that he'd had good reasons for keeping her at arm's length. What are you doing, Parker? You reject MJ for her own safety, avoid her as much as humanly possible for two years and then suddenly you can't let her go? Are you really going to tell her everything now? What, do you want to ruin her life? Finally, not knowing what to do, he said in a strained voice, "I wish I could just tell you the truth, Mary Jane." He looked at her steadily, willing her to believe him.
MJ was drawn into his blue eyes against her will; his earnest gaze seemed to contain yearning, pain, resolve and apology all commingled together. Plus he looked exactly like a kicked puppy. Sometimes, there was something so pathetic about Peter, something that just melted her heart in sympathy. He had an endearing way of showing his heart in his eyes, she thought, which was maybe why he was never very good at lying or hiding his feelings. She mentally stamped her foot in frustration at herself, and knew all at once that she wasn't mad at him any more. But there was no reason he needed to know that she'd already forgiven him again just because of his wonderful blue eyes. She said passionately, "Then tell me something, Peter! Even just a part of the truth ... I'll figure out the rest. Tell me what happened tonight."
Peter thought quickly. Maybe there was a way he could tell her something that would satisfy her, without telling her everything. So what if she became suspicious? He'd often worried that he'd intercepted some suspicious glances from her in the past, and they'd never amounted to much. If anything they made him wistful, because he longed to be open and honest with her but he never could find the opportunity or bring himself to take the risk. Now everything was on the line, and he had to tell her something, anything; he had to tell her a truth that would convince her of how important she was to him. For once, he even had some proof in the form of his completely totaled bike, he remembered suddenly, with a flash of annoyance at the robbers who'd mowed him down and nearly killed him – would have killed him, if it hadn't been for his unusual talent for getting out of the way of life-threatening danger quickly. Maybe he could convince her he'd been in an accident or something.
"Come with me," he said to MJ, putting a gentle hand around her arm for a second time, "I want to show you something." They'd already walked many blocks from the theater while they'd been arguing, and now he looped his arm through her slim and supple one and steered them in a new direction, heart pounding at what he was about to tell her.
He set a fast pace himself this time and, while he thought over what he wanted to say, MJ fell naturally into step beside him, her arm still tucked comfortably through his. At last he started to speak. "I went to the laundromat after dinner, because I needed to do a quick load of laundry to have some clean clothes for tonight. I didn't have time to do it earlier, for reasons I won't get into now. I only had money for one load and it took a while" – he gave her a slightly shamefaced look as he mumbled, "plus I ruined some socks and t-shirts by mixing some bright colors in with my whites ... not that it matters." Darn it, he was rambling; he had to get back on track – "Anyway, I finally managed to wash and dry everything, then went home, had a shower, and changed." He watched MJ's face closely for signs that she might be losing patience with him, but she was listening quietly, eyes on her shoes.
They walked on, stepping together in a perfect rhythm almost like two dancers, and Peter continued, "I was all dressed and ready to go by about twenty after seven. On my way out, the landlord tried to corner me about my overdue rent, but I ran down the stairs as fast as I could to avoid him. I took my moped, only there was a lot of traffic. Now it was twenty-five after seven. Then I stopped to buy you some carnations from a street vendor, at around 7:35. I thought I could still make it, but I had a long way to go, so I hopped back on my moped and gunned the engine. At around 7:45 I heard sirens in the distance." MJ looked up into Peter's face at that, feeling a growing sense of anticipation, because this story at last had a ring of truth about it.
Peter took another deep breath, remembering his internal argument with himself – not tonight, please not tonight – surely the cops can handle whatever it is just this once. C'mon, even super-heroes need a night off sometimes. He had eventually decided he would ignore the sirens. Then he had drifted deep into thought, trying to prepare something intelligent to say to MJ after her performance – which he knew would knock his socks off and leave him a stammering idiot – when out of the blue his spider sense had warned him to jump. After that, of course, he couldn't ignore the sirens, or the dimwits driving the convertible that had nearly run him over, any longer. He also couldn't deny the hot anger searing through him, both at the selfish indifference of the thugs and at the fact that, once again, Spider-man's never-ending responsibility was interfering with Peter Parker's life.
"What happened next?" inquired MJ curiously, and he realized he had fallen silent while he was thinking. MJ was looking at him intently, clearly hanging on his every word. Here goes nothing, thought Peter.
"There were sirens because a high-speed car chase was happening. Some guys had just committed a robbery somewhere, and were making their getaway in a convertible. They were being chased by two police cars, but they were better – or crazier – drivers than the cops, so they were pulling ahead of them. They drove really fast and they had guns, which they were shooting back in the direction of the cops. Their wild driving was putting pedestrians, other drivers – and me on my moped – in danger. I wasn't paying attention, and they weren't looking where they were going, either, when all of a sudden they came up behind me, and ..." how could he say this without sounding ridiculous? "...ran over my bike."
MJ looked at him skeptically. "Are you kidding?" she said, with an incredulous little laugh. Did Peter honestly expect her to believe he'd been run over? He was completely unscathed; yes, his suit was a little wrinkled but it wasn't even dirty. And here she'd thought he was going to tell her the truth. She tried to work herself into a temper over this most bizarre of excuses, but gave up as she realized that she was feeling too cosy, and too happy, with her arm tucked through Peter's, to get mad about anything. Besides, Peter was looking remarkably sincere. He had none of that shifty-eyed, hesitant look he usually got when he was giving her some lame excuse. His blue eyes were direct and bold, and he seemed full of nervous energy as he drew her along with him.
"No, I'm not kidding," Peter replied, shooting a cautious, sidelong glance at her. "The convertible ran over my bike, and the two police cars tearing after it finished the job by knocking it off the road and into the gutter."
"Peter," said MJ slowly, "how on earth did you manage to get out of the path of a high-speed car chase, while riding on a moving vehicle, without seriously hurting yourself?" A weird feeling was stealing over her, as though she were falling under a spell. Peter had the strangest expression on his face, a really focused, inward-looking expression, as if he were struggling with something monumental.
"I jumped," Peter said simply, "but never mind that now."
"You jumped?" MJ said in disbelief. "How...?"
"Look, do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?" said Peter, impatient to be done with it. The suspense, and MJ's questions, were both excruciating.
"Yes, go on," said MJ dazedly. She looked around at the now-deserted streets, feeling as though she were on another planet. They had walked a long way from the theater.
"It was about five to eight," Peter began again, pulling her along with him even more rapidly than before as his urgent need to finish this story for MJ translated into some very fast walking, "but I decided that those guys who'd nearly run me over had to be stopped. Not only were they endangering everyone on the streets with their dangerous driving and their shooting, but they were also going to cause a serious accident any minute with those cop cars. And since they'd destroyed my bike, they were making me late for your show! It all made me see red." He chose to omit any mention of stopping the flying police car in mid-air, since there was no way to explain that euphemistically. Heck, he'd practically dropped all euphemism even with what he'd already told her. He'd gone much, much further than he had intended. He should have expected it: somehow he often ended up saying things that he didn't plan to when he talked to Mary Jane. She always made him feel a little out of control ... excited and at the same time terrified, as he'd once told her.
MJ stopped walking again, completely mystified. "How did you think you were going to stop them?" she asked. This story was sounding more farfetched by the minute, but it was also strangely far more compelling than any of Peter's usual excuses. He radiated sincerity and effort in the telling of it. He was obviously striving to be honest with her. She was starting to get that funny feeling again, that feeling that she'd often had around Peter of straining to catch sight of something that was just out of her line of vision, or maybe too close to see properly ...
Peter halted as well, looking around and realizing where they were – back in the neighborhood where he'd lost his bike. And sure enough, there it was, as he'd known it would be, lying in a crumpled heap across the road by the curbside. Tiny bits and pieces, including a bent and twisted front wheel, were scattered about on the nearby sidewalk and there was also a flattened carnation lying in the gutter. "Just wait here a minute," he said, releasing MJ's arm. Glad to have a moment's reprieve, he walked across the street to get the moped. He retrieved the helmet he'd tossed earlier into a nearby doorway, tucked the detached front wheel under his arm, picked the bike up by its back wheel with one hand, and began dragging the wreckage back across the street to where MJ was waiting, arms folded, a completely disconcerted expression on her beautiful face. When she saw his crushed bike up close, her eyes widened in horror. "Peter," she said in a shaky voice. "Look at your bike. How did you survive that?"
No more excuses, thought Peter determinedly. What had she said ... that she'd figure out the rest, if he told her part of the truth? "Can't you guess?" he said gently.
End of Part II
A/N: See, what'd I tell you? It's lame.
