The End 5- Memories of Before
Piper's memories resurfaced the night before school. This was not a good thing for the teenage girl, who was already nervous about the first day of her new school.
"The only worth", Piper began to think "Of going back to school now is for the senior prom, (Though she didn't know who she would bring, maybe she would ask her friend Josh from Massachusetts to go with her) and staying in school just to make sure I can still go to college"
Piper just couldn't help but think back to her old home.
"I thought I was leaving that all behind me," she muttered to herself.
Flash back
"I just thought that after all, you might want to come to stay with me for awhile." Her mother gently persuaded the sixteen-year-old Piper.
"You think you can just waltz into my life right now and be my mother? Where were you? Why now!" Piper yelled back having seen her mother for the first time in person. "How could you leave me in the first place!" Piper didn't know what she was supposed to do or say.
Her father had invited her mother over for a simple dinner, Piper had been nervous the whole day. When finally at last she came they all sat down talked nervously and to Piper's surprise they even got along well. Her mother seemed like a distant Aunt rather than well…a mother. Everything was going smoothly but when her Mother suggested if Piper ever wanted to live with her; that she was welcome it made Piper's blood boil. That's what started Piper's screaming match with her mother.
Her father was off in the background watching stoically. As much as he wanted to keep his little girl with him, he felt in a sort of righteous nature that Piper should spend time with her mother. But part of him didn't want to have her leave with her mother because he couldn't stand the thought that he was going to let her stay with the person that had left her shortly after birth. Their relationship deteriorated over that. He couldn't understand why she had said to him "I can't…"
"I've been a bad parent, heck I haven't been one at all! I just want you to give me a chance. I'm sorry Piper." Her mother reasoned with her in a sad tone.
"She finally said 'I'm sorry'…finally" Ed thought to himself.
"Why should I? You didn't give me a chance! I'll never live with you!" and with that outburst of hot angry tears Piper dashed up the stairs.
"Give her some time Suze." Ed said comfortingly to his ex-wife.
Susan looked at him with and expression that was too indescribable for words.
"I don't think…I'll ever be able to say sorry in a way that would mean anything to her." She said with her voice shaking.
"Tell her," Piper's mother continued, "that if she ever needs me, I'll be here, no matter what. This time for real" And she handed Ed a piece of paper with a phone number written on it.
"I'll give it to her." He promised.
End Flash Back
Piper fingered the piece of paper in her hand. The piece was now crumpled and wrinkled. Many times she had thought about calling it, but never did. How long did she cry that day? She cried about how life could have been like with her, having a whole family…cried until she thought her insides would dribble out through her tears.
"How could I have been so unforgiving?" she wondered recalling the moment feeling slightly guilty at her harsh words to her mother. She felt she might never even call the unoffending number out of pure guilt.
Piper glanced over at her digital clock. The red digits told her it was around 11 pm.
The teenage girl got up and stuffed an extra pillow under her covers and closed the door to her room. She didn't even care that she was still in her pajamas as she opened her window.
Without hesitating she knew her exact destination.
"It's really…pretty up here" Mary Jane said for lack of other words.
"I thought you might like it" Spiderman said smiling underneath his mask. Peter knew what café Mary Jane was working at and what time she just happened to be getting out; so with a cunning plan he pulled on his Spiderman costume and offered her a web slinging ride home. However, he took a small detour.
MJ admired her surroundings and gave Spiderman a rare smile.
Not far away Piper was swinging furiously to this private garden of relaxation. She wanted to see it again; it was the most important place to her at the moment. It was the only part of New York she really knew.
To her horror however, Spiderman and Mary Jane were on the roof. Quickly she clung onto the building wall hoping they would go away soon. "Typical! Just Typical!"
Try as Piper might, she could not block out the sound of the two talking.
"Who are you?" she asked inquisitively.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" He teased.
"Come on you can tell me!" MJ begged, hoping he might tell her. "At least give me a hint!"
"You know…I…I…" Spiderman stumbled in his words.
Piper peeked up from edge of the building. He was really hopeless; he was floundering. Peter must have seen her peek her head up because his gaze was now directed in her general direction. Mary Jane's attention was still all focused on Spiderman. Suddenly and idea occurred to Piper. She mouthed a few words to Peter.
"I…um hope you don't mind." Peter glanced over back at Piper to continue the three-way conversation. "That I put down in words…um how wonderful life is now um that you're in the world".
"So forgive me for forgetting." Piper hinted at Spiderman and he repeated.
"But these things I do, you see I've forgotten if they're green of if they're blue"
Piper rolled his eyes, he was hopeless, and obviously never saw Moulin Rouge before.
"But what the thing is, what I really mean err you've got the sweetest eyes I've ever seen"
Piper could tell by the look in Mary Jane's eyes the choice of her words had the desired effect. Even if Mary Jane had in fact seen Moulin Rouge the words were still sweet regardless.
The teenage girl waited as Spiderman (holding Mary Jane) swung off into the night. Now she could have some time alone in such a pretty place. She sighed. She had no idea why she felt the urge to help Peter but clearly the boy needed some help in the romance department. Now wasn't the time to think of such things; she needed to ponder her own introspection.
Piper could now think clearly, she felt like she had the city all to herself. A city that seemed to need her abilities in the same way it needed Peter's abilities.
"Me? A hero? Yeah right" Piper silently commented. "I don't know how he does it" The girl stared off in the distance for a bit.
She thought about a lot of things; her dad, her life and what was going to happen to her. It never occurred to Piper before that something like this was possible, and that there must be some believable wacky scientific concept behind mutating spider genes.
"Why would anyone ever want to do that?" Piper shuddered. She wasn't even aware she said it aloud.
"Do what?" a voice said from behind her.
Piper jumped up. "Peter! You scared me!" Piper took a closer look; he was still in costume. "Excuse me I mean Spiderman"
Peter peeled off his mask. "It's getting hot under here" he complained and then noticed Piper in her pink fuzzy sheep pajamas. He cracked a smile. "What are you doing up here? Isn't it kind of late?"
"I needed to get out of the house. I have to start school tomorrow" Piper said noticing the suspicious look Spiderman was giving her.
"So how did your big date go?" Piper asked curiously; Piper was more referring to what had just happened but Peter and MJ also had gone out to lunch earlier.
"It was good, we got to catch up" he said smiling not even bothering to argue that it wasn't a date.
"What about the whole Spiderman thing? Are you that chicken?" the girl rolled her eyes at Peter who didn't seem to have an answer for her.
"All that and you're still just friends?" the short-blonde haired girl stated as if this was a crime to humanity.
"Well…yeah…"
Piper grabbed Peter's mask from his hand and shoved it over her face.
"Oh, I'm Spiderman." She began imitating a voice that was much deeper than her own. "I'm soooooo badass and I'm madly in love with Mary Jane! I don't have the balls to tell her though because I'm soooo bashful!" Piper imitated.
The teenage girl pulled off the mask smirking at her joke. Peter however was not.
Piper then suddenly felt really guilty.
"Hey it was a joke…I mean I thought…oh I'm sorry Peter…I didn't mean to hurt you…"
The girl could not stand Peter Parker's stoically sadden stare.
"I really care a lot about MJ…" He said stating this fact to Piper. Peter glanced out at the distance, focusing on the skyline instead of Piper.
"I know it's just…" Piper started. In a second of revelation she clapped her hand over her mouth with discovery. "You can't tell her! You're afraid she'll get hurt! That's what's been eating at you. I am so stupid!"
"I see her almost every day" Peter's voice spoke threatening to show emotion.
"And I tell myself: You can't love her if you will endanger her life. When I just want to go and tell her how I feel. She doesn't even know who I really am."
"That's terrible!" Piper exclaimed outraged. "And you have to live with that!"
"But I told her, I would always be there to protect her" he said in a sad tone. "And I always will."
"Oh Peter…" Piper hung her sadly hearing Peter's words. He was so damn noble. "But who's going to protect you? Who's going to tell you its okay when you're down and out?" she paused; she knew he didn't have anyone to tell things like these to. "I'll protect you Peter."
"The way you protect Mary Jane…" she added silently.
"That makes me worry more." he frowned.
"This is the only thing you have to worry about" Piper handed him his mask.
She really did mean to hand the piece of fabric that kept his identity safe back to him, she really did. But instead she felt herself being pulled in towards him closer and closer.
Piper was an inch away from his face. "Good night" she whispered and meant to turn away but she couldn't. Quickly of her own free will she lifted her lips met his and she kissed him in one swift motion. It was short because as soon as she realized what she was doing and how much Mary Jane meant to him she stopped, dashed towards the edge of the building and swung away as fast as she could.
Spiderman stood there utterly shocked at Piper's reaction.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" were the thoughts that ran through Piper's head.
"Why did I do that? He doesn't like me! I know how much he cares for Mary Jane, so why did I do that?"
Piper crawled in through her window and sat on her bed. "I'm never going to be able to face Peter Parker again!"
The End 6 'Coffee Shop of Horrors'
The End
School was a relief to Piper as she walked through the hallway carrying an arm full of books and an empty backpack slung over her shoulder carelessly.
"Not even heavy" Piper decided, even though her new powers most likely had something to do with this. At least there was something good about them.
It was about fourth period the teenage girl noticed according to the clock in the hall way as she stood against her locker. That meant it was time for English, if she could even find her class. Piper consulted her schedule "English Rm. 201" she said aloud to herself.
The cinnamon-eyed girl was currently on the basement floor with a limited time to get up to class.
"Shoot!" she said absentmindedly running to the near stairs. Not only did she have to run up at least four flights of stairs but the classroom was also on the opposite side of the building- being the furthest away possible from Piper's current spot.
Piper looked around, there wasn't anybody using that stair case…she wasted no time and jumped up flight to flight, until she landed on the 4th floor.
Just as Piper's hand touched the doorknob the bell rang.
The blonde-haired girl sighed in relief. "Made it" she huffed.
"Come in," the teacher said. "You must be our new student, Piper."
Piper tried her hardest to stay awake. The class was starting Shakespeare's Hamlet in which Piper found to be the craziest play she had ever read. At her old school she had already read this. The class was taking on roles of the characters and reading their lines aloud.
"There are more things in heaven and Earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophies" a student read; this quote snapped Piper out of her daydream.
"How right you are Hamlet…"
So far Piper really hadn't talked to anyone that day. She meant socialize as much as possible but whenever the chance presented itself she always found herself with the feeling of panic that she had to rush to her next class before she was late.
She did however, this morning help a poor freshman that had a locker next to her, get his locker open because it got stuck on something. Piper guessed some of his classmates had taken great pleasure in jamming his locker. The thought alone of someone doing this to his poor locker made Piper almost rip the door to his locker off, but fortunately she didn't. The boy (looking kind of nerdy) smiled and thanked her profusely.
The teenage girl couldn't help it, if she was a Good Samaritan after all.
"Not like him who single handedly saves New York." Piper muttered under her breath.
Piper mentally slapped herself. She was thinking of him again. Like always.
"Why can't I get you out of my head!" she silently thought to herself.
Piper mentally thought of the brief lip locking she shared with him last night. She had enjoyed it for about all of a split second before she realized what she was doing.
"Not that I wouldn't want to explore the inner caverns of his throat." Piper thought to herself.
There was only one thing in the universe that Piper hated with all her heart right now.
And that person was Mary Jane Watson.
Mary Jane as we now speak was in a pleasant mood for her audition at the moment, and her prospects certainly looked good for the young red head who was an aspiring stage actress. She thought her audition for Cecily in 'The Importance of Being Earnest' by Oscar Wilde had gone quite well.
After a long day of performing her heart out and putting on her best smile, Mary Jane was ready to go home and take a nice long bath to soothe her aching feet that had been in painfully high heels but however she could not because she had to work to make ends meet. Landing small roles did not help out much with her already tight budget. So MJ retained her job working at a small local café.
But before she went off to work, she had to stop by Peter's. She wanted to ask him if she left her makeup compact at his apartment, it was missing from her purse.
MJ knocked on Peter's apartment door.
"Hold on!" a voice called from the other side.
Mary Jane smiled, Peter was the most adorable person alive, probably picking up his apartment a little for a guest.
The door opened.
"Hi MJ!" greeted Peter with a smile on his face that conveyed the thought of "pretty girl"
"Hiya Tiger" she smiled.
"Come in! Come in! I was just picking up my mess from earlier," Peter explained kicking random objects on the floor away from the path they were walking. In one of his hands was a coffee pot, in the other was mug, it appeared Peter was having a rough afternoon and needed a caffeine buzz.
"You want a cup?" Peter offered.
"Sure, that would be great" Mary Jane pleasantly agreed.
Peter took the mug in his hand and poured her a cup. "Want cream or sugar?" Mary Jane nodded took in the heavily scented aroma.
Peter went to his fridge and discovered he had neither cream nor sugar. He winced "sorry I don't seem to have either…" he usually drank his coffee black.
"That's fine" she nodded, he was so disheveled! It was pretty cute.
"So what have you been doing?" Peter asked looking for a mug for himself.
"I was just auditioning for a play," MJ said sipping her coffee. "How are things going at the daily Bugle? I heard there was a break in last week and Spiderman trashed the place."
Peter almost dropped the mug he was holding, that incident hadn't been his fault. He didn't exactly try to tell the person who was breaking in to be careful and not break anything in the process of a fight.
"Wow, really? I didn't hear much about it only Jameson's screaming." He laughed nervously- it was only a partial lie.
"I personally think Spiderman works for that place because of all the exclusive photos they get, oh and can I have another cup?" Mary Jane asked holding up her mug.
Peter Parker's face faulted.
"Sure thing." Peter said relieved she changed the subject, lifting the coffee pot taking his mind off what Mary Jane had said because she could not possibly know-
The thing was his hand was still shaking at the thought of her KNOWING so when he went to pour her coffee, he accidentally spilled it on her blouse.
"I'm sorry!" Peter apologized quickly as MJ jumped back wiping her blouse praying that the stain wasn't too bad.
"Shoot!" she said quickly realizing she had to wear this to work.
"Do you have a sweat shirt or something I could borrow?"
"I'll get one…sorry about that" Peter said feeling pretty stupid at his lack of hand control.
"It's okay, really" MJ said unbuttoning her blouse.
Piper had and okay day, well a day that was fine as any school day could have been.
"I'm just going to go find him and tell him I'm sorry or something because I didn't mean to do that…err yeah…it will come to me" Piper said to herself formulating a plan.
As much as she knew she would never be able to meet Peter Parker in person again with out some embarrassment, she would have to face him and Piper was stubborn and she liked getting things done, so she figured it would be useless to mull over such a situation for days. This was the reason Piper set a course straight to his apartment. With of course a little detour of jumping over a few buildings and slinging over a few roofs, "Hey, it was quicker and beats taking a bus!"
Piper considered going through his window, in which she had done once but decided against it because she wanted to be more formal "And besides, there could be someone in there!"
So needless to say, Piper took the stairs.
Gathering all her will power she clutched the door knob and twisted it open, knowing she wouldn't have the strength to knock because she would just stare at the door for an hour or more.
Piper swung the door open quickly, winced, opened her mouth to immediately apologize and say something that was close to being intelligent, "I'M SORRY PETER I-
However, much to her surprise Mary Jane was standing in the middle of the living room with her shirt unbuttoned. Peter was holding his sweatshirt in his hands and they were close together. Piper stood there like a deer in the head light for a split second before promptly slamming the door closed again.
That was a bad scene to enter upon.
The short blonde haired girl decided that this sort of bad day required special circumstances; in this case the special circumstance was a slice chocolate crème pie, yes a nice big slice to comfort her and help her forget about the homework that she had been assigned. Piper didn't have to look far because she saw a small café near by that would most likely have what she was looking for.
So as she walked down the street, hand in pocket Piper felt extremely embarrassed. "Of all the times to not knock on a door!" All she had to do was knock and this whole thing could have been avoided. Plus she was almost about to blurt out she kissed Peter in front of Mary Jane! Today was a stressful and unlucky day.
"He's probably not even thinking about it, how could have been so stupid? Why did I do it?"
Piper pushed the doors to the diner open forcefully and plopped herself down at a vacant table. She had a good ten minutes of thinking time before she was served upon. Piper heard from the kitchen a little bit of shouting. One of the waitresses had been late, and it wasn't the first time. So when the waitress finally came to her table, Piper didn't even bother to look up. She just wanted to lie dead at that very moment from her day's events.
"Please, I'll have a slice of chocolate crème pie, a BIG one."
"Okay, I'll be right out with it- hey! Piper, is that you?" The waitress asked in a sweet voice.
Piper put her head up. Standing in front of her was none other than Mary Jane.
"Of all the people…" Piper silently thought. Several choice curse words came immediately to mind.
"Yes, it's me." she said almost glaring at Mary Jane. "I'm really sorry about walking on you like that" Only not really, because I don't like you.
"Oh it's no problem; I just had a little coffee stain on my blouse and Peter lent me his sweatshirt" she said pointing to the baggy blue sweatshirt she was now wearing "You look like you had a rough day though" MJ said concernedly.
Piper could have died right then and there. It wasn't even as bad as she had thought! She heaved a sigh of relief.
"Yea, I did first day of new school" she responded.
"That must be rough for you! I know the first day of high school was hard for me to." MJ answered trying to sympathize.
Piper snorted. "Yeah right" She thought, seeing the pretty, perfect and no doubt popular little Miss Mary Jane. Wait? Did she say 'first day of high school'?
The teenage girl lay back in her seat still a little unnerved and annoyed by the whole situation. All she wanted was chocolate crème pie!
"Oh, school wasn't too bad" Piper commented.
"Ohhhh I see! That time of the month, you'll get used to it." The redhead said sagely
Piper choked for a moment.
"Eh…" Apparently Mary Jane thought she was little kid.
"I'm eighteen…." Piper sputtered out. She did not need girly talk from Mary Jane!
Mary Jane blushed for a moment, "I'll get you your pie. Don't worry this one's on the house" the waitress said getting up to get Piper her dessert.
Mary Jane returned shortly with a plate in hand and now had an apron on that she probably forgot to put on earlier.
Piper eagerly started to work on devouring her pie wanting to get out as quickly as possible.
Mary Jane sat down across from her, having no work to do because the place was empty at this time of day.
Piper looked up from her pie, wondering why MJ had chosen to sit near her. If she wanted to bond with Piper then she had obviously gotten the wrong impression.
"So I hear," Piper began "that you know Spiderman."
Mary Jane nodded "I do, he's saved me quite a few times."
Piper rolled her eyes; Peter Parker was hopeless, cute but hopeless.
"So what are you taking in college?" Piper questioned and then took a bit of her quite delicious pie.
"Acting, I'm working on becoming an actress; Peter's been great he's encouraged me the whole way" Mary Jane smiled.
Piper guessed Mary Jane had always been the lead female role in every school play, but before MJ had told her about her aspiring acting career Piper had always thought she was a model for something or other, it seemed like a job that was fitting for a person like Mary Jane. The kind of person that was so pretty and nice that you couldn't hate her no matter how hard you tried or how popular she was. Even so Piper still felt a slight resentment for the affections Peter displayed towards the strawberry blonde.
Piper felt a small pang of jealously run up her spine, but it was quickly forgotten because she remembered herself that she did not even like Peter Parker, the hero and savior of New York. After all a person such a Peter Parker deserved a girl like Mary Jane who obviously just regarded him as a friend and didn't pay attention to him at all in high school.
This sort of thing bugged Piper.
"I really have to get going, it's getting late." Piper said pointing her thumb outside.
"It was nice to talk to you." MJ commented.
Piper nodded as she walked out the door. She did not know how to feel about Mary Jane; after all she was human and nice enough. But deep down Piper knew she had feelings that would have to go unexpressed.