Almost as soon as the last customer of the day stepped out the door to leave, Liz spoke up.
"So?"
M.J. shot a glance at her best friend.
"This has been eating at you all day, hasn't it?" M.J. questioned.
"M.J, he came to the store to see you to thank you for a SECOND TIME," Liz explained, particularly emphasizing her last two words. "People don't do stuff like that normally."
"You don't know Peter," M.J. countered, "he'd apologize for not laughing hard enough at a joke if he got the sense that you were expecting more."
"Yeah, then why are you smiling so much as we talk about him?" Liz asked, an almost mischievous smile of her own adorning her face. Her best friend was only proving once more how annoyingly adept at seeing through her she was, even if Mary Jane felt that what she'd said about Peter Parker was one hundred percent correct.
"We did have a nice time," M.J. admitted. "Oh, and by the way, you do realize you didn't get any points for subtlety earlier, right?"
"What?" Liz protested, holding up her hands, "I was making it up on the fly! You know I can't improvise to save my life."
"Clearly," M.J. concurred.
The two ladies moved to the back room to do some inventory.
"Anyway," Liz continued, "do you think you two are making progress?"
M.J. thought about it for a moment.
"I think so," she said. "It was weird, he stopped me as we were about to leave, and I could tell he wanted to say something, but he decided not to say whatever it was. All he did say was that it could wait."
"Any idea what he was going to say?" Liz asked.
"Not really," M.J. replied. "I've been thinking about it all day, and of course, part of me HOPES it's something in particular, but I have no way of knowing until he says it...if he does."
"What do you mean 'if he does?'" Liz questioned, giving a pensive look.
"It's hard to explain," M.J. said as they worked through their inventory. "When he first got my attention, he had a positive look on his face, but when he hesitated, I could see his expression fall a little. He still had a smile, but it looked more...melancholy."
"Did you guys talk about something particularly sensitive?" Liz asked. "Like, maybe something he could've wanted to elaborate on more but didn't know how yet?"
"I don't think so," M.J. answered, moving one box to the side and beginning to look through another. "He actually asked me who the store was named after, so I told him about my mom and how she was into fashion and was pretty much the whole inspiration behind what we do here."
"Wow," Liz said, pausing her typing on her iPad to give M.J. a look. "That's very personal of you. Then again, he does know about your dad, so I guess that would actually be easier to talk about."
"Peter was actually really sweet about it," M.J. added, "he said that he thought she'd be proud of me for where I am today."
"Aww, that's sweet," Liz said.
"Yeah, it was," M.J. agreed. "Everything about lunch seemed to go really well, which is why I'm not sure why he felt he couldn't tell me something."
"Maybe he was going to ask you out properly or something, and he just got nervous," Liz suggested as she moved onto another assortment of clothes.
"That's what I'd like to think, and maybe you're right," M.J. replied, also moving to another section. "It just feels like there is more to it for some reason."
"Well, either way, it sounds like you guys are progressing well," Liz encouraged her. "I'm sure the truth will come out soon enough."
"You're probably right," M.J. concurred. Really, she had every reason to believe that Liz WAS right. Everything seemed to line up that way the more she thought about it, but still...something just felt off about the whole thing. Mainly it was that Mary Jane felt like she both knew Peter very well and hardly at all at the same time. His personality was clearly genuine, and he wore his heart on his sleeve, but he still seemed to have trouble truly letting her in. It was like there was a wall surrounding Peter's heart, and she wasn't even sure if she'd put a dent in it yet.
Then again, she wasn't exactly one to talk when it came to walls around her heart.
All M.J. could do for now was just trust that, in time, he would start to open up to her as she did to him.
She just hoped it wouldn't take a freak circumstance like her situation with her dad for it to happen.
Day after day for the next week and half, Peter managed to find some odd job or other every day to keep the money coming. A lot of it came from people he'd already done something for recommending him to a friend or relative of theirs, which he had made a point of saying thank you to everyone who did so. The last few days had been especially busy; between going from place to place and actually performing the tasks, Peter was pulling longer days than he ever had at the Bugle.
Of course, he'd made time to visit May multiple times every single day in that stretch. She was fighting, but things were clearly going downhill. She was to the point where she couldn't even form words anymore, and the most recent scans of her brain were showing the problem beginning to spread to other areas.
Another hard part was that he hadn't really been going out very much as Spider-Man, which was constantly in the back of his mind. Peter knew he still had a responsibility to the city, but he could hardly bring himself to do more than an hour of patrol a day. He had come to think of it like this: as soon as he got the money and got the treatment for May, the sooner he could go back to trying to figure out who was behind those tech thefts.
Also, the sooner he could figure out what to do about M.J.
He had come so close the other day to asking her out on a proper date. The words were right on the tip of his tongue, but at the last second, he'd found himself unable to get them out. Doubt had won out again, and it wasn't even about if Mary Jane would say yes. It was about whether he deserved a shot at happiness again, whether he deserved someone he could love and would love him back in the same way.
The thing that drove him especially crazy was that he wholeheartedly believed that Gwen would WANT him to move on, that she would want him to be willing to explore love again. She herself had loved him through and through, always wanting what was best for him, just as he had for her. Saving the M.J. of his younger counterpart's during the multiversal conflict had brought an unexpected level of healing from his previous failure as well. Despite all of that though, even as close to his M.J. as he'd gotten recently, he was still struggling with forgiving himself enough for Gwen, as well as the broken promise that led to her death. Plus, on top of all that, there was still the question of how Mary Jane would even handle finding out he was Spider-Man.
Peter's head was just so messy sometimes, and it never ceased to drive him insane.
Which was why, at this particular moment, focusing on counting the money he'd earned today and adding it all up was the perfect distraction. He'd actually been paid very generously by a couple people today, and he knew he was really close to what he needed too. After counting his total for the day, Peter basically held his breath as he added it all up with everything he'd earned with what he and May had received from the hospital, the Bugle and M.J.'s store. He hit the equal sign on his calculator, bringing up the total.
$175,000.
Peter's eyes went wide as he froze, his brain stuck as his body was overcome by surprise. He immediately went to recalculate it, wanting to be absolutely, unmistakably certain that he was correct in his math. He looked over and double checked every number very carefully, even going back over the problem to make sure he didn't accidentally put a multiplication sign in there somewhere.
He hit the equal sign, and the answer was the same: $175,000.
Peter performed the problem a third time just to be sure, and the answer once again was the same as the previous two times. He stood up, putting his hands behind his head as the realization slowly dawned on him: he had done it.
With a lot of hard work and a lot of help, he had all the money he needed to get May the treatment that, if all went well, would save her life.
Peter suddenly found that he could hardly contain himself; he needed to tell someone about this immediately. He ran out of his room, quickly exiting his apartment as well and stopping next door, knocking profusely on Mary Jane's door. After what seemed like an eternity (but was likely only a few seconds), she answered the door.
"Peter, what is it?" she said, concern turning to confusion as she looked at him.
"I did it, M.J," he said. "We all did it!"
Her expression changed again, this time to shock that was already slowly morphing into joy.
"You got it all?" she asked eagerly.
Peter's head nodded like a bobblehead toy, and as M.J. started to get more excited as well, he suddenly scooped her up in his arms, spinning her around the hallway of the apartment as she let out excited, joyful laughs.
"Oh my goodness, I can't believe it!" M.J. shouted as he set her down again. "That's amazing, Peter!"
"I couldn't have done this without you," Peter confessed, wrapping her in a hug again. "Thank you so much!"
"Of course," M.J. replied. "I was happy to help."
As they separated, Peter's mind finally settled just enough for him to realize his next necessary course of action.
"I have to get to the hospital," he said, suddenly racing back into his apartment, leaving M.J. behind in the hallway. He quickly gathered the money, secured it, grabbed his keys and locked the apartment. He turned to find M.J. right where he had left her.
"Good luck," she said, giving him two thumbs up.
"Thanks," he said, "I'll let you know once I confirm that May's treatment is coming."
Peter then did something completely out of the blue and unexpected: he gave her a quick kiss on the forehead before immediately darting off, completely disregarding the complex's elevator in favor of the stairs for some reason. As he rapidly descended on his way, Peter couldn't even really process what he had just done, either in kissing Mary Jane or in taking the slower way down the building.
He just knew one thing: with the burden of getting the funding for May's treatment finally off his chest, Peter was happier than he had been in a long time.
After a brief wait, the doors finally opened.
"Welcome to your new headquarters," Mason said, "Master Planner."
One by one, the outstretched, metallic arms of none other than Doctor Octopus made their way into the room, bringing the man himself along as well.
"Thank you, Tinkerer," the doctor replied, a maniacal but still subdued smile on his face. "How goes the final phase of our little project?"
"Everything is proceeding as you planned," Mason confirmed. "We should be ready to begin on schedule."
"Excellent," Doc Ock replied, "you and the team have done a commendable job with this technology."
The doctor then turned to the other "supervillains" in the room: Sandman, Rhino, and the Vulture.
"And soon," he continued, his arms lowering him to ground level, "we shall all reap the benefits."
"I still don't get the point of all this," Sandman confessed. "We have the power to break into anywhere and get anything we want, so why go through all this trouble?"
"Oh, Mr. Marko," Ock said in a manner that was eerily like a father talking to a son, "you are correct in your assessment of our abilities. However, our little undertaking here will allow us the means to not only grant us much easier access to whatever we desire, but also allow us to take our proper place in the city...and the world as well."
"Besides," Rhino chimed in, "the doc here got us out of prison and is promising us as much money as we want, so why should we argue?"
"You have a point," Sandman agreed, "and he's a lot better than Osborn was at leading this freak show, but still, I'm worried I'll miss the thrill of it if it's all too easy."
"Not to worry, Sandman," Ock replied, his tentacles lifting him off the ground once more. "Even once we assert ourselves, there will be those who will try and stand against us even still."
"Like Spider-Man," Vulture added.
"Exactly," Ock agreed. "He and others will try to stop us, but we will ultimately show them the futility of their efforts. Don't forget, I recruited all of you so that we could all take our rightful places, and that means using your abilities to their maximum potential. Trust me, I intend to ensure you all fully live up to that."
After reassuring them, the doctor gave them instructions to assist in the completion of the functionality of their new base: Sandman and Rhino with lifting and moving the heavy machinery, and Vulture with working in high places. After dismissing them, he turned to see Mason had just got off his phone, and judging by his expression, it was not news he wanted to hear.
"What is it, Mason?" Ock asked.
"I just got word from a contact at the facility where they are producing that special serum we need," he explained. "It turns out that someone actually managed to purchase it. It's expected to be on route tomorrow, but the good news is that we know where it is going."
Ock had his tentacles lower him down, so he was face to face with the Tinkerer.
"Then we shall have to have a welcome party ready to greet them."
The doc then started to make his way to his own private lab in the facility before stopping short, his arms rotating him back around to face Mason again.
"Oh, and have our contact at the Vault get Osborn," he said. "I want him to see my moment of triumph."
We're FINALLY getting to the big conflict! Slowly but surely, we are getting there!
Hoping you all are still enjoying this!
Continuing to pray for you all; stay safe and healthy!
"If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?" Matthew 5:46-47