The nightmares were horrendous.
It was the same image, repeating over and over again: Spider-Man's lifeless body splayed across the hood of a police car. The hood is badly caved in, Spider-Man's crumpled body sunk down into its jagged crevice. I don't know where we are or who's holding me but someone is carrying me away from him. The edge of my vision is dark and foggy. I hear myself calling Spider-Man's name; chanting it weakly as I'm carried further away.
I finally wake up from the nightmare... but I quickly realize the nightmare has just begun.
I stare at an unfamiliar ceiling, dinghy and yellow. I hear machines beeping around me. I realize with a start that my mouth is forced open by tubes feeding down my throat. I feel myself beginning to choke and instantly, I'm yanking them out. I feel cold hands on my wrist, gently restraining me but I'm crazed and they cannot stop me. Tubes out of my throat, I begin to pull IVs out of my skin, ripping flesh as I do. I scream hoarsely in pain, tears squeezing from my eyes.
"Mary Jane, Mary Jane!" It's my Aunt Anna. She's feebly trying to hold my arms down against the hospital bed I'm lying in. "NURSE! Please! Help us!"
I'm tossing and turning, disoriented and scared. I flail my arms, my voice growing stronger the more I scream.
Another nurse comes running into the room, shortly followed by four more. They rush to my bedside, pushing my Aunt Anna to the side. Four nurses hold my arms and legs down while another empties a syringe into my arm.
I try to resist the calm that begins to blanket me but I'm unable to. I nestle back into my pillow, staring blankly at Aunt Anna as collapses into a chair beside the bed and cries into her handkerchief.
"Do you know your name?" From my left side, a doctor has begun to speak but I don't turn my head to look at him. I can't stop watching my aunt cry.
"Do you know your name?" Again, he repeats the question.
I whisper without looking away from my aunt, "Mary Jane Watson."
"Ms. Watson," Satisfied with my answer, the doctor continues, "You've suffered from a severe concussion. You have one collapsed lung and your left wrist is fractured. That's the bad news." It takes a great deal of strength to turn my head to look at him.
"There's good news?"
"The good news is that you're alive." The doctor cracks a small smile as he peer down at his clipboard. He looks up, his eyes kind. "You should be dead, Ms. Watson. Everyone in New York saw what happened on TV. You are a very lucky woman."
I remember everything that had happened.
"Is Spider-Man okay too?"
The doctor's smile fades. He opens his mouth to say something but quickly shuts it. Before I can ask again, he speaks. "The fall killed Rhino. We don't know what happened to Spider-Man. You've been in a medically-induced coma for a week, Mary Jane, and... well..."
Aunt Anna touched my right hand. I turned and looked up at her as she spoke, "Mary Jane. No one knows if Spider-Man survived. You see, when the policemen pulled you free from his grip, they were more concerned about getting you to a hospital. They were afraid that Rhino was still alive and was going to attack again. When the policemen returned to tend to Spider-Man, he wasn't there. ...They said- " She stopped, her eyes tearing up.
"They said what, Aunt Anna?" I plead, my voice whining as the tears tumble down my cheeks.
"They said there was a lot of blood. Too much blood." She began to weep freely, intermittent sobs chopping her words into fragments, "I'm afraid they don't think Spider-Man made it, sweetheart. Rhino killed a lot of people... Aunt May's nephew-" The sobs ripped through her and she crumpled back into the chair beside the bed.
I turned my head and stared up at the ceiling of my hospital room, hot tears searing my cheeks.
I killed Peter Parker.
I killed Peter.
I killed him.
The tranquilizer coursed through my veins, keeping my sobs reserved to noiseless tears.
After that day, I was allowed to return home to my Aunt Anna's. My collapsed lung had been only a partial collapse and a minimal one at that. The week-long coma had given my body the necessary rest it needed to inflate the collapse and so, clad in a wrist cast, I made my exit from the hospital. My aunt looped her arm through mine as we made the descent to the hospital lobby in the elevator.
"Spider-Man's deat-..." She cleared her throat uncomfortably, "The Rhino incident has caused a lot of media attention. There have been reporters waiting outside of the hospital every day since you came here. They think you and Spider-Man..."
"I got it, Aunt Anna." Cold as ice, I loosened my arm from out of my aunt's grip and walked through the open elevator doors. I felt nothing as I exited the hospital doors and a mob of hungry reporters thronged around me.
"Ms. Watson! How do you feel-"
"Spider-Man died to save you-"
"How long were you and-"
"What will you do now?"
"Do you think he's still alive?"
I pushed through the reporters, ignoring their questions. A taxi cab waited for us and I jumped in, slamming the car door behind me. The reporters continued their onslaught of questions through the closed window. I ducked down in the seat of the cab, covering my face from the flash of the cameras. Aunt Anna slipped into the front seat of the cab and after exchanging a few words with the cab driver we were on our way back home.
It took another week for the reporters to leave me alone. Even then, a lone journalist or two would occasionally follow me home after school, spewing a barrage of questions at me as I walked. My answer was always the same no matter what question they threw at me: "I don't know."
It was late one evening when I saw Peter. I had finally relented and left the confines of my bedroom at Aunt Anna's to try and enjoy a night with my friends. She had been begging me incessantly to go out and attempt to enjoy myself and forget about the Rhino and Spider-Man. I finally caved. Two hours later, I was sitting at a cafe with three of my friends: Gwen, Betty and Monica. We chatted about nonsense, everyone delicately side-stepping anything related to Spider-Man and the "incident." I sat beside a window and every so often I stared out of it, watching snowflakes drift down into the street.
"Yo, space cadet!" Gwen laughed, gently kicking me with the toe of her boot. "Come back to us."
I smiled, shaking myself back to reality. "Sorry, Gwendy." I sipped my hot chocolate and relished in the steam that warmed my face. The hot chocolate burned my tongue but I didn't flinch. Pain was a feeling and feeling anything was better than nothing.
"It's getting pretty gross out there." Gwen continued, nodding to the window. The snow was beginning to fall harder. Passersby tightened their coats around them, bowing their heads from the snow as they shuffled by on the sidewalk.
A familiar face passed by. We made eye contact before he ripped his gaze from mine and hurried past the window. I gasped.
"Peter-!" I stood so quickly that my chair overturned and clanged against the cafe floor.
"MJ, what's wrong?" Betty reached out to grab my hand but I pulled away. Without another word, I ran out of the cafe and began to sprint down the sidewalk.
"Peter!" I called out to his fleeting figure. He didn't stop. In fact, he began to walk faster. "Peter, please wait!" He turned and I lost sight of him. A few moments later I turned down the street he had turned down but he wasn't there. It was an alleyway, not a street, and it was empty.
I crumbled. My knees cracked against the icy sidewalk and I began to cry into my hands.
Had I only been imagining him? Was my desperation and grief so awful that I was becoming delusional?
"Oh, sweetheart," Gwen breathed into my ear as she fell on her knees beside me. I felt someone place the coat I had left at the cafe over my bare, quivering shoulders. Gwen engulfed me in her arms, hushing my guttural sobs. "It's okay to cry, MJ. It's okay."
Author's Notes: I hope you're enjoying it so far! I've already outlined the next couple of chapters and man, oh man, it's about to get realllllllllly good :D Bare with me though! I've got final's week coming up so it may take some time to get the next chapter out. I'm aiming to have one chapter done by every Friday. If you want, add my story to your "alerts" so you'll be able to stay up to date! As always, tell me what you like/don't like! Thanks guys! Your reviews make my day sooo exciting :)