Chapter Text
Peter sighed, quickly summarizing the crazy past hour. “Long story short… Doctor Octopus cloned me and Gwen Stacy and the clones escaped and Aunt May had a heart attack and one of them kidnapped you.”
Mary Jane looked between the Fantastic Four and Peter in disbelief, mumbling, “Oh my God… Oh my God! What?! A clone?!”
“Hug the guy,” Johnny whispered to her while winking at Peter. “He’s been through a lot.”
Peter had no time to object before MJ wrapped her arms tightly around him, while the conflict inside his brain raged on.
‘She was in danger because of me! I can’t keep doing this to her!’
“I’m so sorry,” he blurted out.
‘I can’t…’
“You didn’t do this, did you?” she asked, breaking the hug and giving him a small smile, her arms still crossed behind his head. Peter frowned, slowly shaking his head, and she followed her previous question. “Then why are you apologizing?”
“I dragged you into this—if I had never involved you from the start… I can’t lose you, Mary.” Mustering his willpower, Peter extracted himself from her grasp with a pained expression. “But I can’t live like this either.”
Mary Jane’s face fell the more he talked. “No… But… I lov-”
“I love you too,” Peter cut her off, averting her gaze. “And I hope to always be your friend… But I have to put distance between us. I’m sorry.” Fighting back tears, he turned away from her and focused on Reed Richards and a middle-aged man in a lab coat he didn’t know. “She’s going to be okay?”
“We—Doctor Storm and I,” Reed explained, pointing between himself and the man in the lab coat, “(this is Doctor Storm), found a reactor to the Oz strain.”
“Basically a counter agent,” Doctor Storm expanded upon. “An antidote to the Oz formula.”
“We’ll have to keep an eye on her, but-”
“Wow, thank you!” Peter practically shouted, no other words describing his eternal gratefulness coming to mind. Running his hands through his hair, he turned again to MJ, reasoning, “Okay, okay… You stay here. I have to go see if Aunt May is-”
“Well, wait, there is one thing,” Reed said. “The Oz formula is how you got your powers, right? Well, it’ll take some work to isolate how the spider-bite affected the formula transfer into your blood system, but we can cure you too. You don’t have to be Spider-Man anymore. It’s your choice.”
Peter blinked; his mouth slightly agape. MJ stiffened and looked at him with hopeful eyes. “You could have a normal life then…”
“I don’t know…” Peter muttered, too many thoughts swirling in his mind. “Let me think about it, Doctor Richards.”
Reed nodded. “It’s completely up to you.”
“…I have to go,” Peter remembered. “My aunt…”
“I’ll come, too,” MJ said, still hopeful, but Peter shook his head.
“No, you stay,” Peter insisted, walking to the open window of the room. Johnny Storm stood next to it, waiting for him to finish speaking before giving him a ride to the hospital. “Doctor Richards needs to keep an eye on you and I have some things I have to do. And then you need to go find your mom, she’s completely freaking out,” he added quickly as he grabbed Johnny’s arms and nodded at him.
Mary Jane went to say something, but the Human Torch was already ablaze and flying through the window, carrying Peter along.
Hours later, Peter glanced at the beeper in his hand, turning it around between his fingers. Though the doctors said his aunt was going to be fine, they had given it to Peter just in case. He was sitting atop a water tower, not far from his aunt’s—now half-destroyed—house. He had checked from afar that MJ was back with her mother, but he didn’t dare to talk to her at the moment. On top of Reed Richard’s offer, his mind was heavy with Nick Fury’s words, and the occasional intrusive thought about the last Peter Parker clone that was still alive.
‘Oh, and all my stuff’s in the house too. Hooray,’ he thought glumly, looking up at the horizon. The sun was setting, and the sky was a bright orange that almost seemed to mock his bad luck with its beauty. ‘Doctor Richards could cure me… That’s… wild. But I made a promise…’
A girl’s voice interrupted his inner monologue. “Peter!”
He almost jumped in his seat, looking down at the brunette gently floating towards him—or rather, walking on the air as if it were a staircase. “Kitty? What… what are you doing here?”
Kitty Pryde, wearing a brown leather jacket over her X-Men uniform, hugged him as soon as she reached his level and sat next to him, asking in a hurry, “Are you okay? Are you hurt? How is your aunt?”
“No, I… Aunt May’s going to be fine… what are you doing here?”
“I saw your house blowing up on the news… I’ve been calling you all night, but you never answered! So we went to help you, but when we got here, it was over and Fury had the whole street warded off, and we found out your aunt had had a heart attack—so me and Jean went to the hospital-”
“You were there? I didn’t-”
“Xavier made Jean shift everyone’s perception to hide us.” Kitty looked to a side, hanging her head slightly. “…and after Jean read your aunt’s mind, and we learned your aunt knew about your secret… and I asked Xavier to help you with his mind powers…”
“Wait! Wait! What did you ask him?” Peter asked, horrified. He had had enough bad experiences with the X-Men messing with his life with their powers.
“I asked him to make her forget you’re Spider-Man, and he… refused.” Kitty bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Peter, I couldn’t convince him to do it…”
“Good,” sighed Peter in relief.
Kitty’s eyebrows shot upwards. “Good? But… you said… you said you didn’t want Aunt May to know—you wanted to do it yourself on your own time.”
Peter nodded slightly. “But it happened,” he said, shrugging. “And… when stuff happens, you gotta take responsibility for it.”
Kitty frowned, looking down and crossing her arms over her gut. “That’s what Xavier said,” she muttered acidly.
Peter placed his hand on hers. “Thank you, though. That was… that was unbelievably cool of you. All of it.”
She looked at him with watery eyes. “You’re not mad?”
“No!” Peter assured her, hugging her tightly and kissing her forehead. “That was… Wow.”
Kitty wrapped her arms around his midriff. “What happened, Peter?”
“Wow…” That was all she could say after Peter had recounted his past few hours to her. He had kept a few things to himself (a good deal of things concerning Mary Jane). He wasn’t planning on keeping those a secret—he would find a time to tell Kitty everything; she deserved that. But he didn’t feel the time was right then and there. “I… I can’t even… wow…”
A minute or so of silence passed, and Peter looked up at the sky. It was night already. “Hey…” he said, “you think I could—maybe—crash with the X-Men for a while? I kinda…” He scratched the back of his head, mumbling, “…have nowhere to go…”
“Um…” Kitty looked away in embarrassment. “I… I lost it hard on Xavier when he refused to wipe your aunt’s memory… I don’t think I could come back…”
“Oh.”
“I’m stupid.”
“You did what you thought was right. That’s not stupid.”
“You didn’t even want your aunt to forget-”
“You didn’t know.”
“But-”
“Kitty.” He caressed her cheek, turning her head and kissing her. “We can figure something out.”
She looked at the ground far below with narrowed eyes, considering their options for lodging. “I… I could ask my mother to let you stay with us for now…”
Something tapped Mary Jane’s window, and she sat up in bed. With everything that had happened, she found it impossible to sleep, making it easy for her to notice when someone was throwing pebbles at her bedroom’s window. She looked out to her front lawn and saw the unmistakable shape of Peter. A new rush of hope that he would accept Reed Richard’s offer came over her as she put on some slippers and sneaked down the stairs to her front door, opening it as quietly as she could. What little she could see of Peter’s face from the street lights made her hopes falter.
“Hey…”
“Hey…” he said weakly, hands in his pockets and eyes turned to the ground. “How are you feeling?”
She sighed, leaning on the doorway. “Terrible.”
“Have you had any… any weird symptoms?”
“No.”
“Good. Yeah, good…” Kicking some dirt, he then asked, “What—um—what did they tell your mom about your kidnapping?”
“That Norman Osborn took me hostage,” said Mary Jane, huffing slightly. “I told her he’d always been weird around me… wasn’t hard to make her believe that.” She frowned, looking over his raggedy clothes. “Mom asked about you. She wondered where you were—she said you could stay with us until you move to another house…”
“That’s very cool of her. But I…” Looking to a side, Peter shook his head slightly. “I’ve found a place. Tell her not to worry about me.”
“Who with?” MJ narrowed her eyes when Peter failed to reply. “It’s with her, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Great, so you’re staying in that mansion full of mut-”
“I’m not staying with the X-Men,” Peter corrected her, frowning and finally looking at her. “Kitty’s moved back with her mother, and they’re letting me stay there for a while.”
“Great,” MJ said dispassionately, crossing her arms. “How is your aunt?”
“The doctor said to let her sleep, but she’ll be fine,” explained Peter. With a small chuckle, he commented, “At least I don’t have to worry about her finding out my secret now.”
“…How did she take it?”
“She’ll…” Shrugging slightly, Peter tilted his head. “…she’ll understand.”
He fell silent again, and she stirred awkwardly. “Peter…”
“If you don’t mind…” he blurted all of a sudden, “(if it’s okay with you)—I’ll take you to see Doctor Richards tomorrow.”
“Wait…” Her eyes widened; a hopeful tinge in her voice. “Are you… are you going to ask him to cure you?” she asked. Scratching his neck, Peter slowly shook his head, and her hopes were once again torn apart. Scowling, she said, “I can go alone.”
“I know, but…”
“I’ll go alone,” MJ said cuttingly. Peter relented, nodding subtly.
“Alright. Mary, look-”
“Don’t start again,” Mary Jane said, tears building up. “I have heard enough shit about the dangers of dating you. Go be with Miss Perfect Girlfriend.”
“Please, listen!” Peter protested before she could close the door in his face. “I want us to be friends. You’re…” Pressing a fist against his forehead, he hung his shoulders. “…God, you’re my only friend left… I said I needed to distance myself from you—I didn’t say I wanted to, and I certainly didn’t say I wanted to cut you out completely either. So, please… can we be friends? If not right now… in time?”
Mary Jane stared at him, looking just as pained as he was. Considering his words, she recalled how they had been trying to mend their friendship right before the clones had appeared in their lives. “Maybe,” she whispered. “Good night, Peter.”
Kitty casually phased through her bedroom’s wall late into the night, walking into the guest room her mom had offered Peter while asking in whisper, “Peter, are you awak-?”
Freezing in place, she looked around the empty room and then at the open window with a concerned frown. A dark shadow ran across the street just then, and a moment later Peter was perched on the windowsill, looking at her wide-eyed. “Kitty? What are you doing up?”
“I…” An intense suspicion grew in her mind as she said, “I wanted to talk if you were awake… Where were you?”
“I was just-” Peter moved across the room and turned on the light before sitting on his bed. “…checking on MJ.”
Kitty’s brow furrowed even more, and her voice was cold when she asked, almost sneering, “And how is Mary Jane?”
“Please, don’t be mad,” Peter pleaded, rubbing his tired eyes with his hand. “I was just worried about her—you know she’s my friend, and she went through a lot today. Don’t you trust me?”
“Peter, we have already talked about this. It’s so obvious you still love her. And you didn’t even deny it—see? You’re not denying it!”
Peter turned his head to avoid her eyes, slightly hunched over. “I’m not trying to get back together with her, if that’s what you’re freaking out about.”
“I’m not freaking out!” she snapped, walking towards her room through the wall.
“Kitty, wait, please!” said Peter, shooting upwards.
She turned around with a huff, still phased through the wall. Peter went to say something, but he stuttered, asking instead, “Can you—ah—walk back in? It’s… weird, talking to a head in a wall.”
She scoffed, but stepped forward just enough to let the rest of her body through. Crossing her arms, she waited for him to talk. He chewed the inside of his cheek, thinking his words carefully for a few moments.
“Kitty, I can’t help how I feel,” he said at last with a pleading look. “Heck, I don’t like how I feel. But I would never—ever—betray you like that. Not after everything you’ve done for me. I wouldn’t—I couldn’t—forgive myself for something so scummy.”
Kitty glared at him less intensely, her anger waning. “You still want to be friends with her?”
“Well—I mean, what do you want me to say?” Peter asked sheepishly, shrugging. “She is my only friend left—or was, I’m not sure she wants to be friends with me anymore…”
She sighed, resting her face on her hand.
“Kitty…?”
“Fine,” she said, dropping her hand.
“Are we cool?” Peter asked tentatively, narrowing the gap between them.
“Yeah,” sighed Kitty. “You just… I was scared you were going to break up with me for a moment.”
“I think I’m smarter than that.”
“We both know you’re not,” she replied before giving him a quick kiss. “Goodnight.”