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MJ sat forward on the couch beside Ned, staring in silence as the news rambled on about nothing. No updates, no real reports, just endless b-roll of the crowds who had shown up in support of Spider-Man. MJ scoffed and threw the pillow she’d been clutching for dear life on the floor. She stood up and stormed into the kitchenette and started to make tea. Her fingers drummed the counter impatiently as the kettle heated.
Had she been too harsh with him? It wasn’t as if this was a normal situation to be in, but she could have been kinder, she supposed. I don’t love you, she’d said, I don’t even know you.
It had been the truth. She didn’t know him. Sure, he had been nothing but kind, charming, and funny in their limited time spent together, but it had only been a few hours. And even if she did love him eventually, she’d spend, what, years learning new things about him while he knew everything about her? That wasn’t a relationship. It couldn’t be.
But she could have been kinder.
Peter’s face appeared in her mind. She tried to squeeze the image from her brain, desperately trying not to think about him lying alone in that hospital room. She pulled a mug from the cupboard, but the image wouldn’t fade from her mind.
The realization crept up on her slowly, that this Peter was different from the Peter she’d spoken to a few hours earlier that day. He was younger. Standing, grinning, amidst piles of rubble around him. He wore a blue plaid button-down over a grey t-shirt. He had dried blood on his forehead. He looked happy. He looked a lot less worn and tired than he had the last time MJ had seen him. When she kissed him, this version of him, she could remember the feeling of his lips against hers.
The kettle whistled and she dropped the mug, numbly watching it shatter on the floor. She pressed a hand to trembling lips and leaned against the counter for support.
“Oh my god!” Ned shouted from the other room.
“What!?” MJ called back, practically leaping over shards of mug to get back over, straining to see the TV screen, to see what had happened. But Ned just stared at her, with glassy eyes.
“Peter!” He gasped. “The Lego death-star… I was his ‘guy in the chair!’”
“You– you remember too?” MJ could hardly breathe. Her knees felt weak beneath her and she sunk helplessly into the couch.
Ned laughed, then faltered, looking at MJ with a horrified expression. “He was supposed to come tell us!”
“I know, Ned.”
“All this time, he’s been…”
“Alone,” MJ finished, feeling faint.
“Well…” Ned pursed his lips. “Maybe not alone, alone. Just not with us. Right?”
MJ shook her head, biting her lip. “No, the black widow lady. She said she was glad he found some friends. And earlier, he told that crazy guy that he had nowhere else to go.”
“Crazy guy, what crazy guy?” Ned asked.
MJ sighed. “It’s not important right now. The point is that we both remember, right? The spell broke or expired or something. How am I supposed to know how this works? Why now?”
Ned considered the question, glancing back at the TV, then going completely pale. “Oh, no.”
MJ, at least a part of her, knew the answer before she looked up at the screen. Tears were stinging her eyes, even before the news really hit her.
Peter, who had given her a Black Dahlia necklace from Venice.
Peter, who had coaxed her out of her introverted, misanthropic state by making her laugh until she cried at decathlon practice.
Peter, who had lost his parents, his uncle, his mentor, his aunt, and then everyone.
Beloved hero ‘Spider-Man’ succumbs to injuries, dies at 23.
Peter, who had died alone, in a cold, sterile hospital bed, believing that there was no one left who loved him.
There was a special cruelness to this whole magic thing. What, you could only remember someone after you’ve lost them? No one else seemed to remember. Then again, very few were left who had really known him. MJ received a call from an unknown number a few days later, which she’d allowed to ring until voicemail.
‘Hi Michelle, I don’t know if you remember me, it’s Happy Hogan. I worked with Spider-Man back in the day. I don’t know who else really knew him before everything happened. I’m not completely sure how it all happened, but I do know that he really loved you. And that Ned kid, too. Anyway, gimme a call back if you want to talk. Or not. Bye.’
MJ and Ned had hardly spoken to each other since everything happened. MJ just couldn’t find the words to say to him, and got the feeling that he couldn’t either. The two of them went, arm in arm, to the memorial event for Spider-Man. MJ hadn’t wanted to go at all, arguing that no one there knew Peter, only ‘Spider-Man.’ No one could understand what the two of them were going through. But Ned insisted that it would be good for them to get out of the apartment for a few hours. And they owed Peter that much, anyway. So they went.
Thousands of people flooded the streets, wearing red and blue. Some people cried. A few people got on a microphone and shared stories about how Spider-Man had helped them.
‘Spider-Man walked me home from a party once when I felt unsafe. There were probably more pressing things for him to be doing, but he took time to make sure I was comfortable and safe. I never forgot about that. People always talk about the big stuff. He helped save the world countless times, there’s no discounting his impact. But what really made Spider-Man special was the little things he did. He will be dearly missed. I honestly don’t know what we’re gonna do without him. But if we can all be a little bit more like Spider-Man, maybe we won’t need a hero to make the world a better, safer place.’
Maybe no one had known Peter’s name or his face, but they had known him. And after MJ had sobbed all she could, and raged at the unfairness of it all, she managed to find it in her to smile. It was small, tentative, and devastating. But his life had mattered so immensely. MJ had plenty of rage and sadness and terror and guilt to feel in the years to come (and it would be years, she was sure of that) but that day, she allowed herself to smile. And to be proud to have loved someone so special, even if only for a short time.