Peter Parker (oldparkerluck) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2014-07-26 14:53:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, mary jane "mj" watson (616), peter parker / spider-man (616) |
Who: Peter & MJ (616)
When: 7/26/14
Where: Their bedroom
What: THE AMAZING 18-YEAR-OLD SPIDER-MAN totally sucks at lying.
Rating: Low! Alludes to pantless parties that happened the night before. Whoop, whoop. That’s it, though.
The first tip-off should’ve been that the alarm wasn’t right. In place of the harsh BZZRT, BZZRT was someone not quite crooning over a vaguely Carribean melody. ‘Saturday morning, jumped out of bed.’ In the early morning, though, autopilot was locked in the on position, and Peter reached out a hand to slap the off button, where it should’ve been atop the alarm clock on his nightstand. ‘And put on my best suit..’ The pseudo-reggae was beginning to filter in with the stream of daylight prying in through drawn curtains, but that didn’t snap Peter to alertness as much as the contact his hand made with someone’s face when he finally lowered his hand to switch the music off. And he froze there, his palm over someone’s warm nose, because there just wasn’t enough wherewithal to figure out to recoil. ‘Got in my car and raced like a jet…’ Slowly, then, the gears began to turn, and he lifted his hand. And turned. ‘All the way to you.’ To spot a redhead occupying the rest of a modestly huge bed. So, he did the only thing reasonable and befitting of an 18-year-old in that moment: yelped and toppled over the side of the bed with all the grace of a sack of potatoes. The hand wasn't much of a thing to MJ. She was used to spidery limbed Peter Parker occasionally entwining himself with her in some way. The alarm was overlooked, as usual, because she could simply roll over and snooze away once Peter whacked it and jumped in the shower. Occasionally, he'd wake her just long enough to get a sleepy mumble out of her -- likely something about how she was awake, she swore -- and get a kiss and take off. But the alarm wasn't stopping, and his fingers actually fondled her nose long enough to know that yes, it was a nose. The yelp and following thud was taken in, belatedly, and it took a few seconds for her to open her eyes and squint in that direction. "Peter? You're not sick, are you?" He did have a tendency to catch anything and everything that came along. "You okay?" The dominos kept toppling. Falling off the bed meant his rear collided heavily with the carpeted floor, knocking the wind out of him. It also meant the blankets stayed on the bed, which probably would have been for the best if it wasn’t so drafty in here. Peter looked down, momentarily pausing the thought about who he’d been in bed with beyond recognizing that the woman was peering over and he was as free and naked as the day he was born. “Don’t look!” was more of a desperate rasp over the still-playing alarm that was on the side table, which was somehow on the wrong side. Actually, no. It wasn’t on the wrong side. It was more that the whole room was wrong. As in not his. Or Harry’s for that matter. Peter didn’t even realize his jaw was slacking as he frantically tugged the top-most cover down to the floor where he was awkwardly seated, to cover up as best he could. With modesty semi-restored, he risked a glance upward. She had called his name, and the voice was familiar. It hit like ice water to the face. “You… you’re…” Mary Jane Watson, his brain supplied. His mouth didn’t quite manage it. "Don't wh--" MJ started when the top blanket was yanked from the bed, and subsequently her. There were still more blankets, but the room became much more vulnerable a place because of it. Her fingers clenched around the remaining blankets as she hugged them closer to herself. She was awake enough now to frown and finally focus on Peter's face. Whoa. Hey. That was not the Peter she married. I mean, it is, but when he was younger and this is just great. MJ got to her feet, the blankets dangling out in front of her as the breezy room cooled her backside. "Yeah, I'm… But you're… Peter, what happened? Why are you young again?" One eye squinted, the jaw remained hanging. “Uhm,” Peter ventured. He shook his head, digging one palm into his other eyes as if it would rub out whatever crazy illusion was happening right now. Except the scene remained the same: with Mary Jane Watson looking somewhat older than he remembered, in all of a bedsheet, standing over him. “Are you sure it’s me? I --” He looked behind him, as if an answer would be waiting there for the seizing. All he found was a dresser with a button-up shirt hanging off one of the knobs. “I mean, last I checked, time didn’t go in reverse. Same age as I was last night --” His fingers reached for the shirt. Whoever owned it would understand that it was going to a good cause. His face was bright red now, entirely flushed. “Tell me this is Harry’s doing,” he murmured under his breath, forcing himself to remember there being a party last night. If there was a party, maybe he could explain away some of this. "Harry's not in this world," she replied with an annoyed growl. Couldn't the Tesseract just stop for once? It was funny (and enlightening), when Peter and MJ swapped bodies, but this mismatched moment was more frustrating anything. Given that Peter seemed to think he was the same age last night, and that he was concerned with being naked in front of her, this was going to be more annoying than anything. "Stop. Peter." MJ held one of her hands out in front of her, the blanket slipping just enough to cause her to pull it in tighter with the other arm. "Slow down, please. Look." She waved her hand around in front of her, indicating the walls and the floor and the furniture inside it. "This is our bedroom. We're married. You're not eighteen anymore." Peter let the top cover sit around his waist as he started to make quick work of a shirt that was just a bit too big, fingers flying up the buttons with a sort of deftness that came with not being able to grasp anything else around him. He didn’t exactly stop at MJ’s request, but he slowed down, eyes staring at her feet for a moment while she talked. His expression went from red and shocked to vaguely less red and lost as he turned his eyes up to see if she was grinning or anything to suggest this was just a joke. They’d pulled Captain America out of ice, but it wasn’t like he’d just overslept the last decade and missed his own wedding. ...to Mary Jane Watson. Wedding and Mary Jane Watson had to be the last two things that would pair up, anyway. He couldn’t help it. The laugh that tumbled out was almost a snort of hysteria. Because even if this was all some crazy dream, it was just too eerily realistic. Besides, if anyone was in his dreams as far as getting hitched went, it was closer to a blonde than a redhead. Not that Gwen had really noticed him yet. Puny Parker had a habit of ducking out on the gang too much to make an impression that wasn’t somewhere between unreliable and selfish. If only they knew. “Sorry, sorry,” he choked out between rolls of laughter. “This is just -- just the weirdest dream.” Mary Jane's features flattened. She knew that she was flighty and not exactly considered marriage material when she was eighteen, but good god, no one should be thinking about marriage at eighteen. It was ridiculous they made you go to college and decide what you want to do for the rest of your life at that age, let alone who you wanted to spend it with. She took a few steps closer and flipped her hand over. The sun glinted off her engagement and wedding rings. "Does that look like a dream to you? And Peter Parker, you shouldn't laugh at people for something like that. What would Aunt May say?" His shoulders were still shaking even though the giggling had subdued, but Peter forced himself to look at what Mary Jane was trying to show him. He blearily squinted and effectively shut up when he realized what she was flaunting at him. The sight of the gold ring really only tugged to the forefront of his mind that there was an unfamiliar feeling on his own ring finger that had been skirting along unnoticed in the earlier scramble for literal cover. Peter’s brow knitted as he turned his head to see what the culprit was, only to be greeted by a matching gold band. He started absently chewing at the inside of his lip. This was way too elaborate for a dream, and he knew that. It was just a hard pill to swallow so far. “What’s going on?” he quietly asked. His eyes slipped shut. There were a lot of inferences he could make about this moment, but maybe she could put it into standard English for him. "It's a lot to take in. Let me --" MJ shuffled by him to grab her long nightshirt that was on the floor. Sometimes clothes just didn't make it to a dresser or a couch. She made a round circle with her point, indicating that he needed to turn around, and when he did, she made quick work of tossing it over her head. There. At least she had her hands free now, the sheets were dumped unceremoniously to the floor. This was going to take a lot of explaining, and a lot of explaining that MJ did not want to do. God, so much had happened from when he was this age to hers, and if he laughed that they were married, what else was he going to laugh at? May? That was not going to happen. MJ was going to protect her little girl. She'd send Peter out the window if he took her presence wrong. MJ flopped onto the bed, folding one of her legs beneath her. "You don't remember being here at all? The Tesseract or dimension hopping or any of it?" It seemed silly to still be on the floor, so Peter gathered himself up with as much dignity as he had left, and tugged the cover along like an oversized skirt. He snagged the space on the bed beside Mary Jane and leaned forward on his knees. “Tesser-what? Should I know this stuff?” A hand was slapped behind his neck, rubbing underneath the loose collar of the shirt. “I promise, I’m not… this isn’t me trying to make trouble for you.” For once, his brain supplied on cue. “I just don’t…” He wanted to ask how old she was, what year it was, how long they’d been married. Something about numbers seemed like it would be comforting. He could wrap his head around numbers with enough time. "You knew this stuff before this morning," she supplied with a mirthless smile. It was a little overwhelming how much she missed her Peter in this exact moment, but there was something sad about seeing him like this. He had so much to look forward to, that was true, but he also had a lot of pain to come. Gwen. Harry. Ben. All the times Aunt May had been near death. All the times Peter had died. Their marriage and taking it back. Baby May. Otto. "I know you're not trying to make trouble; you never try to, tiger. That's kind of your thing." She shifted on the bed, dropping her shoulders while she tried to think of where to start. Most recent first. The Tesseract. "We're… not in our home dimension. We were brought through to one similar to ours by this glowy cube thing called the Tesseract. You've been here for -- wow, I think almost 2 years. Something like that." He was furrowing his brows again, not really sure what Mary Jane meant by trouble being his thing. It sounded like she had peeked around his side to check his hand of cards -- like she knew exactly how trouble was his best party trick. He didn’t more than dip a toe into that thought, but that was because plunging in was probably a whole slew of new information he wasn’t ready for. As it was, trying to process the fully-grown woman next to him, who was speaking calmly to him and not flouncing off to clubs afar to go swingin’... this was really Mary Jane Watson? He wished he could tap into the memories the apparently not-18-year-old Peter Parker she mentioned would have, just to put some sense to how things ended up here. He was eyeing a few other articles of clothing that didn’t exactly make it into drawers, onto hangers, or into bed. Sure, he had heard MJ talking and the words had seeped in, but one larger realization took hold of his brain just then. Specifically, it what had happened in this bed last night. Peter sucked in a breath, letting it out slowly until he whipped his head around to force a grin forward. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it. “No kidding? Two years. That’s… twice as many as one.” What was he even saying? The grin shifted into something more like a grimace at himself. “That’s not what I want to say. Uh, so, glowing cube. Sure, why not? I guess that’s what I get for hanging around crimes in progress, huh? Aunt May warned me about that horrible, awful Spider-Man.” Some things never changed, and Peter's ability to lie was one of those things. MJ stifled a grin, but even her best efforts saw those dimples of hers manifesting on her cheeks as she pressed her lips together futilely to keep from smiling.The corners of her mouth tilted upward. She watched as his brain processed the thrown clothes, registered that they'd both been naked when they woke up, and they were married. What did married couples do, after all? "Yeah, Spider-Man's really awful," she answered in a tone that clearly said that Spider-Man was anything but. She reached out and ruffled his hair and gave him a wink,. "It's a shame there's a whole bunch of them now." “He’s --” The ruffle earned a bemused sideways glance, but Peter faltered on the next few words. “Bunch of them? What, did they start mass producing radioactive spiders?” He raised a hand to flatten out the tousled shocks of brown hair, which was just about instinctive these days. Aunt May never let him go out looking like he’d lost a fight, and the habit was ingrained now, even despite mask hair usually getting in the way of really keeping on top of that one. “Because he told me it was a fluke.” Peter cleared his throat. His eyes dropped down to the wedding band. Should he even be wearing it? “We talked. Once. He’s usually pretty busy, but… why are you smiling so much?” "I never really realized just how awful your attempts at covering it up could be," MJ snickered under her breath. It wouldn't take much to push her over the edge into giggling. Just a golly gee or something else from their youth would bounce her along in that direction. Peter seemed so young and small (even though he was just about his current height), she was overcome with the desire to shelter him from hurt. She was always trying to find ways of lessening that, but this was strange. This was almost maternal. He remembered her so differently when he was this age. She was the flighty party girl who never took anything seriously, he was the square with sweater vests and glasses. MJ leaned in, just so he'd feel more comfortable with her saying it out loud, and whispered, "I know you're Spider-Man." Peter’s mouth crumpled into a confused squiggle as he watched MJ take her turn at laughing, idly spinning the wedding band on his finger for something to occupy his hands with. When she leaned in to deposit that ticking bomb, he could only defer to habit. “I’mn not cut out for that stuff. I mean... me? Spider-Man? Yeah, sorry -- not a chance, Red,” he insisted, hands raised up as if to push the accusation to the side so they could get back to the rest of this catch-up session. “Hey, what year is this? That small TV over there -- that’s the future, isn’t it?” Reaching for the much-needed distraction, Peter plucked the rectangular device that appeared to be mostly screen. It lit up and a picture of of MJ, a younger girl, and a small dog illuminated on the screen. That gave him pause, but he pushed ahead. “Now this swanky little number I like,” he carried on, turning it over to figure out where the channel button was. "2014, if you can believe it." She cringed as he picked up the picture frame. If he squished it a little too hard, the backlight would go out. It was so finicky. "Don't -- can you -- put that down!" Right. Yeah. He was so squirmy when you weren't super close to him. MJ forgot what that was like. It had been a long time since he'd been this way with her. If he wanted to pretend he wasn't Spider-Man, she had a way of fixing that. She stood up, glancing around the room for something to throw. The alarm, which for the record, was still going. She smacked it, pulled it from the wall plug, and then threw it as hard as she could at Peter right around the middle. There wouldn't be any dodging it, not without demonstrating some feat of athleticism. “Two-thousand…” He poked a side button. The light went out. “Fourteen?” Oh, Aunt May was gonna kill him. Or was she? If he was here, but this was the house of an older Peter, then he probably had outgrown most of the fussing she’d always done over him. He hoped, at least. Her heart could use the peace of mind that her nephew was settled somewhere and lived to see his post-teenage years. If he removed himself from that picture just enough, it wasn’t too awkward to appreciate. But that short daydream cost him the precious few seconds it took MJ to hurl something straight at him. His Spider-Sense blared its siren, and he whipped his head up. Instinct took over, as he tore around on the spot and stretched low onto the floor space beside the bed. One hand shot up to snatch the hurtling alarm out of the air. And, luckily, the cover around his waist had stayed up for the whole motion. Peter turned his eyes up to Mary Jane, then looked to where his hand was gripping the alarm. “He taught me that,” was the belated, pathetic attempt at a save. For a brief instant, she allowed herself to close her eyes and shake her head just the tiniest motion at his insistence. It was sad, really, but if he was going to insist, then she had one more trick in her arsenal. "Do you want some pants? I don't know if these will be a little long on you, but…" Their closet wasn't much in this house, but in the very back behind the suits in their pristine bags, she pulled a hanger out. "I mended the hole in them before you got home last night. No more flashing the bad guys, okay?" She tossed his costume out onto what was left of the bed sheets. And just for good measure, she held onto the mask for a few extra seconds just to let that sink in before she dropped it in front of Peter on the bed. He stared for a long moment. Slowly, he got back to his feet, clutching the cover so it would stay up. It was his costume all right: red, blue, bug-eyed. Actually, the eyes looked a little buggier than usual, but it was all there. His heart was thumping loudly in his chest, now -- more than it had upon finding himself naked in bed with someone he thought of as just a friend. Then, quietly: “When did you find out?” There were scenarios he could imagine. Before the wedding, maybe on the night before, if he knew himself. One night when he was in the middle of sneaking out? Or maybe he’d just confessed it outright because he felt that strongly about her -- or would, at least. One day. "Oh, tiger," she said softly, reaching out to rub his shoulder. Young or not, he was still her Peter. He just didn't remember it at the moment. She sat down once more and looked up at him. "I've always known… since you crawled out your window the night your uncle died. I never said anything, because it was your secret. And then one day, it was our secret." That had been when MJ explained her home life and why she was such a shallow party girl. Or why she tried to make everyone think that's all she was. It was harder to hurt people if they never really knew the real you. It was easier to leave if you didn't get attached. It was better to make a great impression as the wild, friendly girl than the one who thought too much. "How old are you right now?" It was almost a numb feeling. He swiveled around and plonked heavily down back where he had been seated moments ago. The alarm was placed beside him, cord dangling over the edge. So, back home -- back in the year where he wasn’t out of place -- was a Mary Jane Watson who already knew he was Spider-Man, and she didn’t let on one bit about it. Her hand against his shoulder was a vague comfort, but he was too busy swimming in his own thoughts. He lowered his face into his hands, speaking in a muffling voice through the gaps of his fingers. “Even my aunt doesn’t know. This whole time, you…” His eyes rolled upward, pinning their focus on the ceiling. “Well, isn’t that just the life I lead? Never settle for anything less than a royal flop if you’re gonna take a tumble. Eighteen. Narrowing down on the big one-nine, but I think that puts more of a zing in Harry’s step than mine.” Well, at least he was over eighteen. That was something to feel slightly less awkward about, given how they'd woken up. MJ bit her lip. Aunt May had known for a while, and they'd had a family unit that was pretty unbreakable. If there was one thing more than Peter she missed back in their world, it was that. The sense of family. The sense that nothing could shatter them because they all had each other's backs. MJ was struck with sadness that Aunt May -- their Aunt May -- wasn't here. There were other pressing matters though. Stepping out of this bedroom offered a whole bunch of shocks, and it was probably better to prepare him for those. "So there's a few things I should probably tell you before you get a pair of pants. First, we're going to have to call you in sick. Your boss knows you're a dimension refugee, and he knows these things happen. It won't be a problem. But…" MJ drew in a breath and leaned across to grab the picture frame. The button on the side illuminated the screen once more. There were dozens of pictures, of course, that was the beauty of digital frames. MJ held up the first one. "That's our daughter. She's from another universe." One where she didn't die. "And that's our dog." Peter nodded, not sure there was anything else to do. Call out sick, sure. Jameson would probably have a fit over that, but… Maybe it wasn’t even Jameson. For all Peter knew, the man on was on track for a massive coronary. Or just a permanent termination of his employment because photogs asked too much money and there were probably robots doing that job now, right? His eyes followed MJ as she grasped the TV-like contraption from earlier. Whatever she had to show him surely couldn’t be more of a shock than he’d gotten already. And then the d-word dropped. Dog was okay. Dog was easy to digest. Daughter, on the other hand? He forced himself to look closely at the grinning young lady in the picture. He never imagined having to accept at the ripe, old age of eighteen that he was a father. But he was trying. Oh, was he ever trying. “What… what’s her name?” MJ knew he was struggling. Peter had a habit of putting everyone else first, and this was no different. He was trying -- for MJ, for May, hell for himself even. MJ flicked a button on the side of the picture frame and a close-up of their daughter blinked onto the screen. "Her name's May. One guess who we named her after, and if you get it wrong, I think she'll come through the cube thing just to wag her finger at you." This was surreal. The picture was just about an even split: he could tell she was Mary Jane’s daughter just as much as she was a Parker. Sure, iIt was only an image, but it felt as real as the ring he’d woken up with. This was an actual person, and with an actual name, the mention of which tugged Peter upright to look at MJ. “May,” he sounded out. Geez, couldn’t his heart give it a rest? After so much, it had to figure out that speeding up didn’t make any of this easier to chew on. “Good name, I’ll give us that.” That smile was probably from him. She was beaming with a crooked, but friendly curve of her mouth. And if she was happy, then maybe he’d done something right as a father. Maybe he and MJ weren’t too bad as far as being parents to even an alternate universe kid. Now there was a sentence that was probably best taken at face value. Alternate universe kid. “She lives here?” he asked next. "Yeah, she does. Probably snoozing away in her bed right now. Or she better be." Summer was a tricky time for teenagers and teenaged superheroes. MJ didn't want to stifle either, but she also wanted to know what was going on in her daughter's life. She'd missed out on so much until she'd arrived here that it felt like the time was going by way too fast. "She, uh… Inherited your powers. So she does…" MJ waggled her fingers toward the window. "..the superhero thing." The clones were going to be much harder to explain. "There's -- we have a full house here. We're on the top floor. Just us. Then there's May, Aracely, Jessica Drew, and Ben below us. And then Kaine in the basement." MJ drew in a breath. That was a lot of people, and the house suddenly felt so crowded that it was hard to breathe. "You know May. Ben, Kaine, and Jessica are… they're clones. Of you. Well, Jessica is a clone of another universe's you, but still. Clones." “Oh.” No, he was going to keep his cool. No more panicking. No more gaping. Daughter with spider powers? Hey, all peachy. She creeps out her window at night and helps people? He could get behind that. Maybe. Wouldn’t be hypocritical to not? The string of names had started Peter nodding agreeably -- the more the merrier! Although, as seemed to be the theme of the morning, so came a twist. “Wait. Clones? I don’t… you mean replications of my DNA? Why would --” He stopped himself. It was obvious why someone would want their own Spider-Man. “Can we go back to the dog part? I understand the dog part.” Her own residual second hand Parker guilt flopped down on her shoulders. The daughter thing was a lot to take in. MJ knowing he was Spider-Man, too. She'd overloaded him with the clones. She should have held off, maybe waited till one of them showed up for breakfast or something. Ah well, live and learn. MJ stood up and walked to the dresser. She pulled out a pair of Peter's pajama pants and a t-shirt and laid them out on the bed. She grabbed a pair of yoga pants for herself and began to slip them on, one leg at a time. "Yeah, we can go back to the dog. In fact, he's probably ready for you to slip him some sausages. After I get downstairs and make some. I'll leave you to -- do whatever you want. Shower. Stare at the floor. But know that if you don't come downstairs soon, there will be no breakfast because everyone else will have eaten it." In what had been almost three years of unusual mornings, this had to take the cake. Peter breathed out, running a hand back through his hair. “If that’s what the lady advises, the committee will put it up to a vote,” he answered. There was an urge to flop back down on the bed and burrow beneath the sheets, but Peter knew that wouldn’t fix anything. All told, he was hungry enough to swallow his nerves and try to function through the day, too. How hard could it be? And he’d get to see what the NYC of 2014 looked like, which was pretty keen. “I’ll… I’ll, uh…” He averted his eyes without trying to look like he was, as MJ pulled on her pants. “Shower, yeah.” His costume was still sprawled out on the bed. Hopefully it fit because it was almost a security blanket he’d really prefer to have on right about now. “Hey, MJ?” "Yeah?" Halfway to the door, she heard him pipe up. She looked back over her shoulder and gave him what she hoped was a comforting smile. This was going to be a long day for everyone. She'd need to give everyone else some warning before they gaped at him. Oh god, any of them could be affected too. What if May was older than she was? “I…” He stopped himself, thinking it was probably ridiculous and ten turns past being a square to start thanking her for opening her house to him when it was technically theirs. Or for the pants that were probably his. Or for using the shower that… well, same as aforementioned. “Sorry,” was the word Peter finally settled on. “Hope that Tesseract puts things right soon.” "Hey, no problem." Her cheerful mask only slipped for a second when she nodded with the same plastered smile on her face. It was crazy how quickly you could miss someone when they were right in front of you. MJ waggled her fingers at him, to say she was leaving and then slunk out of the room, closing the door behind her. It took her a moment or two to push herself off it and head downstairs to find one of the other inhabitants of the house. May was going to grumble the whole day, but this just could not wait. Hopefully Peter's habit of taking long showers when he was stressed held up at this age. They were going to need all the time to process this. |