MJ
Dinner was…Chaotic, to say the least. Three Spidermen at one table meant they needed a LOT of food to keep up their super-metabolism, which meant that they had the oven and stove going and were constantly swapping in empty plates for new plates of food.
A bottle of wine was pulled out from the basement, but only Mary-Jane drank. Peter-One was surprised and asked the other two why they didn’t partake, but both adults shook their heads.
“It messes with my web stickiness,” Peter-Two complained, and Peter-Three shrugged sheepishly. “I miss all my shots if I drink. Guess spiders don’t mix with alcohol.”
Peter-One was glad they didn’t point out that he wasn’t even of legal age to drink and therefore didn’t know the affects it would have on him.
Mary-Jane simply ate her food, drank her wine and enjoyed -rather gleefully- the hilarity of her husband trying to herd cats with two other versions of himself.
“Don’t ever work for Door Dash, lemme tell you,” Peter-Three was saying, stabbing in Peter-One’s direction with his fork. “It’s easy enough to swing around with food but you have to keep it upright, especially if they’ve ordered soup. I smelled like miso soup for the better part of a week-“
“You don’t work at the Bugle?” Peter-Two asked in confusion, piling on mashed potatoes to his plate.
“Part-time,” Peter-Three answered, taking a bite of bread. He made a loud moan and turned to Mary-Jane with awe. “Wow, this bread is amazing. Is that cranberry?”
“Flirting,” Peter-Two sighed, pointed at him with a warning finger.
MJ rolled her eyes at her husband and grinned. “Thanks, I added cranberry and walnuts. It’s a new recipe.”
Peter-Three nodded, happily chewing away and continued on his previous thought, “The Bugle pays terribly though, I don’t know why I put up with it. Jameson is the fucking worst-“
“Horrible man,” Peter-Two agreed, grimacing. “But he’s gotten better with age, I think. He made me full-time a while back, even gave me a promotion and a raise. Well, it’s either that or MJ threatened him with something, she got all chummy with him at the holiday party-“ He glanced at his wife, who just batted her lashes at him and smiled over the rim of her wine glass.
“You two work for him?” Peter-One blurted out, unable to contain himself any longer. “He ruined my life! He took Mysterio’s lies and put them all over the internet and then he took my name and-“
The three adults at the table looked at him in unison.
The youngest Peter stopped himself before he said more, realizing that they hadn’t talked about this in the heat of battle last time. He awkwardly reached for his cup and took a long drink of orange juice instead.
Peter-Three shared a knowing glance with his older self, then looked at his younger self. He set his fork down and twiddled his spandex-covered thumbs. “I don’t wanna pry but like, do you want to talk about it or…?”
Peter-One flushed and stared intensely at the table, suddenly losing his appetite. “It’s a really long story,” he mumbled.
Peter-Two gave a strained smile at him. “It’s the weekend tomorrow. We don’t have work in the morning.” He glanced at Mary-Jane and Peter-Three for confirmation and the other two nodded.
The teenager took a minute to just… breathe. In and out. Innnn and out. In and out, a little slower. He did want to tell them so, so badly but he didn’t know where to start.
Mary-Jane stood, quietly, so not to startle the others at the table. “I’ll get dessert. This seems like a long story.”
When Peter-One was done, the food had gone cold and no one was eating anymore. Both older Peters were looking down at the table, lost in thought and faces shadowed by pain.
Mary-Jane looked between them, then at the teenager with sad, sad eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “That sounds… really hard.”
Peter-One wiped at his running nose. He was so tired of crying. It seemed like all he did lately. “T-This is nice though,” he added quickly, nodding at them as if to convince them of his words.“I haven’t had a… a nice dinner since May died so…” He swallowed against what felt like cobwebs in his throat. “Thank you.”
He avoided Peter-Two’s eyes. He could sense the sadness emitting from the older man and didn’t know if he could handle it head-on. Instead, he looked around the room, trying to find something else to say. “This is a nice house,” he blurted out. “I never thought I’d, er, we’d-you know, own a house.”
Peter-Three took the hint and made an impressed-whistle sound, leaning back in his chair. “Yeah, this is so out of my budget. How’d you do it? Saved up a lot? Or is MJ some c-suite executive or something?”
Peter-Two hesitated at the praise. “I…uh,” he stared at the far wall, “I inherited it.”
The other two Peters fell silent.
Mary-Jane silently reached over the table to place her hand on her husband’s.
Peter-Three’s mouth formed another ‘o’.
Something cold and hard settled into Peter-One’s stomach. “So… Your May…. She’s….?”
Peter-Two opened his mouth to speak, closed it, and then took a long few seconds to compose himself. “Y-Yeah,” he confirmed shakily, “A few years ago. She passed in her sleep.” He turned his palm upright and laced his fingers with his wife’s, squeezing her hand in silent thanks.
Peter-Three felt the blood run cold in his veins. You know your way around cemeteries… How many people have died on you? He was moving before he knew it and wrapped his arms around his older self, leaning down to envelop him and place his head on the other’s. “I’m so sorry.”
Peter-One came around the table and carefully wrapped his arms around them both. He simply didn’t know what to say to the older Peters; usually the others had something wise to say to him, not the other way around.
Their older self stiffened in their grasp, feeling instinctively trapped by too many arms, but he softened as the seconds ticked on. “It wasn’t so bad,” he murmured, voice muffled as he leaned into Peter-Three’s chest. “She lived into her 80’s. She’s buried next to Uncle Ben. It’s not a bad way to go.”
“Yeah,” Peter-Three agreed quietly, thinking of Gwen, “It’s not.”
Peter-Two scooted back in his seat and stood to break their hug, but he wrapped one arm around each of their shoulders before they could move away. He leaned his head against theirs. “It’s a privilege to grow old,” he said quietly, “I want you both to remember that.”
Mary-Jane smiled but hid it behind her hand. Ben and May would be so proud right now.
Leaning against his oldest counterpart and enjoying his strength, Peter-One suddenly understood why the other always felt so… calm, so serene. He’s made it. He’s fought for this. He’s going to grow old with his MJ. Isn’t that all we want in life?
Peter-Three sniffed and wiped at his face. “Man, why you gotta always make me cry? This is the worst dinner party,” he complained, but there was no bite in his tone.
The older Peter squeezed their shoulders and then let them both go. “So, now that you’ve emptied our fridge and paid for it in tears,” he teased, reaching for the dishes and beginning to pile them, “What are we going to do about the kid’s predicament?”
“Have you guys thought of a different approach?”
All three Peters looked up from where they had their heads together at one end of the dinner table, deliberating multi-verse technicalities like the world’s nerdiest debate club.
They keep doing that, we should come up with a name for it, Mary-Jane thought with amusement. Spider-huddle? Cluster of Spiders? She flipped on the dishwasher and turned to lean against it, wiping her hands with a cloth. “She’s a teenaged girl. The last thing she wants is a creepy stalker who keeps coming in to do nothing but stare at her.” She pointed confidently to herself. “I’ll do it.”
Peter-Three pouted. “Ye of little faith.”
Peter-Two frowned at his wife. “I don’t know if I want you to go through the portal-“
“What’s the worse that could happen?” MJ raised an eyebrow. “I get stuck over there? You’d never rest until you find me, I have faith.”
Her husband flushed pink in the cheeks. “Yeah, that’s fair,” he admitted with a small voice, and she had to resist the urge to kiss away his blush. Honestly, years later, it was still so easy to embarrass him.
The youngest Peter wringed at his hands nervously. “I, um-Well-“
The other three looked at him expectantly.
“I-I don’t want to drag you into my problems. That wasn’t the plan,” He swallowed and lifted his chin. “That’s why I agreed to the spell to begin with, I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt because of me. I really, REALLY appreciate that you listened to me vent and these are great ideas, but… but they’re still my problems. I can take care of them.”
Peter-Three raised a skeptical eyebrow as if to say ‘How’s that working out for you?’
Peter-Two was looking at him with those endless, grey eyes that seemed to pierce right through him. He didn’t seem convinced either.
MJ broke the silence. “Boy, I’ve heard that one before.” She padded over to the boy and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. She just rested it there, careful not to spook him. “Peter, it’s okay to ask for help. Everyone needs help sometimes, even the friendly neighborhood Spiderman.”
“Gotta be honest, this is a fun change from going on patrol and getting shot-ow!” Peter-Three cringed as Peter-Two gave him a kick in the shins.
“I can’t promise success,” MJ continued, ignoring the other two. “But it’s worth a shot. What do you say, Peter?”
Peter-One gnawed at his lip. She looked so earnest and gentle that he couldn’t help but think of his May, who also had long reddish hair. “Yeah. Okay, yeah, let’s try. I’ve probably spooked her enough already.”
Michelle-Jones was wiping down the counter when the door swung open, jingling the bell to alert her of a new customer. She pulled herself upright and put on her “retail face” (or so Ned calls it), which wasn’t super welcoming but it was the best she could manage compared to her normal resting-bitch-face. “Can I help you?”
A beautiful woman walked in, dressed in a thick black coat with large lapels and heeled boots. A fuzzy white hat was delicately placed her red-haired head. She shook off the cold as she walked over to the counter and slid into a seat, unzipping her jacket as she went. “Yes please, some coffee and food to stay. Boy, it’s cold out there.”
MJ nodded, sliding over the plastic menu and returning to her duty of cleaning.
The woman smiled warmly at her, her dimples showing off her freckles. "I like your necklace, by the way," she said, nodding toward the broken black necklace that hung from MJ's neck over the counter.
The girl's free hand flew up the broken flower. She couldn't remember where she got it from, but she was very protective of it. "Er, thanks," she said, quickly moving the necklace underneath her uniform.
Something sad passed across the blue-eyed woman's face at the gesture but it was gone in an instant. She picked up the menu and studied the front and the back. “I’ll have a mocha latte and a…. Hm, a croissant. I hear they’re the best here.”
MJ looked at her, a little surprised. “Really?” Their cafe really wasn’t famous.
“Sure,” the woman responded easily, sliding the menu back over. “Someone recommended them. He said the service here is great.”
MJ nodded slowly, a little self-conscious. There was a grace and presence to this woman that made her feel…. Weird. This was the type of woman her dad wished he had -well-dressed, well-spoken and with perfect makeup. It wasn’t…her though, and she couldn’t fake it if she tried. Unsure what to do with this information, she went over to the coffee machine to start making the latte instead. “So uh, who is…” she eyed the other woman out of the corner of her eye, “‘someone’?”
“Oh,” the customer said with a flippant shrug, “Just my nephew. You might know him, Peter Parker?”