A Stark Contrast

MJ had no idea if the mystery boy would ever call her. She had no idea if she would ever see him again.

To be quite honest, MJ wasn’t even sure if she wanted to hear from or see him again. On one hand, she did because she wanted to help him because he was so skinny and so interesting. On the other hand, he was a complete and utter stranger. Who knew if his name was Peter? Who knew if he was really seventeen like he said? Who knew what he had done? He could have made up his entire story, and she would have been none the wiser.

He could have killed someone.

MJ scoffed at herself.

The dude’s tiny, she thought. He couldn’t win in a fight against a gnat.

And by the look of his chest when he showed her how skinny he was, he was definitely losing against the tiny bugs. His chest and stomach were littered with scars and cuts, some of them looking very recent, some of them looking just a tad bit older. He was also sporting some ugly yellow, purple, blue, and brown spots.

She didn’t know which story would be worse: the story he gave in which he said he was homeless, or the story in which he was being abused.

She hadn’t overlooked the state of his hands either; his fingernails had been bitten down as far as possible, and his cuticles were red as if he had picked at hangnails. They didn’t reveal which story would have more plausibility.

If MJ was being honest with herself, his hands revealed nothing about his status. She bit her own fingernails sometimes when she was nervous or upset.

MJ also realized, a little bit late, that if Peter were in either of those situations, he likely didn’t have a phone he could use any time he wanted to. He could, she supposed, use a payphone, but who knew if he had enough money or even the right coins? She sure didn’t.

She didn’t know him well enough to know that his favorite color was the color of the clouds when it rained.

She didn’t know him well enough to know that he had a not-so-slight drinking problem.

She didn’t know him well enough to know that he used to play in the band of the same school that she currently attended.

She didn’t know him well enough to know that he was Spider-Man.

She didn’t really know anything about him.

She didn’t really know anything about him, so she hadn’t really expected him to call.

And yet, he did.

Well, maybe it wasn’t him, but she couldn’t really think of anyone else who would call her and have it show up saying “PAYPHONE” on the caller I.D. She had been watching the news when he called. The story the anchor was currently describing was an armed robbery in Brooklyn that had been stopped by Spider-Man approximately thirty minutes prior. The anchor looked away from the camera and at the people in the studio before nodding and announcing that they had a video from a witness.

“Hello?” She answered the phone but kept her eyes glued to the TV.

”Viewer discretion advised: the video is graphic.”

“Hey, um, MJ? I need help.” MJ heard him cough a couple times.

She watched as Spider-Man and the three armed robbers attacked each other. The hero was quick to get the weapons out of the thieves’ hands.

“You okay?”

One of the robbers pulled out another gun.

He aimed.

He fired.

He didn’t miss.

“Uh, I guess the jury’s out on that one.” Another cough.

Spider-Man fell over, clutching his side, before shooting a web at the man and using it to pull the gun out of his hand. He then stood back up, still holding his wound, and sprinted to the man and promptly punched him in the face.

”That hurt, asshole.” Spider-Man groaned at the man. ”Next time, you should use some softer bullets, please and thank you!”

“What do you mean?” MJ’s usually cool and nonchalant tone was becoming tinged with worry, and she was low-key cursing herself in her head.

Spider-Man webbed up all three robbers, put them in a sort of pouch made of his webs, and hung them from the ceiling for the police to take care of.

“Do you know, um…Enough first aid to help someone who’s quite badly injured?”

Spider-Man’s suit was a much darker color on the side where he had been shot.

“Peter? What the hell happened?” Her voice was low.

“Uh,” he started. It took him almost a full thirty seconds before he answered. “I… Got shot?”

“Jesus Christ, Peter,” MJ breathed.

“Can you help me?” Peter asked. His voice had a hint of agitation, but it was also slightly hopeful.

He mostly sounded tired.

“Yeah, I can,” she told him.

She rambled out her address to him, and he hung up after a quick “Thanks.”

MJ sighed.

What did I get myself into with this boy?

Peter hadn’t really wanted there to be any crime that day. He’d just wanted one day to chill without having to stop a single perpetrator. Was that too much to ask?

An hour before he called MJ, he had been sitting on the same Central Park bench where he had met her two days prior. This time, he’d brought his own mini paper bag of bread crumbs and was feeding the birds. Peter felt calmer than he had in a long time, and it was both incredibly refreshing and slightly worrying. He liked the calm because he finally felt like everything in his life wasn’t going so fast, but he disliked it because it would end as all things do.

He didn’t want this moment to end. He knew it would.

He hated how inconvenient life could be sometimes.

For now, though, he continued to watch the beautiful gray and blue pigeons pecking at the ground in search of the crumbs he scattered over the sidewalk and grass in front of him. He still had about half the bag left, so he took a handful for himself. The crumbs were stale.

Gross. Deciding that he was full enough for now, Peter poured the rest of the bread onto the ground. Birds continued to flock to it, and he wondered how they could stand it.

“Ten-twenty, we have an armed robbery in progress at the Whole Foods at 238 Bedford Avenue. Any available units please respond.” Peter sighed when the police scanner went off.

So much for having a free day.

Peter stood up and jogged to one of the public bathrooms nearby to change into his Spider-Man suit. He almost laughed when a man had given him a bewildered expression upon seeing the Spider-Man. He sort of wished he’d been able to take a picture of it.

Oh well.

He strung his book bag over his back and swung up to head to Brooklyn.

By the time he arrived, the robbery seemed to be mostly complete. The thieves had bags filled with money in them, and they appeared to be getting ready to leave. Peter had to be quick.

“Hey guys! Didn’t you get the memo? Stealing is illegal. I guess you guys were just another set of kids who never learned anything from the American public schooling system, huh?” The men looked up at Peter, all three of them immediately raising their guns to point them at him. “I’ll take those, thank you very much!” Peter used his webs to reach over and rip their weapons out of their hands.

Satisfied that they had no more weapons, Peter used his webs to slingshot himself towards the ground in front of the men. He simultaneously shot webs at two of the men, effectively disabling them for the time being, but before he could do so to the third man, he had pulled out a gun and shot Peter.

Peter had been shot before.

It never hurt any less than the previous times.

Peter fell over, almost blinded by the white hot pain that ripped through his side. He let out a yelp, and he might have been embarrassed if he didn’t have a mission to complete. From the ground, he shot out a web at the man, and pulled his gun out of his hand yet again. Peter then, slowly, managed his way back to his feet, groaning and holding his right side the entire time. He ran over to the bastard that shot him and gave him a right hook to the face.

“That hurt, asshole,” Peter spat at him. “Next time, you should use softer bullets, please and thank you!”

He used his webs to pull the other two men to the third, and he put them all together in one large web hammock and strung them to the ceiling.

Once he was sure he was done, he began his walk home. He knew he needed someone to help him with his wound, and his new friend would, hopefully, be better than a hospital. If he went to a hospital, there would be evidence of who he was. They’d take blood samples, and they’d make him take off his mask. MJ might ask him to take off his mask or his suit, but she couldn’t take blood samples.

He just hoped that she knew any kind of first aid. If she didn’t, he supposed he would figure out what to do then.

And so, he walked and swung home in order to find the note she gave him. He’d never let go of his side throughout the entire trip. He didn’t know very much about wounds, but he had heard that you should apply pressure, so he was going to do that for as long as he could.

Peter didn’t remember that he’d never put it down until he’d already wasted so much of his time and had arrived at the abandoned building he lived in. He cursed himself for forgetting, especially since he considered his memory to be one of the few things he had going for him. A little bit of him hoped that it was the blood loss affecting his memory, but another part of him knew that that was worse than if his memory had just declined slightly.

He pulled out the note, removed his mask, and put a large jacket and pair of sweatpants over his suit. He’d forgotten to take off the suit. Stupid, he’d call himself later.

Peter ran as fast as he could to the nearest payphone he could find, and he called MJ. She was, understandably, taken aback by the requests he’d made, but she did give him her address and the agreement to help. He sighed contently. The address she’d given him was just down the street from where he’d lived with his aunt and uncle, so he knew exactly where he needed to go, and he wasn’t even that far from it.

Peter spun around in the phone booth, and he almost fell over due to the dizziness that ensued. That can’t be good, he thought.

Once he recovered from the lightheadedness, he started running again, and he didn’t stop until he arrived. He found her waiting on her doorstep.

“You said you got shot,” she explained. “I figured you might want a little bit of help with walking.”

Peter smiled slightly. “Yeah, thanks.”

MJ nodded in response before leading him inside and up into her bathroom.

“My parents are at work for the next six hours, so we shouldn’t get caught,” she told him. Peter giggled. She furrowed her eyebrows at him. “What?”

“That sounds like something someone in a couple would say to their significant other while trying to, like, secretly have sex or something.” MJ glared. “Not that I think that’s going to happen!”

“It sure as hell isn’t,” she said, helping him to sit on the edge of the bathtub. “I’m a lesbian, and I have a girlfriend.”

“Oh, awesome,” he responded. His words were slightly slurred, and his skin was even paler than when he had arrived at her apartment building.

“Yep.” She leaned him back into the tub. “I’m going to get the first aid kit, alright?”

“Yes ma’am.” He closed his eyes.

MJ cursed and then quickly stood up and bolted to the kitchen. She opened the cabinet, pulled out the first aid kit, and ran right back to the bathroom.

“I’m back,” she said.

Peter didn’t respond.

“Shit shit shit shit shit shit!” MJ opened the box and pulled out the needle and thread that was in it, and then put the thread through the needle, even though it took her a few tries. Once she got it though, she swiftly removed his jacket.

“What?” she breathed out.

She was well aware that she knew nothing about this boy bleeding in her bathtub, but if someone came up to her saying that he was Spider-Man, she could have told them to piss off.

And yet here he was.

Focus, MJ! Peter maybe being Spider-Man is for another time, but there won’t be another time if you don’t do this!

“Right, right,” she muttered. “Gotta help him, or you’ll never know if he is Spider-Man.”

She moved the ripped part of the suit away from the wound and nearly threw up at the sight of it. MJ sewed away through the nausea.

I guess this how he got all those scars, MJ realized.

“Goddamn, Peter,” she remarked as she finished. She tied the end of the thread and used a pair of scissors to cut it. MJ looked at her handiwork and felt just a tad bit proud of it. She then grabbed Peter’s jacket and used it to cover the exposed top half of his suit.

MJ then stood up, washed her hands in the bathroom sink, returned the first aid kit to its spot in the kitchen, and got a glass of orange juice, some slices of bread, and some lettuce out for Peter for when he woke up.

She went to the living room to watch Parks and Recreation and wondered how she had managed to get involved with Spider-Man of all people.

Of course something this complicated would happen to her.