-*-
The air was thick, thick with smoke, with burning rubber, with gasoline, that every once and a while sent a car exploding into flames; it was thick with anxiety, worry, the fear that everybody in London would right now have pumping through their veins into their hearts: the fear of death. But for MJ, it wasn’t for her own wellbeing, who wasn’t very well, but for someone else’s, and that someone was the one that everybody with that fear should thank because without him, they wouldn’t be here; without him, they’d be dead. It was him that she feared for, that she was running through the rubble and debris of a normal day in London; because what if he wasn’t here.
What if he is dead?
She knew she shouldn’t be thinking like that, that a little optimism wasn’t so bad to commit every once in a while, but she knew that the chances saying she was correct, which had always been high, were higher than the distance the smoke had risen. Higher than the Empire State Building. For once in her wasted little life, she wished she was wrong; she prayed she was wrong; she’d rather throw her collection of Charles Dickens then herself off a building than be right about this in any kind of way.
No, he can’t be dead, not if I’m betting all of that
Maybe she was just being stubborn, maybe lying to herself so that when she finds him, she’ll let herself have the pleasure of saying ‘I knew you weren’t gone, cause you know I’d kill you before you were,’ but she’d love to have that pleasure: it’d be one of the greatest feelings in the world. So she wasn’t going to rest until she could say that to his face, and see the look on it when she did so; she thinks she deserved it after crying her ass off when she saw him fall.
Down,
down,
then out of sight.
But not really: that’s all she’d been seeing through her lonely ten minutes of searching, all blurry – not because of the immortal smoke.
She wanted to scream his name, shout until she had nothing left, but that’d be selfish, wouldn’t it? Revealing his identity just so she could hug him, kiss him, tell him what she’d wanted to tell him ever since she first lay eyes on his, on those eyes straight from a puppy, those freckles straight from a Disney movie; but here's the thing:
She loved Disney.
She loved him.
There was no point in denying it, was there?
She loved him, to bits, to ashes, and now he may be gone.
Now she may never get to tell him that.
The tears seeping down her grubby cheeks seemed to evaporate from the sheer heat of the flaming vehicles; it was crawling all over her, zapping the deep gash that ran down the side of her neck till she could feel the blood dampen her top, and she knew it was blood, because even though her head was pounding from the fire, and the swirling heat was rough on her finger tips, sweat cancelled out - she couldn’t stop shivering. But maybe that wasn’t from the slashing waves below; she’d take a guess that it was something else, and it may or may not have something to do with the blood splattered haphazardly everywhere.
That better not be his
She didn’t care anymore:
Damn his identity
‘PETER!’
It was so ironic that when she wanted a response, when she actually wanted to hear something, London was dead quiet; her voice echoed, and it took five seconds till it quieted.
‘PETER!’
Nothing.
‘PETER, WHERE ARE YOU, YOU STUPID IDIOT?!’
The only sound were the waves below, who’s crashing seemed to laugh at her attempts. She quickened her pace, not caring that the smoke made her eyes water even more: she needed to find him, she had to. She didn’t care if he hated her for putting herself into the crossfire like this, didn’t care if he never wanted to spare her another glance ever again; unlike Hermione, she had her priorities sorted out.
‘PETER YOU BLOODY IDIOT, WHERE THE HELL YOU GONE?!’
Still,
nothing.
He better speak up now, or I’m gonna jump into those waves-
‘MJ?’
She skidded to a halt, partly because she was so close to running into a flaming car, but also because she swore she just heard her name; in the dead silence she swore she heard a familiar voice that would forever send her heart on a roller coaster ride just said her name.
‘MJ?!’
It was louder this time, and this time she knew she hadn’t imagined it because metres away standing in the rubble, in his torn and battered suit, blood rolling down the side of his angelic face, was Peter, and he was very much alive, just like the relief burning the tension in her muscles to a crisp was very much there. She didn’t know she’d even moved till she found herself in the most heart-breaking and warm hug she’d had: it was instinctual, and maybe that was weird but right then she didn’t give a damn because he was alive and he was hugging her and she was hugging him and she really just wanted to kiss the life out of him but the will for him to live till he was more than a hundred was so strong that it prevented her from doing so.
That must be some willpower I have
His grip was tight, maybe a bit too tight but she wasn’t going to tell him that: it was just another sign that he wanted this just as much as she did.
‘MJ…I-I-I…’ He sounded scared, almost shocked, ‘…I thought you were dead’
Even though this had to be the best moment in her life, she couldn’t stop the frown from forming.
‘Dude, you literally sent a guy with a privatejet to come get us, what are you on about?’
‘T-t-there was an explosion, near the buses…and’ he sniffed, and suddenly the comprehension settled into her grip as she tightened it.
‘Well…you don’t need to worry about that: as you can see, I’m clearly here’ she didn’t think she was being harsh, and the soft chuckle he gave said he didn’t think so either.
They just stood there, in the remains of one of the most famous bridges still (sort of) standing, his mask off and by his feet, her head driven into the crook of his neck, his head in her hair that she was so thankful she’d washed that morning. He didn’t seem to care if someone just so happened to walk onto the grounds where an epic battle happened ten minutes before and saw a girl hugging Spider-man, in London, with his mask off; but it was obvious right then that both of them were just too grateful to be in each other’s arms than worry about his secret identity coming on the news.
Like she thought:
Damn his identity
‘Let me see you’ to her dismay, he leaned back, and also to her dismay, he saw the blood gushing out of her wound. She didn’t even know how she got it: everything just went so fast, with people screaming, the wind howling along with the air thingie, that she wouldn’t even have noticed if she’d broke her arm. His face instantly dropped, eyes widening almost till they reached his nose.
‘What- wait, how the hell d’you get that!?’ His gloved fingers went to touch it, but pulled back when she winced - it might have been because of the pain, or the by how much his voice was saturated with worry. The lump in her throat was hard to swallow.
‘W-well, we were kinda running all around, trying to find a safe place-…’
‘I thought you said Happy picked you up!?’
It took so much effort to hide the smirk she could feel coming, because it wasn’t funny, but then again, it was.
I don’t know
‘…it exploded-’
His eyes seemed to break their barrier they were so wide.
‘Please tell me it was before you got on it-?’
‘W-YES, God yes!’
His eyes built back up the imaginary barrier and calmed down. Slightly.
‘So how’d you get that?’
She screwed her eyes up in thought. A subtle memory of running into a car door hit her.
‘Oh! I think I ran into a car door, and... well, the glass in it must’ve sliced my neck, I don’t know’
‘You sure?’
‘…kinda’
He sighed, but didn’t do that thing where he scratched the back of his neck - she didn’t think either of them wanted to let go of each other just yet.
‘Okay, y- wait, Happy still alive?’
‘Yeah’
‘Okay, go back to him and get him to take you to a hospital - that looks really bad’
I thought wrong
‘Wait,’ it was only then when she noticed how big the cut down his cheek was, and his burst lip, and his sliced eyebrow, let alone the deep wound buried in his abs, ‘what about those-?’
‘They’ll heal’
‘So will this’
‘But I have super-healing’
‘But I could have super-healing too, how’ll you know?’
‘I know for a fact you don’t’
‘Do you?’
‘Yep’
Since when has he been as stubborn as me?
She sighed, gripping his shoulders tight. She really didn’t want to let go: how will she know if he’s not going to go fight some other messed up guy? But he did look, like, extremely worried, so much that she could feel his heart pump through his suit and onto her chest, and it wasn’t exactly at a normal pace. So, reluctantly, she let go; so did he.
In the distance, she could hear the faint wail of police sirens.
A bit late, aren’t they?
‘You promise me you’ll go straight to Happy?’ God, his voice was like music to her ears. She hesitated, realizing what she was about to either confirm or not, before she nodded - she barely knew she had herself, but apparently he had, because he gave her forehead a quick peck before back flipping onto the car behind him, somehow mask in hand. She was so shocked from his action, so distracted by the sudden heat creeping up to her cheeks, because that had to be the cutest thing that’d ever happened to her, that he’d nearly swung off before she remembered:
‘You promise you’ll be there when I get back?’
He turned round, and through the mask, but mostly from the way his mechanical eyes adjusted, she knew he was smiling.
‘I promise’
And just like that, he was gone, swinging through the air rich in smoke and despair, air that definitely didn't contrast with how much love and happiness she could feel running in her bones. Even though he’d left her, even though she was on her own and was going to have to explain herself to Happy, who was oddly protective of her, he’d left her with a heart not broken, a heart still beating,
breathing,
and a gorgeous
necklace,
glinting
in her
scuffed
hand.
-*-