Spideychelle one-shots

Wishes Pt. 1

Peter and MJ had been broken up for six weeks, four days, and eight hours.

Peter hadn't slept for about half that.

It had been fine at first - maybe he'd convinced himself it wasn't real. That she hadn't meant it when she stood at their doorway and told him with tears in her eyes that it was over. That she couldn't do this anymore, whatever that meant.

Now, everything in their apartment reminded him of her - the messy piles of books she hadn't picked up yet, the houseplants that he could never keep alive, everywhere she'd sat. Everything here was her, and even though he'd been living alone before she'd moved in, he could never imagine keeping it without her.

He'd tried to convince her to stay - he was ready to move out right away, or at least after he'd realized she was serious. But she refused. She said that he'd found the place, he had been paying for it for a lot longer than she had.

She moved out, went to stay with a friend she knew from school, and he hadn't seen her since. And he knew that it was unfair to expect an explanation, but he wished he could know why she left. He wished that he had gotten more than an 'I can't do this anymore, Peter' before she shut that door.

He wished, he wished, he wished.

But as far as Peter was concerned, wishes meant nothing. Wishes were something to waste your life on - and he wasn't going to make that mistake.

So he got up in the morning. He went to school and work. Spidey still swung around the city, still saved people, even if the boy behind the mask was more broken than ever.

Because if there was one thing Peter had learned from being a hero, it was that the world didn't care about him. The world wanted Spiderman.

The world didn't care if he stopped that mugging while tears were slipping down his face. Or if he talked that girl off that ledge while imagining how the fall would feel himself.

Yeah, wishes meant nothing to him - the only thing that felt real anymore was her.

His memories of MJ were the only thing that kept him going. He would spend hours every night going over every single moment they shared in the weeks up to her departure. He just didn't understand why she left. He kept trying to find the moment he messed up, or the little clues she might have left to show she was unhappy, but he couldn't see it.

But no matter how much he might want to contact her, to find her, to ask her - he couldn't. Because she had left and he had to respect that no matter how much it hurt. She had made a choice to leave.

But he had made a choice to. A choice to keep going, to not let this finish him. He may be broken, but he sure wasn't done fighting yet. And if he was hoping that in time, she would tell him what had happened, so what? He wasn't doing anything wrong. So he forced himself to delete her number from his phone. He kept himself from calling her, her final words ringing in his head:

"Don't try to call me, Peter. I don't want to hear from you."

So he didn't. No matter how much it hurt.

She didn't need someone to chase her down and try to win her back or something equally "heroic".  So Peter stayed away, even as he spiralled farther and farther into depression. It got so bad that he sometimes wished he had classes with Ned so that the other boy would notice something was wrong.

MJ might not have wanted some hero to swoop in and try to save her, but Peter sure did. Unfortunately, Ned didn't go to the same university as him. And with aunt May celebrating her newfound freedom by travelling, Peter didn't have anyone to fall back on.

And as the days grew shorter and darkness surrounded him, it became harder and harder to convince himself it was worth it. He'd even slipped a little, letting himself sit on the roof of a highrise building complex and watch her walking to work.

He knew it was stalkerish, but he couldn't sleep at night without knowing that she safe. MJ was the most stubborn person he'd known, and with his luck, her pride wouldn't let her call him for help even if she was being held at gunpoint.

So he relished the brief moments he got to see her, those moments where he caught a glimpse of the sun glowing through her hair, or her cheeks red from the cold.

He didn't know how he could ever forget her.