Satisfaction Brought the Cat Back

Did You Forget Our Anniversary?

Peter

It was nearly midnight, and Peter sat atop the Manhattan Bridge, drinking in the sights and sounds of the city.

New York always looked different from up above; there was a certain height where everything shifted and became skyline, like he'd truly escaped the pull of gravity and could see the arc of the horizon. That's how it felt on the bridge, his feet dangling off the edge and his mask in hand, the cool night air ruffling his hair. Peter breathed deeply and sighed.

He never got to share any of this with MJ, not really. She knew his secret, sure, but it wasn't like he could just swing her up here on a whim while they were together.

Peter and MJ were always at their best when they were a team, each playing to their strengths and trusting each other. But even then they had worked on separate tasks to cover more ground, like he did with Miles.

Up here, as Spider-Man, he was alone. He was used to it, and that was fine — or it would be if he wasn't so alone as Peter Parker, too. Aunt May  had been gone four years, and he saw MJ less and less, she was always catching a flight to break the next big story. He hadn't heard from Yuri since Hammerhead's mob war, and Dr. Octavius was rightfully serving his sentence on The Raft. Harry... well, Harry was a mystery. Miles was still around, but he was helping Peter cover the city, so they mostly saw each other for training sessions as he taught Miles the ins and outs of being Spider-Man.

Peter sighed, flicking some peeling paint off the bridge and watching as it fluttered down into the East River below. With his luck, it would probably poison some passing fish and end up disrupting the entire food chain. Unintended consequences haunted his every move.

His wrist buzzed, and Peter pulled up the notification in his lens display. It was a message from Mary Jane.

            MJ: Running a little late this morning, can you give me 10?

His video chat with MJ! How had he almost forgotten? He fired back a quick response — No problem, take your time! — and began swinging toward Chinatown and his apartment at breakneck speed.

Peter whizzed past office buildings and apartment blocks, debating whether to attempt a shower. He didn't really have time for it, but if MJ saw him in his suit, she would know that he'd almost missed their call while patrolling. He'd blame the seven-hour time difference, but it would just be another time that Peter chose Spider-Man over MJ, or at least that's how she'd see it. Maybe she was right.

But MJ had made the same choice, pursuing her career in journalism abroad instead of staying with him in New York. Not that he blamed her.

His daily patrols were little more than a band-aid compared to the work she was doing in raising awareness and exposing corruption, and Peter loved her for that, he really did. But it was hard not to worry when she was willingly running into conflict zones and natural disasters, or uncovering human rights violations in authoritarian regimes. New York was Peter's home, so he stayed in his lane and did his best to fix what he could.

In the end, it was fear that ended their relationship. MJ hated how banged up he would get as Spider-Man, and he knew he couldn't protect her outside of New York. All of that anxiety and worry grew between them until it festered, and both of them were too afraid to touch it.

Then MJ got the offer to go to Symkaria; if she didn't take it, she knew she would regret it forever. Peter couldn't ask her to stay in New York just for him, couldn't ask her to give up on her dreams. So he let her go.

Two weeks in Symkaria became two months, and then six, and MJ insisted that they could make things work. They always found their way back to each other, didn't they? But then it was Brasilia, then Mexico City, Sana'a, Caracas, and a dozen more places. The promises faded into maybes, and then she was telling him not to wait for her anymore, that they should see other people. That she was seeing someone.