Chapter Text
Mary Jane Watson-Parker believes in destiny. She pretends to, at least.
“You're selling yourself short,” Peter insists as his wife lounges on his lap this evening, flipping through a script for Much Ado About Nothing. He's a scientist, through and through. He believes in random chance and hard work. “You're a living, breathing person, not a record on a turntable.”
“Not a record, a script. Take it from my time in theatre.” She says it with an audible -tre just to get his goat. “Oh, things go a little differently each night, but the show's always the same.”
“Only because actors have a common goal. Everyone in a show is cooperating,” Peter argues, which makes MJ laugh out loud.
“And that’s how I can tell you have never been backstage," she says, pinching his cheek affectionately. "You can hate the other players all you want, but you know your positions. Once the lights go up the God of Theater reigns supreme.”
“Bullshit. If I wanted to ruin your show, all I would have to do is go up there at any time—”
She swats him with the script. “It's a metaphor, you insufferable man.”
“And I just don't think it's a very good one!”
“Alright, then no metaphor. Let’s say I give you a big red button that rewinds you to a time, oh, five, ten years ago. What do you do differently?”
Peter falls silent. She can tell he’s taking the question far too seriously, calculating every permutation. She takes mercy before smoke starts pouring out his ears.
“I’ll tell you the answer,” she says, placing a finger on his lips to get his attention. “Nothing. Nada, zip, zilch. Because,” she continues before he can argue, “you already did your best. You had to do it wrong in order to wish you’d done it differently.”
Peter sighs that heavy world-carrying sigh of his. “If I’m being honest, MJ, I didn’t always do my best.”
“Then there was a reason you didn’t, and that reason wouldn’t vanish for take two.”
She goes back to her script, leaving him to tie himself up further with that length of conceptual rope. She flips the page quickly before he can see the red pen on the page, marking pieces of the Bard to be omitted. He’s not that blind to metaphor.
Maybe she pretends to believe in destiny because it’s an escape hatch. It promises, velvety, it wasn’t your fault. The ball of fate was picking up speed long before it hit the five of them and scattered them like bowling pins.
They all know when and where it went to shit. The George Washington bridge and a silent plummet ending in a short sharp shock. What’s harder to pinpoint is where it started.
Maybe it started in that diner, with the dusty smell of floor wax and grease and caffeine. Enter stage left: a stunning auburn-haired teen, glowing with the confidence of youth and of having her own apartment and new heels that bring her an inch closer to six feet. Confidence as shiny and fake, yet alluring, as her acrylic nails.
Skip over the supporting characters for now—dark and handsome, blonde and sharp, and the golden boy. Zero in on the funny-looking redhead sitting on the end. He looks to be the private school type, or maybe just light in the loafers. Yes, that’s where it started, with the boy on the end, Harry Osborn.
And when he asked “Need a lift?” and she saw that shiny red ride of his… she said yes. Not because she thought it was destiny, but because she thought it wasn’t. He rushed to open the passenger door for her like a perfect gentleman with such an earnest, hopeful grin that she thought boy, this cat is doomed already.
She couldn't imagine how right she would be.