The Darkest Hours

Chapter 9

Mary Jane was in the living room when I came home. She was sitting there with the manual she'd gotten from the DMV, trying to look like she'd been studying. I had seen the lights of the television, though, when I came down the wall from the roof.

She got up from the couch when I came in. She was wearing one of my T-shirts and a pair of my socks. "I saw… I was watching it on the news. They said something about the Rhino, but the clips were all of these men throwing things. They were throwing cars at you."

I went to her and held her, very gently. "Did they get me from my good side?"

She hugged me back very hard. "The cameramen couldn't even find you. They just kept circling these blurs on slow-motion replay and saying it was you."

"My grade school pictures are like that too," I said. "I fidgeted. I was a fidgeter."

We stood there like that for a long time. Mary Jane shuddered once, then exhaled and leaned against me.

"I don't like this part," she said. "The part where I have to worry about people throwing cars at you. Cars, Peter. I must have seen twenty cars crushed up like beer cans." She let out a half-hysterical little laugh. "How much do you want to bet all three of those bullies have a driver's license?"

I just held her. "Well. They can throw whatever they want. They aren't going to hit me, so it doesn't much matter."

She finally looked up at me, and her eyes were clear and steady. "Tell me all of it."

I exhaled slowly, then nodded. I didn't want to scare her, but Mary Jane had earned the right to know what was happening—and bitter experience has taught me that keeping secrets from the ones close to you is just not a great idea, in the long term.

I got a glass of water, stripped out of my tights, and sat down with my wife on the couch. MJ settled herself under one of my arms and pressed against my side, which I liked enough to make it a little difficult to speak coherently, but I persevered. I'm brave like that. I gave her the whole story, starting with Morlun. She knew me well enough that I got the feeling she understood more than just the words I was saying.

"God, Peter," she said. "You never told me about that thing."

"Well. You weren't here at the time." We'd been in a rough patch, one we'd since left behind us. "And when you came back, we had enough on our plates already."

She let out a quiet laugh at the understatement. "I suppose we did." She spread the fingers of one hand out over my chest. "But Peter. I'm sorry I wasn't here for you." She frowned. "No. That's not exactly right. I needed the space. The time to think."

"We both did," I said, nodding.

She looked up at me. "I'm sorry you had to hurt alone."

"I'm over it," I said, quietly. "Started getting better when you came back."

Her eyes searched mine for a long time and then she said, "You aren't over it. You're afraid."

I nodded.

She watched me for a second more. Then she said, a faint smile on her mouth, "But you're not afraid of them. These Ancients."

"Oh, believe me. I'm afraid of them. They are not reasonable people."

She shook her head. "But you're not afraid of what they might do to you. You're afraid of what you might have to do to them."

People rarely expect a beautiful woman to have a brilliant mind. My wife is smarter than almost everyone gives her credit for. She'd just realized something I hadn't consciously admitted to myself yet.

"They play hardball," I said. "They'll kill people without losing a second's sleep. Even if I can beat them, if they walk away, they're going to find someone else to eat. Someone else will suffer instead of me."

She laid one hand over my heart, listening.

"I can't let that happen," I said quietly. "I don't know… what other choice I have. I know they can be killed. It might be the only way I can stop them." I looked up at her. "I'm just not a killer, MJ. And I don't want to be one."

"What can I do to help?" she asked quietly.

I shook my head. "Nothing I can think of"

She sat up and said quietly, her voice growing brittle, "But Felicia. She can help you."

I sighed. "MJ…"

"She's got all the kung fu and criminal training, after all. Maybe even some actual superpowers, unless she's just been lying about that all along. Plus she's got a costume." She walked away from me, over to the window I'd just come in. "But I'm only your wife. I'm not useful."

"Hey, hey, hey…" I said, trying to keep my voice quiet and calm. "Where did this come from? Felicia and I are over. You know that."

Her shoulders stiffened, as did her voice. "Yes, Peter, I know that."

"Then what gives?" I asked her. "Why are you being like this?"

She turned around, green eyes hard and fierce and wet. "You are my husband. And I…" The tears fell from her eyes and she said, in a very quiet voice, "And I hate it that I can't be the one to help you."

She looked small and frail. Lost. Vulnerable. If I hadn't gone over to her and held her, I think something in my chest would have broken open. She leaned against me again. Her shoulders shook a little, but she didn't let me see her face when she cried.

"I want to help you," she said. "Instead, here I am crying on you. For the second time today. God, that ticks me off."

"What does?"

"Adding to your burden. Being extra weight."

I kissed her hair. Then I put my hand on her shoulder and lifted her chin with a finger, so that her eyes met mine. "MJ, there's more to it than costumes. You've got to understand that. Maybe you don't throw punches for me or blast people with cosmic rays, but you do more for me than you know. Having you in my life makes me stronger. Better. Don't think that you aren't helping me. Don't think that you're a burden. Not for a second."

She didn't look convinced. But I hugged her again, and she hugged back, a tacit, temporary agreement to disagree. "So," she said. "What's the plan?"

"Research online," I said. "And I'm going to call some people."

"For help?"

I hedged. "For information," I said after a moment. "These three are here because of me. I can't ask someone else to fight my battles for me. But maybe someone will know something about them. How to beat them some way other than…"

"Killing them," she said.

"Killing them." I looked at the clock and said, "Okay, tell you what. How about we spend a little while getting you ready for your test, huh?"

She looked up at me, blinking. "Are you kidding?"

"Not even a little," I said. "MJ, this is just another freak of the week. It isn't the first time someone's come gunning for me, and it won't be the last. If we start calling a halt to life every time some psycho with a bone to pick walks into town, we'll be spinning our wheels until we retire."

"I'm going to assume you meant that to sound encouraging," she told me, arching an eyebrow.

"I'm trying," I said, nodding. "Look at it like this. Next week, this is going to be over, and I'll be making wisecracks about it to you while you drop me off at school and tell me how your rehearsal is going. Unless we let the latest set of bozos scare us out of living our life and you don't get the license and don't get your part. So. Give me the manual and we'll get you set for the test. We can even go out to the car and I can coach you a little if you like. You can get to bed early, I'll stay up and research things for a while—it'll be fun."

"Fun," she said, her tone flat—but there was, at least, a flicker of life in her eyes again, something that might eventually grow into a smile.

"Studying is fun," I said.

"Once a nerd," she said, sighing, "always a nerd."

"You want to skip the written and go to the car instead?"

She folded her arms. "What if I do?"

"Give me a minute, and I'll go borrow a crash helmet and make sure my life insurance premium is paid up."

She gave me an arch look.

"Does the car have air bags?" I asked. "Because if it doesn't, I can web us in nice and safe."

Mary Jane rolled her eyes heavenward.

"Now he gets creative with the webbing."

* * *

"This is the car you bought?" I asked her. My voice echoed in the parking garage. The acoustics magnified my skepticism.

"I was kind of in a rush," she said. "And there wasn't much of a selection."

"And this is the car you bought?" I asked. "A lime green and rust red Gremlin?"

'Actually," she said, "it's just a lime-green Gremlin."

I leaned closer and flicked a finger at the car's fender. The rust red paint was, in fact, simply rust.

"I got a really good deal on it," she said.

"No air bags," I noted, walking around the car. "Too old for them."

"It's also all metal," she responded. "Being a really heavy car is really the next best thing."

I snorted. "Well," I said. "You can obviously drive. After a fashion, anyway. You took the car to the test, right?"

She raked some fingers through her hair. "Well. Yes. Though we stopped at the written. I was going to tell them my husband had driven me to the DMV, then went for coffee."

"Mistress of deception, huh?"

"Give me a break. I was working under pressure," she said. "And yes, I can drive. I mean, more or less. I didn't smash into anything on the way home, anyway. But everyone kept honking at me whenever I even came close.

People in cars can be really rude."

I tried to imagine this scene, and had to keep myself from wincing. "Okay then. Let's get in and start with signals and right-of-way."

"Signals?" she asked. "Right-of-way?"

I couldn't help it. My lips twitched. "I'm not laughing at you," I said. "I'm laughing with you."

She gave me a very stern look.

I held up my hands. "All right, all right. I'll be nice. Get in the car, and we'll go one step at a time."

We got in, but she didn't put her key in the ignition. "You're a good man, Peter Parker," she said quietly. "I love you."

I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

"You know," she said. "We never made out in a car when we were teenagers."

"We didn't have a car," I pointed out. "Plus we weren't dating."

"All the same," she said. "I feel cheated."

She leaned over, pulled my mouth gently to hers, and gave me a kiss that rendered me unable to speak and gave me doubts about my ability to walk.

We got to the driving lesson.

Eventually.