Wedding of the Century update (Patreon)

It'd seemed like a miracle when MJ rolled his number. Even more of a miracle when she didn't look like she was horrified by the prospect. Oh, she didn't look like all her dreams had come true, but looking back…

“I think it was just that you knew I wouldn't cop a feel.”

“Don't sell yourself short. You were the only one who didn't smell like you'd been doused in Axe body spray.”

“I couldn't afford Axe body spray.”

“What happened?” one of the students wailed.

Mary Jane about giggled. “Nothing, really… it was sweet. We went into the closet, we were just standing there… I was going nuts, wondering what he would do, wishing he would do something, afraid he would something… hell, I was worried he'd tell everyone I was a prude who wouldn't kiss him.”

Peter guffawed, his hands in his pockets. “You were afraid? I thought you were going to pepper spray me.”

“You weren't that afraid.” MJ offered the class a conspiratorial look. “He made the first move, which guys did back then.”

“It wasn't a move,” Peter protested. “I mean, I was nervous and she was nervous and… I just didn't want her to keep worrying… she probably wasn't used to worrying… so I kissed her thumb.”

“Which was a huge relief,” Mary Jane said, smiling hugely. Peter had never realized it was such a good memory for her. He probably would’ve killed himself if he kept thinking about the time he could’ve kissed Mary Jane Watson but… “Because I wasn't ready to have my first kiss then.”

“Well, neither was I.”

Mary Jane smiled and tossed her hair. “You cared about how I felt. That's pretty ready. You were always so mature…”

“I had to be,” he said, remembering Uncle Ben and Aunt May and how little room there was for error in the life they’d suddenly found themselves in.

“You don't now,” she said. “You should be a little young. You have your whole life to be old.”

“Kiss her!” one of the boys yelled.

“No,” Peter told him. “I'm glad I'm not an English teacher, because you missed the whole… media literacy of the story.”

“Kiss him!” one of the girls yelled.

“Do you know how much people pay to go to the movies and see me kiss?” MJ teased. “I'm not doing that for free.”

Peter held up his hands: “And before anyone starts a GoFundMe, we've spent ten minutes of class time on this, so Miss Watson, if you could go play on your phone for a while, I'd like to run through a few word problems.”

“Why does she get to be on her phone?” someone cried.

***

The next period, students crowded into Peter's class. He didn't let them sit on each other's laps, but he had teenagers lining the walls, sitting in the aisles, and crowding the window in the door.

Peter wasn't sure all of them even went to this school.

“This where we get to ask Mary Jane Watson questions if we take the SAT, right?” someone who might have been twenty asked.

Peter shoved him out of the door. “This is why I don't like cell phones in class.”

MJ looked up from hers. “I found some old pictures I took on the set of Broken Constitution. You think I could set them up on the projector? There's this great story I have about Colin Firth…”

“PG?” Peter asked her.

“Yes! Well… it's a bad word here, but not in Britain.”

“As long as it prevents the riot.” Peter looked to the heads popping up to look through the outside windows. Were they bringing in stepladders?

MJ frowned. “How seriously do your students take their Irish heritage?”

***

After only one more period, the school was virtually in a state of emergency. Teens from other schools were showing up. Other classes were emptying out or had students glued to their phones, seeing what their friends in Peter's class were streaming. Paparazzi appeared.

So did Mary Jane's fans. Well-wishers, autograph hounds, people who thought they were in long-distance relationships with her. Influencers who acted like they were starting a trend alongside MJ. The school was under siege; cops and parents showed up to cool things down, or fail to.

After two periods, a substitute teacher was called in for Peter and he was told by the principal to go home and take MJ with him.

“She has her own home,” Peter couldn't help but retort.

This was how Peter and Mary Jane ended up in the front office, Peter ordering an Uber and her calling her driver. It took a lot less time for MJ than for Peter to update his credit card information to a card that actually had money.

MJ leaned over to see what he was typing. “I can give you money for that. Or you can hitch a ride with me. I'm definitely not a serial killer.”

“I'm good,” Peter said tersely.

“You're not mad at me, are you?”

“No, I'm…” A deep breath. “I made a judgment call, not you. It turned out to be a bad call. That's on me.”

“Always so mature,” Mary Jane crooned.

Peter snorted. “You make it sound like a bad thing.”

“It's not. It's not always good either.”

He shook his head. “That makes no sense.”

“Life doesn't always make sense,” Mary Jane said glibly.

“That's… the definition of reality. Making sense.”

“Refusing a ride from an old friend so you can be driven around by a potential serial killer, that makes sense?”

“Now we're old friends?”

“Old acquaintances, new friends, it all evens out. You're not the English teacher.”

“I try to make better judgment calls, not worse.”

“What about me is a bad judgment call?”

“Not you, just… being in your orbit.”

“There's more to me than my image,” Mary Jane pouted, not hurt, but she seemed disappointed in him. Like he’d turned SAT prep into Beatlemania.

“I know there is, but I still have to deal with it.”

“I don't?”

“Of course you do. But you're you, I'm me.”

“I like that you're you.”

“You don't even know me.”

“You're not easy to know.”

“You're not either.”

“I have a PR agent,” Mary Jane insisted.

Peter smiled, thinking of how many hours he could lose watching her on Hot Ones or Me In My Place—or that one summer she’d been in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, keeping a video diary the whole time she was in Cabo.

Not that he had. “And if I want to know you, not who your PR wants me to think you are?”

MJ flashed a grin. “Take a ride with me.”

Peter cocked his head. “Remember how thankful you were that I only kissed your thumb?”

She nodded. “I was. But now I wonder what would've happened if you had.”

“There's a bus coming in forty-five minutes. I can wait that long.”

Peter walked out the door and was met with a virtual wall of flashing cameras and shouted questions.

He backed up until he was beside MJ again. “So. Your car.”

“Anything for an old friend.”

Peter made one last protestation. “I don't even know your middle name.”

“Jane. And yours is Benjamin. It's like we finish each other's sentences, isn't it?”

“You looked that up.”

“Because I'm a good friend.”

***

Riding in the backseat of Mary Jane’s chauffeured town car was a bit like flying in an airplane; Peter had to respect any mode of transportation that cost more than his apartment.

MJ opened up a compartment under the seats that was all cosmetics, Fiji water, and a worrying amount of chocolates.

“Here,” she said, handing Peter some eye cream. “You have bags. Can't have my man looking like a 6.”

“I'm not your man.”

“People are saying you're my man and I can't have someone who's said to be my man with bags under his eyes.”

Peter figured he owed Mary Jane something, since it was her Lexus he was in. He squeezed out a dollop of the cream and daubed it under his eyes.

“You're realizing you should do what I tell you,” MJ cried jubilantly. “We really are getting to know each other.”

A van drove alongside them. The first red light they came to, the side door crashed open and the photographers inside launched a barrage of camera flashes.

“Isn't this illegal?” Peter asked, shielding his eyes.

The redhead already had sunglasses on. “They must figure pictures of us are worth the fine.”

“Can't you get one-way glass?”

“This is one-way glass.”

The light changed. The driver stepped on the gas. The van kept up with them, just as fast.

“Keith, lose them,” Mary Jane ordered.

“In this traffic?” The driver, a horse-faced man who didn’t look like a Keith, asked.

Another car came up on the other side of them. The strobe lights now came from both directions.

Peter leaned up to the front seat. “Make a turn there–I know a shortcut.”

In the rear view mirror, MJ saw Keith looking at her. She nodded.

“Do it.”