Wedding of the Century update (Patreon)

Following Peter's directions, they cut onto side streets, drove down alleys, did everything but take a subway tunnel.

“Make a right on Eighth Avenue,” Peter said.

The car turned onto Giuliani’s wonderland of corporate franchises and tourist Meccas. The paparazzi turned with them.

“Do you trust me?” Peter asked MJ.

“Nah, but why should that stop me?” Mary Jane replied with no hesitation.

“In there.” Peter pointed out a narrow opening in a row of storefronts.

“That's a dead end,” Keith told him.

“Keith, I think you're taking that witty ‘I don't trust him’ thing too far. Go.”

Keith fishtailed them into the alley. The paparazzi came with them, through a bustling farmer's market. Keith kept a steady pressure on the gas pedal, but with the crowd of nature-loving urbanites milling around, he was more than ready to brake as well

“Turn here, then stop.”

Keith did. The car's turn aimed its left side at the oncoming paparazzi. They were slowed just like the town car had been.

“Be right back,” Peter said, slipping out the right side door. “Can you be distracting?” he asked MJ.

“Without even trying.”

He duck-walked under the view from the paparazzi’s car, taking off his jacket before he stood in the swirl of vegans and vegan adjacent. With his jacket over his arm and his body hunched to change his height, Peter grabbed a batch of bananas from a stall and tossed a bill in its place.

He hurried at an angle to the stopped cars, looped around, now held his jacket in his hands over the bananas as he came up on the paparazzi car from behind.

MJ had her car window down. One long, supple leg hung out of it. Peter found himself pausing, watching how her foot toyed around with the pump it was halfway in. The paparazzi were sending a swarm of camera blinks her way, like somehow they didn't have enough yet.

Peter ducked down, stuffed a banana in the idling car's tailpipe and stood. Now making a show of checking his phone, he walked over to behind the van, bent to play pretend with his shoelaces, and stuffed another banana in.

He came up, bopped along away from the cars, then circled back and knocked on the driver’s side door of the town car.

“Jesus, where'd you come from?” Keith choked.

“Mind if I drive?”

“Keith, move over, he's being manly,” MJ answered for him.

Keith shifted into the passenger seat. Peter tossed the bananas into his lap and got into the driver's seat.

“What are these for? Keith asked.

“Giving people the slip, of course.”

Peter stepped on the gas. He kept them at a light 30 MPH, but put tiny twists into the wheel, checking how it responded, how the brakes took the weight of his foot, how the engine picked up when he cued it.

“Buckle up,” he told MJ.

“What are you going to do?” she asked him breathlessly.

“Drive,” Peter replied, confused. “That isn't reason enough to wear a seatbelt?”

He turned onto Broadway. The two paparazzi cars were already falling behind. Peter leadfooted the gas, weaving in and out of traffic, making his way to sixth avenue. The light stopped him. Peter revved the engine while he waited, but the louder noise was the trilling sense of danger he felt at the back of his skull.

He rolled down the window and poked his head out. Twenty feet up, a drone hovered, snapping a bird's eye view of his grimace.

“Now I'm pissed,” he grunted.

MJ was looking up through the sunroof. “Yeah, that's no fun. But what are you gonna do?”

The light turned green.

“This,” Peter said, and made a sharp turn onto 53rd Street that nearly carried them into the last Pontiac to have gone through the yellow.

They swept by St. Thomas Church, the Lipstick Building, the Citigroup Center, finally coming to an AMC theater. Peter's body tingled with excitement. He knew he was moving swiftly, decisively, as he worked the car into park, got out, and opened the door for Mary Jane.

There were no stakes, no real reason for him to be tipping his hand here except how much the paparazzi annoyed him… and MJ, obviously… but the thrill of the chase was as potent as ever.

“C'mon,” he told Mary Jane.

“Ma'am?” Keith called after her, but she was already out the door.

“Take the afternoon off…” she called over her shoulder. “See if you can get them to follow you to your book club.”

He ran with Mary Jane to the box office, dropping a twenty into the slot below the bulletproof glass.

“Put it all on red,” he said and pulled Mary Jane along into the theater.

As he'd expected, there was no ticket taker on duty. The concessionist who was on duty was barely there, but did a double take when he saw Mary Jane Watson sweeping by. 

Peter stalked through the popcorn-strewn corridor between auditoriums, stopping at a door with pounding music and crashing sound effects vibrating the wall… something surely appreciated by the showing next door of Downton Abbey: A Night In Hawaii.

He pushed into the auditorium with Mary Jane. On the artlessly strobing screen, a black woman maintained a perpetual squint that, from the sorrowful but still very loud music, was meant to convey deep sadness.

“I almost got that role,” Mary Jane observed. “Wouldn't sleep with the director. Draw your own conclusions.”

Someone shushed her.

Peter led her down the aisle to the door under a glowing red exit sign. In the red lit passageway beyond, the air shook with misdirected surround sound. They came to another door. Peter quickly stripped off his jacket and handed it to MJ, taking her beret in trade.

“Put that on.”

“That's a two thousand dollar beret from France,” Mary Jane informed him.

“That's a thirty-five dollar jacket from Walmart,” Pete replied.

She rubbed the fabric between her fingers. “Good material for thirty-five dollars.”

“It was on sale.”

With their looks changed, Peter took them out into the alley behind the theater. A fire escape ladder hung just out of reach. Peter netted his fingers into a support for Mary Jane.

“You mind?”

“I've played this video game,” MJ commented.

She stepped on his joined hands and let him boost her up to snag the bottom rung of the ladder, jerk it down. The moment it had descended, Peter was on the way up it, his soles clunking on the metal bars.

MJ went to more trouble, carefully placing her heeled boots on each individual rung. “Why did I think I wouldn't need running shoes, going to a New York high school?”

Up on the roof, Peter looked over the Manhattan skyline. It suddenly struck him with a profound sense of melancholy. Maybe in another life, he'd been one of those construction workers who ate lunch on a girder.

“You know, most guys just take me to a pop-up restaurant?” Mary Jane asked, pulling herself onto the roof with a huff. “Don't get me wrong, I appreciate not having to eat anything deconstructed…”

Peter hopped the three feet between the theater and the neighboring building.

“Oh hell no,” Mary Jane breathed.

“It's fine,” Peter told her, extending his arms toward her. “Pretend you're a stunt double.”

“I don't have a stunt double. I have a green screen so it looks like I'm five stories up when I'm not five stories up!”

“Either way you can jump three feet, right?”

“Of course I can jump three feet! That's not the issue!”

“It seems like the issue to me,” Peter shrugged.

“Hell.” Mary Jane stooped to take her heels off.

“We only have so long until they stop using the drone to watch the entrance and start surveying the area…”

“Do you think I'm taking off my shoes because a New York rooftop is full of things I want to step in?” Clutching a pump in either hand, MJ yanked in breath after breath. “You know, tiger, you're actually pretty photogenic.”

“Thanks.”

“Maybe you should let someone take your picture instead of causing America's sweetheart to fall to her death.”

“I'll keep that in mind if I ever meet Taylor Swift.”

“Oh! Jerk!” Mary Jane cried, and ran at the end of the rooftop so fast that she was at the edge before she knew it, and all she could do was jump, and Peter was holding her and another rooftop was under her feet.

“Oh God. Oh God. I'm so awesome. I can't believe how awesome I am.”

Peter patted her on the back. “See? Easy.”

“You wanna say anything about Taylor Swift now that we’re on the same building?”

“No,” Peter chuckled.

Mary Jane popped him in the stomach. “That's what I thought.” She shook her hand. “Hey, have any paint rollers gone missing in your neighborhood since you moved in?”

“I like working out.”

“No you don't. Nobody likes working out.”

Peter ushered her across the rooftop. “That was pretty great.”

Mary Jane blew a lock of hair from her eyes. “It was nothing.”

“Glad you feel that way. We need to jump to that building.”

“Oh, screw that!” MJ moaned, trying to twist out of Peter's arms. 

He kept her hand in his and they kept moving.

“It'll be fine. I think it's less distance than the first time.”

“I think it's more,” Mary Jane cried.

“So it's probably about the same distance. No big deal.”

Peter stretched a leg across the gap. Holding MJ tight to his body, he lifted them across to the next rooftop.

Mary Jane squealed.

“That might've been longer than the first one,” Peter winced. “I think I pulled my groin.”

“You're not doing much to convince me to,” Mary Jane said sourly.