Wedding of the Century update (Patreon)

Assuming the paparazzi had seen Beverly Hills Cop immediately before taking a sledgehammer to privacy, they might have figured out the bananas fast enough to make it to the theater, but they had to still be figuring out which auditorium they were in.

Taking his keys out, Peter unlocked the rooftop access door.

“How do you have a key to that?” MJ demanded.

“I'm a retired secret agent. I have access to safe houses across the city.”

“Oh yeah?” Mary Jane asked with mild curiosity, like they were chatting at a party.

“Uh-huh,” Peter confirmed genially. He clopped down the stairway with Mary Jane. “I was in one of those science experiment accidents when I was a kid… you know how it is… gave me superpowers.”

“You don’t seem very superpowered.”

“Gee, thanks. Obviously, I don’t bench-press a Hemi while I’m on lunch break… that would attract attention and I’m a little bit antisocial.”

“That’s fair. I’ve seen society.”

Peter opened the door on the third floor landing, leading them into a run-of-the-mill hallway. A radiator clunked by the window, doing God knew what, since it was cool as the other side of the pillow. Peter walked to a particular door, his squeaking shoes adding a few scuffs to the much abused linoleum.

“So, just in case I ever get superpowers,” Mary Jane humored him, “how do I go about parlaying that into being a spy? Is there a box you check on a form…?”

“I’m afraid it’s a bit nepotist. My parents were spies and after they died on an assignment, there was a guy who worked with them—sort of a family friend—who checked in on me from time to time. Well, he happened to see me pretty soon after I got my powers and he thought they’d come in handy to a spy.”

“Your parents died working as spies and you thought you’d better become a spy?”

“I was fifteen. I was mostly just hoping that Bond movies weren’t exaggerating when it came to how likely you were to meet Denise Richards.”

Mary Jane notched her head to the side. “Okay… are there many fifteen-year-old spies?”

“Not actively,” Peter said, opening the door for her. “It’s more like the ROTC. They look for diplomats’ kids, politicians, high-ranking military officials… anyone that’s likely to grow up into certain elite circles. The idea is that when they come of age and they have the potential to be useful, they’re ready to go operational.”

“And you were the only kid who had to bring a sack lunch instead of buying McDonald’s.” Mary Jane tapped him on the nose before stepping inside. “Even in your fantasy life, you’re a hard luck case. You know, this doesn’t much look like a spy safehouse.”

It didn’t.

“That is the trick,” Peter said, clicking his forefinger smartly against his temple.

“It looks more like one of those apartments where an old woman got ate by her cats. Where’s the stainless steel? Where’s the holograms? Where’s the Apple products?”

“Apple products,” Peter scoffed. “You do know spies are supposed to stop megacorporations bent on world domination?”

“Mm.” Mary Jane sat down on an easy chair. It was comfortable. She checked it for any controls that would drop steel shutters over the windows or activate laser turrets. Instead, it had a loose spring. “So you turn eighteen, you have superpowers, you’re trained as a spy…”

“I went undercover as a photojournalist.”

Mary Jane nodded. “Good cover. Gives you a reason to travel all over the world.”

“Exactly. Sabotaging nuclear weapon programs, escorting defectors past national borders, that sort of thing.”

“Ever defuse a nuclear warhead?”

“No.”

“Did you have to turn a key and press one of those big red buttons that makes a missile self-destruct right before it blows up Washington?”

“No.”

“Drive a car with machine guns in the headlights?”

Peter groaned. “Everyone asks me that! Do you know how fast a machine gun runs through ammo? Where do you think we’d store the ammo? Am I supposed to be driving a minivan around?”

Mary Jane giggled. “This is the problem with being an international celebrity. I can’t really make fun of you for pretending to be a spy.”

“Retired spy.”

“Well, no wonder you retired, when they wouldn’t give you a car with machine guns in it…”

“Hey, what’s more likely, that I can afford a second apartment in New York on a teacher’s salary or that I’m a former spy?”

He was so straight-faced that Mary Jane just had to belly laugh. She slapped her knee: “Ever consider being a professional poker player?”

“Once, when I saw Jennifer Tilly play.”

MJ took out her cell phone. “You know what I think? I think this is some politician’s love nest you came across working as a photographer and now you bring girls here to impress them.”

“Can't get anything past you.”

She held up her phone. “Siri, Google Jennifer Tilly playing poker.” She dropped her hand to the side. “It is nice knowing that you want to show off to me.”

“Maybe I just don't like the paps.”

“They give photographers a bad name?”

“They give bipeds a bad name.”

Mary Jane smiled, which froze when she glanced at the finished search on her phone. “Oh! Pervert.” She kept looking. “I can't even be mad, though. She's got me wondering what it would be like with a woman.”

“That's what I said.”

She punched him in the arm. “I need to find out who she's wearing.“

“Want me to leave a note for the CIA, next time they stay here? They'll get back to you.”

“Let the in-joke rest a bit. I may want to get serious.”

“I may not,” Peter retorted.

Mary Jane swayed a little closer to him. “I can be seriously not serious.”

“I can't.”

“You can't not be serious?”

“…No.”

Mary Jane tittered. “I never did thank you, did I? For the closet?”

“You never had to.”

“Tiger, it's been a decade. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that I do have to thank you.“

She took his hand, held it up to her mouth, and kissed his thumb.

Peter found himself blushing. “Geez.”

“And that's me not being serious.” She dropped his hand. “Imagine how I'd be if you learned not to bring up Jennifer Tilly.”

***

The paparazzi had given up by then. Mary Jane called her driver. She offered Peter a ride again. He thanked her, but insisted the subway was nearby and would take him as far as he needed to go. Mary Jane smiled like she knew the truth… how worried he was that he'd do something he regretted if he spent any more time with her. In her eyes, he didn't think there was any chance she'd regret it.

He got back to his apartment. The hair he'd left in the doorjamb was on the floor. He slipped his wristwatch down over his knuckles and eased the door open. Now that it was ajar, he could hear someone moving around. No one who'd come to kill him would be making that much noise.

He slid inside and slammed the door behind him.

“Mary Jane, if you broke into my home, I don’t care how famous you are, I’m calling the cops.”

He heard a lighter click and flare in his living room. Ah shit. Peter hung his head and went in there.

Nick Fury sat in his favorite chair, puffing his lit cigar into ignition. “You know, when you get to be my age, you’ll appreciate having a redhead who cares enough to break and enter.”

Peter tried as best he could to ignore the spymaster, walking to the heavy bag in the corner that he optimistically referred to as a home gym, and starting to lay punches into the yielding weight. He wasn’t practicing to see how hard he could hit it. He was trying to keep his punches low-key—the kind of blows an actual human would deliver if they were incapable of lifting a mid-size sedan.

“I'm not interested.”