Wedding of the Century update (Patreon)

“Yeah, right. I've seen her.”

“Not interested in whatever you're here to rope me into. I'm retired.”

“And keeping a real low profile. Suppose it hasn't occurred to you what would happen if one of your old friends saw an article about your celebrity wedding?”

Peter kept at the bag, not with testing blows anymore, but with a light staccato, making the chain creak as it swung with the jostling weight underneath. “You think any of this was my idea?”

“Sorry, I wasn't aware the star of Pantyhose Place knew where our safehouse was.”

“I'm not the first person to use SHIELD resources after leaving the agency.” Peter went at the bag now with crisp, hard shots that sounded throughout his apartment like the room was cracking apart.

“And what if someone had been using the safehouse when you went to use it as a make out spot?”

“I'd have made an excuse. Which do you think Mary Jane would believe, that I got turned around or that I’m a spy?”

“You really think that would fool her? She signed up for a mediocre superhero movie with Sony that gave her a business relationship that got her rom-com Anyone And Everyone distribution and a role in the Excalibur remake, which is a passion project of hers.”

Peter let the bag sway unaccompanied to give Fury an even look. “Are you a fan?”

Fury had a good poker face, but Peter could recognize when it was too good. If he looked under that eyepatch, he was sure that dead eye of Nick’s would be darting around like a Magic 8-Ball answering a question. “No, I just think that she’s a massive talent and that she chooses quality projects which she then further elevates with her skillful acting.”

“That’s being a fan!”

Fury reached into a pouch—one thing you could count on with SHIELD jumpsuits was that they’d have plenty of those—and tossed Peter a phone. “Here. Someone hacked your old one. I'm handling it.”

Peter raised an eyebrow. “Handling it?”

“Relax. Just an audit for the bad boy. You've also gotten calls from USA Today, the L.A. Times, the New York Times, the Miami Herald, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, CNN, MS-NBC, Fox News, People, TMZ, and MTV. CNN, DNN, TNN, GNN…”

“You made some of those up,” Peter said dismissively before starting on the bag again. Punching it hard enough to sweetly sting his knuckles. “But fine. My cover is blown forever. So what? I'm out of the game.”

“Or you’re impenetrable. You're joined at the hip to Mary Jane now. She's the perfect cover.”

“She's a person, not a cover.” When Peter hit the bag now, the chain it hung from squalled in protest. Peter kept hitting it anyway. The thick sound of sand hemorrhaging filling his ears, drowning out all the frustrations coming to the surface.

He’d had a nice, quiet life and now not only did he have this new problem of Mary Jane, but the old problem of Nick. He was worse off than he’d been when he’d left SHIELD, and it’d been bad enough then that he’d left SHIELD over it.

“Listen before you get indignant. I'd hate to make you a hypocrite.”

Another left, another right, another left, another right. The combinations flowed freely through Peter’s body, delivering his anger into the bag like he was a lightning rod. Catching the storm and turning the thunder into fists. “What do you want me to do, take her to Coachella and assassinate someone with her hanging off my arm?”

“You've gotten sassy, being out in the cold. Just listen. What do you know about Wakanda?”

Peter could barely hear himself think over the metronome-rhythm of his steady onslaught, but he didn’t need to think much. His education always surfaced easily. “African country. Super science. The royal family was recently exposed in a coup by a radical calling himself Killmonger. Diplomatic relations are strained. They're selling vibranium to people we don't like for recognizing their regime.”

Fury nodded. “Killmonger’s desperate for legitimacy. He's spending big on Olympic bids, sporting events, rebates for film shoots, influencers. He's a savvy operator. He knows people don't care what the government says about him. They care what celebrities say. If he normalizes his takeover, it'll be a bigger blow to the resistance than any crackdown.”

Peter spoke as if the heavy bag weren’t crying out in protest, but Fury’d always had good ears. “Not like that’ll stop him. I've gone drinking with enough foreign correspondents to know loyalists to the old government don't have a long life expectancy.”

“Which brings us to your new flame. Killmonger has a standing invitation to Mary Jane to perform at his birthday bash. It's in three weeks. You convince MJ to take the gig.”

“Like hell! Even if I wanted a crack at Killmonger, I'm not taking a civilian into a goddamn dictatorship, no way.”

“He needs to go down, Parker. All our intel says he's planning something. And he has enough friends in our government that pretty soon I won't be able to swing any operation at all.”

“I've already lost enough for your spy games. Find someone else.”

“His minister of science is Otto Octavius.”

Peter froze. It'd been a long time since he'd heard that name. A long time since he'd thought about him. But he thought about what Octavius had taken from him every day.

“Ock is dead. I watched him die.”

“Did you see him die? Or just what he wanted you to see?”

Fury took a tablet from another pouch. He held it out.

Peter snatched it up. He recognized Killmonger from the news. And standing in the background of the press conference he was holding… oh yes, Peter recognized him. He'd had enough nightmares with Octavius in them.

“He's dead,” Peter repeated. “He should be dead.”

“You know better than anyone what he's capable of. If Killmonger has him on the payroll…”

Peter shook his head. It wasn't just what Octavius had done, who he'd killed. It was what Peter had done in going after him. He'd barely recognized himself by the time he'd finally caught up to Octavius. Was it any wonder he'd called it quits once that son of a bitch was in the ground?

“I gave up this life for a reason. I know I'm not a good man, but at least I'm a person. Mary Jane doesn't belong within a hundred miles of that beast.”

“No one likes these compromises, Peter, but if Otto is cooking up anything like he did before…”

“Find someone else,” Peter interrupted, before Fury could sound any more persuasive. “And get out of my home. I can't listen to this.”

“You know this is the only call to make.”

“I said get out!” Peter yelled, with a fist to the heavy bag that burst it wide open.

For a long moment, the only sound was the sand pouring out onto the floor.

“You should have spares, if that’s how hard you work out,” Fury suggested.

“Can’t afford them,” Peter began, turning to apologize for the outburst, but when he looked, Fury was gone.

Typical.

His phone rang. The jangling ringtone was the last thing Peter needed added to a fraught silence.

“What!?” he roared as greeting. “Sorry,” he apologized immediately.

“Yeah, no crap, ‘sorry’. It's Drew.”

“Hi Drew.” Drew was Peter's agent for his sideline in photography. He tried to get Peter assignments, sell his work, maybe inspire a dream about having a gallery opening, although he wasn't such a miracle worker that Peter had ever had said hallucination.

It was funny. The hobby as work was supposed to get him some walking around money, but the cash usually went into school supplies or otherwise keeping the lights on for his students.

“Peter, I've got a job for you. Plum as hell assignment. Four thousand dollars for one afternoons work.”

“Work or me getting ambushed by a paparazzi?”

“It's not like that.”

“I don't want to make money off being some… molecular celebrity. No boxing Jake Logan or Logan Paul, no giving interviews to Perez Hilton, nothing. I have some dignity.”

“You could have some money instead.”

“Why don't I just start an OnlyFans and get it over with?”

“Well, you'd have to quit teaching…”

“I was being sarcastic.”

“Need to hire a personal trainer, but you've got to spend money to make money…” Drew continued.

“I'm not doing it.”

“When was the last time you saw a dentist?”

“When was the last time you needed a dentist?”

Drew got the picture. His voice achieved a more polite—though not polite—tone. “Okay, we'll table that for now. Ever hear of Felicia Hardy?”

“Never.”

“Why do you live in New York if you don't care about the scandalous lives of the Upper West Side elite? She's a debutante, had a go at being an actress a few years back, now she's something of a model. You know how it is. Fashion line, shoes, cell phone cases… she did that song, Don’t Leave Me Without Leaving Me?”

Peter winced. Like he needed a reminder of that earworm. “So pretty much minimum talent, maximum bank account?”

“That's a rude way to put it. She won the genetic lottery and she did a full spread for Playboy. None of that shadows and lingerie crap.”

“Sounds like a woman who can handle taking a selfie.”

“Well, she wants to be photographed by Peter Parker and she's willing to pay big. She's a patron of the arts!”

“I don't want to be patronized.”

“Petey, I don't know what to tell you. This is the job you wanted me to do. I get you work, you do the work. Are you really that morally opposed to working with a woman you didn't know existed a minute ago?”

“She didn't know I existed before the tabloids started linking me and Mary Jane.”

“So what? It's an opportunity. Do a good job, make all her rich friends want to get shot by Peter Parker too. But right now, you don't have enough work to have integrity.”

Peter rubbed the back of his neck. “What does she even want?”

He heard Drew let out a sigh of relief that blew the levels. “Go to her penthouse, she already has a whole little studio set up.”

“Oh, great.”

“Take some pictures, tell a few jokes, try to enjoy yourself.“

“Yeah, she can regale me with stories about her first stint in rehab,” Peter quipped, falling into sarcasm instead of depression.

“You've read her memoir?”