Wedding of the Century 8 (Patreon)

Peter would’ve thought the day he’d had would penetrate deep into his subconscious. That after that poignant meeting with Mary Jane, she’d be all he could think about—something his dreaming mind would be desperate to unpack and go over with all the symbolism that Jung’s collective unconscious could bring to bear.

He’d be wrong.

When he slept, he was back in the Quinjet—a long way from Mary Jane Watson and her wit and her beauty and her warmth. This world was cold and dark. He wore black. He gripped death, solid and metal, and as the others boarded, he fired rounds back the way they’d come.

Just cover fire, not hoping to hit at this range and in this chaos, but only to dissuade their pursuers long enough for the Quinjet to get off the ground and up to full speed. Then he’d leave it to the pilots to keep them safe. At least if they died then, it wouldn’t be his fault.

Gwen was the last one on, bringing up the rear to protect their six. Taking the fiercest fighting because she wouldn’t let anyone else be at risk; the same reason Peter had been taking point. He saw her running for the Quinjet, her expression ferocious.

She was gentle as a fawn out in the world, but at a moment like this, she had a rage that anyone would try to visit harm on her team. It went beyond anything that Peter had ever seen. She’d make a good mother someday. Burn down a city if her kid scraped a knee.

That was the first time Peter really thought about kids, family, marriage, all those things. He knew Gwen was thinking about them. It was how she was built; all the missions, all the fighting, it was to keep people safe. She didn’t care about politics. She cared about lives.

Peter didn’t know if he’d be a good father—but how bad could he be if the mother of the year thought he was a good fit? He knew she was giving him time to get used to the idea. The thing was, once he thought about it, he was used to it. It just made sense, like a scientific equation. Once you grasped the integers, it either solved or it didn’t. And this was true. True enough to strike Peter, even with his blood up and his adrenaline pumping.

He wanted to take Gwen away from this life and never let her go back.

In real life, it had been over in a heartbeat, done and memory, but in the dream he had time to register all the details that’d been lost in the sweep of the moment. Peter saw the muzzle flash that lit up one small corner of the night. The projectile itself, hot with speed, flying through the air. The long, slow merger of it and Gwen’s body—a calculus that couldn’t be solved any other way.

Gwen ran for the Quinjet and no matter what her speed, how vast her determination, nothing could stop that projectile from coming closer and closer until it and her were one.

Peter woke up to his sixth sense, his danger sense, tingling. His heartbeat was drumming, blood pounding in his ears, fully awake, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He heard the noise outside—the alleyway his apartment overlooked—and he moved like he was still that man from the dream, a man with something to lose.

Ripping open the window, he looked out into the early morning drizzle making it between his brownstone and the neighboring one. His building’s dumpster was thrown open and someone was knee-deep in it, going through the glossy black polyethylene bags.

The man was unkempt, but hardly homeless. It was his lifestyle that was shabby, not his buying power. Peter wondered what the hell anyone with any sense and any money to their name could be doing, going through the miniature landfill of a dumpster. His well-trained mind lunged through any innocent consideration, any presumptive respect he might’ve had for the man’s motive.

Peter recalled throwing out his own trash last night. Now this man was going through the bags, looking for Peter’s—Peter knew his neighbors and knew none of them were interesting enough to stalk. He wasn’t either, except by proxy. The man was a paparazzo, trying to get to Mary Jane’s fame through Peter, a potential lead.

All of that flashed through Peter’s mind in an instant. In the same timeframe, the paparazzo considered and discarded any cover story that might explain himself. Instead, he tore through the trash with renewed effort, looking for a scoop before Peter could evict him.

Peter couldn’t say he cared enough about his trash to fight a man for it—there was a reason he’d thrown it out, after all. Still, there were things one got used to and things one refused to get used to. This had to be the latter.

He picked up his phone and dialed 911. Then, thinking better of it, he picked out the police department’s non-emergency number from his contact list (you were right, Aunt May, I should have that saved) and called there.

As it rang, Peter took in his surroundings, centering himself in the real instead of the dream and the past. His place wasn’t a pig sty, but it was a far shot from the spartan simplicity he’d had drilled into him once upon a time. Every other surface was piled high with books, unsorted and unread. And to look at the other surfaces, you’d think dusting was a foreign concept. It cried out for enough spring cleaning to make Peter dread the month of March.

The police must’ve been winning the war on crime that morning. Only three rings before they picked up. The man on the other end sounded tired. The kind of tired it took more than a few years to reach. “New York Police Department, 12th Precinct. If this is an emergency or mental health crisis, hang up and dial 911—”

“Yes, I’d like to report a crime.” Wanting to play fair, Peter went back to the window and let the paparazzo see that he had the phone to his ear. If he wanted to clear out before the cops arrived, that was his business. “There’s a man going through my trash.”

“That’s a bum. You’ll get used to them.”

“No, I wouldn’t call on a bum, this is a—I think it’s a paparazzi.”

“Might be a homeless paparazzi.”

“He’s not homeless. He’s wearing Yeezys.”

“Yeezys?”

“They’re shoes.”

“Homeless people can wear shoes. In fact, they don’t really have anywhere to take them off.”

“They’re two hundred dollar shoes.”

“Two hundred dollars?”

“At least.”

“For a pair of shoes?”

“Yes.”

“Do the shoes have a phone in them or something?”

“No, they’re just shoes, not a prop from Get Smart.”

“I am very old.”

“I’m getting old, waiting for you to send someone out here.”

“I can’t send someone out for trash. Call a garbageman.”

“Isn’t he disturbing the peace or something?”

“He’s not the one on the phone, so he’s not disturbing me.”

Peter groaned. “He’s going through my trash! Isn’t that an invasion of privacy?”

“Is the trash in your house?”

“No, it’s in the dumpster.”

“Then you have no expectation of privacy. He’s free to look through it and any soda cans, old newspapers, torn fliers, bad novels, or anything else that might be out on public property.”

“There must be something I can do!” Peter protested.

“Have you tried going through his trash? Maybe he won’t do it anymore after you show him what it feels like.”

Thirty-six thousand police officers in the city and he had to get a comedian. “You know, I’m going to find out what open mic night you go to and boo you.”

“Sure, give into peer pressure.”

Peter hung up. He needed to get to work anyway. And from now on, he’d be throwing out his trash at the school dumpster. Let the paparazzi go through cold cafeteria food to get at it.