The Weight of Us ｡ Peter Parker [3]

14 - Finding Colton

Familiarity was a saving grace; like shadows of the sun, pulling free figments of a life that had once walked the busy New York streets or studied too many long hours in the school library. Having somewhere, someone, in your orbit almost straightened out the foggy memories, that were buried deep within the flesh of a body. Familiarity was something that could bring somebody back to life. This was a lesson I would learn the hard way. 

Mary Jane Watson's apartment was all too familiar the following Friday night, a tiny slice of the dreamy city built high with towers of glass and concrete. Her walls were blotched with coloured paint, Mary Jane in the middle of painting her living room a bright yellow, Harry Osborn her partner in paint. Odd bits of furniture was pulled away from the walls and covered with sheets, but even swallowed whole by idle house jobs and the overwhelming smell of drying paint, dinner never abandoned. Friends of Spider-Man events would never be rescheduled. 

"Ned, keep your hands where I can see them, thank you." Mary Jane cooed from the kitchen, her red hair swept into a red bandana. Yellow paint stained her skin in odd places. Across the tiny wooden floorboard, Ned Leeds was stepping away from the paint. He offered a quick flash of teeth and retreated to the windows where Peter Parker stood. He stared at the windows, too lost in thought. Mary Jane turned her eyes to me. "Are you and Pete okay?"

Against my nature, I tried not to lie. "Yeah, mostly."

"Mostly?" Mary Jane stirred the pot of gumbo on the stovetop. She had pulled down her mother's old and tattered recipe book, a house warming gift, to attempt to cook something worthy for the surprise dinner guest tonight. 

My fingers poked the yellow bruise on my elbow, a little gift from Matthew Murdock from our recent training session in a quiet church. T.A.D.A.S.H.I. had informed me of the healing time for a bruise all afternoon. Her voice in my ear was familiar now, too. "I hate fighting with him," I glanced towards his figure standing in the dying sunlight. "It's getting harder not to, though."

"Because of Colton, right?" 

I had made a promise to Gwendolyn Poole and I intended to keep that promise. My brother might have been gone for years, but Gwendolyn's best friend was alive and he needed our help. Even if Peter Parker thought it was too dangerous. "I guess, it always comes back to him." I replied quietly, hating how even to this day, Colton Parsons meant everything to me. 

Mary Jane scooped up a spoonful of sauce, offering it to me. I sipped at the warmth with a kind smile and while my mouth was full, she took the opportunity to speak her truth. She was very sneaky like that. "He's worried," Her words were laced with a familiar absence of loved ones. She had lived on for years without her friends. She had loved and lost. "I never understood your loss, not back then. But living on when everyone was dusted, that changed my mind. So, I get his worry. You do, too. I know it."

"I do," I replied. "Of course, I do. But the worst has already happened. Nothing compared to that will ever be worse."

Mary Jane returned back to her cooking, her back to me. "What about losing him?"

Across the room, Peter Parker turned his chin towards me. He was in the middle of some halfhearted conversation with Ned and Harry, but his thoughts were on me. Maybe he had been listening on purpose. I held his gaze for a long moment, trying to convey some twisted idea that the worst could never happened again. It was us against the world. He knew that. 

A knocking rang through the tiny apartment before my tongue could even offer a chance at her question and rightfully so, because I was not sure I even had a reply. Mary Jane dropped her spoon in the gumbo, her hands shaking just slightly. Harry Osborn was right by her side, a hand placed on her hipbone as he said something quietly into her ear. Her nerves were rolling off her limbs in waves of sandalwood. Peter was the only one to move towards the door and he hesitated for a second. When he finally twisted the doorknob, Gwendolyn Poole gave him a friendly grin.