"Peter! Wait!"
"Grrr." He stopped. "Listen. If I did something you did not like or said something I should not have, I apologize. But this method is not the right one. You do not need to follow me around for an apology. I genuinely do not know who you are, so could you please stop?"
The girl looked at him for a moment and then did something unexpected, which was to look almost amused.
"I can understand why you did not recognize me," she said. "This new look must be quite a change. Peter. It is me." She tilted her head. "It is Mary Jane. You fool."
Peter's brain performed the following sequence of operations in approximately one second.
Restarting Windows.exe.
Please wait.
Backup found. Loading Windows.
10%.... 50%.... 100%.
Windows ready. Have a good day.
WHAT.
He had been expecting Kirsten Dunst.
That was the Mary Jane his brain had been filing under that name for weeks, red hair and the specific warm energy of the Raimi films, because that was the Mary Jane he had grown up watching.
And because of that he had been looking for the wrong face entirely every time she approached, which explained with complete clarity why none of the memories had surfaced to identify her.
This was Shailene Woodley. Of course it was Shailene Woodley.
This was the universe that is close to original Amazing Spider-Man universe and the Mary Jane who had been cast for this universe was Shailene Woodley, and he had been running from Shailene Woodley for two weeks because his brain had been looking for someone else.
He exhaled.
'I was right that we had argued over something. Now I need to handle this carefully. And I am going to curse the One Above All for the incomplete memory situation until further notice.'
"Oh," he said, with the specific flatness of someone who has just recategorized a situation. "It is you. Mary Jane." He looked at her with mild interest. "What did you need? And why have you been following me every chance you get?"
"Enough!" She stepped closer, eyes direct and carrying a temperature behind them that had clearly been building for a while. "What is wrong with you? Why have you been ignoring me?"
'What a temper.'
"No particular reason," Peter said, with a calm that was not performed but genuine. He shrugged slightly. "After the argument I assumed you would prefer different company for a while. I was giving you space."
"I am sorry, Pete. I did not know you were still this upset. Still so jealous that you went and hit Flash over it."
Peter tilted his head.
"Let us slow down for a moment. When exactly did I give the impression that I was jealous?" He kept his voice even.
"I thought that since you did not come back to apologize or restore the respect our friendship had, and to be clear I mean friendship rather than anything else, I simply decided it was not worth my time to wait around. I moved on to things that were more useful. That process was going very well until approximately two minutes ago."
He let a beat pass. "Also. Do not shorten my name. Not Pete. Not Piti. It is Peter."
Mary Jane stared at him as if seeing him in the new light.
"What... what happened to you?"
"I am a new person," he said, and it was not a performance because it was simply true.
"With new goals and a different perspective on how I want to spend my time. I grew tired of being the version of myself that absorbed everything without pushing back and went along with things because it was easier. That version of me is done."
He looked at her with something that was not unkind but was completely clear. "So I am not your Peter anymore. I am a new Peter Parker. The version that came after."
"I do not understand."
"You do not need to. Just understand that I learned to function without your presence in my life and it would probably be healthy for you to do the same."
He patted her shoulder once. "Also. Are you not with Flash?"
"What?! Who told you that, it is not even...."
"I do not know and I genuinely do not care," Peter said, with the face of someone reviewing a mildly interesting spreadsheet.
"Congratulations regardless, and good luck. You should wish me luck as well."
"Why?"
"I am thinking of asking Missy out."
He watched her process this. He winked.
Mary Jane's composure, which had been holding together through the previous several minutes through what appeared to be considerable effort, did not survive the wink. She grabbed him by the collar of his shirt with both hands.
"You are joking," she said. "Tell me you are not serious."
"Why are you this upset?" He removed her hands from his collar without any particular drama.
"We were not dating. We were never dating. I want to be very clear on that because you are reacting in a way that suggests some confusion on the point."
He straightened his shirt. "If that is everything, I am going to go eat."
He started walking.
A pair of arms wrapped around him from behind.
"Please," Mary Jane said, quietly, against his back. "Do not do this to me. Please. Give me another chance. I am begging you."
She meant it. That was the thing about Peter Parker's particular relationship history across every universe in which it existed.
The people in it always meant it. He stood there for a moment, feeling the specific internal resistance of a person who has made a reasonable decision and is now being asked to revisit it, and felt something underneath that resistance that he recognized as not entirely his own.
The previous Peter was in there somewhere..... Not in control..... But present.
He untangled himself gently, turned, and looked at her.
"Opportunities are not things you pull off a tree," he said.
"They are earned." He patted her shoulder one more time, turned, and walked two steps. Then he stopped. He stood still for a moment. He looked up at the ceiling of the hallway.
'There is something left of him in here and apparently it has opinions.... Fine.... One chance. Happy?'
He turned back.
"To earn that chance," he said, "you can start by being a good friend. That is the baseline. Everything else comes after."
"Peter." She exhaled. "Thank you. Thank you, thank you."
He smiled, which was the smile of someone who has lost a negotiation with their own conscience, and walked away.
'Damn me and the soft heart that came with this body,' he thought, but he did not say it out loud.
His phone rang.
He answered it without checking the number.
"Hello, Devil May Cry, how can I help you?" He had wanted to say that to someone on a phone call for a long time and he was not going to pretend otherwise.
A pause. Then a professional voice.
"Hello. Am I speaking with Mr. Peter Parker?"
"Speaking correctly."
"Excellent. I am calling from Baxter. I wanted to inform you that your report has been received and we would like to schedule an interview."
Peter stopped walking.
He had submitted the report on Saturday. It was now Tuesday. That was not a normal turnaround time. That was an extremely fast turnaround time, which meant that someone at Baxter had read it and reacted to it immediately, which meant the content had done exactly what it needed to do.
He should have been purely pleased about this. Something in him was not, and it took approximately three seconds to identify why.
Parker Luck.
The concept of things going well in the short term as a mechanism for delivering something significantly worse in the medium term. He did not like it. He had never liked it. He liked it even less now that he was living inside it.
"Thank you," he said, keeping the reservation internal. "Any further details?"
"Your interview has been scheduled for Thursday at 11 AM. One of our current interns has withdrawn from the position and you will be taking their slot. If Thursday is not possible, the next available date is two months from now. Which would you prefer, Mr. Parker?"
Thursday.
The day after Wednesday. The day after the Oscorp visit. The day after the spider bite.
He did the timeline in his head with the speed of someone who had been thinking about this for weeks.
The bite would happen Wednesday. The changes would begin immediately and continue for approximately two days, during which he would feel progressively worse and then progressively better.
If he did not recover quickly enough, he would either attend the Baxter interview while still symptomatic, which was not ideal, or he would reschedule and wait two months, which was completely unacceptable.
He was not wearing pajamas to fight crime. He refused.
'Accept the Thursday slot. School is the least of my concerns because I know the material better than most of the people teaching it. I could credibly teach certain university-level subjects if pressed. The interview is the priority.'
"Thursday works perfectly," he said. "I will be there at 11. Thank you for calling."
"We look forward to seeing you, Mr. Parker. Goodbye."
He pocketed the phone and went to find Missy and Gwen.