When The Sun Is Shining (Patreon)

Throwing on a robe over the skimpy green bikini that she barely wore, Mary Jane packed a bottle of suntan lotion and a towel into her carryall and went on flip-flopped feet to the elevator. It took her up to the roof, where she was relieved to see no one else, not even Peter, who was a frequent flier on the fiftieth floor of the Rumhelder Building.

Not that she wasn’t always happy to see him, especially coming back safe from one of his patrols, but there were times she needed him and times she needed space.

There was a chaise lounge set out, vaguely stupidly, on the gravel of the urban rooftop. Mary Jane walked to it, laid out her towel, stepped out of her flip-flops, and beached herself on the wooden slats. She rubbed herself with oil, adjusted her sunglasses, surrendered herself to the hot sun. With the addition of earbuds playing ocean noises, she could almost completely transport herself to the beach.

She thought a little about the dilemma of her life—of being married to a man whose calling she would never make peace with, with who she couldn’t live without, yet who daily dared the fates to take him away from her forever. But it was well-worn enough ground that she slipped right over it.

The wind was high up here and it seemed to come straight from the ocean, smelling of salt air. She was almost lulled to sleep by her stillness and her warmth. Long minutes passed. She lost track of them. She might’ve been asleep; she might’ve woken up to the feeling that she wasn’t alone on the rooftop.

Yes, it wasn’t just the tinted lenses of her sunglasses. There was a shadow over her face. She opened her eyes and saw a muscular leg in front of her, then a pair of boxer shorts, then the powerfully built chest. Finally, Peter’s face. He had the exact sort of knowing grin she’d like her man to have when he looked at her in a bikini. Mary Jane blushed as a pro forma sort of thing.

“Don’t you think it’s about time you roll over? This side looks tanned to perfection.”

Mary Jane could imagine Peter getting back, changing into some of the clothes he kept stored up here—then seeing her, and deciding only to put on his boxers, to play at being on the beach like she was. He knew her too well. He might’ve even taken a few pictures of her napping for their private collection.

Mary Jane felt a little charge at the idea. There were a few times she’d caught Peter sleeping when he’d looked scrumptious enough for her to want to memorialize… but she didn’t think to get a camera before she went to cuddle with him.

“I don’t have anyone to do my back,” Mary Jane retorted, turning over. “I guess you’ll have to do until Austin Butler gets here.”

“And what I’ll do,” Peter said, sitting down on the part of the chaise lounge that her svelte body didn’t cover.

He rubbed the suntan lotion on himself, tempting Mary Jane into turning her head enough to watch. He needed it, too pasty and pale from wearing a costume all the time, he looked like he might be burnt to a crisp if he stepped out shirtless on a summer day.

Mary Jane decided that she would be keeping Mr. Parker out here in the sun for a while. Purely for his own good, of course.

Beyond everything else, Peter was maddeningly attractive. She felt herself warming up for him, aching for him… and she wondered if it wouldn’t be smarter to take him back to their apartment, where the temptation he presented could be fearlessly indulged.

No, she could control herself. Barely. Besides, Peter wasn’t really tempting her. He was just being his sweet and considerate self, getting a tan, checking in with his wifey. There was nothing dangerous there. No tabloid in the world would pay for photos of a woman in her husband enjoying the sun up on the privacy of their well-to-do condominium.

“I don’t understand your husband,” Peter said.

“What?” asked Mary Jane, for a moment casting back to when he’d been the Spider, so far gone that it was too painful to admit his humanity. Then she realized he was just playing around. Lowering his voice to Spider-Man’s deep cadence. “Whatever do you mean, Spider-Man?”

“He barely spends any time with you. Always running off to deal with something or other. If I had a beautiful wife like you, Mrs. Watson-Parker, she’d never be able to get away from me.”

Mary Jane blushed hotly and set her face down on the towel, no longer cracking her neck to get a look at Peter. Without seeing him, she could believe it was the strangely clad vigilante looming over her and somehow not her mild-mannered husband.

“Yes, it’s a real shame. But what can I say? My husband is quite a catch. I’m lucky to see him as much as I do. There are plenty of other women who’d happily snatch him up.”

“Oh?” Peter chuckled. “That’s not the way I hear it. I think he’s the lucky one. Couldn’t even score a date and yet somehow you married him. It must’ve been like winning the lottery for him.”

Mary Jane smiled to herself. “It’d be winning the lottery for anyone. But there’ve been a lot of beautiful women hovering around him, desperate for his attention. Like Liz Allen…”

Peter broke character, reverting to his own familiar voice. “When did Liz Allen ever give me the time of day?”

“Oh, I can see it written all over her face. Whenever she’s around you, she’s thinking what a heartbreaker you turned into and she could’ve had you back in high school with a flip of her hair. It would’ve been like buying stock in Google back when it cost a nickel.”

Peter paused for a moment. “Are you jealous, honey? Of the woman who didn’t marry me?”

Mary Jane pressed her lips together. “She at least had skin in the game back then. What was I doing? Hiding out, burying myself in nonsense because I didn’t want to confront the whole Spider-Man thing, when my heart was going pitterpatterpitterpatter every time I saw you in those tights…”

“Yeah, they have that effect on people,” Peter quipped. “Is this a sore subject?”

Mary Jane felt compelled to turn over and face him. It soothed her a bit. However handsome he was, however much of a catch and a hero and a legend, that ring on his finger was hers. And those dark brown eyes saw only her. Like they did now. Running hungrily over her body. Making her feel scandalously undressed in a way she wouldn’t feel if she were walking through a packed stadium in this tiny bikini.

It would be such an enjoyable sensation if she could shake the image of him looking this way at Liz Allen… or Felicia Hardy… or a dozen other women who could’ve been his and could’ve had him.

“I just don’t like thinking of how many women you could’ve ended up with when I was being so commitmentphobic and… stupid,” she said hotly. “It makes me feel lucky, but not in a good way. Like I came within three inches of getting my head caved in and I only avoided it because of blind luck! It’s enough to give a girl a panic attack.”

“Gamophobia,” Peter said. “That’s the word. Not commitmentphobic, which isn’t a word.” He gave a laugh. “Sorry. Time and a place for a vocabulary. But we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. But, maybe if you want to talk about it…”

“What I want is to get a tan. What I don’t want is skin cancer. If you don’t mind, tiger… I know saving me from a sunburn isn’t the most glamorous rescue you’d ever done.”

“No job too small, no fee too big,” Peter said, quickly dolloping the oil on his back and rubbing it in to protect himself. Of course, he was flexible enough for that.

So very flexible. Mary Jane shuddered pleasantly. She really was lucky. And what was wrong with that? She was lucky to be born with the face she had, the body she had… she loved her red hair too. And she worked hard to keep her body in shape, to make her hair look its best, and to perfect her relationship with Peter.

So what had her feeling so weird on a wonderful occasion like today, with no cares, no worries, just her husband and a hot sun and lots of suntan lotion to apply?

Maybe they should talk about it.

“She is very beautiful, though. Liz Allen. I mean, the head cheerleader? And you’d cuck your high school bully if you made a pass at her…”

“MJ, I get too much input from Flash on my love life as it is. He thinks I should take you to Applebee’s once a week. He gives me coupons.”

“Applebee’s? How dare he. I’m a Olive Garden girl.”

“That’s what I said.”

The hot sun and the gentle play of the wind on her so-bare body was hypnotizing Mary Jane into a peacefulness she didn’t really feel. She just wanted to close her eyes and not think so hard that all those disagreeable thoughts that’d worn Liz Allen’s face would go far away.

Then she opened her eyes and looked at Peter and could see he was worried. Something was bothering him and it was that something was bothering her. As good as she was at fooling herself, Peter was better at ferreting out how she really felt.

The boy really knows me, she thought, with an absence of a swoon. It would feel much better if he’d do his magic act about what to get her for their anniversary and not what was gnawing away at her, so deep inside that she could ignore it but for…

“Okay,” she said languidly. “Put the lotion on me already. And as long as you’re keeping me up, we’ll talk.”

“Any excuse to get my hands on you.”

“Nothing more than your hands, tiger. It’s one thing being caught looking like an issue of Maxim. It’s another thing getting caught modeling for Hustler.”

“I’ve been married to you too long. That actually made sense to me.”

Mary Jane shut her eyes, rested her cheek on her arm, and listened to the little spurt of Peter squirting some suntan lotion onto his hands. Then it being rubbed between his palms. Finally, he touched her.

It was only her shoulder, but it brought all her sense memory of him rushing back, like she was living through their first night together in one zap of electricity. Her excitement surged and she squeezed her thighs together, knowing she didn’t have the real thing, that it was still waiting for her at the end of what she now knew was delicious foreplay.

Only I suppose I have to ‘fess up to a few things first.

“Peter, if I died, would you get married again?”

Peter’s hands froze on her back. “Jesus, MJ… I honestly don’t know. It was so hard moving past Gwen. And I didn’t feel for her the way I feel for you. I might just… I really don’t know… but I might just say screw it, what’s the point? It’s a miracle I lasted this long anyway. Why drag anyone else into this? Let’s just, you know… run out the clock. Till I see you again.”

“I don’t think you’ve dragged any girl into this,” Mary Jane said, before her voice turned bitter, bleeding out of her like something punctured. “I imagine Felicia showing up, promising you she’ll be a good little kitty, and after all, ‘MJ would’ve wanted you to be happy…’”