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Michelle “MJ” Jones-Watson
Manhattan
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The dressing room door shuts delicately behind her, careful not to slam it with the sheer force of the exhaustion dripping from her body.
Five shows in three days, she had just performed five shows in three days.
Not only that, but five shows playing in her dream role.
Little Michelle Jones never would have been able to imagine herself donning the signature green of Elphaba Thropp even a year ago, and yet here she is. Throat aching for water as she sits in front of her vanity, careful not to get her body paint on the seat.
MJ was lost in thought about the craziness the past three years have been, how leaving home was enough to burst her out of her shell and somehow turn the girl who sat in the cafeteria reading alone every lunch period into a broadway actress.
She can’t help but feel a little lost though, like a part of herself gets lost in the performance.
Because that’s all it really is, right? Performance?
As much as she loves acting and being up on stage, ever since she’s started doing it as a job she’s never felt less herself. In fact, the last time she’s felt like Michelle Jones was years ago, in the presence of someone who feels like a ghost to her now. She can’t describe it, but it almost feels like someone has been erased from her history. Someone important, someone who she could be herself around without the glitz and the glam and the green. Someone who actually gave somewhat of a fuck about the tangents she went on, and even seemed to enjoy hearing her go into agonizing detail about the intricacies of the pear of anguish. Someone who reassured her, who saw her, maybe even loved her. Someone who wanted her as dorky little MJ, and not just MJ Watson– Broadway’s newest it girl.
But that’s an impossibility; even in a world full of superheroes and wizards and magic, people don’t just disappear. What she is feeling is likely just nostalgia for the times when she didn’t feel like she was suffocating. Maybe the presence she’s lacking is her past self.
Either way, the lack of that support is drowning her.
The pressure to be on top of her game at all times, to live up to her hype.
To never miss a beat.
To always get back up.
It can become so much so fast.
Desperate for fresh air, she rushes out onto her dressing room balcony (because apparently she’s important enough to have one of those). She immediately felt worlds lighter as the fresh air filled her lungs. Rooftops have always been a safe spot for her, her escape from the world when it’s too heavy. Out here, it was just her, her thoughts, and the beautiful New York skyline.
She scans her surroundings, billboard after billboard, until she catches it again, as she has every night. The one giant billboard plastered just adjacent to her balcony, the only one that actually means something. One that she has always felt a strong connection to.
It shows a man in red and blue spandex, giving a wave to the people. She can’t tell, but MJ chooses to believe he’s smiling under that mask. “THANK YOU, SPIDER-MAN!” It reads in big bold letters, and she can’t help but smile to herself about it. She’s always had a deep appreciation for the arachnid and what he does, even when people try to say he’s nothing but a menace. It takes a lot for a person to do what he does, and frankly to her the thanks was long overdue. The board was erected about three months ago, after he stopped a train from going off the tracks and had to be hospitalised from exhaustion. It was only a matter of time before that happened, the guy never seems to stop. MJ half wonders if he even sleeps, and is honestly doubtful. Not that she can throw a stone from that particular glass house at the moment.
She wonders how it must feel, though… helping people. Looking out for the little guy and only getting the deserved appreciation once you’ve completely worn yourself out.
She thinks back to last night’s news, how he ran into a burning apartment building and did not come out until everyone else had. She remembers seeing his suit charred, his identity still concealed but just barely as his mask had burned just enough to show an eye. (They were brown, like a doe’s, and it melted her heart a bit). Her heart clenched tightly at the sight of him breathing in the smog and smoke, barely able to keep himself up anymore. A fierce, perhaps misplaced protectiveness ran through her veins, along with some anger at his clear lack of self preservation.
She cared so much about the superhero to the point that she concerned herself. Why did she care so much? It was truly none of her business what the hero did, so why was her love concern boarding on parasocial?
She chalks it up to him simply being a symbol of hope, that there are truly selfless people in this world who will risk their life for a complete stranger. That means something to her.
Still lost in thought staring at the hero, MJ thinks back to Elphaba, who has become her second half, and her big song in the second number.
“No good deed goes unpunished”. Spider-Man must be one of the only people who truly grasps the weight of what that truly means. Afterall, all he does is perform good deeds with no expectation of reciprocation. She thinks about all the responsibility he must have, how many lives are in his hands. Her heart aches the more she thinks about it. She’s almost certain he’s lost people to this life, it’s an impossibility in his line of work. The mere thought of someone with such a big heart having to go through that makes her eyes well.
If only she knew the half of it…
MJ has nowhere to be right now, and doesn’t feel like leaving her bubble of weightlessness on the balcony just yet. So she stays and stares at the billboard that provides her such comfort, just for a few hours.
Unbeknownst to her, he was staring right back at her….
Peter Parker
Queens
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The red mask was quickly ripped off his face as soon as he managed to get to a rooftop secluded enough. Peter inhaled hungry gasps of air, out of breath despite his powers. Even though he was enhanced, holding up two tons of concrete exhaust anyone. Not to mention having to swing two blocks away to get some much needed privacy immediately after the fact.
It was blurry to him, all the villains of the week were beginning to quickly blend together in a sludge of monotony. It’s a bit funny how what used to be a thrill he would chase has become practically his unpaid day job, but anything this repetitive gets annoying and tedious after a while. This bad guy was pretty standard, some low level guy in a cheap party city mask blowing up the basement of a bank to steal some cash. It was so cliche he had to roll his eyes about it, but with great power comes great responsibility and someone has to stop these guys, even if it means pulling a muscle. Or ripping one. Or ten.
It was worth it, though, knowing that him keeping that chunk of debris off the ground for an hour gave people enough time to evacuate safely. If it wasn’t for him, at least twenty people would have died, and their lives are worth the cost of the pain and strain for him.
Besides, those people have loved ones. People to come to home to and hug tightly.
That’s something he can’t say for himself, not anymore.
As depressing as it is, if he died… nobody would miss him.
Sure, the city would mourn Spider-Man for a bit, but Peter Parker? Not a soul would give half a shit.
So, he’s stopped pulling his punches or caring for his safety. He takes little to no precautions to protect himself, because at this point he doesn’t care if he lives or dies. His life means so little to him now, he barely sees a point in doing anything that isn’t in service to someone else.
Passive suicidality is what May would call it, but he just calls it rational.
He has nobody, he has nothing anymore.
It stings every time he thinks about that fact, how truly alone he is to not even expect a lily on his grave if he were to pass, but he doesn’t have the right to complain. Not when he did it to himself by hastily offering to have himself wiped from everyone’s mind. He hates himself a bit for it, knowing he brought on this emotional anguish all of his own accord, but doesn’t regret it at all. The people who were in his life deserve better than what he can give him, and his sacrifice was probably the greatest gift of all to them. It gave them the opportunity to be free of the association to the great Spider-Menance, and live the lives they deserve to without the weight of his responsibility weighing them down.
As much as he wishes it weren’t the case, and that he could be loved without strings, his loved ones truly are better off without him.
And the proof is the reason why he came to this particular rooftop, the one he escapes to every night. It gives them the perfect view of the Wicked billboard, and the face of the one woman he has ever loved properly, and the only one he ever will.
Peter catches his breath, sitting down carefully to admire the board as fully as he can. Because next to the perfectly posed picture of the green witch are the words “Michelle Jones-Watson is ELPHABA.”
He cried the first time he saw it. Partly from the sadness of missing her, but mostly out of pride. He loved MJ so, so much, and here she was. Fully broken out of her shell and playing her dream role (he can’t help but distantly think of the tickets he was going to surprise her with to see the movie before Strange cast the spell, she’s always been a massive Wicked nerd).
She’s always had a love of acting, but was always too nervous to pursue it. It was something she kept close to her chest and only shared with people she was close with, something he once had the privilege to be (God, he should have treasured that more).
But now look at her, larger than life on the biggest stage in theatre. And there is nothing she deserves more.
All Peter ever wants for her is happiness, and if he has to stand out of the way for that to happen then so be it.
As much as he longs for her, yearns for her… he knows she’s better off without being wrapped up in the storm that is his life. It’s why he never kept his promise to her as much as he wanted to, So, for now and maybe forever, he’ll take what he can get of her.
Sometimes that looks like perching outside of the Gershwin and watching her sign playbills with that beautiful smile on her face, sometimes that looks like listening in to hear her beautiful voice… but right now? It’s looking up at her beautiful face smeared in emerald makeup, watching over him like a guardian angel.
Sometimes he talks to the billboard, but tonight he just wants to admire it. Admire her. Let the peace of knowing that his heartbreaking sacrifice allowed her this opportunity wash over him like a wave.
He didn’t know how miserable she truly was without him, though. That’s knowledge he did not have to be burdened with.
So, the two lovers longed for each other, so close but so far as they gazed at each other’s romanticized versions, separated by the vast concrete jungle.