Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man, is dead, slain at the hands of the Green Goblin. Following the events of 'What If...? Dark: Spider-Gwen', a new hero must rise and assume the spider-mantle to protect New York from the forces of evil. That perso...
Mary Jane Watson could still remember that fateful night in every vivid detail, even after all these years. It had been during a family visit to her Aunt Anna's, when one night, some burglar had broken into the house of the Parkers next door and murdered Ben Parker. After the police had been called in, a distraught May Parker was brought into Anna's house where a doctor could tend to her. Mary Jane had been watching through the window when the Parkers' nephew, Peter, returned home and received the bad news from a cop. She saw the distressed boy run into his house, and as Mary Jane kept watching, a minute later she saw another figure emerge from an upstairs window and crawl along the side of the house. In the bright moonlight, Mary Jane could clearly see who the figure was and she realised the fantastic truth in a heartbeat:
Peter Parker was Spider-Man.
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Since then, Mary Jane had never told anyone what she knew, and she spent a long time avoiding meeting Peter Parker, afraid of what might happen if she did. Eventually Mary Jane and Peter did meet and become friends, but Mary Jane never worked up the courage to tell the handsome young man that she knew his biggest secret. However much she felt drawn to Peter, Mary Jane had always felt afraid of getting involved with someone, especially after all that had happened with her own family, with her parents splitting up, and her sister marrying at a young age, only to be abandoned during her second pregnancy. Mary Jane was thus reluctant to get committed to anyone, and when Peter started dating Gwen Stacy, MJ decided that perhaps she and Peter were not meant to be an item.
Even so, Mary Jane had always wondered if she should tell Peter she knew the truth, or perhaps Gwen, so the young blonde girl would know what kind of life she was getting herself into. But then came that terrible day, when Peter died, and Mary Jane realised she had left it too late to reveal what she knew. Despite the story Gwen had given, how the Green Goblin had kidnapped both her and Peter, Mary Jane had right from the start suspected that the real story was significantly different. When she had seen that look in Gwen's eyes at Peter's funeral, Mary Jane could tell that the young girl knew the truth about who Peter was, but had decided to keep that secret hidden. And when Gwen started to become more reclusive, and a new Spider-Woman appeared in New York shortly afterwards, MJ speculated that Peter's girlfriend had decided to assume the same kind of double life that Spider-Man had led.
Mary Jane's suspicions were confirmed some days ago, when she happened to be walking past the apartment block where Gwen Stacy lived and spotted Spider-Woman clambering in through the window of the blonde girl's residence. Mary Jane had discovered Gwen's secret just as accidentally as she had Peter's, and she did not know what to do. What she did know though was that she could not keep these secrets to herself much longer, and now, after all she had been put through with the Vulture, she suddenly found the courage to speak her mind...
******
Gwen stared at Mary Jane in openmouthed shock. The attractive redhead knew. She had known all this time and never said a word, apparently not even to Peter. But now she had just admitted it to Gwen, who had no idea how to react at all.
