Peter, expecting a dowdy girl, was stunned by Mary Jane's beauty and exuberant charm. In-between, she managed to avoid the date with Peter Parker that their respective aunts were so keen to arrange. She put a deposit on a downtown studio apartment, cheap, but at last a place of her own. Staying briefly with Aunt Anna, Mary Jane found work waiting tables and dancing on stage in discos. She ran from Gayle's life, all the way to New York. Desperate, Gayle assumed that Mary Jane would stay and help raise the two young children, but Mary Jane saw nothing but a cage. She saw her own mother become sick and die. A minute later, she could hardly believe her eyes as she saw Spider-Man crawl out of an upstairs window, off to seek revenge on his Uncle's killer.īurying that secret deep within her, Mary Jane watched as Gayle became pregnant again, and her young husband abandoned her. So it was that she watched as Peter arrived home and rushed inside. In shock, May Parker had been brought over to Anna Watson's house, but Mary Jane had little stomach for the misery of others. The following Thanksgiving break, Mary Jane went to stay with Aunt Anna, when a break-in at the Parker household cost the life of Peter's Uncle Ben. Mary Jane saw that she and Spider-Man shared two things in common - a determined to enjoy life, and a mask which hid their true faces. Turning away from Gayle's impending misery, Mary Jane buried herself in acting, parties, and the nation's new celebrity sensation. In Timmy's trapped eyes, Mary Jane saw the roots of the desperation which destroyed her father. Gayle became pregnant when Timmy was just nineteen. But while Mary Jane was breaking hearts as a high-school freshman, Gayle ignored her mother's entreaties and married her high school sweetheart - football star and honours student Timmy Byrnes. Frank was harsh, but not violent, and at last the tortured family found some stability. A widower, with three children of his own, Frank paid the bills while Madeline looked after the household. Madeline Watson and her family had finally settled down in Pittsburgh, staying with her cousin, Frank Brown. But Mary Jane had other priorities, and other worries. Peter had just started high school, and through her window Mary Jane saw a serious-looking bookworm - kind of cute, in a nerdy sort of way. Mary Jane was thirteen when she first laid eyes on Peter, aged fourteen. Mary Jane loved her visits with Aunt Anna, though one downside was that Anna and her neighbor May Parker were always trying to get Mary Jane together with May's nephew, Peter. They were resented by those who took them in, with one exception - her father's elderly sister, Aunt Anna Watson, who lived in Forest Hills. For Mary Jane, life was scarcely improved. She received nothing from the courts, and was left to shuffle from relative to relative. While Madeline was prepared to endure her husband's bitterness, she would not stay to see her children suffer his violence.Ī few weeks later, as Philip was receiving honors during his college's awards ceremony, Madeline left home with her daughters and two suitcases. Eventually, Philip's frustrations boiled over, and he struck his elder daughter over the cost of her dancing lessons. In public, nothing was ever wrong with Mary Jane, while in private, little was ever right. At every new school, she was the class clown and party animal. Gayle Watson turned inwards, seeking solace in her ballet, while Mary Jane hid behind an exuberant personality. He dragged his wife and children from college to college, searching for inspiration. Unable to accept his own failings, he turned his fury on his family. though in truth, he possessed no such talent. Philip became a popular college professor and Mary Jane's mother devoted her life to their children - to the casual observer they seemed like the perfect couple.īut Philip had visions of himself as a great writer, another Fitzgerald, a Faulkner. Madeline followed her strong-willed husband across the country as he began his academic career in modern American literature, and by twenty she had one daughter, Gayle. Her parents, Madeline and Philip, met at high school and married aged eighteen. But her upbringing certainly gave her no reason to believe in happiness. Mary Jane Watson was the guiding light in Peter Parker's life, and their love had overcome countless obstacles.
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