by Peter David
“Poetry.” Peter sounded unconvinced.
“I tell you what,” Octavius said, “get out your camera. Take our picture.”
“Really? That would be great!”
“Where do you want us?” Octavius asked as Peter removed the camera.
“Right where you are,” Peter said, looking through the viewfinder. “It’s perfect.”
“Good. We’re perfect,” said Rosie, putting an arm around her husband.
Peter took the picture and Otto blinked several times against the glare of the flash. Then he said with conviction to Peter, “Poetry. Never fails.”
And as he looked at the smiling Peter Parker, for the first time in a very, very long time, he regretted that he and Rosie had never been able to have children. To be able to shape young minds, and to have those minds dependent upon him for guidance.
How unfortunate that poetry wasn’t the answer for everything.
As John Greenleaf Whittier put it, “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’ ”
Well, maybe it was the answer for everything, at that.
VI
Peter felt as if his attempts to spruce himself up before heading to the theater were pathetic. He had little to choose from in the way of ties—one, specifically. His one “sporty” jacket had been purchased secondhand and was getting a little threadbare. But as he studied himself in the mirror, he tried to convince himself that M.J. wouldn’t care about those things. All that was important to her was that he was taking an interest and showing up.
That, of course, was the inherent contradiction. It was specifically because he had so much interest in her that he had been distancing himself. Yet now he was allowing himself to be pulled back to her. The words “strange attractors” went through his mind, even as he made a vague attempt to straighten his tie and grabbed his theater ticket from where he had it wedged into the mirror. He glanced at the clock on his bureau, which confirmed what he already suspected: He was running late.
He was out the door and down the hallway, dashing past Ditkovitch’s door, where he heard sounds of a poker game in progress. He didn’t slow as the thundering shout of “Rent!” floated behind him. He caught a glance of Ursula hanging in the doorway, looking out after him, and then he was in the street and astride his motorbike.
On his way to the theater, he kept running through his mind the time he’d spent with Otto and Rosie. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that the idiot “Jack All” hadn’t known what he was talking about. Peter was certain by the end of their time together that Otto Octavius was a humanitarian. Someone who cared about bettering mankind, not trying to blow it up or shoot it. He was no comic-opera villain. Otto Octavius was a dedicated, highly moral scientist, not Snidely Whiplash, and that’s all there was to it.
Across town at the Lyric Theater, the cast of The Importance of Being Earnest was preparing for the evening’s performance.
The small Off-Broadway production had been intended for a limited run, but the successful buzz it had been getting had given them an open-ended engagement. Mary Jane couldn’t have been happier… or more nervous. She was much of the reason for the buzz, and lately every night as curtain time approached she felt as if the weight of the world hung upon her. Fortunately, she’d been able to channel that nervous energy into her performance, so it had worked out. But it never seemed to get easier… which might be a good thing, she supposed.
She shared her tiny dressing room with another actress, Louise Wood. When actresses were that crammed in, they either tended to get very hostile or very chummy. She and Louise had developed the latter relationship.
As M.J. leaned in to touch up her lip gloss, Louise observed, “You seem jittery tonight.”
“You never know who’s coming,” replied Mary Jane.
From the other side of the door, the stage manager shouted, “Five minutes! Five minutes!”
“Is this a special someone?”
“I… guess you could say that.”
Louise’s eyes lit up. “Would he be interested in taking me on, too?”
M.J. stared at her blankly for a moment, and then understanding sank in. “He’s not a high-powered agent, Louise.”
“Oh.” Louise promptly lost interest and went back to checking her costume.
Peter sped through the streets of New York, deftly maneuvering his cycle as only he could, and patting himself on the back over the last-minute thoughtfulness that he knew was going to go over well with Mary Jane. Strapped to the back of his cycle were—not pizzas, thank God—five yellow carnations. He knew they were Mary Jane’s favorites, and if they weren’t the most impressive set of carnations he’d ever seen, well, they’d been the best he could afford. Certainly it was the thought that counted, right? Of course, Mary Jane’s “new friend” could probably afford to give her the best flowers money could buy.
Immediately, he halted that train of thought. What the hell was the matter with him? Why couldn’t he just be happy for Mary Jane, instead of sending more mixed signals than a broken traffic light?
Suddenly his musings were scattered by an abrupt bump as his cycle hit a pothole. If he hadn’t been so lost in himself, no doubt he would have seen the drop and swerved around it. As it was, he was only able to offer a last-second dodge, and although he scooted the front tire around it, the rear tire fishtailed out and ran right over it. As a result, the flowers flew off the back of his cycle. Peter instantly realized they were gone and brought up his arm to try to snag them with a web-line. It was too late. The flowers were scattered all over the street and the oncoming cars were making short work of them.
Five bucks down the tube, but of even greater significance was that he didn’t have any more money to spare. Buying more flowers wasn’t an option, which meant he was going to Mary Jane empty-handed. Maybe the thought counted when you were thinking of more flowers and only had a shabby bouquet. But when you came in with nothing, the thoughts were pretty much worthless.
“Why does everything happen to me?” Peter wondered out loud. “I mean, y’know, what next?”
That was when the sounds of gunshots exploded, seemingly from all around him.
He was still moving on his motorcycle when a Lincoln convertible sped right past him, with a gunman hanging out the back window and firing. For an instant Peter was certain that he was the target, and he veered frantically out of the way as the car sped by. The gunman didn’t seem to notice him, however, firing desperately behind him, and it was only then that Peter heard the police siren in the distance.
Okay, the cops are on this, you don’t have to get involved. This is Mary Jane’s night, for the love of God!
The convertible accelerated, passing Peter, jumping the curb, and crashing into a pretzel vendor’s cart. The vendor leaped out of the way just in time as the cart was sent flying straight up. Peter slowed, figuring that at the very least he should make sure the vendor was okay, and suddenly the cart landed, bounced off the sidewalk and bounded directly at Peter.
Realizing that if he maintained his speed he’d collide with it, Peter accelerated, extended one foot to the ground, and leaned as far over as he could. The cart, trailing pretzels behind it, sailed over his head and slammed into a parked taxi, shattering its windows.
The convertible was now in front of Peter and the howling of the police car caught up with them. Peter was bathed in flashing red from the light-bar of the speeding patrol car behind him. He wanted to pull over, to get the hell out of the way, but there was nowhere to do it: He was on a narrow one-way street with parked cars lining both sides.
“I had to ask,” grumbled Peter, and then the world slowed down and his eyes went wide as his spider-sense screamed at him that he was in between the barrel of the gunman’s weapon and the gunman’s target. He had only just finished righting himself and now he desperately angled in the other direction as the gun exploded, blasting the flashing light atop the police car. Desperately
Peter let go of the handlebar for half an instant and fired a web-line at the gunman, but he couldn’t fully extend his arm and the angle was all wrong. He missed clean and then he was getting out of the way once more as the gunman discharged another blast. It chewed up the hood of the police car on the driver’s side.
Figures! Peter thought, and his anger started to swell. What the hell was wrong with his life that he was never, ever granted even a moment’s peace? Were the Powers- That-Be out to punish him relentlessly because he had allowed one criminal to slip away? God, there had to be career criminals who didn’t have a tenth of the aggravation that Peter underwent.
His temper flaring from the sheer unfairness of it all, Peter accelerated. The shooter, satisfied that the police had been dispatched, had withdrawn into the car, and Peter drew alongside. C’mon out, please c’mon out. Let me get a web-shot at you at close range and we’ll see how fast I end this.
Then he saw a kid, a young boy, crossing the street up ahead, or at least he had been crossing the street. Serene in the confidence generated by having the “Walk” sign blinking at him, the kid had started across and was frozen, deer-in-the-headlights, as the convertible bore down on him.
Peter urged the cycle forward, pulling ahead of the convertible, desperate to get to the kid before the car reached him.
And suddenly it turned out the police car wasn’t out of the game. Instead it chose to announce its continued presence in the most calamitous manner possible: It surged forward and rear-ended the convertible, sending the Lincoln lurching to one side, directly in Peter’s path.
Everything that transpired next happened over a period of about five seconds, and yet to Peter it seemed like five years.
All of Peter’s thoughts and plans went out the window as his body took over and acted completely on instinct. As the front of the convertible angled toward him, cutting off his route and guaranteeing he’d never get there before the child was run over, Peter abandoned his motorcycle. The cycle tumbled to one side, flipped over a parked car, and landed on the sidewalk as pedestrians scattered out of the way. Peter wasn’t thinking about it at all, because he was in motion. He had dismounted from the motorcycle by hurling himself toward the front of the convertible. Now he bounced off of the hood in a handspring, somersaulted forward in a blur of motion, and landed directly behind the paralyzed boy. He scooped him up under one arm, and then the convertible was right there, practically on top of them.
Peter leaped straight up. It wasn’t fast enough, especially since he was weighted down by the boy. His feet struck the car hood and he used the momentum to bound toward a nearby wall. He struck it, bouncing off it like a swimmer pushing off from the side of a pool, just as the convertible hit and crushed a mailbox. This caused the rear of the car to swing back toward Peter as he landed on the sidewalk, still holding the boy. Perfect, he thought as he lunged, literally running across the car’s back end, using its momentum to propel him forward. He landed, squatting, on the sidewalk, clutching the kid to his chest.
As near as Peter could tell, the convertible was practically a rolling armored tank. The damned thing managed to straighten out and, for good measure, turned a corner and sideswiped the pursuing police car as it did so. The police car tried to avoid it and wound up crashing into a lamppost, finally falling into silence as steam rose from the hood.
Peter set the kid down, steadying himself, his head swimming not so much from the exertion as from the closeness of the call insofar as the child was concerned. He heard frantic adults screaming a name, “Joey!” and the boy was turning in response. They were half a block away, barreling toward him, obviously terrified parents who had briefly lost track of their child in the crowd and nearly paid a fatal price for the lapse. The boy, however, seemed far more interested in his rescuer than his parents. “How did you do that?” he demanded, awestruck.
“I work out,” Peter said with a deeply serious expression. “Plenty of rest. You know, try to eat your green vegetables.”
The boy was suitably impressed. “That’s what my mom’s always saying. I just never actually believed her.”
Peter’s eyes narrowed as the convertible roared away into the distance. The callous disregard for human life they had displayed, between the driving and the shooting… if Peter hadn’t been there…
And where they were going, he wasn’t there…
Then he heard a voice in the back of his mind, buzzing at him like a mosquito, poking and prodding at him. A voice that sounded ever-so-distantly like Uncle Ben, and the voice said, You’re not just going to leave it like that, are you? Doesn’t sound very responsible to me.
The boy who had just been rescued reached up for his parents, and as his frantic mother scooped him up, he turned to introduce them to his savior and tell his mother about the wonders of green vegetables.
Except the man who had rescued him was gone. Nowhere to be seen.
At which point Joey decided to keep the whole green-vegetables thing to himself. No sense in giving his mom that kind of ammunition if he didn’t have to.
Stanley Lieber, a spry senior citizen, was among the pedestrians who saw a convertible speeding in their direction, apparently heedless of anything or anyone it might destroy. One sees such things on television, certainly, but Lieber had lived his whole life in Manhattan and had never once actually witnessed anything like it.
Two police cars were close behind it, like determined bloodhounds that had picked up the scent. One of the police cars drew alongside and the Lincoln cut hard over. It rammed into the police car and the officer driving lost control. He screamed, and his screams were joined by those of onlookers as his vehicle flipped completely over and tumbled right toward Lieber and the people around him.
And then it stopped.
In midair.
Lieber gasped, as did the others around him. It was as if the invisible hand of God had literally reached down and caught the car, saving their lives.
Then Lieber, whose eyes were still sharp, saw something glistening in the light of the street lamps. Something that was supporting the police car, suspending it. He reached up tentatively and his hand touched something that seemed to be both there and not there.
“It’s a web,” he said.
There was a sudden rushing of wind, something cutting through the air above them, and then Lieber and the rest of the crowd looked up and saw a blue-and-red form streak past overhead.
He couldn’t believe it. He’d been sure that it had been something cooked up by the news media to sell newspapers or products for advertisers on CNN. But no, there was the costumed figure that had shown up in so many news reports.
Just ahead, the convertible had sped through an intersection, with the remaining police car right behind it. Then the light changed and the cross-traffic started through. Spider-Man was heading right for a large truck that had pulled directly into his path.
There was no way Spider-Man was going to be able to slow down to avoid the truck. He didn’t even try. Instead, he twisted his body sideways, just clearing the narrow space between the truck and the cab that was hauling it. The truck driver twisted in his seat, gaping, as Spider-Man angled up and away, accompanied by a deliriously demented, “Whooooooo-hoooooooo!”
“Now, there goes someone who enjoys his work,” said Lieber.
Apparently I’ve attracted their attention, thought Spider-Man as he swung down toward them, his features safely obscured behind his mask.
Not only was the gunman firing up at him, but the driver was likewise leaning out the window and shooting.
“Eyes on the road! Wouldn’t want to hurt somebody!” shouted Spider-Man, even though he knew they weren’t going to hear him. He didn’t much care at that moment. Instead he was intent on venting all his anger over being taken away from Mary Jane. He’d had the evening all planned out. Lunatic gunmen hadn’t been part of those plans.
With agility that would have sickened an Olympic gymnast, Spider-Man dodged the bullets and swooped lo
w, hurling web-balls. One knocked the driver’s pistol from his hand. The other struck directly under the gunman’s chin, stunning him, causing him to hang weakly out the window, his arms dangling and the gun clattering away.
Spider-Man landed on the trunk of the speeding car and thrust out his wrists. Web-lines snared out, encompassing the torsos of both men, with the other ends of the webs attached to a lamppost overhead. The car’s own momentum kept it rolling forward and the web-lines began to stretch, and then snapped tight. The driver and gunman were hauled up and out of the car, left dangling from the lamppost.
Spider-Man slithered in through the open window just as the convertible was beginning to slow. He didn’t allow it the opportunity. Instead, he brought his foot down on the gas, speeding it up. As he turned down a side street, he caught a glimpse of bewildered police behind him pulling to a stop. They were staring in wonderment at the sight of the criminals suspended in midair by gossamer-thin threads.
“Courtesy of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man,” he muttered as he pulled off his mask. He guided the convertible toward the alley where he had stashed his clothes, not having had the time to web them to his back. He hoped that he was returning to them quickly enough; the last time he’d had to leave his street clothes behind, he’d returned to discover what appeared to be a pregnant rat making a nest out of them.
Mary Jane was having an off night.
She knew it as every line of dialogue passed through her lips. She couldn’t get her head into her character, Cecily Cardew, at all. She felt terrible about it. Usually she slipped Cecily on like a comfortable coat. Tonight, though, her focus wasn’t on her performance, but on the empty house seat that stood out like a great thumping bruise in the middle of row C.
They had begun Act Three, set in the morning room of the manor house. “I am more content with what Mr. Moncrieff said,” she informed Louise, who was playing Gwendolen Fairfax. Her mind was split, analyzing the poor quality of her delivery and trying to pump up the energy. “His voice alone inspires one with absolute credulity.”