by Peter David
Peter couldn’t believe it. The look on Connors’s face was clear. Urgently refusing to believe this was happening, Peter said, “Dr. Connors, I need this job!”
“I like you, Peter,” Connors said, not unkindly, as he walked away. “Come see me when you grow up a little.”
Peter stood there, numbly staring after the departing Connors. Just like that. Just like that, he was unemployed.
It just seemed so damned unfair. Here he’d been nearly running himself into the ground, just trying to help people. And he’d gotten himself fired because of it. Anger welled up in him, stinging at his eyes, and he wiped his arm across his face to make sure no tears flowed, because he’d be damned if he stood there crying on the ESU campus, even if the tears were flowing mostly because he was so blasted tired.
He tried to take an emotional step back and see it from the professor’s point of view. On that basis, he supposed he could understand. Connors hadn’t taken him on because he wanted a series of excuses. He wanted an enthusiastic freshman who would be there when needed. And Peter hadn’t been there. You snooze, you lose. The race is to the swift. All those other clichés came to mind as Peter tried, really tried, to view the situation the way the professor probably viewed it. On that basis, he supposed he could understand why Connors had just given him the heave-ho.
On the other hand, part of him, a nasty, insidious part, couldn’t help but hope that stupid iguana would mutate, bite Connors, and turn him into a giant lizard. Then Connors would get to see life from Peter Parker’s point of view.
As if that would ever happen …
Trying to take his mind off matters, Peter trekked over to the ESU library, took a couple of hours to get some studying done, and then headed home. Considering he was feeling a bit down, he decided to walk the distance that he normally would travel by subway … or, if he was feeling adventurous, by webs.
On the way, he picked up a newspaper from the stand. Leaning against a wall, he flipped to the want ads. There seemed to be a few possible prospects … none of them particularly interesting. But at least they’d put food on the table. Harry had been incredibly elastic about Peter’s share of the rent. The main reason, of course, was that Peter was helping him with his studies. Harry had made a point of saying that, as far as he was concerned, Peter could live there rent free and Harry—for getting his grades salvaged—was still getting the better part of the bargain.
But Uncle Ben and Aunt May had spent long years drilling a work ethic into Peter. Consequently, if he didn’t chip in for the rent, he’d feel like a freeloader no matter how many tutorial skills he was bartering.
He found one address, of an employment office that wasn’t too far away, and he started heading in that direction.
But as he walked, he did so with a very different attitude than he’d once had. Once upon a time, he would have just walked along the sidewalk like anyone else: involved in his own thoughts, occasionally glancing at others if they did something interesting, but otherwise utterly self-absorbed. Or even, God forbid, yakking on a cell phone. That Peter Parker was gone, however. In his place was a young man who was constantly looking all around him, sizing people up.
There was a woman whose little boy was pulling urgently on her hand. Was there a danger he might slip loose and run into traffic? No, it was okay … she scooped him up so that he wouldn’t wiggle away.
There was a man, glancing right and left before entering a jewelry store. Was he going to rob it? No, it was okay … a minute later, he reemerged, quickly slipping a small box into his pocket as a young woman, obviously his girlfriend, walked up to him and kissed him on the cheek. He must have picked up an engagement ring on the sly, and they were going somewhere where he’d propose to her.
Yet another false alarm.
Peter’s head felt as if it was whirling. He was starting to think he was responsible for the safety of every single person in Manhattan. He realized that if he didn’t start reordering his thoughts, if he didn’t start coping with his power, it was going to overwhelm him. He’d likely end up curled into a sniveling ball, not knowing where to look first.
But he couldn’t help it.
Over there … a guy approaching an elderly woman. She was clutching her pocketbook nervously while standing on the edge of a curb. Was he about to knock her down, grab it? No … no, it was okay. He spoke to her softly, extended an arm. She looked exceedingly grateful as he walked her across the busy intersection, tipped his hat, and walked away.
And over there, at some seedy-looking diner with the word MOONDANCE in neon letters overhead, except the first N was burned out, so it seemed as if it were someplace that cows went to boogie, there was a nervous-looking, red-haired young woman, emerging with a raincoat drawn tightly around her, as if concerned she was in danger from some …
He did a double take as she walked right past him. “Hey!” he said in astonishment.
“Buzz off,” she snapped back.
“Mary Jane Watson?!”
She froze on the sidewalk. It was as if … as if her own name frightened her.
Peter approached her, cautiously, delicately, as if she were a deer in the headlights about to bolt. “M. J.? It’s me … Peter …”
Mary Jane tried to laugh lightly, but she seemed embarrassed to see him. “What are you doing around here?”
He held up the classifieds and said, “Begging for a job. What about you?”
“I’m, uh …” Her mind seemed to be racing, “… headed for an audition.”
The way she said it struck Peter as wrong somehow, but he wasn’t about to call her on it. “So you’re an actress now! That’s great!”
She still hadn’t turned to face him. “Uh-huh,” she said, and in a voice that sounded as it she were choking back a sob, “It’s a dream come true.”
Suddenly the door of the diner burst open and a surly looking cook stepped out. He was clutching a pile of restaurant checks in his large fist, and a smell was coming off him that was reminiscent of rotting meat. Peter wasn’t sure if it was his own personal aroma or an odor that was clinging to him from the food.
“Hey! Glamour girl!” he growled “Your drawer’s off by six bucks! Next time I take it out of your check, y’get me?”
M. J. didn’t look at him. It was as if she were pretending he wasn’t there. And Peter’s heart went out to her in her mortification, because the truth of the situation was so apparent that a blind man would have seen it. The cook, meantime, wasn’t letting it go. “Excuse me, Miss Watson. I am speaking words to you. You get me?”
Her shoulders sagging in defeat, she choked out, “Yes, Enrique, okay? I ‘get you,’ Enrique.”
Peter saw red at that moment, and it wasn’t in the color of M. J.’s hair. Enrique, although he didn’t know it, was a heartbeat away from finding his teeth situated somewhere in the back of his throat. Either that or being hauled up the side of a building, across the rooftops, and finding himself hanging naked from the top of the Washington Square arch. All it required was for him to open his big mouth and say one more rude word, just one, to Mary Jane.
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending upon how one chose to look at it, Enrique picked that moment to stop speaking. He simply turned and stomped back into the diner.
M. J. let out a long, unsteady sigh, and then turned around for the first time. She did not, however, look up. A chill wind blew across her, ruffling her hair. With a self-deprecating laugh, she quickly opened and closed the raincoat, like a flasher, just long enough for Peter to see the stained waitress uniform she was wearing underneath. “It’s just temporary. Few extra dollars,” she said.
He tried to put on his most Uncle Ben–like tone. The voice that assured the listener that things weren’t remotely as bad as they seemed. “Well, that’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I’ve been fired from worse jobs than that.” He paused and was about to ask her out for a cup of coffee . . . or maybe a drink . . . or maybe even dinner. He had a few bucks in his pocket, he cou
ld splurge, treat her. Nothing fancy. Catch up on things.
All the old feelings came flooding back to him. He remembered feeling as if he didn’t deserve her, or couldn’t do enough for her, but things changed, and—
“Don’t tell Harry.”
That stopped him cold. Peter stared at her in bewilderment. “Harry … ?”
Now she actually looked up at him. She looked just as confused as he did. “We’ve been going out,” she said as if it was common knowledge. Her eyes narrowed. “Aren’t you guys living together? Didn’t he tell you?”
He blinked, trying to kick start his brain back into motion. “Oh, yeah!” he said, as if it had simply slipped his mind. “Right …”
“I think he’d hate the idea of my waiting tables,” she said. “He’d think it was … low.”
“Well, Harry never has lived on a little place I like to call Earth,” Peter said with such chipperness in his voice that none of the bitterness he was feeling at that moment was evident.
M. J. laughed at that and visibly relaxed. Feeling buoyed by her reaction, Peter continued, “M. J., probably half the people starring on Broadway were waiters or even dishwashers.”
She looked at him with that tilt to the head she often used. “How come you always make me feel better?” She jumped up and down slightly to keep herself warm, and then obviously feeling the need to get moving, she said, “Well … bye, Peter.”
Mary Jane started to walk away, and part of Peter’s mind shouted at him to run after her. But the man who was capable of vaulting rooftops without batting an eye, who swung heartstopping distances supported by nothing except strands of webbing and thought nothing of it, was too afraid to do anything except remain rooted to the spot. He settled for calling down the street, “Maybe I’ll come down and have a cup of your Moondance coffee some day!” Then quickly he added, lest she be concerned, “And I won’t tell Harry.”
“No, can’t tell Harry,” she affirmed with a glance over her shoulder.
And then she was out of earshot as Peter said softly to himself, “No, I won’t. I won’t tell Harry. Harry … and Mary Jane. Wow.” Then he turned and walked in the opposite direction.
He wanted to be angry with Harry. He wanted to feel that his supposed friend had swiped Mary Jane out from under him. But he had learned all too well the importance of taking responsibility for one’s actions, and the fact was that it was his own actions—or inactions, for that matter—that had led to this. Without realizing he was doing it, he’d given Harry a clear path to Mary Jane, and his roomie obviously had taken it without hesitation.
Don’t tell Harry.
He muttered, “Don’t tell Peter.”
Except, of course, it was too late.
Evening was just settling in after a long, fruitless, and frustrating day for Peter, who was wondering just how things could possibly get worse. When he opened the door to the Tribeca apartment he shared with Harry, he quickly found out.
Harry was seated at the dining room table, books spread out all over the place. That was nothing unusual. However, the new addition to the picture of Peter’s domestic life was Norman Osborn, pacing and talking into a cell phone. Peter couldn’t help but remember that those things were purported to cause brain cancer, and wondered why no one seemed to care about that anymore. Maybe he could do a study on it. Either that or just get a cell phone and use it in hopes of rotting away the brain cells that caused him such worries.
Osborn spotted Peter and nodded in acknowledgment of his presence. Peter felt honored. He headed over to Harry and dropped into a nearby chair as Harry looked up ruefully. “Stormin’ Norman, making his weekly inspection,” he muttered. “Spends half of it on the phone. Man, am I glad you’re here,” he continued, indicating the open books. “I need your help. I’m hopelessly lost.” Harry had been so caught up in his father’s presence and the challenge of the material in front of him that it took him a while to actually look at his roommate. But when he did, he frowned. “What’s wrong with you? Somebody run over your dog?”
I don’t have a dog. I don’t have a girlfriend, either, thanks to you, you—
“No,” Peter sighed, feeling that a portion of the truth was preferable to manufacturing something from whole cloth. “I, uh … I was late, and Dr. Connors fired me.”
Harry leaned back, stunned. “Late again? What is it with you? Where do you go all the time?”
“Around,” Peter answered vaguely.
Shaking his head, Harry said, “For a completely responsible guy, you’re completely irresponsible.”
There was a definitive snap from Osborn’s cell phone as he closed the cover and turned toward Peter, all smiles. “Peter Parker!” he said, as if having just discovered the cure for the common cold. “Maybe you can tell me who she is!”
Peter stared at him blankly. “Who?”
“This mystery girl Harry’s been dating.”
Peter’s spine froze. The one thing in the entire world that Peter would rather not have been discussing at that moment, and guess what was being shoved in his face. At that moment he felt like walking over to the wall and thudding his head against it, repeatedly. Then he tried to recall if there had been one day since Uncle Ben was killed—just one—that was a genuinely, sunrise to sunset, good day. Nothing was coming to mind. He wondered if he’d ever have one again.
“Dad …” Harry moaned, clearly chagrined that Peter was being yanked into the discussion.
Osborn was still talking to Peter, looking hopeful, even good-humored. “I think he wants me to meet this one, and believe me, it’s the first time that’s hap—”
“Dad!” Harry couldn’t have acted more mortified if his father had hauled out naked baby pictures and passed them around at the prom.
His father looked at him questioningly, wondering why his son was raising such a fuss.
Very softly, and trying to keep any accusatory notes out of his voice, Peter said, “Sorry … Harry hasn’t mentioned her.”
Making a very obvious attempt to change the subject, Harry said, “Hey, Pete, you’re probably looking for work now. Dad, maybe you can help him find a job?”
Spider sense tingling . . .
It was so odd. Here they were, in their own apartment, and there was no threat to him. No danger present at all. And yet somehow, for some reason, he was feeling the slightest warning of danger rattling around at the base of his skull. For reasons Peter couldn’t even articulate, he suddenly felt the need to distance himself from the table. He got up and headed for the kitchen, saying, “Oh, no. I appreciate it, but I’ll be fine.”
“It’s no problem,” Osborn assured him. “I’ll make some phone calls… .”
“No!” Peter said far more sharply than he would have liked, so forcefully that Harry actually jumped slightly. Reining himself in, he said in a more moderate tone, “I couldn’t accept it. I like to earn what I get. I can find work.”
There was silence in the apartment for a moment as Harry looked nervously up at his father. But Norman simply nodded and, somewhat to Peter’s surprise, said, “I respect that. You want to make it on your own steam. That’s great.” Then, very pointedly, he said to Harry, “Interesting, isn’t it? Peter is looking for work. As in, actively seeking, as opposed to strenuously avoiding …”
Harry eyed a nearby pen thoughtfully, as if considering whether he should drive it into his own eye or not. “What do you want from me?” he sighed. “I’m trying to keep my grades up.”
“I want you to be able to do more than one thing at a time, son,” said Norman reasonably. “The world will always pull you in different directions. If you don’t learn to cope with it, well … that way lies madness.”
Peter tried to take a philosophical attitude toward the situation as the Osborns talked. Considering the burden he was carrying in school, and the expectations of his father, should Peter really begrudge Harry what little happiness he was able to garner with Mary Jane?
Hell, yes, he thought bitterly.
He picked up a copy of the Daily Bugle off the kitchen table, hoping that perhaps the want ads in that newspaper would be more productive than the washouts the Trib’s classifieds had provided. He flipped open the front page, looking for the index, and stopped dead.
He focused on the headline, his eyes widening in disbelief.
Harry’s father was saying something to him, but it wasn’t registering. Instead he was staring at the crude sketch of Spider-Man’s face, under the headline, WANTED: PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF! BUGLE OFFERS REWARD!
“Parker!” Osborn repeated, commanding Peter’s attention, “Do you have any other skills?”
With a small smile, Peter said, “I’m thinking of something in photography.”
XVI.
THE
PHOTOGRAPHER
The 35mm camera had been carefully suspended in the cornice of the third floor of the building. Peter peered through the lens one more time to make sure it was properly targeted and working. The words AUTO SHUTTER flashed in red in the lower right corner of the viewfinder.
The view through the lens was a wide angle, giving him a nice view of the entire front of the bank. Moments later, the doors of the bank burst open and three robbers burst out, waving guns. Pedestrians fell back with terrified screams.
“Showtime,” Peter muttered beneath his mask.
Battling Jack Murdock, still walking with a limp after his encounter with Bone Saw McGraw months ago, was on his way into the Citibank when he stopped dead in his tracks. He couldn’t believe it. It was the kind of thing he saw only on television or in the movies.
The robbers charged out of the bank, shouting for people to keep back. Jack was no fool. This was no wrestling ring. This was real life. So he stayed right where he was, making no sudden moves, lest he draw their attention.
Police sirens sounded in the near distance and the robbers, all of whom were masked in ski caps, looked at each other nervously. Obviously they hadn’t expected the cops to get so close, so fast. The fourth of their crew was at curbside in what was obviously the getaway car, and he was madly gesturing for them to hurry the hell up. But traffic was bottlenecking all around them—this was midtown Manhattan, after all—and they might not make it far enough away before the cops drew within distance. Plus there were witnesses who could identify the license plates and put the police on their tracks all too quickly.