by Peter David
“Asking? Who’s asking? This,” he said suavely, plucking her hand out of the air and kissing her knuckle, “is a fait accompli.”
Her instinct was to say no. Her father’s warning from the other day flashed in her head—maybe this was the exact wrong time to start going out on dates.
But Peter Parker was a very different animal from Eddie Brock. It wasn’t as if he were a stranger; he was at least a good guy with a lot going on upstairs. She could count on him to spend time with her and be thinking about something else other than what she’d look like with her clothes off.
“Well then”—Gwen smiled—“who am I to fight ‘fait’?”
A small jazz combo was in the middle of “One O’Clock Jump,” an old Count Basie standard, when Peter guided Gwen into the Jazz Room. The place was packed, with customers tapping their feet to the music. Peter started snapping his fingers to the beat, and Gwen imitated him, grinning.
A hostess escorted them to a table. Gwen, now really getting into the music, moved her hips to the beat and was practically dancing to it by the time the hostess seated them. Peter glanced around the club, looking to spot a familiar face. Gwen, unaware of where Peter’s attentions were, said, “Great idea, Pete!” as she sat. “I never put you and jazz together.”
“Jazz. Fits in with the natural order of the universe, y’know.” He sat opposite her. “Branch of science.”
“Now you’re talkin’.” A small bowl of pretzels was on the table. Gwen picked one up and daintily bit off a piece. Then she started looking around the club, taking in the ambience, leaving Peter free to scope the place out. Finally he found what he was looking for: Mary Jane. She was clear across the way, waiting on another customer.
The band wrapped the Basie number, to strong applause. The pianist stepped away from the piano, heading offstage, perhaps to get a smoke or maybe just hit the bathroom. The trumpet player moved to the microphone and said, “Let’s hear from you, Mary Jane.”
Mary Jane smiled, starting to head toward the bandstand. The band played some traveling music as she made her way through the cluster of tables to the stage. Gwen saw her and was visibly startled. “Isn’t that Mary Jane? Your old girlfriend?”
“Wild, huh?” said Peter, making it sound like a staggering coincidence.
Still not having realized that Peter had deliberately chosen this spot because of Mary Jane’s presence, Gwen asked solicitously, concerned that the experience might be too painful for him, “Would you rather go someplace else?”
“I can handle it,” he said easily. Then he rose and stepped away from the table.
Mary Jane had just gotten to the microphone and was about to announce the name of the song she was to sing when Peter reached the stage and sat at the piano. MJ was startled to hear the keys sound on the old Steinway, and when she turned and looked to see what was happening, her eyes widened in disbelief. The rest of the musicians were equally taken aback that this stranger from the audience had apparently joined the band. It wasn’t unprecedented, but it usually happened much later in the evening when the audience was a lot more inebriated.
“Peter?” Mary Jane gasped.
Peter spoke into the microphone next to the piano. “I’d like to dedicate this to a special lady out there.” He looked at Mary Jane, paused for dramatic emphasis, and then shifted his gaze to Gwen. “A very special lady.” Then, not giving Mary Jane time to register what had just happened, keeping her emotionally off-balance, he turned to the band and said, “Fellas, just straight eights until the turnaround.”
He started a fast piano riff, gliding into a free-form jazz composition. Thanks to the black costume, it seemed that the piano lessons his aunt had insisted he take had paid off in the long run. Nice. All he needed to be a virtuoso was some confidence, and he certainly had that in spades these days.
The band started picking up his tempo, and Peter nodded approvingly. “Now that’s eighteen karat.” He turned to the audience and grinned. “These guys are really in the pocket.”
Mary Jane was still standing in the spotlight, clearly not knowing what to do, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other like a small child in desperate need of a bathroom. Then the spotlight, much to Peter’s secret glee, moved away from Mary Jane and over to him. The crowd naturally shifted their attention with it, some even adjusting their chairs so that their backs were to Mary Jane.
Peter was feeling at home, playing with such expertise one would have thought he’d been part of the band for years. He nodded to the other guys, “Take it on one time, without me now.”
Without missing a beat, he sprang from the piano bench and leaped onto the dance floor. He shouted to the crowd, like a 1960s hipster, “Now dig on this!”
Throwing all caution aside, he unleashed a flurry of break-dancing steps with a healthy element of both Elvis thrusts and John Travolta disco tossed in, capped by a series of athletic moves that would have seemed possible only for an Olympic-level gymnast… or Spider-Man, of course, but that wouldn’t have occurred to any of them.
During a musical break when just the bass and drums were holding down the backbeat, Peter snapped around in an air-guitar move worthy of Chuck Berry and called out, “Now how ‘bout a little o’ that… um-um-um!”
The band promptly responded with three similar funky cords. Pushing his luck and his moves beyond all reason, Peter sprang into the air and landed atop the piano bench with a one-handed handstand. As he balanced on the one hand, he reached out with his free hand and worked the keyboard, right on cue.
The musicians looked a little stunned at the gargantuan showboating from their unexpected and, frankly, uninvited new member, but the crowd went nuts. They had never seen anything like it. No one had.
Maintaining his one-handed pose, Peter abruptly switched hands for a low piano part, then changed yet again for a high part. The number built to a crescendo and Peter sprang into the air and landed on the stage in a split, his arms in a V formation. The applause was thunderous. He glanced over at Mary Jane and saw her slink away from the microphone. She descended the stairs but didn’t move far away from them. Instead she just watched Peter with a look of infinite sadness. Well, if she was feeling sorry for him, then her pity was surely misplaced.
Elated beyond all measure, Peter sprang out onto the dance floor again and swept Gwen out of her chair. Even though there was no longer any music, he dipped her low, his lips moving toward hers. Then, slowly and deliberately, he looked in Mary Jane’s direction to ensure that she was watching.
Mary Jane started to sob. Tears were streaming down her face, her mascara running. Peter noticed that the manager had also seen it and was starting to move toward Mary Jane. Good. Maybe he was about to fire her. Wouldn’t that just be the perfect end to the perfect—
“That was for her, wasn’t it.”
Peter looked down at Gwen—she had seen him looking toward Mary Jane. Gwen scowled fiercely, finally catching on. “That’s why you brought me here. You son of a bitch!”
She struggled in his grasp, but he didn’t care. Gwen had served her purpose. Peter released her, and she stumbled away, almost falling, one hand touching the floor and stabilizing her before she tumbled over. She managed to stand, then backed away from Peter, treating him like a stranger. She grabbed her purse off the table and headed toward the exit. But before Gwen did, she headed to Mary Jane. Peter could make out from where he was standing that she said, “I’m so very sorry,” to Mary Jane.
Figures. In the end, the women always stick together.
Suddenly he was annoyed with Gwen. He hadn’t given her permission to leave—who the hell did she think she was? Where did she get off, ditching him on their first date? He started moving to intercept her as she went for the exit, and abruptly the manager was in his way. “Hey, you’re making trouble,” he snapped at Peter. “What’re you doing?” He glanced toward Mary Jane and said, ‘“You know this guy?”
Nose to nose with the manager, royally angered that this
gnat was trying to shove himself into his affairs, Peter demanded, “You got a problem?”
A large, burly guy with a thick neck and a jacket that barely closed over his chest now stepped into view. Of course, here comes the bouncer. “Paul, everything okay here?”
He spoke with a thick Brooklyn accent, so Peter mimicked him. “Yeah, Paul, ever’ting okay heah?”
The bouncer didn’t wait for the manager’s okay. He grabbed Peter by the arm and said, “Let’s go, pal.”
“Where are we going? I like it here!”
“Let’s just step over—”
Peter grabbed the bouncer’s arm, twisted it, and flipped the larger man up and onto the floor. The crowd gasped as one. What had begun as simple entertainment was rapidly devolving into anarchy.
The manager, no slouch himself in the strength and speed department, tried to put a choke hold on Peter while Peter was distracted by the bouncing bouncer. An instant before Peter attended to him, Mary Jane—knowing what the men were up against, and knowing they had no chance—cried out, “Peter! Stop!”
“I’m just getting started.” Peter laughed. This time he didn’t even bother with the pretext of a judo throw. He simply picked the manager up and chucked him across several tables. The customers at those tables tried to intercept the manager in his flight and wound up going down with him in a tumble of arms and legs.
Gwen Stacy was long gone by the point that the melee broke out… rather unfortunately since she could have had police there within seconds. But things were now happening so quickly that no one even thought about summoning the authorities.
Total chaos had been unleashed in the Jazz Room, and Peter was in the center of it.
Probably assuming that Peter was high on something, customers came at him from all sides, trying to wrestle him to the floor.
No one even came close to stopping him. Peter was completely out of control, and he didn’t care. He had willingly tossed self-control away, surrendered to the sheer joy. And he wasn’t just taking joy in the battle; he was wallowing in his superiority. He loved it that no one had a chance against him. It was one lone guy against everybody in the place, and he was mopping up the floor with them.
And it didn’t bother him; that was the best thing. Once upon a time, long ago, his annoying conscience would never have allowed him to enjoy what he was doing. He was mopey old Peter Parker, given great power but bending under the weight of the responsibility. No longer. A spine had grown seemingly overnight, and nothing was ever going to drag him down or make him feel guilty again.
Nothing.
The piano player who had taken a break came back onto the stage to discover the rest of the band had deserted him, choosing instead to throw themselves against some demented guy who was apparently kicking everybody’s collective asses. He did the only thing that seemed appropriate—he started banging out the William Tell overture on the keyboard.
Peter threw two people in either direction and turned just in time to see Mary Jane coming straight at him. She was in no way trying to attack him. Instead she was crying out to him, begging him to stop, to put the people down, what was he trying to prove, had he lost his mind, and on and on…
Without hesitation, without even a thought, Peter grabbed Mary Jane and threw her across a table. She skidded across it, kept going, and landed on her back on the floor.
Everything stopped.
Mary Jane approached Peter, completely torn up inside. She knew she had this coming as a result of her unceremoniously dumping him in the park. She’d had no choice: Harry had made her do it. Harry, who had lost his mind. Apparently somehow he’d transformed into something horrifying, and forced her to break it off with Peter.
She was terrified to try to tell Peter the truth, for Harry, as this New Goblin, had warned her that he would be watching her every moment of every day. That wasn’t possible, but she wasn’t about to test him on it. But now things had gotten out of hand. Peter needed to be dragged somewhere private and talked to, no matter what the risk. He’d understand. He had to.
At no time as she advanced on Peter did she believe that he would hurt her. Not for a second.
The shock barely registered when Peter cavalierly tossed her aside like a sack of wheat.
Fortunately, Mary Jane had taken enough lessons in stagecraft to know how to fall. When she hit the floor, she slapped it with both hands to absorb the impact, so she wasn’t really hurt. Nevertheless, she was still stunned by what had just happened. As she lay on the floor, unmoving, silence descended over the club. Until now, Peter had been dispatching burly men without a second thought. But when he started tossing women half his size around, that apparently crossed a line. Chivalry is not dead? Could have surprised me.
Peter quickly shoved other people aside to get to her. None of them tried to get in his way, which was probably a wise move. Peter looked down at her, his own expression as incredulous as hers.
“What’s happened to you?” she whispered. Her face was covered with dried tears, but she wasn’t crying anymore. She was too caught up in trying to comprehend what was going on.
Slowly Peter shook his head. He looked like someone waking from a dream. “I… don’t know…”
The top of his shirt was open and she glimpsed the black costume beneath it.
The black costume.
Mary Jane was no scientific genius, no whiz kid on par with Peter Parker or Curtis Connors. She didn’t know about chondritic meteorites, or symbiotes and parasites. She had absolutely no way of knowing the true origins of the black costume that she’d recently seen pictures of Peter sporting around town in.
But she did know two things. One was timing. And the other was Peter Parker.
In a leap of deductive logic that would have impressed Hercule Poirot, she concluded that Peter Parker was acting nothing like himself, and that behavior was traceable almost to the day that he’d started wearing the black costume. She had no idea how it was possible, no clue where it had come from, but with a flash of insight that only she could possibly have had, she realized that Peter wasn’t actually wearing the costume.
It was wearing him.
“It’s the suit,” she whispered.
Peter looked down—yes, she had seen the top of his costume peeping through the dress shirt. He quickly covered it and turned toward the exit. The crowd of people parted like the Red Sea before Moses.
And Mary Jane did something she hadn’t done in a long time.
Dear God… hear my prayer… help him… help him and bring him back to me… please.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-One
THE HOST WITH THE MOST
It is said by many that God moves in mysterious ways.
It was also said by Voltaire that God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
Both explanations, and many more besides, could explain just why, with all the churches in New York City, both Eddie Brock Jr. and Peter Parker wound up at the same one at exactly the same time: just as the sun was beginning to creep up over the horizon. The sky, however, was thick with clouds and rain was coming down, so the sun wasn’t having much success in making its presence known.
At that moment, however, they were unaware of each other’s presence, for Peter was in the upper bell tower while Eddie was just coming in out of the downpour and walking slowly down the aisle of the empty church.
Having put the pieces of the game into their proper places, God made His moves. The audience remained afraid to laugh.
Still wearing the black costume, Peter sat in the bell tower, looking off toward the horizon. His fancy Italian suit was piled in a heap on the side.
He had no idea what to do. The words of Curtis Connors were haunting him. When he’d first heard them, he’d laughed them off. But he kept replaying the image of his swatting aside Mary Jane, and it was like having ice-cold water repeatedly dousing him in the face.
A huge church bell hung above him. It was three times his size, but he
wasn’t really paying attention to it. He was caught up in his inner torment, oblivious not only to its presence, but to the timing mechanism nearby that was ticking down toward the moment when it would set the gears into motion and send the bell ringing.
A part of him was urging him to forget everything that had happened. Find a way to make it up to Mary Jane if he had to, but not to dwell on it.
Even as he thought that, though, he knew it would be impossible. Not only had too much happened, too much more could still happen. Just in wearing the costume for a couple of days, he felt as if he was losing touch with his soul. What in God’s name would happen a couple of weeks or months from now? Would he even be recognizable as himself? What would he become?
He couldn’t chance finding out.
Peter stood and started pulling on the suit, figuring that he would be able to peel it off as easily as he had the last time.
Wrong.
Perhaps sensing that matters had reached a crisis point, the suit refused to yield. Peter pulled at it harder, using the full power of the amazing adhesive abilities that lay in his fingertips. Nothing. The suit stretched like Silly Putty, then snapped right back.
He started digging into it with his nails, pulling as hard as he could.
Oh my God… get off me get off me get off me!
The alien symbiote didn’t speak back to him, not possessing that power of communication. He sensed a deep-seated feeling permeating him, a feeling originating not from him but from the suit. If he’d had to find words to express the emotions that the costume was projecting, it would have been…
Make me.
Sonorous organ music crept through the church as Eddie walked slowly down the aisle. He glanced in the direction of the actual organ, and it sat there, silent. But the music was coming from somewhere. Probably a sexton or someone like that playing recorded music. It was unbearably creepy and added a foreboding Gothic flavor to the chapel.
Feeling sad, lonely, and pathetic, he took a seat and stared at the image of Christ on the cross. A man with good intentions who’d been crucified for his troubles. Eddie Brock could relate.