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seriousficTitle: The Cost of Wearing Masks
Fandom: Spider-Man movieverse
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,338
Author’s Note: Betaed by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
htbthomas. Takes place after the events of Spider-Man 2, assuming Spider-Man 3 never happened.
Previous Part: Chapter 6
Next Part: Chapter 8
Characters/Pairings: Peter/MJ
Summary: Peter doesn’t regret Mary-Jane finding out his secret. He just wishes there were some questions she wouldn’t ask.
Central Park was beautiful in the summer, especially that summer. Not too hot, obviously not cold, but just… right. People flying kites and it was right. People rowing boats in the lake and it was right. Mary-Jane Watson was holding Peter Parker’s hand and it was right. They walked by Turtle Pond, walking on air.
“So anyway,” Peter was saying, “the fat guy says ‘Woo woo! I do have the proportional strength of a walrus! I do! And just like uncle told me to--I can engage in mass destruction! I am the Walrus!’”
”Sounds like he was in for… a hard day’s night!” Mary-Jane commented.
Peter cleared his throat.
”C’mon, that was a good one!”
”Well, I’m more of an Elvis man myself, so I wouldn’t know.”
A mugger stepped in front of them, aiming a gun at Peter. ”Your money or your life!”
The gun made a splash in Turtle Pond.
The Mugger put up his dukes.
”Alright, buddy, you wanna do things the hard way?”
The mugger made a bigger splash.
They continued on their walk.
“You suck!” the mugger yelled at them.
“Yeah, you’re lucky it’s not the East River, you hierophant!” Peter shouted back.
”Someone's been paying attention to their word-of-the-day calendar,” Mary-Jane said.
The waning sun finally set and they stopped at a hot dog vendor who was just closing up. Peter looked mournfully at his wallet as he paid, prompting Mary-Jane to slip a twenty from her own billfold into his pocket when he wasn’t looking.
“I’m gonna miss this,” Peter said as he took a bite out of his dog. “Job hunt’s gonna be kicking my ass soon and then I’ll probably have to work retail. And with you on Broadway, when will I ever get to see you?”
“I promise wherever you work, I’ll do all my shopping there.”
“What if it’s an…” Peter raised an eyebrow, “adult store?”
“I’m actually really happy with my current adult store.”
Peter sighed, already brought down from his bantering mood. “If only I had some way to get money...”
”You could always hit up J. Jonah Jameson for money.”
”What, you mean a severance package?”
”No, I mean giving him photos in exchange for the rendering of goods or services.”
”Why would Jameson take any photos from me? He thinks I ‘stole his son’s fiancé’.”
”I'll have a talk with John.”
”What? No, I can't ask you to do that.”
”Hey, I owe him an explanation anyway. And you should stop by too. It's hard to hold a grudge against someone once you get to know them.”
Peter flashed on Harry Osborn. ”You'd be surprised… I’m terrible, aren’t I? For days now you’ve been giving me this space, when you’ve gotta be curious about the whole… Spider-Man… thing.”
”Nah, why would I be curious about my best friend being a superhero for as long as we’ve really known each other?”
”Really? Whew.”
”That was sarcasm.”
Peter rolled his eyes. ”Damn. Alright, what do you want to know?”
***
In the study of Osborn manor, once more surrounded by his masked guardians… his guardians who were masks… Harry sat in a high-backed leather chair. A tourniquet was around his arm. He held up a syringe, found a vein, and injected himself. Sighed with relief. The phone rang and he dreamily answered it.
”Harry Osborn.”
The voice coming over the line was as smooth as it was familiar. “It’s Kingsley.”
Harry smirked. ”What can I do for you?”
”I’ve been going over your father’s designs for the Next-Gen Soldier concept…”
”The board abandoned that concept years ago,” Harry said as he loosened his tourniquet.
”Yes, but I think it shows a lot of potential. The glider alone is revolutionary in terms of territorial coverage by a lesser number of soldiers.”
”What are you saying? You want to reopen the research? The government bid was already won by Stark Enterprises; we would be sending money down the drain.”
”Harry, we can’t let this die. It’s too brilliant. It’s our duty to follow…”
Harry curtly pulled his sleeve down over the track marks on his arm. “Listen, Mr. Kingsley, I’m rather busy at the moment. Could we talk about this later?”
”Certainly. I have my own business to attend to.”
***
”A spider bit you? Really?” Mary-Jane giggled and Peter wiped a spot of mustard from her cheek.
”Well, it was a pretty big spider… why, what were you expecting?”
”I don’t know, you were chosen by a giant spider god or something.”
”You have an overdeveloped imagination, you know that?”
”Yeah.”
She grew serious, picking at a napkin. Fingers picking it apart into little paper shrapnel, letting them drop to the bench they were sitting on like confetti. Peter slurped his slushee extra loud to pull her out of her funk, but she only looked up at him when she was damn well ready.
”I really hate to put a damper on all this fun we’re having… especially considering the week I… we’ve had… but can I ask a personal question?”
”You’ve got me,” Peter said somberly. “I am Spider-Man.”
”I’m serious!”
”Sorry, sorry. Kneejerk reaction to bald-faced emotional intimacy. Won’t happen again.”
”What happened after the bridge?”
Peter suddenly lost his appetite. He pitched his drink into a trash can and thought about it. His mind felt like a train just taking off… unfathomably slow, but picking up undeniable and irrevocable speed.
”After the Green Goblin threw me off the bridge. What happened between you two?”
”Well... Jesus, I never thought you'd ask that.” Peter looked away, hedging. “I'd kinda forgotten.”
”Peter, please. I need to know.”
Peter took her hands in both of his, stopping her from further eviscerating the napkin. She met his eyes. His gaze was constant.
”He dragged me behind his glider to the shore. Threw me into an abandoned building, not much more than ruins. We fought. It seemed like hours. Nothing I did slowed him down.“
He grew distant, as if lost in the memories. Mary-Jane could almost hear a familiar cackle in the background.
”He was like a man possessed... and maybe he was. Finally, he cornered me. He was just about to kill me when he threatened you, MJ. And for some reason, that was the last straw. I got the upper hand, beat him within an inch of his life. But then he took his helmet off and... it was Norman Osborn.”
Peter stopped as the recollection forced its way to the surface. The adrenaline rush stopping cold, the face of Norman Osborn… and with it, suddenly the awareness of his own great weariness, the taste of his own blood in his mouth, the ache that covered his entire bruised body. He’d been so tired…
“All along, that's who it’d been. The man I thought I could trust. He tried to trick me and I said no. Then his glider attacked me from behind. I dodged it, but he got distracted and he... it didn't collide with him so much as it went through him. Like a pin sticking a butterfly to the wall.”
Norman suddenly shrinking. His armor grinding down to nothing, burning out. His glider’s mournful gasp as it ran out of gas, long before Peter was ready to move. The helmet lying on the ground, forever laughing, no longer a mask, but still a face…
“And he was just... hanging there, looking at me, his limbs... shaking, and we both knew he was dying. And he knew that it was his own fault. Every bit of it. He seemed to drain. Like all the hatred had gone out of him and he had nothing left. Nothing except his love for his son, as small and as twisted as it was. ‘Don't tell Harry.’ Those were his last words. Then he died and it was all so... meaningless, I remember thinking that. I don't know why he did it, what came over him. But I knew Harry didn't deserve the pain of knowing his father was the Green Goblin. I took his equipment, smashed it to bits and threw the pieces out to sea. Then I took him back to his house, set him down. Harry found me... he took things the wrong way. And he's hated me ever since.”
Harry’s expression, so lost, so hurt… thankfully not mirrored in Mary-Jane’s face. She was, if not understanding, sympathetic.
”It couldn't have happened any other way,” Peter said, more to himself than her. “It was me or him. He had the decision to give up, to do the right thing at any time and he never took it. I got over my guilt a long time ago.”
”I'm glad. He doesn't deserve your guilt. He doesn't deserve anything from you.”
Her voice was so harsh it took him by surprise. He looked straight at her and found her gaze unwavering. It felt bad to have his own unregretful words thrown back at him. Dirty.
”Mary-Jane...”
She was near tears. “You act like he was some kind of great man who got led astray or something. But I didn't know that man. He hated me. He thought I wasn't good enough for his son and then he kidnapped me. He tried to kill me. I'm glad he's dead, because now I know he won't ever come after me again. Do you know how big a relief that is? Do you know how many nightmares I’ve had, how many psychologists I've been to? But don't worry, I didn't know about your precious secret identity, so I couldn't very well have told anyone. And weeks later, when I finally screw up the courage to reach out to you, you say we should just be friends. Just be friends. I needed you, Peter, and...”
He leaned over, kissed her not because he loved her, though he did, and not because it felt good, though it did, but because he needed more than words to convince her that he was there now. And he would never leave her again.
”And I wasn't there,” Peter said. “I know. A lot of times I'm not there.
“I swing down Park Avenue, some guy is street pizza because I wasn't there thirty seconds ago. Police shootout, eight hostages dead in the crossfire, I wasn't there. Bomb threat, library, goes off, three people trapped inside. One died after seventeen minutes of being buried alive. Because I can't be everywhere. Because I can't be Spider-Man all the time. Do you know why? Even if the world doesn't need Peter Parker, I do. And the people I love do. And I wish I could have always been there to be everything you needed, but I wasn't. Sometimes I don't know what you need. You've gotta believe that I thought you would be better off without me.
“It killed me inside to walk away from you. I'd rather die than go through that again. And trying to stay away from you, it was like I was being crushed. Like there was this weight and it was always getting heavier. But I want… wanted… to do what was best for you, even if I didn't like it. I'm sorry it wasn't the right thing, or that it became the wrong thing. But I'm here, now, for you. And I won't let anything happen to you again.”
”How can you be so sure?”
”Because if anyone tries it, they won't just answer to Spider-Man. They'll have to deal with Peter Parker.”
She kissed him. This time it had nothing to do with conviction or promise-keeping, just them.
”Just so you know, I don’t normally do tearful confessions on a first date. Lessens my mystery.”
”C’mon, MJ. You know I’ll never solve you.”
”Peter Parker, I—“ Just as she opened her mouth a strange whistling sound filled the air.
Peter turned towards its source. Something was flying across the sky, blotting out stars. And it seemed to be getting closer…
“Peter,” Mary-Jane started to say, just as a smaller object detached from the larger and flew toward them.
Peter’s face twisted into fear. He pushed Mary-Jane out of the way. The object, a small artificial pumpkin with a fuse for a stem, landed and exploded. The shockwave blew Peter back, shotgunning him into a tree. He hit, fell, landed. His clothes were tattered. Beneath them, the spider-suit was partially revealed.
”What's the matter, Spider-Man?” the Goblin asked from his flying perch. “You look like you just saw a ghost.“
With an insane cackle, his glider passed over Peter and shot down a cable. It wrapped around Peter, lassoing him. Peter had time for one last glance at Mary-Jane – safe and unhurt, thank God – before he was yanked into the air. They flew towards city limits. The Goblin looked over his shoulder at Peter, still laughing madly.
”Well… boo!”
Peter struggled against his bonds, but they were hard as steel. “Weren’t you arguing with a wall last time I saw you, Gobby?”
”You must have mistaken me for someone else. I’m the Hobgoblin. The Hobgoblin!” he cried to pedestrians as he buzzed them, Peter having to run along the ground to keep from becoming street pizza. He prayed that at that speed, no one would get a good look at his face. Hobgoblin pulled up, jerking Peter off his feet. “I never thought it’d be so easy.”
Peter’s eyes narrowed. ”It’s never easy.”
He shot a webline at a passing building. It snagged and caused the glider to turn at an arc like a tetherball. The Hobgoblin was suddenly headed right toward the side of a building. He bounced off, cracking the concrete, and went into a tailspin.
Peter followed the same course, but he was ready. He kicked off his shoes and bent his legs to hit the wall, then stuck his feet to the building. When the Hobgoblin fell, he bent nearly double and let the lasso slip off his upper body. With it gone, he quickly ripped off his shredded clothing. Then his mask was on and he was ready for anything, everything.
The building they’d hit was the last brownstone before a small farming community on the outskirts of New York. The Hobgoblin recovered a few meters over the ground, which were rows and rows of wheat stalks as far as the eye could see. Spider-Man coiled his legs and lunged for the Hobgoblin, but the glider strafed out of the way and Spider-Man hit the ground in a roll, coming up just as the Hobgoblin threw another object at him and flew away. This was no pumpkin, but instead a squat, round goblin grenade.
It split along the seams like an orange being peeled, each skin becoming a hovering Razor-Bat. They buzzed like some form of horrible mechanical bees.
The Razor-Bats chainsawed through the tall wheat as Spider-Man ran for his life. Nothing to swing off of, nowhere to hide. As if that wasn’t enough, his vision was hampered by the crops. He has to rely on his spider-sense to dodge the Razor-Bats.
The Hobgoblin circled like a vulture as Spider-Man pushed aside wheat and the Razor-Bats sliced through it like an army of scythe-wielding reapers, sending chaff high into the air. His hooded head shifted to look at a line of wheat-threshers advancing down the fields. The man on the glider thought that was funny as hell.
Ignoring the revelry of his attacker, Spider-Man dodged out of the way of a swooping Razor-Bat, chopping it on the top of the large battery pack in the middle as it passed. It was knocked down, but quickly rose and continued to attack. Damnit.
Finally, some luck. Spider-Man ran into a sloppy scarecrow with overalls, a pillow sack head, and a straw hat. As the Razor-Bats closed in, Spider-Man ripped it out of the ground and brandished it at them like a lion-tamer using a chair. After a moment of confused calculation, they advanced anyway. Spider-Man swung the scarecrow, post and all, like it weighted no more than a walking stick. The Razor-Bats were knocked around. One by one they became embedded in the wood. And began gnawing their way out, just as the threshers descended on Spider-Man. Five feet and closing.
“If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” Spider-Man groused.
Without hesitation, he threw the scarecrow into the nearest thresher. It was reduced to splinters along with the Razor-Bats. As he saw his toys ruined, the Hobgoblin cursed and jetted off.
“We’ll meet again, Spider-Man!”
“Sooner than you think,” Peter replied under his breath.
He broke out at a sprint, going so fast that just the wind of his passage knocked crops aside. He jumped toward the Hobgoblin, who banked to the side. Spider-Man shot a webline out and swung off a grain silo to deliver a kick to the escaping supervillain.
That was the plan, anyway.
The Hobgoblin slapped Spider-Man away, sending him flying back and through the wall of the grain silo. Laughing insanely, the Hobgoblin pulled out a pumpkin bomb, armed it, and threw it at the top of the silo.
Spider-Man landed on the floor just as the explosion ripped through the roof of the silo. Literally tons of grain descended on Spider-Man, who put his hands behind his back and quickly constructed a dome of webbing, pulling it over him seconds before the grain landed.
Outside, the Hobgoblin looked down the wrecked silo to the pile of grain that had buried Spider-Man.
”I believe that concludes our business,” he said before accelerating into the empty sky.
***
Once, in their rosier years of courtship, Rosalie had dragged him to the theater. Octavius had never had much use for cinema. The dreary theatrics and soggy melodrama couldn’t compare to the thrill of discovery, or the company of his Rosalie (he’d never understand why sitting in the dark, expected by decorum to keep silent, was considered to be an activity for two). Deliberately prodding him, she’d selected a Hong Kong action movie despite his distaste for violence. He’d enjoyed it. There was melodrama in equal part to the action, so at least the violence had context instead of just mindless gratuitousness. One scene stuck out at him, disturbing him right down to his deep-seated memory.
The hero, wounded, had taken a break from his estranged relationship with the villain and his reluctant wooing of the heroine to stitch up his cuts. The camera had lingered on a thin scarlet line across his arm as he poked needle and thread through it, again and again, lacerating himself. It was standard action movie hokum, but the self-destruction of that act, coupled with its regenerative nature, had shook Otto. He’d been quiet after that, with even Rosalie noting it, although she’d attributed it to squeamishness. Afterwards, he’d entirely forgotten the strange interlude.
In the fugue state, the psychotic haze from which his once-brilliant mind couldn’t seem to unshackle himself, that memory and a poem burned brightest. His body moved like an automaton with detailed orders, eyes and hands and tentacles focused on the third of his children, laid out on the table before him. Old tools and machinery were brought to bear, operating on it. And the genius intellect of Otto Octavius sprouted a phrase appropriate for the occasion of rebirth.
“The woods are lovely, dark, and deep/But I have promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep…”
All of Octavius’s limbs moved away as his child rose off the table. Its claws retracted and a nozzle extended from its palm. Flames shot out, heating Octavius’s skin in more ways than one. Octavius laughed and clapped his hands like a proud parent should.
The first tentacle he’d modified said something, its pincers sparking with electricity. Octavius nodded, then looked down at two more objects on the table. A buzz-saw and a minigun.
“Miles to go before I sleep...” he said to himself as he cracked his knuckles and reached for his tools once more.
Fandom: Spider-Man movieverse
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,338
Author’s Note: Betaed by
htbthomas. Takes place after the events of Spider-Man 2, assuming Spider-Man 3 never happened.Previous Part: Chapter 6
Next Part: Chapter 8
Characters/Pairings: Peter/MJ
Summary: Peter doesn’t regret Mary-Jane finding out his secret. He just wishes there were some questions she wouldn’t ask.
Central Park was beautiful in the summer, especially that summer. Not too hot, obviously not cold, but just… right. People flying kites and it was right. People rowing boats in the lake and it was right. Mary-Jane Watson was holding Peter Parker’s hand and it was right. They walked by Turtle Pond, walking on air.
“So anyway,” Peter was saying, “the fat guy says ‘Woo woo! I do have the proportional strength of a walrus! I do! And just like uncle told me to--I can engage in mass destruction! I am the Walrus!’”
”Sounds like he was in for… a hard day’s night!” Mary-Jane commented.
Peter cleared his throat.
”C’mon, that was a good one!”
”Well, I’m more of an Elvis man myself, so I wouldn’t know.”
A mugger stepped in front of them, aiming a gun at Peter. ”Your money or your life!”
The gun made a splash in Turtle Pond.
The Mugger put up his dukes.
”Alright, buddy, you wanna do things the hard way?”
The mugger made a bigger splash.
They continued on their walk.
“You suck!” the mugger yelled at them.
“Yeah, you’re lucky it’s not the East River, you hierophant!” Peter shouted back.
”Someone's been paying attention to their word-of-the-day calendar,” Mary-Jane said.
The waning sun finally set and they stopped at a hot dog vendor who was just closing up. Peter looked mournfully at his wallet as he paid, prompting Mary-Jane to slip a twenty from her own billfold into his pocket when he wasn’t looking.
“I’m gonna miss this,” Peter said as he took a bite out of his dog. “Job hunt’s gonna be kicking my ass soon and then I’ll probably have to work retail. And with you on Broadway, when will I ever get to see you?”
“I promise wherever you work, I’ll do all my shopping there.”
“What if it’s an…” Peter raised an eyebrow, “adult store?”
“I’m actually really happy with my current adult store.”
Peter sighed, already brought down from his bantering mood. “If only I had some way to get money...”
”You could always hit up J. Jonah Jameson for money.”
”What, you mean a severance package?”
”No, I mean giving him photos in exchange for the rendering of goods or services.”
”Why would Jameson take any photos from me? He thinks I ‘stole his son’s fiancé’.”
”I'll have a talk with John.”
”What? No, I can't ask you to do that.”
”Hey, I owe him an explanation anyway. And you should stop by too. It's hard to hold a grudge against someone once you get to know them.”
Peter flashed on Harry Osborn. ”You'd be surprised… I’m terrible, aren’t I? For days now you’ve been giving me this space, when you’ve gotta be curious about the whole… Spider-Man… thing.”
”Nah, why would I be curious about my best friend being a superhero for as long as we’ve really known each other?”
”Really? Whew.”
”That was sarcasm.”
Peter rolled his eyes. ”Damn. Alright, what do you want to know?”
***
In the study of Osborn manor, once more surrounded by his masked guardians… his guardians who were masks… Harry sat in a high-backed leather chair. A tourniquet was around his arm. He held up a syringe, found a vein, and injected himself. Sighed with relief. The phone rang and he dreamily answered it.
”Harry Osborn.”
The voice coming over the line was as smooth as it was familiar. “It’s Kingsley.”
Harry smirked. ”What can I do for you?”
”I’ve been going over your father’s designs for the Next-Gen Soldier concept…”
”The board abandoned that concept years ago,” Harry said as he loosened his tourniquet.
”Yes, but I think it shows a lot of potential. The glider alone is revolutionary in terms of territorial coverage by a lesser number of soldiers.”
”What are you saying? You want to reopen the research? The government bid was already won by Stark Enterprises; we would be sending money down the drain.”
”Harry, we can’t let this die. It’s too brilliant. It’s our duty to follow…”
Harry curtly pulled his sleeve down over the track marks on his arm. “Listen, Mr. Kingsley, I’m rather busy at the moment. Could we talk about this later?”
”Certainly. I have my own business to attend to.”
***
”A spider bit you? Really?” Mary-Jane giggled and Peter wiped a spot of mustard from her cheek.
”Well, it was a pretty big spider… why, what were you expecting?”
”I don’t know, you were chosen by a giant spider god or something.”
”You have an overdeveloped imagination, you know that?”
”Yeah.”
She grew serious, picking at a napkin. Fingers picking it apart into little paper shrapnel, letting them drop to the bench they were sitting on like confetti. Peter slurped his slushee extra loud to pull her out of her funk, but she only looked up at him when she was damn well ready.
”I really hate to put a damper on all this fun we’re having… especially considering the week I… we’ve had… but can I ask a personal question?”
”You’ve got me,” Peter said somberly. “I am Spider-Man.”
”I’m serious!”
”Sorry, sorry. Kneejerk reaction to bald-faced emotional intimacy. Won’t happen again.”
”What happened after the bridge?”
Peter suddenly lost his appetite. He pitched his drink into a trash can and thought about it. His mind felt like a train just taking off… unfathomably slow, but picking up undeniable and irrevocable speed.
”After the Green Goblin threw me off the bridge. What happened between you two?”
”Well... Jesus, I never thought you'd ask that.” Peter looked away, hedging. “I'd kinda forgotten.”
”Peter, please. I need to know.”
Peter took her hands in both of his, stopping her from further eviscerating the napkin. She met his eyes. His gaze was constant.
”He dragged me behind his glider to the shore. Threw me into an abandoned building, not much more than ruins. We fought. It seemed like hours. Nothing I did slowed him down.“
He grew distant, as if lost in the memories. Mary-Jane could almost hear a familiar cackle in the background.
”He was like a man possessed... and maybe he was. Finally, he cornered me. He was just about to kill me when he threatened you, MJ. And for some reason, that was the last straw. I got the upper hand, beat him within an inch of his life. But then he took his helmet off and... it was Norman Osborn.”
Peter stopped as the recollection forced its way to the surface. The adrenaline rush stopping cold, the face of Norman Osborn… and with it, suddenly the awareness of his own great weariness, the taste of his own blood in his mouth, the ache that covered his entire bruised body. He’d been so tired…
“All along, that's who it’d been. The man I thought I could trust. He tried to trick me and I said no. Then his glider attacked me from behind. I dodged it, but he got distracted and he... it didn't collide with him so much as it went through him. Like a pin sticking a butterfly to the wall.”
Norman suddenly shrinking. His armor grinding down to nothing, burning out. His glider’s mournful gasp as it ran out of gas, long before Peter was ready to move. The helmet lying on the ground, forever laughing, no longer a mask, but still a face…
“And he was just... hanging there, looking at me, his limbs... shaking, and we both knew he was dying. And he knew that it was his own fault. Every bit of it. He seemed to drain. Like all the hatred had gone out of him and he had nothing left. Nothing except his love for his son, as small and as twisted as it was. ‘Don't tell Harry.’ Those were his last words. Then he died and it was all so... meaningless, I remember thinking that. I don't know why he did it, what came over him. But I knew Harry didn't deserve the pain of knowing his father was the Green Goblin. I took his equipment, smashed it to bits and threw the pieces out to sea. Then I took him back to his house, set him down. Harry found me... he took things the wrong way. And he's hated me ever since.”
Harry’s expression, so lost, so hurt… thankfully not mirrored in Mary-Jane’s face. She was, if not understanding, sympathetic.
”It couldn't have happened any other way,” Peter said, more to himself than her. “It was me or him. He had the decision to give up, to do the right thing at any time and he never took it. I got over my guilt a long time ago.”
”I'm glad. He doesn't deserve your guilt. He doesn't deserve anything from you.”
Her voice was so harsh it took him by surprise. He looked straight at her and found her gaze unwavering. It felt bad to have his own unregretful words thrown back at him. Dirty.
”Mary-Jane...”
She was near tears. “You act like he was some kind of great man who got led astray or something. But I didn't know that man. He hated me. He thought I wasn't good enough for his son and then he kidnapped me. He tried to kill me. I'm glad he's dead, because now I know he won't ever come after me again. Do you know how big a relief that is? Do you know how many nightmares I’ve had, how many psychologists I've been to? But don't worry, I didn't know about your precious secret identity, so I couldn't very well have told anyone. And weeks later, when I finally screw up the courage to reach out to you, you say we should just be friends. Just be friends. I needed you, Peter, and...”
He leaned over, kissed her not because he loved her, though he did, and not because it felt good, though it did, but because he needed more than words to convince her that he was there now. And he would never leave her again.
”And I wasn't there,” Peter said. “I know. A lot of times I'm not there.
“I swing down Park Avenue, some guy is street pizza because I wasn't there thirty seconds ago. Police shootout, eight hostages dead in the crossfire, I wasn't there. Bomb threat, library, goes off, three people trapped inside. One died after seventeen minutes of being buried alive. Because I can't be everywhere. Because I can't be Spider-Man all the time. Do you know why? Even if the world doesn't need Peter Parker, I do. And the people I love do. And I wish I could have always been there to be everything you needed, but I wasn't. Sometimes I don't know what you need. You've gotta believe that I thought you would be better off without me.
“It killed me inside to walk away from you. I'd rather die than go through that again. And trying to stay away from you, it was like I was being crushed. Like there was this weight and it was always getting heavier. But I want… wanted… to do what was best for you, even if I didn't like it. I'm sorry it wasn't the right thing, or that it became the wrong thing. But I'm here, now, for you. And I won't let anything happen to you again.”
”How can you be so sure?”
”Because if anyone tries it, they won't just answer to Spider-Man. They'll have to deal with Peter Parker.”
She kissed him. This time it had nothing to do with conviction or promise-keeping, just them.
”Just so you know, I don’t normally do tearful confessions on a first date. Lessens my mystery.”
”C’mon, MJ. You know I’ll never solve you.”
”Peter Parker, I—“ Just as she opened her mouth a strange whistling sound filled the air.
Peter turned towards its source. Something was flying across the sky, blotting out stars. And it seemed to be getting closer…
“Peter,” Mary-Jane started to say, just as a smaller object detached from the larger and flew toward them.
Peter’s face twisted into fear. He pushed Mary-Jane out of the way. The object, a small artificial pumpkin with a fuse for a stem, landed and exploded. The shockwave blew Peter back, shotgunning him into a tree. He hit, fell, landed. His clothes were tattered. Beneath them, the spider-suit was partially revealed.
”What's the matter, Spider-Man?” the Goblin asked from his flying perch. “You look like you just saw a ghost.“
With an insane cackle, his glider passed over Peter and shot down a cable. It wrapped around Peter, lassoing him. Peter had time for one last glance at Mary-Jane – safe and unhurt, thank God – before he was yanked into the air. They flew towards city limits. The Goblin looked over his shoulder at Peter, still laughing madly.
”Well… boo!”
Peter struggled against his bonds, but they were hard as steel. “Weren’t you arguing with a wall last time I saw you, Gobby?”
”You must have mistaken me for someone else. I’m the Hobgoblin. The Hobgoblin!” he cried to pedestrians as he buzzed them, Peter having to run along the ground to keep from becoming street pizza. He prayed that at that speed, no one would get a good look at his face. Hobgoblin pulled up, jerking Peter off his feet. “I never thought it’d be so easy.”
Peter’s eyes narrowed. ”It’s never easy.”
He shot a webline at a passing building. It snagged and caused the glider to turn at an arc like a tetherball. The Hobgoblin was suddenly headed right toward the side of a building. He bounced off, cracking the concrete, and went into a tailspin.
Peter followed the same course, but he was ready. He kicked off his shoes and bent his legs to hit the wall, then stuck his feet to the building. When the Hobgoblin fell, he bent nearly double and let the lasso slip off his upper body. With it gone, he quickly ripped off his shredded clothing. Then his mask was on and he was ready for anything, everything.
The building they’d hit was the last brownstone before a small farming community on the outskirts of New York. The Hobgoblin recovered a few meters over the ground, which were rows and rows of wheat stalks as far as the eye could see. Spider-Man coiled his legs and lunged for the Hobgoblin, but the glider strafed out of the way and Spider-Man hit the ground in a roll, coming up just as the Hobgoblin threw another object at him and flew away. This was no pumpkin, but instead a squat, round goblin grenade.
It split along the seams like an orange being peeled, each skin becoming a hovering Razor-Bat. They buzzed like some form of horrible mechanical bees.
The Razor-Bats chainsawed through the tall wheat as Spider-Man ran for his life. Nothing to swing off of, nowhere to hide. As if that wasn’t enough, his vision was hampered by the crops. He has to rely on his spider-sense to dodge the Razor-Bats.
The Hobgoblin circled like a vulture as Spider-Man pushed aside wheat and the Razor-Bats sliced through it like an army of scythe-wielding reapers, sending chaff high into the air. His hooded head shifted to look at a line of wheat-threshers advancing down the fields. The man on the glider thought that was funny as hell.
Ignoring the revelry of his attacker, Spider-Man dodged out of the way of a swooping Razor-Bat, chopping it on the top of the large battery pack in the middle as it passed. It was knocked down, but quickly rose and continued to attack. Damnit.
Finally, some luck. Spider-Man ran into a sloppy scarecrow with overalls, a pillow sack head, and a straw hat. As the Razor-Bats closed in, Spider-Man ripped it out of the ground and brandished it at them like a lion-tamer using a chair. After a moment of confused calculation, they advanced anyway. Spider-Man swung the scarecrow, post and all, like it weighted no more than a walking stick. The Razor-Bats were knocked around. One by one they became embedded in the wood. And began gnawing their way out, just as the threshers descended on Spider-Man. Five feet and closing.
“If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” Spider-Man groused.
Without hesitation, he threw the scarecrow into the nearest thresher. It was reduced to splinters along with the Razor-Bats. As he saw his toys ruined, the Hobgoblin cursed and jetted off.
“We’ll meet again, Spider-Man!”
“Sooner than you think,” Peter replied under his breath.
He broke out at a sprint, going so fast that just the wind of his passage knocked crops aside. He jumped toward the Hobgoblin, who banked to the side. Spider-Man shot a webline out and swung off a grain silo to deliver a kick to the escaping supervillain.
That was the plan, anyway.
The Hobgoblin slapped Spider-Man away, sending him flying back and through the wall of the grain silo. Laughing insanely, the Hobgoblin pulled out a pumpkin bomb, armed it, and threw it at the top of the silo.
Spider-Man landed on the floor just as the explosion ripped through the roof of the silo. Literally tons of grain descended on Spider-Man, who put his hands behind his back and quickly constructed a dome of webbing, pulling it over him seconds before the grain landed.
Outside, the Hobgoblin looked down the wrecked silo to the pile of grain that had buried Spider-Man.
”I believe that concludes our business,” he said before accelerating into the empty sky.
***
Once, in their rosier years of courtship, Rosalie had dragged him to the theater. Octavius had never had much use for cinema. The dreary theatrics and soggy melodrama couldn’t compare to the thrill of discovery, or the company of his Rosalie (he’d never understand why sitting in the dark, expected by decorum to keep silent, was considered to be an activity for two). Deliberately prodding him, she’d selected a Hong Kong action movie despite his distaste for violence. He’d enjoyed it. There was melodrama in equal part to the action, so at least the violence had context instead of just mindless gratuitousness. One scene stuck out at him, disturbing him right down to his deep-seated memory.
The hero, wounded, had taken a break from his estranged relationship with the villain and his reluctant wooing of the heroine to stitch up his cuts. The camera had lingered on a thin scarlet line across his arm as he poked needle and thread through it, again and again, lacerating himself. It was standard action movie hokum, but the self-destruction of that act, coupled with its regenerative nature, had shook Otto. He’d been quiet after that, with even Rosalie noting it, although she’d attributed it to squeamishness. Afterwards, he’d entirely forgotten the strange interlude.
In the fugue state, the psychotic haze from which his once-brilliant mind couldn’t seem to unshackle himself, that memory and a poem burned brightest. His body moved like an automaton with detailed orders, eyes and hands and tentacles focused on the third of his children, laid out on the table before him. Old tools and machinery were brought to bear, operating on it. And the genius intellect of Otto Octavius sprouted a phrase appropriate for the occasion of rebirth.
“The woods are lovely, dark, and deep/But I have promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep…”
All of Octavius’s limbs moved away as his child rose off the table. Its claws retracted and a nozzle extended from its palm. Flames shot out, heating Octavius’s skin in more ways than one. Octavius laughed and clapped his hands like a proud parent should.
The first tentacle he’d modified said something, its pincers sparking with electricity. Octavius nodded, then looked down at two more objects on the table. A buzz-saw and a minigun.
“Miles to go before I sleep...” he said to himself as he cracked his knuckles and reached for his tools once more.
