![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficWho would be up for a J. Jonah Jameson spin-off movie instead of Spider-Man 4? What if they promised that Elizabeth Banks would have a leading role?
The Daily Bugle should have been winding down this close to closing time. But the Hobgoblin’s latest rampage had energized it like a stick poking a beehive. And Jameson made for an irate queen bee.
Amateur pictures of the Hobgoblin were being brought to him, usually showing only a part of his leg or arm but mostly just a thumb over the lens. Jameson was obsessively cutting some pieces out and stapling them together, crumpling most to throw away. He was on a roll.
”Miss Brant! Cigar!” he bellowed, successfully lining up the Hobgoblin’s elbow across two photos.
She picked up one intact cigar from his ashtray and handed it to him. He gave her an incredulous look before grabbing it.
”Where's Parker? He always seems to get good pictures of these costumed clowns.”
”You fired him.”
”Oh yeah. Best decision I ever made! We're better off without him! Where's Leeds?”
”That’s what I’d like to know.”
”What? When he gets back, tell him he's fired.”
”Yes sir.”
Robbie Robertson entered, Hoffman quick on his heels.
“Mr. Jameson, we can't run the Goblin on the front page,” the harried advertising executive claimed. “We already promised the mayor...”
Jameson didn’t interrupt him so much as disregard that he had ever been speaking. ”Robbie, just the man I was waiting for! Do we still have the patent on the Green Goblin?”
”Yes, but...”
”Good! I want to know where he's been for the past four years and what Spider-Man… No, it can’t be the same person. What’s the relation between the old Green Goblin and this new…”
”Hobgoblin,” Hoffman said.
”That sucks.”
“It’s what he calls himself.”
“You’d think a guy who dresses up like he’s giving out Halloween candy and flies around on a surfboard would be more creative. Okay, Hobgoblin, let’s go with that.”
Betty Brant had just gotten back to her desk after what seemed like hours on her feet (high heels were a bad choice) when Peter sat down across from her. It wasn’t an unpleasant surprise; he was a good-looking kid and good company. She hoped he hadn’t just now worked up the courage to pick her up. Things were just starting to heat up with Ned and… wait, wasn’t he with that Mary Lane girl? Yeah. Good.
She hoped they weren’t swingers.
In the time it’d taken her to think all that, Peter had graduated from a hopeful look to words. “Hey, Betty, Jonah in the market for pictures?”
”Always.”
“He’s not still… mad, is he?”
“He’s Jonah.”
Jameson screamed in inarticulate rage, rattling the windows. “Who put mustard on this ham and cheese mayo!?”
Peter found something of interest about his feet. “Point, point.”
“Oh, by the way, have you seen Ned?” Betty asked.
“Nope, sorry.”
”Well, if you find him, tell him to not bother calling me after skipping dinner last night. But, you know, tell him you’re sure I’ll calm down after he gets me some flowers.”
”He skipped dinner?”
”Yes. I was finally going to introduce him to my mother.”
Peter stood up awkwardly. ”Well, I’m sure something important came up.”
”Yeah. Like taking pictures. What is it with you photographers? Always think that camera gives you an excuse to run off as soon as there’s some excitement in the air. I swear, Ned’s the last photographer I’ll date. I couldn’t live, always wondering whether or not someone I love is going to come home or not.”
Peter froze like a deer in the headlights. ”But… that’s just you, right?”
Betty looked up at him sweetly. “Ah, don’t worry Peter. You’ll find someone who can keep up with you. If the office gossip is right, you and the boss’ almost-stepdaughter…”
Peter wasn’t listening to her. He was watching Ned, who’d entered with a bouquet of flowers. Peter patted Betty’s hand and said, sotto voce, “Listen, Betty, go easy on him. I’m sure he has a good reason..”
He walked away, passing Ned. The photographer bumped into him, knocking him against a lunch table. “Stay away from my girl, Parker,” Ned said in a fierce whisper too low for Betty to hear.
Before Peter can retort, Leeds was away and presenting his flowers to Betty. There’s gratitude for you…Peter thought to himself. And he went missing last night, same evening as the Oscorp break-in… great, now I’m seeing Goblins in every corner.
”Parker!” Jameson yelled from the doorway. “What’re you doing here, chatting out my employees when they should be working? This isn’t a lonely hearts club! You wanna stay around here, get some pictures!”
“I did, sir—“ Peter started to say, when Ned cut in front of him.
“I did, sir.”
”Leeds! What are you doing here? Haven't you heard you're fired?”
”I've got pictures of the second Green Goblin.”
”Welcome to the Daily Bugle,” Jameson 180ed. “And it's not the second Green Goblin, kiddo... it's the Hobgoblin!” He looked over the photos. They weren’t just good. They were amazing. He might actually have to pay what they were worth. “Kid, you’re going places!”
”Really?”
“Yeah! To Smith, and tell him to run these front page!”
Leeds turned so fast that he crashed into Peter. Photographs scattered to the ground like shrapnel from an explosion. Peter said sorry and bent down to help Leeds clean up. He paused on one of the photos. It wasn’t just good. It was amazing…ly suspicious.
”Nice pix, Ned. How’d you get them?”
”Same way you get all those shots of Spider-Man. Secretly.” Ned snatched the photo from Peter’s hands. “How’s it feel to be second-best?”
He walked away.
Peter stood, starting to wonder if it was fair to punch Ned out when there was probably no way he was the Goblin. ”Mr. Jameson, may I see you for a minute?”
”Wassamatter, Parker?” Jameson barked, stubbing out his cigar. “You forgot what I look like?”
”Nobody could forget a thing like that, sir! I’ve got photos that are…”
”I’m not buying anything from you!”
Robbie nudged Jameson. Hard.
“You’re lucky, Parker, my son seems to have taken pity on you! I’ll give you one chance to redeem yourself; what’ve you got?”
Peter handed Jameson some photos of Spider-Man fighting Hobgoblin. Pretty good, Peter thought to himself. Got the camera placed nicely, had the flash precisely calibrated…
”What is this crap? More Spider-Man garbage? We’ve got two new, fresh freaks running around the city and you can’t take pictures of them? “
”But I’ve got…”
”Leeds’ photos have yours beat all to hell. Get out of here. Come back when you’ve got something that doesn’t look like it was shot by a tourist.”
***
As soon as Peter got home (having run at least a thousand variations on plugging Ned’s big mouth with some particularly foul-tasting webbing through his head), he looked for a listing on Donald Menken. Nothing came up. He called Robbie to ask for Menken’s address, and Robbie promised he’d get to it as soon as the Bugle saw print. With nothing better to do, Peter submerged his frustration into work. He had an old science project in a drawer of his desk. He dropped it on his table and started fiddling.
Next thing he knew, Mary-Jane was shaking his shoulder. He’d fallen asleep in front of his junkyard salvage, bracketed by old radios and monochrome TVs, with a few tiny screws embedded in his cheek. He brushed them away.
“Dinner with the aunts, you in or out?”
“In.” Peter cracked his neck. “I was just about to give this baby a test run…”
”Give what a test run?”
Peter picked up a flat, spider-shaped disk about the size of a dime. He pressed one side of it to the wall; it stuck there.
”That’s not all it does, is it?” Mary-Jane wasn’t unimpressed, just impatient.
”Watch and be amazed.” He peeled it off and handed it to her. ”Hide it somewhere.”
“We’re going to be late.”
”Seriously, it will just take a minute.”
Mary-Jane sighed and backed away from Peter. He had his eyes closed. After a quick check to her watch, she slipped the disk behind a book on his bookshelf.
”Okay, it’s hidden.”
Peter stood up, eyes still closed and walked straight to the book. He paged through it. Then he opened his eyes as he held out the disk to her.
“How’d you do that?”
”A rare mineral that seems to trigger my spider-sense when an electrical current is run through it. Just combined it with some hearing aid batteries and voila! Homemade tracking device.”
”That’s nice, but what can you use it for?”
”Well, if I want to follow a car...”
”You're Spider-Man. Why don't you just follow it?”
”Because I have to do something else, like fight a supervillain or put out a fire.”
”Okay, so why don't you just get the license plate number?”
”I'm Spider-Man, not T.J. Hooker! It's not like I can call up the cops and say ‘Hey guys, could you do me, Spider-Man, a favor and keep an eye out for this car? Thanks a bil!’”
”No need to get snippy.”
”I'm sorry but...” Peter tossed the spider-tracer from one hand to the other. “Well, can't you see how cool this is?”
”It's a tracer. Every law-enforcement agency in the country has one.”
”And now so do I! And it only cost me an old TR-80 and some stuff on clearance at Radio Shack!”
Mary-Jane couldn't help but fall for his giddiness. “Okay, so what do you call it?”
”I was thinking... spider-tracer!”
”Right. Now can we go down to the spider-mobile and drive to your aunt’s spider-cave?”
Peter smiled before his expression fell. “Just let me grab something.”
“Hurry.”
Peter shoved something off his card table and into a satchel, which he slung over his shoulder as he followed Mary-Jane out of the apartment. It wasn’t until they were safely buckled into the car that he laid it out on his lap.
“When Hobgoblin started making threats… I was afraid I’d lose you. All my old fears about them getting to me through you came back to life.”
Mary-Jane looked over at him. Peter’s head was downcast in a melancholy and he wasn’t looking at her. “Are you trying to break up with me or something?”
”No. I need to give you something.”
He pulled out a strange-looking device out of his satchel. It looked something like a modified remote control.
”What is it?”
”I haven’t really thought of a name yet, but it uses electromagnetic waves to disrupt mechanical systems… I’m a little woozy on the details right now, but that’s probably because I haven’t been getting enough sleep. But if Hobgoblin attacks you, try to use this on his glider. Should mess up his day. I was building it to use myself, but you need it more.”
Peter was trying to stuff it into her purse. Mary-Jane shoved it away. “No, you do. You go out there, looking for fights…”
”I couldn’t bear if anything happened to you. Take it.“
Mary-Jane did. Looking down on it, she saw the spider-suit below her, freshly sewn-up but still dark with faded blood.
“What if something happened to you?”
Peter turned a little, as if hiding his bruised side from her. “Me? I’m the Amazing Spider-Man. Nothing can touch me.”
Mary-Jane took his hand and sat down on the couch with him. Peter kept standing, his hand trailing down to MJ. ”What would you do if I asked you to stop?” Mary-Jane picked up his mask and held it out to him. “To give up Spider-Man for me?”
Like a gutshot man, Peter sat down beside her. A long moment passed, Mary-Jane’s expression giving not an inch. Peter turned the mask over in his hands, over and over, not meeting her eyes or its. He finally broke and looked at her. She had settled across the couch with her head on the armrest’s cushions, a throw rug wrapped tightly around her like she was a sick person.
”Yes,” he said at last.
”But I’m not asking you.”
”No, you’re not.” Neither of them were sure whether it was an observation or an order, so Peter just leaned over and kissed her. The phone rang. It was Robbie. Not much to go on with regards to Donald Menken, but Robbie had managed to dig up his address. Mary-Jane settled in on the couch, arms wrapped tightly around herself. Peter grabbed a fresh spider-suit from the closet. Looks like it’s time for Dr. Spidey to pay a little house call.
Mary-Jane yawned, catching him at the window. His mask and costume were on, and he wondered how he look to her through the haze of the waking dream.
All she said was, “Don’t.” She got a look on her face like she regretted it, but he knew she meant it.
”I have to.” He went to her and pulled up his mask to kiss the top of her head. “I’ll be back soon… Go get ‘em, tiger?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever.”
***
The nurse was nice enough. She reminded Curt of Martha, just a little bit. But she was used to deformity; she didn’t shy away when presented with his missing arm. That didn’t remind him of Martha. Not at all.
“You’re a very lucky man.” All the policemen had said it. To escape from Doctor Octopus with only small cuts and bruises… how was that possible? Curt couldn’t answer them. He’d gone to sleep a dying man, expecting never to wake up… and then he’d woken up with a new lease on life.
Tomorrow, the doctors would be content with his good health and let him go home to his family. Curt couldn’t wait, even if Martha would look at him, thinking him weak, thinking him less of a man. Not just half-formed, but sickly, ill, deathly. Yes, that was how she would think of him.
His stump began bleeding again. The stitches must’ve popped. He pressed the aid button, summoning a nurse.
So far, none of them had been able to figure out why Doctor Octopus had sliced open the stump of his right arm. Or why it kept bleeding.
The Daily Bugle should have been winding down this close to closing time. But the Hobgoblin’s latest rampage had energized it like a stick poking a beehive. And Jameson made for an irate queen bee.
Amateur pictures of the Hobgoblin were being brought to him, usually showing only a part of his leg or arm but mostly just a thumb over the lens. Jameson was obsessively cutting some pieces out and stapling them together, crumpling most to throw away. He was on a roll.
”Miss Brant! Cigar!” he bellowed, successfully lining up the Hobgoblin’s elbow across two photos.
She picked up one intact cigar from his ashtray and handed it to him. He gave her an incredulous look before grabbing it.
”Where's Parker? He always seems to get good pictures of these costumed clowns.”
”You fired him.”
”Oh yeah. Best decision I ever made! We're better off without him! Where's Leeds?”
”That’s what I’d like to know.”
”What? When he gets back, tell him he's fired.”
”Yes sir.”
Robbie Robertson entered, Hoffman quick on his heels.
“Mr. Jameson, we can't run the Goblin on the front page,” the harried advertising executive claimed. “We already promised the mayor...”
Jameson didn’t interrupt him so much as disregard that he had ever been speaking. ”Robbie, just the man I was waiting for! Do we still have the patent on the Green Goblin?”
”Yes, but...”
”Good! I want to know where he's been for the past four years and what Spider-Man… No, it can’t be the same person. What’s the relation between the old Green Goblin and this new…”
”Hobgoblin,” Hoffman said.
”That sucks.”
“It’s what he calls himself.”
“You’d think a guy who dresses up like he’s giving out Halloween candy and flies around on a surfboard would be more creative. Okay, Hobgoblin, let’s go with that.”
Betty Brant had just gotten back to her desk after what seemed like hours on her feet (high heels were a bad choice) when Peter sat down across from her. It wasn’t an unpleasant surprise; he was a good-looking kid and good company. She hoped he hadn’t just now worked up the courage to pick her up. Things were just starting to heat up with Ned and… wait, wasn’t he with that Mary Lane girl? Yeah. Good.
She hoped they weren’t swingers.
In the time it’d taken her to think all that, Peter had graduated from a hopeful look to words. “Hey, Betty, Jonah in the market for pictures?”
”Always.”
“He’s not still… mad, is he?”
“He’s Jonah.”
Jameson screamed in inarticulate rage, rattling the windows. “Who put mustard on this ham and cheese mayo!?”
Peter found something of interest about his feet. “Point, point.”
“Oh, by the way, have you seen Ned?” Betty asked.
“Nope, sorry.”
”Well, if you find him, tell him to not bother calling me after skipping dinner last night. But, you know, tell him you’re sure I’ll calm down after he gets me some flowers.”
”He skipped dinner?”
”Yes. I was finally going to introduce him to my mother.”
Peter stood up awkwardly. ”Well, I’m sure something important came up.”
”Yeah. Like taking pictures. What is it with you photographers? Always think that camera gives you an excuse to run off as soon as there’s some excitement in the air. I swear, Ned’s the last photographer I’ll date. I couldn’t live, always wondering whether or not someone I love is going to come home or not.”
Peter froze like a deer in the headlights. ”But… that’s just you, right?”
Betty looked up at him sweetly. “Ah, don’t worry Peter. You’ll find someone who can keep up with you. If the office gossip is right, you and the boss’ almost-stepdaughter…”
Peter wasn’t listening to her. He was watching Ned, who’d entered with a bouquet of flowers. Peter patted Betty’s hand and said, sotto voce, “Listen, Betty, go easy on him. I’m sure he has a good reason..”
He walked away, passing Ned. The photographer bumped into him, knocking him against a lunch table. “Stay away from my girl, Parker,” Ned said in a fierce whisper too low for Betty to hear.
Before Peter can retort, Leeds was away and presenting his flowers to Betty. There’s gratitude for you…Peter thought to himself. And he went missing last night, same evening as the Oscorp break-in… great, now I’m seeing Goblins in every corner.
”Parker!” Jameson yelled from the doorway. “What’re you doing here, chatting out my employees when they should be working? This isn’t a lonely hearts club! You wanna stay around here, get some pictures!”
“I did, sir—“ Peter started to say, when Ned cut in front of him.
“I did, sir.”
”Leeds! What are you doing here? Haven't you heard you're fired?”
”I've got pictures of the second Green Goblin.”
”Welcome to the Daily Bugle,” Jameson 180ed. “And it's not the second Green Goblin, kiddo... it's the Hobgoblin!” He looked over the photos. They weren’t just good. They were amazing. He might actually have to pay what they were worth. “Kid, you’re going places!”
”Really?”
“Yeah! To Smith, and tell him to run these front page!”
Leeds turned so fast that he crashed into Peter. Photographs scattered to the ground like shrapnel from an explosion. Peter said sorry and bent down to help Leeds clean up. He paused on one of the photos. It wasn’t just good. It was amazing…ly suspicious.
”Nice pix, Ned. How’d you get them?”
”Same way you get all those shots of Spider-Man. Secretly.” Ned snatched the photo from Peter’s hands. “How’s it feel to be second-best?”
He walked away.
Peter stood, starting to wonder if it was fair to punch Ned out when there was probably no way he was the Goblin. ”Mr. Jameson, may I see you for a minute?”
”Wassamatter, Parker?” Jameson barked, stubbing out his cigar. “You forgot what I look like?”
”Nobody could forget a thing like that, sir! I’ve got photos that are…”
”I’m not buying anything from you!”
Robbie nudged Jameson. Hard.
“You’re lucky, Parker, my son seems to have taken pity on you! I’ll give you one chance to redeem yourself; what’ve you got?”
Peter handed Jameson some photos of Spider-Man fighting Hobgoblin. Pretty good, Peter thought to himself. Got the camera placed nicely, had the flash precisely calibrated…
”What is this crap? More Spider-Man garbage? We’ve got two new, fresh freaks running around the city and you can’t take pictures of them? “
”But I’ve got…”
”Leeds’ photos have yours beat all to hell. Get out of here. Come back when you’ve got something that doesn’t look like it was shot by a tourist.”
***
As soon as Peter got home (having run at least a thousand variations on plugging Ned’s big mouth with some particularly foul-tasting webbing through his head), he looked for a listing on Donald Menken. Nothing came up. He called Robbie to ask for Menken’s address, and Robbie promised he’d get to it as soon as the Bugle saw print. With nothing better to do, Peter submerged his frustration into work. He had an old science project in a drawer of his desk. He dropped it on his table and started fiddling.
Next thing he knew, Mary-Jane was shaking his shoulder. He’d fallen asleep in front of his junkyard salvage, bracketed by old radios and monochrome TVs, with a few tiny screws embedded in his cheek. He brushed them away.
“Dinner with the aunts, you in or out?”
“In.” Peter cracked his neck. “I was just about to give this baby a test run…”
”Give what a test run?”
Peter picked up a flat, spider-shaped disk about the size of a dime. He pressed one side of it to the wall; it stuck there.
”That’s not all it does, is it?” Mary-Jane wasn’t unimpressed, just impatient.
”Watch and be amazed.” He peeled it off and handed it to her. ”Hide it somewhere.”
“We’re going to be late.”
”Seriously, it will just take a minute.”
Mary-Jane sighed and backed away from Peter. He had his eyes closed. After a quick check to her watch, she slipped the disk behind a book on his bookshelf.
”Okay, it’s hidden.”
Peter stood up, eyes still closed and walked straight to the book. He paged through it. Then he opened his eyes as he held out the disk to her.
“How’d you do that?”
”A rare mineral that seems to trigger my spider-sense when an electrical current is run through it. Just combined it with some hearing aid batteries and voila! Homemade tracking device.”
”That’s nice, but what can you use it for?”
”Well, if I want to follow a car...”
”You're Spider-Man. Why don't you just follow it?”
”Because I have to do something else, like fight a supervillain or put out a fire.”
”Okay, so why don't you just get the license plate number?”
”I'm Spider-Man, not T.J. Hooker! It's not like I can call up the cops and say ‘Hey guys, could you do me, Spider-Man, a favor and keep an eye out for this car? Thanks a bil!’”
”No need to get snippy.”
”I'm sorry but...” Peter tossed the spider-tracer from one hand to the other. “Well, can't you see how cool this is?”
”It's a tracer. Every law-enforcement agency in the country has one.”
”And now so do I! And it only cost me an old TR-80 and some stuff on clearance at Radio Shack!”
Mary-Jane couldn't help but fall for his giddiness. “Okay, so what do you call it?”
”I was thinking... spider-tracer!”
”Right. Now can we go down to the spider-mobile and drive to your aunt’s spider-cave?”
Peter smiled before his expression fell. “Just let me grab something.”
“Hurry.”
Peter shoved something off his card table and into a satchel, which he slung over his shoulder as he followed Mary-Jane out of the apartment. It wasn’t until they were safely buckled into the car that he laid it out on his lap.
“When Hobgoblin started making threats… I was afraid I’d lose you. All my old fears about them getting to me through you came back to life.”
Mary-Jane looked over at him. Peter’s head was downcast in a melancholy and he wasn’t looking at her. “Are you trying to break up with me or something?”
”No. I need to give you something.”
He pulled out a strange-looking device out of his satchel. It looked something like a modified remote control.
”What is it?”
”I haven’t really thought of a name yet, but it uses electromagnetic waves to disrupt mechanical systems… I’m a little woozy on the details right now, but that’s probably because I haven’t been getting enough sleep. But if Hobgoblin attacks you, try to use this on his glider. Should mess up his day. I was building it to use myself, but you need it more.”
Peter was trying to stuff it into her purse. Mary-Jane shoved it away. “No, you do. You go out there, looking for fights…”
”I couldn’t bear if anything happened to you. Take it.“
Mary-Jane did. Looking down on it, she saw the spider-suit below her, freshly sewn-up but still dark with faded blood.
“What if something happened to you?”
Peter turned a little, as if hiding his bruised side from her. “Me? I’m the Amazing Spider-Man. Nothing can touch me.”
Mary-Jane took his hand and sat down on the couch with him. Peter kept standing, his hand trailing down to MJ. ”What would you do if I asked you to stop?” Mary-Jane picked up his mask and held it out to him. “To give up Spider-Man for me?”
Like a gutshot man, Peter sat down beside her. A long moment passed, Mary-Jane’s expression giving not an inch. Peter turned the mask over in his hands, over and over, not meeting her eyes or its. He finally broke and looked at her. She had settled across the couch with her head on the armrest’s cushions, a throw rug wrapped tightly around her like she was a sick person.
”Yes,” he said at last.
”But I’m not asking you.”
”No, you’re not.” Neither of them were sure whether it was an observation or an order, so Peter just leaned over and kissed her. The phone rang. It was Robbie. Not much to go on with regards to Donald Menken, but Robbie had managed to dig up his address. Mary-Jane settled in on the couch, arms wrapped tightly around herself. Peter grabbed a fresh spider-suit from the closet. Looks like it’s time for Dr. Spidey to pay a little house call.
Mary-Jane yawned, catching him at the window. His mask and costume were on, and he wondered how he look to her through the haze of the waking dream.
All she said was, “Don’t.” She got a look on her face like she regretted it, but he knew she meant it.
”I have to.” He went to her and pulled up his mask to kiss the top of her head. “I’ll be back soon… Go get ‘em, tiger?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever.”
***
The nurse was nice enough. She reminded Curt of Martha, just a little bit. But she was used to deformity; she didn’t shy away when presented with his missing arm. That didn’t remind him of Martha. Not at all.
“You’re a very lucky man.” All the policemen had said it. To escape from Doctor Octopus with only small cuts and bruises… how was that possible? Curt couldn’t answer them. He’d gone to sleep a dying man, expecting never to wake up… and then he’d woken up with a new lease on life.
Tomorrow, the doctors would be content with his good health and let him go home to his family. Curt couldn’t wait, even if Martha would look at him, thinking him weak, thinking him less of a man. Not just half-formed, but sickly, ill, deathly. Yes, that was how she would think of him.
His stump began bleeding again. The stitches must’ve popped. He pressed the aid button, summoning a nurse.
So far, none of them had been able to figure out why Doctor Octopus had sliced open the stump of his right arm. Or why it kept bleeding.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-09-01 03:01 am (UTC)spider-guy
Date: 2009-09-01 03:04 pm (UTC)I love your story, and i'm sorry (SLAP! OUCH! My imaginary Gibbs just slapped me behind the head and told me not to apologize, that it was a sign of weakness! lol ) that my first comment is somewhat negative. You had Pete and MJ in the car, but then they where on the couch without transition. I just totaly love your Betty. In a few inner words you made her into a real character for me. Unlike in the movies ( *cough* cardboard cutout character *cough* ). Looking forward to the next part.