And finally, the thing that really hurt: He didn’t have a father to go around boasting on his behalf.
You could have had me.
Peter had sat down to take a breather. He’d been going nearly nonstop since the previous day and his altercation with Octavius—whom the Daily Bugle was now referring to as “Doc Ock.” It was a showy name and yet, Peter hated to admit, appropriate. More appropriate than Otto Octavius, really, because Otto Octavius had been a great man and even a friend. Doc Ock was a monster who ripped open bank vaults and kidnapped helpless women, and the mere thought of his aunt May in danger was enough to bring his blood to a boil.
You could have had me, the voice repeated. But you screwed up.
He glanced in annoyance at Uncle Ben, who was seated next to him on the bench. “I wouldn’t have been a hero then, wouldn’t have become Spider-Man, if not for that screwup. So you wouldn’t have had anything to go around boasting about.”
Ben’s face twisted in disappointment. You’re joking, right? Honor student? Science scholar? A good nephew, the son I never had? I would have found plenty to boast about. You don’t do this to give me something to boast about. You do it because it’s what you have to do. What you owe.
“But Uncle Ben—”
Suddenly a foot kicked Peter sharply in the shin and he jumped slightly. He blinked and looked up at a scowling Jonah Jameson. “Doze off and mutter to yourself on your own time, Parker, not mine. Now get out there and take pictures of me being altruistic and raising money for the new Library of Science, or you’ll regret it.” Then the scowl was instantly replaced with a snakelike smile as he stepped away from Peter to greet some dignitary, pumping his hand enthusiastically and talking, yet again, about his son.
There were fields of shooting stars glowing overhead in the planetarium dome, as well as constellations and comets. Peter would have been just as happy if they removed the dome so he could look at actual stars in the heavens. He maneuvered his way through the celebrants, deftly moving between waiters carrying perfectly balanced trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres. In the background, a pianist was playing various standards and show tunes. Peter was tempted to go over and ask him if he knew anything by AC/DC, but had a feeling the request wouldn’t go over well. Probably the most radical artist represented in the guy’s repertoire was Billy Joel.
Peter snapped photos at random as his thoughts moved back to Doc Ock. He’d tried to catch up with him once he’d gotten Aunt May to safety, but it had been too late. He’d made his escape, and although Peter’s personal worst-case scenarios had Ock showing up at Aunt May’s house in a fit of revenge, he knew that wouldn’t happen. May remained an “unidentified woman” in the reports on the incident, and once he’d switched out of his costume (not an easy feat; getting back to his clothes had been problematic and required every bit of stealth he possessed to slip past the police crews going over the scene of the crime) and caught up with her, he’d convinced her to keep her name out of it, specifically out of fear of recriminations.
She’d deferred to his pleadings on the matter. “Anything to help you worry less, Peter,” she’d clucked.
But where was Doc Ock? Where was he hiding?
Peter began to think he should develop some sort of tracer device. Something small that he could stick on an opponent to track him. Yes, that might not be a bad idea at all. Yeah, I’ll use my vast fortune to develop the technology to make it work, he thought, and dismissed the notion.
He moved past some guy at the bar who was wobbling from side to side, and then realized the guy was Harry. Not only did Harry have a mixed drink in front of him, he was snatching a glass of champagne from a passing tray and downing that, as well. Peter put a cautioning hand on his shoulder. “You’re drinking too much champagne.”
Harry shrugged. “It’s a party. Wouldn’t you be drinking if you’d just lost a bundle on a crackpot who you thought was taking you with him to fame and fortune? Not to forget your friend, the bug.”
The truth was, Peter could understand Harry’s frustration and humiliation over the failed experiment. He’d taken a major financial and publicity hit. To say nothing of the fact that at least a dozen of the scientists in attendance at the function were talking about filing lawsuits against Harry, thanks to their nearly getting killed at an Osborn-backed function. But the snide mention of Spider-Man still rankled.
“None of that tonight, Harry,” he urged.
“Every night, pal,” Harry said, shaking his head. “Until I find him, it’s 24/7.”
“Parker!” Jameson’s voice boomed from nearby.
“Excuse me,” he told Harry. “Gotta work.”
He walked away from his friend, hoping Harry would stop drinking, knowing that he wouldn’t. At least he’d seen Harry arrive driven by a chauffeur. At this rate, by the end of the evening Harry wouldn’t be able to tie his own shoelaces much less drive himself home.
Jameson was standing with a group of miscellaneous notables, gesturing to this person and that person and looking for all the world as if he were conducting an orchestra. “Parker! Get me and Mrs. Jameson with the senator. No, get my wife with the minister. And shoot the mayor and his girlfriend—I mean wife.”
Peter was about to remind Jonah Jameson that uttering the phrase “Shoot the mayor” in this situation might not be the best choice of words, and could land Jameson in a small room for extended police questioning. But then he mentally pictured exactly that, and chose not to say anything.
A matronly-looking society woman, Mrs. Severin, was standing at a podium in the front, tapping on a microphone to bring all eyes to her. There was just enough shrill feedback to get everyone’s pained attention, and Mrs. Severin smiled gamely. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said breathlessly, “the Committee for the Science Library of New York presents our guest of honor: the first man to play football on the moon. The handsome, the heroic, the delicious Captain John Jameson.”
The pianist banged out “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Peter figured it was because he didn’t know how to play “Man on the Moon.”
John Jameson made his grand entrance, waving to the crowd, milking every moment of it. Unreasonably, Peter had been hoping John would just look like a young version of Jonah, right down to the stupid upright hair. Instead, Peter had to admit that he was a striking young man, dressed in military attire with enough medals to set off an airport detector two miles away. As a matter of fact, he bore a passing resemblance to that guy he’d spotted Mary Jane with outside her…
… theater…
… and there she was, right on his arm, her red hair elegantly coiffed, dressed in a sleek black evening gown. She stood and beamed as various officials came up to her and greeted her warmly while they shook John Jameson’s hand, and her gaze swept the crowd. When it fell upon Peter, however, it came to a halt and her eyes widened in shock.
Jonah was suddenly at his shoulder. “Parker,” he said briskly, “shoot my son and his girlfriend. Shoot, Parker, shoot!”
If he’d had a gun at that moment, he thought bleakly, he might well have done just that, although whether he’d have shot M.J. and John, or only himself, was still anybody’s guess.
Numbly he raised his camera and squeezed off a shot, wondering if he had been condemned to a life of photographing M.J. next to other guys. First it had been Harry; now this. Take pictures of M.J. with other men, struggle against demented madmen who kept trying to kill him, and alienate everyone he came into contact with. Compared to him, the Chicago Cubs were on a winning streak.
Peter stood there and watched as Mary Jane and John maneuvered toward another group of handshakers. John Jameson moved with such ease and familiarity that it seemed as if he were running for office and would likely be elected with no trouble. He was perfect. Too perfect, thought Peter. Maybe he’s a villain, too. Or a thing of evil. Maybe at moonrise he turns into a wolf. Sure. That’s it.
He watched as John continued shmoozing while Mary Jane drifted outside, accompani
ed by another woman. He recognized her as the actress who had emerged from the stage door beside Mary Jane. At that point he realized he couldn’t just stand about inactive anymore, indecisive like some web-swinging Hamlet. His insides felt like a rubber band being stretched to the breaking point and beyond.
He moved quickly through the crowd and headed outside after Mary Jane. What to say to her, though? What could he say?
She stood there, chatting with her friend while daintily eating a canapé. A fight-or-flight instinct overtook him, and flight was beginning to look like a darned good option. But then her friend wandered away, and Mary Jane was there by herself. No more excuses. No more fear. If he could handle Doc Ock, he should be able to handle this.
He squared his shoulders and headed toward her. She saw him coming. He waited for some reaction, so he could perhaps gauge what kind of reception he’d get. She was inscrutable. She didn’t turn toward him, nor move away. She just stood there like a statue. He stopped when he was a couple of feet away and bobbed his head.
“Hi,” he said.
If he had any doubt as to what was going through her mind, that doubt was erased by the icy cold of her reply. “Oh. You.” Tax auditors had gotten warmer welcomes than that.
“Listen, I’m sorry,” he began. “But there was a disturbance—”
She cut him off. “I don’t know you,” she said, her tone sharp and fueled with bitter disappointment. “And I can’t think about you anymore. It’s too painful.”
His mind raced, trying to figure some way to get around the wall that was rapidly forming between them, brick by angry brick. “I’ve been reading a lot of poetry lately,” he said, trying to sound sage.
Unfortunately, he felt like an imbecile, and the look he got from Mary Jane told him he should go with the feeling. “Whatever that means, don’t start,” she advised.
“Can I get you some champagne?”
“I’m with John,” she said pointedly. “John will get me my champagne.”
“John.” Peter echoed the name in a slightly nasal tone.
That was when everything she’d obviously been storing up since his failure to show up at the theater poured out of her. Almost in one breath, she said, “And by the way, John has seen my show five times, Harry has seen it twice, Aunt May has seen it, my sick mother got out of bed to see it, and even my drunken father, who came backstage to borrow money, has seen it, but my best friend who cares so much about me can’t make an eight o’clock curtain, so he is not entitled to fetch my champagne, because after all these years he is nothing to me but an empty seat!”
She sagged visibly, and for a moment something akin to regret played on her features. But then they hardened once more and, with a slight flip of her hair, she headed back into the planetarium, leaving Peter stricken and frustrated. He watched her go to John Jameson’s side and whisper something to him. Jameson’s face split in a grin and he was talking to her excitedly, saying something about “spreading the word.” And she was nodding, so enchanted and happy with her astronaut boyfriend.
Once again he knew, on an intellectual level, that he should be happy for her. This was what he wanted. This was what he had pushed her toward: another man. She could have been his, but he’d handed her off and patted himself on the back for the nobility of his sacrifice.
But his thoughts weren’t coming from his intellect. Instead, they were fueled by a slow anger burning in his gut with an intensity that dwarfed whatever Mary Jane might have been feeling earlier. Suddenly he was dying for someone to attack. For the fates to provide him with something evil he could pummel until it stopped moving, because socializing with the good guys was distressing him beyond measure.
An empty seat? I was saving people, Mary Jane. I was saving lives. That’s what I do. I give up any hope of a normal life for me so others can live theirs. I save lives. I saved yours. I saved Aunt May’s. Men, women, and children, cats and dogs and some kid’s hamster, I’ve saved them all. How many lives has John saved, huh? How many crooks has he jailed? Parading around in his uniform, being lauded and praised for accomplishments that haven’t required a tenth of the effort I’ve put in. Backed up by a father who demonizes me every chance he gets. How can you talk to me like that? If you had any idea… any idea…
Suddenly Harry was right in front of him, no more than a foot away. The smell of alcohol wafted off his breath. If Doc Ock did indeed show up at the party to create havoc, Peter wouldn’t have to change to Spider-Man. Harry just had to get within range and breathe on him and Octavius would go down faster than the Titanic.
“It pisses me off, your loyalty to Spider-Man, but not to your best friend,” Harry said thickly, fighting to form the words. He wavered slightly. Peter squinted against the aroma of booze being blown into his face. He’d never wanted to be wearing his mask so much in his life. “I saw him with my father’s body. You defend the guy because he’s your bread and butter.” Harry tried to wave an accusing finger in Peter’s face and wound up pointing about two feet to Peter’s right… probably at another Peter Parker that only Harry could see.
Peter took Harry by the arm and tried to guide him out of the planetarium. Thoughts of his own wounded dignity were briefly put on the back burner. Instead, he was trying to prevent a bad situation from getting worse by having Mary Jane see Harry in this state. Harry’d be utterly mortified if M.J., his current friend and former girlfriend, witnessed his belligerent inebriation—presuming, of course, that he remembered it in the morning when he sobered up.
“Easy, Harry,” Peter said cautiously.
“Don’t push me!”
“Let’s get some air,” Peter said, not easing his grip on Harry’s arm. He was endeavoring to be gentle, particularly considering that, if he was so inclined, he could sling Harry over his shoulder and haul him out like a fireman carrying a two-year-old.
“What’re you, gonna save me, big guy?” Harry snarled with such force that Peter was taken aback. It was almost as if Harry had read the angry thoughts in Peter’s mind moments earlier. “You a saint or something? I said, don’t push me.” He continued to try pulling away as Peter restrained him. The fact that Peter wasn’t particularly exerting himself ticked off Harry more. “Don’t act like you’re my friend,” he snapped at Peter. “You took my girl away, you took my father’s love, and then you let him die because you wouldn’t turn in the freak. Isn’t that so?”
With his free hand, he slapped at Peter’s face. Peter snapped his head back reflexively and it only caught him with the most glancing of blows. But it still stung, more from the fact that Harry would do such a thing rather than from the force of the impact.
John Jameson, meantime, had mounted the podium and was calling out, “Ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement to make.”
Harry was paying no attention. “Right? Right, brother?” he said, and slapped at Peter again. This time Peter didn’t even bother to move. Harry was so hammered that a blow from him at full impact wouldn’t have hurt a mosquito.
“I want you all to know,” John continued, too far away from the fracas to notice, “that Miss Mary Jane Watson has just agreed to marry me.”
The crowd was stunned for a moment, and then burst into uproarious applause. Peter, by contrast, was stunned for far longer than that. He forgot that he was holding on to Harry, who easily yanked his hand away. Instead, he just stood there, watching John Jameson beaming at Mary Jane, who was smiling back at him with that dazzling grin. The grin that said she cared about you and only you, and there was no one else like you in the universe. That you were the one she had chosen. He had seen that look from her before—though only in her eyes. He had been the recipient of it in a cemetery, standing near the grave site of his uncle Ben. Yes, he had been the recipient… and then had willingly walked away from it.
“Parker! Wake up!” It was Jonah Jameson, standing a couple of yards away, mimicking the motion of a camera being held up and aimed. He tried to speak, but the jazz band drowned him out as they
launched into a rendition of “Love Is the Sweetest Thing.” And as if the band hadn’t managed to make it impossible to hear Jonah, Harry began shouting drunkenly, “Everybody loves Mary Jane!” Yes, that would certainly have done the trick.
Mary Jane was standing at the podium beside John, smiling and beaming up at him. Jameson, drawing closer to Peter, was now audible over the tumult. “Take a picture, Parker! Take the damn picture!”
Peter moved as if he were swimming through gelatin. He raised the camera and saw M.J.’s image through the viewfinder. He zoomed in on her face, and for a moment he was back at the science museum, back wearing glasses, back being the nervous student, back being normal. And he was zooming in on the face of a glamorous Mary Jane Watson, the girl next door whom he’d always been too afraid to approach. She had smiled back then, for him, and he’d taken the pictures for the high school newspaper.
Now he wasn’t in high school, no longer the nervous student… and there was still Mary Jane, part of his life. And she was smiling—but it wasn’t a smile for him. It was for someone else. Someone who had never done Peter any harm and who Peter suddenly hated with more vigor than anyone, and that included the guys who’d tried to kill him.
“Shoot, Parker, shoot!” bellowed Jameson.
Peter took her picture. She never stopped looking good. It was nice to know there were two constants in the world: Mary Jane’s looks, and the nonexistence of Peter Parker’s luck.
Peter had often felt that web-swinging was a good way to clear his head when he was confused and frustrated. Considering the amount of aggravation he’d had to deal with lately, it was amazing his feet ever touched the ground.
Now, clad once more in his Spider-Man costume, his civilian clothes safely stashed away, he crouched atop the exterior of the planetarium, up at the highest point of the dome. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and then started swinging. The web-line carried him in a perfect arc, and he fired another web-line and then another in order to provide more distance from this hated place.