Or was he kidding himself? Had he been playing a game of chicken with himself? Daring himself, seeing how far he would push it? Had he wanted M. J. to know who he was, wanted to drop the game? If so, then he had sure chickened out at the last minute.
Well, maybe next time. There was all the time in the world.
High over the skyscrapers, a blur of blue and red, and he knew people were looking out office windows and pointing and shouting. Maybe some of them were crying out in fear, while others were bellowing praise. Ultimately he would win them over. It was possible. With the taste of Mary Jane’s kiss on his lips, anything was possible. And he was going to be seeing her tonight. Granted, it was part of a whole big Thanksgiving get-together, and Aunt May was going to be there, as well as Harry’s dad—who was finally going to meet Mary Jane, and that alone was enough to make Harry a nervous wreck—but hey … it would all work out somehow …
Then he saw the black smoke rising in the near distance and angled straight for it. He swung down Fifth Avenue, then made his way over to the East Side with such confidence, such alacrity, that he might as well have been doing this his entire life. “Help is on the way!” he called out, adding “Yowza! Yowza!” for no particular reason.
Sure enough, a building was burning, fast and furious. It was an apartment house, surrounded by fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances. A crowd had assembled, and he could see that there were some people in the gathering who had been rescued from the inferno itself, swathed in blankets or getting help from paramedics.
He saw a young woman, two small boys clutching onto her skirt, literally being dragged away from the building by two firemen. She was struggling in their grip, screaming over and over that her baby was still inside. She was pointing toward the top floor of the building. Naturally it would be the top floor. Peter’s heart lurched.
The waves of heat were already damned near suffocating, but when he heard the fireman cry out, “It’s too late, lady, the roof’s ready to collapse!” he knew he would spend every day of the rest of his life imagining that child’s life being snuffed out.
Quickly he darted toward a window on the upper floor that didn’t appear to have any flames coming out of it. He hoped it stayed that way; if it suddenly erupted just as he got there, he was going to be pretty damned toasted.
They’d spotted him. He heard shouts of “Hey! Up there! Look! It’s him! It’s Spider-Man!”
He’d never been more thankful that he’d chosen a mask that covered his entire face. It would provide him some minimal protection from the smoke … hopefully at least long enough to find the child.
He swung in through the window to cries of “What’s he doing?!” and “He’s crazy! He hasn’t got a chance!” They were instantly drowned out by the roar of flames all around him. His spider sense was screaming at him to just get the hell out of there, and it was an unusual experience to have to fight to override it. When he’d dealt with a burning building some weeks ago, the fire had been nowhere this intense, and it had just been a matter of hauling people off the roof. Even then he’d gotten good and scalded, and a repeat performance wasn’t his top preference.
But he had no choice.
He leapt to one side as a chunk of the ceiling, blazing furiously, fell right where he’d been standing. His leap carried him near another apartment with the door still closed. Suddenly he heard crying from within.
He kicked the door open with one booted foot and it splintered like a rifle shot. He ran in and noted with alarm that smoke was starting to fill the apartment. Dashing past the kitchen, he yanked his mask off, ran water over it from the sink, and pulled it back on. The cool wetness gave him a bit more protection against the smoke, and then—low to the ground—he darted through the apartment until he located the child in its nursery. It was sobbing piteously, terrified.
Peter scooped it up and said, “Hi. My name’s Spider-Man. Maybe you’ve read about me?”
The baby looked at him with confused, wet, blue eyes.
Suddenly his spider sense urged him into motion. Peter leapt for the nearest window and, clutching the child to his chest, spun and smashed through the window backward in order to protect the infant from the impact. He heard a horrendous roar, a crashing of wood, and a fireball the size of a Buick frying the air behind him. His leap carried him a short distance away from the building, but there was smoke all around and he was falling blind.
Desperately, praying, unsure of which was up and down, he fired a web line in the direction he thought a building lay. Please let this work, he thought, and then he felt the familiar pull of the line as it anchored to something. It snapped taut and he dropped down, down, holding the child tightly to him.
Then he was clear of the smoke, and the ground yawned up at him, closer than he’d expected. But he had more than enough time to react, and he adroitly somersaulted for a perfect two-point landing on the street below.
From all around people were shouting, “He’s alive!” and “I don’t believe it!” and “He’s got the kid!”
Then the applause started. Loud, genuine, and not a single person seemed to give a damn at that moment about the Daily Bugle or Jameson and his headlines or anything except for the fact that Spider-Man had put his neck on the line to save an innocent child.
Overwhelmed by emotion, he still managed to keep his voice steady as the mother ran up to him and he handed the child over. “Here’s your baby,” he said.
“Oh, God bless you, Spider-Man,” she wailed, clutching the child to her bosom. “Bless you … bless you …”
Feeling that something herolike should be said, he turned to the boys, crouched, and said, lowering his voice to sound even more authoritative, “You children be good. Stop playing with matches. Don’t start something you can’t put out.”
The boys were shaking their heads, apparently about to deny culpability, when the moment was ruined by a cop shouting, “Don’t let him get away!”
The notion was actually amusing to Peter. As if a woman with a baby in her arms, or a grateful crowd that had just witnessed—as far as they were concerned—a miracle, would try to intervene should he choose to leave.
The cop burst through the crowd, his gun drawn, and he leveled it at Spider-Man. “Hold it right there! You’re wanted in connection—”
“Heeellllppp! Heeellllllpppp!”
“Look! There’s somebody else!” someone in the crowd shouted. Sure enough, several floors up, an elderly woman with a shawl and loose-fitting dress was standing in a window that already was dancing with flames. Her arms were outstretched and she was truly a pathetic sight, the smoke billowing around her.
Peter and the cop exchanged looks, and then Peter put out his gloved hands, presenting his wrists, as if inviting the cop to put cuffs on him.
“I’ll be here when you get back,” the cop growled, lowering his revolver. He had barely finished the sentence when Peter leapt away.
He skittered up the wall, hoping this was the last person in the building, because soon there wasn’t going to be much of a building left. The old woman backed away, maybe in fear or maybe to give him room to gain access. He flipped in through the window, scanned the smoky room, and immediately spotted the woman, huddled in the corner.
“Everything’s going to be okay, ma’am!”
She called out to him, in a wretched, wavering voice, “Oh, thank you, sonny. You’re my hero.” And then the voice dissolved into cackling, high-pitched demented laughter. And as the old woman stood fully erect, allowing the shawl to drop to the ground, “she” asked, “What’s wrong with lighting up now and then?”
“Goblin!” shouted Peter. “You started this fire?!”
“You’re pathetically predictable,” the Goblin snarled, his masked face etched in a permanent leer. “Like a moth to a flame. Perhaps you should change your name from Spider-Man to Moth Man.” He giggled, chortled at his own cleverness, and then suddenly grew serious. “What about my generous proposal? Are you in or are you out?”
“It’s you who’s out, Gobby,” and despite the flames licking the room around them eagerly, he assumed a fighting stance. “Out for good!”
The Green Goblin didn’t seem the least bit impressed. Without hesitation he reached into his belt and hurled what appeared to be a small plastic bat. Peter swatted it aside with his left arm and then let out a yell of pain. Stunned, he looked down at the red and blue sleeve of his costume and saw a deep gash, oozing blood. The damned bat had been razor sharp.
The Goblin advanced on him, and Peter didn’t hesitate. He fired a web line, snagging a beam above the Goblin’s head, and pulling as hard as he could. Debris rained down and the Goblin vanished under the debris.
Immediately Peter turned and made for the window. He glanced behind, saw a trail of blood he was leaving as he scampered out the window and down the side of the wall. Behind him he could hear the Goblin howling, “I don’t forgive and I don’t forget! It breaks my heart! We could have been so good together!”
Okay. We’ve officially gotten into a weird area, he thought, but at that moment he didn’t care about much beyond two things: Attending to the throbbing wound in his arm, and not dying before Thanksgiving supper, just so he could see how things turned out with Mary Jane.
XXIII.
THE LAST SUPPER
She was wearing the black dress. It didn’t seem to help. Harry still was as nervous as a cat at a vacuum cleaner convention, and Mary Jane had come to realize there was nothing that she, or May Parker, or anyone could do that would calm him down. The only thing that would help would be if Norman Osborn walked in, took one look at her, threw his arms around her, and claimed her as the daughter he’d never had. Somehow she didn’t think that was going to happen.
Aunt May, with long-practiced expertise, removed the browning turkey from the oven and placed it on the stovetop, motioning Mary Jane to keep her distance lest she get burned. M. J. nodded and put the finishing touches on setting the table while May used a fork to satisfy herself that the bird was sufficiently cooked. Harry busied himself checking the living room, plumping pillows, and straightening chairs. M. J.’s heart went out to him. There were men on death row who weren’t this edgy.
The doorbell rang and Harry let out a yelp. Trying to compose himself, he said, “Okay … he’s here.” Mary Jane emerged from the kitchen, removing her apron, and Harry looked her up and down with the scrutiny of a drill instructor. “You look great,” he said, an efficient if perfunctory assessment that sounded as if he were complimenting her for having her M16 properly slung.
Harry walked over to the door, swung it open. He doesn’t have horns, Mary Jane thought with amusement as Norman Osborn stood in the doorway, attired in a very nice suit. She wondered if he was feeling well, though, because he was dabbing sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief. Mary Jane had thought the place was, in fact, kind of chilly. Osborn was carrying a small pastry box tied with a ribbon.
“Sorry I’m late,” Osborn said. “Work was murder.” Then he smiled, as if this was funny to him for some reason. Well, it was nice to see a workaholic with a sense of humor. “Here’s a fruitcake.” He passed the box to Harry, then glanced at Mary Jane and asked a question to which he very likely already knew the answer: “Who’s this young lady?”
“M. J.,” Harry said, trying his best to sound calm, “I’d like you to meet my father, Norman Osborn. Dad, I’d like you to meet Mary Jane Watson … M. J.”
This was it. Set phasers on Charm.
Mary Jane flashed her most radiant smile, one that could have melted the hearts of the entire offensive line at Midtown High. Osborn stepped closer, holding out a hand to shake hers but also, unmistakably, narrowing his eyes. She felt as if he was mentally dissecting her. She tried to tell herself that there were worse things men could do with her mentally, but she still felt uneasy.
“How do you do?” said Osborn with the air of someone trying to force informality. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”
“Happy Thanksgiving, sir,” she said evenly.
At that moment May Parker stepped forward, and if there was any reason to think that something was off with Harry’s dad, she certainly didn’t give a hint of it. “Hello, Norman. We’re so pleased you’re here.” She turned to Harry. “Where’s Peter? He’d better have remembered the cranberry sauce.”
Suddenly a loud thud came from the direction of Peter’s bedroom. The four of them looked at each other in confusion. “That’s weird,” said Harry. “I didn’t know he was here.”
“Peter?” Aunt May called. The only response they got was a thud so loud that they all jumped slightly. “My goodness,” said May, looking at Harry. “Harry, dear, by any chance … did Peter take up anvil collecting … ?”
Every motion was agony for him.
Peter had become so accustomed to moving with agility and grace, but now—wounded and aching—he wondered that he could move at all. He had managed to swing past the living room window without being seen, had even managed to gain access to his room through a window with the most minimal of noise. But then, as he had crawled across the ceiling, the stab of pain that shot through his left arm was so fearsome, it caused him to lose his grip, and he thudded to the floor with the grace of an anchor.
He pulled off his mask and examined his injured arm. It was still bleeding, and swelling slightly. He wondered if that damned Goblin had treated the razor bat with some sort of toxin to give it some added bite. He wouldn’t put it past him, because it was becoming clear that the Goblin was extremely creative in his penchant for sadism.
Suddenly he heard a noise, right at his door. It wasn’t locked. Of course it wasn’t locked; who locks their room behind them on the way out? Maskless, injured, panicked, Peter still possessed just enough presence of mind to leap upward. He flattened himself against the ceiling just as the door opened. Aunt May stepped in, with M. J., Harry, and Harry’s dad standing just behind her. Great. Only everyone in his life who was important. All any of them had to do was look up, and he was a squashed spider.
“Pete?” called Harry into what appeared to be an empty room.
“But … there’s nobody here,” said a puzzled Aunt May.
Peter was sure they could hear the hammering of his heart. How could they not? It was pounding in his ears, louder than cannon fire.
Osborn entered, and Peter felt that same vague thrill of warning from his spider sense that he always did when Harry’s dad was around. Well, hey, no kidding on this one: danger was just an upward glance away. Norman scowled at the disarray he found around him.
Then Peter saw, to his horror, a drop of blood oozing from the cut on his arm, dangling right over the senior Osborn’s head.
“Bit of a slob, isn’t he,” Norman observed.
Aunt May responded defensively, “All brilliant men are,” which was kind of sweet of her to say considering the number of times in his life she’d said, “Peter, clean up this pigsty!”
Osborn smiled at that and turned to leave as the others filed out. He was the last one out of the room …
… and the drop of blood fell. It hit the light-colored carpet, right where he’d been standing.
But it was just a drop of blood. It’s wasn’t as if he could hear it. He’d have to have ears that would make a bat deaf by comparison.
Norman Osborn whirled and stared right where the blood had dripped.
Peter couldn’t believe it. It simply wasn’t possible. His eyes widened as Osborn stalked back to the spot where the drop had fallen. He stared down at the carpet, knelt, and as the wind blew briskly through the open window, he touched it and brought his fingers up to his face, rubbing them together. His eyes grew wide and he looked directly over his head.
Nothing.
Quickly Osborn crossed to the open window and leaned out, looking right and left, up and down. He could not, of course, look through the ledge that jutted out beneath the window … which was exceedingly fortunate for Peter, because that’s wh
ere he was clinging.
He had never moved as quickly in his life as he had to get out of that room, and part of him still couldn’t believe he had managed it. His arm was practically screaming at him in protest, and he bit down tightly on his lip to contain the moan of pain that desperately wanted to escape.
Apparently satisfied—although with what, Peter had no idea—Osborn pulled back in from the window. Moments later the door to Peter’s room closed with a soft click. It crossed Peter’s mind that it might be some sort of trick, but he didn’t think so; his spider sense wasn’t warning him of any immediate danger.
Minutes later, he had managed to make a perfectly silent reentry into his room, snag some clothes and some towels to wipe down the wound, get to the roof, change, and make it back down to the front hallway of the apartment. He had no idea whether he looked as exhausted as he felt, but he had to do whatever he could to put on a brave front. Only at the last moment did he remember that he was supposed to bring cranberry sauce.
Fortunately, there was a convenience store downstairs that was just in the process of closing up: Five minutes of begging and a five-dollar bribe had convinced the man to stay open long enough for Peter to fetch what he needed. He could brave fires, floods, famine, and the Green Goblin, but he had no intention of facing down Aunt May without cranberry sauce.
When Harry opened the front door, Peter had his broadest smile fixed firmly in place. “Hey, everyone,” he said cheerily. He kissed Aunt May on the cheek. “Sorry I took so long. It’s a jungle out there. I had to hit an old lady with a stick to get these cranberries.”
“Oh, Peter!” Aunt Mary scolded him, slapping him lightly on the shoulder as if he was an obnoxious five-year-old. Then, all business, she said, “Come on, everyone. Let’s sit down and say a prayer.”
They all moved for the table. Norman reached for the jellied cranberry log and, just to show she played no favorites, Aunt May slapped his hand. Osborn glanced at her, and a look flashed across his face, but then it was gone and he smiled gamely at the rebuke.