Spiderman 1 (29 page)

"Stop it," she said firmly.

"He tried to tell me something important, and I threw it
in his face."

There were many things Aunt May tolerated, but self-pity was not among them. "You loved him and he loved you," she
said, her tone strong and certain. "He never doubted the man you would grow into. How you were meant for great things.
You won't disappoint him. Or me."

She waited another moment, then squeezed his hand,
stood, and headed to the door. She looked as if she wanted
to say something else but refrained from doing so, instead walking through and allowing the door to click shut behind
her.

Peter remained there alone for a time. And then, without
even being aware that he was doing it, he was up and at his
dresser. He pulled one drawer out completely, removed some
sweaters that he'd piled in there, and proceeded to dig all the
way to the bottom of the drawer.

It was there. The makeshift costume he'd worn when pur
suing the crook. The red sweatshirt with the spider outline
sketched onto its chest.

"Remember,"
echoed Uncle Ben's voice in his head,
"with great power comes great responsibility."

But responsibility to whom? To what?

The answer became clear to him. To the living. To the
dead. To those accused but not convicted. To the people who
need help.

And to those who, faced with death, deserve to live and
have a second chance to make things right.

But he couldn't do it from here. Not from the house
where Uncle Ben—whom he had let down—no longer
resided. And Aunt May, jeez, she'd be watching his comings

and goings like a hawk. He needed mobility. He needed free
dom.

He needed to do the job.

Dear Mom and Dad:

I'm going to keep this short, because a lot's been going on in the
last few weeks.

I've moved in with Harry. It's great.

I've got a job. It's great, too.

The costume's done, which may or may not be great, because if I
get myself killed, then the apartment and the job are pretty much
moot.

But I have to try. That's really the lesson of all this, isn't it? I have
to try.

If this works, I'm going to be making it a better world for a lot of
people. If not . . . well . . .

. . . then I guess I'll see you soon.

XIV.

THE SPIDER-MAN

She missed him.

That's what it really came down to. She missed him.

Mary Jane stood at the pay phone on Fifth Avenue, hesi
tating for what seemed the hundredth time. Why should it be
so difficult to speak to him?

Did he even think about her? Wonder where she was?
What she was up to? Or was he busy with his own life? If
she tried to contact him now, after all these months, would he think she was crazy? "What are you calling me for?" he might ask with real confusion in his tone. That was high
school. High school is gone. We're adults. Go off, be an
adult. Don't bother me, little girl.

A couple of people went past her, talking excitedly be
tween them, and she heard the words "spider monster" being
batted about. She rolled her eyes in annoyance. How long
was
that
going to go on. There'd been some sort of mass hys
teria throughout the city in recent weeks. People kept claim
ing there was some sort of human spider scuttling around
the tops of skyscrapers, hiding in alleys. How in the world
did these idiot rumors get started, anyway? And before this
spidery creature, there had been albino alligators in the sew
ers, and Elvis pumping gas at truck stops in New Jersey.
How did people let themselves be so gullible, anyway?

She took a deep breath, trying not to let the uncertainty that had infested her undermine what little strength she had

left. The city had undergone a real cold snap, and she drew her threadbare coat more tightly around her.

Mary Jane Watson, party girl. Well, the party had sure gone on without her, hadn't it.

A half block away, a vendor was hawking pretzels to tourists.
They were insanely overpriced, but because of the cold, people
were snapping them up anyway. She actually considered it for
a moment, but then checked her pockets and found that she had
precisely four bucks on her, and that had to last her for the day since she wasn't getting paid until tomorrow.

The truth was ... she was homesick. The problem was,
home itself held no happy memories for her. But she wanted something. Something that would make her feel better about
herself, that would remind her of at least the facade of hap
piness she once displayed.

Screwing her resolve solidly into place, she dropped the
money into the slot and dialed the phone. It rang a couple of
times, and then she heard a comforting voice on the other
end.

"Hello?"

She took a deep breath and, putting as much upbeat
inflection in her voice as possible, she said, "Hi, Mrs.
Parker ... it's Mary Jane."

"Mary Jane?"

Feeling slightly crestfallen, she said, "Watson."

There was a pause, and then sudden recognition that
made her feel as if a weight had been lifted off her heart. "Little Mary Jane! From the house behind us!"

She nodded into the phone, which of course was a silly
move, but she wasn't thinking about it. "Yes, that's me. I got
your number from information. I hope you don't mind...."

"Sakes, child, of course not! Little Mary Jane ... well,
not so little, of course. Not anymore. You were so wonderful
as Cinderella, you know. In the school play, I mean."

She suppressed a laugh. "Yes, I still get lots of comments

about it." Then, taking a deep breath, "Well, look, Mrs.
Parker, I was just wondering
...
is Peter around?"

"He doesn't live here anymore, dear."

For a moment, she felt utterly defeated. With her luck, he
was in Chicago or Los Angeles . . . someplace like that.
"Well, uhm
. . .
do you have a number for him?" She looked nervously at her watch, timing the call. The money would be
falling through soon, and if Mrs. Parker had to rummage
around in some shelf for five minutes to turn up Peter's
phone number, that would be that.

"Of course, yes. I keep it pinned right here on the bulletin
board next to the phone. Do you have a pencil?"

M. J. closed her eyes, prepared to recite the number to
herself repeatedly to get it down. "Go ahead."

"It's area code 2
12 . . ."

Her eyes snapped. "That's Manhattan. That's here."

"Yes, dear."

"Here in New York City."

"Yes, dear, unless Manhattan's been moved to Illinois and
no one told me." She paused. "That was a little joke, dear.
Although, you know, perhaps it's not so funny. I remember
when the Brooklyn Dodgers left. I thought my father, rest
his soul, was going to throw himself off the Brooklyn
Bridge
___
"

The money fell through. The call had thirty seconds left
and then would be automatically cut off.

"His address, Mrs. Parker. Could you tell me where he is?
I just," and she took one last shot at sounding convivial. "I
just figured I'd see where Peter is hanging around these
days."

The robber bolted out of the Korean deli, not caring about
the alarm the grocer had set off behind the counter. There
were no cop cars around; he'd been too careful. By the time
any responded, he'd be long gone.

He heard a string of invectives behind him, and turned to see the grocer coming after him, waving a baseball bat. His
feet pounded the pavement, and when he glanced back over
his shoulder, the idiot was still right behind him. It was in
credible. The guy had to be in his fifties if he was a day, and
he was keeping up. What was he, on the freakin' Korean
Olympic sprinting team?

Well, enough was enough. There was no reason to let this
farce continue.

The robber spun, yanked his gun from the inside of his
jacket, and aimed it at the grocer. The grocer didn't even
seem to notice; he kept coming at him, waving his bat,
shouting in Korean.

"Fine, your funeral," snarled the robber.
But before he could fire, strands of gossamer white that
looked fragile but were strong as steel wafted down from
above, snared the gun, and yanked it from the robber's fin
gers.

He gaped as the gun flew through the air and, an instant
later, stuck to the wall of a nearby building, held there by
what looked like some sort of
. . .
webbing.

Uncomprehending, he completely forgot that he was in
any sort of jeopardy, but he was promptly reminded of it as
the baseball bat slammed him upside the head. He went
down faster than dot-com stock. Even the grocer looked a bit
surprised at what had transpired, but when he looked around
to see what had happened, all he saw was a quick flash of blue and red disappearing down an alleyway
...
on a wall
six feet above the ground.

"Did you see that?" he asked the robber in Korean, but
then realized that the guy was unconscious. He kicked him
once for good measure, and then went to phone the police.

Mary Jane took a deep breath and buzzed the street-level
intercom at Harry and Peter's apartment. The writing on the

tag said, in neat felt tip lettering,
osborn
&
parker.
Beneath
that, in the same hand, the words "Attorneys at Law" had
been scribbled. She smiled at that. Nice to know someone up
there was keeping his or her sense of humor. Then she tilted
her head back and studied the townhouse. Very nice. If she'd
been living there, her sense of humor would probably be in
much better shape, as well.