Spiderman 3 (29 page)

And Harry did.

Feeling like a dish towel just put through the wringer, Mary Jane stumbled into her apartment later that night. Shell-shocked, listless, at her wit's end as to which way to turn, she noticed that her answering machine was blinking. She reached over and pushed the button.

"
Hi, MJ, It's Peter
," came his voice. Tears started to roll down her face. She had never been so happy to hear it before. "
Listen, I just want to talk to you about us. I know I've
—"

The message suddenly stopped. Huh? Peering more closely at the answering machine—

The phone line was no longer jacked into the wall. It must have come out during Peter's call, cutting off the message. But why would that be?

The only possible answer: someone had broken into her apartment to pull the jack out… and might well still be there. She turned to leave and let out an alarmed shriek.

The Goblin was standing right behind her.

At least it looked like the Goblin, although his costume and mask were different… the top of his head, hair and everything, was exposed and…

Harry?! But how… ?

He clapped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes widened in horror, and he spoke in a low, soothing voice that was terrifying just because it sounded so friendly. "Since you love him," he told her with an easy familiarity that almost made her ill, "I think you should call him back… and do just as I say… or Peter Parker will die."

ENGAGEMENT ON THE ROCKS (TAKE TWO)

Peter stared at his various science texts and then tiredly rubbed the bridge of his nose. He leaned back from his desk and stared at the ceiling. His thoughts in turmoil, it was little wonder that he couldn't concentrate on his studies. He wondered if Dr. Connors was any closer to finding out what was up with that weird bit of black goo. Almost against his will, he found his gaze straying toward the trunk.
That way lies madness
, he thought, and even toyed with the idea of just finding a furnace somewhere, tossing the thing in, and being done with it.

There was a knock at the door. He was certain for the first time in a while that it wasn't going to be Ditkovitch.

Granted, he hadn't fixed anything in the apartment yet, but neither had he been hassling Peter for rent, so that was a wash.

Opening the door, he saw Ursula standing there. He noticed immediately that she was looking at him differently. Typically she had that sort of puppy-dog-crush air about her that Peter had always found sweetly amusing. Now she was looking at him guardedly, apparently afraid that he was going to take her head off with another outburst. He felt bad about that. She must have known deep down that Peter would never unleash on her the way he had with Ditkovitch.

Or… maybe she didn't. But certainly that was her problem, not his.

"Call for you," she said, pointing to the pay phone in the hallway. The receiver was dangling off the hook, swaying back and forth slightly. "It's Mary Jane."

Feeling energetic for the first time that day, Peter moved quickly to the pay phone and grabbed the receiver. "Hi! How are you!"

"Fine." She sounded far away, much farther than simply calling from her apartment would suggest. Obviously she was still concerned about things, but that didn't bother him. The important thing was that they were talking. Everything else could be sorted out if there was at least communication.

"I'm so glad you called. I've been trying to—"

"Can we meet?"

He was surprised by her directness. "You bet! Where?"

"You know that place in Central Park? Near the statue of that dog? I was thinking in an hour, maybe…"

"Sure! I'll be there! Love ya!"

There was no answer. Again, more hopefully and more aggressively, Peter said, "Hello? Love ya!" The silence extended and then clicked over into a dial tone, and he realized that she'd hung up. Why should that bother him? That she had called at all was enough to make him giddy with anticipation. He was going to be seeing her again.

He was going to be able to make things right. He ran back into his room, picked up the engagement ring from the sock drawer where he'd hidden it, and tucked it into his pocket. Remembering the last time he'd carried the ring on his person, he certainly hoped that things would work out better this go-around. Then again, anything short of being attacked by the Goblin was going to be an improvement.

Peter grabbed a subway over to Central Park, although truthfully he felt as if he could have run the entire way. When entering the park, he passed a makeshift flower stand. The roses were tempting but pricey, so he settled for a bouquet of peonies. Clutching them tightly to his chest, he made his way through a grove of trees and then spotted Mary Jane in the distance. She was achingly beautiful, the wind blowing her hair ever so gently, looking like something off the cover of a romance novel.

He approached her and drew within a few feet. Concerned somehow that he would shatter "the spell," he didn't want to touch her, as much as he ached to take her in his arms. "Wow. You look so beautiful," he whispered.

No reply—she just stared at him, and he couldn't get any sense of what was going through her mind. He held out the flowers. "Peonies," he said, then added a bit unnecessarily, "for you."

Still no answer. No movement or taking the flowers from him. He might have been talking to a photograph for all the interaction he was getting.

"You okay?" he asked, his concern starting to grow.

"No. There's… something I have to tell you, Peter."

Her voice was clipped and formal, as if she were acting, only badly.

"Okay," he said cautiously.

"It's not working, you and me."

He stared at her. "What?"

"I don't want to see you anymore."

Peter actually laughed, although it was nervous, confused. This had to be some sort of joke. If she didn't want to see him, all she had to do was continue not to return his calls. Why would she go out of her way to contact him and bring him here to make a point of saying that they were through? It smacked of a cruelty that he wouldn't have thought her capable of. "What are you
talking
about?"

"I don't know," she said, flustered. He couldn't tell if she was admitting that she didn't know what she was talking about, or if she was trying to toss out grievances and see if one would stick. "You aren't there for me."

I'm here, now! What the hell more do you want?'
. But he bit back the more aggressive, angry response and said with labored patience, "I know that. But let's talk about it. Maybe I was selfish. I can do better. I can change."

"It's not that simple."

"But we love each other!" he said with mounting desperation. "We have problems, we work it out. We talk—"

"There's someone else!" The words seemed to surprise her, as if they'd flown out of her mouth of their own accord. "I've… fallen in love with someone else."

She turned her back and started walking quickly away. Without thinking, Peter sped around her so rapidly that to an observer, it appeared as if Peter had disappeared from one spot and rematerialized at another. He stood in front of Mary Jane, his face a question, pleading, demanding some sort of explanation.

Either she had none to give… or she had no desire to do so. Either way it made no difference. She strode past him, and this time he made no effort to stop her. He simply stood there, holding the peonies, and the ring in the pocket of his trousers now felt as if it were burning against his thigh.

He thought of pursuing her, of running after her down the wooded path that she was taking to leave the area…

Oh… the hell with it. He had his pride. There was no way he was going to go sprinting after Mary Jane like some pathetic schoolboy.

Which, as it turned out, was a tragic decision on his part. For if he had done so, he might well have spotted Harry Osborn step out of hiding in the shadows, quietly applauding, falling into step next to Mary Jane and remarking, "Bravo," in a soft, triumphant voice. He would have seen Mary Jane looking at Harry with a mix of fear and loathing.

But he saw and heard none of that.

Instead he returned to his apartment, and only after he slumped down onto his bed, lonely and empty, did he realize he was still holding the bouquet. He must have looked like an idiot, coming all this distance carrying a batch of flowers. Disgusted, he threw the peonies toward the foot of his bed and heard them bounce off something. Well… he knew what they were bouncing off, didn't he?

He slid off the bed, stepped around to the foot of it, and stared down at the trunk. The flowers were lying in a heap next to it. He kicked them away, scattering stems and petals to a far corner of the room, and continued to regard the trunk with apprehension…

… and anticipation.

Other men in the precarious situation that Peter was in would have headed out to a local bar and drowned their sorrows in drink. They would have enjoyed the peaceful oblivion that booze offered. But that wasn't Peter's style.

When he had first become Spider-Man, he had seen his costumed persona as a means of making restitution for his great sin of omission. Theoretically, having recently learned that he wasn't directly responsible for Ben's death, and having wreaked vengeance upon the man who was, he should have had no qualm about retiring the entire double-identity existence. But he was starting to understand that Spider-Man represented far more to him than that. Spider-Man was an escape from the mundane, from the earthbound problems that afflicted Peter. When he was swinging high above the city, what possible problems from below could touch him?

That was what he needed now: the airborne escape. And the suit in its current state provided him even more than that. When he put it on, he was flooded with a sense of… of
Tightness
. The doubts that followed him, even when he was masked, tended to melt away in the face of the confidence he drew from the suit.

But you don't know what it is. You don't know how it does it.

You don't know what it could be doing to you beyond that. You don't…

… care.

Even as that immutable truth went through his head, he was reaching down for the trunk, unlatching it, opening the lid, and looking inside. The rationalizations came fast and furious as he reached down for the black suit. He was a scientist, after all—this was a scientific curiosity. What better way to understand it and discover more about it than to become one with it again and see what happened as a result? Granted, using himself as a test subject was a risky venture, but really, what sort of scientist was he if he didn't believe in taking a few risks in the interest of discovery?

Merely holding the black costume caused the sadness and pain to drain from him. At once, Mary Jane seemed small and irrelevant, certainly not worthy of causing him anguish.

Any doubts he might have harbored were erased as he quickly donned the suit. He immediately felt stronger, more self-assured. He considered heading out as Spider-Man, but no. Not yet. For some reason he felt like facing the world as the newly confident Peter Parker.