November 1970.
"Have to break my fall or I'm done for!" Peter thought as he hurtled through the air toward the pavement below. "Almost out of web fluid!" Looking up for a target, Peter could see the person who appeared to be Dr. Octopus was still standing on the building's ledge, his mechanical tentacles telescoped out over the ledge and flailing slowly. Peter made one last shot, his supply of web fluid enough to lash out and stick to the wall one story above where he had just fallen past. Turning his downward momentum into horizontal momentum, Peter swung hard toward the wall and was very thankful a window happened to be in that spot instead of bricks. In a shower of broken glass, Peter tumbled into the room and upset a desk and chairs. He tumbled out of his fall and leapt unto the back wall of the room and braced himself for more, as his "spider-sense" was warning him of more danger. Sure enough, the tentacles were following him through the open window. "Nuts!" Peter exclaimed out loud. "How far can those arms of his reach?"
The arms flailed about more wildly as they moved through the room, as if living things searching for their foe. It was a frightfully real possibility rather than just a simile, as the arms did not move or sound like Dr. Octopus' mechanical arms of old, but glided silently and fluidly across the room towards where Peter waited on the far wall. Peter was breathing heavy, winded and aching badly from the beating he had taken from this man's hands and arms.
Peter weighed his options carefully. All four tentacles were in the room now, so his foe could not be using them to anchor himself. One good tug might pull "Doc Ock" off the ledge and give Peter time to turn the tables on him. Yet "Doc" had shown incredible strength in this last fight, far greater than the real Dr. Octopus ever had. The fight had gone on so long and Peter was so tired. If only he had more time to catch his breath.
Two tentacles wriggled back out the window, probably to help "Doc" scale down the wall after him. His chances for getting in a breather were rapidly diminishing. Thoughts of discretion and valor came to Peter's mind as he fished a "spider-tracer" out of his belt. He flung it so it would stick to the nearest tentacle and then had to dodge as the tentacle struck the wall where he had just been with enough force to go right through it. Peter leapt out of the room's doorway and beat a retreat down the corridor outside the room. Startled office workers, coming to investigate the commotion in what should have been an empty office, drew back and hugged the walls.
"Hey, it's Spider-Man!" someone exclaimed.
"Do not go in there!" Peter warned them as he moved quickly to the stairwell, changed floors to elude pursuit, and exited through an outside window on the other side of the building before what few people he encountered along the way could do more than gape in astonishment. Once outside, he paused on the side of the building. His first thought had been to flee, but now that the danger seemed less imminent, he felt ashamed by his impulse. What if "Doc" came through the building after him and harmed innocent people inside?
That clinched it. Peter raced up the wall of the building to the roof, braced for combat. Peter jumped over the edge of the roof, hoping to take his opponent off-guard, but saw no one. For all his bravado, he really knew there would be no one. His "spider-sense" detected neither danger nor even the proximity of his "spider-tracer" anymore to set it off. He looked over the ledge where "Doc" had been standing before tossing him off the roof, but there was no sign of the man anywhere. Peter sat down on the roof, bending slowly to avoid his body's soreness that he had been ignoring up until now. He unclipped from his belt his mobile phone. It was a special phone all members of the Fantastic League of Avengers carried and Peter was glad to see it was undamaged from the fight. Every member was required to phone in when a criminal escaped them. It was an embarrassment he was loathe to suffer, but was thankful that the answering machine picked up. "Spider-Man reporting," Peter said. "I've got a doozy to report…"
After he was done relating the tale, Peter sat down the phone and took a long breath. He was about to pick his phone back up and put it away when it rang. Not expecting a call back so quickly, he was momentarily startled, but still picked up at the end of the second ring. It was Gwen on the other end.
"Are you alright?" Gwen asked. She was purposefully vague, as she wasn't technically supposed to be using this number except in an emergency.
"I'm okay now," Peter said. He heard Gwen give a sigh of relief into the phone.
"Thank God. I could see some of the fight from down here. I'm on the street out in front, sitting in Dad's car. He's here and asking if you're around, Peter."
Peter knew what this meant. Peter and Gwen had not told Captain Stacy about Peter's secret yet, telling him that Peter still photographed Spider-Man as a hobby to explain his appearance in the vicinity whenever Spider-Man was around. It was a deception in which her father seemed increasingly suspicious. "I'll be there soon," he told her.
"I have to go, bye," she said hurriedly. The mobile phones, rare as they were, were another secret they worked hard to keep. That Gwen had used hers with just the car for concealment meant she was especially nervous.
Peter used his web-shooter to fire a line of adhesive webbing at the neighboring building, held onto it tight as it started to harden, and launched himself into the air over the side of the building. This time, instead of the wild freefall, he performed a controlled swing that sent him sailing through the air with perfect precision. He started to run out of momentum just as he reached firing range of a flagpole and then swung from that on a second web-line. In this fashion he made his way back to where he had stashed his street clothes before going after "Doc Ock."
A short while later, Peter Parker was jogging back down the street to where a small crowd and only one police car remained at the scene of where the fight had just taken place. Peter was wearing his shirt open at the collar and a wide-lapelled jacket over it. He had resisted growing out a moustache like Gwen suggested, but did wear his sideburns longer for her. As comfortable as he was with looking like a nerd, Gwen wanted him fashionable. Gwen, wearing a chocolate brown blazer, tight black top, and polyester pants to match her blazer, was watching for Peter and rushed to meet him.
"Oh, Peter!" Gwen cried softly as she took him into her arms. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"I don't know," Peter said, leaning into her arms more because he had to instead of just wanting to. "I'm a little dizzy, actually. Feeling light-headed."
Gwen looked Peter over with worried eyes. "You've got a huge bruise on your jaw," she observed, pointing to the left corner of his face. "Dad can't see you like that."
"Too late," Peter said, spotting his father-in-law approaching them. He let go of his wife and steadied himself, trying to look as well as possible.
"I've been following you since I saw you head this way, Gwen," Capt. Stacy said. "What's wrong, son?" he asked Peter with serious concern. "Did you get hurt?"
"Tripped on the way here," Peter lied weakly, but rubbed his facial bruise as if to prove his story.
"My husband, the klutz," Gwen joked to cover, mussing up Peter's hair. Peter had to keep from wincing when she accidentally touched a sore spot on the back of his head.
"Perhaps he just hasn't licked that flu bug yet?" their father suggested, remembering their last excuse for Peter.
"Maybe you're right..." Peter started to say, but that was when his legs started to get wobbly and his vision blurred.
"Darling! Darling?" he heard Gwen saying. "Wake up!"
When Peter could see clearly again, he was sitting in the police car next to Gwen. She was holding his jacket with his costume hidden inside it balled up on her lap. She must have caught it when he started to fall.
"Is he going to need a doctor?" Dad was saying from the front seat.
"No, Dad," Gwen replied. "Musn't scare us like that, Mr. Parker," she added for Peter, admonishing him playfully.
"I feel like a fool, conking out that way!" Peter said.
"It's all right, my boy! It can happen to the best of us!" their dad said cheerily. "You simply overtaxed yourself too soon after your illness!"
"He'll get better once we're home," Gwen said. "I can look after him," she added, giving Peter a hug.
"I'm sure he'll be perfectly okay after that," their father said with a knowing smile.
For Peter, the smile seemed a little too knowing. He could not shake the feeling that Captain George Stacy, his caring father-in-law, suspected Peter was really Spider-Man. Hiding Peter's strength, speed, reflexes, and recuperative powers were challenging around someone as perceptive as Capt. Stacy, but Gwen and Peter had agreed to hide it from him. They said it was for Dad's own peace of mind, but secretly and selfishly they both regretted having kept it from him for as long as they had and did not want their lie found out. The regrets that went with the lying ran deeper in Peter, who had not told his Aunt May the truth before she died.
Peter realized he had been deep in thought for the entire ride to the apartment home of Mr. and Mrs. Parker. It was a nice home in a nice neighborhood, a little nicer than their salaries as interns in the police department forensics lab would have permitted, but Peter still made some money on the side with his photography and Dad helped whenever they came up short. It was, in so many ways, the dream life Peter had always wanted. When it came time to thank his father-in-law for the ride, the thank you sounded earnest and heartfelt. Capt. Stacy gave him a huge smile that wrinkled up his whole face.
"Thank you, son," he told Peter.
After they were left alone, Gwen immediately wanted to know details. She always felt all shivery when Peter told her of the dangers he faced as Spider-Man, but she had long since found that it was easier to deal with knowing than not knowing.
"What makes you think he wasn't really Doctor Octopus?" Gwen asked after he was done.
"Oh, he looked and sounded just like 'Doc Ock'," Peter said, "but not those arms. They may have looked like metal, but I'll swear they weren't mechanical. At least not at the technology level of Doc's original ones. But most of all I know it wasn't him because I just saw him yesterday. Dr. Otto Octavius is still recovering in the mental institution where he's been since our big fight that destroyed his mechanical arms about two and a half years ago."
"Could he be faking?" Gwen suggested. "Maybe he's built a new, better set while nobody's watching him?"
"I don't know," Peter said. "My hunch still says no. That still doesn't explain how Doc got so strong. I tell you, it was like he was just toying with me, the way he was batting me around."
Gwen took off Peter's shirt. "I'll say he was batting you around. You're bruised all over."
"But I feel a lot better," Peter said.
"You always do," she said. Then she added playfully, "do I help make you feel a lot better?" as she rubbed his chest.
Peter smiled and enjoyed the next 15 minutes as much as he could. There was always the concern in his mind about hurting Gwen. His strength had increased enormously since first becoming Spider-Man and, even though it seemed to have peaked sometime last year, he was still about 200 times stronger than her. She had been accidentally hurt before and that was just during foreplay. The guilt was just one more worry crowding his mind. But when Gwen noticed he was becoming less receptive, she immediately read the real reason.
"Sense of responsibility getting to you?" she asked.
"Yeah…" Peter confessed. "This Doc Ock imposter is still out there somewhere. I can't imagine why he's doing it or what he's hoping to achieve. This last time I didn't even catch him robbing anyplace. He didn't leave any clues I saw while I was phoning it in. It's like he was just waiting to ambush me on that rooftop."
"And no call back from the FLA yet?"
"Aw, they're all busy guys. I'm going to have to look into this alone for now."
"What about me?"
Peter turned quickly to look at Gwen with a look of surprise and concern. "You?"
"Well, why not? I don't have any weekend plans. Let me help you."
"Like how?" Peter asked, unconvinced.
Gwen thought about it for a half-minute. "I could stake out the mental institute. Watch for suspicious visitors or Dr. Octavius actually leaving."
"No way—"
"Why not?" Gwen asked with frustration. "You just said you didn't think this was really Dr. Octavius you were dealing with. Wouldn't you like to know for sure? How dangerous can it be?"