'We must look crazy.'

Gwen thinks the winds are so heavy that one gust and she may go tumbling all the way down. She shuts her eyes, and then peeps through them; the pavement looks like a thin line, the cars are yellow blotches and the people are mere dots. 'Oh my god,' she closes them tight again and creeps towards Peter, holding onto his arm as firmly as she can. A helicopter passes above their heads. The sound of the rotating blades gives rise to a fresh wave of nausea that makes her stomach churn and she pulls back her legs from midair all of a sudden.

'You scared?' asks Peter, smirking.

'No,' she lies, a streak of annoyance running through her, 'it's just the perks of being a mortal.'

Peter begins with a laugh but subsequently turns it into a long phase of showy coughing even as the side of his face burns from Gwen's nasty glares. After a while, though, she cannot help but smile herself, albeit a bit nervously. That doesn't change her opinion, however. Sitting a hundred feet above the ground on the parapet of a skyscraper and suspending their legs about in the air isn't even half as enjoyable as Peter has often bragged about. She traces the craters on the concrete with her fingers, glancing down at the road every time she makes up a mind not to.

'This can't get any better,' he says.

'It's your birthday, do whatever you want,' Gwen rolls her eyes jokingly. She thinks that if she can just get past the fact that she is much affected by gravity and inertia and won't float all the way down like a bird feather if she mistakenly slips her leg and not even somebody like Peter will be able to swim through the air to catch her (physics won't allow), she might then like these fast-blowing winds on her face. But it is all Peter's fault. And his incredibly stupid ideas. After this, how is she ever going to try paragliding? It was a sort of dream, wasn't it; until he just showed her how scared she is of heights?

Gwen's hair falls over her face and tickles the nose but she never dares leave his arm to tuck them behind her ear. She looks up at the sky and as the white cottony clouds warp into amazingly weird shapes, tries to come up with a subject that doesn't concern how high the building is.

'So high school's over,' she sighs. It's not something new. It has been, like, almost a month and she has already sighed the same line for, perhaps, fifteen times.

'Yeah, now I need to search down a college and get a job.'

'You don't need a job, you're a celebrity.'

Peter narrows his eyes and stares at her, his lips twisting into a crooked smile. As another gust of wind follows, he says, 'I'm not a celebrity, just a social worker. And I think I'll have a lot of time left even after sweeping the city clean of rogues.'

'Yeah it appears we also have a lot of time to dangle ourselves down skyscrapers.'

'We're not dangling – certainly not – you want to see what dangling is? I'll show you...'

'No thanks,' Gwen casually flips her hand in the air. She is happy enough to sit on the parapet like a suicide-obsessed person and doesn't really want a vigorous rush of blood to the head. All of a sudden, she's dizzyingly aware of the height and grabs his arm again, clinging to his jacket so tightly that she might have even torn it at places. 'Drop it, Peter,' she says, 'tell me what're you going to do for a job.'

'I don't know – maybe I'll try something with my photographs.'

'Oh there were some great ones,' she gushes enthusiastically, sitting up straight and mysteriously forgetting all about the parapet as soon as he utters the word "photographs", 'you remember the one you took, Peter, with a tower at the forefront and the cityscape sunset at the back? I particularly love it. Feels very New York.' She gives a grinning dazed look at the distant flagpoles, as if painting the picture in her mind over the buildings or just guessing out how it might look that way.

'Really?' he chuckles.

'Yeah, I'm serious.'

'Maybe you can help me sort them out.'

'Why not,' she laughs, 'I'll get some time off physics then. At least photography doesn't involve magnetism.'

'At least photography doesn't involve martyrdom.'

Gwen's smile abruptly vanishes and her heart misses a beat. She looks away and smacks her lips, digging into the concrete with her nails rather concernedly. As the silence gets uncomfortable, Peter makes a ton of apologetic faces, scratches at the back of his head and runs out of words. After a minute, he thinks of something to say but then doesn't, and continues fidgeting beside her. He realizes the damage has been irrevocably done.

'I was joking,' he then adds lamely, reaching his hand out to tuck her wildly flying hair back.

'It isn't funny,' she says, 'and neither are your escapades which you so enjoy.' She knows, though. She knows it is no use telling him off, or talking about his fresh new bruises, or how reckless he has been. It was only last week when somebody gave him a black eye and the side of his face was swollen like hell. How can he just label everything as a skateboarding accident? Skateboards don't punch, and they don't shoot bullets. Why doesn't he get that? No wonder his aunt thinks she has got a midnight gangster nephew. She doesn't want to dig out those things again. It has become a normal routine, a common point where their conversation ultimately reaches and stops at, and they look away, stealing glances. Why, only the day before yesterday at Chinatown they were talking about this thing, and out of inane frustration Gwen left him alone with the ice-creams and took a cab home. But she knows it is no use telling him anything. Right now, as he opens his mouth to speak, Gwen rolls her eyes again, because she knows he will come up with the same old thing.

'I have to do this, Gwen, you know that very well,' he says, intense, and carefully emphasizing on each word he treads on, 'or who else will like to wear this itchy flashy suit every day?'

'You are so predictable, Peter.'

'That's why I told you,' he speaks as if Gwen never spoke, lost in his own thoughts, 'and not Aunt May. She would've had me locked up in some kind of dungeon forever. It's you who knows because you understand.'

'It's me who knows 'coz I'd invited you for dinner.'

Peter lets out a long exhale and murmurs under his breath, 'What the heck am I supposed to do with this girl.'

'You bought a car, Aunt May?' Peter coughs over his snacks as he repeats her casually-passed comment. He thinks there is something wrong with his ears, some peculiar kind of deafness that manipulates words before the impulse reaches the brain. And given that he was slightly busy recollecting the particularly fine windy morning he spent with Gwen at the top of the skyscraper, he is absolutely sure he heard wrong.

'Just rented it, Peter,' she murmurs, mopping the kitchen slab. She looks slightly embarrassed.

'Rented it for what?' he asks again, 'If you wanted a lift to office, you could've taken – '

'What, your skateboard?' she shoots back.

'Train,' clarifies Peter, 'I was going to say train.'

'Oh Peter, it didn't cost me as much money as you're thinking it did,' she says, this time turning at him and casting a disgusted glance at the stray bits of snacks lying all around him over the couch resembling a mound of fallen autumn leaves. In response, Peter straightens up and dusts them down as they scatter over the floor, while Aunt May continues, 'and I rented it because we're moving out.'

'We're moving out?' he is visibly distraught, 'When?'

'Today.'

'Today?'

'I've already packed things up,' she says, 'didn't you notice? Though it's a shame I've to do this on your birthday...'

Peter thinks he must be mad. Or partially blind. Either way or how is even possible that he never noticed those heavy trunks and huge cartons piled one over another like a heap of abnormally large bricks under the staircase and at the doorway? Right now Aunt May has been rolling up cutlery into old newspapers and all he is doing is chomping on snacks and thinking about cars. At once he jumps down the couch and walks in to help her lift the kitchen television, still flabbergasted about the fact how he didn't notice anything. 'Birthday blindness,' he calls it.

'Hey, wrestling ads,' he catches a free-flying piece of newspaper while wrapping the china plates and placing them into their boxes, 'I've always wanted to punch a wrestler on the face.'

'Featherweight category?' Aunt May giggles, putting the tape at the corners.

'Yeah, would suit me,' laughs Peter, 'especially when I've punch a liz – '

'A what?' asks Aunt May, furrowing her eyebrows as if she couldn't catch something.

Peter's laugh disappears and he freezes in his place, his mouth half-opened. He is just goofing up too much right now, from every aspect, struggling with one half of his mind too busy to do anything apart from thinking about Gwen and the other half not even working properly or noticing the whirlwind of changes around him, and spilling secrets. Hell, what does he say now?

'A – er – er – a,' he grins nervously, 'a – a link! You know, link – internet – online wrestling – '

He doesn't even want to think or decode how lame that sounded, and is perfectly happy of Aunt May getting rid of her hard-of-hearing gestures and starting with the tape again. They don't speak much for some time, putting things into their places, sealing cartons and wrapping items. It is only when they are finally done and Aunt May is swiping the floor when she begins talking again, a bit thoughtful and serious.

'Look, Peter,' she pauses to have his attention, then as he glances, she continues, 'I don't want to sound like I'm lecturing you and I know you've grown up enough to take care of yourself, but, Peter, it's time you take some responsibility.'

'Hmm...' he nods, giving some final touches of tape on a cardboard box.

'D'you know what I'm talking about?'

'Not really...'

'I'm talking about you, Peter.'

'You want me to marry? I just got past high school, Aunt May,' he looks at her, guffawing.

'I'm not asking you to marry, for God's sake, Peter,' she says putting down the wiper and folding her arms, 'I'm asking you to take some responsibility about yourself, about your safety. Do you have any idea that a murder happened right in the next lane when you came home that late? You aren't even bothered to tell me where you're off to! I was so worried...'

First Gwen, then Aunt May. He knows he might even be responsible for it and it's only for his own good, but all of a sudden everybody seems to be chewing out about his late night escapades today. He feels like burying his face into the packet of snacks. How bad holding back a secret can get? He's well aware that the night Aunt May is talking about was actually a rough one; he had been following the policemen who were about to catch the notorious Russian mafia gang. It was an overlong sting operation, and he came home, maybe, past 3 p.m. But come on, it's the pangs of being spider-man, not somebody with a fixed 8 a.m to 10 p.m office job. It is just something he cannot help.

'Uh – I'm so sorry about that night Aunt May, I just thought – '

'I've been hearing terrible, terrible things about the murder,' she inhales, when the sudden honking outside interrupts into their conversation, 'Wait, now that must be Phil.' Aunt May looks up and rushes to the door.

'Who's Phil?'

'Our new neighbour, 'Aunt May hurries with the packages, 'and he's also supposed to bring the car.'

Peter peeks through the glass door. Beside the middle-aged beefy red-haired man, dressed in a beach shirt and shorts and leaning over, his eyes catch the blue car. And what a car it is.

After a long time it feels like spring. Peter breathes in the crisp New York air, and the breeze whiffs through his hair. The world seems to be motioning ever so slowly. And that is, of course, thanks to the car. He looks down at the droopy music system which is about to fall onto his lap. And he is trembling, not out of any kind of excitement but because of the engine that is noisy enough to have him put on a weird grumpy face ever since he has climbed into the car. He can sense the springs popping out of the seat and pinching his butt. The horn feels like working whenever it has a mood to, and even vigorously pushing the accelerator for the thirtieth time cannot really speed it up. He can now realize what Aunt May said about its cost was an understatement; anybody asking even a single penny should be slapped straight on the face.

He could've carried all the goods at one go and swung them into place within ten minutes. After all, he's goddamn spider-man. But no, he requires stumbling and tumbling his way through the road. He feels Aunt May has played some sort of practical joke on him.

'I've got to go to the office, Peter. Just drive the goods to the new home, if you please. Phil will show you the way in the first round,' she said, pulling out her regular handbag from the mess of cardboard and newspapers and walking down the stairs.

'But its Sunday, Aunt May,' he tried to add some reason in her excuse not to drive the car herself, as he hurried after her.

'I know. I've taken an extra shift.'

'But I don't even have a license!'

She patted him on the shoulder and grinned, 'Take mine.'

'What?'

And there he is, making the third round. Sometimes, the scratched-to-death Ford's speed gives him serious doubts about how much more it can take before the wheels come off automatically. The car (piece of worthless metal, in his opinion) is also causing him some undue attention, to his annoyance, as he keeps his fingers crossed that the attention remains subdued and doesn't reach up to a police officer. But it seems only after she sees her nephew behind bars will Aunt May realize that neither he is almost a senior citizen, nor does he resemble her picture on the driving license.

Without warning, a girl on a motorbike materializes out of a by lane. Apparently she doesn't notice the car and pauses dead-on in front of it to check her ringing cell-phone. Peter pushes the brakes abruptly, doubtful about whether they really work as the car keeps hurtling forth, soon to collide with her. Finally it comes to halt, and he breathes a sigh of relief, while the girl glances up from the phone, pulls off her white helmet and smiles at the car as though she has seen it in some kind of exhibition last week. How embarrassing, thinks Peter.

'You okay?' he asks her, getting out of the car.

The pretty face holds a kind of apprehension for a while as if she were expecting a bashing from him for stopping short in front of his car, but then grins and says, 'I'm fine, it didn't touch me.'

Once assured, he gets in and tries to restart the car. And how he never understood pushing the brakes all so suddenly will break it down altogether. He checks the petrol tank. It's almost full. He grits his teeth and heaves a long sigh, putting his head down on his arms over the steering wheel. He thinks he now desperately needs to pull out his mask. This is more than enough.

'What happened?' asks the girl, after she gets off her motorbike and gazes in through the car window.

'Huh?' he looks up, startled, 'Oh no, nothing, it's just – '

'Broken down, I guess,' she says, and runs her eyes around the interiors, 'cool car.'

Peter gets visibly infuriated, but keeps his cool and grins at her, 'This piece of trash isn't mine.'

'This isn't a piece of trash.'

'Oh yes it is. And it's out of my capabilities to get it started.'

'Let me try once,' she suggests coolly.

'I don't even know you,' reasons Peter.

'Doesn't matter.'

'Okay, what if I let you in and you run away with it?'

'You'll still have my motorbike,' she replies, 'fair bargain.'

'Fine,' he scoffs, and jumps out of the driver's seat.

He looks up and down at the enormous blue pile of immovable broken down rubbish and folding his arms, leans against the lamp post beside, his lips turned up into a twisted mock-grin. For the next half an hour, the girl's bubbling enthusiasm slowly leaks out like air out of a punctured balloon, as she occasionally glances up at him making peculiar faces which range from saying, "I accept your challenge" to "Can't you even help?" and "You're a frigging jerk", however after a few dozen trials with the gear and closing the front lid after checking in for the twentieth time, she turns at him and finally confesses, 'No, it isn't working.'

'Told ya,' he nods.

'What're you going to do now?' she asks in a genuinely curious voice, stroking back the red flaming hair that comes flying into her eyes.

'I don't know – uh – maybe I'll take a cab – '

'Wait, I can give you a ride,' the girl positively beams with him wondering why, and whether she's some sort of a social worker, 'you have any problem with that?'

'Oh no, how can I,' he flings his arms into the air, bordering on the sarcasm that the girl never really gets, smiles to himself and stares at her trying to figure out the reason behind this unexplainable generosity. The girl puts on her helmet and kicks-start the bike, 'Okay, then climb up.'

'Well, don't you think the car needs to move into a repair centre first?'

'Oh yeah,' she gets off again and grins apologetically, 'forgot about it.'

'Forgettable thing, as it is.'

'Enough thrashing now.'

'Really,' he chuckles, pulling out the luggage, 'I didn't even get started yet. This car's undoubtedly the most wasteful thing I've ever seen. And it's tortured me for a lifetime in this one hour.'

'Ha ha,' she says unenthusiastically. At times, Peter notices that she touches or handles it so very carefully – like the way one will do to their new Ferrari – as if she has some sort of spiritual connection with the battered-down car that he cannot understand, and won't stop screaming with fury if someone goes as close to making a small scratch (given that there isn't even a place to make one, honestly).

'A trunk, two boxes, and another trunk,' says the girl, as she pauses in between to make each word count, and raises her eyebrows so high that they almost disappear into her red locks. She parks the motorbike near the wall and stops short just in front of him, 'Are you sure you can carry all this at once?' She looks awestruck and traces her eyes from his hair down to his feet, and then at the things in his hands and the relative ease in which he is carrying them. Peter knows that even the thick jacket can't make him look buff. But he smirks; thinking his skinny build and his strength must be colliding hard inside her head and giving her some dizziness.

'With my pinkie,' he waves off casually. Now he thinks he is having fun.

'Show off,' she dismisses him, but somehow cannot hide the surprise in her voice as they begin to push the car. Right now, she must also be feeling that she doesn't really need to give any effort and the car is seemingly rolling all by itself. Peter thinks there are chances that the girl will soon start to violently scratch her head in confusion or run away shrieking at the top of her lungs, "He's a freak!" But she steers clear of the 'whys' and 'whats' of the happenings and continues 'pushing' the car. After a while, as they reach the turn of the lane, Peter casually questions, 'By the way, we didn't really collide so you don't quite have an obligation to fix this car or help me – I mean – I mean – I really appreciate your help but can't quite guess out why you're doing it – '

'Because,' she comes to an abrupt pause and narrows her eyes at him, her sweet disposition almost gone and as he backtracks a couple of steps, caught off guard by the sudden change, she scoffs, 'you are my new neighbour, and that car is my dad's baby.'

Okay. He can now feel the colour rising up his face.

'She told you I was mean and arrogant?'

After the car went where it should have long ago, the work happened really fast. And even faster, because the girl didn't waste any time talking to Peter, and remained in a disgruntled and sulking state of mind, often pulling down the bags so forcefully that the straps almost came off. Peter thought she probably took his comments about the car to heart. But she also helped him big time, so he had made up his mind to thank her, but them she stalked off somewhere and he ended up spending the rest of the time sitting on one of the trunks which filled up the whole of the front porch, waiting for Aunt May. But seriously, thinks Peter, who would've thought she had been filling her ears all this time?

'She didn't tell me anything,' says Aunt May.

'Honestly, Aunt May I never said anything more than the obvious. The car needed to go to the repair centre; in fact it looked beyond repair to me. It should've right away headed to a – a – I don't know – '

'Waste basket, I guess?'

Peter is so startled by the sudden voice that he almost jumps in response, trips his feet and crashes with a dull thud on the floor. The girl came up all so suddenly behind his back. She renders a cold glance at his admittedly staggered face, puts down a cluster of plates and starts to walk her way to the next room.

'Where did you come from?' Peter asks with such bewilderment that he comes off as slightly rude.

'Kitchen,' she snaps.

'You've been overhearing us.'

'I've got better things to do.'

'What is she doing here?' Peter asks Aunt May, looking so traumatised that Aunt May can't help but laugh under her breath. He raises his eyebrows, unable to make out what is going on, and waits for her answer, 'Don't tell me she's going to stay...'

'Mary Jane has just come to help me with the dinner,' she says, dusting the couch 'now, now, Peter, you better behave properly.' He almost opens his mouth to protest when he hears a certain jingle in one of the boxes that tumbled with him when he fell, and is sure at once that he has broken something. As Aunt May approaches them, he swiftly gets to his feet and thinks of sneaking out of the crammed living hall before she finds out how much damage he has done to her beloved kitchen items.

Following the sound of the hammering, he strolls into the room the girl has just walked into. The work is almost done there, though the bed is awfully filled with dust and the way the girl is standing on it and thumping the nail into the wall makes it wobble very dangerously.

'Give it to me,' says Peter. He thinks it is safe to take it away before the whole bed collapses with her. The girl, namely Mary Jane, doesn't even glance down.

'Look I – I,' Peter stutters, scratching the back of his head and thinking what to come up with, 'I apologize.' This time she gives a narrow-eyed titled stare at his face, while he adds, 'I'm sorry – you know – what I said – I'm really sorry I insulted your car –it must've shed a lot of tears after I was gone – ' he almost bursts out laughing and has to stuff his knuckles into his face to control his facial muscles, 'I'm sorry. I really am.' He knows he has now annoyed her to such an extent that right now she won't hesitate even a teensy bit if she has to hammer the nail into his head instead.

'What's that you're wearing?' he asks suddenly.

'What d'you mean?' she glares at Peter, visibly offended.

'Oh no, I mean, who's that on your T-shirt? Spidey?'

'It's got nothing to do with you,' she snaps back gruffly, while her face reddens up, reaching almost the same colour as her hair.

'Yeah, nothing,' Peter gives an odd smirk, sitting at the other side of the bed, 'fan girl.'

He looks through the window. The scene outside is more or less the same as what it has been back at their old house – some neighbouring blocks of houses, patches of yellow green grass, and a broad lane in front. Peter switches on the lights. The sky appears quite dark from inside and he assumes it must be past 6 p.m. He turns warningly at the sudden sound that follows, but thinks that must be the new doorbell.

'Just check the door, will you, Peter...' comes a distant Aunt May's call from upstairs. Peter stumbles his way through the hotchpotch of cardboard, newspapers, china and glass scattered all over the living room and hopes that he didn't crush anything under his feet as reaches the door and pulls it ajar.

Peter furrows his eyebrows into a frown, unsure whether he has ever seen the person before. It is a young man of about his age, wearing an expensive overcoat with a heavy looking bag slung around his shoulder. For a moment they stand gaping at each other, when the man breaks into a warm smile. The smile brings a glint to his deep-set, sunken eyes under the darkish blond hair falling over his forehead and he all of a sudden starts to look familiar.

'You forgot me, Peter?' he talks in a teasing, suspenseful tone, as though asking Peter the answer to his riddle.

Peter screws his eyebrows further. He remembers that eerie glint in the guy's eyes, although it seems like a distant faded memory he cannot fully recollect.

'Ha – Harry?'

'It's been such a long time, Peter. By the way, happy birthday. Won't you ask me to come in?'

So I wrote this because I was tired of the angsty sad things regarding Peter and Gwen and thought they must move on. And as you can see, there's some heavy inspiration from the TASM 2 set pics, which I hope is not a crime. Since I've got no idea how this came about, I'll only continue if you ask me to. So review and tell me whether the story should move one step further or should remain a one-shot. Thanks for reading.