Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I'm making no money off this. Marvel owns Spiderman and all related characters. And while I'm already disclaiming: this is poorly written and has not been proof read by anyone but me. Also, I have the grammar skills of a stoned monkey. So… caveat lector? (Why am I on a Latin kick?).

In Medias Res

Peter found her huddled up against his apartment door, not quite asleep but certainly dozing lightly as the line of drool tracing down her chin attested. Her name was Mary Jane. She went to school with him, had since elementary, and lived in the neighborhood where he had grown up. They had played together from time to time when they were younger and had grown into casual acquaintances, limited to greetings and the occasional brief chats about inconsequential things before they broke of and resumed their usual social orbits. They were both friends with Harry Osborn – though Peter only rated as such because he served as Harry's academic crutch – but that was the extent of their involvement.

So why she would be napping outside of his door at – he checked his watch – eight o'clock on a Saturday night when she surely had something better to do was a bit of a mystery. Peter squatted down and looked at her, wondering what to do. He was tempted to just leave her there, avoid the awkward uncertainty entirely, but his apartment wasn't exactly in the nicest part of town. She could get in trouble just lying there. Besides, she was blocking his doorway and he couldn't get past without waking her.

"Errr… Mary Jane?" he said, hesitantly. She stirred in her almost sleep. "Mary Jane," he said more loudly, and this time she bolted up, alarmed, her green eyes wide and searching as she tried to figure out where she was.

Her eyes locked on him and she visibly relaxed. "Peter," she said. "Long time, no see."

Peter blinked. "Didn't we talk Friday? I said 'hi'; you said 'hi'. We had a whole greeting thing going."

"Well, we talked, but we didn't talk-talk, y;know?"

Peter shrugged. "We never talk-talked. We just talk. I don't seen why you would come down here just for that
"You've been distant. You go to school but you're somewhere else in your head."

"It's school," Peter said. "Everyone's somewhere else in their head, including most of the teachers."

"You don't really talk to anyone," Mary Jane continued.

"And we're back to talking. I talk to people as much as I ever did."

"Harry misses you. He's failing Algebra without your tutoring sessions."

Peter felt a twinge of guilt at his sometimes friend's plight. "I always meant to start those up again after… but I kept putting it off."

"Well stop it," Mary Jane said. "He'll be lucky to pull of a "B" or a "C" at this rate and you know how his father is."

"Yeah," Peter said. "I know. I'll talk to him about it on Monday."

"Great," Mary Jane smiled brightly and Peter found himself answering that smile with a rare one of his own.

"Is that all?" Peter asked.

"Isn't that enough?" Mary Jane rejoined.

"It's just you could have called me. Harry has my number," Peter said nervously. "I mean, if you just wanted to bully me into studying with Harry."

"I don't bully," Mary Jane protested. "That's Liz's thing. I charm and every once in a while compel. I'm compelling here."

"Okay, if you just wanted to compel me into studying with Harry."

"Maybe I wanted you to study with me too?" Mary Jane suggested.

"Again," he said. "Phone number. Call."

"Okay, I wanted to see you apartment. No one's seen it, not even Harry," she said. "It was a big thing around school for a few weeks, you being on your own at your age. Our age."

"Emancipation isn't everything it's cracked up to be," Peter said, his eyes suddenly darker.

"I'm sorry," Mary Jane said quickly. "I didn't mean-"

"No, that's okay," Peter said, waving her apologies away.

"I could leave-" she started.

"No," Peter said. "You came all this way. It would be a shame not see my place." He rose and stretched, suppressing a yawn as Mary Jane followed suit. He pulled a key from his pocket, unlocked his door and swept it open grandly. "Welcome to Casa de Parker."

The apartment could charitably be described as cozy, or, uncharitably, as cramped. There were three rooms: a combined kitchenette/living room dominated by a couch and a coffee table rescued from Aunt May and Uncle Ben's house, a small bathroom and a bedroom with barely enough room for a bed. It wasn't much, but it was clean, the bed made, the floors vacuumed, the dishes washed and put away (by hand because he didn't have a dishwasher), the bathroom if not exactly sparkling then at least not stained and mildewed. A few books were scattered on the coffee table were the only real signs of disarray.

After the tour they retired to the living room to drink sodas and trade inane chatter.

"So how did you get emancipated? I mean, you're fourteen. That can't be normal." Mary Jane asked.

"I argued my case to the judge," Peter said. "I had a slideshow presentation, flow charts, unfavorable statistics on the foster system, testimonials by my teachers about how mature and responsible I was, all my report cards from elementary onward, a eight year plan going through high school and college… It was epically geeky."

"Wow," she said, suitably impressed. "And that worked?"

"Not even a little bit. Then I talked to Harry, and Harry talked to his Dad, and his Dad snapped his fingers and bam, I'm an emancipated minor. Of course now I owe Harry major. Tutoring sessions won't even begin to cover it, but maybe it can handle the interest."

"Favors earn interest?" Mary Jane asked.

"Big favors do. Small favors tend to go the other way."

"Good to know."

They drank silence for a few moments. Peter talked first. "So… why are you here?"

Mary Jane paused as she was about to drink. "I told you. Harry is failing calculus and he misses you and I wanted to see your apartment."

Peter looked at her, his eyes serious behind his glasses. "Harry failing calculus warrants maybe cornering me after class. As for the rest… Harry and I are friends, but Harry has lots of friends. He wouldn't miss me enough to mention it to you. My apartment's old news and even if it wasn't, you aren't half the gossip that Liz is. She would have barged in here with her pet caveman in tow when the story was fresh. But she didn't, so why would you? Don't get me wrong, it's great talking with you, but I am curious."

She fidgeted nervously with her coffee cup. He was surprised at himself. He'd had a crush on May Jane since forever. A year ago, he would have simply basked unquestioning in her presence. Now… He still liked her, but the puppy love was gone, gouged out by the movement of vaster and crueler emotions grinding like glaciers across his mindscape. Now he questioned.

"Something happened to me," Mary Jane started slowly. "I… I need to talk to someone about it."

"And you can't talk to Liz or Harry?" Peter asked.

"No," Mary Jane said definitely. "They'd think I was crazy."

"And I won't?"

"No," Mary Jane said with certainty. "You won't."

Peter smiled. "Okay, I won't."

Mary Jane smiled at him, a moony reflection of her usual sunny grin, but still beautiful. Then she seemed to turn inward, folding into herself as she stared down into her cup of coffee. Silence stretched long through the room. Peter waited. Eventually, she started talking.

"When I'm sad, I like to ride the trains…"

She stared at the window, at the dappled dark and bright world as it blurred by, at her own reflection and the brokenness that was normally carefully hidden behind spring-green eyes. She liked the trains. They made her feel connected and alone at the same time, part of the world, but separate from it. They made her feel like she was moving forward, progressing, even if she had nowhere to go.

That night they just weren't cutting it. She was restless, her feet tapping, her hands clenching. She wanted to move herself, not be moved. When the next stop came, she left the train and walked out into the night, ignoring the sensible Mary Jane that sat in the back of her head and told her she was being stupid.

She didn't know the part of town in which she had debarked. It looked run-down, used up, broken. Just walking down the street made her uneasy, anxious and a little bit afraid. It was almost refreshing to have something concrete and definite to be upset about instead of the vague disquiet she felt about her life in general. She smiled and quietly admitted there was something wrong with her, an admission she made daily and which daily came to nothing.

She walked in a dreamy reverie, wandering nowhere, just putting one foot in front of the other. And then someone grabbed her and her strange little dream-walk shattered. She looked at her assailants. He looked filthy in the dark, though that might have just been a trick of the shadows. He was dressed in jeans and a stained t-shirt, and he had friends that clustered around him like a pack of wild dogs around an alpha.

Mary Jane screamed, now, finally, listening to that sensible voice in the back of her head. It told her to run and she tried, but the leader had a solid grip on her arm and his friends now ringed around her as well. They dragged her into a nearby alley, laughing, saying oily, dirty things that she couldn't quite remember later but which made her feel sick just to think of them. She fought them but couldn't win and soon she was surrounded by high walls of graffiti-marked brick. She screamed again, this time receiving a ringing slap across the face for her trouble. She tasted blood in her mouth. All she could do was close her eyes and wait for the inevitable.

And then it all changed. One violent wrench and the arm holding her was gone. She opened her eyes and found the man who'd grabbed her completely vanished. His followers were shouting. They waved suddenly apparent guns around and discharged them into the night to no real effect. Mary Jane heard the artificial thunder but did not flinch away. It occurred to her she might be in shock, even as two other gang members flew violently up into the night and vanished. There were three left. Then two as another was snatched up into the night. One broke and ran. He made it to the mouth of the alley before he too was no more. And then there was one, glaring at the deep alley shadows, gun in hand. Suddenly he leveled the gun at something Mary Jane could not see and fired. In the sudden blast of light, Mary Jane could see… something. A deformed figure crouched amidst a nest of huge black serpents. And then the last man was holding his arm and screaming, his forearm bent unnaturally, his gun gone. A flicker of movement and he jerked backwards, falling bonelessly to the ground.

Mary Jane was alone with something, a creature that had taken out six men like it was nothing. Sensible Mary Jane was screaming to run far, far away, but she was back to being ignored. Mary Jane peered into the shadows and saw, staring back at her, a demonic figure with eyes like drops of blood, bright red, flat and perfectly circular. Ruby eyes met emerald and held for a few moments.

Carefully, slowly, a sinuous black appendage crept from the shadow and delicately trace Mary Jane's cheek.

Mary Jane felt the kiss of metal on her face. It was the last thing she felt before her eyes rolled up into her head and she fainted.

"I woke up hours later in my room," she finished.

Peter considered. "And you're sure it wasn't all a dream," he said more than asked.

"Positive," she replied.

"Then I guess you met the Creature and lived. Congratulations."

"The Creature?"

Peter nodded, sipped and said "That what they call it around here. It's not especially original or descriptive, I admit, but nothing else really seems to fit…"

"Tell me about him," Mary Jane said. She had set down her coffee mug and grabbed Peter's arm, almost making him spill his coffee. The intensity in her eyes was unsettling.

"Errr… Alright," Peter said and then paused, as if collecting his thoughts. "He appeared around two months ago, but there were reports earlier than that. People say there was a creature digging through the remains of the OzCorp research center that got wrecked by the man-spider, so he could be an experiment that escaped after the thing was destroyed."

"The man-spider thing? Wasn't that when-?" Mary Jane started and then clamped her mouth shut as Peter shot her a look.

"Anyway," Peter continued. "After that, the thing vanishes for months. Then there's this huge fight in the warehouse district. No one really saw what happened, but plenty of people heard it. When the police and camera crews get there, they find a warehouse that's all messed up. There are huge holes in the walls and ceiling, the floor's cratered in spots, there are packing crates broken everywhere, like someone had used them as baseballs. The whole thing was barely standing. And then, in the middle of the warehouse they find a woman cradling a man who looked like he'd been beaten half to death twice over. The woman is sobbing and begging for help, so naturally the police call in the EMTs to help the guy. It's only later they discover the guy is actually Otto Octavius-"

"The man-spider," Mary Jane said.

"Exactly. Something or someone went to town on him."

"But was it the creature?" Mary Jane asked, frowning.

"Well, the wife did describe something very similar to what you did, a twisted black figure with red eyes and four black tendrils coming out of his back. So smart money says it was the creature. After that the sighting became more random. Sometimes it's an attack, usually on drug dealers and gang member's, but that's probably just because they're the only ones who hang around alleyways and deserted warehouses after dark… Most of the time people just see him in passing as he wanders around the city."

Mary Jane looked at him as if he were crazy. "Shouldn't that be news or something? I mean, you have a strange creature stalking across the city attacking people. Shouldn't people be talking?"

"People are talking," said Peter with a shrug. "It's just not the kind of people that get into the paper much, unless they get caught doing something illegal. The actual attacks are kinda rare and all the sightings are at night, so it's mostly being passed of as cats or shadows or the wind."

"What about the man-spider? Do they think he beat himself up?"

"That was actually one theory," Peter said. "He was… is nutty as a fruitcake. He seemed more homicidal than suicidal when I saw him, but…" Peter shrugged. "The papers just said that the police had found and captured the man-spider. They didn't say anything about him being half-dead already."

"But you still believe he's real. The creature," Mary Jane stated more than asked.

Peter was silent for a moment, trying to organize his thoughts and simultaneously repress his more unpleasant memories. Finally he said, "I was there the day the man-spider attacked…I can't ever forget that day, no matter how hard I try. I saw one man rip through half a hundred security guards and policemen. I saw one man moving so fast he was a blur, throwing around grown men like they were plastic dolls, shattering solid concrete with punches and not even breaking a sweat while doing it. I saw one man prove that he was above the order of society, that he could defy the world and no one could touch him. I doubt anything natural could take him down like that, and I doubt he could do that to himself, on the physically impossible torn muscle and broken bones level. So yes, I think the creature is real. Your story pretty much seals the deal for me."

Mary Jane brooded in silence. Peter glanced at the clock. It was getting late but he certainly was not going to kick her out. She was, after all, Mary Jane, and however mentally messed up he had gotten, there was still a part of him doing back flips and waving pompoms at the fact that he had Mary Jane talking to him in his apartment, (without, of course, dwelling on how he had gotten his apartment).

Finally, she spoke. "I'm going to find him."

"What?" Peter asked, sure he had misheard.

"I'm going to find him," she repeated. "The creature. I'm going to track him down."

Peter choked on his coke and took a full minute to recover enough to speak. "See that, that's the worst idea I've heard in a while. Right up there with foster care and rat-legging." He paused, as if to consider the sheer enormity of that bad idea.

"Rat-legging?" Mary Jane asked.

"Like ferret-legging," Peter explained absent mindedly. "But, you know, with sewer rats. What would you even do if you found him? Ask him to homecoming? Get his autograph?"

Mary Jane snorted. "I was thinking more taking his picture. That'd prove his existence, right?"

"Assuming people don't think the photo is doctored, yeah, but why would you even want to do that?"

"Well," Mary Jane said, seemingly scrambling for an answer. "Well, there's probably a reward for proof, even if everybody thinks it's an urban legend. Or I could just sell it to a newspaper."

"You're going to risk your life for money? That… doesn't seem like you," Peter said and immediately regretted it as Mary Jane's eyes narrowed.

"I'm not the perfectly shallow party girl everyone thinks I am. I have flaws. I can be mopey or overdramatic or spiteful or greedy if I want to be. Don't think you know me, Peter Parker." She wasn't exactly shouting the last phrase, but her voice had definitely peaked a few octaves. She continued in a milder if slightly bitter tone "I get enough of that at school."

Peter very wisely decided to back off and change the subject. "So how are you going to find him? Believe it or not, others have tried."

It was Mary Jane's turn to shrug. "I'll just get a list of all the attacks and where they occurred. That should give me a general area to search. Then I guess I'll just have to look until I find him."

Peter stared at her, thought of a number of responses and discarded them all. Finally he managed "You do realize the Creature only shows himself at night, right?"

"Uh-huh," said Mary Jane.

"So you're going to be searching through what is probably going to be one of the worst parts of the city (because I really don't see this thing living in a penthouse apartment) at night, all alone, armed with only a camera?"

"And pepper spray," she added.

Peter wondered whether he should comment on just how suicidal that plan was before deciding it wouldn't do any good. "Would you promise me something since we're now apparently proto-friends?" he asked. She nodded warily. "When you go on these missions, could you take either me or Harry with you?"

"Why Harry and you? Why not Flash. I mean, he's bigger than both of you combined."

"Which will help not at all if someone shoots him, and, unless Flash has suddenly mastered diplomacy, someone will shoot him. Let's not even talk about Liz. She'd get both of you shot the first time she opened her mouth."

"But you and Harry are what? Bulletproof?

Peter snorted. "I wish. No, Harry, as the son of Norman Osborn and the heir apparent to OzCorp, has body guards that tail him after school. He calls them the goblin guard. No, I don't know why. You really haven't heard him complain about them?"

"Errr… Not really, no."

"Huh… Weird. I guess he wants you to think he's normal and not, y'know, rich enough to buy the school ten times over. Anyway, yeah they follow him around. They can step in when you get into trouble."

"When?" Mary Jane said indignantly. "How do you know I'll get into trouble? And what about you? Do you have bodyguards too?"

"Nope," Peter says, smiling and choosing not to answer the first question. "I'm a superhero."

"A superhero?" Mary Jane said, bemused.

"Yep," Peter said mock solemnly. "But don't tell anyone. It's a secret."

"My lips are sealed," Mary Jane said, miming zipping her lips. "So what's your power?"

"Common sense. It allows me to spot potentially dangerous situations and steer away from them," Peter explained solemnly.

"Amazing. And you're common sense is different from my common sense how exactly?"

"It exists?" Peter hazarded. Upon seeing her expression he held up his hands as if to ward her off. "Hey, the train/creature story is exactly doing you any favors here."

"A small lapse in judgment," May Jane argued.

"That's all it takes," Peter pointed out. "But seriously, me or Harry. Please. Just promise me that."

Mary Jane considered, chewing on her lower lip. Finally she sighed. "Fine. You or Harry." She looked at the microwave clock and did a quick double take. "Uh-oh. I've got to go. Thanks for showing me around and talking and not thinking I'm crazy." She shot up and headed for the door.

"Anytime," he replied. He was surprised to find he meant it. He'd been happier sitting their, talking to Mary Jane (who he now knew to be slightly insane) and drinking soda than he had been since the day Uncle Ben died. "Umm, do you need me to walk you to the train station, or…?'

"No," she said. "It's only a few blocks away. I'll be fine."

"If you say so," he said, doubtfully.

"I do. Bye!" And like that, she was gone.

Peter closed the door and leaned back against it, trying to process what had just happened, wondering why Mary Jane would seek him of all people out when she was on friendly terms with everyone in the school. Then he shrugged, deciding that it didn't matter.

He moved to the lone window in the house, situated over the television, and opened it. Then he called, not with his voice but with his mind, a quick, cool portion of his psyche that was still quite new to him. Something answered and he stood back.

It flowed sinuously through open window, a river of wetly gleaming black metal tendrils drawing behind them a black metal harness with a black bundle of fabric strapped to it. Peter stripped as it flowed toward him. He shucked of his green sweatshirt, his shoes, his jeans, revealing the quilted black body suit he wore underneath. Moving quickly, with an ease that was already very nearly second nature, he broke up the bundle of cloth attached to the harness, which twitched, impatient and restless before him. Out spilled pieces of black ceramic plates and swatches of durable Kevlar fabric. Peter strapped on the armor, the upper chest plate, the vambraces, the gloves, the greaves, the boots, the skull cap. The biomechanical arms tightened and fitted and adjusted as needed, manipulating the armor with four-clawed pincers agile enough to pick dimes of concrete and build mansions of cards. The whole process took less than a minute and Peter stood clad in a carapace of ceramic armor and heavy Kevlar, all experimental materials salvaged from the ruin OzCorp facility (along with a few other things) before the authorities had time to properly secure it themselves. There was only the mask, a close fitting, featureless black thing of thick Kevlar set with ruby-colored night-vision lenses. He hesitated a moment before pulling it over his head. It was surprisingly comfortable, quilted specially like the suit to allow some airflow. The world through the lenses was bright and red and well-defined.

But he was still just Peter Parker in scary black armor. He needed one more thing… The harness clicked open wide and, propelled by the tentacles, snapped closed again around his stomach, ringing it with slightly warm black metal. It was like becoming like regaining a lost limb, like reuniting with a long estranged friend, like becoming whole… Suddenly he felt strong, fast, powerful. Suddenly he became more aware of the room as his new appendages began feeding him information from their own sensors. He sometimes suspected he didn't even need the goggles, that even in pitch dark he could navigate just by the senses of his metal self.

The Creature rose with a thought, born aloft and out the room by the unnatural grace of the metal tendrils. He closed the window behind him, and climbed effortlessly, soundlessly up to the roof. It was exhilarating, the cool night air and the strength of his metal self. He wanted revel in that exhilaration, to bound across the city on his metal legs, to scale the tallest skyscrapers and laugh into the wind as he swung from their lightning rods.

But he controlled himself. Mary Jane was walking down the street. He would shadow her home; make sure she got there alive. After that? Maybe he would find a drug dealer to mug. Living on his own was expensive, and the funds he had inherited were worryingly short. Maybe he would put in a few appearances near the more highbrow portions of the city, just to throw off Mary Jane's map. Maybe he would just race across the city at top speed, just for the hell of it. He was the Creature as long as he wore the harness, and the night city was his playground.

AN: Questions? Comments? Concerns? Critiques? Review and let me know! And no, I have no idea where this is going. Or if it is going anywhere. But I'm interested in finding out.

AN2: Should I have mentioned this is (very loosely) based off the Spider-man loves Mary Jane universe? Probably. Ah, well.