Haibane Renmei: CORPORATION Only in New York, a Spider-Man + Haibane Renmei Crossover fanfic

A note about this one – This is a One Shot based on my CORPORATION storyline. I was thinking one day, what if… You know - how some of those comic book companies take their characters and write 'What If' stories about them – creating a chapter based on a plotline that never happened within their normal canon and such? Well such a story germinated in my noodle the other day. It just kind of sat there and said 'you WILL write me, or I'll never get out of your head! NEAA!'

Don't you hate stories like that? They've got wills of their own, and know how to twist your brains until they spew out like toothpaste. Mmm! Minty!

HAIBANE RENMEI: CORPORATION

Only in New York

A weird kind of Crossover

By R. A. Stott

He swung as fast as he could, his heart beating like it had never had before. He had to make it back to his apartment as soon as possible because… well, simply because he could hardly believe it himself what he had just gone through.

Incident Report: Temporal Distortion within the Demon's Gate causes Dimensional Instability between Guri/Glie and a Non-standard Location.

Event: During a recent upgrade of the conduit system between our world and the Holy Site of Glie, an anomaly occurred causing a flare of energy to be transmitted through the injectors into the Demon's Gate pathway. We at first thought that the burst had not caused any problems and continued operations as normal.

At 20:00 hours, during a system's scan, we found that pathway 02-C7B was active without control of the Main Station at the same time the Primary Access to the Demon's Gate was operational. This had been overlooked since a fault like this had never occurred before. The recorders showed that a portal had been opened to another world other than either of our Standard worlds, confirmed by Observer's data feed file 10-7G3-Edward. An alarm was set off at 20:05 during the scan when an intrusion was detected. Report as follows…

"All units in the vicinity of Central Park West and West 72nd Street, robbery in progress…" the scanner had squawked, causing Peter to jump up from his desk and don his red and blue costume. He had long abandoned the odd feeling doing this had caused, but that day something made his senses twitch. As he drew his mask over his face he pensively looked over at the window he would have normally just leaped from. The apartment's window was choice to him, as it faced another brick wall with no windows of its own, so leaving that way kept onlookers from seeing their friendly neighborhood web-slinger leaving his flat. But something that day… He removed his mask and slipped a white shirt overtop himself to peek out the opening.

At first it seemed clear. He started to remove the shirt. But then two men in black suits stopped at the end of his alleyway and looked about. They both had sunglasses on and were obviously wearing some sort of earphone. Bluetooth headsets were the norm these days, but wearing sunglasses that late at night seemed odd. Peter waited a moment for them to pass before venturing to put his mask back on.

"What the hell was all that about?" he pondered to himself as he exited his room and climbed to the top of the opposite building as he had done so many times before.

Subject was put under security watch by Sun Tzu's observers retroactive to the breech via an agreement with the Observer's Corps…

Swinging as fast as he could, Peter arrived on the outskirts of the park only a few minutes later than he had wished. Though the thought of the two men he had seen bounced about in his mind as he swung in towards the area of the Natural History museum, he shook his head as he landed on its roof and looked down at the traffic below.

Two police vehicles had stopped an SUV just outside the park. The wide open doors and the way some of the officers were reacting told him all he had to know – the thief had jumped and run, and was now heading into the area of Cleopatra's Needle. It meant one thing – low swinging, since all he would have as anchors for his webbing was trees.

"Damn… time to play Tarzan," he grumbled to himself as he jumped into the chase.

Security observed the subject enter Central Park and head towards the anomaly at 19:50. The subject seemed hindered by jumping between trees and lampposts. It seemed that the subject was assisting in the pursuit of our second subject…

He stumbled through a bush and into the light of a street lamp out of breath. He looked back at the flashlights that were bouncing about behind him and smirked that they seem to be following the wrong path.

"Jimmy… what have I told you about taking other people's stuff?"

The thief spun about, his heavy breathing causing him to gulp his words, "Oh, not you again!"

"You're going to give yourself a heart attack running like that, Jimmy!" Peter said while hanging upside-down from a lamp.

Jimmy fumbled in his pocket and pulled a small snub-nosed revolver out and pointed.

"Aw, Jimmy… you never pulled a gun on me before… why start now?"

"I'm tired of this!" he shouted as the gun nervously jiggled in his hand. "I'm tired of you always coming in and ruining my day! "I'M TIRED OF YOU, MR. HIGH AND MIGHTY SPIDER-MAN!" He pulled his trigger. The kickback knocked him off his feet.

He looked up and found the red and blue man standing over him, unscathed.

"You really shouldn't announce your plans before you do them," Spidey said.

Jimmy raised his gun and got smacked in the head by something. He looked at it and found that it had been his bullet, captured within a string of webbing that had snagged it after it had left the muzzle of the pistol, which was now imbedded inside a wad of the stuff. He pulled hard on the trigger, but found that it wouldn't budge.

"Are you coming, or do I get to hang you from a pole again?" Spidey asked.

He leaned down to pick the man up. Jimmy, in a fit of anger at being caught again, lashed out with his feet and caught the web-slinger off guard causing him to trip and fall.

"Spry for your age, ea?" Peter said as he quickly got up and saw the thief running towards the Art Museum. He fired off a stringer and sprung up to follow. "I must be getting old myself to let a small fish like you knock me down!" He fired off a second lead which caught a higher building nearby. Now he could do some real swinging!

Observers witnessed the anomaly go active at 20:00 hours…

Lightning raked the skies as a mid-summer storm was heading in. Jimmy looked behind himself and saw no signs of his pursuer. He looked back at where he was and saw the buildings.

"Oh damn!" he said and came to a stop. He braced himself for what he knew was coming.

It was gut-wrenching, as his stomach dropped into his shoes. He had been on all the rides down on Coney in his youth, but this felt and was worse. The ground fell away and the windows of the upper floor of the Art Museum zoomed by. He sighed – at least he wasn't smacking him silly this time…

At 20:02 the event was observed – technical division should correct the alarm's obvious delay factor witnessed.

"WHOA! What was THAT!?" Peter yelled as they flew over the Museum at night, only to find themselves in bright daylight. He scrambled to correct his trajectory as he saw a solid object below himself. He felt his web line pull tight, telling him it was time to let go, but did he really want to do that?

It became a moot point as it was yanked from his hand. He landed with a thud and looked around. He was high up on a wall overlooking… something that wasn't downtown Manhattan. He nearly pulled his mask off to look clearly until he remembered he had a package under his arm.

"Where the f…" the thief nearly blurted until he too looked around. "…hell are we?"

"I'll be damned if I know, Jimmy," Spidey said as they looked over the vista at the quaint village below them and the peaceful green fields and forests outside it. Looking behind them at where they had come, he saw the blue skies continue on, but below that seem to fade into a yellow haze. The one thing he did see was the end of his last shot of webbing, dangling in midair.

"Damn!" he said to himself. "I wonder if Doc Conners is doing something tonight? That felt like a rift we went through…"

"A what?" Jimmy asked completely out of his league on this.

"A dimensional rift," the nerd emerged from Peter. "Kind of a gateway to a parallel universe…" He saw the cockeyed look he was getting and shrugged. "Trust me, I've been through a few of these… this one was kind of gentle though…"

"Are you telling me that THIS is supposed to be some sort of alternate New York?" Jimmy blubbered. "Aw Spidey, you've been knocked on your head one too many times here!"

Peter looked down. Jimmy was right at least about that summary – this certainly wasn't an alternate Manhattan. "It almost looks eastern European down there," he said seeing the Dutch-like buildings below. "It's interesting that no one seems to be looking up here at us…" He glanced over at his prisoner and saw him moving down the wall from him while looking down as well.

"Looks like some sort of gate down here," he said. Spidey laughed to himself thinking he was about to run, when he was actually just looking around for himself. He walked over to see what he was looking at.

A large gathering was below them. People were trading wares and food in a town square area.

"Would you look at that?" he heard Jimmy say. He saw him pointing at the area of the square to the left of all the rest. There was a group of girls there all wearing wings and halos.

"Must be some sort of Cosplay going on down there," Peter suggested. Jimmy gave him an odd look.

"Cos- what?"

"Cosplay… dress up," Peter told him. "What, you haven't been down to the Big Apple Anime Fest? I thought I busted you down there last year."

It flashed on Jimmy's mind. "Oh, you mean when kids dress up in them weird cartoon costumes? You think that's what's going on here?"

Spidey shrugged. "Could be… Eastern European though… I wonder if Doc Doom had anything to do with any of this?"

Jimmy waved his web-covered hand at the arachnid-man. "Whoa – whoa! You keep your metal faced dictator in YOUR world, not mine! If that's the case, the quicker we're back in our New York, the better!"

Spidey looked at him curiously. "You'd rather go to jail than to deal with Doctor Doom?"

'Hey, at least when I'm in jail, I'm alive! Besides, this looks more like Disney World than Latveria…" he commented, causing Spidey to laugh.

"Well, wherever we are, it certainly looks peaceful." He looked back at the dangling web and began to judge the distance to it. "It's a shame we can't stay, but there's a cell with your name on it back there."

"Hey, it looks like there's someone looking at us from that clock tower," he heard Jimmy say. Peter looked around and saw his collar waving. He followed his gaze over towards the highest building this town had, which was centered up the street from the Market. There he saw someone waving back at them.

"MASTER! MASTER!" Kana shouted. "THERE'S SOMEONE ON THE WALL!"

"What are you doing out here?" he snapped at her through the small doorway. "With those wings of yours, a good wind will show you just how well they fly! Get IN here!"

"But Master, there's someone ON THE WALL!" she shouted in his face and returned to the railing with her binoculars.

"You know, I don't think it's a good idea to be seen by the natives," Peter said. When he looked back at Jimmy, he found nothing there - Only a hole in the wall that had dropped out from under him.

A repair order for that section of wall has now been sent to the maintenance division. This will be added to the list provided by the Tag-Cleaner Rakka of essential repairs to the western side of the inner wall. An eastern side list will need to be drafted.

"No, no, NO!" Kana yelled as she watched the figure drop out of sight followed by the second one before Master could get his large tail through the skinny little door.

"Now what are you babbling about out here?" he called over the wind.

"There were two guys up on top of the wall over the gate!" Kana barked back.

"Well, I don't see anyone," the clockmaker said straining to see what she was gesturing at. Kana plunked her head on the railing in exasperation.

"Well of course they're not there now! You took so long getting out here!"

"Don't take that tongue at me young missy!" he snapped back. "It was probably just a pair of Toga doing maintenance work up there. "Didn't you tell me that your friend, oh… what's her name… Rakka… had made up a list of places in the wall that needed repair?"

Kana started to turn beet red. "That's for THAT wall," she yelled pointing west, "not THIS wall! She hasn't been over here yet! Besides, since when does the Toga wear red and blue?"

The Master shrugged. "Maybe they got ahead of her, and maybe they wear bright colors for safety when they're up there, like YOU should when you're OUT HERE!" he suggested as he pointed inside. "Come on… we've got work to do, and a skinny little Haibane to do it!"

"Oh god!" she moaned. "Not greasing the gears again!" She looked inside the door and saw the grease-pot waiting for her.

Jimmy felt like the drop would never stop. He bounced off roots and vines that had grown inside the crack he had fallen through. He finally got hold of one, only for it to let go, flip him over and unceremoniously plop him into a body of water.

"PLAA!" he yelped as he slashed on the surface. He looked at his right hand and found it empty. The webbing had come off, but so had his gun. He rubbed his elbow where he had smacked it on a root as he looked about the dark place he now found himself in.

"YO!" he shouted. "YO, SPIDEY! YOU UP THERE?"

He heard an echo of his own voice ring back and forth in this catacomb around him. He could just make out some stairs off to his right. He swam towards it.

"JIMMY!" Peter shouted as he clung to the old stone and mortar walls.

"YO!" reverberated up from down below in the dark. "What are you doing up there, hero? Get me out of here!"

Peter smirked to himself and started down. The thief wanted to be rescued… what a day.

Jimmy pulled himself up out of the water and sat on a landing at the base of the stairs. The water had been rather cold, and the chill in the air of this tunnel he found himself in made him shiver. He pulled off his soggy flack jacket and squeezed what water he could out of it. Small packets fell out of the pockets and into the water below him. He watched as they floated downstream. He then rummaged through his pockets and began tossing any others that were still in there. Then he tossed a wet betting form and a blackjack mace that had been in his upper pocket. He then just sat and watched them drift away.

"What the hell did I do that for?" he asked himself.

Subject James Allen Mull fell through above mentioned hole created by the partial collapse of the east wall under him, 20 feet south of the eastern gate. He landed in the canal of holy water with only minor injuries. Since the subject is not of Guri/Glie or of the true outer world, it is unknown if exposure to the tunnel has affected him.

Peter looked at the floating flotsam heading downstream and wondered the same thing Jimmy had. Granted, ditching evidence was one thing. But he watched as the thief stood up and pulled money, bullets, a switchblade, keys, and something that looked like dog-tags, and toss them into the water. For a finale, he tossed the flack jacket in as well.

"Are you okay Jimmy?" he asked him after just watching him for a moment as he stood there staring at the objects that still floated.

"Umm, yea…" Jimmy said quietly. "I… don't know why I did that… something just told me to do it, ya know?"

Peter's senses were agreeing with him on that one. He felt a presence with them, but it did not seem to worry him much – in fact, it almost felt peaceful. He looked at the stairs leading up.

"Come on," he told Jimmy. "Let's see where this leads."

"Huh?" the thief said almost in a glazed stupor. "Oh, yea… sure…"

At the top they found a large sliding metal door. Peter examined it and thought it would be hard to move, as the edges seemed ancient and corroded. He found the errors of his ways when he put some of his strength into it, and found the door slamming into its wall pocket with a thunderous bang.

"Geeze, Spidey! Gentle!" Jimmy scolded him as he walked through the opening. Peter just stared at him.

"You were the guy pointing the gun at me tonight, right?" he mumbled to himself as he followed. He found a corridor that headed to the right. Ahead he could see a flickering old fluorescent lamp that was illuminating a row of long jackets hanging on hooks.

"What are these things?" Jimmy asked. "They look like something a firefighter would wear…"

Peter lifted one and felt its weight. "No, these are more like radiation suits," he said. "They feel like they're lead-lined."

Jimmy looked back down the corridor. "You think there's something down there we needed to know about?"

"How's your HMO?" Peter cracked as he continued on.

At the end of the hallway was another door. Peter was a bit gentler with this one as he peeked around it. He found a dark corridor. He slid the bulkhead aside and looked harder. To his right the corridor vanished into nothing but black. But to his left he could see some light coming in from under a heavy-looking wooden door. He also found a knot in it that a little applied pressure of his strength popped it loose.

Add to the repairs list the knothole in the access door beside the main gate…

Peter spied out the hole and saw they were now down in the market they had seen from high above.

"Hey, web-head… look at this." Peter looked back and saw Jimmy examining a set of clipboards that were hanging beside the doorway they had just come through. "These look like work orders."

Peter picked a board from the wall and read it aloud. "Group Four – 22:30 to 06:00 – Turbine inspection and repair, Hill of Winds Turbine Farm… Replace blade on unit seventeen… You're right…"

"Here's one about sewer repair… this one's about a telephone service inspection…"

Peter looked back down the dark corridor. "Then maybe this is a way back home," he said as he hung the board back up and headed down the tunnel. A few yards down though and he found himself up against a solid stone wall.

"Well that certainly didn't work…" he snorted through his mask. They both returned their gaze at the glaring knothole that was lighting up the far end of the hallway.

"Well, we seem to have two options…" Peter said as they peered out the hole again at the people mulling about the square. "We can either go back down there and climb the wall back to the top…"

"No thank you!" Jimmy interrupted. "One, I'm not too keen on going down into a place that looks like you're suppose to dress for Chernobyl, and even less about climbing that wall from the inside, are you?"

"I can always carry you," Peter smirked.

"Oh, yea, that's what I wanted to hear… NO THANK YOU… what's the other option?"

Peter gestured to the door. "Go out there and find a way up."

Jimmy peered out the hole. "Ea, personally, I'd like to see this place…" he then looked at the garish red and blue man beside him. "…But, you don't exactly look like you're dressed for it."

Peter looked down at his costume. "Hey, I don't exactly wear anything under these things you know… and I wasn't thinking of showing my face to a stranger…"

"Yo!" Jimmy barked. "Excuse me, Mr. Spider – freaking – Man, but it's not like I don't know what you look like under that Halloween mask you wear!"

Peter stepped back and glared at Jimmy. "What?"

"Hey… I was on that train you stopped from going into the river a few years ago when you were fighting Doc Ock," Jimmy grinned. "I was one of those people who dragged your sorry butt back into the railcar after that little fun ride he put us through! You've got nothing to hide from me kid."

Peter stood back and stared at the man for a moment. "You tried to shoot me," he said.

Jimmy shuffled his feet as he looked at the remnants of the webbing that was flaking off his right hand. "Well, yea… sometimes you just get on my nerves, ya know?" He peeked out the hole again. "Maybe you can dress up like that guy."

Peter looked out and saw what Jimmy was referring to. A man was standing off to the right. He was swathed head to toe in cloth and seemed to have his mouth gagged and his eyes covered."

"What is that?" he asked. "A bondage merchant?" He heard Jimmy snicker at that comment. He looked around at what was available nearby. He saw a uniformed man and a dog walk by and towards the wrapped man. The dog whined a bit and growled in a slightly menacing way, but the man stood still. Those around glanced over to see what was going on.

Peter saw his chance. He found the door opened easily. Putting as much speed into it as he could muster, he briefly snapped it open, shot a web-line to a cloths pile and yanked back a shirt and pants.

"Who's the thief now?" Jimmy snickered as he examined his haul behind the closed door.

"I'll return them," Peter said as he tried on the pants. They were certainly long enough, but…

"UNGH! UNNNNNNGH!"

Jimmy watched him struggle to hitch the waist button. "Putting on some weight, Spidey?" he asked.

"DIDN'T… HAVE… TIME… TO… GET… UNNGH... THE… RIGHT… SIZE! AAAAUGH!" He finally synched up the fly. He glared at the foul device.

"I've got to stop eating all that Ramen…" he grumbled as he yanked up the zipper.

"Don't bend too fast," Jimmy snickered. "And the blue shoes just go so well with it!"

Peter yanked off his mask. "Great, now you're a fashion critic?" He looked at the shirt he had snagged. It was long-sleeved and brown checkered… he really was going to look a bit like a goofball in this outfit. The pants weren't exactly black either – they were a dark blue… brown-checkered over dark blue over bright blue… Ugh.

He peered out the hole again and he stuffed his mask and gloves into his hip pocket. The wrapped man and the officer seemed to be glaring at one another, yet not speaking. Those with tables nearby seemed transfixed with the situation behind them. It was then that Peter saw another man, this one slightly smaller than the other two, but dressed much like the wrapped man, but with a face-mask on instead of a gag, step up behind them. He carried a staff cane that he tapped on the ground once. The wrapped man turned and nodded to him, then moved over to the side of the plaza as the officer tipped his cap and continued on with his dog.

"Looks like we have an authority figure there," Jimmy said as he also looked about. He found himself being grabbed by the collar of his shirt as Peter quickly used that moment to scoot them both out the door and to the left.

Subjects entered into the market. Com-One reports that he saw them move towards the outer side of the square and up along the side shops towards the fountain.

Jimmy looked back at where they had come in. Then he looked up at the wall.

"Damn! That's big!" he said.

"Nothing I can't get us up, though," Peter said as he joined him in looking. "Meanwhile, we should look around."

Jimmy looked at him. "You mean we need to get you looking less like you dressed yourself in a dark room!"

Peter look down – it was worse in the bright sunlight. "I did dress myself in a dark room," he concurred. They ducked down an alleyway.

Jimmy pointed up between the buildings. "At least there's some comforts of home," he said noting the clothes hanging high above drying. Peter grumbled. How was he going to get this straightened out? He climbed the wall and squatted as he stared at a white shirt hanging there. He quickly removed the one he had on and switched it for the less nasty one. Looking to one side, he saw that someone was airing out some sneakers on a small balcony nearby. He leapt down and looked them over. He was surprised by what he found. He jumped back down to the ground.

"Oh, getting bolder with the heisting, ea?" Jimmy ribbed him as he saw the black and white sneakers. Peter showed them to him.

"Do you see anything odd about these?" he asked him. "Anything at all?"

The thief shrugged. "No, what about them?"

Peter sat on a barrel and started slipping on the shoes. "This town seems completely out of place with our world, right?" he asked. "Those guys all wrapped up, the market, this wall… and yet, how do you explain a pair of Converse High-Top All-Stars showing up out of nowhere in a place like this?"

"I'll tell you what else I see," Jimmy said as he gestured over towards an opened-faced store across from them at the end of the alley. A lady was handing over something to the shopkeeper.

Peter shook his head. "Ea?" he asked.

"Greenbacks," the older man said. "She just paid him in US dollars."

They walked out of the alley and glanced about. Peter used his special senses to see further into the stores and at some of the tills. He was surprised at what he saw.

"Those aren't just US currency," he said. "I see Canadian Dollars, Japanese Yen - hell, that a Euro… What is this?"

He felt a nudge to his side and saw Jimmy pointing towards the fountain in the square. There were the girls they had seen earlier with their Cosplay get ups. Or were they?

"Jimmy… there's nothing holding those halos up…" he mumbled out of the side of his mouth.

"Naw!" Jimmy scoffed. "You're just seeing things… right?" He looked at the man beside him. "Right?"

"I can see thing much clearer than you Jimmy," Peter said still staring at the girls. "Look, there's a small boy with a halo as well." He watched as a local walked by and tipped his hat to the girls, who all giggled at him. Some curtsied, while others… flapped their wings slightly.

"Damn it, this is weird," Peter said as he shuffled Jimmy back towards the alley. He pondered what he had seen and looked about. "Where the hell are we?"

They found themselves at the north end of town where a grassy park stretched. They sat down under a tree and watched this world go by.

"Damn peaceful here," he heard Jimmy say as he leaned against the tree. "I don't know about you, but I haven't felt like this in a long time. I could sit here for days…"

"Don't get your hopes up, Jimmy," Peter reminded him. "You still have a date before a judge back home."

Jimmy laughed. "You seriously think you can get us back?" he asked him.

Peter nodded. "Our entry point is marked… as long as we get back there within a couple of hours…"

Jimmy looked over. "What happens in a couple of hours?"

Peter looked at his wrist. "That's about how long my webbing lasts before it dissolves," he told him. He then had Jimmy's right hand presented to him.

"It dissolved when I landed in the water," he said. "Are you sure?"

Peter picked the remains of a strand off his wrist and examined it. It certainly seemed to have failed quicker than he had expected it to. "Is there something in the water here?" he pondered. "You fell in it… are you feeling any ill effects?"

Jimmy shook his head as he slipped his hands behind it. "Nope… I feel great… Best I've felt in years!"

Peter looked closer at the man. "Didn't you have a scar on your cheek?" he asked him.

Jimmy winced at the thought of it. "Yea, I got it in Saudi Arabia during Desert Storm… why?"

Peter shook his head in disbelief. "It's gone… you'd never know it was there."

Jimmy felt his left cheek for the indentation that he expected to always feel there. "Well I'll be damned," he said as he only felt smooth whiskered skin. "It's gone!"

"Hey mister!" Peter heard. When he looked around he found a little boy dragging a kite behind himself. "Can you help me?"

At 21:50, subjects made first contact with resident individual…

The boy could not have been more than eight to ten years old. But it was his halo and wings up close that caught Peter's eyes. He nudged Jimmy who looked around him and gaped at the hanging ring over the boy's head.

"H-hi!" Peter said surprised by the nervous response he had given. "What can I do for you?"

"It's my kite," the boy said looking back and kicking at the slightly banged up paper and stick diamond behind him. "I can't seem to get it to fly. It keeps spinning and smacking the ground!"

Peter glanced at the kite then returned to his fascination with the halo… and the wings! Those were hardly store-bought add-on wings! They twitched and moved to the boy's movement. He had seen wing like that before on Archangel, but he had never seen so many people in one place with them! At least they weren't as huge as the X-Men's appendages.

He shook his head and looked at the kite. "Well, you need to slide the string up a bit towards the level of the center spar," he told the boy, "and it looks like you need to add a tail."

The boy looked at it. "A tail? What with?"

Peter stood up. "Hang on… let me see what I've got…" He reached into his pocket and fired off his web in a band. As he pulled his hand out, he acted as if he was drawing a ribbon out. He caught a glimpse of Jimmy smirking and shaking his head.

"Shh!" he quietly hissed, causing the man to laugh. He reached down and tied the ribbon of webbing to the kite and adjusted the string. "There… try that."

"Hey! Neat!" the boy cried as the now balanced kite caught the wind and launched itself skywards.

"Sota!" they then heard. "Are you bothering those men?"

They saw a young woman over by another tree. She had a book in her lap and she was yawning. But what caught their eyes was she too had the wings and halo the boy had.

"You were asleep Nemu!" the boy called out as he tried to control his toy. "Look at how he got my kite to fly! Woo hoo!"

"Honestly!" she said as she stood up and brushed herself off. She then bowed towards Peter. "I do hope Sota has not bothered you. Young Feathers can be so precocious!"

"Oh, not at all," Peter said as he scratched the back of his head. "It was my pleasure!"

"OUR pleasure," Jimmy added as Peter now found him standing next to him bowing back.

She smiled and looked at the boy as he romped across the field. "Sota, where are the rest of your brothers and sisters?" she asked him.

He kept watching his kite. "Somewhere…" he said. "They were playing Hide-and-Go-Seek the last I saw."

"Do you need any help?" Jimmy asked, much to Peter's surprise.

"Jimmy, what are you doing?" he murmured out of the side of his mouth.

"Thank you, no," Nemu bowed again. "We Haibane must tend to ourselves." She then headed away from them towards a corn field that a few small heads could be seen looking out of. The small boy skipped by the two men and snickered.

"Miss Nemu doesn't know it yet, but she's it!" he said as he went on keeping his kite aloft.

"Why that rotten little brat!" Jimmy snarled. "Why I ought to… treating her like that!"

Peter looked at Jimmy and knocked him in the shoulder. "What's with you?" he asked. "You're old enough to be her father!"

"It's the halo and the wings," Jimmy sighed. "They just make her look so damn cute!"

Peter grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. "Come on Romeo, let's go… since when do New Yorkers say anything is 'cute'?"

"Damn cute! There's a difference!"

Peter rolled his eyes. They headed back into the town.

The late afternoon was bringing along a stiff breeze, causing many of the merchants with hanging things to cobble up their stands in the marketplace. The buntings and flags that lined the square snapped and whipped in the wind that was building up.

"Looks like they're about to get a storm too," Jimmy said.

"Then the sooner we get going the better," Peter stated as he looked up at the wall over the gate.

"Do I really have to?"

Peter lowered his gaze to the man beside him. "Jimmy… if we don't head back, I'm not sure that there's any other way to return."

Jimmy shrugged. "Hey, there's nothing back there for me… and this looks a hell of a lot more peaceful than New York."

"Well, I sure am heading back," Peter said. "I do have something to go back to, though, I'm sure she'd get a kick out of this place."

At 22:05, the second incident occurred.

His senses kicked him. He looked beside himself. He pushed a woman aside to his left and Jimmy away to the right and jumped himself just as a bucket of grease splattered on the ground near where they had stood.

"Oh damn!" Jimmy said as he looked up at where the pot had fallen from. Peter did the same.

High up on the clock tower hung a body from the railing. The smell of all that foul grease was bad enough to Kana, but doing the work when the afternoon sun what baking the clock face only made her gag more. She had stumbled out onto the walkway on her break between faces of the clock to catch her breath. But the wind was worse up high as she was, and a thermal updraft snagged her flightless wings, causing her to flip over the railing. Now she hung over the town square by only her fingernails.

"They staged this, right?" Jimmy cracked.

"What?" Peter asked.

Jimmy smacked him in the shoulder. "Go save her hero! You're the only one who can!"

Peter stared at him as he pulled his mask out of his hip pocket and slipped it on. He started for a nearby wall.

"Hey, hey!" Jimmy called. "Take off the shoes! I doubt they were made for climbing walls!"

Peter pulled them off his feet, as well as the shirt and pants – if he was going to show them who he was, he might as well go all the way! He leapt up and climbed the hospital's wall to its roof. There he fired off a line as high as he could shoot it, which, with the updraft, was about half way up the tower. He pulled back on the web getting its elasticity to work for him as he jumped up and began a whipping swing to take him up the rest of the way.

"OH! MASTER! MAAAAASTER!" Kana cried. Another gust struck her and lifted her up again just enough to take the pressure off her fingers so that there was no longer anything holding onto anything else. She was carried slightly by her wings and tossed away from the building. It was going to be quite painful.

A red and blue streak spun around the tower once on an upward trajectory. As he came around the north side of the building he saw his target had let go. He released his webbing and flung himself towards the dropping girl.

"YEOWP!" Kana yelled as she felt someone grab her, and the clock face zip past in the wrong direction to where she had been going. She looked startled at the man holding her as he twisted backwards and pointed his left wrist at the peek of the tower.

"OH MY GOD!" she yelled as the air whipped her hair. "SPIDER-MAN!?"

He didn't have time to react to her calling his name as his webbing snagged the mount for the weather vane below them and yanked them over. He flipped over the roof and landed lightly on the walkway at the base of the clock face. He slid the girl through the narrow doorway and placed her on the floor.

Kana simply gawked at him as she caught her breath. "Spider-Man? You're REAL!?"

Peter laughed. "Well I certainly hope so, otherwise you were just saved by a figment! Are you okay?"

Kana jumped up, showing amazing energy for someone who had just gone through what she had gone through. "I can't believe this! Thank you so much! I thought I was a gonner!"

He patted her on the shoulder next to her wings. "That's good – see ya!" as he turned to leave the room.

"I've seen all of your comic books!" she chirped. "At least all that the library has…"

He turned and looked at her in confusion. "Comic books? Someone is printing comic books about me?"

Kana cocked her head. "Well duh," she replied as she continued to catch her breath. "Didn't you know?"

He stepped back and rubbed the back of his head. "If I did, I'd be living on the royalties… Comic books?"

Kana nodded. "Yup… I'm surprised you weren't told. So how is MJ?"

Now he stepped towards her causing her to cringe back slightly. "MJ!? These comic books talk about MJ!?"

Kana scratched her ear. "You are Peter Parker, right?"

Peter stood stupefied. He started to pace a bit as he tried to comprehend what this girl had just told him. He looked back at her and asked, "What about Aunt…"

"…May? Sure," Kana finished for him. "And Flash Thompson, Betty Brant, J. Jonah Jerkwad… the whole gang!" she then stood back and scrutinized him. "But then again, it was a comic book. Someone wrote it, drew it and printed it. What are you doing here? Comics are all fake!"

Peter stood back and glared at her for a moment. He then yanked his mask off and pointed at his face. "Does THIS look FAKE to YOU!?"

Kana jumped slightly at the sight. "Whoa! They didn't get that right!" she blurted. "I mean… your face that is…"

Peter stood upright. "What about my face?" he groused.

Kana waved her hands about. "Hey! They just didn't draw your face the way you actually look! Heck, that wouldn't be the first time I've looked at a comic book and seen a different style from one copy to another. It's not like we get many here you know!"

"And just where IS here?" He crossed his arms and waited for an answer.

Kana blinked. "Here? This is the clock tower!"

Peter scowled at her with a 'try again' look on his face.

"Oh, HERE you mean!" she giggled. "You're in Glie! You came over the wall, didn't you? I mean, that was you up there on top of the wall, wasn't it?"

He was about to answer when the doorway to the stairs burst open. "Kana!" the old clockmaker called out, nearly out of breath. "Kana, are you all right child?"

"Man, I'm great!" she squealed. "That was so AWSOME! I want to do that again!"

"Are you trying to kill me!?" the old man panted as he leaned on her shoulder. "Son, I don't know who you are, but I must thank you."

Peter, who had snapped his mask back on when the door popped open, suddenly had the man embracing him. "I don't know what I would have done…" the man waned as he sobbed.

"Geeze," Kana fidgeted as she scratched the back of her head and looked away. She then saw many more townspeople coming in the door. Nemu was close behind the first few. When she saw the man the clockmaker was holding she stopped in her tracks, causing those behind her to momentarily bounce into each other.

"The Spider… What is he doing here?" Nemu asked as she headed for her fellow Old Homer. "Kana, are you alright? And where did he come from? He's a fictional character!"

"Gee, you're making me feel so wanted," Peter told her as he peeled the old man off himself.

"Sorry," Kana apologized. "Nemu here works at the library. She's the one who told me about those comic books."

"Honestly, they were used as stuffing in a crate of books I once had to sort," she shrugged. "We were going to dispose of them when I let Kana read them."

Kana glared at her. "You wouldn't dare! Those are the only fun things to read in that place!"

Peter was about to ask more about these comic books, but found the town folks starting to press in too close. He slipped back towards the small door to the outside walkway. When they surged towards him, for the safety of the ladies and the clockmaker, he ducked out and leapt off the balcony.

"Wait!" Kana yelled. "Aw, look what you made him do!"

Peter quickly scampered around the tower and made his way down the outside northeast corner away from the view of the market square. When he made it to the ground he dashed behind the hospital. There he found Jimmy standing with his abandoned clothes shaking his head.

"What are you doing here?" he asked with surprise that the thief was still around.

Jimmy shrugged. "I figured you'd need some ground support – 'can't let a fellow New Yorker get tangled up in that mess alone, now can I? Besides, I'm the only one here who's used to your shenanigans." He handed him his pants.

"How'd you know I wasn't just going to snag you and take us back over that wall?" he asked while sticking a leg into the trousers.

Jimmy handed him his shirt. "Hey, without that mask on, you're about as easy to read as a book. You wanted to know more about this place as much as I do."

Peter pulled his face covering off just as a large raindrop splattered across his nose. He looked up just in time for all of the heavens to open up on them. They found an overhang near the back of the hospital to slip under as he threw on his shoes.

"So, where to first?" Jimmy asked as he slapped his hands together and watched the downpour. "The weather certainly got crummy… but even that's better here. Look, no dirty puddles… no cabs splashing them all over you… And it doesn't feel like the buildings are washing their crap all over you."

Peter stared at him. "Do I know you?" he mocked him. "Anyway… the first place I'd like to check out is the library…"

"Huh… never though the amazing Spider-Man was a bookworm," Jimmy snorted.

Peter couldn't deny that. "Well, actually, I want to check on some documentation that I was told about up there. What was the response of the people when I flew through earlier?"

Jimmy scratched his ear. "Geeze, I didn't expect you to be so vain either," he grumbled.

"No, that's not what I meant," Peter groused. "Did they act like they knew me?"

Jimmy gave him a quirky eye. "It sure sounds like that's what you meant," he commented. "If I remember, they did seem not to know who you were. I heard most of the people around me wondering who you were. Why?"

Peter shook his head as he rubbed his finger across his chin in thought. "I don't know… there's something about some comics at the library I need to see though." Jimmy watched him walk off in the rain still in contemplation.

"Comics? As in comic books?" Jimmy started after him.

It wasn't hard to find the library. This town seemed to have all the essential buildings surrounding the central fountain off the market square. But Peter and Jimmy still had one problem.

"Who closes their library at 3 in the afternoon?" Peter complained.

"What? This looks like New York?" Jimmy reminded him. He looked back at the clock tower behind them and saw the hands move to 3:15 in the now wet afternoon.

"We could let them in," they heard. Peter and Jimmy saw two of the winged ladies behind them with a third one coming up towards them with her umbrella.

"You two!" Peter exclaimed. He noticed Jimmy fidgeting as he saw the elder of the girls and he elbowed him.

"Nemu… Kana! I heard what happened," the third one was calling. "Kana, are you all right?"

The shorter girl flexed her arm and grinned to the new arrival. "Never better, Hikari! I could do that again!"

The girl under the umbrella looked aghast at the other one. "Are you nuts?" she exclaimed in a way that made Peter have to stifle a laugh.

"Hikari, could you do me a favor?" Nemu asked her. "Kana and I have some unfinished work here at the library… could you please gather the Young Feathers from Sumika and take them back to Old Home for me, please?"

The girl blinked and looked at her friend. "Kana and the library? Are you sure?"

"Think of it as penance for being a foolish Haibane today," Nemu added. Kana slouched her shoulders and sighed.

"Ooh! You're going to make her read a book?" Hikari gleefully pondered.

"HEY!" Kana barked.

"Fitting," Nemu added with a smirk. "We will be a little late getting back, okay?"

Hikari giggled. "No problem!" she called as she headed for the lower entrance where the children had been gathered. "See you later!"

Peter looked at Kana, then at Nemu. "I can understand you knowing who I am, but she didn't see me without my mask on…"

Kana kicked a wet pebble with her toe. "Well, the way they kind of chased you out the window earlier… I didn't get the chance to thank you properly," she said. "And I figured you'd want to see those comic books…"

"So, we have ourselves a little Sherlock here!" Jimmy laughed as he rubbed his nose. He noticed Nemu smile at the comment. He grinned and blushed.

"So she suggested that we try here first," she said. "I guess her intuition was correct!"

Kana rubbed her head and laughed. She then looked at the second man. "So, who are you?" she asked. "I don't remember anyone like you in the comics, except…"

"Ah, he's with me," Peter cut in as he slapped him on the back. "This is Corporal James Mull of the United States Marines Special Ops division. We were on a mission when we got sidetracked here!"

There was a moment of silence as he noticed Jimmy looking back at him in shock.

"Isn't that right Corporal?" Peter asked him.

"Oh, right," he stumbled. "Spidey and I were working undercover on a… umm… drug… sting… which is… umm… why I'm dressed like… umm… this…"

"Really?" Nemu asked. Jimmy gave her a half-cocked smile as he rubbed the back of his head. "Well, let me go in and see if the director will allow us to come in for a few minutes," she added as she headed down towards where Hikari had gone.

Kana watched the man as he watched Nemu head away. She then glanced at Peter, who put a finger up to his mouth and gave her a glaring look. She slapped her hands across her mouth and nearly burst out laughing. A minute later, Nemu reappeared behind the locked front doors as she let the trio in.

"We can have about an hour," she told them as she led them down a long hallway.

Jimmy nudged Peter. "Yo, what gives with the assist back there?" he whispered to him.

Peter gave him a curt look. "You're rather an obvious story yourself, Jimmy," he whispered back. "Would you rather I had said 'Oh, he's my catch of the day! He's off to the pokey as soon as I'm done here!' That sure would have gone over well!"

Jimmy nodded as he rubbed his head. "How'd you know my last name?"

Peter gave him a look like he had to be kidding. "How many times did I run you in? How many criminals do I know on a first name basis who aren't super villains?"

Jimmy watched ahead as Nemu continued on, making sure she had not heard Peter. "I get it! I get it!" he shrunk as they headed towards a lounge area. A sign over the doorway into it said 'PERIODICALS'.

"We kept them in here, since they are magazines of sorts," Nemu stated as she unlocked a file cabinet. "We also had to store them in these drawers, since the children who found them were starting to tear them up."

Kana dove in and pulled out a few choice copies. "Those rats! They drew on this one!" she exclaimed. She handed some over to Peter who nervously sat down at a table and began to page through a few.

"Hey, if you're here, do you know this guy?" They looked over at Kana as she held up a comic with another red and blue costumed hero gracing its cover.

"Superman is a comic book from where I come from," Jimmy said as he sat down with a few copies. He saw the look on Peter's face as he did. "What?" he asked.

"I'm checking to see how much personal information these have," the web-slinger stated to him. "It's bad enough you know about this…" – He pointed to his unmasked head – "…I'm not sure if I want you to know about the rest of my family and friends…"

"He's military, isn't he?" Nemu asked. Jimmy smirked and nodded towards her as he started to open his copies. Kana, though, reached in and quickly replaced them with copies of someone called the Batman.

"Secret identities!" she exclaimed as he plopped the magazines into Peter's pile. "Don't you know anything about being a super hero, Nemu?"

She blew some air that shot a tuft of hair out of her face. "If I knew about being a super hero, I'd be running around with a cape on!"

Peter glanced up at her and the others. "I never had a cape… though I did have webs between my arms and my sides once…"

"Yea," Jimmy chortled. "That was when we couldn't figure whether you were a spider or a flying squirrel!"

Peter dropped his head back into the pages as the other giggled a bit.

"Spider-Squirrel… Spider-Squirrel… Friendly neighborhood Spider-Squirrel…" he mumbled as he flipped sheets. He peeked up again and saw everyone gawking at him.

"Wah?" Kana asked as she and the others burst out laughing. A grin passed over his face as he settled in. He leaned back with a comic in his lap and looked at his hosts.

"Haibane…" he said as he plopped his current magazine in his lap. "What are Haibane? I mean, not to be rude, but you look like you're angels. Those are real wings and halos, are they not?"

Nemu smiled and sat down across from Jimmy. "Yes, the wings are real, though they aren't flight worthy… and as for the halo, well, I guess you could say that they are partly real. They are given to us soon after we are born to this world. They are molded in a form, but it is a binding between our bodies and the light leaves that make up these rings that hold them above our heads."

"And just you try to remove them!" Kana laughed as she twanged her own halo, causing it to gyrate wildly about over herself.

"As for Haibane," Nemu continued with a scolding look at Kana and a finger against her halo bringing its vibrating movements to a ringing stop, "it means Charcoal Feather, in reference to our wings."

"And you're born with them?" Jimmy asked.

Nemu shook her head. "When we are born, we arrive looking like any other human. It is not until we have weaned ourselves of our cocoon that we get our wings."

"And boy, is that one hell of a painful mess!" Kana inserted nonchalantly as she skipped through a copy of The Fantastic Four. "Two or three hours of feeling like your back is tearing open, then a night of fever the likes you've never had!. Fun stuff!"

Jimmy cut in before Nemu could bring herself to bark at her fellow Haibane for being so rude. "Hold it… cocoon? What's this about a cocoon? Don't you have a mother and father?"

Nemu looked at him blankly for a moment. "No, we don't have mothers and fathers as such. The town folks are our parents, so to say. They protect us and nurture us, and in turn, we work with them to earn our keep."

Peter laid his magazine across his knee. "Servitude?" he asked.

Nemu shook her head. "Oh no, we do it as employment… just as the humans here do."

Jimmy leaned forwards and rested his head on his folded hands. "A society that coexists for the mutual benefit of each other?" he surmised. Nemu smiled and nodded.

"Exactly!" she exclaimed. "Though I'm sure you don't have to deal with cocoons outside the walls."

Jimmy sat back and sighed. "Well, I've never seen anyone like you… two in New York, that's for sure." He noticed that Peter was having a difficult time keeping a straight face as he returned to his reading. "So, you're born from a cocoon?" he asked.

Kana raised her arms over her head. "Big things," she said. "I think Rakka's would have filled this room."

Jimmy and Peter saw Nemu nod in agreement as they looked about the small reading room they were in. "Really?" Jimmy asked. "All for a baby?"

Kana sat for a moment, then burst out laughing. She wiped a tear away from her nose and waved her hands at the two men. "No, no, no… you don't get it!" she giggled. "We're not born as babies… at least not all of us!"

Peter looked at Jimmy, as he did him. "Pardon?" he asked. "What do you mean?"

Nemu tapped her chin as she thought of a way to describe it best. "Well, how old do I look to you?" she asked. Peter glanced over at Jimmy and saw him blushing.

"Ah hem…" Jimmy coughed as he cleared his throat. Kana's laugh didn't seem to help the matter. "Ah, I'd say… umm… early twenties?" He looked over at Peter and saw him nodding.

"Yea, twenties…" he agreed.

Nemu straightened her dress and brushed her lap. "Well, in Haibane years, I will be eleven in a few weeks," she said.

"Seven!" Kana announced her age. The men sat dumbfounded.

"You see, we believe that we once were like you, living our lives in the outside world," Nemu stated. "Then something happened that brought us here. It is uncertain what that may have been, but we arrive, in most cases, as children or young adults, at least size wise."

"Which was why Rakka's cocoon was as big as it was, since she's nearly as big as me!" Kana seemed proud to announce.

Jimmy scratched his head. "Rakka, she's one of you?"

"That's my sister Rakka!" Kana cheered with a thumb up. "Tag cleaner extraordinaire! She was born two years ago last spring."

"And you have no idea on how why you were sent here?" Peter asked. He saw Nemu look down and scratch her shoe on the ground.

"We have our… theories," she said, "but we prefer to not delve into it that much. What we do know is that we arrive not knowing who we were or where we came from. Even our names are derived from our cocoon dreams."

Jimmy sat back and waved his hands at the two girls. "Whoosh! I think my head just exploded!" he griped. "So you're telling me that if I were to look for your name back home, I wouldn't find anything?"

"That is what is told to us, yes." Nemu looked at the comic in Peter's lap. "Have you found anything of use?" she asked him.

He looked at the rag and grunted. "It certainly is full of information that I'd rather keep to myself." He flipped to the first page to read the copyright notice. "I know the address that they say that they publish from. It's kind of funny…"

Jimmy snapped his finger and pointed at him. "Let me guess… 635 Madison Avenue?"

Peter laughed. "Bingo!" he said pointing over at him. Kana and Nemu gave them curious looks. Kana leafed through her comic and looked at its splash page.

"Why? What about that address?" she asked.

Peter shook his head. "In my New York, that's the address of the Daily Bugle. J.J. would be tearing the walls down if he thought someone was doing a Spidey comic in his building! But this does tell me one thing…"

"And that would be?" a deep voice asked from the doorway. Peter saw the expression on the girls go to complete dread. Jimmy looked like he was about to jump out of his chair. But Peter's senses did not jump, so he slowly turned to face his questioner.

He found one of the wrapped men from the market square behind him. It was the one who was carrying the cane and had the strange mask with the single round 'eye' in the middle of it.

"It means that this is a parallel universe, but not directly parallel to our own," Peter stated calmly. The man nodded.

"You are correct," he said as he entered the room and sat on a chair next to Nemu, who seemed a bit uncomfortable at the thought of this man being there.

"M - Mr. Parker, Mr. Mull, this is the Communicator, an official with the Haibane Renmei…"

"Renmei?" Peter asked. "You are the authority here?"

The old man nodded to him. He then seemed to look at the pile of comics that were lying on the table between them.

"These should have never have come here," he said. "How did such periodicals arrive here?"

Nemu cleared her throat nervously. "I am sorry, sir… they were within a package of books that were sent in by the Toga nearly a year ago."

He leaned over and tapped one with his cane. "And I allowed this?"

Nemu looked like she was sweating profusely, which made Jimmy squirm. "They were packed almost like they were being used as filler to keep the books from sliding about during transport, sir!" she almost barked. She felt a hand on her arm and saw the old man shake his head.

"You did nothing wrong, child," he said. "They are here, that is all. The fact that they are here and nothing has become of it also means that there nothing wrong… though it does mean that I must watch what I allow in more closely in the future!" Nemu and Kana sat quietly and gawked as the old man seemed to chuckle to himself. He looked at the two men.

"I have been informed of the technical error of the gateway that you two have come through," he told them. "I must apologize for the situation it has placed you in."

"What's to apologize?" Jimmy asked with a shrug. "This place is a paradise compared to the dump we're from!"

Peter had to agree. "If anything, we should thank you for allowing us to visit… just try and keep these out of sight of any other visitors from our world, okay?"

The old man seemed to laugh. "That should not be a problem, as the error that brought you here is being corrected as we speak. The portal will remain open for a few more hours, long enough for you to return to your world. But…"

Peter looked up at him. "But?" he replied.

The Communicator stood up and walked to the doorway. "We appreciate what you did for us today. A talent like yours could be useful here. If either of you felt the need, we could accommodate a few more who are willing to sacrifice for our community – to keep the peace and tranquility that we share." He stepped out the door and looked back.

"An amazing pair. Fascinating how you two gelled, even when you were formally on the other side from one another. Don't you agree?" He tapped his cane once.

"Haibane Kana…" he then boomed slightly, causing her to leap out of her chair and become a still board.

"I wish I could have gotten my troops back in Desert Storm to jump that quickly," Jimmy whispered.

"SIR!" she yelled.

"Henceforth, when you are out on the clock tower walkway, wear your overalls over your wings." He rapped the cane again and started back up the hallway.

Peter looked at his rescued girl who rattled as the wind returned to her lungs. "So there, neaa!" he said to her. She grimaced a smile as she collapsed back into her chair.

"He offered you to stay," Nemu said as she continued to look at the now empty doorway. "I've never heard of such a thing!"

"When was the last time anyone came here like this?" Kana added.

Jimmy clapped his hands together. "That's fine with me!" he said, drawing a look from Peter. "Hey, like I said, I've got nothing back there to go back to."

"…Except…" Peter added referring him to what they both knew would happen if he did return – time in the slammer.

"Your mission!" Kana exclaimed. "What about your mission?"

"It's over with," Peter quickly answered her before Jimmy could. "We were heading back when this happened." He saw the man nod in agreement. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"You're seriously thinking of going back?" Jimmy asked back.

Peter looked at the magazines in his lap. He plopped the on the table. "Like I told you, I do have people to go back to. If you're going to stay, then you might want to read some of these comics, and you'll see what I mean. I'd love to bring them here to see this place though…"

Jimmy stood up and pushed Peter. "Then what are you waiting for?" he asked him as he added a shove to the push. "You heard the man – you only have a few hours before the gateway closes!"

Peter stood up and glared at the thief. For some reason, his senses were telling him that it was okay to leave him here. Something had changed in him - Maybe in both of them. He slapped him on the shoulder.

"Damn straight!" he said.

"Damn straight!" Jimmy agreed.

Peter pulled his mask on and started to remove his white shirt. "Make sure these get back to where they came from," he mumbled to his fellow traveler, "especially the shoes…"

"Hey, look at it this way, no more super villains, no more hiding behind a mask, no more worrying about your loved ones…"

"…No more J. Jonah Jameson," Peter cracked as his mask distorted slightly to the obvious grin behind it. He plopped his pants into Jimmy's arms. He looked over at the two ladies who were sitting with odd expressions on their faces at the sight of a man undressing before them – good thing the Spidey suit was under all that!

"No more Yankees…" The thief sighed.

Peter looked at Jimmy and patted him on the shoulder. "Got'ta take the bad with the good sometimes," he said to him. "Maybe you should start up a baseball league here."

"Yay baseball!" Kana yelped. "What's that?" Jimmy looked at the ceiling and grunted.

"Take care of him, Nemu," Peter said. "He's a good guy."

"Huh?" Nemu asked. She looked over at Kana and found her doubled over laughing.

Peter ran out the door of the library. The rain was still coming down as he fired a stringer up the side of the wall. The few that saw him were astonished to see the red and blue streak that catapulted itself up into the gloomy sky.

He took a few loops as he shortened his web line and raised his velocity before he finally launched himself up and to the top of the wall. He nearly found himself tumbling down the very hole that Jimmy had fallen through earlier in the day. He looked back over the town.

The sun was shining to the south, and was rolling up towards them in the late afternoon of Glie. The farmlands and roadways ran away into the distance and the clean fresh air singed his lungs. The shower was passing. The idyllic land was asking if peace and tranquility was enough for him.

What the hell was he waiting for?

He turned to see that his old web line was still dangling in midair. He fired a fresh line to snag the old one and gave a tug. It was still attached to something on the other side – as a matter of fact, something tugged back.

He ran through his head what he had attached it to in the first place. Wasn't it a building outside Central Park? He yanked it again. It yanked back again.

"Well, this could be a problem," he said as he pulled harder on his line so he could see if it would hold him.

Suddenly the line jerked in his hands and launched him towards the unseen opening of the gate. He could feel something on the web pulling him as if hand-line fishing. He suddenly found himself in the darkness of the park again, but now facing a large orange man who was holding the end of his web.

"Ben Grimm!" Peter yelped. He then saw the two men in dark suits and sun glasses that he had seen from his apartment.

"Yo, web-head," the large scaly man said in his gruff voice. "So where did twinkle toes swing off ta? I thought only Reed made people disappear like dis!"

23:50 local time – One subject returned - Began closing procedure of gateway.

"What time is it?" Peter asked looking around.

"What? Do I look like yer clock er somethin'? No one's been able to make a watchband strong enough to last on my wrist," Ben grumbled, "but I'd say it's close ta midnight... you late fer Cash Cab er somethin'?"

Peter patted him on the shoulder. "Sorry big dude," he said a bit out of breath. "Thanks for the assist."

"You should be thankin' these dudes, kid," he said pointing at the two Men in Black. "They're the ones who asked for help… now where did dey go?"

23:51 – Returned to base one…

Peter looked about. The men were gone. He looked back at Ben, then back at the invisible gateway. He put his hand out and found it vanishing into it. He drew it back.

"Huh, it's still here," Grimm said as he smacked his fist into his hand. "Maybe I should ruin Reed's night an' call him out here…"

"NO! No!" Peter barked. "Ben, please - Do me a favor and watch this thing for me, will you? I have to make a run, and I'll be right back!" Before the large man could respond, Peter had fired off a line and was swinging away.

"Wait!" Ben yelled from the rooftop. "Nuts… That's what I get fer wanting a beer… I'm missing my football game!"

Crossing the heart of Manhattan at midnight should have been a snap. But twice he ran into banners that someone had put up without authorization, and once he nearly found himself playing tag with a helicopter. But he finally made the roof of his apartment and slid down the outer wall to his window, where he slipped in and plopped onto the floor.

"Hey, tiger," he heard from across the small room. "It's about time you got home… are you all right?"

He looked up at his Mary Jane and nodded. He couldn't remember being so out of breath before. The air of this city did not mesh well with the air that he had just come from. He waved her over to him as he struggled to get up.

"We've got to hurry," he gasped. "I want to show you something…"

MJ looked at him then looked out the window. "You… want to show me… something? You want to take me swinging with you?"

"We could take a cab, but that would take too long," he gagged. "Trust me… you want to see this before it's gone!"

She looked at him with concern and placed her hand on his forehead.

"Ew… you're wet!"

"It was raining there," he said as he lifted her up. He jumped over to the far building and ran them up to the roof. There he started his swing back towards the park.

Ben Grimm sat stewing as he looked around himself. He heard a sound of web striking a building behind him and looked back. There he saw the wall crawler rapidly coming in with someone clinging to him.

"Yo! Yo! YO! YO!" he shouted and ducked as Peter and MJ swung down towards the gateway and over the museum. The web-slinger landed them with a light thud nearby.

"I won't ask," Grimm mumbled as he saw the woman gather her feet as she was put down. "If you were tryin' fer dat gateway, it's gone."

Peter looked at him then at where the portal had been. He ran up to it and put his hand out and found nothing.

"When? When did it go?" Peter gasped.

Ben shrugged. "Ten, maybe fifteen minutes ago… I heard a pop, saw a flash… that's usually the way they go when Reed makes dem things. 'Hope it wasn't important…"

Peter looked back at MJ. She was looking between the two of them. "A gateway? A gateway to where?" she asked.

Peter looked back at the empty spot. "Paradise," he said as he gathered her up again and started swinging away with her.

"Damn," the Thing snorted. "I pulled a man away from paradise tonight! 'Bet the game's over too… Damn, damn, damn!" He jumped back down to the street and walked off into the night.

Peter sat at his computer on a Wiki page. He typed in the name Nemu. He got a character from a Japanese series named BLEACH. He sat back and thought about it for a moment. He then typed in 'Highbony' – the result was less than satisfactory. He then Googled 'Hibane'…

'Did you mean Haibane?' it asked him. He sat back and clicked on it.

MJ saw the flickering of the television in the corner. Peter was dozing in the chair across from it as a halo spun on the screen. A DVD was running in the player. She found the box for it and looked at it.

"Haibane-Renmei? I didn't think you were into anime, tiger," she whispered as she kissed him on the forehead and headed for the bedroom.

"Umm… the Big Apple Anime Fest is this weekend," she heard him say. "Want to go?"

"James Allen Mull, front and center!"

Jimmy stepped one foot out of line of the other five men and women. He knocked his heels together and stood at attention.

"Here, SIR!" he barked.

The uniformed officer stepped up to him and saluted. "Congratulations, Corporal," he said as he pinned a chevron on his collar. "You will be stationed at the new Crossroads billet near the Hill of Winds and Old Home. Congratulations on being the top of your class. You made me think you were trained in this once before."

He saluted back and smiled. "Yes sir… thank you sir!" He glanced over at the Haibane seated at the fountain who were watching the new Town Watch members and nodded. Nemu waved back.

"Peace at last," he said to himself. "All we need is peace at last."

oOo

Author's Note: As I said, this was a little odd story that simply popped into my head. Not being the greatest Spidey historian, I quickly rummaged through Wikipedia to research my subjects a bit. Before every Marvel canon fiend starts dropping spider doo-doo on me, let's just put this to bed – the story is set BEFORE the Civil War arc – Peter hasn't shown the world who he is yet, privacy is still privacy, and who the hell came up with this Skrull idea anyway? Yes, he's married to MJ. I'm not sure about the apartment, but I just figured they'd get something a bit bigger than that hole Peter shacked up in the movies.

Enjoy!

Peter Parker (Spider-Man, Spidey), Doctor Conners, Doctor Octopus, Doctor Doom, Latveria, Archangel, X-Men, Mary Jane Watson-Parker, Aunt May Parker, Flash Thompson, Betty Brandt, J. Jonah Jameson, The Fantastic Four, Ben Grimm (The Thing), Reed Richards ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.
Superman, Batman ©2007 DC Comics/Time-Warner Inc.
Cash Cab ©2007 LionTV/Discovery Channel
'BLEACH' ©2007 Tike Kubo/Studio Pierrot/TV Tokyo