CHAPTER TWO

Spider-Man gasped for breath as his wet mask clung to his face and threatened to suffocate him. The filthy, murky water around him stunk to high heaven and chilled him to the bone, even as smoke and flames filled the air around him. But it wasn't the water or the fire that concerned him right now. It was the limp body of the young blonde girl floating lifelessly just a few yards away from him.

"Chloe?" he choked out. He swam to her, terrified to discover what he already knew was true.

He slid his hands under her arms and hoisted her from the putrid water, her head lolling listlessly to the side. Water gushed from her mouth as it hung open. She didn't gasp or struggle to breathe. She just hung there in his arms like a doll, like a marionette with no one pulling the strings.

He shook her, smacked her face, called her name. "Chloe... Chloe!" Nothing. No response. Not a flutter or flicker of life in her. She was gone, and he knew it before he even got to her. Chloe Sullivan was dead.

Suddenly the whole awful world around him vanished. He was in bed, in his apartment, and Mary Jane Watson was shaking him by the shoulder.

"Peter... wake up."

He gasped, finally taking in the full, clean breath of air that he'd been struggling for in the dream. He blinked and shook his head, shaking off the last remnants of the nightmare.

"Mary Jane," he whispered, almost as if to remind himself of who this redheaded young woman was.

"You were having the dream again, weren't you?" she asked.

"What dream?" Peter asked, trying to play it off.

"Peter," she said. "You were calling out her name."

He sighed and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. Then he slowly sat up, turning away from her as he let his legs slide off the side of the bed. He sat hunched over with his face in his hands, massaging his eyes and forehead.

"It's been two years," Mary Jane said softly, sitting up as well.

"Two and a half," he corrected.

"Okay, two and a half," she said. "And in two and a half years, you've never talked to me about it. Never opened up to me. Not once."

Peter stood up. He stripped off the t-shirt that he'd worn to bed and tossed it into a laundry basket in the corner. He walked toward the closet in his boxer shorts.

"I'm meeting Clark at the Bugle today," Peter said. "That must have been why I had the dream."

"I didn't ask why you had the dream," MJ said. "I was asking why you never talk to me about her. About Chloe."

"You know what happened."

"I know what happened, yes, but I don't know how you're feeling. I can tell it's eating away at you, but you just shrug it off, dismiss it. You put a wall up and close yourself off to me."

"Mary Jane..." He grabbed his backpack off the floor of the closet and stuffed a pair of jeans and a button-down dress shirt inside. "I just... I mean... what do you want me to say?"

"I don't want you to say anything, I just want you to talk to me about what you're thinking and feeling instead of pretending nothing's wrong," she said, her voice revealing a mix of both genuine concern for Peter and a rapidly growing frustration.

"I'm not pretending," he insisted. "Nothing is wrong." It didn't sound convincing in the least.

He slid all the clothes on the rack to the left. At the far end of the closet was a board put up to look like a wall. He pulled it back out of the way, revealing another foot and a half of closet space. It was here that he stored his Spider-Man costumes. He took one down off of its wire hanger.

"I have to get going anyway," he said, casting a half glance at the clock. "I'm meeting Clark at the Daily Bugle at 10:00."

Mary Jane looked at the clock herself. "It's not even 7:30," she replied.

He gave the clock another half glance as he began pulling the costume on. "I know. I just... I just want to do some web-slinging, clear my head a little."

MJ sighed and sank back down in the bed. She wasn't sure what more she could say or do.

"Well, if you don't talk to me, I hope there is someone else that you can talk to," she said finally.

"There is," he said. "His name is Clark Kent. Maybe you've heard of him? I just said I was going to see him like five times."

She looked away from him. "You don't have to be mean," she said, trying hard not to let on that she was about to cry. Peter's quick wit and sarcastic nature were qualities that she'd always found very endearing. Lately though he'd been turning it against her, and that stung. Bad.

He realized he'd crossed a line. "Aw, jeez. Look, MJ, I'm sorry. I don't mean to get so defensive." He sat down on the bed next to her and took her hand. "Look, I know. I get it. I do. But I just don't want to burden you with my problems. I don't want you to worry about me."

"But don't you see that the more you push me away, the more I do worry about you? And you're not burdening me with anything. I want to be there for you. I want you to let me be there for you..." She looked him in the eyes. "I want you to want me to be there for you."

He looked away. He nodded. "I know."

He stood up and grabbed his mask.

"I'll make it up to you," he said, slipping his backpack over his shoulders. "We'll get dinner. That Italian place you like, the one with the bread and the olive oil. And we can get ice cream after."

"...And we can talk?" she asked.

He pulled the mask down over his face as he crouched on the window sill. He slid the window open, letting a gust of the harsh January air billow into the room.

"I have to go," he said, ignoring her question. Then he leapt out into the brisk New York morning, firing a webline from his wrist as he jumped.

As she had done dozens upon dozens of times before, Mary Jane Watson walked silently to the window. She stared after the red-and-blue clad hero who swung swiftly among the buildings.

As she shut the window, she managed a very sad and lonely "Go get 'em, Tiger."