This is it, friends--the Quirk of Fate Trilogy is going out with a bang! To the Loyal Minions:
To Song With No Soul: I promise you that I will only kill one more person off until the end of the series. No, you probably didn't miss anything; Venom has always had the power to dampen the spidey-sense. I'm only going by regular continuity on this one.
Happy reading!
Chapter 7: Epilogue: The Gift and the Curse
"I see your face with every punch I take
And every bone I break, it's all for you
And my worst pains are words I cannot say
Still, I will always fight on for you."
Yellowcard, "Gifts and Curses"
night, times square
Spider-Woman's hopes were well-founded. For Jonathan Storm of the Fantastic Four, called the Human Torch, was soaring across the night sky to reconcile with his superhero girlfriend.
The Torch, looking down, saw what he most wanted to see in the whole city. His heart raced. My Spider-baby! My beloved!
But as he swooped closer to rooftop level, he realized that he could be too late.
"Nooo!" he cried, sighting his love pinned to the ground by Venom.
Why did he ever doubt her? He'd accused her of not trusting him. But in the end, he had not trusted her. What did it matter who she really was? What did it matter what her face looked like under her mask? Wasn't her noble heart and affection for him enough?
How could I have abandoned her over such a stupid thing, when she needed me so much?
Venom looked up. Oh, shit. The Human Torch, on full flame, was heading straight towards her.
Venom was torn in half by indecision. The symbiote wanted to run. It didn't like fire. Gwen Stacy wanted to stay and get her revenge. They stood, rooted to the ground trying to decide, and then decided that revenge could wait another day. She dropped her prey, and ran.
Half a second too late.
"Come, Watson, come!" Johnny shouted. "The game is afoot!" With that cryptic utterance, he shot a wall of flame straight at Venom. "And our special of the day is evil alien symbiote, delicately roasted..."
The symbiote screeched in pain, shriveling in Johnny's flame.
Slowly, Mary Jane opened her eyes and sat up. "Johnny?" she whispered. "You do still love me."
"It's okay, MJ. Venom's not going to hurt you anymore."
She knew he was sorry for the fight two days ago about her identity. She didn't mention it, and neither did he. It was a mutual understanding. "What about Gwen?" she whispered.
"Who?"
"Gwendolyn Stacy...this girl I knew at school, she picked up the symbiote somehow and..." Spidey and Torch raced to the third figure on the rooftop, a young blonde laying prone on the ground. Johnny was solemn as Mary Jane first felt for a pulse of Gwen's neck, and as she then used her tentacle to seek movement and heat. The search was fruitless.
"She's dead."
Johnny shook his head sadly. "The bond between the symbiote and Gwen was nearly perfect, then. When I killed the symbiote...I killed her."
the end
"If it takes shit to make bliss,
Well, I feel pretty blissfully.
If life's not beautiful without the pain,
Well, I'd just rather never ever even see beauty again."
Modest Mouse, "The View"
There is not much more of this story to tell; shortly after the defeat of Venom, Mary Jane Watson would graduate from high school, accepting the honors for the late Peter Parker and reading the speech he would have given had he lived. She would continue her education as a drama major at Empire State University and continue her acting. The Broadway musical Heroes and Villains would win a Tony Award.
The Amazing Spider-Woman would continue to fight new menaces to humanity--killer robots, planet-eaters, shape-shifting aliens, vampires, supervillains with names like Sandman and Scorpion, Vulture and Mysterio, Electro and Kraven, Shocker, the Mad Thinker, and Doctor Doom. But these battles would be different; she would be fighting these threats alongside her beloved Johnny Storm. The Fantastic Four would become the Fantastic Five. That, however, is a different story to be told another time. Perhaps I will tell it someday; perhaps not.
Thus Mary Jane Watson, the Amazing Spider-Woman, found love and her place in the sun--what you would call a "happy ending." You see, then, how the destiny of an entire world can be changed by one simple action. For it is my task to observe all the Spider-People, on any alternate reality they may exist, by whatever name they may be called. Thus it must ever be, for what else should be the duty of one bound to witness and record all that may happen in this infinite cosmos, one called...the Watcher?
Finis
"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end..." --Semisonic, "Closing Time"
