Chapter 10 - Truth and Lies
xXx
I was blinded. Four seconds earlier, I was in a dream fighting Shocker and Rhino at the same time, and now I was getting a faceful of daylight.
"Wow! Yeah, that's bright..." I announced groggily, rubbing my eyes. As my eyes slowly adjusted, I could makeout Gwen's form sitting on the edge of my bed. She was fully clothed.
Regret? I thought to myself, a little saddened.
"You okay?" I asked her, sitting up and moving towards her. Realizing I wasn't dressed, I quickly wrapped the cover around me; I cursed myself for not paying the heating bill.
She nodded her head. Something was wrong, and I could tell just by the way there was no life in her movement.
"Do you... uhm... do you... regret...?" I stumbled over my words.
She quickly looked at me. "No, no, nothing like that, I promise!"
"Then, what's the problem?"
She looked back out the window, took a deep breath, exhaled, and then turned back to me. "It's just... Peter, this was my first time. I... I want that to mean something."
"Well, it was mine, too. I thought it meant something to me."
"I just mean that, my first time... I wanted it to be with the person I was going to marry."
I didn't know what to say next. We hadn't been dating but for...
Has it even been a week? I asked myself. I mentally slapped my forehead. I rushed into this thing... I shouldn't have done this to her.
"Uhm... hmmm..." the words just couldn't come to me.
"You... you weren't planning on this going anywhere?" she asked me, a defensive tone now in her voice.
Now she was looking at it wrong.
"Oh no, I'm not saying that. I completely understand what you're saying, it's just... I'm afraid I might have... I shouldn't have done this to you."
I'm pretty sure whatever I was saying was only making things that much worse for the situation.
"I know, I'm stupid... I'm sitting here talking about marriage, and we've only been actually dating for almost four days-"
Holy shit... what have I done?
"F-f-our day... days?" I stuttered, my eyes widening. "Oh God... oh God, Gwen... I'm... I'm so sorry, I wasn't thinking last night, I had a rough day, I- OW!"
A seering pain shot up my right arm. I looked down at it: the gash! Rhino tore my arm up the night before, and I forgot all about it!
I assumed Gwen hadn't been too mad at my comment, because she grabbed my arm - maybe a bit too rough - and examined the wound I'd received the night before.
"Peter, what happened?" she asked, fear in her voice.
"It, uh, it... cut... and my arm..."
"I can see that," she told me, annoyed. "How did that happen?"
Obviously, I couldn't tell her that I had gone to the Daily Bugle in an attempt to rescue J. Jonah Jameson from a lunatic with a bone growing out of his head, all as Spider-Man, no less.
"Well, I-"
Daily Bugle... J. Jonah Jameson...
I shot a glance at my alarm clock: 9:23 A.M.
"The Bugle!" I exclaimed, throwing the cover off me, and quickly putting on the boxers and pants I'd worn the day before.
"Oh..." Gwen said sadly.
Going through the shirts in my closet, I said over my shoulder, "Gwen, I'll tell you everything when I'm done for the day, I promise."
She quickly got off the bed, and walked out of my room. I think she mumbled a goodbye.
If my spider-sense could pick up on romantic problems, I'm sure it would have given me an aneurysm by that point.
xXx
The Daily Bugle, 30 Minutes Later
I hadn't stopped thinking about Gwen all the way to the top floor of the Bugle. What was I going to tell her? The truth, like I promised?
Stepping off the elevator, my senses were attacked from all around. The sounds were overwhelming: telephones ringing everywhere, a couple TVs blaring, people conversing, most typing away at their computers... it was actually quite a sight.
"You must be Peter Parker," a deep voice announced, tearing into my thoughts.
"Huh, yeah," I said, searching around for the source, my eyes resting about an elderly black man with a cane. He had graying hair and looked to be in his 60's. He was older than Jameson, that much was certain. "Mr. Robertson?"
"Please, leave it at Robbie. No need to be formal. Too many people my age are going on about how the young should respect their elders, when we ourselves only acted the same growing up." he replied, stumbling over towards me, the CLACK! of his cane surprisingly audible over the bustle of the room.
"It doesn't hurt us to show a little respect, though," I told him, hoping to get on his good side. After all, this was my boss. I really didn't want him to turn out to be the same as Toomes.
"It doesn't hurt any of us to show a little respect," he laughed, coughing into his arm afterwards. "Here, follow me back to my office. I'll show you what we'll be working on."
I did as he asked, and followed him, still in awe by the productivity around me.
"...and The First Bank of New York found half of the contents of its vault missing early this morning. Police believe this to be another move by the cat burglar who's pulled two similar heists in this past month alone." came the voice of a reporter on one of the TVs as we walked past.
Why haven't I heard anything about this cat burglar? I thought to myself, still following Robbie. I pushed the thought from my mind after a few seconds when we finally reached our destination.
"Could you get the door," Robbie asked, half-turning to point at it after we'd stepped into his office. I did so, and then proceeded to stand in front of his desk as he took a seat. He rested his cane against the desk. "There's a chair in the corner, there." I turned around, and sure enough, there was a chair to the left of the door. I carefully picked it up, placed it in front of his desk, and took a seat, adjusting to the uncomfortable material some idiot decided to use.
"Before I begin, I would like for you to know who I am, and in turn, I'd like to know a bit about you." Robbie began, fixing a cold stare on me.
"Sounds fair," I replied nervously.
He took a drink from a thermus he had next to a stack of papers. Setting the thermus down, he redirected his attention to me.
"'Nam was a hell of a place. I was only a kid when I was serving, so I can't even imagine what it was like for the old breed. When you weren't worrying about getting shot up, there was malaria, unhelpful villagers... the news that your best friend had been blown to thirty trillion little, tiny pieces by a cluster of mines... but for me, coming home was even worse." He paused, averting his gaze to the ceiling before looking at me once more. "My son... Randy... he'd gotten into a lot of trouble while I'd been gone. He'd only been seven years old and he was already in a gang. Seven. And people say these times are bad...
"'The Bronx Bad Boys' is what they were calling themselves. They'd kill, steal, rape... horrible people, and my son was apart of them. Jesus... seven years old, it still gets me even to this day. Now see, Martha, my wife, hadn't known about this. When I finally made it back home, Randy confided in me. He'd told me the reasoning behind it was his growing up without me there. He apologized, told me he'd accept any kind of punishment I had planned... he just wanted to tell them he was out first. This was back before it was widely known that there is no calling it quits in the gang world. So Randy set off to do just that..."
Robbie's voice trailed off. I could sense sadness in his voice.
"The next time I saw him, he had two bullet holes in his head, and half a glasgow smile carved into his face."
My eyes widened at this. "Oh my... oh my God..."
"I never did find the bastards that did it to him... I didn't tell the police what Randy had told me, about the gang. I never told Martha... I can't say I would if I had the chance to now."
"Oh, she's-?" I cut myself off. "I'm so sorry..."
"You should be... she took all my money in the divorce," he smiled at his dark joke. "Turns out, I wasn't the only victim of an unfaithful wife during my time in 'Nam."
"It sounds like you've been through the ringer."
"I can only wish. If It hadn't been for Jonah giving me a place here all those years ago... well, I'm hard-pressed to think about where I'd be instead."
"Speaking of Jonah... he's not... crooked, is he?" I asked.
Robbie shook his head. "Not at all. I know how he seems. I know how he can be to some people, but J. Jonah Jameson is truly one of the most honest men I've ever had the fortune to meet. The man's like a brother to me."
"Am I going to be seeing a lot of him?"
"For right now, you'll only be reporting to me. Everything to him goes through me first. That's not to say he won't ever ask to speak with you."
"Hmmm... what is it we're working on exactly?"
"George didn't tell you? That's typical of him," Robbie scoffed. "Investigative journalism. I'm actually in the middle of a case."
I had to give Robbie props: not many 60-somethings could say they were investigative journalists.
"Well, this might be exciting after all," I smiled.
Robbie nodded, returning a smile. "You almost side-stepped me, there. I told you my life story, now I want to hear yours." He folded his hands, and rested his chin upon them.
"My life story..." I began. He'd told me some pretty personal stuff. Maybe I could bend the truth? Or just not give the whole truth...? "Where to begin?"
"How about the beginning?" Robbie insisted.
I laughed. "The beginning... the earliest I can remember... my parents took me to my aunt and uncle's house and told me I'd be staying with them for awhile. I must've been, three, four? It's crazy the things we can remember..."
"Give it time, you'll realize how underappreciated that ability was."
I nodded. "They left. For the next two years, I'd wake up everyday expecting to see them. I never did. I remember... I remember eating breakfast one morning... it was a Tuesday. I looked up from my bowl of cereal and I just flat-out asked my uncle, 'Where's mommy and daddy?'... 'Peter, they're not coming back. Their plane ran into trouble.'" I had a vacant smile on my face at that point. "I didn't even cry. It sounds terrible, but... I didn't really know my parents. Now, I'm not saying I wasn't upset. My uncle hadn't really came out and told me they'd died at first... it took a few more years for that. I did get upset when all the other kids at school would talk about how much fun they had with their parents, though. None of them talked about their aunts and uncles... but with time, I didn't even think of them as my aunt and uncle. It was like having the parents I should have had all along..."
xXx
Dammit, Gracie's gonna kill me! Hank Phelps thought, checking his watch for what must've been the hundredth time in just the past four minutes. He was late getting home... again. Waiting at the crosswalk, he was bouncing on the heels of his feet. For many seconds, he watched cars, vans, and trucks of all kinds drive past. When the signal changed to let the pedestrians know they could cross, Hank broke out into a trot.
I guess I could cut through the alley. Might shave off a few minutes.
Deciding against his better judgement, Hank took off for the alleyway between Liberty and Cassidy streets, his briefcase knocking against his left leg.
Suddenly, there was an ear-splitting crack overhead, and lightning flashed across the sky. Rain began to pour down immediately afterwards.
"That's just fuckin' great!" Hank yelled up to the sky. "Just great..."
Lightning flashed again. Hank stopped in his tracks.
What the hell was that? he thought to himself, his eyes widening. Hank saw something. He knew he saw something.
"Who's there?" he called out to what seemed to only be the darkness. No answer, just as he'd figured.
I know I saw something...
He decided to continue moving, albeit at a much faster pace. Rain water that had already collected on the ground was being sloshed around by his shuffling.
Just as Hank turned the corner of the alley, he felt a sharp pain in his back. Before he could react, he was pulled to the ground. He was dazed by whatever had attacked, unable to comprehend the situation at hand.
"Hehehehehe..." he heard someone... laugh? Growl? Whatever it was, it had a strange face, sharp teeth... it was in ragged, purple cloth...
"What the hell are you?" Hank cried, realizing he was in deep trouble.
"Me? I'm your worst nightmare... hahahahaha!"
Suddenly, Hank couldn't see. Then he couldn't feel.
Then he was dead...
xXx
A/N: This chapter was loooooong overdue. And despite that, it wasn't even that long! But whatever, my story, my rules. There definitely won't be as long of a wait for the next chapter. Review!
