"Urich, you bring me one more story about giant lizards in the sewers and you are fired, understand?! I don't want any more of this crap! Robbie, that interview with Wilson Fisk was due on my desk FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO! Brock, give me those photos… these are crap. Get out of my office and stay the hell away from my newspaper until you can give me something that even a slightly reputable publisher would print! Ms Brant, cancel my six o'clock, move tomorrow's two o'clock to one o'clock and move Thursday's three o'clock to twelve o'clock and then cancel it! Robbie, what the hell are you waiting for, Chinese New Year? And PLEASE, will SOMEONE give me something for the front page about the rhino guy on Sunday and that nut with the wings who was in the mall yesterday? No, I'm not interested in those two whack jobs! I want the story on the whack job who was hanging around with both of them! I WANT SPIDER-MAN!"

"Oh boy. It's one of those days. It always is in the office of Jolly Jonah Jameson."

"I hate this newspaper. I really do. But Jameson's just about the only guy in town who's willing to buy my pictures. I mean, I am Spider-Man and I can only sell my photos – OF SPIDER-MAN – to one newspaper! There should be a bidding war for these pictures! Sometimes I really wish I could go public. Must be fun to be a Tony Stark or a Steve Rogers, with all the admiration and security you could ever want."

"Oh well. Let's try to make this as painless as possible."

"Hey, Ms Brant," I say, approaching Jonah's receptionist. "Is it safe to go in?"

"You might want to give it a minute, Peter-"

"PARKER!"

"Mr Jameson will see you now," says Betty Brant with a smile. Oh goodie.

JJ leads the way into his office, cigar clamped firmly in place just beneath that goofy moustache of his. As usual. I'm starting to wonder if he's been smoking the same cigar his entire life.

"Parker, where have you been?! Why weren't you here half an hour ago?"

"I was in school, Mr Jameson."

"Teenagers! Typical! Don't know why I employ you!"

"Actually, you don't, I'm a freelancer…"

"Shut up! Sit down! What have you got? Quickly, Parker, I don't have all day!"

I hand Jonah a folder of printed photos. Any other photographer at any other newspaper would email the pictures across, but I come see JJ in person just to make sure I can negotiate for a fair wage. And so he can't actually get the pictures until he's agreed to pay me. I wouldn't put it past him to try and take them for nothing if I sent them in an email straight away.

He flips through the photos of Spider-Man, the Rhino and the Vulture, still chomping on that cigar. "Seriously, I have never seen that thing go out. He could have had that one cigar in his mouth for the last twenty years."

"Crap… crap… crap… crap… more crap…" He looks up at me. "Hundred bucks."

"If that's all you're going to offer me, I'll take them to the New York Post."

"Hundred and fifty, but that's my maximum offer!"

"Three hundred."

"That's outrageous!"

"I think it's fair for what I've given you!"

"Kid, out of these photos, precisely one is good enough to make it into my paper! I'll offer you one seventy-five and I suggest you take it because it is my final offer and if you don't want it, you can forget ever coming in here again!"

"Fine. One seven five. Done."

"Good boy. Damn teenagers. Always trying to short-change honest businessmen, like me! What do you even need the money for? Video games and underage drinking? That's all you youths seem to get up to these days!"

"How about helping support my aunt, who is trying to raise me on her own and struggling to bring in enough income for the two of us? Or, how about buying the stuff I need for web fluid, which is ridiculously expensive. I desperately need a proper job."

"Mr Jameson, I really think when you print these stories, you should maybe consider that Spider-Man's trying to help out," I say as I get up.

"Oh, is that what you think? Well, you are WRONG, Parker! Spider-Man is an outlaw and a menace! Look at him – who's he helping? He gets in the way of the police and just adds to the destruction these criminal lunatics cause! He's worse than all of them! He might think he's playing hero, but there is a system in this country and it's in place for a reason! When he goes charging in, he only risks more lives and causes more damage! He's no hero, he's a glory hound! Just like those freaks called the Xmen Now get out of my office and stop talking nonsense!"

And that is my cue to leave. I tried. Don't know why I ever bother trying to get through to JJ. I always get the same response. I hear some of the usual conversation between Jolly Jonah and his employees as I leave.

"URICH! Where is that story on the lizards?!"

"But you said-"

"Don't tell me what I said! Get me what I want! Now! Or you're fired!"

As soon as I'm out the front door of the Bugle, I turn to the wall and bang my head against it. Why can I not be treated fairly here? A fair wage that gets me enough money to help out at home is all I'm asking for. And, y'know, not being the target of so much hate for trying to do the right thing would be nice. What would be nicer is if I didn't have to willingly help the man who is fuelling the public hatred of me. This totally sucks. Why can't something good happen?

"Bad day?" says Kitty, over my shoulder.

Okay, sometimes good things do happen.

I turn to look at her and her arms wrap around my neck, her bright green eyes looking up at me with a warm grin.

"Something like that," I say. "How are you doing?"

"I'm okay. It's good to get out."

"You have no idea how good it is to see you," I say.

"Really?"

"Absolutely. Want to head back to mine?"

"I'd love to."

She takes my hand and we head over to the bus stop. Just being around her is intoxicating. I want to kiss her again… is it too soon? Would it have been very out of the blue if I'd kissed her when she turned up? I mean, was that a spur of the moment first date thing or are we actually trying to get somewhere a little more serious with this?

Serious… how do I mean, serious? That's kind of a scary word right now. I mean, we have only just started dating and with everything I do – everything we both do – I'm still not sure where I am with the whole relationship thing and I have only just broken up with MJ and what if…

Easy. Easy, Parker. Don't rush into anything. See where this goes. If today goes well, start thinking about this a little more seriously. For now, just hold her hand, smile and enjoy this.

Before long, we're back at mine. No rampaging evil maniacs to take care of for once. Things are actually going well and I have made it safely with Kitty to the front door.

"Hey," she says, as I fish for the keys in my pocket, "want to try something cool?"

"What?"

"Your aunt's out, right?"

"Yeah…"

"Give me your hand." I put my hand in hers. "Promise me you won't freak out, okay?"

"What?"

"This might be a little weird, but you'll be fine. Just promise you won't freak."

"Kitty, I won't freak out."

She walks forwards, pulling me along with her, and passes straight through the wall. I have just enough time to see her do it before I've stepped through and into the house. The wall just passed through me. That was weird. It was like, for a minute, I was all weightless and everything was sort of… muffled. That was weird. Cool, but weird.

"Did you just phase me?" I say.

"Pretty awesome, right?"

"You can phase other people?"

"Yeah! As long as I'm touching them."

"Okay, that is kind of cool!"

"I know, right?" She looks over the hallway. "So, this is your house?"

"This is my house."

"No secret spider-lairs then?"

"I have a basement and a bedroom and that's about as close as I get."

"Ha!"

"I mean, I want to get a giant mutant-tracking device powered by my mind and an advanced interactive holographic training room, but for now I'm making do."

Kitty laughs and throws her arms around me again. My heart leaps every time she does that.

"I love it. It's all like a proper home!"

"I thought you were hating your non-X-Mansion home?"

"Yeah, but that's because it looks like a prison. This is nice."

"Well, I'm so glad you like it, Miss Pryde! Do you think you'll be buying the house?"

"That depends – do you come with it, Mr Parker?"

Her finger bounces on my nose and her hand drops back to my neck.

"I'm sure we could work something out," I say and place a kiss on the back of her hand.

She grins, blushing a little. I think I'm blushing too. Am I blushing? Oh great. Why am I such a child?

We kick off our shoes and head into the living room. We both fall onto the sofa, Kitty leaning on me, her head against my chest. I stroke her hair, running my fingers over the thick chestnut locks while she lies there. She grabs the remote and turns on the TV.

"Ten bucks says you're on the news again," she says.

"Twenty says the reporter hates me."

She laughs and turns, lying on my lap, looking up at me. I lower my hand, draping it across her waist.

"So, how are you finding life down here in Queens?" I ask.

"It's better when I do actually get to come out into Queens. Staying in that apartment is driving me mad. Psylocke and Ororo will not stop winding me up! It's impossible to get a moment's peace with them."

"At least you don't have to hide your powers. I swear, one day Aunt May is going to walk into a room full of webs."

"You could always blame it on a spider infestation."

I laugh and Kitty smiles up at me.

"Come on, though," I say. "It must be kind of cool to live with people with powers. Three girls with superpowers in a New York apartment? I mean, that's a sitcom waiting to happen!"

"You'd think, but Psylocke just gets in my head all the time and then blames it on me, so that kind of sucks."

"Really? Isn't that, like, a major breach of personal privacy?"

"I know, right? She plays it all cool and professional when the rest of the team are around but when it's just her bestie, Storm, and the stupid kid of the team-"

"Hey," I say. "Kitty, you are not a stupid kid. You're an amazing girl."

"Thanks, Pete. But they don't see it that way."

"Who needs 'em? The world's full of people desperate to tell you that you're too young and stupid to matter. And you know why?"

"Because they screwed up."

"Because they screwed up. And they think because they've let their own lives become hell-"

"That they've got the right to tear into us because all this stuff we do hasn't screwed us up enough yet. Like we shouldn't be allowed to be happier than they are."

"It's so stupid."

"It really is," says Kitty. "I mean, what we do is difficult, but that doesn't mean we have to sacrifice being happy, right?"

"Right. There's no reason we shouldn't still be able to enjoy the stuff non-super-people enjoy."

"Like hanging around with the people we want to hang around with," says Kitty.

"And dating," I say. Kitty's sitting up a little in my lap. I'm leaning down towards her.

"And falling-"

It's the TV that cuts her off.

"The X-Men: America's Most Wanted," says the news reporter. What?! We're both watching, the moment we could have been sharing – you know, if life wasn't so full of crap – suddenly forgotten. "SHIELD has today released a list of profiles of members of the mutant terrorist group known as the X-Men, recently accused of a counter-intelligence operation and an attack on the SHIELD headquarters at the Triskelion. SHIELD has warned that the X-Men are to be treated as armed and extremely dangerous."

Kitty grabs the remote, turning it off. The smiles are all gone. Even with her face half turned away from me, I can see there's anger on her features and, I think, tears in her eyes.

"It's not fair. So much crap I have to put up with."

"Kitty, what…"

"Don't you dare ask me to explain this to you!" she snaps, turning to look at me again, her eyes ablaze. "Don't you dare, Peter! I have had enough of the accusations and the explanations and everything else with this whole stupid thing! I have been kicked out of my home and kept from my friends! And it's not fair!"

"Hey," I whisper, putting my hand on her shoulder. She's on the brink of tears. I pull her into a hug and she buries her face against my chest as she starts to sob. I rest my head on the back of hers, holding her in both my arms. "It's okay, Kitty. It will be okay."

"It's not fair."

I hold her tight, shutting my eyes. What the hell is wrong with this world? Why do things like this happen to good people? People who aren't even twenty years old yet! She's right. Nothing about our lives is fair. I keep hold of her. I'm not letting go. Not as long as she needs someone here.

She looks up a little and I kiss her forehead.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

"Don't be. It's fine."

"I shouldn't have got mad at you."

"I get it. Really. It's okay, Kitty."

"Why the mutants? In a world full of super soldiers and Iron Men and human torches, why is it only mutants that get all this hate? What difference does it make if we're born with powers or… or…"

"Bitten by a radioactive spider?" I say. "I don't know."

"The world sucks."

"Yeah, it does. It's full of morons and there's always going to be people who can't accept you for some reason or other. That's why you need people who can see how special you really are."

"Yeah," she says. "Thank you, Pete."

"I mean it. You are amazing."

Silence for a moment as she wraps her arms around me and we just sit there, holding each other. I place another kiss on her forehead.

"I'm hungry," she murmurs, finally.

"Huh?"

"Want to get something to eat?"

"Sure. Eat out, or…?"

"Can we stay here?" she says. "I'd rather it was just the two of us."

"Yeah, me too. Pizza?"

"Pizza sounds good."

"Cool. Pizza then."

I call out for pizza while Kitty wanders around the house and then, a short while later, we're sat on the living room floor by a box of pizza.

"So…" says Kitty. There's something uncertain in her voice. Oh no… what is it? "I… um… I'm going to go ahead and assume the pink hoodie I saw in your room isn't yours."

"Oh… that," I pick up another slice of pizza and take a bite – I think I'm just looking for a distraction. "It's my ex's. We, um… we only broke up recently. I've been meaning to get it back to her, but… y'know. Who likes visiting their ex, right?"

"Try living with them," says Kitty. She offers me a small smile. "So… what happened?"

"I couldn't protect her," I say. "She knew I was Spider-Man and that kept making her a target for my enemies. I have way too many enemies who know who I am. And I kept getting mad at her – she wouldn't listen when I told her to stay away, to keep safe, when I was dealing with whatever psychopathic monster was trying to kill me."

"Seriously? So… you ended it?"

"Actually, she did. I think it was all just too much for her to be involved with and she felt like I was pushing her away, or… or sometimes just unloading stuff onto her and it was too much. I guess she was right."

"You've got to talk to someone about all this, Peter," says Kitty. "And we all want to keep the people close to us safe. So…" She looks away. A strand of hair falls across her face and her hands are fidgeting in her lap. "So, um, like, with the whole what you do putting people in danger… does that mean you can't have a serious relationship? Like, ever?"

"I don't know," I say. I can't bring myself to look at her. "I… I just don't see how I could drag anyone else into this."

"What if… what if that person had, like, powers too? So they could take care of themselves and not get hurt in big crazy superhero fights? I mean, could you be in something long-term with another superhero?" I look at her and she's staring back at me. I can't respond. I… what do I say? What do I want to say? Her eyes close for a minute. "Dammit. Sorry! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to… that was stupid. That massively forward and I shouldn't have…"

She starts to get up and I put a hand on her shoulder, keeping her there.

"Yes," I say and she looks right into my eyes again. "I mean, I hadn't really thought about it, but maybe. Maybe I need – well, maybe we both need – someone who can do all this stuff too. Someone who understands what it's like."

"Yeah?" she says, sitting back down, cross-legged. She brushes her hair back as she looks at me. "You don't think I'm, like, a total creep for being all forward all of a sudden?"

I can't get over how beautiful she looks. I mean, I'm the quiet nerdy kid. When did girls like this start even talking to me?

"You're not a creep, you're… cute."

"Cute? Cute is good."

"Mm. Cute with just a dab of pizza sauce!" She laughs a little and I wipe away the spot of sauce from the corner of her mouth. My hand stays there, resting on her cheek. She places her hand on mine.

Before I know what's happening, I'm leaning forwards, Kitty's face cupped in both my hands. My lips find hers and I'm lost in a kiss. I feel her arms wrapping around me and I'm vaguely aware of the sudden movement that leaves us on the floor, Kitty on her back while I lean over her. All the while, the kiss lingers, grows deeper, as we hold each other and refuse to let go.

Our lips part and I rest my forehead against hers for a moment. This is… wow. This is actually happening. Am I, like, going to wake up in a minute, or…?

I lift my head a little to look down into Kitty's eyes. She tightens her arms around me, pulling me into a hug. And I'm holding her, my arms joining behind her back.

"Can we stay like this?" she whispers. "I don't want to go home and be an X-Man. I just… I want this."

"Me too," I say.

"Why can't we just stop saving the world and be a normal couple?"

"Responsibility sucks sometimes," I say. "But normal's boring anyway."

"True… So, forget normal. Are we still going to… I mean, are we, like, a 'couple' couple?"

"Like, you and me, official, girlfriend and boyfriend, sort of couple?"

"Yeah…" she says.

"Yeah. If you want."

"Do you want to be?"

Do I want to be? Am I actually about to start a proper relationship with Kitty? I mean, this is a whole big sudden thing. Is this really what I want right now?

"Yes."

"Me too."

The hug loosens. Kitty lies on the floor, looking up at me and the same smile is on both our faces.

"Okay," I say. "Then I pronounce us the world's cutest superpowered couple."

She laughs. I lean down, my lips touching hers and then-

The click of the front door opening. Aunt May. Crap. Lost track of time. I roll aside, grab Kitty's hand and pull her up with me. In a split-second, we're both sat on the sofa. I swipe the pizza box from the floor and drop it on the table.

The door opens and Aunt May steps in. Superhuman spider speed, I love you!

"Peter?"

I get up and go to the living room door.

"Hey, Aunt May," I say. "Uh, this is Kitty." I gesture into the living room and Kitty comes to join me at the door.

"Hi," she says. "It's nice to meet you."

"Hello Kitty," says Aunt May. I stifle a laugh. Badly. They're both looking at me – Aunt May with a look that says 'what's so funny?' and Kitty with a look that says 'if you make that joke, I will slap you'.

"Sorry," I mutter.

"Have you two eaten?"

"Yeah, we got a pizza."

"Pizza? Bet you didn't save me a slice!"

"I was really hungry!"

"Told you to get two," says Kitty, nudging me with her shoulder.

"Anyway, I'd better go and get changed. Nice meeting you, Kitty," says Aunt May and she heads upstairs.

"So," says Kitty, stepping closer to me, her hands on my shoulder. "What news do you want to break to her first? That we're an item or that I'm a mutant?"

"We'd tell her you're a mutant?"

"Yes. I don't keep that from anyone. Ever."

I put my hand around her waist, smiling at her.

"We'll see," I say. "Let's not spring anything on her too soon – I think 'I have a friend who is a girl' was almost too much!"

Kitty laughs.

"No rush then." She stands on tip-toes and kisses me on the cheek. "I should get back."

"I'll walk you home," I say.

"Sure," she says and she takes my hand.

You know something? For once, things are actually looking up.

-New York-

Emma frost walked towards time square it was unusually quiet , thats because emma had used her powers and emptied out the square . She didnt want to be interrupted , Emma pulled a tied up Jean grey behind her into the Centre of time square " You dont have to do this Emma " Jean pleaded she was in a green and yellow highlighted tube top and a pair of green panties with the xmen logo on the front " I know but your kind must die " Emma said as she crucified Jean grey " And now your on show for the world to see " Emma said walking away as Jean grey cried out in pain .