A day and several aspirins later, Peter sat in JJ's office and listened to his boss simultaneously dismiss both his photography skills and Spider-Man and Psycho's fight.
"The world's just going to hell," JJ was saying, flipping through Peter's photos. "These freaks always have to fight it out now. Whatever happened to therapy? All that touchy-feely crap. This is New York - there're enough damn therapists here to fix anybody!"
"Maybe some of them just want to fight," Peter offered. He felt safe in doing so because JJ had already given him his money, and because that morning's edition of the Daily Bugle - featuring a dramatic Spidey-vs-Psycho photo - had sold out five printings. "Maybe Psycho had it out for Spider-Man."
JJ fixed him with a narrow-eyed stare. "Maybe your precious Spider-Man staged the whole thing, huh? Ever think of that? And what the hell is wrong with you, Parker? I send you out on a routine assignment and it turns into the biggest mess since that Goblin wacko blew up the Bugle."
Peter ignored the slur against Spidey's character and focused on finding a way to half-lie his way out of trouble. "I - uh, I'm just lucky, sir."
And he was. Very lucky. Not only had he survived, but he'd learned a valuable, if bitter, lesson regarding one of his friends. He'd also managed to procure a ticket and a backstage pass from the grateful band, for their upcoming comeback tour. Peter had promptly given both items to MJ. That had taken some courage-gathering, and no little amount of rationalizing, but finally he argued successfully with himself that friends could give friends stuff like that.
MJ, as it turned out, was ecstatic, because the band was one of her favorites from way-back-when and the tickets had been sold out for weeks.
Very lucky.
"Don't make it a habit," JJ barked, jolting Peter out of his happy thoughts, and lit up a new cigar.
Peter's response was forestalled by the sudden appearance of Robbie, who was probably the best reporter and definitely the nicest guy working at the Bugle, and who was on his way towards at least partially filling that surrogate father gap in Peter's life.
"Jonah," Robbie said, slightly breathless, "just heard it on the police band - Psycho's escaped custody."
"Escaped?" JJ demanded, cigar bobbing and spraying a fine coat of ash all over the papers on his desk.
"But I thought the feds got him," Peter said, twisting around in his chair to stare at Robbie in undisguised dismay. When he'd turned in his photos late last night (for once, he'd skipped developing them himself and took them to a one-hour processing place instead), Psycho had been on his way to a maximum-security military installation. Apparently, he'd been a terrorist-for-hire before becoming an assassin-for-hire. Had to admire that career versatility.
Robbie shrugged, spreading his hands helplessly. "He broke out."
Wasting no further time, JJ started giving orders for the Bugle's coverage of this scandalous event, and Peter tuned him out. He didn't think Psycho would be back; Harry was most assuredly not going to waste any more money on a failure. Even if they were homicidal, the Osborns never poured good money after bad - and there was the little matter that Psycho had trashed an Oscorp-sponsored event, probably after Harry had explicitly warned him away. After all, Peter had been there, and Harry wouldn't want any harm to come to his friend.
So a re-hire looked unlikely. But maybe Psycho was just revenge-driven and crazy enough to strike up a vendetta on his own.
Peter was not inclined to take chances. He slipped out of the office during one of JJ's longer shouts, made his way to the Bugle's roof, changed into his Spidey suit, and swung off.
Now was a good time to go find out who "Max" was.
END