Author's Note: This entire story deviates from Amazing Spider-Man volume 2, issue #42. So that means Peter and Aunt May didn't go to Los Angeles. However, Mary Jane still is working on that movie that she signed up for in issue #43.

This story has references to points in Peter's life as well as Marvel super heroes, and events like what happened when the Avengers fought Kang recently in the comics. It's sort of like a history lesson for people who recently got into Spider-Man.

A big thanks to reviewers: Kat, Blaque Cell, DominoDS, Mossberg, deLurk, Serena, Jade, LAXgirl, and Tammy-ddrtrr!




And now, I proudly present another chapter to add to the archives...




- Peter Parker: Responsibility -
- By Brian Marcelo -
- brianmarcelo@hotmail.com -
- PG-13 for language and content -




- Chapter Four -




***




"Mr. Parker? Are you okay?"

Peter's eyes fluttered open as he realized that he had almost fallen asleep in front of the whole class. While standing up in fact, which would've been even more embarrassing.

"Oh, yeah. I was just busy last night grading papers." Peter lied, at the same time realizing he had totally forgotten about that.

"Does that mean our tests are graded?!" asked one of his more enthusiastic students.

Peter chuckled nervously as he attempted to change the subject, when suddenly a very evil idea popped into his head.

"Uh...surprise quiz everyone!" he announced cheerfully, as he started passing out sheets of paper, "I trust that you all read chapters nine through twelve last night..."

As Peter finished passing out the papers to the groaning students he overheard a conversation behind him.

"This isn't fair...you know, I bet that Jenny knew that we were gonna have a test today and decided to skip out and smoke some pot or shoot some heroin, you know what I mean? Hahaha..." the kid said to a fellow student, who both started snickering quietly.

Turning around, Peter recognized the voice belonging to the kid who was antagonizing Jennifer awhile ago when she had fallen asleep in class. Jake was his name, Peter recalled. The kid was smart, but always liked causing trouble, especially with Jenny for some oddball reason.

"What's so funny, Mr. Gregory?" Peter said a bit loudly as he put his hand suddenly on Jake's shoulder, which made Jake jump out of his seat in fright.

"N-N-N-Nothing sir!" Jake said in a scared little voice, as he looked away from Peter and started on his test. Behind his desk a group of girls giggled, while a few boys threw small wads of paper at him.

Peter couldn't help but smirk as he went back to his desk.




***




Mirage looked into the telescope and grinned. He was hired to eliminate Jennifer Hardesty because she had gotten Spider-Man to investigate the disappearances, Peter Parker because he was the one to contact Spider-Man, and Spider-Man himself, because he was a damn annoying bug that needed to be stepped on, with whatever means necessary.

He had meant to take out Peter Parker first so that he couldn't contact Spider-Man, but he was pleasantly surprised when he looked through his microscope to see that Jennifer was in Peter Parker's apartment, looking quite bruised from the beating she had taken the previous night.

Mirage smiled as he watched her every move, knowing full well that she, that damned teacher, and Spider-Man would all be dead very soon. He was confident, especially since his artificial mutant power allowed him to make gases that were like hallicinatory, only much stronger. The gases would take over and could make them relieve their darkest, most painful memories in their lives, or he could do the exact opposite by distracting them with false happy, blissful mirages. The person being exposed to the gases would be in a dream-like state, so they would have no idea they were unconscious.

He was crafty, especially after learning from past mistakes by his somewhat-predecessor, Mysterio. He learned that Mysterio liked gloating and showing off too much, especially when it looked like the odds were in his favor. Mysterio always detested fighting by force, rather he'd let his holograms and robots do all the work for him.

Mirage wasn't going to take any chances. He was simply going to kill Spider-Man once he started to overdose.

He had managed to "borrow" a few more experimental pills that would increase his strength, speed, agility, and endurance to superhuman levels, just in case Spider-Man somehow resisted the gases. The downside was that similar to his pills for his artificial mutant power, they had a time limit; however, the limit was far shorter with these pills, since they lasted for only five minutes as opposed to thirty.

'Doesn't matter anyways,' he thought to himself with a confident smile as he continued to watch Jennifer, 'no one has ever resisted my wonderful mirages...'




***




Mary Jane stared angrily at the producer leaving, feeling disgusted by him and his remarks about her.

"As long as you can get into the lingerie, babe, that's all anybody cares about. See you in wardrobe," he had said casually, "I'll be bringing some friends, if that's okay...just check you out a bit...man, I love making movies..."

As she reluctantly started walking towards the wardrobe department, she wondered why she had even bothered with the part. Apparently she was going to be playing the Cynthia LaVenus, love interest of a super hero, only to be killed in act two, sending him in a killing rage that only ends when he meets girlfriend number two in act three. At least, that's what the producer told her. She herself thought it was completely stupid.

After all, she reasoned, what type of hero has another girlfriend right after his first one dies?

'Ah well...maybe I'll be able to pull off a stellar performance that will launch my career into stardom..." she said with a gleam in her eye that faded as quick as it come, "or maybe I'll just be overshadowed by the special effects and 'girlfriend number two'..."

As she finally made it to the wardrobe department, she wondered if she would have to kiss her co-star before she died in a spectacle of special effects.

Besides, she hadn't kissed anybody else ever since she was married to Peter.

Now that she thought about, she didn't want to kiss anybody else ever since she became married to Peter.

In fact, all she wanted to do was kiss Peter, right about now.

Shaking her head of those thoughts, she put on a fake smile as she met up with the wardrobe people, who were holding up barely covering lingerie for her to wear.

'Sigh.' she thought to herself, as she took one of those skimpy swimsuits with another fake smile.




***




Even though Mr. Parker probably didn't want her reading it, Jennifer's interest in the photo album that sat idly on the coffee table became increasingly higher as she turned the pages. She had always loved looking at pictures and trying to see the story behind them, even though she never had a family photo album as a kid, and the only pictures she did see were from fellow homeless kids who kept pictures in their tattered wallets or pendants.

She turned the page to see a group of old pictures with a much younger Mr. Parker standing beside two elderly people. Under one particular picture it had the words: "Family portrait of Uncle Ben and Aunt May with Peter at age five".

'I guess Mr. Parker lost his parents at a young age...' she thought to herself, as she turned the page to see pictures of Mr. Parker's Uncle Ben only. At the top of the page it said: "Remembering Uncle Ben".

'And his uncle too...'

On the next page it showed Mr. Parker in his high school years, with pictures showing him as a geeky kid with funny looking glasses, to pictures of him looking much more mature that included such girls as "Liz", "Betty", "Gwen", and "Mary Jane".

Turning the page, she was greeted by a few professional photos of Spider-Man in action against various villains that she recognized from newspapers.

"Photos of Spider-Man in action, done by Peter Parker."

"He was a photographer?" she remarked in surprise, thinking that he had been a teacher for most of his adult life, especially since he seemed so good at it.

As she turned the pages she saw more and more pictures of Spider-Man duking it out with villains such as Electro, Rhino, Dr. Octopus, Sandman, Hydro-Man, Vulture, Lizard, and someone that looked like him except black with a white spider on his chest instead. Absently she wondered why the Green Goblin wasn't in any of the pictures at all.

'Maybe Mr. Parker dislikes the Green Goblin.' she though to herself idly, before turning to a picture that made her freeze slightly.

It was a picture of someone that looked like Spider-Man, except he looked very, very distorted. His appearance was blood red, and his arms looked like they were weapons. She slowly recognized him as Carnage, the person who had started a killing spree in New York along with a bunch of other twisted super humans. She was young at the time, but she could still remember seeing people running in fear at the chaos he had created. The constant screaming, the shattered glass and overturned cars, and all that blood...

Shaking her head of those thoughts and deciding she better stop looking at that particular picture, she turned to the next page to see group pictures of Spider-Man with various superhero groups, such as the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. She smiled as she remembered witnessing the Avengers fighting a time traveling conquer named Kang, who had tried to take over Earth awhile ago only to be defeated by Captain America in hand-to-hand combat. Everyone in New York cheered when they saw the Avengers were victorious in Times Square.

She was confused however, to see him in pictures with the 'X-Men', who she didn't know much about except that they were very controversial mutants, then someone with a red costume adorned with a double D on the chest, and finally a picture of a serious looking mystic-ish guy with Spider-Man putting bunny ears on him for added comedic effect.

"Spider-Man's sure been around over the years..." she said excitedly as she looked through more pictures, "Huh, I wonder how Mr. Parker got all these great shots...maybe he's best buddies with Spider-Man or something!"

As she thought of the possibility of her average but well-to-do science teacher being buddies with Spidey, a very odd group of pictures caught her eye. The first one showed Mr. Parker and that Mary Jane girl she had seen earlier getting married, the second picture showed them happily moving into their own apartment, the third picture showed Mary Jane pregnant with Mr. Parker carrying her with ease, and the forth picture showed them at a store amongst a bunch of cribs and baby things. Wondering when these were took she looked at the date and saw that the date was from a year ago.

"Huh. Mr. Parker's married and has a kid?" she said in confusion, wondering why her science teacher had such a small apartment when he had a wife and a kid to raise.




***




Mary Jane felt degraded as the producer and a few of his friends looked her over, making 'ooh'-ing and 'ahh'-ing sounds in the process, further adding to her humiliation.

"Can I please go back to my trailer now?" she said quietly, feeling cold in the lingerie.

"Sure sure..." he said half-listening, as he looked at her from top to bottom, "Just be sure to come back in ten minutes for another fitting, I'm not quite sure that's small enough..."

As she started to leave for her trailer, she could hear his friends whistling and making cat calls, which made her feel like nothing more then an object to them.

She slammed her trailer door behind her as she entered, contemplating whether or not she should quit all together.

If Peter was here, she'd talk be able to talk to him about the movie, and then he'd probably suggest that she go find another part where her acting skills would be more appreciated.

"Too bad we've had so many problems over him being Spider-Man though..." she said quietly as she started to put on something less revealing.

She decided that after she was done for the day she would get out and actually do something that would make her happy, inside of being all depressed over Peter not being around. She had to be an independent woman, now that she was living by herself and all...even though it was awfully lonely.




***




Peter started walking home, his thoughts on what to do with Jennifer. He couldn't just let her go back to living on the streets, and he doubted that she'd like the idea of going to an orphanage.

She was his responsibility now, with her brother gone for a year, and no one else to go to. She only had six more months left till graduation, so she would only have to have a temporary home for six months. Perhaps, he could get someone to take care of her, for awhile.

Of course, he could always adopt her, but...Peter wasn't sure what to do.

The other thing on his mind was about what to do about his situation with Mary Jane. Obviously, she would be very mad and upset that he missed out on another meeting with her. It wasn't his fault he was busy saving a bunch of people from some freaky guy named Shade.

It wasn't his fault that he had this responsibility in his life.

He was happy for her when he found her she got a part in a major summer movie. However, he couldn't help wondering if they got her for her great acting skills, or for her looks only.

Hopefully Mary Jane was still single, but she was in Hollywood, and there were a lot of men that would be far more appealing to her then he ever was.

Peter gulped aloud, hoping she wasn't going to send divorce papers his way anytime soon. Then there would be no way to fix their marriage, even though he had a feeling that she loved him as much as he loved her.

At least, he hoped that she did.

But if she did meet another person, and she did fall in love with that person, then Peter knew he couldn't do anything about it. After all, he wanted Mary Jane to be happy, even if it wasn't with him...but that didn't mean he wasn't going to stop trying to win her love back at the moment.

"Just another average day in the life of Spider-Man..." he quipped aloud, as he took out his key and opened his apartment door, only to have his spider-sense go off like crazy.

"What the? Danger!" he yelped aloud, dropping his school bag and bursting into the room, only to be shocked at what he saw before his very eyes.




- End of Chapter Four -




Gasp, what did Peter see happening in his apartment? Check out chapter five to see, okay? Heh heh...^_^

As usual with everything I wrote, please rate and review! ^_^

By the way, Jennifer was referring to Maximum Carnage, which basically was Carnage and his group of evil-doers causing chaos in the streets of Manhattan, while Spider-Man, Venom, Captain America, and a whole bunch of other heroes tried to stop them.

The Kang War was in Avengers, where they had to fight his highly advanced army, which nearly took over Earth.

The villain who looked like Spider-Man but black and with a white spider on his chest is Venom.

The person with the double DD on his chest is DareDevil, while the mystic looking guy is Dr. Strange.

I doubt Peter has pictures of the Green Goblin, or if he did, he ripped them up, because the Green Goblin ruined Peter's life. After all, he killed Gwen Stacey (Peter's first love), made his best friend Harry Osborn go insane and become he second Green Goblin, and kidnapped little baby May Parker, who is likely dead at this point. Would you want pictures of someone who knows your secret identity and vowed to make your life a living hell?

By the way, I already have plans for two sequels to this story. One while be the first Horror story to ever be posted on the Spider-Man category, while the other one is top secret.

Remember, review! ^^;