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Chapter 12: Fly-by

The little red light was blinking away on the ansaphone. Peter almost swooped on it. Somebody had rung and left a message! Maybe it was Aunt May - he should have given her a call before now. But it wasn't. "Peter, it's Mary-Jane. Can you give me a call?"

"I wonder what she wants," Peter mused, "I'd better call back now."

"I'll go out for a bit," offered Erica.

"No, no, it's O.K.," he paused. "By the way, thanks for giving us some time alone together yesterday…"

"Anytime. Though it did take me a while to disappear completely - did you know that Mary-Jane had hidden your costume?"

Peter grinned as he dialled the number. "Hey M-J, what's up?…no problem…" Peter glanced over at Erica on the couch. To his surprise, he saw that she had that still attentiveness that he recognised as the spider sense at work when there was a mild danger and she was working out where it was coming from. She was staring at him, or was it the phone…? "Whaddya mean, what am I playing at?… I was with you… perhaps the paper had it wrong, you know, the Bugle's not noted for it's accuracy… I… I can't… I don't think so… wellll… well thanks for your concern. When do you finish today?… I'm glad it went well, take care, Love you." Put slowly replaced the handset in it's cradle and looked unseeingly at it. He half smiled to himself. He never thought he'd be prevaricating trying to explain how he could be in two places at once. He usually had the opposite problem - how to explain where he was when he disappeared and Spider-Man appeared.

"Why didn't you tell her?" asked Erica, who had obviously guessed what the conversation was about.

Peter tried to explain. "I don't really know. I think she doesn't need to know, she's not only having a break from me, she's having a break from Spider-Man as well."

"Uh-huh," said Erica in a disbelieving tone.

Peter turned to fetch his camera, and grimaced. Why didn't he want to tell Mary-Jane? He came back with his camera and held it up to show Erica. "I have a camera I used to take shots of myself with but I can use something more normal for a change. It'll be a little weird, being behind the lens when taking pictures of Spider-Man."

"I'm worried that it'll be noticeable that I'm female…"

"Nah, I'll get the right angles, get some motion blur in there. They won't be as static as usual."

"What do you want me to do? Go somewhere and turn a few somersaults? Or if I cruise around looking for some action, how am I going to alert you when I've found it? It'll be all over by the time you arrive."

Peter told her. "You'll have to take me with you. Piggy-back or such." Then he laughed, suddenly amused at the thought of it.

"Right."

Erica left the room and reappeared shortly afterwards suited up as Spider-Man. She stuffed her clothes into her rucksack and handed it to Peter. "You can put your camera in here too - you'll have to 'piggy-back' this." Peter shrugged it onto his back. This he was used to.

"Can you access the roof of this building?" asked Spidey. Peter nodded. "Right then, I'll see you there," and she left the room again.

Peter let himself out the apartment and climbed the flight of stairs to the roof-top exit. The door was locked, but he had a key as he was the closest tenant to the exit.

"Boo." Spidey was above him over the doorway. She back-flipped over his head and landed in front of him. "Your chauffeur awaits. Where to, Sir?"

"Let's head Downtown. South," he added for the non-native's benefit.

"South it is." She crouched down on the asphalted roof for Peter to clamber onto her back. "Hold on!" She sprinted for the edge of the roof top and was off into the air. Peter felt the brisk air rushing past his face and tugging at his hair - it was only a few days, but he was almost wishing he were Spider-Man again. He found himself anticipating the lines of web thrown out, their anchor points, and he was acutely aware of the differences in style; this Spidey seemed almost awkward at times. He put this down to inexperience, unfamiliarity with the city, and carrying an extra burden. This wasn't the route he'd choose to head south. Then he realised something.

"Waitaminnit!" he shouted at where Spidey's ear was, "This isn't south!"

"I know! I thought I'd take a roundabout way - get to know the lay of the land better. Anyway, it doesn't really matter, does it?"

Pete shook his head. Aloud he said "No. You're right!" I might as well sit back and enjoy the ride, he thought.

A few minutes later he shouted again. "Hey! Waitaminnit! Are you nuts? That's the Bugle building!"

"I know! I thought we might drop by for a chat…"

"No way, man!"

Spidey chuckled, and swung close by the building. "Just kidding!" she said. "But you might want to wave to JJJ and Robbie as we do a fly past!" With that she had them swooping past the large window of Jameson's office. "Smile!"

She gave a cheery wave, but Peter continued to cling on to her with both arms - he wasn't feeling that cheery.

A short time later, when they had passed the building, Spidey swung them up to a roof-top. She needed to catch her breath she was laughing so much. "…and did you see his eyes? Ha ha! They almost popped right out of his head!" Peter frowned at her, but the corners of his mouth quivered and the next moment he was laughing as well.

"You're evil!" he gasped.

"Well, at least that should clear up any of their lingering doubts whether you and Spider-Man are the one and the same."

"Gah, he'll probably give me hell about it when I go in tomorrow… Still, it was worth it, I think."

"O.K. Let's regroup - gotta get us a slice of action!"

Downtown, Spidey cruised around, both herself and her passenger keeping their eyes peeled for anything untoward. "You've got more experience in this," she shouted to Peter.

"Yeah, but you've got the spider sense," he shouted back.

"We should be about equal then!" she said flippantly. "So," she continued after a pause, "It's a bit quiet here - should we go somewhere else?"

"Lower East Side - down by the piers." Peter suggested. He wasn't cognisant of finding any criminal activity down there either - wrong time of day really, and crooks weren't stupid. Well perhaps they were. Sometimes. Maybe there'd be a purse snatching or something. Tourist areas were good for those…

Peter pointed down - he'd just seen someone furtively sneaking past the side of the Criminal Courts building. Spidey gave the thumbs up and swooped down and around so that she'd be the other side of the building. She off-loaded Peter onto the sidewalk, jumped up and crawled rapidly up the wall to a convenient vantage point. Peter scurried off across the street, dodging cars, to get his camera ready. He stayed back against the wall of the building and let the foot traffic pass, covering him. He couldn't see Spidey, but knew she wouldn't want to attract attention to herself before their prey arrived - she was possibly on top of the walkway.

They waited. Peter shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He started taking photos of the towers and columns, and used his lens as a telescope keeping an eye out for Spidey. He started to wonder if he had missed something. Where has she got to?

"Psst!"

He looked up. Spidey was gesturing for him to move around the corner and meet her there. Peter quickly did so. There were less people here. Spidey dropped down, seized Peter by the waist and jumped off again. As the sidewalk receded beneath Peter's feet, and Spidey shot out a web line, Peter saw some of the people below tilt their heads to watch. A couple pointed. Peter could imagine the headline: Spider-Man Kidnaps Innocent Photographer.

"What happened?" he asked a moment later, when they were sitting in the shade of a roof top water tower.

"Nothing. The guy looked like he had some legit business in the building - maybe he was involved in a court case." She sighed. "I don't understand it - my spider sense was tingling. What a waste of time. Did you have that happen to you often?"

"All the time. Um - usually there was some sort of reason for it - though I ignored my spider-sense at the time. I've been caught out in the past by relying on it." Peter stopped, then gave a short self-depreciating laugh "Not that my native wit was any better just then either, huh?"

Spidey chuckled. "Oh well. What now?"

"Back Uptown. I could still get some generic 'Spidey-travelling-through-the-streets-of-our-fair-city' shots for Jonah. He may be happy with those."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why would he be happy with photos of Spider-Man - why does he keep buying them? I've always wondered…."

Why does he? Peter had no real answer. "…I think he likes to keep tabs on Spidey, wants to know what he's up to, tries to see any opportunity to put in a bad word. He's…not a fan of Spidey's. He's not a fan of me either, but he knows I'm his only link to Spider-Man. Keep tabs on me; keep tabs on Spider-Man. I think that's his motivation. Works as well as any other as far as Jonah's concerned."

"It's amazing he hasn't worked it out yet."

"Yeah, there's been plenty of opportunity, but I've always managed to patch things up to avoid disclosure. Although…. I'm pretty sure Robbie has his suspicions."

"He was pretty amused when I asked about the sources for the Spider-Man articles - I thought he was just amused at my naivety, but perhaps he was amused because I was your cousin and…. I wonder if he thought I knew or not??"

"Well he'll be less amused about it after today!"

"Word!" chuckled Spidey. Then she said, "How about a series of photographs: Spider-Man and famous landmarks of New York City? Show me on the side of skyscrapers and bridges. Shall we start with the Empire State on the way back Uptown?"

Silence. Peter pondered the idea. Was it too silly? "Well, I could take them; whether they'd ever be bought is another issue - J.J would probably grumble they belong in a women's magazine and demand an interview as well. Spider-Man telling 'why these are my favourite places', or some such. Oh I suppose they'd come in useful if 'a follow-up to 'Webs!' was ever published." Peter grimaced and stood up. "Come on, Let's get going."

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Next: Sprung!

A/N: It's taken me a while to update, but they should be a bit more regular after this.

Cheers!