Chapter Eight
In a strange sort of way, Mary Jane felt as if she were watching a wedding other than her own. A more apt description might have been a soap-opera wedding, which seemed oddly appropriate, given the circumstances under which it came to be.
The couple had opted for traditional vows. "Do you, John, take this woman Mary Jane, to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, to honor and to cherish, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live?" The minister asked John.
"I do." John said softly.
The minister turned to Mary Jane. "Do you, Mary Jane, take this man John, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, to honor and to cherish, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live?"
Come on girl, it's all for the best, she had to remind herself, Get on with it. But just as M.J.'s lips had formed the word "I," there was an explosion from outside, followed by an ominous orange glow that suddenly appeared in the church's stained glass windows.
John, accustomed to being the take-charge guy in moments of crisis, held up his hands, telling the audience to remain calm. Meanwhile, one of his ushers had detached himself from the wedding formation and hurried outside to see what was wrong. He stuck his head inside the sanctuary, his face registering alarm, if not panic. "Everybody out!" he shouted. "There's a gas main break! They're evacuating the whole block!"
"Everyone, please stay calm!" John exhorted again, intending to be the last person out. "We don't want anybody getting hurt." Mary Jane wanted to remain with him, but he told her to get outside quickly and not to argue. He looked out over the crowd just in time to see his father making a quick beeline for the exit, cutting his way in front of two little girls and their parents. John didn't say anything, but the expression of disgust on his face told the whole story.
Outside, it looked as if storm clouds had suddenly converged. But the midday darkness had been caused by thick black smoke billowing from the condominium tower across the street from the church. A massive fire, no doubt caused by multiple gas leaks, was consuming the entire building. Within minutes, two N.Y.F.D battalions had converged on the scene, but it quickly became apparent that more would be needed. Even with the latest breakthroughs in firefighting technology, anything over the seventh floor would pose extremely difficult challenges. This building had twenty.
The police had cordoned off the area, but Mary Jane, John, and the rest of the wedding party had a ringside seat.
"Look!" someone in the crowd shouted, "It's Spider-Man!"
Mary Jane looked up just in time to see a streak of red and blue hurtling through the air.
"Go man, go!" yelled a big African-American with dreadlocks. The crowd broke into simultaneous applause as Spider-Man landed on the burning building and quickly scuttled inside one of the few windows that were not spurting flames.
But one person in the crowd was not enamored of the webslinger. "What are you all, a bunch of idiots!" Jonah Jameson shouted, struggling to make himself heard above the crowd noise. "That weasly crawler probably caused the whole thing!"
Mary Jane's face fell. She couldn't believe that Jonah Jameson had the gall to continue his malicious smear campaign against Peter after he had saved the lives of his son and soon-to-be daughter-in law. She wasn't even thinking about her wedding anymore. The only thing that concerned her at the moment was Peter, who was up there risking his life, trying to save others while this moron was shooting off his big mouth, foisting his own warped view of reality on an unreceptive public.
Almost immediately, boos, hisses and catcalls started emanating from the people nearby.
"Shut up you joik!" one lady screamed.
John immediately sprang to Spider-Man's defense. "Dad!" he snapped. "Shut your mouth!"
One of the invited guests, the chairman of New York's biggest real estate developer, echoed John's sentiments.
For the next hour or so, the crowd watched in silent fascination as Spider-Man kept bringing people out through different windows, all while managing to stay one step ahead of the fire. The fire department had set up inflatable safety pads, which allowed Spider-Man to drop some of his charges to safety. But he still brought the children and the elderly down to the street himself.
But Jameson would not back off from his increasingly ridiculous pontifications, despite John's best efforts to contain him. Even as Peter was struggling with his rescue mission, Jameson was sternly lecturing John, Mary Jane and anyone else within earshot about Spider-Man's nefarious ways, and the lengths to which the webslinger would go to promote himself. What had shocked and angered Mary Jane most of all was the apparent ease with which Jameson was able to twist the facts around and put his own brand of spin on them, so that no matter what Spider-Man did, he could always be portrayed as the villain. It was like the Rhino incident never happened. She was fast reaching her boiling point.
Finally, Spider-Man emerged from one of the upper windows and signaled to the EMS squad below that there was no one else left inside the building. It would later be reported that he single-handedly rescued close to one hundred people.
But something was dreadfully wrong. Even from a distance, Mary Jane could see that Peter's movements were wobbly and unsteady, and that he was struggling to hold onto the wall. Come on Pete, you can make it, she urged silently, just a little more. Suddenly, Peter lost his grip. Mary Jane screamed as she saw him fall thirty feet and land with a thud on a ledge. One costumed arm was dangling from the ledge, unmoving.