The End 3- I don't like spiders.

As the sunlight vanished, Piper was now able to see what appeared to be a suspicious spandex clad man in front of her. Who ever he was, he was definitely buff and even though Piper was seeing a person wearing a red and blue tight superhero costume standing in front of her, she did not feel threatened at all. Maybe this was because her heart was still pounding from crawling up walls. She didn't know.

"Just your friendly Neighborhood Spiderman." He responded casually and at ease. He seemed witty.

"Ohhh! So you're him" Piper responding with her mind forming pictures of comic books she'd seen in bookstores.

"The one and only."

"So what are you doing up here?" she questioned.

"I could ask the same question," the masked man responded. He paused a moment; the girl seemed familiar. He couldn't place her in his mind though. Still it wasn't often people climbed up all those flights of stairs to get up to this rooftop garden.

"I could give you a reason" she began, "You might be the only one who would appreciate it."

"Try me; I think you'll find me very understanding" maybe this girl had just broken up with her boyfriend? Or some other situation?

Piper sighed, "If you really want to." Her fingers went down to end of her shirt and she rotated her feet so that her backside was facing the spandex clad man.

Piper began to slowly roll up the back of her shirt exposing her bare pale skin.

Spiderman's jaw began to drop and with his instincts brought his hands to his eyes trying to cover up his vision. Piper made a pained face, unable to see the superhero's facial expression.

He saw the upper part of her back was bruised and discolored, had she been attacked?

His theory was abandoned the moment she burst out: "It bit ME!" And she pointed to the bump on her back. "HARD!"

Spiderman to a few steps closer to see the bump on the girls back; it was pink and swollen like the one on his hand had been…but it couldn't be…He couldn't see it very well part of her bra strap was covering it, he momentarily blushed.

Her back was still facing him and she was furiously pointed at a bump protruding from it.

"Look, it bit me!" she still said outraged.

"What bit you?" he questioned wondering how on Earth this had happened. He had squished it. He was sure of it!

"A spider, one of those creep crawly disgusting arachnids!"

Piper quickly pulled down her shirt and quickly turned around. "And now, something funny is going on because I just climbed up that wall because my hands STUCK to it and I ripped a door right off its hinge!" Piper ranted on.

"Wait a minute," Spiderman paused. "A spider bit you?" he questioned.

"YES! IT DID. I just told you that!" Piper said seeing as this person should have known this after she had exclaimed it a few times. She was beginning to get frustrated; this was unnerving and she didn't know what was going on. She felt a little scared.

"And then I squished the damn thing too" she continued as if this fact might help him figure out whatever was wrong with her.

"Let me see your wrists." Spiderman said calmly. Piper shrugged and held them out.

He held her palm delicately with his hands and examined it carefully. Piper's held her breath for a moment, the way he was holding them so gently she didn't know why she felt so flushed. He positioned her wrists back and folded her fingers so that a two of them touched her palm. As soon as the two fingers made contact with her palm a string of web shot out of her wrist and attached itself to the nearest object.

"Am I gonna die?" Piper said aloud feeling her heart pounding in her chest again.

Peter resisted the urge to laugh out loud, Am I gonna die? It was too funny, too ironic! But he regained his composure.

"Nope- but on the good news side of things apparently you were bitten by the same type of genetically altered spider I was" he responded looking at the frightened girl. Piper stood back in disbelief. It was then it hit him. She was the girl from the hospital! He thought he had known her but hadn't been sure.

"You are a lunatic, dressed in spandex"

Peter decided to ignore that comment, "you really don't like Spiders, do you?"

"Not at all" she responded and gave a little shudder.

"I thought you were more rational than this" The masked arachnid wondered aloud.

"Most of the time, I am- but now I'm not and I think I have a pretty good excuse" Piper in her dismay had not seemed to notice the comment the super hero made and continued prodding at her wrist.

Piper examined her wrists tried and putting her fingers in different positions trying to make the web come out again. She didn't remember exactly how he had positioned her fingers.

In one attempt she held all her fingers down, except for her middle one.

"Sorry, didn't mean to flip you off" Piper apologized.

She finally figured out what position her hand had to be in as her web stuck to a near by bench.

They were both silent for a moment.

"What…the fuck!" Piper said looking up at the new night sky.

"Hey, it's not that bad," Peter tried to reason; he realized his response probably didn't make her feel any better.

"Look at what you're wearing- it is that bad." the blonde haired-girl said accusingly. "You know," she continued "If I had never moved up here, none of this would have happened and I could still be normal!" Piper sighed. "I miss my friends, I'm never going to be able to talk to this about anyone, and I'll keep it a secret! Yes! I won't use it and I'll forget all about it! It will go away!" she concluded.

"No, you won't, people out there, they'll find you and then you might end up doing things you'll regret, everyone you love will be hurt unless you do something about it." He spoke deeply from his own experiences. It was like he was talking to his younger and certainly more female self. "I can't tell you what you should use this 'gift' or curse for, but I can't leave you stranded by yourself".

"I would have loved more than anything for someone else to like me to help me out…" he privately thought.

"Then…then show me how to deal with this!" Piper said upon hearing his words. More than anything at this moment she wanted someone who knew what was happening to her to help her. "I especially can't deal if I randomly shoot out webs or break doors!" she added fervently, somewhat angry and mostly frustrated. How am I going to do this?

Spiderman paused for a moment.

"Come on, we can go to my place"

Piper grinned for a moment momentarily forgetting her situation, "I bet you don't get to say that to a lot of girls." her currently mood didn't block her from making opportune remarks.

"So you have a sense of humor after all" he grinned amusedly and launched a web to a near by building and looked at Piper.

"I'll do it myself!" she said determinedly, she didn't like to be shown up by anyone!

Peter rolled his eyes under his mask and swung away. She was a fiery spirit alright.

Piper stuck out her hand hitting the same building Spidey's web was attached too.

"IEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYAAAAA!"

Piper panted hard as she clung to the bricks under the window. She had never done anything so thrilling as to swing through a city knowing that if she would fall it would most certainly bring her to her doom. The knowledge of this thrilled Piper to death as she did amazing feats swinging from building to building having the time of her life.

Spiderman nimbly jumped up through the window landing perfectly and almost silently on the floor of his room. Not that he needed to be silent anyway since Harry did not live here anymore.

"I can do that too!" Piper thought from underneath the window. Deftly she tried to leap up remembering the way she'd jumped from building to building.

Piper let out a yelp as she went hurtling through the window and landing on her caboose and proceeded to slide into the nearest wall of the room.

"You just could have climbed through…"

Piper groaned, this was going to be a lot harder than she thought.

She got up eventually though. Piper realized she wasn't hurt too badly and didn't seem to even be bruised. Must come with the powers…

Piper brushed the dirt and a sticky piece of web off her clothing. After inspecting herself in a mirror over an end table, she decided that she looked presentable enough even though her hair was very, very disheveled. Her skin was a little pale but that was hard to tell in the moonlight. Not for long though because Spiderman must of hit the light switch.

She turned around, Spiderman wasn't wearing his mask.

"You're him?" Piper yelped remembering the newspaper reporter and then suddenly laughed hysterically.

"What?" Peter Parker questioned. He cocked an eyebrow in her direction.

"When I was in a book store today, I saw your name as the person who took Spiderman's pictures," and she continued laughing. "That's clever" she added between laughs.

"Oh…well…yeah." And Peter cracked a smile. "I'm modest, aren't I?"

Peter began unzipping the top of his suit and folded it up. Peter was very…muscular…that was for sure Piper decided. She nervously turned around rather than see him undress. She tapped at her own stomach wondering if she gained any muscles; it didn't feel any different to her. She lifted up the sleeve of her shirt and flexed, maybe they looked stronger but not like HIS.

Peter rummaged through his draw and found a spare and clean navy t-shirt.

"I always hate this part," Peter said and he tugged off his spandex pants.

Piper wrinkled her nose. "That outfit, it smells terrible!" she cried out, wondering if he had any febreeze handy.

"Try washing it, the dye turned nearly all my white clothes red and blue" He said and shoved the spandex under his bed.

"How do you even wear shorts under that? It didn't look like you were wearing them" Piper questioned seeing Peter was indeed wearing shorts. When ever she wore tight pants she had to suffer wearing a thong, and yet per say Spiderman definitely did not have 'panty-line'.

"You were looking?"

A crimson blush crept up Pipers cheeks, she dropped the subject.

"Come on," Peter said rolling his eyes. "We can practice a bit downstairs" he responded making a vague gesture with his hand telling Piper to follow him.

"So why did you tell me who you were?" Piper asked following Spiderman down the stairs.

"You're new here, you don't know anyone I know and you have the same abilities as me, I figure one way or the other you'd end up knowing" he shrugged.

"Don't worry; I'll keep it a secret" Piper said honestly

"I didn't doubt you wouldn't" he answered.

"Why do you trust me so much?" the girl asked curiously.

Peter didn't answer. After a few moments he continued;

"We'll get started, this is how you aim your web…"

Three hours later the apartment was covered in web and Piper had finally gotten the hang of it. She could climb walls more easily and discovered she could lift a significant amount of weight more easily than she was used to (She picked Peter's couch much to her surprise!) as well being able shoot webs fairly accurately, well most of the time.

"That's not so bad" she panted, out of breath while helping Peter take a few of the webs that blocked doorways down.

Piper looked down at her own hands…how had this happened? She didn't believe it even though it seemed very real.

"You'll get used to it don't worry".

Piper pulled down another web and scrunched it off her hands.

"So what do you do with this stuff?" she questioned.

"Like I said, it'll dissolve in a little bit, but just so I can walk through my apartment without being covered in web stuff we'll just take a bit of it down" he replied.

Piper grabbed a few more strands sticking stubbornly to the ceiling. However, while she was pulling the sticky stuff down an end stuck to a picture frame and Piper quickly used her other hand shooting out a strand of web to save the picture before the frame had a chance to break as it toppled from the counter it had been placed on.

"Well that's useful" she decided.

Piper went to look at the picture in the frame. Inside was photo of a very pretty red-haired girl.

"Is this your girlfriend?" Piper asked not sure of his reaction.

"Who?" Peter asked distracted and looked up from pulling a piece of web up from under the other side of the counter. He whacked his head on the counter top as he tried to stand back up to talk to Piper.

Piper stifled a giggle as Peter rubbed his head.

"Her." Piper repeated pointing at the picture frame.

"Oh, that's Mary-Jane."

"Is she your girlfriend?" she repeated curiously.

"No."

"Why?" she wasn't sure why she asked that.

"Because."

"So you do like her!" Piper concluded.

"I never said…" Peter responded hopelessly

"Yes you did, I can see it in your eyes." The teenage girl replied mystically. "You're not even very good at denying it!" Piper admitted that she made that part up on the spot but she thought that she was right!

"If you say so"

"You seem a little bit reserved, personal life wise." Piper observed. "Why wouldn't he tell me? Me of all people! You'd think I'd understand him more than anyone, but still he doesn't tell me what he really thinks!" Piper thought, "Then again he just met me…and trusted me with a pretty big secret…I'm being irrational"

Peter Parker shrugged; this was of no concern to him what this girl thought about him and Mary Jane.

"You might wanna get back home soon, your Dad might be worried"

"Yeah, I will" She nodded. "He's really lonely. I didn't think that at first, does he live here all by himself?" she tried to recall the humorous and likable Spiderman. How could Peter Parker be him if he wasn't really like that?

"Well, I'm gonna get going now…Thanks for your help! Sleep tight!" She called heading towards the nearest window.

"You too, I guess I'll be seeing you around." Peter stood up and watched Piper go out the window.

Piper was flattered; at least she hadn't offended him enough to not want her to come back.

Peter sighed. "I hate getting people involved, it always leads to trouble."

The End 4- I don't like Spiders

She was lonely at her apartment that night. Piper had unpacked most of her things; this was not her ideal way to spend her last Saturday night before starting a new school. There were still what seemed like an endless amount of boxes piled everywhere. After setting up her computer and plugging the internet cable into the jack in her room. The blonde haired girl gave up for now and decided to try and sleep. She was amazed she was able to get the computer set up properly.

She made up her bed with her old familiar comforter and sheets but found herself tossing and turning in her bed wishing sleep would take her.

"Just have to hang on until Monday when school starts" Piper murmured to herself. She wondered whether the scheduled normalcy of school was what she needed. Piper kicked off her covers, she was sweating for no particular reason, and her nerves were set on edge.

"Why can't I sleep?" she thought to herself grumbling. Piper rubbed her eyes and her hair out of her face. It was about 3am and she could still not sleep. The teenage girl had no will to drift off to the bliss of sleep even though her muscles ached she was indeed tired.

Piper got up off of her bed and stretched a little as her feet hit the ground. She wandered about in the living room and shivered a tiny bit as she neared the small baloney door.

It was as if the city was calling out her, asking her to use her powers and explore its workings.

"I can't do that." Piper said shaking her head. She ran her hand through her hair trying to contain her springing restlessness.

"No matter what I do, I'm going to have to visit you again Peter Parker."

Her heart skipped a few beats.

"What ever is bugging you Peter, I'm going to find out." She promised herself. Piper looked back into her room seeing the windowsill she had sat on earlier a day ago. She recalled her exact words:

"…I just wish my life wasn't so boring…" was a phrase she had pondered that particularly came to mind.

"Irony is a bitch"

She decided to turn on her computer and log on to aim to see if any of her friends were on. Probably not though, it was too late or early- however you wanted to say it. On of her friends Amy was on, though she was away Piper left her a message:

Thenewcliche: G'morning Amy, lol I can't sleep…L

PandaPanda: Away message: Sleeping! Call the cell if you need me J miss you Piper! IM me!

Thoughts of her previous home seemed so distant now. It almost seemed like a past life. Boston was not that far away from New York City, but it was far enough away to make it difficult for her friends to visit. Piper sighed and turned off the computer she would talk to Amy tomorrow. She paused a moment and though, maybe she should take some of the empty boxes out to the dumpster.

She rubbed the sweat off her forehead as she finished moving the last of the boxes into the recycling dumpster. Her bangs, scattered across her face, tickled her skin as the cold wind blew. She was sure she had bags under her eyes. Instead of going to sleep she distracted herself by unpacking more- it was a whole lot easier with her new found strength. Plus it took her mind off the night's events.

Piper made a mental list of things to do that Sunday; they included making lunch for her Dad and taking a long hot shower for herself. Piper did not want to really do anything that required a lot of effort today unless you counting choosing between the cucumber-melon shower gel or the ocean breeze shower gel. She decided not sleeping affected her unfavorably.

She decided she should grab bring up the mail and get a newspaper. She felt inside the small mailbox and pulled out a few letters, it was mostly junk mail.

"Huh?" Piper questioned with a small noise escaping from her lips. Also inside the mailbox was a thick letter that was addressed to her.

Piper put the paper under her elbow and tore open the letter. To her delight she read the words aloud:

Dear Miss Checker,

We are pleased to inform you that you have accepted to New York University…

Piper was so excited she didn't bother to read the rest of the letter.

"I got in!" she said with cry of joy to no one in particular.

The honey-blonde haired girl rushed up the stairs with the mail clasp in her arms eager to take her shower, she had to tell her dad, and Peter too!

"Wait!" her brain stopped for a moment.

"Why do I have to tell him?" she questioned herself.

After a nice long hot shower Piper felt much more refreshed. She had time to tame down her wild hair and put in her usual clip. She heard a buzzing noise from the living room. Quickly she ran to buzz her father in.

Not surprisingly his leg was wrapped up in a cast looking thing and he sported a pair of crutches. Piper wondered how he was able to get up the stairs to the elevator.

"Dad!" she said as she open the door and her father stepped into the apartment

Piper hugged on tightly to her father.

"I missed you" She said earnestly.

"I did too"

"I have lunch for us; I made grilled cheese and tomato soup" Piper said proud of her accomplishments in the culinary arts.

"Sounds good to me," her father said smiling. He was glad she was so cheerful.

"Oh by the way, I got into NYU…" she casually said placing a bowl of tomato soup on the table in front of her father.

"That's great Piper!" he father said excitedly. "I knew you would" he added.

Piper smirked, "Of course I would! How could they reject a person like me?" Piper spun around and put on her best 'I'm-wonderful-and-you-know-it' face.

"After lunch can I go out for awhile? I found a bookstore I really liked" Piper said even though this was lying to her father. She couldn't tell him that she was going to Peter Parker's house, her father would have a fit at her going over a guy that he didn't know house, or rather apartment. She couldn't tell him what had happened to her. Piper was sure he would support her, but she would rather he didn't know. It seemed less troublesome.

"Sure thing Pip," he answered using his affectionate nickname for Piper.

"Though Piper, this is one thing about New York I have to say to you" her Dad said rather solemnly.

"Huh?" Piper questioned. Was this going to be the 'don't take candy from strangers lecture?

"If you ever become a Yankees fan, I don't know what I'm going to do with myself…"

Piper laughed out loud, "Dad just because I'm going to college in New York doesn't mean I won't support your Red Socks fandom!"

"Good," he smiled "Because its 2004, I can feel it! This is gonna be our year!"

Piper sighed, she could care less about baseball, "Dad you say that every year."

After Piper ate and promised her Dad that she would be back at a reasonable hour (Her father knew how she tended to get lost in books- she was an avid reader) Piper Elizabeth Checker was allowed to leave the 'house'. Quickly she climbed up the nearest building wall and prepared to sling through the city.

"It's faster than taking a bus…" she decided putting out her hand and began swinging.

Fortunately Peter only lived a good ten minutes of web slinging away from Piper. When she saw the building she made a turn in and jumped up on the open windowsill and climbed through it in one swift motion. It was easy to do now if she just trusted her newfound instincts.

"Peter!" she called out leaving his room and running down the stairs, "Guess what?" she called out.

"PIPER?" Peter shouted nearly spitting out the soda he had been drinking.

"How did you-.." he began. There was a knock on his door. Peter cast Piper a suspicious glance as he went to open the door.

"Hey Tiger!" it was the redheaded girl from the picture.

"MJ!" Peter said smiling. All traces of previous emotions from his face vanished instantly.

The girl waltzed into the room and hugged him. Piper could tell just by what she was wearing that this "MJ" was a preppy girl. A low cut sky blue shirt, low-rise jeans and a perfect body to go with it? This girl had definitely been a popular high school prep. As much as Piper wanted to dislike her immediately Mary Jane emanated warmth and kindness; she saw just why Peter liked her so much.

"Piper, this is Mary Jane Watson" Peter introduced.

"I'm Piper Checker" she said walking down the stairs to shake hands with MJ.

"Hi, nice to meet you! Are you a friend of Peter's?" she asked in a very friendly tone. It seemed more so curious that Peter had a girl in his apartment.

"Yeah, we just met" Piper said raising an eyebrow. Piper could tell Peter was crazy for this girl; he looked out of his mind deliriously happy at this exact moment.

"How long have you known him?" Piper asked out of curiosity.

"Since I was six, we were neighbors" MJ explained.

"Wow, that…long?" Piper said stuttering on her own words, man this guy was totally hopeless in love.

"I just wanted to stop by to tell you I got into NYU Peter." Piper said sharing her once exciting news.

"That's certainly good news, are you going to go?" he asked, still mostly looking at Mary Jane.

"Yeah, I think I am." Piper responded to him. Piper could have said she was really going to the moon for college and Peter wouldn't have noticed.

"Do you live near here?" Mary Jane asked quizzically.

"On the other side of town, not too far away." The cinnamon brown-eyed girl answered.

"You want anything to drink MJ?" Peter offered.

"No thanks, just wanted to know if you wanted to have dinner with me tonight so we could catch up; we haven't been able to in awhile since I was in that play- that is if you're not busy…" the marvelously pretty girl asked him.

"Sure, I'm not doing anything." Peter said trying to sound casual.

"Well, I'm going to get going now…I have a lot of errands to run…" Piper said. She felt like the third wheel, "Bye!" she exited the door quickly.

Piper closed the dark wooden door and slid against a near by hallway wall.

"Why do I feel like this?" she wondered. Piper dashed to the nearest window and climbed out of it. She found the zenith of the building and sat up on top of it looking down at the city. She took in a deep breath of the cold air.

"He's happy, she's perfect and I'm a freak. I should feel nothing because he's not even nice and I'm not even like her and I'm not as pretty and good as her and I don't even like him…well he is nice, I mean he helped me…but that doesn't mean I want to date him!" Piper rambled on until she was sure she convinced herself that Peter Parker was no good for her.

"I didn't even need to tell myself this in the first place," still there was that sinking feeling in her stomach….

All of a sudden, time seemed to have slowed. She saw a man hanging of the edge of a near by window. Piper didn't even have to think her body immediately responded.

She jumped off the building as her thoughts were cleansed by a new state of mind with a clear black and white mission to rescue someone.

"I'm not going to tell you were Hilary is Mathews" the man muttered trying to keep himself from falling. Try as he might, he could not get a better grip on the concrete ledge. The man's eye was swollen and a large gash on his cheek told Piper that there had been a fight going on earlier.

A bigger man standing on the building smirked. "What a pity. I thought we could use you, I guess not." and with that he grinded his boot on top of the man's fingers crushing them with a sickening crunch. The man let out a blood curdling yell.

Piper fortunately jumped onto the building just in time, she punched the man called "Mathews" with a swift blow to the head that contained all her fury and leapt off the building to catch the other man. She made barely it; saving the man by literally a thread. She dropped the man off on the ground and webbed away as fast as she could. It had been an isolated incident; she didn't think anyone had seen her face.

The adrenaline was still rushing to her through her veins.

"No, I can't do this…" Piper said to herself. But what was so wrong about saving the man's life? Why did she regret it? What was holding her back? She looked at her wrist, swollen slightly from web slinging use. For some reason they disgusted her.

"I can't… I don't want to…I don't have the will to…" She repeated to herself. Piper slowly rubbed her eye and prevented any emotions from showing. How can I save people if I can't deal with myself? I don't want these powers!

"I won't don't it…"

Peter Parker, as he stepped out of his apartment building caught the last glimpse of Piper's triumph, but he also saw the look on Piper's face, a total look a solid concentration, and when she had saved the man her face just sort of turned into an expression of shock, horror and regret.

"Why?" he murmured aloud.

"What was that?" MJ asked curiously.

"Nothing…" he said shaking his head.