You've made it to Chapter 5! Congrats:) So tell me, how is it so far? Need more action? Hang in there... next chapter it starts to get gooood. (Well... I guess I should leave that assumption to you)

Chapter 5

"Congrats on making front page Jeannie!"

Jeanne Janson smiled at the passerby as she walked into her office. She sat down behind her desk. On the desk was the issue of the Daily Bugle in which her story had made front page. Sirene. The woman that had saved her life. She hadn't looked at the story as she had written it and knew exactly what it said but an unfamiliar title caught her eye.

"What the…" Jeannie grabbed the magazine and brought it inches from her face to make sure that her aging eyes had read the words correctly.

"Sirene: The Sinful Siren of New York…? What kind of crap is this?" Her eyes scanned the title again, thinking that perhaps someone else had written an article similar to the one she had submitted the day before. No, the proof was there in bold blue ink, "…as reported by: Jeanne Janson… and edited by J. Jonah Jameson." She jumped from her seat and burst into her boss' office, ignoring his just-hired secretary's protests.

"Mr. Jameson-" She began but was hushed by Jameson's index finger.

"Marla, if we're going to spend nineteen-hundred smackers on a damned gardener then he better be able to make Mother Mary's face out of topiary." Jameson barked into his phone. "I don't care if he's from Italy! Can he make Mother Mary's face out of topiary? No? What about Elvis? Not even Elvis? Then I suggest you start looking for a new gardener."

Jameson hung up on his wife and turned to face his employee, Jeanne. "Ah, Ms. Janson. Congratulations on your article. It's sold fifty-thousand copies, already." Mr. Jameson reached into his desk drawer and began to shuffle around inside of it. "Funny thing to get a call from you at one in the morning but it was worth it."

"Thank you Mr. Jameson but there's a problem."

"Problem? What sort of problem?" Mr. Jameson slammed the drawer shut and shouted, "Carla. Carla! Where are my cigars?"

Jameson's secretary hustled into the room, appearing very nervous. "Mr. Jameson, sir, your wife asked me to throw your cigars away. She said you were trying to quit smoking… sir."

Mr. Jameson groaned, rubbing his eyelids with his thumb and forefinger. "Carla, who do you receive a paycheck from every month?"

"You, sir." Carla replied, digging the toe of her tan pump into the wood floor.

"Who gave you this job here at the Daily Bugle?"

"You, sir."

"And who can fire you?" He screamed, slamming his fists down.

"Yo- you, sir." She managed to sputter out.

"Bingo. Now if you still want this job, go and find me some damned cigars!" Carla nearly ran from the office as he bellowed his commands. After she had left he turned back to Jeanne.

"Now, what were we talking about? Ah yes, your article."

Jeanne gulped. After seeing yet another one of her boss' explosions she reconsidered her complaint. She looked down at the magazine in her hands and the fire inside of her was relit. The flame was much smaller now, but it was a flame all the same.

"Mr. Jameson, this isn't my article."

"Sure it is." Jameson reached forward and snatched the magazine from her hands. "See there." He pointed to the title and slowed his words as if he were talking to a child or in the case of Jeannie, an old woman. "R-e-p-o-r-t-e-d b-y: J-e-a-n-n-e J-a-n-s-o-n."

"Yes, sir, I understand that, but I didn't write this. Sirene and Spiderman saved me. In this article it sounds like Sirene and Spiderman were out to get me."

"Right." He handed Jeanne the magazine. "You were scared. When people are scared they tend to get delirious. You thought Sirene and Spiderman were trying to help you but chances are they were the ones coordinating the entire thing. It's understandable that you would be confused."

She had been working for the Daily Bugle for fifty years now, making her the longest running journalist in the Daily Bugle's history. Jeanne always saw her fifty years insignificant when compared to the Bugle's age, founded in 1897. She had already been a veteran journalist when High School student John Jonah Jameson came to the Bugle to work as a reporter. He was as stubborn and demanding then as he was now. She knew her boss like the back of her hand which is precisely why she gave up fighting about the article.

"Alright, Jameson, you're right." Saliva gathered at the back of her throat and made her choke out the words, "I was probably delirious." She looked down at "her" article and turned away from the office.

Back in her own, smaller, office, she laid her head on her desk and let her thoughts run rampant through her mind. They saved my life and how do I repay them? I run their name through the mud. What can I do to make this right? What can-

Her thoughts were temporarily stopped by a knock. She lifted her head to see Peter Parker at her door, smiling, as always. There could be fire raining from the sky outside and he would still be smiling. She thought, laughing softly to herself.

"Hey Pete, come on in." She waved him into her office. He came in and sat across from her desk, noticing the magazine article. Jeanne saw him looking at it and sighed.

"I know what you're going to ask. I'll save you the time. I didn't write it."

"I know you didn't, Jeannie. And that wasn't what I was going to ask."

"Okay, go ahead." She said as she turned her computer on.

"I wanted to know if you're okay after what happened last night. Having someone chase you then pull a gun is some pretty scary stuff."

"Thank you for asking, but yes I'm fine. Other than that churning in my stomach from Jameson's hack job editing, I'm alright." She turned from the computer screen to look at Peter. She ran her hands over her wrinkled face and pushed the air from her lungs. "Those people helped me and I made them seem like common criminals. What Mr. Jameson does to Spiderman's name every week is horrible enough, but for me, someone that he's actually saved, to have a hand in the slandering of his name? That's despicable."

"I'm sure he knows that you didn't write that about him, Jeannie." Peter placed his hand over hers.

"I hope so." She placed her other hand atop of his and patted it before she took both hands and began typing on the keyboard.

"Who do you think this Sirene character is anyways?" He asked, looking at the silhouette in the picture on the front page.

"Don't know," Jeanne stopped typing to open a drawer and retrieve her thick-lensed glasses. "Her costume was a little too revealing for my tastes. I suppose that's just my age revealing itself. She's a sight though, isn't she?"

"I guess. This picture isn't that great." He suddenly remembered the mysterious woman's tight cat suit, the deep cut that revealed so much skin, tight stomach, cleavage… He cleared his throat. "Do you think she can be trusted?"

"She did nearly get herself killed for my sake. I guess that warrants my trust. I don't know about the rest of New York after Jameson's little number but yes, I trust her."

Peter nodded, taking in her words.

"Enough talk about the young and beautiful. What are you doing here? Come to bring in some more pictures of our friend?" She began again to type with mad haste on her keyboard.

"No, actually I haven't been able to get any good pictures of him lately. Mr. Jameson's been getting antsy about the lack of pictures so I decided to break out my old photos to try and pass them off as new."

"Did it work?"

"Yeah, but I told him it's been really hard since crime has been steadily declining. He assigned me to take some pictures for the High Society section." Peter sighed. "High Society photo shoots always send me through the ringer. I know nothing about their world and I always feel like they can tell. To make matters worse, Jameson wants pictures of one girl in specific; some famous model from Europe who's supposed to be here in New York."

"Ada Summers." Now Jeanne was interested. "I'm meeting with her tomorrow for an interview."

"Interview for what?"

"Remember when that man stormed out of here yesterday?" He nodded. "Well that was her fiancée, the scientist. I was attempting to interview him as he was the man who supposedly made the breakthrough for phylo-" She attempted to remember what it was called but drew a blank.

"Phylogenetic distribution of regenerative abilities?" Peter's eyes were wide. "Dr. Jacques Rausenbluem. That was him?"

"Yes. Guess you've heard of him?" She noted Peter's saucer eyes. "I thought he looked too young to be a world-renowned scientist too. The both of them, too young to be as successful as they are. Dr. Rausenbluem is only what, twenty-three? And Ms. Summers is a mere twenty!" She chuckled. When she was their age it was uncommon for a woman of forty to be working. For a woman to be successful was unheard of. In this day and age more and more women were becoming successful, some of them reaching self-made success before they had truly become women. Her head visibly shook back-and-forth as she cleared her head and put herself back onto the subject. "Well, after Dr. Rausenbluem stormed out Ms. Summers gave me a piece of paper. All it read was "Interview?" with her phone number below it. I called her today and she was happy to agree to an interview about the rumors surrounding her fiancée and his work on one condition: the interview had to be about her fiancée and not herself. Of course, I agreed."

Peter didn't have to ask what rumors she was referring to. He had heard them. All of them. How could he have not? Dr. Jacques' breakthrough in regeneration had sent the scientific community into a frenzy. Numerous scientists had tried to replicate the regenerative ability found in amphibians but had failed miserably. Transferring amphibian DNA into human strands was a tricky undertaking, made even more so by the fact that human DNA strands were prone to reject amphibian DNA. He had seen mutants with amphibian-like abilities and science-projects-gone-wrong but the scientific community refused to acknowledge these creatures as anything but myths. His discovery of a way to transfer the DNA had made him famous instantaneously.

With fame, whether it be good or bad, Peter thought with a knowing smirk, comes rumors.

"Here's an idea! How about you come with me to the interview tomorrow?" Her face lit up. "I'm sure Ms. Summers wouldn't mind and it would give you a chance to meet her and learn a little bit before you go off snapping her picture. Come on, Pete."

Rumors had come no sooner than Dr. Rausenbluem had told the world that he had found the key to regeneration. People began to say that he had tested it on himself; that he was creating clones in his lab as well as cultivating regeneration; that he had sold his soul to the Devil for a chance at fame; that he was, illegally, using highly reactive and dangerous stones such as plutonium and uranium to alter human DNA. Of course, Peter highly doubted that there was any truth to these rumors; but it couldn't hurt to check it out.

So, how was it? Please review, it motivates me to write. If you don't like any part of the story so far (it's too cliche, too fake, too boring) please let me know. I can't improve unless you tell me what needs improving. Thanks!