Title: A Helping Hand

Rating: K, for some language!

Summary: Peter finds himself in deep trouble when he tries to stop a bank heist and winds up seriously injured. He needs medical attention, but since everyone watched Spidey get hurt on TV he has no where to go. Help comes in the most unlikely places…Slightly AU Post SM2

Author Note: Slightly AU. Everything happened from the second movie, minus one thing. Mary-Jane and Harry still do not know the identity of Spiderman. Before Harry could get the mask off, Peter escaped and found Ock and Mary-Jane on his own.


A Helping Hand

Chapter 3- Waiting

"Harry? It's MJ, I need you're help." She replied.

"Hey, are you okay? You don't sound so good."

Mary-Jane allowed herself a small smile, Harry was genuinely concerned. "I'm fine…it's…its Peter." She whispered, tears now slipping from her eyes as she held her friends cold hand. "He was shot…"

"WHAT? Where are you? What hospital?"

"We aren't at the hospital, we're at his apartment."

"MJ, what are you talking about?"

"Listen Harry, I know that you have the money and the resources to get some people here right now to take care of him with no questions asked. Look, there's no time to explain but I promise I'll tell you everything if you do this." She said in a rush, the fresh shirt she had put on Pete was getting stained from the blood.

There was a short silence at the other end. "I'll have people over there in less than 10 minutes, he'll be brought here and so will you."

"Thanks Harry, this means a lot to me…to Peter."

"Just make sure he doesn't die before they get there, I don't think I can stand losing my best friend…" Harry's voice cracked and he hung up quickly.

Mary-Jane quickly hid Peter's suit before sitting down beside his unconscious form. She was in shock and she new it, if not she would be a basket case right now. She felt his forehead and found that it was clammy, but not freezing like his hands were.

Not long afterwards, two men were at the door. They barely acknowledged her as they gathered Peter on a stretcher and carried his limp frame to a black, unmarked looking ambulance outside.

Meanwhile…

Harry stared down at his cell phone, still in a state of shock. As soon as he had hung up with MJ, he phoned the appropriate resources, and a disguised ambulance was already en-route to Peter's apartment.

His hand shook visibly as he set the device down. He headed towards the door swiftly, knowing that he needed to unlock the doors where the doctors would do their work. Harry was just about to turn the handle when he hesitated and glanced back at his half finished drink.

Walking back quickly, he downed the amber liquid in one shot, savoring the burning feeling in his throat before turning back towards the door and leaving the study. He was half drunk and he new it, he also acknowledged the fact that this definitely wasn't the appropriate time, but how else would he numb the pain, guilt and sadness that stuck to him like the 'bugs' stupid webs?

Outside Peters Apartment

Mary-Jane gave his hand one final squeeze before he was quickly loaded into the vehicle. One man and one woman were already inside. The older, more weathered man that had come up to Peter's apartment followed and slammed the doors shut. The other led MJ to a plain looking car, and after they were seated, he started the engine and followed the truck that contained Peter.

As the two vehicles sped towards Harry Osborne's mansion, Mary-Jane stared out the window in a daze, thinking only one thing. God I hope Peter Parker is just as invincible as Spiderman seems to be…

The Osborne mansion loomed overtop of them as they passed through the iron gates. Both vehicles drove towards the far end of the property, where a set of double doors were. Mary-Jane got out of car, and watched as the people ahead unloaded Peter and wheeled him inside. They already had IV lines hooked up to him.

"Mr. Osborne is waiting for you inside, Miss. Watson." Her driver finally spoke for the first time, his accent was heavy, she guessed that he was from Ireland. She nodded and allowed him to steer her through the doors.

They were in a hallway. The floors were tiled, but there were paintings, some couches, a few nightstands, and a TV stationed throughout the hall, which was painted a chocolate brown. Mary-Jane immediately spotted Harry; he was at the very end of the haul. He was slumped over, his hands in his pockets, watching a second set of doors swing. Obviously the doctors had passed through them already.

She walked up to him; her driver had gone back outside. On closer inspection, she could see that the suit he was wearing was wrinkled. His face looked ashen, exhausted. He had the slight creeping of a 5 o'clock shadow and his hair was not gelled in place, but ran wild.

"Harry…" Mary-Jane said, putting a hand on his shoulder and forcing herself not to break out into tears again.

"He looks so bad, god MJ…what the hell happened? Why didn't you call an ambulance?" He whispered.

She couldn't tell him the truth, he loathed Spiderman. A partial lie had already formulated in her brain. She sat down on the nearest couch, and he followed, sinking into the cushions heavily.

"Did you watch the news earlier tonight?" She began carefully. It's so hard to focus when Peter's in the next room, possibly dying…She thought despairingly, But I have do this right or his life will be ruined anyways. Harry and Peter may be friends but Harry hates Spiderman so much it may not matter in the end…

Harry suppressed a laugh, he had cracked open a bottle of Jack Daniels at 7pm and hadn't left his room. It seemed that MJ forgot, today was the anniversary of his dad's death. "I've been home since 5pm and I haven't had any communication with the outside world since…well except my phone of course." He replied, right now was not the time to bitch, not when Peter was just barely holding on to life.

"Alright well, I'll start from the beginning…Peter and I decided to meet and go for a walk, you know, we needed to talk after the whole wedding thing…Anyways, we were close to his apartment and that's when we noticed that people were acting weird. They kept yelling some stuff about Spiderman. Finally, this one man came up to us and yelled right in our faces that Spiderman had been shot…in the chest…saving some people at an attempted bank robbery, and that he had slung off…leaving only a pool of blood in his place.

Pete and I didn't know what to make of it, so we just ignored the guy and headed towards his apartment. On our way there we were finally convinced, we walked by an electronics shop and it was airing a replay in the display window of Spiderman getting shot, and then jumping to footage of him shooting a web and disappearing…

I got nervous and upset, mostly because Peter doesn't live in the best area and everyone on the street was acting so strange…so…happy. We walked quicker, turned a corner and we were almost at his place when it happened…this man in an orange mask ran up to us with this wild look in his eyes. Peter stepped in front of me just as the man started to brandish a gun. (She had to re-picture what Peter had looked like when she had initially found him in order to get herself emotionally distraught for this last part of the lie) He was crazy Harry, said something like 'Spidey can't save you now' and just s-shot him…and then he ran away, laughing like a maniac…"

Harry stared at her, he was sure that the booze and lack of sleep was a playing part in why he couldn't fit her story with why she had called him and not the ambulance.

She seemed to detect the confusion in his eyes for she cried, "Don't you see Harry? Every hospital is going to be on the lookout for a man shot in the chest around the Spiderman incident. Peter was shot not more than 10 minutes afterwards. They'll think it's him, and even if they figure out its not, there will be some people who will always believe it, Peter's reputation and life would be destroyed just because of bad luck and timing."

Now I get it, he thought as he rubbed his chin, the stubble scratching him slightly. "How'd you get him to his apartment? You said you were in it, not outside…"

"I don't know how, but he forced himself to walk, I half dragged, half carried him too. I think he new the risk of calling the police, he told me not to call them before he collapsed." Mary-Jane felt bad lying to Harry, she really did. This is the only way, she reassured herself.

"I new that you were the only one I could call, the only one I could trust. I figured you might have the money, people and equipment to help Peter and keep this all quiet. Of course, if you weren't able to help I would have been forced to call emergency services."

Harry gave her a sad smile and said, "It's just a good thing that my dad hated doctor offices and hospitals, he had this part of the mansion built especially for health care, right from standard check-ups to emergency health issues. All of those men and women you saw have been working for him since I was really young…and to them Osborne word is law. They won't tell a soul about tonight. I haven't been down here in ages, after dad died I stopped going to the doctor, and all of the Osborne specialists went to work at other hospitals."

"How did you get them here so fast?"

"They're always on-call. They get paid handsomely for the services they provide. My family hasn't even had to use most of them, but they get paid by a salary anyways." He explained.

They get paid for not working? Where do I sign up? Mary-Jane thought incredulously, but she said nothing, it wasn't really any of her business anyways.

Harry checked his watch, 10:30 pm. Peter had already been in surgery for 30 minutes. "This could take a while. Do you want something to eat or drink?"

"I'm not hungry." MJ muttered, staring down at her clenched hands.

The young man sighed and leaned deeper into the sofa, it was going to be a long night.

TBC


Well what did you think? Remeber this is A/U :)

Thanks for the support!

Ashley