Throw-Away9261 - There was a bigger battle planned with the return of Goblin, Jessica trying to help, but I cut it out for another chapter. So, I just decided to introduce her in that chapter and reveal more of her over time. Also...I'M NOT GOOD AT QUIPS! I know it feels kinda redundant stating this, but it has to be said for going forward. Not to mention Peter is still trying out different quips, trying to figure out what works and what doesn't.
Also, that thing with Jessica was lastly done purposefully, and will even be brought up here.
(A/N) So... never thought I'd be saying this, but WARNING: MENTIONS OF CHILD ABUSE, ABUSE, AND DRINKING are in this chapter.
This is my first time tackling these subjects so bear with me, this is all comic book accuracy.
After the encounter (if you can even call it that) with Captain Cold, Jessica Drew stuck around to see the faces of Barry and Peter. She was there to try and help out, but she had done nothing to really help. She had no idea what she was thinking, but she was nowhere ready for this life yet. Her suit definitely needed a lot of work, she could barely get her web shooters to function. There were a lot of problems she needed to fix before she went back out there.
Sneaking back into her bedroom, she thinks she was able to get away when a light turned on. Frozen in fear, she turned to see Miriam Drew sitting there in her desk chair.
"Where have you been?" Miriam asked her.
"Uh...helping people." Jessica tried to come up with a good excuse.
"We talked about this." Miriam reminded Jessica. "You can't go out there trying to be a hero."
"Why can't I?" Jessica asked, gesturing to herself. "I thought I was a freak when I got these powers, but now I know I'm not alone. I can use these powers to help others."
"You think that because you have these powers, you can take on the world?" Miriam asks her. "You are going to get yourself killed."
"Why can't you trust me?" Jessica asks her mother. "Think that I need to do this? That I need to prove to myself there was a reason I was given these powers?"
Miriam didn't seem to follow that as she got up and took her mask. "This will never happen again."
Jessica sighed as Miriam walked off with her mask and groaned. Plopping down on her bed, she looked down at her suit and the sketches she drew of other designs. She knew that she needed to get some things done right before going back down.
The next morning, Peter asked MJ to meet him out back to have a bit of a talk and an explanation for what happened. Sitting down outside their yards, MJ took a seat next to Peter as she was ready to explain what happened.
"So, I saw what went wrong with you," MJ assured him as she was referring to the papers. She knew he had a job at the Bugle and that he took photos when that man died. "I'm sorry you had to see something like that."
"Thanks, but...I'm kinda interested in you right now." Peter said as he wanted to get to know more about her. "Who are you? Really? Something tells me there's more to you than this facade of a party girl you put on."
Then MJ looked at him with...pride? He couldn't get a good read on her. Yet again, when has he ever been able to do so?
"You are really good at reading people, Tiger." MJ congratulated him as she looked out into the distance. "I guess over our time of trying to get to know one another, we never got to truly know each other." She then turned to face him again. "We never truly opened up to one another, have we? We never really shared our secrets."
"I guess I never really looked at it like that," Peter admitted, as he never told her about Ben, the spider, the fact he's adopted, a lot of personal information.
"Friendship carries some pretty big responsibilities," MJ said to mostly herself. "But I guess we've just been coasting along." She then looked down at her knees and her hands, almost to try and look at herself. "I do that a lot. Sometimes I think I've spent my whole life running from responsibility."
"Yeah, I might know a little something about that," Peter muttered, remembering everything he did to make up for Ben's death.
"I guess I get it from my parents..." MJ said, getting Peter's attention again. "I never really told you much about them, have I?"
"Only a slight mention of your father," Peter confirmed.
"They met in college." MJ started to tell him about the backstory of her parents. "Mom was a drama student, and Dad was a major in Modern American Literature." She then sighed as she laid back in the grass and looked upward. "Oh, they were so in love in those days. They just couldn't wait to be married. After graduation, Mom wanted to move to New York City, to try her hand at acting, but dad had other ideas...he was offered a teaching position in a small college in the middle of nowhere. But Mom didn't care as long as they could be together."
"Sounds sweet," Peter said as he rested his elbow on his knee, and then placed his head in his palm.
"They were married for eighteen months when they had my sister," MJ said with a sigh.
"Sister?" Peter asked in shock, only now being told about this. "You have a sister?"
"She's four years older than me," MJ explains why he never heard of her. "She moved out a few years ago to move to New York."
"What's with everyone and New York?" Peter asks himself. "What's her name?"
"Gayle," MJ informs him. "Gayle Watson." She then became sorrowful as she thought of her parents again. "As the years went on, Dad became a full-time professor. He was becoming popular with the students, and the college administration respected him. Mom, however, devoted her life to raising us." She looked over and saw that Peter was still listening, holding everything he was being told. Telling someone all of this is like lifting a weight off her shoulders. "My parents must've looked like they had it all to everyone else, but dad wasn't satisfied with his life. He suddenly decided he wanted to write. To prove to the world that he had the skill and talent to be another Fitzgerald, a Faulkner!" She cried that last part out dramatically on purpose. "He however didn't..."
Mary Jane then started to flashback to her childhood as she was in the halls of her childhood home. She was currently watching her father lash out and toss the paper he was writing on.
"NO! NO! It isn't coming out right!" Philip Watson cried out as he shoved his desk over. "It's trash! Everything I write is trash!"
Madeline Watson then ran over to Mary Jane and picked her up. "Come on, honey."
Madeline carried MJ away from the scene when she heard glass shattering. MJ didn't know about it at the time but would soon learn it was a bottle that he threw at her mother.
The world saw a small and perfect family but never looked close enough to see their problems.
As time went on, things only went from bad to worse for the Watson family. Her father became more aggressive and started to take his anger out on his family.
"Can't you keep those kids quiet?!" Philip asked his wife as he slaps her, shocking Madeline as he never abused her like this before. "It's your fault I can't concentrate!"
"Girls." Madeline didn't try and question her husband right now in his mind and huddled her children close. "Your father is trying to work. Hush."
"But we're not doing anything, momma." Mary Jane muttered in fear, not sure what was going to happen.
Madeline held Mary Jane close and pecked her head. "I know, sweetheart."
"Due to his drinking, Dad had to constantly switch jobs." MJ started narrating as the events started to unfold.
Mary Jane and her family were starting to constantly move around from place to place for her dad. Even when he got a job, he ended up either leaving it or being fired. This meant yet again that they needed to keep moving, looking for something that he could find.
Due to the constant moving, Mary Jane became hard for her to make and keep friends. Wanting to have people like her, she started to take up a goofy personality.
"We have a new student in our class today. Meet Mary Jane Watson." The Teacher introduced her.
Mary Jane, currently with pigtails, jumped around the class with a spin. "That's me! The one and only!"
"I guess I became a bit of a class clown."
As time passed for her sister, however as Gayle was taking up dancing. Practicing for hours, spending as much time as she can away from her family.
But down at her house, things only became worse for her parents.
"I never wanted a house or children!" Philip cried out as Madeline held her arm, thinking it's been broken. "They're anchors holding me down!"
"Then it seemed one day he had enough..."
One day, almost as if it was out of nowhere, Philip took his anger out on Gayle, as he slapped her. "Enough! Those bloody dance lessons are costing me a fortune!"
Madeline held Mary Jane back as they could only watch as her husband beat her daughter. "Philip, no! Don't take your frustration out on the children!"
Mary Jane then broke out of her mother's grasp and made a run for it out the front door. She took off, running down the street, crying all the way. Not knowing what else to do, she just ran. And she ran. She ran and didn't know where she was going. As long as she could run, she didn't care where she would end up.
One day in school, she was trying to cover the bruises that were left by her father. But things were becoming increasingly difficult due to the bruising doing too much damage. And the few people at the current school took notice.
"Hey, Mary Jane, where are you going?" One of her classmates asked as MJ tried to make it out.
The faster she made it out of the school, the faster she didn't need to hide the bruising and get it looked at.
"You okay?" Her classmate asked, noticing she was fighting back tears. "Is something wrong?"
"W-Wrong?" Mary Jane asked, fighting back the tears and doing a quick spin. "Are you kidding? Nothing is ever wrong! It's just such a beautiful day!"
Finally, a few weeks later, MJ's mother had enough of her husband. After seeing what he was willing to do to his daughters, she didn't want things to get worse for them. While Philip was being honored Man of the Year by the college, she moved out and took her daughters with her.
"We're going to leave," Madeline tells Mary Jane, being ten years old, she didn't understand what was happening.
"Where will we go?" Mary Jane asked.
"We'll be going to stay with a friend of Mommy's for a few days," Madeline said, not having a foolproof plan. But it was enough of a plan to get her daughters safe from Philip.
"The court saw the bruises and were at least kinder to mom than they were to my dad. Forcing him into rehab, putting him on watch, and not allowing him to see us." Mary Jane explained to Peter her whole history. "Then Gayle moved out and moved to fulfill her dream." She sighed and started to tear up. "Just a year ago, my mother died in a car crash."
"That's why you moved out here?" Peter took a guess.
"Yep," MJ confirmed as she wiped her tears away. "Well, I told you my story. Your turn."
Peter nodded, seeing it was finally time that she knew everything about him. "When I was little, my mom was murdered. My dad took the blame and is serving a life sentence for a crime he didn't commit..."
Jessica Drew was back in her bedroom, looking at the newspaper about how Spider-Man crashed the train. Then it went on about how a mysterious figure showed up and allowed Cold to escape.
"You want some information, don't you? About me? Well, I don't know all the information myself. But I'll tell you what I do know. Let's start from the beginning..."
Rewinding time to when she was a child, Jessica was sitting alone with her mother coming home from work. Her mother worked at the Central City General Hospital.
"Before I was born, my mother was married to Johnathan Drew, who she said was my father. But I wasn't an idiot. Doing the math, he died three years before I was even born. There was no possible way he was my father. Other than that, I had a pretty normal childhood. Until it happened..."
Skipping ahead a few years, a now thirteen-year-old Jessica was currently laying down in her bed. She had become incredibly ill due to uncertain circumstances. Desperate to save her daughter, Miriam came to anyone who had any ideas for a cure.
But when none of them had the results that she was hoping for, she turned to her husband's research. When he was still with them, Jonathan was an expert on the regenerative and immunological properties of arachnids' blood.
Miriam injected Jessica with an untested serum made with the blood of several uncommon species of spiders, in the hopes of stopping the tissue damage. Stopping whatever it was that was causing her to become sick.
For months, there was no hope as things only got worse for Jessica. Until it happened...
"We are now being told to evacuate the facility. Some sort of malfunction-"
The tv cut it off while Jessica was trying to watch the turning on of the accelerator. Growing up, she has always focused on her mind as she was never a strong kid. Not getting along with people, she would always spend time in her books becoming a bit of an outcast. She wished she could have been there to see it turn on in person, but knew she'd never make it. But sadly, due to her sickness, she can't.
But this was the night that fixes and breaks everything.
When the particle accelerator blew up, the wave passed over the city and activated something inside Jessica. Her formulas and serums that she has been injected with all of her life activated and saved her life.
For the first few weeks, it was a blessing. But then one day it became a curse in disguise.
She woke up to her head buzzing, going off at the tiniest details. Unlike Peter, who discovered all of this in secret, her mother was there to see her gaining all of these abilities. Exactly like Peter, she gained strength, speed, agility, etc. There were however a few differences between her and Peter, like how her body can charge up bursts of energy in her fists that she can use as a charge.
But she never asked for any of this. Even though she was now saved, and could try and live a normal life, she was now different. There was nobody like her out there, and she needed to live with this.
Or so she thought.
"Reports coming in of a masked vigilante who has been saving people these past few nights. Is this person real?"
The news started to talk about this new hero and Jessica couldn't help but feel drawn to him. Watching the low-quality footage that the news got together, she saw he was like her. He had the same powers, same abilities, all except for those webs.
Leaving home while her mother was at work, Jessica wandered around hoping to bump into the hero. Knowing she had all day and most of the night, she just started to wander and hope that she could find him.
Peter watched as the man got settled into the driver's seat and wondered how he hasn't noticed him yet. He started to try and hotwire the car while Peter just sat there and wondered how long it would take him.
Peter then cleared his throat, having enough of this, causing the thief to jump and turn around to see him.
"You know, in the future, if you're going to steal a car, don't dress like a car thief." Peter offered some advice to the man.
"What are you? Some sort of cop?" The man asked him
"Cop?" Peter questioned. "Buddy, you seriously think I'm a cop? Dressed like this in the middle of the night?" He questions as he shot a web in his face, causing the robber to freak out. "You've got a mind of a true scholar." Peter mocked the thief as he tried to get out of the car, but Peter webbed the door and closed it as soon as he opened it. "I was going more for the guys who do the luge."
The thief then began to roll down the window and crawls out.
"Oh, that's a bright idea. Go out the window." Peter agreed as the man fell out of the car and toppled to the ground as he got out. "Ouch."
The thief then looked back and saw that Peter had already made his way out of the car. He started looking around the lot for the man and found nothing.
"Crotch!" Peter cried as the man turned around just in time for Peter to jump off of the other car's hood and wrapped his legs around his neck before he spun around, sending him skidding on the ground.
What Peter didn't realize was that Jessica happened to be nearby and overheard him calling out, "Crotch!" Walking over to where she heard him coming from, she watched as the thief got up and pulled out a knife on the hero.
"Just let me go."
"Is that a knife?" Peter asked as he dropped to his knees in fear. "Is that a real knife?"
"Yes, it's a real knife!" The man stated.
"It's my weakness! It's small knives!" Peter cowered in fear as he shielded himself from the knife.
"Just let me go." She heard him say as she stayed hidden.
"Anything but knives!" Peter pleaded.
But then he quickly shot out a web and attached the man's hand to the wall of the lot. Peter then got back up with a sigh before letting his hands stumble around as he got back on his feet.
"Oh, it's just so simple." Peter groaned as he walked in a small circle.
"What the hell is this?" The man asked as he tried to pry his hand free of the webbing.
"Webbing that I developed myself," Peter informed him as he gestured to his web shooters. "You don't really wanna know what goes into them, trust me."
"Come on, let me go!" He pleaded to Peter. But his pleas fell to deaf ears as Peter just shot another web and hit his other hand to attach it to the wall. "Knock it off, man!" He demanded Peter.
Peter just then fake sneezed and hits him in the crotch, causing Peter to start laughing as he cried in pain for a second.
"This isn't funny!" The man declared in annoyance.
"It is from my point of view," Peter stated.
Even Jessica herself had to admit it was a little funny as she watched the encounter.
"Come on. Help!" He cried.
Peter had enough and shot a web on his mouth, but then made it up so he could punch a hole for him to be able to breathe out of his nose. Just then he heard the police sirens coming as he turned to see a motorcycle coming up to him.
"Oh, look at our boys in blue." Peter cried as he strolled over to the cycle as the officer pulls up. "Yo, I've got him."
"Freeze, you in the tights, don't move!" The officer demands Peter.
"You serious?" Peter asked as he raised his hands in surrender. "Tights? Does it look like I'm wearing tights?"
"Who are you?" He demanded from him.
Peter sighed as he turned to the thief. "No one ever seems to grasp the concept of the mask." He then walked over to the officer who opened fire on him before Peter leaped over him and grabbed his gun.
"I just did 80 percent of your job, and that-that's how you repay me?" Peter asked as he tossed the gun away.
That's when he saw more cars coming up for him and he ran from them. The officers all either climbed out of their cars or drive off to catch up with him.
While she watched him run away, Jessica walked over to the criminal still stuck to the wall. "Hi." The thief looked angered as Jessica yanked a bit of the webbing with her strength. "Sorry. Just need some of this."
With the sample of webbing, she made her way home where she reverse-engineered the formula used to recreate it. Once she discovered it was made with chemicals, she knew that it wasn't his webbing, she knew he created projectiles out of those things on his wrist.
Recreating those was where the real challenge was. It took many months, but she managed to create web-shooters similar to his and place them around her wrists. By that time, he started to go by the name of Spider-Man after stopping the Lizard on the bridge.
"...stay tuned, faithful viewers!" Jameson cried on the tv with a photo of Spider-Man vs Doctor Octopus appearing on the screen. "As we follow this webbed masked menace through 24/7 news!"
Scoffing, Jessica turned off the news before shooting a strand of a familiar substance. "Great." She managed to get the aiming on the shooters down, allowing her to turn on her lights. "Finally."
Walking around the room, she walked over to a sewing machine where there was a shirt being finished up.
The shirt was all dark red and had a giant white spider on the front. Same colored sleeves with the gloves having white tips at the top of them. Her pants were the same color as her shirt, with no real adjustments outside of that. The mask itself was attached to the shirt and has white lenses for her eyes that covered everything but her hair.
"You call him a menace; I call him an inspiration," Jessica commented as she looked over her whole suit.
Spider-Man inspired her to try and do something with her life. Even though she didn't make a really big impact on her first appearance, she was sure if she got things down better, she could make an impact. She needed to work on her suit, practice web-swinging with her gadgets, and make a belt to contain more cartages.
"I might have not made the best first impression, but I know I have a lot to do until I show back up again. This isn't the end of Spider-Girl. It's only the beginning."
"And now you know..." The Watcher informed as he looked down at the two individuals. "You know the lives of Mary Jane Watson and Jessica Drew. Now it was time for them to forget the past and prepare for the future. And for someone else to make an appearance...someone Peter's been looking for, for a while."
A man was currently walking down the streets of Central City. Strolling around as if nothing was wrong, followed by him turning his head and sand falling out his ears.
Two cops seemed to notice him walking past and one turned to the other. "Hey. Isn't that Flint Marko?"
"He fits the description." The other commented as Flint crossed the street and ran towards a sand truck.
"Hey, you. Stop!" The officer called as they chased after him. "Take the front!"
One officer goes across the front of the truck to cut Flint off while the other chased him behind. But when the two reached the truck, there was no sign of Flint anywhere. Then there was movement upward from the sand shifting around. Giving them an idea of where he went, one of them climbed up the ladder and removed the tarp from the sand.
Not seeing any sign of Flint, there was a pit forming in the sand. Taking a shovel, the officer was going to start digging him out. Until suddenly a giant fist formed out of the sand and sent the officer flying. People started to run and panic as a man started to form within the sand.
The other officers start to panic as they open fire on the giant sandman. But that turned into a mistake on their part when the man then blasted off, sending them and several cars flying in the process.
"Flint Marko." The Watcher said as he eyed the man as he was escaping. "The murderer of Ben Parker has finally resurfaced. Now it's time for the hardest choice a hero can make. Vengeance or justice?"
(A/N) If anyone's worried about it, Jessica won't be back for a while. The last chapter was just to have her show up and introduce herself to the main heroes. The next time I plan for her to show up (as of now) is in season 2 of The Flash storyline. So, we've got some time before she comes back.