MJ wished she could make a break for the door, but Vermin was too close to the exit. Vermin had been attracted to the restaurant by the smell of cooked food, but he really had more of a taste for human flesh. Vermin pounced onto a defenseless waiter. Vermin spread his jaws as the waiter begged for help.

Peter picked up a chair, ran to them and broke the chair against Vermin's head.

"Peter, what are you doing?!" MJ thought.

MJ's heart skipped a beat when Vermin swung his claws at Peter. She thought he was dead for sure. But Peter dove him, landed on the other side, wrapped his arms around his neck and pulled him off of the waiter.

MJ was baffled by Peter's ability to not die, let alone do that.

"Everybody out!" Peter demanded, holding the squirming monster as still as he could.

Every customer and employee in the restaurant ran for the door. MJ was the furthest from the door, so would be the last to leave. MJ was half way to the exit and had to walk right next to Vermin as he snarled and writhed, trying to get out of Peter's grip. She was worried about him, but Peter told her to, "Keep going."

Vermin snapped his tail against Peter's head, breaking his grip. Vermin dove at MJ, as she screamed. Peter just barely caught him by the tail in time to stop him. Vermin swung his claws at her, missing her by inches thanks to her falling backwards. Crawling away from Vermin, MJ knew she wouldn't make it to the entrance. She had to go through the kitchen. As soon as she was on her feet again, she ran to the kitchen. Vermin quickly got his tail out of Peter's grip and gave chase.

MJ figured that outrunning that thing was beyond her to do. Instead, she made her way to the walk-in fridge. She didn't want to leave Peter out of her hiding place, but she couldn't afford to hesitate for a second to seal herself off from the monster following close behind. In a hurry, she pulled the door open, got in and tried to close the door.

Vermin's claws gripped the edge of the door and pulled with superior strength. MJ screamed once again as Vermin's snout came back into her vision. Peter crashed his shoulder against Vermin, knocking him to the side. Peter joined MJ in the walk-in fridge and slammed the door shut. They could hear Vermin continue to snarl and felt the vibrations every time he slammed his body against the door. Vermin, being a wild animal, didn't know how to open the door, so they had a bit of time. Still, Vermin would break through eventually.

MJ wanted to ask Peter how he was able to contend with Vermin the way he had, but this was no time to satisfy curiosity. MJ frantically looked around for a way out. But Peter looked around, checking for cameras. Thankfully, there weren't any in the walk-in fridge. In fact, there weren't many in the whole place. The restaurant was a family-owned establishment; either they couldn't afford very many cameras or they didn't stress about it.

"MJ, I can trust you, right?"

"Wha-" MJ breathed, confused. She had no clue what Peter was getting at, but it sounded like he had a plan that depended on her trusting him. "Yes. Of course, you can trust me."

"Then don't tell anyone about this," Peter said before taking off his blazer.

MJ saw no sign of fear on Peter's face; only anger and determination covered his stone countenance that spoke of a man ready for battle. Peter started unbuttoning his shirt, revealing red with black lines.

"No . . . way," MJ said shakily, wondering if her eyes were playing tricks on her. How could that possibly have been what it looked like?

Peter removed the button up shirt, letting her see the spandex underneath. There was no way to deny it anymore.

MJ put her hands over her gaping mouth as he kept changing. Her mind was exploding with the revelation. "Spider-Man?" she whispered breathlessly.

Vermin crashed his way through the door just as Spider-Man pulled his mask down, covering his face. "Couldn't even use the door handle? That makes you the third dumbest villain I've ever fought."

Spider-Man spun webs to both sides and used them to slingshot himself into a collision with Vermin. After they landed outside the walk-in fridge, Vermin snapped his jaws at him, but Spider-Man pulled his head back, avoiding the bite and struck him in the jaw. Vermin tried to grab him with both arms, but Spider-Man dove back. Spider-Man wed-grabbed a used pan and flung it into Vermin's head from a distance. Vermin lunged at Spider-Man with extended claws. Spider-Man slid under Vermin, caught him on his feet and launched him up, causing him to hit the wall above the door frame of the walk-in fridge. Before Vermin hit the floor, Spider-Man kicked him from the side with both feet, sending him away from the walk-in fridge to keep MJ safe.

Vermin was hungry, but his survival instincts were telling him to get out of there. Vermin scurried his way to the exit as Spider-Man chased him. Spider-Man could have kept him from going anywhere, but he was thankful for the distance between Vermin and MJ.

Vermin jumped out through the already shattered window and tried to scurry away, but that was as far as Spider-Man wanted him to get. At this point, pretty much everyone else had vacated the area, so the streets outside the restaurant were a good place to wrap this up.

Spider-Man stuck a web to one of Vermin's feet and tripped him, causing him to land on his face. Vermin turned around to face him.

Spider-Man ran at him and threw a punch, but Vermin caught Spider-Man's arm between his teeth. Spider-Man groaned in pain, trying to pull his arm out to no success. With his other arm, he punched Vermin in the stomach multiple times, but his rotund body was resilient to each blow. Vermin swung his claws at him and Spider-Man caught his wrist with his free hand. Vermin swung the claws on his other hand while both Spider-Man's arms were busy. Spider-Man had to use a foot keep the claws back. Vermin leaned forward, wrestling Spider-Man to the concrete and kept inching his claws closer to Spider-Man's flesh. Spider-Man used his other foot to hold back the first wrist so he could use the arm that wasn't trapped between Vermin's jaws. Spider-Man used his now free hand to grab one of Vermin's teeth and ripped it out, causing Vermin to recoil, shrieking all the way.

Spider-Man ran to a stop sign and pulled it out of the concrete. When Vermin came at him, Spider-Man hit him in the head with the stop sign. Vermin swung his claws. Spider-Man moved the sign into position and the claws cut its metal stand in half. Spider-Man stabbed a jagged half of the sign into Vermin's gut. Vermin lunged his jaws at him, but Spider-Man hit him with the other half of the stand that held the stop sign. Spider-Man moved the jagged half to the side, ripping through some of Vermin's flesh. Blood started flowing from the giant slit in Vermin's torso, coating his fur.

Vermin tried to scurry up a building to get away from him. Spider-Man let him get to a decent altitude. Then he shot a web string that stuck onto Vermin's back and pulled him off the building. Spider-Man got into position. When Vermin landed, he landed on Spider-Man's knee, cracking his back. Vermin rolled off of his back and laid on his side. He tried to claw at him, but Spider-Man grabbed his hand and twisted, breaking Vermin's wrist. Spider-Man struck the helpless Vermin in the head over and over, causing increasingly weak growls and whimpers. Spider-Man kept hitting him after Vermin fell silent, still furious that his date was ruined. It was only when Spider-Man heard the sirens coming that he stopped. He might have stuck around to debrief the police, but there was someone else who needed debriefing far more desperately.

MJ stared at him, astonished, stunned, amazed, confused, dumbfounded, impressed and intimidated. How long MJ had been watching Spider-Man from so near, he didn't know. "That thing is just a rat; not a person, so don't worry," Spider-Man said, gesturing at Vermin's corpse. "At least I hope that thing isn't a person." It wasn't.

MJ didn't reply to that; she just kept staring.

"I know you have a lot of questions for me," Spider-Man said.

"Uh-huh," she said, nodding.

"We can talk about this as soon as a get my clothes back; I can't let anyone discover them in the fridge."

"I already put your clothes in my car," MJ whispered.

"Oh . . . that's helpful. Thanks. I guess we can get right to those questions." Spider-Man put his arm around MJ's waist and she wrapped her arms around his neck. Spider-Man launched into the air and swung off. MJ would have been more overwhelmed if this was her first time web-swinging with Spider-Man. The embrace was so warm and cozy while the swinging was so fast and exhilarating.

Spider-Man brought her to the top of a tall skyscraper and released her. "No one can hear us. You can explode now."

"YOU'RE SPIDER-MAN!?" MJ exploded, pointing both her open, shaking hands at him.

"Yep. That's me. Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man," he said nervously.

"This makes no sense, but it also explains so much! The absences, the so called 'restroom emergencies', the events you left early, THE PHOTOS!" MJ gripped the sides of her head having just realized the truth of his photos. "Spider-Man has been posing for you! I mean you have been posing for Peter! I mean you've been posing for yourself!"

"Pretty clever way to make some money, isn't it?"

How long have you been Spider-Man?"

"Uh, for as long as there has been a Spider-Man; so about a year and a half."

Every minute provided a new revelation. The more she thought about it, the more her mind was blown. "When I met you, you wore glasses; then you stopped wearing them a few weeks before Spider-Man showed up."

"Yes. My powers came with perfect eye sight," Spider-Man confirmed.

"And that day Spider-Man saved me . . . you weren't there. No, you were there; AS SPIDER-MAN! You saved me." The hero MJ had been looking up had been with her in class and by her side as a friend this whole time and she didn't know. "You uh, you heard me gush about Spider-Man; must have been nice."

"Yeah. I especially liked how you said I'm probably gorgeous under this mask."

"I guess I actually was in love with you this whole time," MJ said. Spider-Man's heart swelled at the sound of that. He wasn't beneath her after all. In retrospect, he had little reason to feel small compared to her.

And then MJ's heart became heavy the second she started thinking about Gwen. "Pete," she said with less energy than before, "did Green Goblin target Gwen . . . because he was trying to get to you?"

Spider-Man sucked in a deep breath as his heart ached. "Yeah. He knew who I am, but . . . you don't have to worry about him. He's dead."

"How dead is he?" MJ questioned, unsure if a body had been found.

"After the explosion, I saw his severed head. The forensic people think a piece of his glider went through his neck. There were burns and shrapnel. And the rest of his body was in too bad a shape to be stitched back together. He's really, really dead."

"Okay," MJ said, a little relieved. They were both thinking the same thing. If Green Goblin was still out there and liked to kill Peter's girlfriends, then that would make MJ next on his list.

"MJ . . . I wouldn't have gone out with you if there was a chance of Green Goblin still being alive. I wouldn't have put you in danger like that," Spider-Man explained.

MJ didn't know how to feel about that sentence. She liked his desire to protect her, but she thought that the better idea would have been to date in secret rather than not date at all. She didn't feel like arguing about that detail. There was something else she wanted to say. MJ said sorrowfully, "Peter, I told you before that you couldn't have been expected to save Gwen because you're 'not Spider-Man'. I didn't mean that it was Spider-Man's fault."

"It's alright," Spider-Man said, not upset with her for her previous choice of words, but also not denying that it was his fault.

"Did Gwen know about you?"

"No. I should have told her, but I didn't," Spider-Man confessed. "I'm actually kind of glad you found out this way."

"I can think of better ways than almost getting killed by a giant rat," MJ argued.

"Wha-well it-I . . . I didn't mean it like that," Spider-Man sputtered. "It's just good that you know so early."

"You really think it's good that I know?" MJ asked, having trouble believing that Spider-Man trusted her with his secret.

"It's only fair that you know who you're dating, right? Besides, I trust you."

MJ got choked up at the sound of that. Spider-Man, her hero, the whole city's hero, arguably the whole world's hero, deemed her trustworthy. "I won't make you regret it. I won't tell anyone your secret; not even my closest friends."

"Thanks, MJ." Spider-Man cleared his throat nervously. "Uh, MJ, now that you know about Gwen, do you still want to date me?"

MJ thought Spider-Man didn't know what he was saying. She couldn't understand why a superhero would want to date her, let alone think she would be anything less than honored and lucky. Why would Spider-Man think she could do better? "Are you kidding?! Of course I want to date you! Who wouldn't want to date Spider-Man?! I hit the jackpot!"

"The jackpot?" Spider-Man questioned happily.

"Yeah. Just like a slot machine, I lost a ton of time and money on previous attempts and everything."

Another revelation hit MJ. "I'm dating Spider-Man," she thought. "How am I ever going to compare to that? He's going to come at me and say, 'Hey, babe, what did you do today?' and I'll say, 'I read a few magazines after getting home from the diner. What did you do today?' and then he'll say, 'I defeated three villains, saved a bus full of kids from falling to their deaths and helped prevent the end of the world, but magazines are alright, too, I guess.'"

"I wish our date wasn't ruined though," Spider-Man grumbled.

"Is that what you were upset about? Well, uh . . ." MJ shrugged. "Do you still want to go to that movie?" she asked as if they hadn't just been under attack from a giant rat-monster.


Author's Note: I just uploaded another video onto YouTube. This one is about the romance in the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie. It's called –

Spider-Man and MJ (2002) - Couple Reviews by MVPKnight

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