Ursula pulled off her rubber gloves and tossed them in the cupboard under the sink alongside the bleach and sponges. Its door shut with a thwack. At the light switch, she turned to make sure she hadn't missed anything.

To say the ground floor bathroom looked nice would have been a stretch. "Noticeably improved" would have been more accurate. Livable, even with its peeling, once-white paint and cracked tile. But there was nothing in the little cupboard beneath the sink to remedy either of those.

When Ursula opened the door to the lobby, voices trickled down from the landing, from just outside Peter's apartment. She halted, her curiosity overpowering the tug at the back of her mind telling her not to eavesdrop.

"And you are…?" Peter's voice was croaky. It was almost 10:30, but Ursula supposed if anyone had a right to sleep in, it was him. She often wondered how he found time to sleep at all with his nocturnal habits.

"I'm Adam," came the other voice. It was male, but not very deep. "I… Well, you're Spider-Man's photographer, right?"

Peter sighed. "Yes."

"Well, I wrote this…" There was a sound of crinkling paper. "I was hoping there might be some way you could get it to him."

"Him? You mean you want me to act as Spidey's mailman?"

Ursula had to strain to hear the other man's response. "He saved my life when I tried to jump off a building."

There was a pause, and the paper crinkled again. "Look…" Peter started. He was floundering for a name. Adam, Ursula silently reminded him, squeezing the doorknob.

"Aaron," said the other voice.

Ursula squinted.

"Aaron," said Peter. "I'll do my best to get this to him, all right?"

"Thank you. It means a lot." Footsteps approached the stairs.

Peter's door started to creak, but then he said, "Oh, Aaron?"

The footsteps paused.

"I don't know how you got my address, but I'd appreciate it if you kept it to yourself," said Peter.

Aaron chuckled lightly. "Yes, sir."

Once Peter's door had clunked shut and the thudding of footsteps resumed above her, Ursula stepped out to catch a glimpse of the visitor. At the foot of the stairs, she stood aside to let him pass.

He looked younger than her, with dark curls that intruded his freckled face. His jeans were held up by a black belt with a square silver buckle. There was something engraved on it—a symbol. Ursula didn't have time to get a closer look before he brushed past her, mumbled, "Sorry," and stepped outside. Ursula turned to watch him with her hand on the banister until he was out of sight.

He did look more like an Aaron than an Adam. She must have misheard him the first time.

"Christopher Walken!"

Mandy pushed past a couple of other stagehands and cast members to be heard. "Do him!" she said breathlessly.

"Well," said Cal, taking on the accent, "that's too easy. It's too easy, you know."

Mary Jane smiled and secured her purse on her shoulder. She stood next to Mandy, who had been pushed to the back again. They were part of a small, tight crowd that had congregated on the sidewalk outside the backdoor of the theatre.

"Every minute he's galavanting is another minute our city is at risk!" Cal was saying now. "I want him and his webs hung out to dry!"

MJ had missed the request, but she didn't need it to know who Cal had been impersonating. She laughed freely, shaking her head as he puffed on an imaginary cigar.

"Why do you think he's just a stagehand?" Mandy murmured. It took a moment for MJ to realize the question had been directed at her because Mandy was still craning to see Cal over their coworkers' heads. She lowered back down on her heels and looked at MJ, adding, "It seems a shame for all that talent to go to waste."

"I see what you mean," said MJ.

"I mean, it's uncanny. It's like he's possessed by the ghosts of a thousand well-known people."

"I wonder if he's really from Queens," MJ said, struggling to keep her expression serious. "Maybe his real accent isn't his real accent at all."

Mandy's eyes widened to show their whites, bright against her brown skin and black lashes. "Ooo! Conspiracy!"

MJ laughed, but her smile quickly became subdued as she watched Cal. As the minutes passed, she understood more and more Mandy's incredulity that he was only a stagehand. He flowed seamlessly from impression to impression, his body language stiffening and loosening appropriately.

Mary Jane couldn't remember the last time someone had seen her talents as worthy of a higher position than the one she currently had. Even though Mandy and she had quickly taken a liking to each other, she had never once questioned why MJ was an understudy to the lead, not the lead herself.

With a pang she watched Cal look down at an imaginary script and smooth back his bangs, his hand lingering by his temple. "Should I deliver this line the same way as Jess?" he muttered. When he looked up at MJ, he lowered his eyebrows and smiled as though realizing he'd spoken aloud. "Oh, never mind, I'll figure it out." His hand dropped to his shoulder, and he turned his attention back to the imaginary script.

Most of the crowd turned to smile at her, except those who were too enraptured by Cal's performance. MJ broke from Cal's gaze and forced a laugh, but couldn't help but worry that this short, stringy, towheaded man made a better Mary Jane Watson than she did.

A warm hand landed on Mary Jane's shoulder. She whipped around and looked up at the squarish face of John Jameson III.

"Good first couple weeks back?" he asked.

She nodded, perhaps too vigorously. "Everybody's great to work with."

John peered past her to where Cal stood, more visible now that the crowd had thinned out. John raised an eyebrow at MJ, an unspoken question.

"Oh." She glanced behind her. "That's Cal. Showing off."

John nodded slowly, dividing his attention between her and Cal's Marty McFly impression. "One of the actors?"

"No, actually. Just a stagehand. Can you believe it?"

"Huh," grunted John. He raised his eyebrows, but he seemed to have spent up his interest. "Well, I'm here to give you a ride home, if you like." He shifted the black leather briefcase he was carrying to his other hand and pulled his keys out of his pocket.

"Oh! That's—" started MJ, but before she could continue, Cal approached them. Their coworkers had completely dispersed.

Cal offered his hand to John to shake. "Calvin Collins. Are you John Jameson?"

"The third." John had to transfer the briefcase between his hands again in order to receive Cal's handshake, and Cal's eyes tracked its movement. For a split second, his mouth twitched from its decorous smile, but he was so composed the next moment MJ was certain she'd imagined it.

"Nice to meet you, moonwalker. And you–" Cal pointed a finger at Mary Jane– "I'll see you tomorrow."

They watched him walk away and get into a brick-orange car. Its front bumper was missing. As she watched him turn the ignition, MJ wondered what he was like when he wasn't putting on a front. She wondered if that walk to his car had been in his own stride, or if he'd known they'd been watching him.

With John swinging his keys on his finger and muttering "moonwalker" beside her, MJ walked to his car. Its bumper was intact, and the whole thing was colored a tasteful navy blue.

Acting was a fitting career choice for her. Even right now, she knew what to say to act like she was listening to whatever John was talking about. She'd been acting her whole life: putting on a brave face for her mother, her classmates, her teachers….

There was only one person she could think of who she let her front down with, and that was Peter. Of course, there had been Harry—

"Mary Jane?" John's voice wrenched her out of her thoughts.

"What?" She lifted her head from where it had been resting on the window.

"I asked what you had for lunch and you said 'yeah.'"

MJ chuckled. "Yeah… Sorry, I must be tired or something."

"Or something," John murmured.

"Hmph." MJ rolled her eyes, and then her eyes landed on the briefcase laying on the seats between them. Embossed into the bottom right corner was a symbol of a lizard.

She chuckled and ran her fingers over it. "A chameleon?"

John glanced over. "Oh. Yup."

"That your spirit animal?" she prodded.

His expression softened. "Not a personal choice. It's a thing for NASA."

"Top secret, right?"

John gripped the wheel and shifted in his seat. "No... not top secret."

"Just a little secret?"

He grinned. "It's just something I've been workshopping for them."

"The end goal being?" She leaned in toward him.

"The idea is to make it so a human could go without oxygen. Like in space, or underwater."

"What, like a surgery?"

"Nothing like that. There's a belt in here that lets you change your appearance. Temporarily," he said, reaching between the seats to pat the briefcase.

"So, you could shapeshift into me with it?"

"Theoretically, yes. I don't think I would, though."

"No?"

"It would just be wrong, somehow."

"How scrupulous of you. Speaking of which," she turned to look at him, "it's kind of you to do this for me. Not just the ride home—getting me back on Broadway and everything."

"Don't mention it."

"You're not worried we'll make headlines? 'Jilted colludes with jilter?'"

John gave her a look that said really? "You're forgetting whose father says which headlines go through."

MJ shook her head. "Of course. I forgot there wasn't any room in the Bugle to do anything other than incriminate Spider-Man," she goaded.

"All right," he said, drawing out the words as though he'd been waiting a long time for an opportunity to say what he was about to, "I for one am glad he represents the other side of the argument."

"Really?"

"Yes. I mean, everyone accepts Spider-Man so easily as the city's hero. But how can we know his motives? How do we know he's not some out-of-towner who has it out for us?"

"You don't know he's not a well-meaning New Yorker."

"You don't know he is," said John defensively, and MJ struggled to contain a smirk at this.

"Well, you can blame that on my unthinkable predisposition to trust people who save my life."

She had touched a nerve. Whatever attempts she made to subvert it, Spider-Man consumed their conversation for the rest of the drive. By the time John finally let her off at her apartment with a chilly, "This is your stop," she couldn't help but think the apple didn't fall far from the tree when it came to the Jamesons.