Chapter Six
Out of the Blue
Spiderman paused, clinging to the ceiling, just to the side of the skylight that would take him to MJ. He sighed, feeling the warmth of the huge flickering flames below encase his battered back. The flames crackled and spat horribly, growing in heat, until Spiderman began to feel uncomfortable. Blood, diluted by sweat, dropped from his suit and into the flames, evaporating with a light hiss.
I've become a spider-man! Not Spiderman, but a spider-man.
Would MJ ever forgive me if I told her about how I killed Carnage? Of course she would, but that doesn't mean I should tell her. What made me just let go of myself there? How did those stingers and those fangs just shoot from my body? I'll have to find out. I'll go and visit Doctor Connors once I've got MJ and those actors to safety.
Leaping up and through the skylight, Spiderman winced as the cold night air bit his open wounds. He twisted a little, and landed on his feet. The roof, starting to heat up, shuddered as he landed on it, the faint vibration of metal making the cityscape in front of Spiderman appear to shudder. MJ and the two actors lay on the roof, all of them curled into foetal positions. Mary Jane's mane of red hair covered her face, but it was stained with water; she'd been crying. Her body moved slowly back in forward as she sobbed loudly, her hands curling into fists. Spiderman raced forward, hoping to see what was wrong. He reached Mary Jane and rolled her onto her back, hoping to see whatever injury was besetting her.
Spiderman recoiled in fright when he saw her. Her dress was charred black at the front, but not from fire. As well as sobbing, she twitched horribly, gasping with a sucking sound every few seconds. Her eyes were wide, her pupils and irises little more than tiny black and brown islands in a sea of white. Her face was charred slightly.
Electricity burns… Spiderman's mind whirled. Just like the man in the jewellers!
Dropping to his knees, Spiderman checked Mary Jane's pulse. He could find only a tiny twitch, but was it a pulse or just her twitching from electricity? He bent down to her mouth, but he could feel just a tiny bit of breath; her lungs were still functioning. He wanted to try cardiac compressions, but, if her heart was still working, the compressions would only stop it.
Tears stung Spiderman's eyes, and he ripped his mask off, casting it away. The cowl fluttered in the air, and was blown away by a fast gust of wind.
"No," muttered Peter Parker, his chest heaving as he cried. The other actors on the roof could see him, unmasked, and identify him as Peter Parker, but he didn't care; all that mattered was saving his fiancée.
Peter Parker grabbed Mary Jane, and spun a web cocoon around her body. He gently fastened the cocoon to his own chest, and then fashioned a web-mask for himself, leaving only eye and nose holes. He then raced off the roof and leapt off of the roof.
Peter didn't bother swinging down to the waiting ambulances below: Mary Jane's best chance of survival would be getting her to the hospital as soon as possible.
Peter shot a web up at the nearest building, swinging forward and leaping. He moved faster than he ever had before; the buildings on either side of him were indistinct blurs. He moved so fast he couldn't even make out the colours of the buildings. There was a hospital about four miles away, and Peter, his swings made frantic and swift with adrenaline and fear of losing Mary Jane, was getting closer with every second that passed. Tears rolled onto his cheeks, and were whipped away by the ferocious wind that battered his body as he swung forward in a desperate attempt to reach the hospital. The sky above was turning from pitch black to a dark violet, rimmed with orange and flecked with ruby as the sun rose. Peter screamed in anguish, and everything seemed to slow down. A second became a minute to normal people, their movements slowed sixty-fold. But Peter maintained his speed, reaching the hospital before most people had walked another three metres.
Peter extended his legs and released his last web-line. His swinging momentum swung him forward and he crashed into a hospital window, one his Spider-Sense had implied would be in the ER section.
His Spider-Sense had been correct, and Peter landed in the midst of a shocked couple. The gleaming white ER was filled in the centre by six or seven rows of semi-comfortable chairs. A sealed door lead into the actual emergency rooms where the doctors were. A receptionist, short with black curly hair and a pale complexion, sat at her desk, stunned.
Peter leapt over to her, his web-mask turning from white to grey as his tears wet it.
Peter's voice wavered and cracked as he bellowed, but its volume and huge sense of authority remained.
"WHERE IS THE HEART SPECIALIST'S ROOM!" he thundered, leaning over the desk.
The receptionist burst into tears, toppling to the ground as she tried to scramble out of her seat. Peter had expected it, and he fired a web at her, catching her in the chest and dragging her back towards him.
"TELL ME NOW! TELL ME NOW! TELL ME, OR DIE!"
"Third… Third room on the left," gasped the receptionist, who then fainted on the spot.
Peter leapt into the heart room, ripping the webbing off of Mary Jane's chest and gently lying her down on the surgery table. The doctor looked at Peter for an explanation, sensed the rage boiling inside the young man, and simply moved over to test Mary Jane's pulse. Now that the electric twitches had stopped, the doctor was able to tell Peter the worst.
Mary Jane's heart had just stopped.
Peter simply sighed and slumped forward onto his knees, his head bowing as the doctor started barking orders to his team, who moved in with various medical tools to try to revive Mary Jane.
Peter stood up, shaking with grief, and tore the web mask off of his face. Tears ran freely down his face, and he emitted a cry of anguish. He moved over to Mary Jane's side, and gripped her hand. It was still warm. He sobbed and looked at Mary Jane's open, sightless eyes.
"Come back," he whispered, bowing his head. "Come… back!"
The doctor tapped Peter on the shoulder, but the young man didn't move. The doctor spoke to him after a short pause when Peter stayed frozen. "We're going to try to restart her heart with electricity. She has serious burns, but it's got a fifty-fifty chance of working. You have to let go of her, or you'll be electrocuted as well."
Peter turned, eyes smouldering, and silently let the doctor know that he wasn't moving.
"Okay," The doctor said, avoiding Peter's fiery gaze. "Start the treatment!"
Two of the doctor's assistants leaned over Mary Jane's body, and pressed two defibrillation pads to Mary Jane's unmoving chests.
"Clear!"
The zap of the machines electrocuting Mary Jane filled the room, and her body jolted suddenly. The electricity passed into Peter. The charge would've been enough to knock a normal man into unconsciousness, but Peter's spider-enhanced molecular structure took the blasts with nothing more than a slight, half-second shudder. A machine in the corner of the room, linked to Mary Jane's chest, shown her pulse as zero.
Twenty minutes later, the doctor signalled to his assistants to end the treatment. Mary Jane's body lay still. Her hand was now cold, and her skin was grey. She was irrevocably and irretrievably dead.
…Murdered…
Peter squeezed his eyes shut as fresh tears blurred his vision. Mary Jane's death had been no accident. It had been murder, a killer assassinating her out of the blue.
I'll find the killer, and I'll make him wish he'd never been born… A thousand methods of sick torture flowed into Peter's brain.
He turned, and took one last look at Mary Jane. She did not look at peace, as dead people were supposed to. Her face seemed to be twisted in anger and fear, but it could only be Peter's imagination, surely. But it didn't seem like that to him.
A red hue descended upon Peter's vision, and with it, an animal rage and desire to avenge Mary Jane. With the rage burning in his heart, and tears still trickling from his eyes, Peter Parker stormed out of the room; he was heading back to his apartment, to do one thing: modify one of his Spiderman suits. Modify it so that it was coloured black. He was going to create a non-living replica of the black suit that he'd once worn, the one that had created Venom and spawned Carnage, and then set out.
Maybe I'm not Spiderman anymore, thought Peter as he fashioned a web-mask onto his face and leapt out of the shattered window, kicking off another dangerously sharp shard of glass. Maybe I'm Man-Spider…
Peter extended a hand and fired a web at the tallest nearby building, swung forward, and leapt high into the bitterly cold air. All at once, the stars seemed to disappear above a shroud of dark clouds…