To Song With No Soul: Over your last few reviews, you have made many excellent points that most unfortunately cannot be covered in this small space. As I make a policy of responding to all my reviewers and you presently do not have an account, please private-message me with an email address and I would be pleased to answer your many questions.

To all: Thanks for reviewing, and happy reading!

Chapter 5: You're All I Have, by Peter Parker

"There is a darkness deep in you,

A frightening magic I cling to."

—Snow Patrol, "You're All I Have"

Well, this is really fricking nice. After all my efforts into protecting my loved ones, after looking out the front door for enemies after Aunt May, it turns out that the archenemy snuck into the back door!

I'm logging off now. I have other things to deal with at this moment...

I pace around my rathole apartment while my landlord, Ditkovitch, calls for his rent. I just know Doc Ock's dating Aunt May. My spidey sense was having kittens around "Oliver" in the hospital and my spidey sense is never wrong in picking out my archenemies.

In the meantime, what am I supposed to do about it? Should I tell her? What if he told her already and she doesn't care? An unlikely scenario given past events but a possible one. She might have forgiven him. I once forgave Sandman of far worse.

Besides, what does Octavius see in her? May is loving, generous, and sweet, but she's of a certain age, she has health and financial problems, and oh yeah, last year he took her hostage and dangled her off the side of a building, at which point she hit him with her umbrella. Yes, this might be the start of a beautiful relationship.

My police scanner radio is buzzing. It's hero time, literally.

I swing down to the source of the transmission, the Diamond Center, famous for their television commercials featuring the absurdly costumed owner extolling his wares. Unfortunately, the owner isn't the absurdly costumed figure waiting for me, suitcase of jewelry in her hand.

She leaps at me, knocking me down. She's wearing a black suit trimmed with white fur and strategically unzipped to show her assets to her best advantage, and a headband with black cat ears. I briefly look behind her to see if she's wearing a tail as well. Fortunately, she's not. She's tall, platinum blonde, and speaking as an average heterosexual man, gorgeous. Thing is, I've never had a supervillainess archenemy before. I throw her off her, but she leaps toward me again, kicking me in the gut. The pain lets me know she has superpowers of her own.

She follows that up with a jab to the nose and a punch to the jaw. I dodge her next blows, but she attempts to tie me with her grappling ropes. I pull the ropes off, but that's all the time she needs to extend laser claws from her gloves. She slashes at me, but I duck and weave before those things turn me into mincemeat pie.

She comes at me again, and my spidey-sense spurs me to leap out of the way. But she was just feinting; she is now running away, taking the diamonds with her. I step towards her but—and this might be too personally embarrassing—a noose catches my foot, dangling me in the air. By the time I free myself, she's already halfway down the street. I run after her, pulling her in with a well-placed web-lasso. She drops the suitcase.

"Well, you caught me," she smiles and purrs. "I've been a very bad girl." Then she struggles to pull her free hand out of the lasso, pull up my mask.

I want to pull away from her. The last thing I want is yet another supervillain discovering my secret identity. I want to pull away, but I don't. Actually, I don't really want to. She grabs my head and pushes it toward hers, and kisses me. I like it, but I won't admit that to her. She lets go, and before I can think again, she's gone. So are the diamonds. I'm going to miss those commercials.

What do you want from me? I'm a college-age heterosexual male and my steady girlfriend just broke up with me. It looks like I'm on the rebound.

Sounds like the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Until the Black Cat turns up again, all I can do is swing home and think about other pressing issues. By now, I think I know what to do about the Oliver question. I need to pay Aunt May a visit and try to pry some information out of her.

I run up to her house, stuffing my mask into my pocket. It'll be enough of a shock to find out her boyfriend's a supervillain. With her health problems, telling her that her nephew is a superhero could damn well give her a heart attack.

I sit down on the couch and pick up the Daily Bugle, waiting for Aunt May to get home from bunco at Mrs. Watson's house. "A Match Made in Hell", the headline proclaims. "Spider-Crook and Villainess Black Cat Rob Diamond Center," I read further. The more I read the Daily Bugle, the more I think Spider-Man should sue J. Jonah Jameson for libel. Unfortunately, after calling an attorney I looked up in the phone book, Matthew Murdock, for advice, I found out that as long as my identity remains secret, I haven't a legal leg to stand on in court. Later, I found out that he'd charged me seventy-five dollars just for the phone call.

I pick the paper back up and read some more. "Just a few months ago, Felicia Hardy, daughter of infamous serial killer Walter 'The Slasher' Hardy, was merely Inmate 129874 at Chowchilla women's prison in southern California, serving a sentence of five to eight years for burglary and aggravated assault and battery. But Felicia organized a daring prison break and succeeded in gaining freedom..." ...blah blah blah... "The Scriptures say the sins of the father are to be passed to the children, and it certainly seems true in this case. Whether Miss Hardy will follow in her father's murderous footsteps is yet to be determined, but more than likely while she remains under the influence of the criminal Spider-Man."

Disgusted, I slap the paper down on the table, next to the stack of mail. A letter sits face up next to the stack. Taking care not to disturb the other papers, I peer at the letter. I'd hate for her new apartment to be foreclosed again. I swore long ago to take care of her.

It was a letter from an attorney. Two weeks ago, Aunt May and I had attended the funeral of her brother, Nathan. Nathan had made her the executor of his will and he had also left her a hefty chunk of his property, it seemed. Carefully settling the letter down, I put on my best tie and prepare to go to the law offices of Lionel Granger.

I shake hands with the attorney. "I'm Peter Parker," I explain. "I'm representing my aunt, May Parker, who is ill in the hospital. Are we ready for business?"

"Since your aunt is the only living beneficiary of the will," Granger says, "I don't think we have any other visitors. Please sit down."

I take the nearest chair, and ask some general questions about what being the executor of a will entails. The lawyer looks over the will. "It seems that your aunt's brother is a very wealthy man," he informs me. I sigh inwardly. I won't have to worry so much about taking care of her, at least until the money runs out. I can finally get my rent on time. The lawyer puts on his glasses and starts reading. "I, Dr. Nathan Reilly, being of sound mind..." blah blah blah...

Until my spidey-sense jolt, and my hands shake as he reads: "My favorite sister May Reilly Parker shall also inherit the resources of my company, Rosslyn Energy Alternatives, including Rosslyn Island, Canada, and all property therein, including the commercial nuclear reactor, uranium mines, tritium deposits, and all related equipment..."

My stomach drops to the level of my shoes. "Can you tell me about Rosslyn Energy?"

"Nathan Reilly was a gifted scientist and entrepreneur. He's the sole owner of Rosslyn Energy Alternatives. The property May would inherit is a small island off the eastern Canada coast containing a full-scale nuclear reactor. Rosslyn Island also has valuable deposits of uranium and hydrogen, most of it the rare tritium isotope."

"And May would get it all? Her relatives would get it all? There's me, and she might be dating again; my uncle died about three years ago."

"Well, sure."

Suddenly, the stakes are raised. I feel like I'm about to faint. Does he know about this? Has May told him? I can tell you one thing, Dr. Otto Octavius shouldn't be let near a hundred miles of anything like Rosslyn Island.

Just another day in the life of Peter Parker, called Spider-Man.