FAITH IN HUMANITY
AFTERMATH

1st February 2003:

Two quite important things happened to Peter on the first of February: one he intended and one he most definately didn't. The first one took place in the early hours of the morning; which was for some reason the only few hours the man who could hire him a room had to spare.

As it was, it didn't take long.

"If you can pay," Mr Ditkovich said in his Russian accent. "then you get the room. I don't much care what you do- you can keep pets, have parties, transform regularly into a werewolf- I just want my money on time."

"Of course," Peter said, wondering if he'd been given a stroke of luck here. "I will. Er, how much?"

The price was more than he had expected, especially for such a small, cramped, dirty and frankly rather undesirable place...but he supposed it was worth it, for the privacy he'd be given. Who would expect Spider-Man to live here?

"There are no rules," Mr Ditkovich said after Peter had agreed with the price. "Respect the other people in the building, and they will respect you. In the apartment there is only me, my daughter, and any friends I might choose to lend a room to. We have a loud, drunken party and watch the football until midnight every Saturday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Are we understood?"

"...we are."

Peter arrived at the Bugle office probably slightly earlier than he needed to be. Not many people were around, and no-one he knew. So he waited outside Jameson's office. He was on the phone- Peter didn't know why, though. After all, he could just lean out of the window and yell, and whoever he wanted would be able to hear him.

"Well, when you do find Mr Osborn," he was saying. "tell him I'm waiting. Tell him I'll have the entire city on the lookout for the wallcrawler before the day is done, as soon as they're aware of the realdamage he's done." There was genuine conviction in his voice at that. Peter sighed to himself. He should have seen this one coming. Of course, he was fairly sure Jameson and Norman had been friends at one point...

"And tell him I'm sorry for his loss," Jameson added to whichever of Harry's employees he was talking to. "Tell him I'm sorry I didn't send flowers- wife took the credit card, he'll have to lay the blame on her instead, the thoughtless woman." He replaced the phone on the hook and spun around to face the door. "Parker! You're early. Unusual. Come in."

Peter came in and sat nervously down. "I didn't mean to be listening to your conversation..." he began.

"Nonsense, of course you did," Jameson said. "Not that it matters, it was nothing important- if it had, you'd have been fired soon as I saw you there. What do you want?"

Peter had in fact brought him some photographs, but it could wait a few seconds. "Mr Jameson...was that Harry Osborn you wanted to talk to? On the phone?"

"What's it to you?" Jameson asked.

"Harry's my best friend..."

"He is?" he asked increduously. "How did that happen?"

Peter ignored this. "And he's...he's kind of not himself at the moment, his father died only a month or two ago..."

"Oh," Jameson said. "Well, then- we'll send you to interview him. You'll be sensitive, won't press him, do a good job- oh, I forgot. You're a photographer," He rolled his eyes theatrically.

Peter had a feeling that when they did the interview, Harry wouldn't need any pressing whatsoever. "I brought some more photographs," he said, and took one out of his bag. It deliberately wasn't a very good one- dark and blurred.

Jameson took it and looked at it. "Gone off you, has he?" he said. "I'll give you fifty."

"It's not that bad," Peter said. "It's worth more than that..."

"What are you doing, trying to pull a Jedi mind trick?" Jameson roared with laughter. "Seventy. That's more than enough." He was about to hand Peter his payment, when suddenly he thought of something and dropped his voice to a slightly lower volume than usual. "You said before -you're Harry Osborn's friend, Parker?"

"Yeah," Peter said.

"Then what the hell are you doing just taking pictures of the freak who killed his father?" His voice was still quiet -quiet and actually rather angry, and Peter genuinely hated his life at that moment. "If you know how to find him, catch him, you idiot! Your best friend's father and all you can do is send me pictures? What are you, some kind of coward?"

Peter had never wanted to scream and yell and throw things as much in his entire life. Well- actually that wasn't quite true. All the same, it took effort beyond even that of a superhero not to pick up a chair and fling it right at the office's recently repaired window. "I don't talk to him, Mr Jameson. He just lets me photograph him- I have no idea why. If I could catch him, I would- but what am I supposed to do? I don't even know who he is."

Jameson didn't look convinced- but at that point the phone rang, and he picked it up. "Oh, it's you, Robbie," he said crossly. "You're late. What do you mean? People afraid to come into work?" He snorted as if the absurdity of all this was completely beyond him. "Afraid of the Goblin coming back? He didn't even do much damage! No, Robbie, you listen to me-" He put his hand over the reciever for a moment and gestured towards the door. "You. Parker. Out." He went back to the phone. "No-one was even hurt, Robbie. Apart from me, I might add- and where am I? Standing here. In my office. Doing my job-"

Peter decided on the way out that he greatly, greatly preferred the hyperactive, inconsiderate newspaper editor to the man who'd been staring at him with accusing eyes only a few seconds ago. And there really wasn't much he preferred J. Jonah Jameson over.

Daily Bugle website message boards, 31st January 2003:

oh, you guys won't believe who I saw today. with my own eyes, right in front of me, robbing a store, it was definately him- he's back folks-

1st February 2003:

The second important thing that happened to Peter on the first of February happened when he was back at his apartment, looking at the various things in it and wondering if there was anything that could be thrown away before he moved out. The phone rang and he picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Peter? That you? It's me, Robbie Robertson."

"Oh. Hi. What's the matter?" Peter was fairly sure, though, that there was only one thing it could be- Jameson had decided to fire him, and simply didn't feel like telling him in person.

"Jameson wants to know if you've got any decent shots of the Green Goblin." Robbie said.

Peter felt a deep sense of dread. "All I've got are the ones I've sold him already. There aren't any more. Er, Robbie...why?"

"Reports have been coming in over the past few days," Robbie said. "I'm suprised Jonah didn't tell you. People have been seeing the Goblin all over the city recently...some woman claims he knocked her down in the road, and we had an old couple in here the other day saying he'd held them at gunpoint and robbed their store..."

"And you think it's the same guy?" Peter asked, keeping his voice as normal as ever. "The same guy who fought Spider-Man last year?"

"Of course," Robbie said. "Jameson assumes he was 'just taking time off for Christmas'. And I don't see how it could be anyone else...of course, I've never seen him closeup, but he looks the same. And honestly...two deranged green guys flying around?" He chuckled.

"Oh."

"Jameson's decided to dedicate the front page to him tomorrow," Robbie said. "'Months after battle with Spider-Man, Goblin terrorist preys on innocent citizens'. Or something just as sensational, anyway. So, no photographs?"

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. I'm amazed you can take photos at all."

"You think he's looking for Spider-Man? I mean, you think the Goblin's going to look for him again?" The words were out before he could stop himself. There was a long silence on the other end of the phone.

"I don't know," Robbie said, "but if you're his friend, if you can talk to him...I'd advise you to advise him to take care of himself. Now, I must go. See you, Peter." And he hung up.

Peter put the phone down and slumped down onto the bed.

It's not him. It can't be. You saw him die. You were at his funeral. This is someone else, some nutcase who made himself an identical costume and possibly stole a spare glider from Oscorp. It isn't Norman Osborn. It can't be.

Moving almost automatically, he got down off the bed and started picking things up off the floor, sorting them into cardboard boxes ready for removal. Clothes in that one, photographs in that one...

It's not him. It's just some nutcase. And he probably doesn't even care who you are.

Stop thinking about it.

The World And Superhumanity by Anna D Webb:

In February of 2003 there came an interesting development to the whole saga. It has already been viewed from almost every angle, and discussed endlessly. But analysing its importance seems almost redundant now, for we already know how the story ends.

3rd February 2003:

Peter awoke on the 3rd of February feeling worse than he had in ages. He had been kept awake all night by a blaring television and the faint sound of arguing, and boxes from the old apartment were strewn over the floor. He glanced around the room and decided that he really did completely hate it. He hated everything about the building.

He decided to go and get a shower. He picked himself up off the bed, gathered together his towel and soap and clothes, left the room and tramped wearily across the corridor to the bathroom. In the distracted state of mind he was in, though, he didn't notice the piece of paper stuck to the door- the piece of paper with 'LOCK NOT WORKING' written across it in biro. He opened the door- and there was someone else standing in the shower. A girl.

She blinked at him in shock- but that was all she had time to do, because he backed out of the room and slammed the door, yelling 'Sorry! I didn't see the sign!" as he did so. He fled back to his own room, practially jumped back onto the bed and groaned to himself. Great. Just great. The perfect start to a perfect day. He buried his head in his hands.

A few minutes later he heard the bathroom door click open, and he looked up- he'd left his own door open, and through it he could see the girl coming out of the bathroom, wrapped up in a towel. He realised there was only one person she could be- the daughter that Ditkovich had mentioned.

He jumped up to shut the door, but she saw him- and she blushed bright red and looked away. Peter spoke.

"I am so sorry I walked in on you like that," he said sincerely. "It was an accident."

She didn't look at his face at all. "It's okay," she murmured. "It was me who broke the lock in the first place, anyway..." She gave a quick, nervous smile, and hurried into her own room.

And that was how Peter Parker met Ursula Ditkovich.

3rd February 2003:

Harry was in the process of getting drunk. It wasn't the first time this had happened. Basically, he would get home from work having had no-one even really talk to him, and he would look at the sofa where the body had been, and he would wonder what Peter was doing at the moment and he just wouldn't feel like doing anything, or indeed being anything. Solution: get drunk.

He'd hated the alcohol the first time he'd tried it, which was a few months ago. It had burned his mouth and almost made him want to throw up. But then he'd tried it again, determined in some inexplicable way - how many times had he been mocked at school for not drinking? -and it had tasted slightly better. A few drinks later and he couldn't get enough of it.

And he still couldn't.

He sighed to himself. He tried to think of a time when he'd been completely happy. He was having trouble. Had there never been any times when he'd felt like that? God, what sort of life had he led so far?

Well...his first date with MJ had been pretty good. (Too bad it had gone irreversibly wrong later.) And there was Christmas several years ago, when it had snowed a few days after the 26th, and he'd gotten his dad's chaffeur to drive him to Peter's part of town, and they'd gone to the park and thrown snow around, and he'd felt normal for the first time in his life.

Why hadn't he appreciated what he had? Now he didn't have it, didn't have any family...Peter was the nearest thing he had...and although he knew that Peter considered him a brother, and a younger brother at that, he'd never able to work out, even after several years, exactly what he felt about Peter.

He'd never realised that he ought to be happy simply because at least he had one parent, and some friends...

And the wallcrawling bastard had taken it all away.

He thought about his father. He wanted him back so much it was horrible. After a month went by he was sure the feeling would start to lessen, it had to, he couldn't keep living with it- but it intensified, if anything. Now, three months had passed and he couldn't get something his father had said to him once out of his mind: Without me, Harry, you'd be nothing.

And now he supposed he was nothing.

And he hated it.

You're going to have to actually kill him, you know. You're going to have to kill Spider-Man. You're going to have to shoot him in cold blood, stick a knife in him, whatever...you really think you can do that?

"I don't want to think about it," he muttered. "Not now, anyway." Even he didn't understand what he was saying. He felt pretty sick now. He sat down on the sofa- he hated sitting on that sofa, knowing there were real, not-quite-washed-away bloodstains under the cushions- and put the glass of alcohol down on the floor. He lay down and closed his eyes.

"Harry?" someone said.

What the hell- who was that?

He opened his eyes and sat up. It was the new housekeeper he'd hired- what was her name- Christine Steinhauer. He thought she had gone home. "What is it?" he asked.

"You shouldn't be drinking so much," she called, turning and going back into the kitchen. "Not at your age."

Why had she called him Harry? He was used to people addressing him by his last name - and really, Mrs Steinhauer should, despite the fact she was at least thirty years older than him...

"What age should I drink, then?" he called after her.

"When you're old enough to understand moderation," she answered. "Look at you- stretched out on the sofa like a drunken lout in a suit. What would your father say?"

He rolled off the sofa and hit the ground.

"Very elegant," she said. "I'm going home for the night. Tomorrow morning I expect you to have cleaned up your act, young Harry."

He was so taken aback he couldn't even answer. "I...you can't...ur, goodnight," he said as she slammed the door behind her. The mask collection set around the room rattled in their holders at the sound.

A letter- Christine Steinhauer to Jim Harper:

I have done nothing to require asking for forgiveness for.

-Your mother