Chapter 2

"You have 3.4 seconds to tell me why we have no photos to go with your death of Spider-Man piece." Shouted J. Jonah Jameson at his young reporter a rather shell shocked Ned Lee.

"Boss I've tried to get a hold of Parker but his cell is going straight to voicemail. There's nothing I can do and there is no way anybody got any kind of photos, Spidey was alone down there when it blew, hell we're not even sure if he did die."

"No excuses Lee and don't you dare wreak my happy mood by telling me the web head survived he finally got what was coming to him plain and simple." Said Jameson his temper rising.

JJ pressed the button on his intercom and said in a voice so happy it was almost frightening. "Miss Brant, could you please ring the parker residence and track down Peter?"

"Sure Mr Jameson."

"Now then Robbie, who's working on the web heads obituary it's got to be finished before we go to print? It better not say how much of a hero he was, the readers need to know the truth."

"I put Foswell on it." Replied a middle aged, black man standing on the opposite side of the desk and who had a rather pained look on his normally kind and calm face.

"Well Foswell don't keep us in suspense what have you got so far."

"Not much I got all the details I could but no one really knows anything about him or even what happened last night. I talked to some of my cop buddies apparently they've been told not to talk to anyone about it."

"WHAT." Jameson bellowed loud enough for the vibrations to be felt in the room. As he continued to talk his entire face became red somehow even his moustache. "Get Stacy on the line he will talk he was a supporter of the wall crawling freak."

Foswell shook his head. "No boss apparently Stacy ordered the silence himself until he finds out what really happened." 'I still need to buy Carter a beer for all info he got me about this lockdown' thought Foswell. When he heard the police weren't talking about spidey's death something in Foswell's mind started buzzing. Why? The web slingers death had been in all over the news almost as soon as it happened, there was no real evidence to collect and he died in an accident not fighting some monster, it was therefore unlikely being treated as a case that needed any genuine investigation. He had wondered if there were in fact some remains and it was being covered up after all. At the moment no photos of the area had been released. However news crews were still parked in front of the building so they would have noticed something like a body being removed. Still his fine tuned reporter senses were telling him something was up and he'd stake his Pulitzer that it had something to do with Captain Stacy.

His train of thought was broken when he realized that everybody was looking at him. "Sorry boss what were you saying?"

"Foswell." The single word had enough repressed anger in it that it was a miracle it didn't explode as it passed JJ lips. "I'm sorry for interrupting your nap time but you have 0.6 seconds to tell me why the hell you haven't gotten an interview with the last guy to see that menace."

At this point Robbie stepped in to try and clam down Jameson as his good mood had now completely vanished and his face had gone past red and was fast approaching purple. "JJ Andrew Roberts has gotten offers from every media outlet in New York and from what I can gather at this second he's in the midtown police station talking to the cops."

Buzz. Buzz.

"Mister Jameson I called the Parker home nobody was home, also your wife called and told you to take your blood pressure pills."

"Thank you Miss Brant." Muttered JJ through his clenched teeth, he took a deep breath and then let loose. "Great, fantastic, marvellous I knew that teenage was going to let me down you can't trust them."

Robbie put on his best calm soothing voice. "Jonah don't you think you're being a little harsh, Peter always comes through. In just a few minutes he'll be walking through those doors with pictures nobody else has got." As he spoke he gestured towards the elevator and he realized that the lights were moving meaning the elevator was coming up Jameson had noticed as well and had gotten up and was marching down the hall.

As the doors started to open he began his usual rant. "Parker where the hell have you been I have half a mind to fire you for making me wait this long. Next time you pull this waiting till the last second crap, it your ass on the fire."

"Mister Jameson how dare you use such language." The open doors revealed a Parker but it was certainly not Peter, instead there was a frail looking old woman with grey hair and glasses. Jameson took a step back put off by the scolding he had just received from Peters Aunt May. However he soon recovered and quickly plastered a smile on his face. "I'm sorry Mrs Parker but I'm waiting on Peters photos, I don't suppose that he sent you with them?"

While JJ was talking to Aunt May Robbie had noticed that her eyes were red and puffy like she had been crying. "Mrs Parker what's wrong?"

Suddenly tears started to form in May's eyes. "I came here to tell you that Peter couldn't make it here," she was crying at this point, "because..."

BAYVILLE

In the Xavier Institute for the Gifted the TV was on in the staff lounge with all the staff watching paying rapt attention.

"If you are just joining us, welcome to Midday Manhattan and today we are discussing the vigilante Spider-Man. Now professor before the break you were saying that you believed Spider-Man was using advanced technology."

"Yes if you look at the super powered people Spider-Man has fought they have all been proven to use technology. It therefore makes sense that Spider-Man in fact used some kind of technology to either do his amazing feats or to give him his superhuman abilities."

"I must agree there is no way that Spider-Man could have naturally had such extraordinary abilities."

"But Doctor Goldie what about the rumours of people who are born with powers."

"HAHA my dear young lady those are just urban myths."

"Thank you very much Doctor, Professor and now were going over to our polls, remember they are, was Spider-Man a hero? And, how do you feel about Spider-Man's demise?"

The TV was suddenly put on mute and a little of the tension in the room was released.

"Well I'm glad that the idea that mutants exists is still considered ridiculous by the general public, but I can't help and feel that Fury is doing some spin doctoring on this story." Said Professor Charles Xavier rather thoughtfully. He knew that Colonel Fury was against the idea of the public knowing that there was a whole race of super powered people that existed. A Few months ago he had been captured and his X-Men had been tricked into fighting a giant robot in the open, the existence of mutants would have been revealed if not for the fact that Fury was on the scene investigating Trask and his Sentinel project. Fury had stopped all the news feeds and ordered a gag order. Of course the X-Men hadn't know this at the time and had broken out those who had been captured by the government and then gone on to stop the Juggernaut. Since then the existence of the mutant race was and urban legend found only on the internet and tabloids.

"They bring up a good point, do we even know if Spider-Man was a mutant? I mean we were never able to get a proper reading from Cerebro." Said Storm, her voice seemed to carry as it suddenly broke the silence in the room.

"While we were never able to get confirmation on an x gene there did appear to be genetic anomalies that weren't human so it is safe to assume that he was a mutant. However as the readings weren't complete we may not have even been locked on to Spider-Man" Beast replied while checking some notes he was carrying. "I was trying to recalibrate the computer to scan for the anomalies but Cerebro couldn't track them as it was programmed to find the x gene and did not record the data on the anomalies."

Professor Xavier started to roll his wheelchair out of the staff room and the other got up and made to follow him, however their conversation continued. "Well Hank I don't think you need to make any modifications at the moment besides seeing as most of the children have left for the holiday I suggest we take some time to relax.

They were passing the foyer when the front door burst open and a very angry Logan stormed towards the stairs. The professor stopped. "Ah Logan did you get Rouge and Kurt to their flight on time?"

A grunt was the only response from the figure stomping up the stairs now.

Storm was a bit surprised by Logan's reaction, "Well I for one think it was nice for Kurt to invite Rouge to Germany, since they found out about their connection Kurt has been trying to become closer to her."

"Logan what's wrong?" asked Xavier "are you already missing all the children?" he said with a small smile on his face.

"I'm never going near an airport again I was watching Rouge and the elf board when airport security asked be to come with them."

A collective oh escaped the mouths of those listening as they realized where this story was heading. Logan turned around and the look on his face was one of pure murder. "They wanded me and then the made me strip to make sure I wasn't carrying anything metal strapped to me." By now his eyes were slits and his mouth was a snarl. "Apparently they thought I might be carrying a bomb."

Snikt! The sound of wolverine popping his claws rang out followed by the by him shouting back "I'll be in the danger room and I don't want to be disturbed!"

MIDTOWN POLICE STATION

Captain George Stacy was sitting behind his desk trying to sort out one of the most unique cases of his career when his cell phone started to ring picking it up he realized it was Gwen calling from the south of France where her boyfriend had taken her for the summer.

"Hey Gwen what's up I was going to call you later tonight like we planned?"

"Hey daddy I was calling because I heard about Spider-Man me and Harry where wondering if you knew what happened?"

"Sweetie you know I can't talk to you about an open case but while you're on the line could you give me Peter's number?"

"Okay I'll text it to you but why do you need it? You have his home number why don't you call there?"

"I was hoping Peter was taking pictures of the spider last night, so I could get a statement but there was nobody home when I called."

"Oh okay I'll send you the number and we'll talk later bye daddy."

A few minutes later Captain Stacy tried to call Peter's cell only to get the message that the phone he had called was unavailable that was when he really started to worry.

THE DAILY BUGLE

May Parker was surrounded by about quarter of the bugle staff and had been given a nip of whisky from the bottle JJ had in his office.

"So Parker was mugged when he was trying to get to the fire?" said Jameson trying to get this sorted in his mind. Though he never showed it he rather liked the kid and didn't want any harm to come to him, especially as the boy had suffered more than anyone his age should of.

"Yes a policeman found him in a bus stop" said Aunt May though she was still upset she plunged on determined not to stop. "He was bleeding and could barely stand apparently a gang of thugs grabbed him, his camera and phone were broken and they took all the cash he had on him. Then they just beat him up for fun.

"So is he okay?" asked Betty the worry clearly visible on her pretty face.

"He's in the hospital he has a cracked rib and they're worried he has a concussion so they're keeping him overnight." by now she had started to pulled herself together and stood up handed Betty the mug and turned to face Jameson. "I'm so sorry about that what must you thinking of me."

"Mrs Parker you have nothing to apologize for and now go see your nephew and tell him not to worry and we wish him well." Replied Jameson.

A smile appeared on May's face. "You know my husband use to read your paper he always said the Bugle had the right idea going after criminals and standing up for civil rights. I think that's why Peter came to work for you I'm glad he found a wonderful place like this to work."

As soon as May had gone Jameson turned on his staff. "What are you all standing here for back to work." he bellowed and started pointing his fingers at certain people. "You get me a new page layout. You go down to the records and dig up all you can on the recent gang attacks. In 88 seconds I want a story headline 'Gang violence in New York is anyone safe.'"

In a hospital bed across town lay a very bored Peter Parker who the nurses were avoiding so he could sulk in peace. The reason he was sulking was being stuck in this bed when he knew with his abilities he could walk out of here by now with a just a couple of aches, but that would be really hard to explain. Mind you it was better here than last night in that basement.

Last night

"Well this is bad." Along the walls were shelves and on the shelves were cleaning supplies, lots and lots of cleaning supplies, lots and lots of highly combustible cleaning supplies. The ceiling fire was spreading and soon something would undoubtedly fall and all hell would be let loose. "Come on think, think there has to be a way out there has to be..."

He stopped in his tracks, his spider sense had be ringing nonstop since he fell down here but something had just occurred to him. He took a step forward, 'there it is, the intensity of my spider sense kicked up a notch' Peter thought. Slowly he concentrated solely on his spider sense he blocked out all the fear, all the pain and all thoughts whizzing around his head. He started shuffling backward away from where his spider sense told him danger was. He had backed into some shelves he pulled them down and examined the wall. "Nothing! Nothing!" he shouted, his spider sense told him there was much less danger in this spot but there was nothing he could do. Peter couldn't stand it he had faced death so many time at the hands of mad men but here he was going to be burned alive in the basement in some stupid apartment building. He snapped, life had screwed him enough his parents were dead, his uncle was dead, he had been bullied for years and now he was going to die because he tried to do the right thing. Before he knew what he was doing his fist was swinging and smashed into the wall. The other soon followed and for the next ten seconds there was nothing but fury. The only reason the flurry of fists ceased was because one of his wild swings had opened up a crack through the depth of the wall allowing a cold stream of air to hit Peter's body. As he knelt slightly to put his eye to the crack his spider sense once again rang out but he had no time to react as an explosion happed behind him.

The shockwave made him feel like his insides had turned to mush and had dealt his outside a load of damage to by throwing into and then through the stonework, as well as peppering his back with burning shrapnel. The effort it took to simply push himself up was tremendous, his muscles had turned to lead and his back felt as though he had been stung by a swarm of wasps. When he had finally gotten to his feet and turned on the spider signal in his belt to see he discovered exactly what this place was. A giant mirror hang over a long raised stand and below the mirror though covered in dust was unmistakeably a row of bottles. "It's a speak easy." The words tumbled out of his mouth immediately followed by a fresh wave of agony. "This would be a lot cooler if I wasn't in terrible pain right now." Last semester he had done a report on the prohibition of the 1920's and the effects it had on the city so Peter had some knowledge on how they operated like having a back door in case of a raid. 'I have to find the secret exit; I don't have a mask on the moment so I need to escape unseen.'

Peter forced himself to look around and realised that his back was bleeding when he twisted and was greeted with a burst of pain. He took a few seconds to remove the bits of stone and metal in his back and then hobbled over to the bar. "If Aunt May knew what I was going to do I would be so grounded." Finding a half full bottle of something behind the bar he sloshed a load of it down his back as an antiseptic. "Aw god that smarts," he sniffed "and now I smell as I've been to a frat party, great." He made a search of the room trying to find an exit and noticed that the wall he had come through had been blocked by parts of the buildings upper levels ceilings and floors which had fallen down.

Finally he found a bolt hole big enough to crawl through that took him to the lobby of the building and with the first bit of luck he had had all evening he found it empty allowing him to escape to a nearby alley. He leapt in the air pressed down on his web shooter but instead of the usual THWIP the only sound was BUZZCRACK, he tried his left but it was the same thing. He landed on the wall a little off balance due to injuries and the unexpectedness of the landing, he peeled back his gloves and was horrified with what he saw, the rotating gauntlets that he placed the web cartridges on were covered with cracks and the circuitry needed for them and his palm sensors were pretty much destroyed.

'Great' he thought 'this is going to take me a week to repair easily and I've got to sew a new costume, good thing its summer vacation.' It took him a while without web slinging but Peter made it to the building where he had hidden his bag and clothes, as he was shoving his ruined costume and web shooters into the bag he stopped to retrieve his phone and camera from his belt only to find the screens and lens on both destroyed no doubt from when the ceiling fell on top of him. He just sighed, by now he was to exhausted to care about anything other than the pain he was in. He made his way down the side of the building and found the nearest bus stop sat down to wait and fell asleep.

He was woken up by somebody shaking him. "Yo kid you all right?" As his vision became less fuzzy and he realised that the somebody shaking him was a cop. "Jesus kid there's blood all down your back what happened?"

"I got beat up by some gang." That was all it took, after that he was taken to a hospital, had x-rays, found out to have a broken rib, put in room for observation, had to give a statement to the cops and call Aunt May. The one good thing was nobody had looked into his bag, why would they he wasn't suspected of anything. He was just some unlucky bastard who a gang got a bit rough on, happens all the time.

The next morning Peter woke up with a start, it took him a few seconds to remember that he was in the hospital, he realised the reason he had woken was because someone was leaning over him.

"Geez Aunt May I've been beaten up I don't need a heart attack has well."

Relief flooded May's face "well it looks like you've still got your sense of humour so I'm guessing you're all right."

"So when did the doctor say I could go home?"

"Today captain Stacy is picking you up in two hours and driving you home."

"What why?" The panic was evident in peter's voice.

"He called last night asking if you could come in to answer some questions. He thought you might have been taking pictures of that Spider-Man when he died in that fire. When I told him what happened to you he asked if there was anything he could do so I thought it might be good for you two to have a talk about what happened to you."

"WHAT PEOPLE THINK SPIDER-MAN IS DEAD." Peter didn't realise how loud his voice was until he noticed people outside had stopped what they were doing and were looking in to see what was going on.

"Dear he was in a basement when it exploded there was no way for him to survive." Peter realised that she was using her soothing voice and that meant she didn't want to get him get agitated.

Little did May know that the news of Spidey's apparent demise would crank the worry and stress centres of peters mind into overdrive. 'Well at least I'll have the pleasure of showing old pickle puss I'm still alive after I fix my costume and web shooters, but I'm really worried about all the low lives that will crawl out the woodwork when they hear I'm dead.' Peter thought as his brain tried to figure out the best course of action.

"Peter dear are you okay should I get the doctor?"

He blinked cleared his head put on a rather fake smile and turned to the woman who had raised him. "No I'm find Aunt may it's just hard to believe Spider-Man is gone, I mean he faces super villains and just dies like that." 'Time to sell it' he thought. "And there goes my job I mean all I do is take pictures of the guy and now he's not around anymore so goodbye job."

His Aunt smiled fondly at him. "Peter don't worry about money my cook book is getting us by at the moment and last night that nice Mister Roberts called and said that you shouldn't worry about your job. He said you're too good a photographer to let go and he also wanted to know if you're any good at computers because he's convinced Mister Jameson to upgrade the bugle web page." Her face hardened "now you rest, I'm going to get everything ready so you can leave when captain Stacy comes and then I'm going shopping, we're having your favourite tonight." She kissed him on the cheek got out of her seat and left leaving Peter alone to try and solve all the new problems in his life.

As George Stacy's car approached the Forrest Hill area he was still trying to find the best way to start his conversation with Peter, they had been sitting in silence since they got in the car.

Turned out he didn't need to worry. "Err how's Gwen?" Though Peter had tried to keep his voice even George was able to detect a hint of sadness.

He thought about his answer trying not to pry but still keep the conversation going. "she's good, yesterday she went to a chateau and tomorrow they're going to Rome." 'Dam' he shouldn't of said 'they're going'. George knew that there was something going on between his daughter and Peter but that neither had acted on it, so it wasn't his place to interfere especially as he wasn't sure if he approved or not.

"Aunt May said you wanted to talk to me about Spider-Man."

"Yes but there's no need, it turns out you weren't a witness. However do you want to talk about your attack?" he spared another glance at peter and noticed he didn't seem bothered by him bringing up what happened which was a little odd for someone so young. But then again seeing what Peter had gone through with his life, maybe he was tougher than people thought, maybe a lot tougher. "I read the report there's not a lot we can do seeing as they wore masks and just beat you up. Your Aunt wanted to know how you're faring. You want to give me something I can take to her?"

"Just one of those things that happen, living in New York. I use to get beat up all the time at school." Peter turned his head and looked out the window. "I guess now spideys gone it will happen to more people."

"Yes the crime rates are probably going to rise now he's gone." Said George as he studied Peter trying to figure out what was going through his mind.

"Captain Stacy we just passed my house."

"Oh sorry." He pulled the car over. "Peter if you need to talk feel free to call me."

"Thanks for the lift and I'll tell Aunt May that we talked."

Hours later Peter was in his room staring out the window. He was deep in thought and suddenly went to his closet. "Captain Stacy was right crime is going to be on the rise now everyone thinks spideys dead. But just because spideys out of commission doesn't mean Peter Parker is."

A lady was walking down the dark New York street she was hurrying trying to get home and off the dank streets. She turned a corner and nearly ran into someone. "Excuse me." She said not really paying attention her mind focused on getting home and taking a shower.

"Well look what we got here boys, something nice and pretty to play with." The woman looked up and saw the man she had almost knocked over was wearing a demon mask, the face was blood red and the eyes were orange. Out of shock she took a step backwards and without the man in front of her blocking her view she noticed other shapes behind the demon faced man. She panicked and ran. All she could hear was the sound of her heart beating and pounding foot steps behind her. Her panic was so intense that without realising it she made a mistake, she turned into an alley. The gang strolled into the alley and watched as the woman in her high heels tried to climb the fence, she had got half way up when she slipped and landed in a heap. Most of the gang burst out laughing but the one with the red mask started to casually walk forwards. The woman looked up at the monster approaching her and screamed as loud as she could.

"Lady what do you think that's going to accomplish. Nobodies around, no people, no cops and now even the spiders dead." He leaned in close and grabbed her jacket. "Who do you thinks going to come save you?"

"ME." a gravelly voice broke out; all eyes turned to the fire escape and saw someone in grey sweats with the hood pulled up hiding his face.

He leapt from the fire escape heading towards the group of gang members. His feet planted into the chest of the biggest one sending him crashing into the wall, as he pushed off the thug's chest he back flipped into the centre of the gang and before anyone could react he had swept out the legs of 3 of the remaining four. The last gang member rushed at the mysterious man his fist raised high, the man in gray just stood there. The demon threw a punch at the man's head but his blow was blocked by the man's forearm which had been raised so fast that it had not only blocked the punch but had also caused the demon to lose his balance as his arm flew up. A kidney punch followed and the demon was down. The red demon grabbed the woman pulled a knife and held it to her throat.

"WHO ARE YOU? STAY BACK I'LL KILL HER!" he shouted.

The man in the gray sweats turned to face him, his face still hidden by the hood.

"LOWER YOUR HOOD, TELL ME YOUR NAME OR SHE DIES!"

The man pulled back his hood, and in his gravelly voice said "I'm Bagman." On the man's head was an everyday paper bag, with two eye holes poked out.

The red demon threw back his head and laughed and as he lowered his head the only thing he saw was a gloved fist.

Bagman helped the woman up. "Are you okay Madame?" she nodded not trusting herself to speak. "Good call the cops." And with that he leapt into the air landing on the lowest portion of the fire escape and ran up the stairs.

Back at the Parker residence Peter climbed in through his window and took off the bag on his head. "Man talking in that voice hurts." He looked at the bag in his hands "I so need a new costume."

AN: I am so touched by all the people who wanted me to continue this story even though i wasn't sure. I loved the reviews feel free to make suggestions and ask question. Okay 1 this is set near the end of the third season of X-Men Evolution but with out the world finding out about Mutants i did this because i wanted to build on some of the events in season 3 but not have to worry about Peter being exposed. 2 I'm messing with the time a bit so its a new school year. 3 im getting rid of the spider hair on Peter's hands and going old school you'll find out why later.

Next chapter it kicks off with Peter meeting the X-Men.