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How long had I been sitting at my computer? From above me I heard a knock on the door.

I pushed the chair back and stood up, suddenly feeling weary. I knew this was going to be one of those things I couldn't, or wouldn't, tell MJ about. And I know that makes me sound like a bit of a jerk, but the way I figured it – didn't she worry enough? Her own life had been put at risk because of me more than once. I'd think that'd only make me worried for her safety, but knowing what that's like seems to have made her more concerned for me as well.

I can't even visualize what it's like for her... to be so worried, but unable to really do anything about it.

"Earth toPeter?"

MJ stood between me and my desk, waving her hand and grinning. It's a nervous grin that I'm starting to get used to.

"Hey, you OK?" She asked.

"Yeah, sorry. I kind of spaced out there."

"I noticed." She lowered her voice slightly, even though we were all alone. "Spider-Man stuff?" There's a certain face she makes when she asks about it. Her eyebrows do this thing and she almost looks sad, but there's this – like a little twinge maybe at her lips. Like it's exciting.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Anything interesting happen last night?"

"Not really. Just a bunch of totally typical criminals."

MJ looked unconvinced – probably because I'd been spacing so hard not ten seconds before.

"No, really. Nobody else in a wacky suit showed up, no buildings got destroyed. Oh, but hey, there was something weird."

"What was it?" She stepped closer. Excited. Just like I'd thought.

"Did you know Walgreens isn't open 24-7?"

She laughed a little, I guess. I told her the interesting bits from the previous night, before we sat down on the sagging couch in my little basement hideout. I may have delayed the movie for a bit to make out. Which is something I can't do while stuck in my head.

And I had a lot of trouble staying out of my head through the movie. It's not that the Batman being in town felt like such a huge threat or anything – it's just it was a unique situation, and the mystery of it all kept me distracted as I tried to look at it through every angle.

I don't think I said much at all through the whole movie. I don't doubt that MJ was getting annoyed. Though her dad is, really honestly, a huge piece of work, she might have used him as an excuse to leave. Maybe she was afraid that Aunt May might let out to her family that she wasn't in her room as assumed, though, because the moment she left, Aunt May arrived.

At least, it felt like one moment fell right on top of the other.

Maybe I was losing myself a little bit... Lately I felt like I'd been Spider-Man full-time, and pulling off the mask and the suit was just a hassle. Just something I had to do to maintain my cover. Something that, eventually – I kind of hoped – I wouldn't have do.

"Peter? Are you home?"

I heard her from upstairs, but I didn't respond. I wanted to know what Aunt May did when I was away doing Spider-things. If she got suspicious, or upset, or angry – all things I'd seen, but only after-the-fact, when she'd caught me skipping school or lying about where I'd been. Things that had happened too many times.

"Peter?" There was a pause, punctuated only by the creak of the floor. "I have cake..."

Oooh. Cake.

I bolted upstairs before I even registered the decision. "Cake?"

Aunt May gave me a skeptical, knowing smirk.

But on the plus side, she did, in fact, have cake. Co-Worker Birthday Cake, to be precise – a curious dish of which there is always too much for those actually intended to eat it, and never nearly enough for those who it is later given to.

She just kept giving me that look. "What," I said defensively. "You said cake, I came up."

"You are such a teenager,Peter."

"Am I?"

"Such a teenager."

"How am I such a teenager now?"

"Your basement giggle-fests with Mary Jane, you only come up for food -"

"Which I eat all of," I added. I knew she was treating this as a game.

"Which you eat all of. But really, you worry me, Peter. Always with your head up in the clouds, so quiet and shut in. And what, no hug when I get home?"

I hadn't given her a hug on her return from work since I was thirteen or so. "Well, I'm not a little kid..."

"Exactly. Such a teenager!" She declared triumphantly, one finger up in the air.

As a teenager on a Thursday night, of course, I had to get to bed at a reasonable hour.
And as a superhero having heard the rumour of the Batman's presence, I had no such option.

Manhattan was not my favourite patrol. It always remained so awake, and even at night an isolated scream could be hard to hear, and was rarely anything serious. It was full of police, who could take care of things well enough most of the time. Plus I didn't exactly have the best track record with them – not only had they tried to lay the blame for several crimes upon me, I'd been shot at more times than I'd care to recall.

Manhattan's overrated. But I can give one hearty reccomendation: If you can sling webs, Manhattan's a great place to play in and explore.

I searched the rooftops for the Batman; perched on the metal grotesques of the Chrysler building, where he was supposed to have been spotted, I searched the skies. A Batman ought to be able to fly, after all. But I did not see a single bit of wing. I swung downwards now – time to look on the lower roofs, and the alleys.

I knew very little about him; I knew that he dressed as a bat, and was supposed to inspire fear in the underworld. I knew that he'd put away perhaps a dozen homicidal wackjobs, most of them more than once. Even here the name of the Joker was known, however vaguely.

And I knew that, by my standards at least, Batman was one of the good guys. He didn't kill. It's comforting to know these things. Coming onto an ongoing scene, I can't always be sure.

Speaking of being unsure, that's something else I don't like about Manhattan... There's so much going on, if you hear something, you don't even know where it came from. The same is true of spider-sense.

So I stood in an alley, atop a manhole breathing white steam, with my head buzzing urgently. I was within range of at least a hundred things that could be setting me off. I didn't know whether to duck, to jump, to follow the buzzing...

I remember wildly hoping that my first instinct would be correct.

I turned sharply, thinking it was behind me. Not a soul was there. I looked up. No shadow of wings, though I half-expected to see it. I felt something rise into my throat and I realized I was uneasy... maybe there was something to this idea of striking fear into criminals, if the mere rumour of the Batman could do this to me, could send my head buzzing maddeningly... I kept turning, looking around. But the alley only held dumpsters, boxes, old newspapers.

The smells seemed to heighten from all the garbage. Or maybe it was from the manhole cover... The thought briefly sickened me. It climbed almost instantly to severe nausea.

And then I was sick in my mask.

That was the gentle beginnings of the illness that took me then. I heard sounds, screams, warped and twisted, high as the feedback from a microphone. I felt liquid in my ears and I was sure they were bleeding, but I must run to the screams... I ran. I tripped. I choked. I was sobbing without knowing how I began. The world rotated one hundred eighty degrees and I clung to the ceiling, fingers slipping.

Buildings warped like taffy below me, bending up towards me like snake's teeth. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. But I could hear screams.

Screams for my help. Screams for my blood. Fire. Murder. Slaughter. Flood. Bomb. Help. Kill. Take. The words just came. Madness. I stood, and I shook so violently, seeing the world fall away below me, the people falling right off the planet from the tops of crumbling, warping buildings...

And then I fell with them. I fell out of the dingy alleyway into the red sea of a bullet hole. I smelled blood and my own vomit. The word 'cake' crossed my mind.

"Pass the cake. Pass the corn. Pass a roll. Pass the butter."

The echoes followed me.

"You're funny, Uncle Ben."

"But looks aren't everything. Badumpump."

I knew these memories. A picnic when I was nine. Before my parents died. I could rationalize this.

I shouldn't have tried. I shouldn't have been in my head. Muscle memory is automatic. I could have got home. Could I? Was I?

Was I going home? I was on an airplane. The thin whine was familiar, the seats nondescript, the buzzing in my head surely the low murmur of conversation. "Please make sure your seatbelt is tightly fastened." I reached to secure it. There was nothing there.

"Allow me," a familiar voice said. My head jerked behind me. But I didn't have to see his face, because his arm wrapped around my waist. His metal, mechanical arm. I shouted. I wasn't even in my costume. Two more arms pressed at my temples, slow, painful, inexorable. I felt them crushing my veins. The skin. The fragile bone. Dr. Octavius leaned in to my ear and whispered, with a cool female voice, "We know you have options, and we thank you for flying Fisk air."

An engine exploded. No metal arms bound me, but the agony in my head was real and throbbing. There was screaming all around me. My parents. I knew before I saw them, their eyes wide, their mouths gaping in final screams that they were on each side of me.

"This is your captain speaking. As we make our final descent, please remember to keep all firearms in the overhead compartment and do not unfasten your seatbelts until the seatbelt light is off."

It was Uncle Ben's voice. But he stood in the aisle, in the skimpy attire of a flight attendant from the 60s. With a smile, he pulled out a pistol and shot himself in the mouth.

The plane exploded. I was dust. I saw Mary-Jane's arm, with its beaded yellow bracelet still attached, falling with the fuselage.

I felt I woke again. Needles rose up towards me. They pierced my eyes. I threw up again, and this time managed to partially peel off the mask.

A deep male's voice echoed into existance.

"Better out than in. You know what they say about the first hit of fear toxin."

I felt a hand upon my back. Blearily, my vision returned and I saw a black gloved hand offered for mine. Were there thorns on his arms?

I had to fumble to grip his hand. No. Spikes.

I looked up.

I'd found the Batman.

Wow, this chapter is like twice as long! I'm not sure if I might have gone a little overboard with the hallucinations. But they were fun to write.