The elevator seemed to move at a crawl. Lilting, cheerful music spewed from the speakers above my head, mocking the seriousness of my predicament.

"I'm going to be stuck on the roof." I stared up at the floor numbers as it crawled upwards, my momentary relief quickly fading away with each floor that passed. If Spider-Man didn't win this battle, I was going to be stuck on a rooftop at the mercy of the Rhino.

The elevator car trembled. The music stopped and the lights flickered. I yelped, gripping the railing against the elevator wall.

'In case of emergency, take stairs.' I read the sign below the buttons for the floors and laughed bitterly at the irony of this statement. I was on the 37th floor and the elevator car wasn't budging. I had two options: sit and wait for either Spider-Man or the Rhino to find me... or leave the safety of the elevator and attempt the last 11 flights of stairs to the rooftop.

Not one for waiting, I chose option two. Mustering up every fiber of courage, I pulled my grip from the railing and punched the button to open the elevator doors. The doors made a grinding sound and stalled. I punched the button again, this time pushing my fingertips into the jam between the two doors and pulling apart with all of my strength. I grunted, cursing Rhino under my breath. The doors budged open by only a foot but that was more than enough space to squeeze my slender body through.

Finding the stairwell and running up the next 11 flights of stairs was quite uneventful so I won't bore you with those details.

On the 48th floor, I found the door to the rooftop. I kicked the door to break the lock and ignored the alarm that began to blare as I opened the rooftop door. The bitter wind whipped through my hair as I shielded my eyes against the bright midday sun. Not far off, an army helicopter hovered, scanning the streets for Rhino. I ran to the edge of the rooftop, waving my hands, screaming for help. I screamed until my voice began to quiver but it was no use. Even if they could hear me, they wouldn't come to my rescue. They weren't here to save civilians. They were here to find and kill the Rhino.

"You're on your own, Mary Jane." My heart sank as the helicopter hovered further away.

Shivers ran down my spine as I felt the ground beneath me tremble. No doubt Rhino was nearing closer. My eyes locked onto the closed door leading back into the building. There was no coverage on the rooftop and if I could make it back in to the building, I could at least hide in one of the offices to buy myself (and Spider-Man) some time. Just then, it dawned on me. Spider-Man could be dead. If Rhino was on his way to the rooftop, surely he had gotten past Spider-Man.

Or, perhaps, Spider-Man gave up.

I wasn't going to depend on Spider-Man to save me, or to save New York City for that matter. I could end this madman's tirade.

I climbed on top of the ledge, my limbs trembling. The wind pulled, threatening to send me tumbling to my death 48 stories below. As I waited, I steeled my veins. This was my city. The only home I had ever known. It would be over my dead body that some raging lunatic would go around destroying it.

I waited no more than a minute before Rhino barreled through the door leading to the roof, his enormous body bending the doorframe as he burst through it. I glared at him from across the rooftop. I bawled my fists at my sides then called out, raising my voice louder than the wind that began to rage around us, "Hey! Big, bad and ugly," Rhino's terrible lips curled into a snarl. I continued yelling, praying the fear wouldn't show through in my voice, "You want me?" He lowered his head and I knew my plan was going to work.

"... then come and get me!" I shouted my last words as the Rhino's hulking body came sprinting towards me at full-speed. He was blinded with rage, any sort of rational thinking drown out by his thirst for blood.

I gasped in one more ragged breath then stepped backwards off the ledge.

I was falling. The only sound was the air whistling as I fell two, three, five stories. I was gaining speed the further I fell.

It occurred to me that this was the end.

Any last words, MJ? My psyche taunted me mercilessly as I plummeted from the forty-eight story building.

There were no revelations. There were no last minute repents. My life didn't even flash before my eyes. Strangely enough, I was at peace. Utter peace.

Far above me, Rhino was hurtling off the ledge. He had been running too fast. Even if he had tried to stop himself from falling off the ledge, his hefty weight would have been too much to stop the momentum he had created.

Are you confused, reader? Is this not the way you thought it would all end? You see, not everything ends like a fairy tale or a movie, diary. Sometimes the hero dies.

DOINGGGGGG

That was the sound I heard as my backside fell into a webbed cradle strung between two buildings. I shut my eyes tight as the webbed cradle squeaked under the pressure of my weight and the G-force I had accumulated on my twenty-story descent. Like a rubberband, the webbing stretched as it absorbed the energy created from my fall and I continued downwards for another fifteen feet. I gripped the thick strands of webbing at either side and prayed it wouldn't snap. Suddenly, the webbing stopped moving downwards and quickly catapulted upwards. I felt a sudden, brief pressure of G-force against my entire body as the webbed cradle pulled itself taught again. I was still. I laid quietly for a moment, listening to my soft but ragged breath. Strands of red hair covered my face and it took me a moment before I could gather my wits enough to tear my grip from the spiderweb and pull the veil from my eyes.

I blew a piece of crimson hair from my eyes just in time to see Rhino one hundred feet above me. If I didn't rip myself free of the web, Rhino's mammoth two-ton body would smash me to bits.

I pulled desperately against the web, unable to tear my frightened gaze from Rhino's free-falling body. If Spider-Man's webbing could hold men ten times my size, there was no hope of me freeing myself from its grip.

"For New York." I whispered before Rhino's body collided with my own.

Just in time, Spider-Man catapulted through the air, swinging on a thin line of webbing. He jumped from the line and smashed into Rhino, his momentum strong enough to move Rhino's trajectory line by a few inches. The two tumbled down onto the web, mere inches from my feet. The webbing sunk dangerously low under their weight. The webbing pulled huge chunks of brick from the side of the building as the two began to wrestle.

I gasped, unable to move away from the two men as they began to throw punches, all rage and fury.

The webbing began to snap, groaning angrily under the shifting weight of Spider-Man and the Rhino. The last bits of brick crumbled from the webbing secured to it and all three of us came tumbling down.

To be completed soon. No reviews, no updates! I post these here to get helpful critiques so, critique away :)