Chapter 5: After the Rains

The summer storm was no lady. Her strong winds and hard rain forced the street stroller indoors. As darkness approached, she left behind her sister, drizzle, to see if the earthly inhabitants dared to leave the shelter of their homes. A small rumble from the clouds reminded little sister and ground-walking umbrella-carriers that big sister was still near.

Among the few brave ones who cared little for the return of the storm was the same tall thin man who had waited outside of the Avengers Mansion a few hours ago. The man walked through the lower regions of Manhattan, where look-alike residential Brownstones squeezed between themselves for a place in front of the sidewalk. Except for the base of the tall cement stairs leading to the main entrance, they weren't so bold as to extend the extra fourteen feet, or so, to reach the public pass way of pedestrians. On either side of the stairs, four-foot high metal fences kept passers-by from being too familiar with the structures.

In the middle of the block, the thin man stopped in front of one of the tenement buildings and he took a piece of paper out of his raincoat's pocket. His eyes followed the nine steps up to the front double doors. Above this entrance, on the frosted glass, the building's numbers boasted their gold color with the assistance of a hall light behind them.

He checked the address on the paper and had found it echoing the painted numbers .

Calmly accepting his discovery, he moved to the left of the steps and opened the metal gate. He went to the archway carved into the concrete wall that held up the stairs. Four steps down, and on his left he found the door that he was looking for.

His thin mustache followed the annoyed twitching of the lips below it. It disturbed the long faced man that he had to knock for a long time. He knew that this Elihas Starr fellow was in the dark apartment. The insistent man was determined to rouse Starr away from whatever was preoccupying him and come to the door.

From inside, the thin man heard distant cursing. Then he heard the apartment's resident clearly snarled from behind the door.

"Who is it?"

"You know who," the visitor responded without a hint of emotion. "I called you earlier to say that I was coming, don't tell me you forgot."

There were long seconds of silence. Then the pecking sounds of locks being disengaged trickled pass the wooden door. The door opened and a pudgy man with a peculiar shaped head peeked out. He was wearing a summer t-shirt that was two sizes too small. He squinted harshly behind his glasses and held a hand gun up to the slim man's face.

Elihas replied, "And I told you that I wasn't interested. Don't tell me YOU forgot. Now get—"

The rest of his words stopped before they reached his lips. They fell backwards into his heart with a thud. Two men with submachine guns had just moved in behind the thin man. A couple of frightened heartbeats later, three similarly equipped men moved in to lend their support on the stranger's left.

When the five men pointed their weapons at Elihas Starr from around the first man, all of Elihas' bravado fled. The pudgy man lowered his gun, fearfully.

The visitor smiled. "Ah, that's a much friendlier way to answer the door, Mr. Starr." He stood there for a few of seconds watching the rotund man's blood drain from his face.

What an oddly structured fellow, the thin faced man thought. The underdressed fellow's body resembled a watermelon. This was, no doubt, accented by his apparently neck-less, head. It was broad at his jaw lines and smaller at the top of his bald head. No wonder this man— this Dr. Elihas Starr— was referred to in the newspapers as the Egghead.

The slim man chuckled at the name. Elihas became increasingly nervous thinking that he was laughing at the thought of rubbing him out. Elihas surrendered his grip on the gun and the weapon hit the carpeted floor with a muffled thump. The apartment-dweller's hands met together in a praying fashion.

When he squealed for mercy, the visitor replied, "In exchange for your cooperation, I see no reason why the thing you fear would come to pass, Mr. Starr."

This "Egghead" was a genius, but clearly an underachiever. A couple of years ago he was threatened with imprisonment because he stole scientific government documents that were drafted by an associate of his by the name of Pym.

With his superior scholarly potential, why did he have to steal those confidential papers? Why not take advantage of his own intelligence and perfect his own experiments? Then he could then sell them to the highest bidder.

"Pleeease. I don't want any trouble," Elihas again pleaded in a high pitched tone.

How lowly; sickening, the slim man thought of his plea.

"No trouble will be forced upon you, Mr. Starr. As a matter of fact, I predict that you will never hear from me again. I was asked to come and interview you. I was to ascertain if you were one of us. I don't need to bother, really. Even if you were, you are clearly and absolutely unworthy. Obviously, a coward, such as yourself, … and one who performs so drastically beneath expectation— again, such as yourself—would be more of a cumbersome dead weight than a co-contributing factor to the upcoming revolution.

The stranger was tempted to have a little fun at this fool's expense, but being on his feet for most of the day had exhausted him. He closed his eyes, and heaved an exacerbated sigh. He opened his eyes a part of the way and tilted his head up to reflect his disregard for the inferior find.

"You may close the door now, Mr. Starr. Good night and farewell."

Starr's eye jetted from side to side, looking into the eyes of the men as they put away their guns. Elihas' heart raced as he quickly closed the door.

With his body still shaking from terror, he asked himself, What did the man mean by "farewell?" He then quickly jumped away from the door. His imagination screamed with the fearful anticipation that those men would shoot right through the door, killing him in a twisted exhibition of humor. He jumped onto his middle-drooping couch and covered his face with the dirty the sofa pillows. Seconds later, the silence of the room rebuked his cowardice.

Hearing nothing above his heart's mad pounding, Elihas figured that they had left. He remained quiet for another minute. The distant sound of car tires moving along the wet street emboldened him. He peeked through the venetian blinds of the window situated to the right of the door. He sighed in relief; no one was there.

The Egghead quickly turned the knobs on the front door's locks and raced back to his bedroom. He reached for the bottle of gin on his night stand. Bringing it up to his lips, Elihas' oddly shaped form dropped down like a sack of tomato to sit on his bed. The subsequent disturbance of the bed brought a sleepy groan from the other side of the mattress. Suddenly an angry, but slurred female voice rang out.

"Hey, don't drink it all. Use a glass and save some for me."

He turned to the young woman and raised a threatening left arm as if preparing to use a backhanded slap on the wailer. "Shut up bitch. My booze, my money, my bed. Remember that."

He didn't need to add to that declaration. He turned his back to her and brought the bottle again to his mouth. Elihas tilted his head back to pour into himself renewed courage. He bravely pushed the drunken, small-statured woman away from his side of the bed so that he could lie down.

Whisked away at this speed, Jan wasn't sure that she would have an arm left.

"Let go, you big gorilla," she charged.

Henry hustled Jan down the white-walled hallway and into the equally bland guest room. He closed the door behind them with a slam.

"What is wrong with you?" she yelled.

"Right question, wrong direction," he yelled back. "I should be asking YOU that."

"What do you mean?" she asked while rubbing her arm theatrically.

"You know full well," he replied, referring to her behavior in the dining room. But with each word, his volume descended. He felt guilty knowing that this animosity between the two lab assistants was fueled by his words last week.

"You're being cruel to Yolanda again. You've been baiting her since we got here."

Jan raised her chin as a sign of indignation over a slanderous accusation. "Simple questions of concern, that's all. I just asked her if she wanted a phone number to a diet center.

"Cute. That's calling her fat in round-about way. And that remark about getting sun without peeling like a banana?"

"I was just suggesting that she get some color. I also thought, from my experience, that people with light complexion could get sunburn easily.

"Oh? And when you said that her skin was as pale as patients in a critical ward, you weren't sayinging that she didn't look healthy and she never will? … And if you had to tell her about changing her hairstyle, was it necessary to compare her to a mop?"

Jan said, "Just passing on beauty pointers." Failing to suppress a smile, Jan turned her back to him. Without thought, she picked up an old photo from the night stand that Erica Collingsworth left on her last stay. Eight-year-old Henry seemed so happy pressing his cheek against his pre-teen sister. Obviously, even Erica had at one time needed guidance from an older female— she had too much make-up on.

Turning around to him, she added, "I'm sure when some acne-face, nose-running, cross-eyed young man with buck teeth asks her out, he'd like her to, at least, rise to his level of attractiveness."

Well, Jan, girl, she said to herself, that last remark ruined your chance to sound innocent. Time to change the focus, here.

Jan tried to recover, but Henry didn't hear her. He was trying to figure out a way to defend young Miss Vanko's appearance without further fanning Jan's jealous flames.

What was wrong with Yolanda, anyway? She was different from Jan, but far from homely. Jan had short wavy brown, easily style-able hair. Yollie carried a more challenging, straight platinum blonde hair that ended by her earlobes on the sides and it stretched a bit past sholder length on her back. Jan had called it lifeless.

Jan also took swipes at her weight. True, Jan's hips and thighs were thinner, but Yollie's waist wasn't that far from Jan's measurement. It wasn't a strict comparison of skinny verses overweight. It was simply a characteristically healthy American-Dutch female body type trying to impose her notions of proper body proportions onto a typically healthy Northern Russian physique. Two other striking differences were evident when comparing the first woman's charming, wide brown eyes and fuller brown eyebrows against Yollie's alluring, almond-shaped, ice-blue eyes and thinner light-colored eye brows. Why does only one type have to viewed as attractive? Both were lovely for different reasons.

Turning it around, he thought, Jan was a "B" bra cup who used what nature gave her and an uplift to look like a solid "C". Yet that was never marginalized by the young woman who he guessed aptly filled an "F" cup.

Henry had to shake his head to return to his logistical mind-stream. The visualization of her breast behind her blouse seemed to beg comparison with Reed Richard's equally endowed love-interest, Sue Storm. Being reminded of Sue brought back those classless, vile reviews of her features coming from Iron Man when Hank and the armored Avengers were alone. Now his sister made sure that Henry's upbringing reflected the upright Christian faith after their parents died. Although lustful thoughts had made frequent visits to a mind trying to walk the straight- and-narrow, Stark's unembarrassed, salacious verbalization of those thoughts seemed crass and slimy.

If Henry Pym felt uncomfortable with his Avengers-partner's lewdness concerning the twenty-something Fantastic Four beauty, he felt worst now about his current thoughts. Henry could not pry them away from the physique of the nineteen-year-old Yolanda.

"Hello, Earth to Hank."

"Yes, yes. I was just think about… " Jan jumped in when he stopped talking. Hank was relieved when Jan misinterpreted the silence. His girlfriend declared loudly that he could forget about forcing her to apologize to the younger woman again.

"Jan," he quietly said. "Her mother was sent to a work camp because she worshiped an outlawed God. She felt abandoned by her father who was taken to Moscow to work on military plans. The fact that he didn't rebel against the government that took her mother away, created a great resentment…

"Her bitterness towards Anton exploded into volcanic proportion when neighbors who were — in commie lingo— 'rehabilitated' finally came home and told Yolanda that her mother died because they would not treat her pneumonia.

"She comes here leaving all she knows behind her; full of hatred for her father…; apprehension towards a country that she was told hated Russians. And when things were finally getting worked out between daughter and father, she loses him in a fight against a second Crimson Dynamo. Don't you feel anything for the poor girl?"

"Of course, I do. I'm not made of stone," Jan said indignantly. "…But I also know that a girl who has lost so much will look to a man to be her father figure. And that usually leads to something else. And you, my Hunk-a-bunch, are too damned fatherly and good-looking."

"Fine then," he said in frustration. "Let's just get to Lab B and continue your target practice."

Oh no, this wasn't going to finish in a draw, Jan decided. Knowing the best way to keep your man off balance is by giving off signals of indifference, she flicked her hand upwards at Hank. This was meant to shoo him away from her. She'd make her way to the room, but Jan was determined to make an unnecessary detour through the kitchen to show Henry her dispassion for him.

The solitary walk to Lab B surprisingly brought Henry face-to-face with Yolanda. He looked down to her hands. She was holding a sunglow gold-colored helmet. To Henry's pleasant surprise, she acted as if the uncomfortable conversation over supper hadn't happen. Henry admired the upbeat disposition of Ms. Vanko – it was so infectious.

"I was so inspired by your latest invention," she said. Her head moved from side to side. Ordinarily, it would have been a sign for "no." But this time it depicted the great admiration that she felt towards the inventor and his invention— the air compression gun.

The subject had come up earlier in the supper conversation. It was wonderful how this young woman could filter out negativity and remember only the good. In a mutual sense of esteem, Yolanda and Henry looked into each other's smiling faces. Hank suddenly thought it was best to break the silence.

"What do you have there?" Henry asked as he gestured to the helmet.

Yolanda looked down as if she had momentarily forgotten what she held. Like a school girl bringing home a prized science project, she brought the helmet up to her chest.

"My father was a great innovator, as you know. Ah, … you do know about your former friend, Bruno Horgan? You know that he was a weapons and munitions supplier to the government. Then safety inspections forced his company to close down. You know how he was supposedly"—she tilted her head from side to side to show the absence of being impressed— "the inventor of the focused microwave-beam that melted metals."

"Lacking any originality, he became the villain who called himself the Melter. What you didn't know was that the KGB allowed that particular technology to be – I'll say— borrowed from my father's old models. In return, this Melter- buffoon was to sabotage the US's biggest arms manufacturer, Stark Industry."

The young woman continued with a small smile, "And then there was this mysterious Cerebro project that he was working on for a private financier to locate mutant."

This was the first time he had heard her talk glowingly about her father. He enjoyed it just as much as she did.

"I know the man who is this mysterious financier," Henry interjected as they began walking the hallway together. "We'll just call him Charles. He's a good man who was introduced to me by Tony Stark. I can guarantee his use of Cerebro will be for mankind's good.

"That is wonderful to hear," she said with broad smile and a nod. "You already know of my father's darker intentions, the Crimson Dynamo armor, and the incomplete Unicorn war-gear, before my father defected. So I welcome any news of greater good that his work has ushered in."

Hank returned the nod with sympathetic eyes. They locked eyes again for a moment, as if they were in a sweet and ethereal hug. He self-consciously turned his face away and made Yolanda's mind engage itself again.

"My father's blueprints for the Unicorn armor were in his head. He surely knew that the communist leaders were not to be trusted. If the Kremlin had any of his projects' physical blueprints then they wouldn't need to show him any favor— such as allowing him to walk around freely. He would have been locked up like the others and taken out when they needed him. But while he was in America, my father wrote down many things for me before I defected. They were all explained when we got together face-toface."

Hank knew that. Anton struggled with his ineptness in exhibiting emotions and this was his way of telling his child that she was more than special. She was his very reason for living.

"This is the Unicorn helmet," she finally said. "The first designed helmet looked like it had a tiny nuclear reactor on the top of the head gear. It was used by Milos Masaryk in hunting down my father.

"I have the latest."—she stretched out the leaner, modified head gear towards Hank—"I worked hard on this project. The blast from the helmet is just as focused, but now I am close to increasing varying degrees of impact.

"And I reviewed the Unicorn uniform that was to match the Crimson Dynamo in strength. It was roughly projected to equal the strength of 3.2 bulldozers. My revisions have streamlined the bulky armor and increased that strength by two and a half time. "

"Wow— from 3.2 to 8?" he asked with wide eyes. "You are every bit— no, you are smarter than your father."

Yolanda peaked her shoulders, leaned forward, and her eyes sparked as she giggled in gratitude. His praises were as essential as breathing and eating to her.

Hank inwardly remembered: Poor kid— her mother, father, homeland gone. She was soaking up his appreciation like a sponge; seeing as he felt like her surrogate father, he was more than happy to express his pride and encouragement.

Henry then proposed a bet to no one in particular. Henry wagered that Iron Man would not be victorious over her Unicorn version, as he was over Masaryk's model. Suddenly they found themselves talking about titanium rods following and supporting bone structure. They exchanged ideas over powerful pulleys imitating human joint movements. They were having a grand time, and then Yollie surprised him with a request.

"You want to see my air-compression gun?" Henry asked. "Compared to what you've done, it isn't even worth mentioning."

"No, no. My project is at least a week away from being realized. You, on the other hand, have a completed weapon. It is small enough to conceal, lethal. And, incredibly, you have solved the recoil dilemma for someone as small as the Wasp. That is no insignificant invention and I'll not have you debasing yourself. You are a fantastic scientist, Henry Steven Pym. And don't you ever doubt that."

Their eyes held each other captive once more. Then Henry noticed that they were standing in front of Laboratory B. With a wide smile, he opened the door and ushered her inside. Yolanda's eyes lit up when he placed the small weapon in her hand. Henry began to explain the mechanics behind it when Yollie interrupted.

"No, our rule is a minimal of ten minutes of Spanish a day. Talk to me as if I just got off a plane from Madrid."

Henry laughed, and admitting for the umpteenth time that idioms were his weakness. But the patient young woman helped him along and they chatted away.

The door to the lab was wide open and as she approached, Jan heard laughter. She quickened her pace towards the room, wanting to investigate, or rather, catch them in an act of what she imagined was taking place. Upon reaching the door, Jan saw that it was altogether innocent… or by her rationale, she got there before it could turn into something more.

Yolanda and Hank stopped talking when they noticed her standing at the doorway. Jan walked over to the female genius and presented her open hand in a non-verbal demand to surrender the tiny gun. The cold stares made the whole room frosty. Henry began to say something, but Jan held her other hand up to his face with another silent command— shut up.

"I need to go," Yolanda said as her fingers reached over Jan's right hand. She dropped the weapon onto Jan's palm as if she feared that Jan had leprosy. Jan quickly closed her fingers around the invention and brought the right hand away from Yolanda and to her left shoulder. It had all the audaciousness of someone retrieving a stolen item from a thief.

Yolanda refused to show a reaction.

"Jan," Henry began.

"It's okay, Henry," the young woman said. "I don't wish to be the reason for another argument. Good night."

Smart girl, Jan thought.

Moving to Florida to stay with her youngest daughter was good for Mrs. Shapiro. But it meant a lot of frozen dinners for her son, Arthur. Tonight, he sat in front of the kitchen table looking at his meal.

It wasn't the re-heated processed food that robbed him of his appetite. It was the fear of the response to the phone call he made to U.S. Marshal Supervisor, Frank Sheppard, minutes ago. The call had to do with the next person on the list given to Arthur by Norman Osborn.

The narrow shouldered lawyer couldn't arrange for a stay of Dr. Chen Lu's deportation back to the People's Republic of China. But as the head of the team that was bringing Dr. Lu to the airport Monday morning, could Sheppard bring about a prisoner escape? It all depended on the other three officers. Was the money that Arthur offered them enough to risk their careers? Would they have confidence in the planned cover-up?

Arthur looked at his almost tasteless plate that was supposed to be turkey slices, mash potatoes and green beans. It was the lumpy mashed potatoes that made him envision what his brother-in-law would do to him if he could not pull this off.

Arthur was startled by the gun fight coming from the small black-and-white television on the kitchen counter. Damn it, he wasn't in the mood to see the Cartwright Brothers shooting up bad guys. That also reminded him of other possibilities that he'd faced if Norman didn't get his men.

When did the show, Bonanza, start, anyway? It seemed like a second ago that Dinah Shore was singing about seeing the U.S.A. in a Chevrolet.

Arthur shut off the TV. He looked at his plate as if he was looking into the future. He was jolted again; this time by the ringing of the wall-mounted kitchen phone. Arthur lunged for it. He fumbled the receiver twice until his hands finally had control of it.

After a deep swallow, Arthur said hello. It was Frank Sheppard. Behind another deep swallow Arthur asked, "… And?"

Sheppard responded. As if he received a ticket to Nirvana, Arthur broke out into a big smile. The thin fellow looked up to the ceiling, and almost cried.

Jan was putting back into place the targets that she had downed for the fourth time. She glanced at Henry sitting to the side. He was looking through his papers to rectify the problem of a half-minute recharge for the Air Compressor gun. Jan grumbled.

Jan said, "The clouds have rolled back so that there's a full moon in the sky. The temperature has cooled to a comfortable level. Outside there is the sweet scent of honeysuckle. And while others are strolling hand and hand with their boyfriends, I'm in here playing Annie Oakley."

Henry looked up to respond, "There will be other nights with comfortable weather and full moons. And last I checked neither the honeysuckles in the north terrace nor the lilacs over at the south side could sprout legs and run away.

"Serves me right," she sighed. "I should be dating someone like Cary Grant, instead of you. "

"It's hard, very hard to see Cary Grant coming up with my credentials."

Jan put her hand on her hips and moved them subtly from side to side. "Yeah, but Cary Grant would come up very hard when he saw my credentials."

Henry winced in disgust. "Do you have to be so… so like Tony Stark?"

"Well, at least he has his head in the right direction. … Both of them."

Henry got up and began to walk out of the room. Jan laughed and began apologizing. When he would not stop, Jan reached out for his arm. Hank pulled it away from her hand.

"I don't know what you and Stark talk about when I'm in the exercise room, but when you talk to me try to at least pretend that you have some class."

Henry had enough sense to end that sentence right there. There would have been terrible consequences if he had added "Pretend you're as much of a lady as Yolanda."

Still, his self-control with words didn't extend to his control over his facial expression. Jan was taken aback by the anger that she saw in Hank. The door slammed behind him. Jan was left there with her other targets that, unlike Hank, had no reaction to her bawdiness. She sighed; they were a lot simpler to deal with.

Peter Parker vacuumed the entire down stairs of the Forest Hills, Queens home that he shared with his beloved Aunt May. After putting the appliance back into the closet, his powerful legs nearly flew him up the stairs.

The radioactive spider bite gave him enormous strength, but it was a year and a half of self-taught stealth that enabled him to muffle the sound of his feet hitting the steps.

Peter stilled himself outside of Aunt May's door. His enhanced hearing made out the slow, steady breathing that came when his Aunt was asleep. And why not? After Bonanza, there wasn't much to watch on TV. For the most part, TV offered boring dramas, unfunny comedy, and the same re-run of Candid Camera that ran last week.

Boy, Peter thought, those TV execs get great money for screwing up. Where can I enlist for that type of job?

Peter walked to his room and reached under his bed. He pulled out a box. In retrospect, when he first saw it, the content of the box was something that caused him to scratch his head in puzzlement. Now it was one of his prize possessions.

Last year, his Junior year in Mid-town High, acclaimed biologist Henry Pym came to his school to announce the first city-wide Pym College Scholarship awarded to the student who excelled in Science. He would finance the first two year's college tuition, books and living expenses to the student whose scholastic score ranked highest in the city. Though Peter had a year to go, his scores were still better than any High School Senior.

In addition, Dr. Pym brought with him another prize. THIS prize that was in the box.

It was a headset radio that the inventor had patented. Before it went to market, Dr. Pym was giving it to the excelling student. When he handed it to Peter, he whispered that, in addition to music stations, it could also pick up Police calls from nearly all of the city's precincts. It was supposedly a way to entertain himself while doing homework. It was actually used to alert Spider-man about trouble spots quicker.

It was the end of a June weekend and the homework assignments were mainly reviews for upcoming tests. Peter didn't need to study what he passed easily the first time. Besides, listening to the headset temporarily took his mind off of his problems.

His girl, Betty Brant, thought that Peter is interested in fellow Mid-Town High School attendee, Liz Allen. If this was last September, she'd be correct. But Peter's heart was now wrapped around Betty. Unfortunately, the brunette wasn't convinced that her gentleman didn't prefer blondes.

An additional, almost suffocating problem, was the constant hustle to scrap up money for the mortgage and the utilities. Peter Parker was close to deciding to go to Dr. Pym and see if he could "cash-out" the scholarship. He and Aunt May needed money TODAY. He'd worry about college when the time came— some school was sure to have a science scholarship.

The youth put on the headset. After tuning in and out of different precincts, Peter thought it was going to be a quiet night. Then he heard about a man who was standing on a high ledge of a Manhattan building. This man was threatening to jump.

Well, it wasn't crime-fighting, but it was still a job for Spider-man. The photos that he would take of this rescue would be going to the Daily Bugle.

Peter smiled as he tugged on the last leg of his Spider-man outfit. The pics would widen Editor J. Jonah Jameson's tight wallet a bit. It would also prevent the skin-flint from making good on the latest threat to fire Peter over an assignment flop. Peter reached for his colorful shirt.

In minutes, the red-and-blue swinging figure sliced through the damp night towards the building. News trucks were getting to the locale seconds after Spider-man. On top of the roof of the building opposite the potential suicide jumper, Peter finally saw the man on a corner ledge. He was thin-haired and his attire was impressive.

The man was sixteen floors above the sidewalk. Police and plainclothesmen were halfway out of the two adjacent windows trying to coax the man back into the room where they stood.

The man's threats to jump had kept them at bay. But certainly the web-slinger could wrap his web around the guy and safely lower him to the ground. The young hero placed the headphones on the roof floor. He then used his webbing to cover it and keep it in place. Who knows what type of whackos climbs on roofs at night? They weren't getting his stuff.

Spider-man quickly crawled down the face of the building. He detached his thin camera from his belt buckle, and set the camera's timer. Again using his web, he secured the back of it against the building's wall.

His next web-swing allowed him to land on the building's ledge above the jumper. But overconfidence is something that can come too easy to an accomplished adventurer.

In a dire situation such as this, Spider-man usually landed on a structure with his feet already running. All this day, spotty rain showers had called upon the city. His footing wasn't secure on the wet ledge and one foot slipped out from under him when he tried his famous land-and-sprint.

He fell earthward, but he quickly managed to grab the ledge and found himself dangling off of the ledge just three feet away from the man he had intended to save.

But embarrassment in front of the News cameras was the least of his problem. Spider-man looked up and to his left. In the hand of the man who threatened to jump was a .38 caliber gun. It was aimed point-blank at the hero's head.