As promised, here is the chapter about Peter. Hope it turned out right, I had a lot of trouble balancing all the different dynamics and trying to stay true to the voices of the characters. Please, please, please let me know what you think! Reviews, no matter how small, fuel my writing. I would really appreciate any thoughts and ideas. It really helps to know that enough people are interested in the story. And a huge thank you to all the wonderful people who gave this story faves/follows and those of you who did review!
"Out of the way, coming through!"
Peter Parker sidestepped, grinning, as Hoffman raced by with a stack of newspapers at least a foot high. It was a pretty normal occurance to nearly get into a collision every time he entered the Daily Bugle. The newsroom was its usual and familiar chaotic bustle of activity… filled with the sounds of keyboards clacking, phones ringing and, of course, the bellowing voice of J. Jonah Jameson himself echoing throughout the entire building. He was raging about something, as always, back in his office at the far end of the building. But no one paid the slightest attention. They kept working away as if nothing was going on. In fact, if J. Jonah hadn't been screaming, his employees would truly have been alarmed.
Betty Thompson, nee Brant, Jameson's secretary, was scribbling something down on a notepad, a phone pressed up against her ear with her shoulder, two other phones laid on the desk, on hold. She glanced up as Peter passed her desk and nodded toward the office behind her with a grimace.
"Bad day, be careful," she mouthed her usual warning and Peter nodded. It was almost always a bad day for J. Jonah. Hoffman was racing past again, this time in the opposite direction of Jameson's office, his arms still overflowing with newspapers. Peter stepped in through the door that Hoffman had left open and stood on the threshold a moment, silently. Jameson, his huge cigar, unlit and clamped between his teeth, was pounding on his desk and yelling at Robertson. He had half-risen from his chair in attempt to look even more intimidating, if that was even possible. The editor wasn't saying anything at the moment, merely waiting for the tempest to blow itself out. He grinned sideways at the young man standing in the doorway, giving the slightest of shrugs as he nodded towards the infuriated newspaperman.
"Parker!" Jameson snapped. "Where have you been? Slept through your alarm clock, eh? Stayed up all night drinking or something?"
"Peter doesn't drink," Robertson rolled his eyes.
"Another monster starts terrorizing the town and I don't have any pictures!" Jameson roared, ignoring Robertson. "And where is that Spider-Man? Consorting with the monster, I suppose. Probably in league with him."
"Monster?" Peter hardly noticed the all-too-familiar insults to his alter-ego. His heart was suddenly pounding like the firing of a cannon. There couldn't possibly be another one! How had he missed this? Mentally kicking himself for not paying closer attention, he focused on the newspaper copy Robertson was holding out to him.
GIANT LIZARD-MAN TERRORIZES NEW YORK. WHERE IS SPIDER-MAN, CITIZENS ASK?
The story, accompanied by a fuzzy, shadowy photo that could have portrayed practically anything, went on to give a brief description of a couple of sightings of a dinosaur-like creature who seemed to be inhabiting the subway tunnels. All sightings had been in the past two days and no one had ever heard of the creature before. It hadn't appeared to have done much more than some mild damage, but its appearance seemed to be enough to terrify people half out of their wits, dangerous or not.
"Where do these things come from anyway?" Jameson had lowered his volume slightly, but his tone was still bitingly harsh. "Mars? It'll probably kill us all."
"Spider-Man will take care of it," Robertson glanced at Peter with a knowing smile and raised his eyebrows, almost expectantly. Peter got the same half-sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that he always felt when Robertson looked at him like that. He was dead certain that the co-editor knew his secret. And even though he was a good friend and sure to be trusted, the thought still made him nervous.
"Darn right, he'll take care of it," Jameson snapped. "He probably hired the guy. Well, Parker? You gonna just stand there like a statue? Got any pictures for me?"
Without a word, Peter tossed a large envelope onto the desk, waiting impatiently as Jameson rifled through the pictures inside disapprovingly.
"Can't use any of these," he shoved them aside. "I want action pictures! Get me Spider-Man with the Lizard, okay? Don't bother coming back until you have them. Now get out of here."
"I'll take those back," Peter stepped forward and reached to gather his photographs, but Jameson slid them out of reach.
"Never mind. I'll keep them. Here." He scribbled out a receipt. "Give this to Ms. Thompson."
Grateful for the check, meager as it was, Peter took it without a word and backed out of the office. He rolled his eyes as he heard Jameson, in a slightly calmer voice, talking to Robertson again. "We'll call him The Lizard. Good name, eh? Poignant, catchy."
"And accurate," Robertson pointed out flatly.
Betty wasn't at her desk, probably taking her meager twenty minute noon break. He debated waiting or coming back another time. He should probably be getting out on patrol, try and find this monster… but he didn't feel much like it. With a sigh he leaned against the wall and rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to shut out the endless, familiar chaos surrounding him. His head snapped up again as he heard someone calling his name. The newest reporter was hurrying toward him eagerly.
"Hi Carlie," he smiled. "How's the new job?"
"It's great, Peter." she smiled back as she brushed a stray strand of auburn hair out of her eyes. "Well, aside from… you know…" she nodded in the direction of Jameson's office and Peter grinned in understanding. "I sure appreciate your recommendation. This job will hold me over just perfectly until I get my degree."
"Studying going well?"
"As well as can be expected," she wrinkled her nose. "I'd rather just get into my field and leave all the endless essays and exams behind me. You know how it goes. Anyway, I was hoping to talk to you, if you have a moment?" He nodded. "I'll be covering a lot of the crime stories, you know, and Spider-Man is pretty much the hottest topic in crime nowadays, in one way or another. I was actually hoping to start off strong with a human interest article."
"And what does this have to do with me?"
"Well, you take his pictures. I assume that you know him personally?"
"In a way," Peter shrugged.
"I'm planning to spend the next day or so compiling a list of the top questions that his fans want to ask him. This would be a really big thing for me and, well… I was wondering if you could do me a favor?"
"Depends."
"Could you ask him if he would… let me interview him? Nothing too personal of course, just general information. I wouldn't pry into his secret identity or anything."
"I doubt it," Peter frowned. "He generally avoids direct publicity."
"But he comes to the Spider-Man festival every year and that's as direct as publicity gets!" Carlie adjusted her glasses anxiously. "Please just ask him. Please, Peter?"
"Sure, why not?" Peter smiled. What could it hurt? "I'll let you know."
oOo
Back in his apartment, Peter paced the ceiling. Somehow it was better than pacing the floor, although he had never figured out why. He just seemed to think better that way. The past few weeks… could it have been months? He wasn't even sure. Everything seemed somewhat… shadowy. Like his brain was half fogged over. He just hadn't been himself lately. He'd been missing sleep, missing meals, missing rescue calls. He hadn't the slightest clue what was wrong with him either. He just felt sort of… empty inside. Like something was missing. Something big… as if there was a hole in his heart. Part of himself just… gone. It was the weirdest thing. And it hurt, gnawing at his insides until he wanted to scream in agony. There was no reason for it. He ran his thoughts over the past year, stopping at any major incident to turn it over and over in his mind, trying to analyze the cause of this strange and terrible depression. But there was nothing. Aside from the fact that he had the strangest existence in New York and perhaps in all the world, nothing had been out of the ordinary. That is, his kind of ordinary. He went out at all times of day and night, answering calls for help… taking pictures of his alter-ego to sell to the Daily Bugle… trying to juggle the responsibility of college classes and his duty to the people, and returning again to his solitary, empty little apartment. Since Harry's death, he hadn't really been close to anyone except for Aunt May. He had no friends outside of the few at the Daily Bugle and the university, and certainly no love interest. Never even once in his life could he remember being in love. Or being loved by anyone… in that way. But Spider-Man probably couldn't afford being in love.
So then why these strange and haunting dreams that woke him up in the middle of the night with their terrifying intensity? Many times he had woken up in a cold sweat, leaving his apartment to go sit on the top of the Empire State Building or the Brooklyn Bridge to count the stars and try to calm his quaking soul. The pain was terrible at those times. Worse than at any other time. Those dreams… the haunting vision of glaring yellow eyes. The glint of moonlight on brilliant red hair. Tears streaming from a pair of beseeching blue eyes, staring up at him. The trembling voice whispering words of love… the scent of strawberries… lips pressed to his…
The ringing phone interrupted his thoughts and he flipped down onto the wall by his corner table, reaching down to pick the phone up.
"Hello?"
"Peter? This is Carlie. Sorry to be bothering you… I just wondered if you had a chance to talk to Spider-Man yet?"
"Huh? Oh… yeah. I saw him earlier today."
"Oh, that's wonderful. Hey, before you say anything else… would you mind meeting up for dinner tonight? I'd love to get to know you better and you can tell me then what Spider-Man said."
"Sure," Peter answered, somewhat absently.
"How about Skyline Cafe? By the Brooklyn Bridge?"
"Sounds good."
"Great! Six o'clock?"
"I'll be there."
oOo
Twenty-three minutes past six found a rather disheveled Peter rushing into the cafe, muttering a hasty apology to a rather amused Carlie, who was already halfway through a basket of rolls.
"I heard you had a reputation for being late," she laughed. "What's the excuse this time?"
"Traffic," Peter grinned half-heartedly. "What do you expect in downtown Manhattan?" He could hardly tell her about the near-collision between a drunk driver and a tour bus, loaded with a fifty-member traveling children's choir and their chaperones. Sensing the danger moments before the fatal crash, he had been able to snatch the weaving car from the road, webbing the heavy load above the street before notifying a nearby policeman about the intoxicated driver.
"Well, I'm glad you came. I've been hoping for a long time that we could get to be friends. After all, we've been practically classmates for over a year, and now we're coworkers. But first things first," Carlie pushed the rolls aside and leaned over the table eagerly. "What did Spider-Man say?"
"Well…" Peter hesitated. He hadn't thought this out at all. "He says he'll think it over. If he decides to do the interview, he'll come to you."
"Oh, that's wonderful!" Carlie cried. "I'll go ahead and start working on compiling the questions." Peter smiled at her enthusiasm. Her hazel eyes seemed to sparkle. She really was pretty. Funny he had never noticed it before. Tall and slim with a sort of intellectual flair set off by her thin-framed glasses. She branched off from the Spider-Man topic quickly, to his secret relief, and started chatting on about trivial things.
Carlie had started attending Columbia university a year and a half before and, being both in the science department, although in different branches, she and Peter had seen a lot of each other. In the last few months especially. Even studied together a few times. She was taking a degree in forensics, hoping to get a job with the NYPD after graduation. But she had a minor in journalism. She wasn't quite brilliant the way Gwen Stacy, his former co-student at Columbia, was, but she knew quite a bit more than the average young woman and her conversation was fascinating. He loved talking with someone who could keep him on his toes intellectually. Hours rolled by as they sat in the little corner booth of the cafe, hardly noticing how it was emptying out.
"I could get used to this," Carlie murmured, playing aimlessly with her napkin as the conversation started to lull.
"Used to what?" Peter pretended ignorance.
"Me… and you… us." she hesitated, coloring deeply. "I'm sorry… I shouldn't have said that. I… I'm afraid I have a tendency to blurt out what I'm thinking. Probably not a good habit for a forensics student. It's just that we have so many things in common and I rarely find someone worth having a truly deep conversation with. Maybe we could… go out again sometime? Just for fun." She laughed nervously. Peter didn't answer immediately. His mind was wandering violently. He had never really become involved with a woman… other than a slightly more-than-friendly relationship with Betty Brant, before she married Flash Thompson, and a few dates with Gwen Stacy, back when they were together in Dr. Connors' class. He hardly knew Carlie, really. A few meetings on campus hardly constituted more than a friendly acquaintance. And here he was, practically jumping into a relationship with her. And why? Because he was tired of being alone. He doubted he could really carry on a serious relationship with his dangerous double existence, but it couldn't really hurt to be friends with Carlie, could it?
She was looking at him expectantly, her head cocked to one side, her eyes smiling at him. And he smiled back. Why not? She leaned forward slightly, meeting his gaze unwaveringly. And suddenly he felt a terrible pounding in his chest as if it was about to tear apart. Carlie seemed to fade from view as he saw, more vividly than ever before, the haunting vision of that unknown redhead with her blue eyes pleading sorrowfully, longingly, her hands reaching out to him beseechingly.
"We'll find each other again," she whispered, her voice trembling. "We'll be together again."
Peter pushed back from the table, rising hastily. His breath was coming in short gasps, his face pale as ashes.
"Peter? Are you alright?" Carlie rose with him, her eyes filled with alarm. He couldn't answer her. He turned woodenly, stumbling toward the door. But as he opened it and stepped out on the darkened streets, with the traffic rushed by as usual and pedestrians lined the sidewalks, he forgot his vision. Something was wrong. Just above them, the towering Brooklyn Bridge was packed solid, end to end, with vehicles, not moving an inch. People were zigzagging on foot through the parked vehicles, trying to get off the bridge. Panicked, horrified screams drowned out the noise of the car horns and the crunch of metal on metal.
Carlie had followed him out onto the street and now laid her hand on his arm, looking up at him with alarm.
"What's going on out here?"
He shook his head, mutely. The spider-sense was screaming at him so loudly he could hardly hear her words. Something was out there… not a regular criminal this time, but a monster.
"Get out of here now, Carlie. Go!" He shoved her gently in the opposite direction of the commotion as she protested.
But he didn't stop to listen as he ran from her, towards the sense of danger. Turning down the nearest alley, Peter ripped off his jacket and tore his shirt open, revealing the silver webbing and black spider beneath. As an afterthought, he reached into the pocket of his jacket, curling his fingers around his camera before jumping up to the roof above him. In another moment, he had swung across the block up to the bridge and landed on the framework just above the scene. There beneath him towered a form ten feet high, with powerful, misshapen limbs and a long red tongue emerging from wicked-looking fangs. The monster slammed vehicles up against the sides of the bridge as he stormed down the center, his powerful claws slashing the metal roofs to ribbons.
"Well, well, what have we here?" Peter drawled, as he lowered himself upside-down from the framework. "An escapee from the Museum of Natural History? Or did you crawl out of a giant swamp on Mars?" In spite of his light-hearted tone, he grimaced at the sight of the beast. "C'mon, Lizzy, let's get this over with. I've got better things to do, better places to be."
With a surprisingly human chuckle, the Lizard turned to view this new foe. And then it lifted its long arm, razor-sharp claws flashing in the moonlight.
A/N: I'm starting to merge a bit of the plot from The Amazing Spider-Man film, bringing the lizard in. I will warn you that I'm not the best with fight scenes, so I hope it turns out! I want to change the lizard conflict enough so that it fits in with Raimiverse, not just a carbon copy of TASM.
As for Carlie Cooper, I chose her character in this story since she's the love interest the comic writers used after One More Day. I apologize to the comic purists if I didn't portray her character right, I don't know really anything about her. But this is fanfiction, so I'm shaping her character to fit my mold. I don't know her personality, so I made her the "ditzy librarian" sort, I'm afraid. She's intellectually smart, but a little flighty. I hope that their interactions in this chapter made sense. Please let me know what you think!