[ gabbing to a goblin - narrative ]
"Hey, green guy."
She sits down on the grass, careful not to disturb what already lay next to the tombstone. Flowers. Marigolds. Behind them, a note. She wasn't sure whose, but the handwriting looked a lot like Aunt Marry's.
"It's been a while. Sorry I haven't seen you since...you know." She swept her bangs out of her eyes. "But, uh, things have been good. I got into E.S.U! I still have no idea what I want to do, and I kind of missed my finals, but it's been fun. Balancing school with webslinging is gonna be tough, though."
She sighed and laid down on the grass, looking up at the clouds. "I guess if you're watching me, you know that I hung up the webs for good this time. Or so I thought. I know, guys like my Dad and Spidey and even Alexa who is not a guy, they can take a tragedy like that and bounce back stronger and better. But I just couldn't. Every time I'd go swinging, I'd see you. See all that blood, all that--" she shut her eyes. Even now, it hurt to think about it. "--Everything else. It was such a mess. And I tried to forget about it, but I couldn't, so I just quit."
She stared at the clouds a little longer, trying to find her words. Hey, that one kind of looked like a spider.
"Then the Black Tarantula took Ben. I had to suit up, and there was no way I was going to let him go after what happened to you, so I kind of made another stupid mistake. I followed him all right, followed him right into the Nexus."
She groaned as she forced herself back into a sitting position. Explaining the Nexus was never easy. "The Nexus is like this super-express highway, where all these different universes and timelines connect. I've met, like, ten spider-people there -- at least. Anyway, now I'm back in the webs, helping out crazy alternate universe people. Which is good, I guess."
May found her head in her hands again and she took a deep breath. "Thanks to the people there, I found out my Uncle Ben was a clone -- did you know that? And Darkdevil is my cousin-slash-brother. Yeah, Spookface. Can you believe it? Too bad I probably ruined his life by letting him get help from Norman freaking Osborn, who Normie has a really disturbing resemblance to. Speaking of, did you know I have twins from an alternate future?! Twins..."
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When she felt the first breeze of the night, May realized it was time to go. Oh man, Dad was going to be so cheesed she'd lost track of the time. She sighed, wiping the dirt and grass of her jacket. "It's been good, green guy. We'll have to do this again some time." Then, finally, she laid her flowers next to the grave. Forget-me-nots.
And now it was time to call home, and apologize for being gone all day -- or not, considering her phone was already ringing. Weird.
"Hey, this is May Parker! Who's speaking?"
"May?!"
"Reilly?" She clutched the phone. There was something very wrong with his voice. Then she started getting static. Great.
"May! You've got--" bzz "--come home" bzzz "--something," Click! He'd hung up on her! She dialed back, so glad she had the proportionate speed of a spider, but there was nothing. Just a busy signal.
She looked around, frantic, for a place to change. Argh! Why did graveyards have to be so open? Where, where...oh! Hadn't she seen a port-a-potty near here? For whoever was building that new Chinese place down the street? Gross, but great for now. She started to run.
Then she emerged, minutes later, swearing that she would a) take a long bath when she got home and b) never do that again. Mostly, she tried not to panic. What was it this time? The Black Tarantula, again?! Back for Ben or maybe her whole family this time? Did one of Dad's rogues' gallery finally put two and two together? Or maybe, just maybe, whatever Osborn had done to Reilly was starting to take effect. Oh great, now her cousin was dying or turning into a zombie or something because she screwed up again. What a perfect end to a perfect day. Whose brains would he start feasting on first, Mom's or Benjy's?
Or maybe the Hobgoblin had made another comeback.
"Reilly Tyne!" May shouted, swinging across streetlights, "If you don't call me back right now, I'm going to go the Bugle and tell them that you're a criminal, and you eat babies, and you sing show-tunes in the shower! Badly! ARRGH!" It was no fun screaming at the phone when all you got back was a busy signal. He would call her back, wouldn't he, if something was wrong?
"If he can," she muttered under her breath.
Soon -- but not even close to soon enough -- she could see her house. It hadn't exploded. That was good. In fact, everything looked like it always did. That was creepy. She didn't have a lot of time to reflect on the weirdness, though, because her phone was ringing.
"Reilly, this had better be you or--"
"I know, I know, or show-tunes in the shower," he laughed. It didn't sound like him, so obviously spooked. "However will I cope."
"Reilly? Are you okay? You're not going fiery and demented on me again, are you?"
"Not yet," he said. Oh, god. Was he--did he just try to cover up a sob? "You have to get out of costume."
"Why? Tell me what's going on!"
"I called 911. The ambulances are coming." Okay, now he wasn't even trying to hide the tears.
"You what? The what?" She tugged off the mask and started running for the door. "Reilly, who..."
She'd just thrown her jacket over the webs when she got to the door. Then she saw it, and she froze. There was Reilly on the floor, in demon form, crouching over --
"Daddy?"