Bad New Day
Title: Bad New Day
Author: quietprofanity
Fandom: Spider-Man, plus special guest star.
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine.
Summary: In the wake of losing his job, Peter Parker wonders what to do next.
Notes: Story takes place after the events of “One More Day,” but before most of the principal action of “Brand New Day.” Consider the continuity extremely loose. Also, I threw out the “sliding Marvel time” concept. Although the crack!crossover should tell you that already.
~*~*~
He didn’t expect it to end like the way it did.
Of course, Peter Parker wasn’t sure how he expected it to end, but he was sure it involved him screwing up - botching a job, getting exposed as Spider-Man - and Jonah screaming at him to get out of his office and never show his face and possibly never work in this town again.
Instead, it ended in Robbie’s office, and it ended quietly. Robbie had taken Peter by the arm before he’d even gotten within shouting distance of Jonah’s office. Peter was shocked. Jonah hadn’t been impressed with his work lately - the last few pictures had come out a bit blurry - but he’d thought he’d gotten some pretty good ones of his fight with the Shocker this morning.
The reality was much more mundane, and yet somehow much more crushing.
“I hate to be the one to tell you this, Peter,” Robbie said. “But we can’t take your work anymore.”
When the words hit Peter’s ears, he’d felt a little nervous, but he’d talked his way out of worse near-firings before. “Just wait until you see these pictures.” Peter began to pull them out of the folder. “I’ve got some really great angles on the shots, and …”
Robbie shook his head and pressed his hands against Peter’s, stopping them from pulling the pictures out further. “You don’t understand. It’s not that I don’t want them. But we have a number of staff photographers already, and we’ve had to fight to keep their jobs.”
Peter felt the blood drain out of his face. He knew about the bad economy, but he thought with the new direction of the paper, with his years of experience, that this wouldn’t happen to him.
“I’m sorry, Peter,” Robbie placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “It’s not you. It’s every freelancer who works here. If I could, I would give you a staff job. But it’s not my decision and …”
“But I’ve given you these pictures for years,” Peter’s hands were shaking. “I’ve been here longer than some of those staff writers.”
“Our movie critic and our restaurant critic have been here for decades, but I had to fire them right after the market crashed,” Robbie said.
Peter pushed the pictures back in the envelope. “So … so this is it?”
“Look,” Robbie said. “I know you’ve been able to branch out into other fields. So if you ever need a recommendation, you can come to me. All right?”
Peter nodded and mumbled a “thank you” as he walked out of the office. He knew Robbie meant to be encouraging, but his words somehow made him feel worse.
He looked around the newsroom as he walked out. At the far end he could see into J. Jonah Jameson’s office. Jonah yelled something Peter couldn’t decipher into the phone. After a moment he hung up and shook his head. He looked up. Peter wondered if Jonah saw him, because Jonah looked sad for a moment, then scowled as he picked up the phone again.
Peter turned his eyes to the reporters’ cubicles. Half of them were empty, and of those that were, half of them were bare. Many of the ones working looked very young - possibly just out of college. Ben Urich was still there, but he was the exception to the rule.
And there was Betty, too. Betty looked up from her computer and raised her hand to her mouth.
“Oh Peter!” she jumped out of her chair and hugged him. “Peter, I’m sorry.”
Peter hugged her back. Ben realized what was happening and got up from his desk as well. He slapped Peter on the back.
“They told us about the freelancers during a staff meeting,” he said. “I’m very sorry.”
Betty broke the hug and nodded. “If you ever need help, just ask. Okay, Peter?”
“Yeah,” Peter said. “Yeah, thanks.”
Betty gave him another hug.
Peter nodded at the both of them. “Well, see you around,” he muttered and walked toward the exit.
“Stay in touch!” Betty called.
Peter walked out of the offices and into the stairwell. He thought of going up to the roof, of changing into his Spider-Man costume and clearing his head web-slinging around the city, but he couldn’t find the heart or energy to do so. He took the stairs down to the street and began to walk away.
~*~*~
“Well, you had to have expected it.”
Peter looked up from his latte when the words came out of Harry Osborn’s mouth. He’d come to see Harry at the Coffee Bean hoping his best friend would give him some encouragement. So much for that. Then again, Harry did give him the drink for free …
“Expected it?” Peter said. “Look, I know my work hasn’t been perfect, but I’ve worked for The Daily Bugle for more than a decade.”
Harry shrugged. “I’m not saying it’s fair. But don’t you read Forbes or anything? Robbie was right. You’re lucky you lasted as long as you did.”
Peter sighed. He looked over at the papers on the newsstand. The Daily Bugle mentioned the fight today, but there was no picture. He noticed the paper seemed a little smaller as well and wondered if it had always been that way.
“I mean,” Harry leaned back on the plush chair, “do you know how many people Oscorp has had to lay off? It’s somewhere in the hundreds, Pete. I’ve had to cut back on a lot of my expansion plans for this place, too. It’s just ugly all over.”
Peter pondered that for a moment, then said, “It doesn’t make things any easier, though.”
“Yeah, I guess it wouldn’t,” Harry admitted. “But hey, you’ve got a degree. You can find another job. I could always vouch for you if you wanted to go back into the science field.”
“So I can get laid off again at a place like Oscorp?” Peter shook his head, “My degree is more than ten years old. What am I going to do at my age? Get an internship? I’m too old for that. Besides, I’m … not cut out for nine-to-five work.”
“Oh come on,” Harry said. “Thirty isn’t that old. Some of the juniors from back in college were that age. And you couldn’t have gone running after peanuts from the Bugle for that long. We all got to grow up sometimes.”
Peter was about to say something when the first few notes of “Dangerous” broke up the smooth jazz muzak floating throughout the coffee shop.
“Girl, I’ve been noticing …” The song stopped as Harry reached to his side and pulled out his cell phone.
“Hello?” he said into the phone. “Oh, Lily! You want to go where? Usual spot? 11 p.m. Yeah, sure I got time for you, baby. Pleeeeenty of time.” Harry winked at Peter.
Peter decided he didn’t want his coffee anymore. Harry was still talking as Peter walked out the door.
~*~*~
To walk from the center of Manhattan to Forest Hills would be long and impossible. He owed it to himself to get in his Spider-suit and web-sling the rest of the way home, or at least use some of his meager funds for a subway ticket and catch the 7 Train, but some things he was just not ready for, so he began to wander.
He still couldn’t quite get over what Harry said, how Harry acted. Had Harry always been like that? He seemed so different from what he remembered.
Actually, life these days had seemed so different. He’d been through worse times, but he couldn’t remember when his options had felt so limited, when it seemed like he could do barely anything at all.
For most of his life as Peter Parker he felt like he was on some sort of eternal treadmill. Every time he tried to break out of his pattern, tried to go back into science, back to school, into teaching, he would soon be back on the treadmill, would need to fall back into taking pictures. It was frustrating, but also a sort of comfort. If everything was lost, he at least had the Bugle job. But now the job was gone. The treadmill he had hated so much was broken.
Peter walked past a couple kissing on the sidewalk. He felt a bit of an ache in his heart as the boy ran his fingers through the girl’s long, red hair, but as soon as he did he felt foolish. Sure, someone to share his life with - someone like a wife - would be nice, but that wouldn’t solve his problems now. It would just mean that he’d have someone to disappoint with the news that he lost his job.
Then he remembered he did have someone to disappoint with the loss of his new job. Aunt May was doing better than she used to, but he wanted to help her, even if it was on the barest amount of income. Maybe Harry was right. Maybe a new job was the answer.
But when he thought about that Peter felt sick to his stomach. He’d been let go from The Daily Bugle before, but … was this really it? Would he really never work with Betty and Robbie and even Jonah again? Was that really the end of all that time, all that work, all those relationships he forged? Just an apology and a promise of a recommendation for jobs he would never be able to hold.
What was he supposed to do?
His Spider-sense began to tingle. He flinched as a car zoomed down the street. He heard sirens, but they sounded like they were far away. Possibly too far.
Peter looked around, both with his eyes and with his spider-sense, making sure nobody was around. He took a moment to duck into an alley and get out of the street clothes he wore over his costume, then started scaling a nearby wall as he pulled on his mask.
“At least I can do this,” Spider-Man thought to himself.
He ran across the rooftops, then shot out a web as soon as he got close enough. He swung down on the web, landing on the roof of the car. Spider-Man’s spider-sense buzzed. He dropped to the roof as a bullet shot from the passenger-side window. Spider-Man then lunged forward, grabbed the shooter’s wrist and pulled the shooter through the window.
The shooter thrashed in his grip. Spider-Man prepared to web him up but the car made a sudden swerve. An attempt by the driver to throw him off, Spider-Man thought. This type of criminal was so predictable that way. No other cars were on the streets, so Spider-Man quickly created a webbing-net in front of the car. The car made a hard left in an attempt to turn around, but instead skidded straight into it.
The man in his arms yelled a curse. Spider-Man tossed him into the web and wrapped more webbing around him. The shooter was incapacitated, but unfortunately the time Spider-Man took to do that allowed the driver to run out of the car and escape down the alley.
Oh well, Spider-Man thought. He won’t get far.
Spider-Man leaped from the car roof and ran down the alley. As he did so, he wondered why he thought that. After all, he thought he had a job - not just a job, the job he had for more than a decade - this morning. What if he suddenly wasn’t able to do this? What if something went wrong? What could he count on anymore?
He caught up to the driver of the vehicle. The driver stood in the alley, his back turned to Spider-Man.
Spider-Man stopped. Why was the driver doing this? Did he feel remorse, maybe? “Look, I don’t know what you did, but running away from the police will only make it worse. So if you turn around now …”
His Spider-sense buzzed and he ducked, but the driver had thrown a canister above his head. The gas made a “fsssssh!” sound as it escaped from both sides of the can. Even through the full face mask, it stung his eyes and lungs.
Spider-Man coughed in large heaves as he stumbled away from the gas cloud. He could still hear the man running away, then the familiar sound of a fist punching against the soft flesh and hard bone of a face.
It took a few minutes before Spider-Man could process what happened. He looked up to see the driver on the ground, being tied up by another man. Spider-Man squinted once more and his eyes finally focused on the other vigilante. He didn’t recognize him - this odd man dressed entirely in white - but he felt familiar somehow, like an old acquaintance from a time of his life now forgotten.
“Hey thanks, man,” Spider-Man said. “He caught me off-guard, there. I really appreciate it.”
The man in white raised his head to meet Spider-Man’s. He wore a white, metal mask that showed a man’s face twisted into an unmoving scowl.
“Caught you off guard? No,” the man said. “You hesitated, blinded by doubt and misplaced mercy. Only the innocent deserve mercy.”
Oh great, a crazy Punisher fan, Spider-Man thought. He thought this trend had died out years ago. “I don’t know who you are,” Spider-Man said, “but if you’re thinking of killing this man …”
“No,” said the man in white, “The use of force for evil ends begets an equal use of force to stop it: no more, no less. This man is only a robber.”
“ … Ah,” Spider-Man said. So maybe he wasn’t a Punisher fan now. Maybe a Venom fan. He made a mental note to look out for this man in the future. The guy seemed a little crazy. “Well, thank you, anyway. If you want I can bring this man to the police.”
The man in white groaned. “We finally meet and you’re concerned about the minutiae of turning in a criminal? Don’t you care about anything I just said to you?”
“Well, not really,” Spider-Man said, letting the annoyance he felt drip into his voice. “I’ve kind of had a bad day.”
The man in white straightened his back and folded his arms. “Outside influences are irrelevant and not an excuse to neglect our mission. It is the duty of all who serve the white principles -”
“White principles?” Spider-Man said.
The man in white paused, “The good principles. Those who serve the good principles must be ever-vigilant. No outside influences must erode their commitment to justice.”
“Right,” Spider-Man began to turn away. “Well, nice talking to you, but I didn’t really need a lecture in being good, thanks.”
“No?” the man in white asked. “Didn’t you just doubt your ability to do your job? Why would you do that? You were intended to serve good principles despite your setbacks. You will always serve good principles despite your setbacks.”
Spider-Man didn’t know whether to feel insulted or encouraged by this strange man. He turned back to him. “How did you know I was doubting myself, anyway?”
“I know you,” said the man in white. “And I know a lot about you.” He turned and walked back down the alley.
“Wait!” Spider-Man leaped upon the nearby wall and climbed along it to catch up with the man. “What’s going on here? I … I somehow feel like I know you, too. What are you?”
“A minor figure,” said the man. “Although one whose influence extends across the universes. They don’t understand me. They hate me. But they are fascinated by me.”
This was getting really weird, now.
“I can relate to the fascination part,” Spider-Man said as he continued to climb after him. “Especially your outfit. How do you manage to keep a suit like that so clean?”
“The principles of good keep me clean!”
“You mean you don’t use a little bleach?”
“You fool!” the man in white stopped walking and turned his scowling mask to meet Spider-Man’s. “You think you are defined by your profession? By your friends? By your marital status? They look up to you because you stand for what is right, and what is right and what is wrong shall never change, even in dark days.”
Spider-Man could finally see where this was going. It was still weird, of course, but then again, Spider-Man remembered talking to giant mystical spiders recently, so he felt like he could handle this guy. He shifted so he was sitting on the wall.
“I think they like how I climb up walls and go web-slinging, too.”
“Well …” the man in white said, the sureness in his speech wavering. “There is that. Nevertheless, doubt is a waste of time.”
“But what am I going to do without my job?” Spider-Man asked. If he was talking to anyone else, he would realize how out-of-nowhere and weird that sounded, but he had a feeling the man in white already knew his troubles. And even if he didn’t, he wouldn’t tell anybody else. “I don’t know how to be anything other than a freelance photographer.”
“Nonsense,” said the man in white. “What were you when you began? You were a fifteen-year-old student who had suddenly turned the only caretaker of his parent, who responded by remaking himself in a new profession, appropriate for one who is young, and forging himself through work, through benefiting through his pursuit of justice. And yet they have chosen to see your natural setbacks as evidence of a failure of character, for they have internalized themselves as failures, and will not allow you to be anything but a failure.”
“Hey!” Spider-Man said. “That’s going too far. People screw up sometimes. I screw up sometimes. Screwing up once in awhile doesn’t make them failures. I mean, I totally believe in personal responsibility, but sometimes bad things just happen to good people and they can’t control it. People who worked hard are hurting now. And I want to inspire those people, not judge them or guilt them into being good.”
The man in white stared back at him, saying nothing.
Spider-Man sighed. “But it’s hard to do that when you’re so used to living in a world that doesn’t exist anymore.”
“Your situation is unfortunate but not unique,” said the man in white. “You were created of a certain time and place, now worn away through the natural progression of life. The world where you were born is not the world you live, as much as it would be denied. It is the fate of all of our kind who are kept alive through tradition and money.”
“I … I’d like to think it’s more than that,” Spider-Man said. “I’d like to think I’m liked.”
The man in white bowed his head, the eyes of his mask covered by his fedora. “I … I don’t know very much about being liked.”
That’s obvious, Spider-Man thought.
“But, well, you’re right about the world changing,” Spider-Man said. “I just want to give people something new for this new world. I just want to give people answers.”
The man in white looked up at him. “So, what are those answers?” he asked.
The question shocked Spider-Man, especially since it was the first of the man in white’s questions that sounded like genuine searching and not like a professor’s test.
“I don’t know,” Spider-Man said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
The man in white sighed and adjusted his hat. “Neurotics,” he said. “They’re always the same.”
He began to walk away again, and Spider-Man got the impression that he shouldn’t follow him this time. Suddenly, he began to remember things.
“Hey!” Spider-Man called. “Hey, Rex!”
The man in white froze, then turned to look at him.
“Yes?”
“What happened to you? You had a staff reporter job, didn’t you?”
The man in white was silent for a moment, then spoke again. “I … I had to leave. They wanted me to write about Paris Hilton.”
“I’m sorry, man,” Spider-Man said. “I wish you luck. Vic and Walter, too, if you happen to see them wherever you’re going.”
“I don’t believe in luck. Only action.” The man in white sighed. “But what a world …”
And then he was gone.
~*~*~
Spider-Man woke up on the ground, his head groggy and his stomach sick. When he looked around, the man in white was gone.
The gas, Spider-Man thought. That must have done it. It must have been a dream. He looked back to the street where he had chased the car and saw a pair of policeman removing the man from the web. Well, at least he’d been able to do something good.
Spider-Man raised his hand, and realized he was clutching something. He opened it to find a card, one half white, the other half black.
Spider-Man shook his head and smiled. He tucked the card beneath his belt and went to collect his clothes.
~*~*~
Aunt May was out when he got back home, but he only had to wait a half hour before she returned. He didn’t waste time. As soon as she had sat down at the kitchen table, he told her what happened.
“Oh, Peter, I’m so sorry,” she said, laying her hands over his right one. “You must be so upset.”
“Well, the first shock is over,” he admitted, absently flipping the black-and-white card between the fingers of his left hand, “but I’m not sure what I’m going to do next. I mean, what are you going to do?”
Aunt May shrugged. “Well, I’ll be fine. For now, it’s just money. We still have our lives and each other, after all.”
“It seems like that’s easy to say now,” Peter said. “They say we’re in something like the Great Depression.”
Aunt May laughed. “Well, I have experience in that, don’t I? Although I never thought I’d be around to see another one.” She stood up. “ Still, the fact that I’m here again says something about the ability to live through times like this. Why don’t you brush up your resume while I start dinner?”
Peter stared at his aunt. “Aunt May, how old are you, again?”
“Don’t be rude,” she said as she reached for a pot above the sink. “You’ll be thankful when we need to start cooking pigs’ heads and cabbage again.”
“Do we not have McDonald’s anymore?”
“Peter, get to work.”
Peter smiled. He looked back at the card. What a world, indeed. Maybe he didn’t know what to do. And maybe that made him neurotic. So, what? Lots of people didn’t know what to do. Lots of people were scared right now. And he would be there for them, just as he always was.
He tucked the card in his back pocket and went upstairs to his room, thinking of how he once walked down those steps in his blue suit and glasses, eager to sell his first pictures to Now magazine, ready to forge a new life in the wake of trouble.
The End.
Author: quietprofanity
Fandom: Spider-Man, plus special guest star.
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine.
Summary: In the wake of losing his job, Peter Parker wonders what to do next.
Notes: Story takes place after the events of “One More Day,” but before most of the principal action of “Brand New Day.” Consider the continuity extremely loose. Also, I threw out the “sliding Marvel time” concept. Although the crack!crossover should tell you that already.
~*~*~
He didn’t expect it to end like the way it did.
Of course, Peter Parker wasn’t sure how he expected it to end, but he was sure it involved him screwing up - botching a job, getting exposed as Spider-Man - and Jonah screaming at him to get out of his office and never show his face and possibly never work in this town again.
Instead, it ended in Robbie’s office, and it ended quietly. Robbie had taken Peter by the arm before he’d even gotten within shouting distance of Jonah’s office. Peter was shocked. Jonah hadn’t been impressed with his work lately - the last few pictures had come out a bit blurry - but he’d thought he’d gotten some pretty good ones of his fight with the Shocker this morning.
The reality was much more mundane, and yet somehow much more crushing.
“I hate to be the one to tell you this, Peter,” Robbie said. “But we can’t take your work anymore.”
When the words hit Peter’s ears, he’d felt a little nervous, but he’d talked his way out of worse near-firings before. “Just wait until you see these pictures.” Peter began to pull them out of the folder. “I’ve got some really great angles on the shots, and …”
Robbie shook his head and pressed his hands against Peter’s, stopping them from pulling the pictures out further. “You don’t understand. It’s not that I don’t want them. But we have a number of staff photographers already, and we’ve had to fight to keep their jobs.”
Peter felt the blood drain out of his face. He knew about the bad economy, but he thought with the new direction of the paper, with his years of experience, that this wouldn’t happen to him.
“I’m sorry, Peter,” Robbie placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “It’s not you. It’s every freelancer who works here. If I could, I would give you a staff job. But it’s not my decision and …”
“But I’ve given you these pictures for years,” Peter’s hands were shaking. “I’ve been here longer than some of those staff writers.”
“Our movie critic and our restaurant critic have been here for decades, but I had to fire them right after the market crashed,” Robbie said.
Peter pushed the pictures back in the envelope. “So … so this is it?”
“Look,” Robbie said. “I know you’ve been able to branch out into other fields. So if you ever need a recommendation, you can come to me. All right?”
Peter nodded and mumbled a “thank you” as he walked out of the office. He knew Robbie meant to be encouraging, but his words somehow made him feel worse.
He looked around the newsroom as he walked out. At the far end he could see into J. Jonah Jameson’s office. Jonah yelled something Peter couldn’t decipher into the phone. After a moment he hung up and shook his head. He looked up. Peter wondered if Jonah saw him, because Jonah looked sad for a moment, then scowled as he picked up the phone again.
Peter turned his eyes to the reporters’ cubicles. Half of them were empty, and of those that were, half of them were bare. Many of the ones working looked very young - possibly just out of college. Ben Urich was still there, but he was the exception to the rule.
And there was Betty, too. Betty looked up from her computer and raised her hand to her mouth.
“Oh Peter!” she jumped out of her chair and hugged him. “Peter, I’m sorry.”
Peter hugged her back. Ben realized what was happening and got up from his desk as well. He slapped Peter on the back.
“They told us about the freelancers during a staff meeting,” he said. “I’m very sorry.”
Betty broke the hug and nodded. “If you ever need help, just ask. Okay, Peter?”
“Yeah,” Peter said. “Yeah, thanks.”
Betty gave him another hug.
Peter nodded at the both of them. “Well, see you around,” he muttered and walked toward the exit.
“Stay in touch!” Betty called.
Peter walked out of the offices and into the stairwell. He thought of going up to the roof, of changing into his Spider-Man costume and clearing his head web-slinging around the city, but he couldn’t find the heart or energy to do so. He took the stairs down to the street and began to walk away.
~*~*~
“Well, you had to have expected it.”
Peter looked up from his latte when the words came out of Harry Osborn’s mouth. He’d come to see Harry at the Coffee Bean hoping his best friend would give him some encouragement. So much for that. Then again, Harry did give him the drink for free …
“Expected it?” Peter said. “Look, I know my work hasn’t been perfect, but I’ve worked for The Daily Bugle for more than a decade.”
Harry shrugged. “I’m not saying it’s fair. But don’t you read Forbes or anything? Robbie was right. You’re lucky you lasted as long as you did.”
Peter sighed. He looked over at the papers on the newsstand. The Daily Bugle mentioned the fight today, but there was no picture. He noticed the paper seemed a little smaller as well and wondered if it had always been that way.
“I mean,” Harry leaned back on the plush chair, “do you know how many people Oscorp has had to lay off? It’s somewhere in the hundreds, Pete. I’ve had to cut back on a lot of my expansion plans for this place, too. It’s just ugly all over.”
Peter pondered that for a moment, then said, “It doesn’t make things any easier, though.”
“Yeah, I guess it wouldn’t,” Harry admitted. “But hey, you’ve got a degree. You can find another job. I could always vouch for you if you wanted to go back into the science field.”
“So I can get laid off again at a place like Oscorp?” Peter shook his head, “My degree is more than ten years old. What am I going to do at my age? Get an internship? I’m too old for that. Besides, I’m … not cut out for nine-to-five work.”
“Oh come on,” Harry said. “Thirty isn’t that old. Some of the juniors from back in college were that age. And you couldn’t have gone running after peanuts from the Bugle for that long. We all got to grow up sometimes.”
Peter was about to say something when the first few notes of “Dangerous” broke up the smooth jazz muzak floating throughout the coffee shop.
“Girl, I’ve been noticing …” The song stopped as Harry reached to his side and pulled out his cell phone.
“Hello?” he said into the phone. “Oh, Lily! You want to go where? Usual spot? 11 p.m. Yeah, sure I got time for you, baby. Pleeeeenty of time.” Harry winked at Peter.
Peter decided he didn’t want his coffee anymore. Harry was still talking as Peter walked out the door.
~*~*~
To walk from the center of Manhattan to Forest Hills would be long and impossible. He owed it to himself to get in his Spider-suit and web-sling the rest of the way home, or at least use some of his meager funds for a subway ticket and catch the 7 Train, but some things he was just not ready for, so he began to wander.
He still couldn’t quite get over what Harry said, how Harry acted. Had Harry always been like that? He seemed so different from what he remembered.
Actually, life these days had seemed so different. He’d been through worse times, but he couldn’t remember when his options had felt so limited, when it seemed like he could do barely anything at all.
For most of his life as Peter Parker he felt like he was on some sort of eternal treadmill. Every time he tried to break out of his pattern, tried to go back into science, back to school, into teaching, he would soon be back on the treadmill, would need to fall back into taking pictures. It was frustrating, but also a sort of comfort. If everything was lost, he at least had the Bugle job. But now the job was gone. The treadmill he had hated so much was broken.
Peter walked past a couple kissing on the sidewalk. He felt a bit of an ache in his heart as the boy ran his fingers through the girl’s long, red hair, but as soon as he did he felt foolish. Sure, someone to share his life with - someone like a wife - would be nice, but that wouldn’t solve his problems now. It would just mean that he’d have someone to disappoint with the news that he lost his job.
Then he remembered he did have someone to disappoint with the loss of his new job. Aunt May was doing better than she used to, but he wanted to help her, even if it was on the barest amount of income. Maybe Harry was right. Maybe a new job was the answer.
But when he thought about that Peter felt sick to his stomach. He’d been let go from The Daily Bugle before, but … was this really it? Would he really never work with Betty and Robbie and even Jonah again? Was that really the end of all that time, all that work, all those relationships he forged? Just an apology and a promise of a recommendation for jobs he would never be able to hold.
What was he supposed to do?
His Spider-sense began to tingle. He flinched as a car zoomed down the street. He heard sirens, but they sounded like they were far away. Possibly too far.
Peter looked around, both with his eyes and with his spider-sense, making sure nobody was around. He took a moment to duck into an alley and get out of the street clothes he wore over his costume, then started scaling a nearby wall as he pulled on his mask.
“At least I can do this,” Spider-Man thought to himself.
He ran across the rooftops, then shot out a web as soon as he got close enough. He swung down on the web, landing on the roof of the car. Spider-Man’s spider-sense buzzed. He dropped to the roof as a bullet shot from the passenger-side window. Spider-Man then lunged forward, grabbed the shooter’s wrist and pulled the shooter through the window.
The shooter thrashed in his grip. Spider-Man prepared to web him up but the car made a sudden swerve. An attempt by the driver to throw him off, Spider-Man thought. This type of criminal was so predictable that way. No other cars were on the streets, so Spider-Man quickly created a webbing-net in front of the car. The car made a hard left in an attempt to turn around, but instead skidded straight into it.
The man in his arms yelled a curse. Spider-Man tossed him into the web and wrapped more webbing around him. The shooter was incapacitated, but unfortunately the time Spider-Man took to do that allowed the driver to run out of the car and escape down the alley.
Oh well, Spider-Man thought. He won’t get far.
Spider-Man leaped from the car roof and ran down the alley. As he did so, he wondered why he thought that. After all, he thought he had a job - not just a job, the job he had for more than a decade - this morning. What if he suddenly wasn’t able to do this? What if something went wrong? What could he count on anymore?
He caught up to the driver of the vehicle. The driver stood in the alley, his back turned to Spider-Man.
Spider-Man stopped. Why was the driver doing this? Did he feel remorse, maybe? “Look, I don’t know what you did, but running away from the police will only make it worse. So if you turn around now …”
His Spider-sense buzzed and he ducked, but the driver had thrown a canister above his head. The gas made a “fsssssh!” sound as it escaped from both sides of the can. Even through the full face mask, it stung his eyes and lungs.
Spider-Man coughed in large heaves as he stumbled away from the gas cloud. He could still hear the man running away, then the familiar sound of a fist punching against the soft flesh and hard bone of a face.
It took a few minutes before Spider-Man could process what happened. He looked up to see the driver on the ground, being tied up by another man. Spider-Man squinted once more and his eyes finally focused on the other vigilante. He didn’t recognize him - this odd man dressed entirely in white - but he felt familiar somehow, like an old acquaintance from a time of his life now forgotten.
“Hey thanks, man,” Spider-Man said. “He caught me off-guard, there. I really appreciate it.”
The man in white raised his head to meet Spider-Man’s. He wore a white, metal mask that showed a man’s face twisted into an unmoving scowl.
“Caught you off guard? No,” the man said. “You hesitated, blinded by doubt and misplaced mercy. Only the innocent deserve mercy.”
Oh great, a crazy Punisher fan, Spider-Man thought. He thought this trend had died out years ago. “I don’t know who you are,” Spider-Man said, “but if you’re thinking of killing this man …”
“No,” said the man in white, “The use of force for evil ends begets an equal use of force to stop it: no more, no less. This man is only a robber.”
“ … Ah,” Spider-Man said. So maybe he wasn’t a Punisher fan now. Maybe a Venom fan. He made a mental note to look out for this man in the future. The guy seemed a little crazy. “Well, thank you, anyway. If you want I can bring this man to the police.”
The man in white groaned. “We finally meet and you’re concerned about the minutiae of turning in a criminal? Don’t you care about anything I just said to you?”
“Well, not really,” Spider-Man said, letting the annoyance he felt drip into his voice. “I’ve kind of had a bad day.”
The man in white straightened his back and folded his arms. “Outside influences are irrelevant and not an excuse to neglect our mission. It is the duty of all who serve the white principles -”
“White principles?” Spider-Man said.
The man in white paused, “The good principles. Those who serve the good principles must be ever-vigilant. No outside influences must erode their commitment to justice.”
“Right,” Spider-Man began to turn away. “Well, nice talking to you, but I didn’t really need a lecture in being good, thanks.”
“No?” the man in white asked. “Didn’t you just doubt your ability to do your job? Why would you do that? You were intended to serve good principles despite your setbacks. You will always serve good principles despite your setbacks.”
Spider-Man didn’t know whether to feel insulted or encouraged by this strange man. He turned back to him. “How did you know I was doubting myself, anyway?”
“I know you,” said the man in white. “And I know a lot about you.” He turned and walked back down the alley.
“Wait!” Spider-Man leaped upon the nearby wall and climbed along it to catch up with the man. “What’s going on here? I … I somehow feel like I know you, too. What are you?”
“A minor figure,” said the man. “Although one whose influence extends across the universes. They don’t understand me. They hate me. But they are fascinated by me.”
This was getting really weird, now.
“I can relate to the fascination part,” Spider-Man said as he continued to climb after him. “Especially your outfit. How do you manage to keep a suit like that so clean?”
“The principles of good keep me clean!”
“You mean you don’t use a little bleach?”
“You fool!” the man in white stopped walking and turned his scowling mask to meet Spider-Man’s. “You think you are defined by your profession? By your friends? By your marital status? They look up to you because you stand for what is right, and what is right and what is wrong shall never change, even in dark days.”
Spider-Man could finally see where this was going. It was still weird, of course, but then again, Spider-Man remembered talking to giant mystical spiders recently, so he felt like he could handle this guy. He shifted so he was sitting on the wall.
“I think they like how I climb up walls and go web-slinging, too.”
“Well …” the man in white said, the sureness in his speech wavering. “There is that. Nevertheless, doubt is a waste of time.”
“But what am I going to do without my job?” Spider-Man asked. If he was talking to anyone else, he would realize how out-of-nowhere and weird that sounded, but he had a feeling the man in white already knew his troubles. And even if he didn’t, he wouldn’t tell anybody else. “I don’t know how to be anything other than a freelance photographer.”
“Nonsense,” said the man in white. “What were you when you began? You were a fifteen-year-old student who had suddenly turned the only caretaker of his parent, who responded by remaking himself in a new profession, appropriate for one who is young, and forging himself through work, through benefiting through his pursuit of justice. And yet they have chosen to see your natural setbacks as evidence of a failure of character, for they have internalized themselves as failures, and will not allow you to be anything but a failure.”
“Hey!” Spider-Man said. “That’s going too far. People screw up sometimes. I screw up sometimes. Screwing up once in awhile doesn’t make them failures. I mean, I totally believe in personal responsibility, but sometimes bad things just happen to good people and they can’t control it. People who worked hard are hurting now. And I want to inspire those people, not judge them or guilt them into being good.”
The man in white stared back at him, saying nothing.
Spider-Man sighed. “But it’s hard to do that when you’re so used to living in a world that doesn’t exist anymore.”
“Your situation is unfortunate but not unique,” said the man in white. “You were created of a certain time and place, now worn away through the natural progression of life. The world where you were born is not the world you live, as much as it would be denied. It is the fate of all of our kind who are kept alive through tradition and money.”
“I … I’d like to think it’s more than that,” Spider-Man said. “I’d like to think I’m liked.”
The man in white bowed his head, the eyes of his mask covered by his fedora. “I … I don’t know very much about being liked.”
That’s obvious, Spider-Man thought.
“But, well, you’re right about the world changing,” Spider-Man said. “I just want to give people something new for this new world. I just want to give people answers.”
The man in white looked up at him. “So, what are those answers?” he asked.
The question shocked Spider-Man, especially since it was the first of the man in white’s questions that sounded like genuine searching and not like a professor’s test.
“I don’t know,” Spider-Man said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
The man in white sighed and adjusted his hat. “Neurotics,” he said. “They’re always the same.”
He began to walk away again, and Spider-Man got the impression that he shouldn’t follow him this time. Suddenly, he began to remember things.
“Hey!” Spider-Man called. “Hey, Rex!”
The man in white froze, then turned to look at him.
“Yes?”
“What happened to you? You had a staff reporter job, didn’t you?”
The man in white was silent for a moment, then spoke again. “I … I had to leave. They wanted me to write about Paris Hilton.”
“I’m sorry, man,” Spider-Man said. “I wish you luck. Vic and Walter, too, if you happen to see them wherever you’re going.”
“I don’t believe in luck. Only action.” The man in white sighed. “But what a world …”
And then he was gone.
~*~*~
Spider-Man woke up on the ground, his head groggy and his stomach sick. When he looked around, the man in white was gone.
The gas, Spider-Man thought. That must have done it. It must have been a dream. He looked back to the street where he had chased the car and saw a pair of policeman removing the man from the web. Well, at least he’d been able to do something good.
Spider-Man raised his hand, and realized he was clutching something. He opened it to find a card, one half white, the other half black.
Spider-Man shook his head and smiled. He tucked the card beneath his belt and went to collect his clothes.
~*~*~
Aunt May was out when he got back home, but he only had to wait a half hour before she returned. He didn’t waste time. As soon as she had sat down at the kitchen table, he told her what happened.
“Oh, Peter, I’m so sorry,” she said, laying her hands over his right one. “You must be so upset.”
“Well, the first shock is over,” he admitted, absently flipping the black-and-white card between the fingers of his left hand, “but I’m not sure what I’m going to do next. I mean, what are you going to do?”
Aunt May shrugged. “Well, I’ll be fine. For now, it’s just money. We still have our lives and each other, after all.”
“It seems like that’s easy to say now,” Peter said. “They say we’re in something like the Great Depression.”
Aunt May laughed. “Well, I have experience in that, don’t I? Although I never thought I’d be around to see another one.” She stood up. “ Still, the fact that I’m here again says something about the ability to live through times like this. Why don’t you brush up your resume while I start dinner?”
Peter stared at his aunt. “Aunt May, how old are you, again?”
“Don’t be rude,” she said as she reached for a pot above the sink. “You’ll be thankful when we need to start cooking pigs’ heads and cabbage again.”
“Do we not have McDonald’s anymore?”
“Peter, get to work.”
Peter smiled. He looked back at the card. What a world, indeed. Maybe he didn’t know what to do. And maybe that made him neurotic. So, what? Lots of people didn’t know what to do. Lots of people were scared right now. And he would be there for them, just as he always was.
He tucked the card in his back pocket and went upstairs to his room, thinking of how he once walked down those steps in his blue suit and glasses, eager to sell his first pictures to Now magazine, ready to forge a new life in the wake of trouble.
The End.