Back to GatefoldIssue #28 by David Wheatley
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"SEAPORT OF DREAMS - Part Three - Death Comes to Portland"
He's here, she said. I have brought him, and he has recovered enough from his journey.
Finally, he answered. He is looking I assume?
Yes.
Good. As soon as the sun sets, we will make ourselves known to him.
Peter Parker shook his head as he exited the library. There was very little on the big storm of 1984, but what there was gave some insight, but it was mostly hearsay. The family had been investigated but there had been some resistance from the official agencies and that was something that intrigued him.
If these people worked for the government, as looked increasingly likely, then what was their connection to him? Was it via his parents? All his answers gave him more questions and as the sun began to set he wandered down to the beach. He liked South Portland, and if he were to give everything up tomorrow this would probably be the kind of place he would come to.
There was an old-world charm to it, something he didn't get in the city. He could see himself settling down, raising May and just being Peter Parker. However every time he tried to stop being Spider-Man something got in his way and there were times that he wondered if he could ever stop being Spider-Man. It was... who he was.
"One day," he said to himself. "I promise."
What was the secret of the Rosemary, he wondered. He was a photographer more than a reporter. He was a scientist more than an investigator. If he had the right facts before him he could make an educated guess, but there was something here that he was missing? What was the boat, who was the woman and why was she calling to him? It didn't make sense, yet. He picked up a stone and skimmed it across the water, as if the ripples on the ocean would awaken some kind of supernatural force.
"I'm here!" he called out, but there was no answer to what he said. He hadn't expected it either and then he turned to go back to the motel but there she was, standing before him. The woman in his dreams was standing in his shadow and he jumped in spite of himself. He hadn't been warned by his spider-sense so she wasn't dangerous but as a thin beam of fading light struck her hand, it seemed to fade away. "Ho-kay," he said.
"Hello, Peter," she said, her lips out of synch with her voice and Peter knew he was about to step in to a whole world of trouble here.
"Hi," he said, in spite of himself. "I... It's just... who are you?" he asked.
"Now is not the time," she said. "I cannot reveal too much, because they are listening."
"Who are they?" he asked, but she did not answer.
"You must come with me, help me," she said, and there was something in her face, something that he knew he could trust, but first he had to know something.
"Why me?"
"Because you have the blood of the spider," she said. "And because there is no-one else I can call upon." Her finger reached out and slowly caressed his forehead. "The mark binds us."
"Mark?" said Peter, wondering what she meant, because there was definitely no mark on his forehead, or none that he could see.
"Do you trust me?" she said.
"I trust you," he said. "I came to find you."
"Then trust me now," she answered and she started to walk towards the junkyard he had visited earlier, and he knew that they were heading for the Rosemary. It was what he had been called here for, and he wished he was in the red and blue that marked him as Spider-Man, but he was simply Peter Parker and that was enough. The woman walked through the gates, quite literally and Peter shook his head. His spider-sense didn't detect any guards or dogs nearby, or even people so he jumped up, flipped and landed with ease at the other side of the fence.
"Not too shabby," he said to himself as he caught up with her and they walked to the ruined boat. By now the sun had set and it was getting quite dark, but the Rosemary seemed to have a faint green hue to it, a light that seemed to cast no shadows and Peter wondered how in all this time nobody had seen it before.
"Because they do not have your extra sensory perception," she replied, as if she could see in to his mind, and Peter realised that was how she was communicating, via some kind of telepathy. It was not telepathy as he knew it, as he had dealt with telepaths before, but this was as close an approximation as he could come to and as he grew closer, the light seemed to be coming from the crack in the boat.
"Touch it," she said and Peter hesitantly did so, waiting for the buzz in his head that told him his life was in danger, or there was a threat of some kind but there was nothing and as he put his hand to the crack, there was a sudden rush of vacuum and he was pulled toward it and it sucked him inside.
"I like it that Peter's not here," Jill said to Eugene.
"You don't mind I'm looking after May?" Eugene said and Jill shook her head.
He had been nervous when Jill had called him and asked what he was doing that night, and he'd been honest but she'd insisted she come round and though that scared him even more, he knew that with a child around nothing would get out of control and that gave him some comfort.
Not that he wouldn't have liked things to get out of control, but... well, he knew it was a little soon and he also knew it would be a big deal and he wasn't sure he was ready for that. Not yet. There was a knock at the door and Eugene smiled.
"Pizza," he answered.
"Good," she said," I'm hungry." Then Jill smiled at him and Eugene went to the door, to find it was open. He was unsure of what had happened there as he thought he had locked it after Jill had come in, but then again he was excited and he had other things on his mind so he chided himself and looked outside, but there was nobody there.
That's odd he thought to himself and he did another look down the corridor, and wondered if it had been one of the neighbours letting him know the door was open. He shook his head and turned back to Jill.
"Nobody there," he said and then he heard her cry out, just as something came across the back of his head and he fell to the floor dazed. His limbs felt like lead and he tried to stand, because Jill was in danger, but he could only just crawl and then he heard what sounded like a slap accompanied by the shout 'puta' and she cried out.
"Leave her alone!" he said, finding the strength to stand, but his vision was blurred and she fell in to his arms. The intruder was speaking to someone, but it sounded like it was in Spanish, or Mexican and Eugene didn't know what was being said.
"Take what you want and go!" he said, and he could hear May crying. "Just go!"
"Already have, cabron," the voice said, followed by the sound of two gunshots.
At the other side of town, Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat was watching as the Hobgoblin gathered together a new gang, though what he was up to was a mystery to her. However she knew it meant trouble and if she could throw a spanner in the works then maybe, just maybe she could convince Peter of her good intentions. He doubted her, and that was fine, as he had reason to, but if she could show him something... She had hope anyway.
"First things first," said the Hobgoblin, "before I reveal anything, let me introduce you to Officer Capriotti." He geustured and two flunkies threw the man to the streets. He was badly beaten and it looked as if had been done recently, the man turned to lie on his back, as if it eased his pain, and Felicia closed her eyes. Her plan had been to take out the goons, but the Hobgoblin changed things and she knew she was not going to be able to take them all by herself.
"Officer Capriotti has been working for the DA's office, and I am sure you are all aware of how grateful we are to them. Officer Capriotti thought he could use the gang to get to the Kingpin himself, and while that is what we are going to do, I doubt whether Officer Capriotti had the same intentions as we do."
"G' t'hell," Capriotti saids, spitting blood, as the Hobgoblin came down to stand over him.
"Hell won't take me," the Hobgoglin said and he placed a small pumpkin bomb on the man's crotch. "Let's see how they feel about you."
The bomb exploded, splitting the man in two with the force and Officer Capriotti's torso jerked and blood came from his mouth as he fought against the inevitable.
"A demonstration, gentlemen, so if anyone considers betraying us to the Kingpin, rest assured, they will die before we do." Felicia shook her head. Since the arrest of Fisk, the Kingpin's empire had been damaged, and though he had been freed, his grip had been lessened and the word was he was doing whatever he could to keep the empire going, but so far none of the major players had challenged him. Until now.
It was going to get bloody and brutal on the streets and she knew she had heard and seen enough. The question was who could she tell?
"Where am I?" asked Peter as he looked about. It looked like South Portland, but this was not the way he had seen it earlier. The small town in Maine had changed, become almost a ruined shell of what it was.
"The realm of the dead," said the woman. "This is why we brought you here, to ensure the realm is sealed. South Portland is dying, Peter. Only you can save it."
"This isn't my league," he said. "Try Doc Strange, or Ghost Rider, or someone who chose this."
"You chose who you became," said a voice, a male one this time. "In the realm of the dead, you see yourself as you truly are, and look." Peter looked at his arms and saw that under his shirt his skin was red and blue, with thin black lines running down them. "You see yourself as Spider-Man, because that is who you think of yourself as. You've a clarity that not all of us get, a perception that you were given your powers for a reason and you use them as it."
"With great power, comes great responsibility," Peter said and looked at the man. He too seemed familiar as if he were a younger version of... "Uncle Ben."
"Your spider-sense is more acute," the man said and he changed his appearance to something more familiar to Peter. "I shouldn't do this, but if it helps..."
"And you," said Peter looking at the woman, wondering how he could have failed to see her. "You're MJ, aren't you?"
"Yes," she said. "This is how I see myself, as that was how Ben saw himself. I've missed you, Tiger, but there's work to be done."
"There's so much to say..." he started, thinking that it had been a year and now he needed to say and do so much.
"There's not time, son," said Ben, putting his hand on Peter's shoulder. "This is more important, it's what Mary Jane does now, what I do as well. Everything happens for a reason, Peter."
"This isn't fair," said Peter, looking at the woman who, in life, had been his wife the woman he loved and whom he had lost as cruelly as he had lost everyone else he had cared about.
"It never is," she answered, "but Ben is right. In 1984, the US government were working on a project called Deep Mountain, which was a project that was designed to create a portal in to the afterlife, so they could contact those who had gone and learn from them."
"If it was from noble purpose that they did this, we don't know," Ben said. "The dead don't know everything, but we know a fair amount. What we do know was it was something that would have altered everything you understand about life and death and humanity isn't ready for it, not yet. The project was shut down by the avatars of Death herself."
"But something went wrong," said Peter.
"No," said Ben. "It worked, and worked well. The storm of '84 was the powers of Death herself unleashed on the government agents. The project was destroyed and the agents were all killed in the storm."
"No they weren't," said Peter. "They survived."
"Neither alive or dead," said MJ. "And outside Death's notice, until now."
"They've started the project again," said Ben. "And Death cannot intervene this time."
"There's a government agency at work," said MJ. "Or an agency, anyway. They're using the agents to restart the project and this time it will succeed."
"And you want me to stop it," said Peter. MJ nodded.
"You are not dead," she said, "and it's because of our link, that I can bring you here. You can affect both the living and the dead in your state. You'll be invisible to the living though, but the dead will see you"
"Then if you need my help, I guess I can't say no," he said. "Where are they?"
"Outside town," Ben said. "Near where you came in." Peter nodded and removed his shirt and he was off and away as Spider-Man went to work.
"What do we tell him?" MJ asked.
"Nothing," said Ben. "Breaks my heart, but there are rules, and we're bending enough of them now to do this." MJ nodded and hoped that Peter would forgive them both.
"Tonight," said the man in black as he looked at his fellow agent.
"The reporter from the Bugle was getting nosy," he replied. "I've taken measures though." The other nodded and they turned their attention back to the matter at hand. Contacting the dead was the only way they could do this, and if they could control death the way they had once done life, they could rebuild properly.
Then the first agent felt something wrap around him, pinning him to the floor as if he were trapped in some kind of netting, and he couldn't get up.
"What the hell?" asked the other agent, as he drew his gun, but the gun was torn from his hand and suddenly he felt as if he'd been hit by a car as he hurtled across the ground, his face pushing up the soil as he travelled and he stopped moving.
The other agent struggled, wondering what forces they had unleashed this night and managed to press a button to call for help. It was not going to arrive in time but a clean up crew could be needed, and the Irishman would not be happy...
Peter smiled as he looked at the agent struggling against the invisible webbing he had somehow fired from his wrist. Was that how he truly imagined himself, he wondered, not being reliant on web-shooters and that his webbing was a natural product of himself.
"Next time I'm writing the story of Spider-Man," he said to himself as he moved towards a small building and his spider-sense started to scream at him and he knew he was in the right place and he walked in.
"I was in the neighbourhood," he said as five people turned to see him, "and I was wondering what you did about pest control?" As one they threw bolts of energy at him and he dodged, ducked and weaved to avoid being struck. "DIY freaks?" Then he saw the machine they were using and he realised that they were using the energy they'd attacked him with to power it. Obviously their brush with Death had done more than Uncle Ben and MJ realised, or maybe they did know.
Either way, they'd called on him to deal with it and that was what he was going to do, and in a flurry of motion and webbing he had ensnared two of the three, and decked a third.
"You're not used to fighting back," he said, thinking this was easier than he had thought.
"You are not an agent of Death," one of the remaining ones said, as the second tried to focus their energy on the machine. "Our power cannot affect you as it should."
"Good to know," Peter replied as he fired his webbing but this time it was met with the energy discharge and the two countered each other.
"You are not drained by us," they said. "We cannot add your energy to the machine, as we did the others."
"About that," said Spider-Man, wondering what others they meant and now he knew why he'd been needed, as he vaulted over the one he was fighting and landed on the machine, kicking at the one powering it and knocking him in to his colleague. "I know a bit about these kind of things, let's have a look." He leapt down from the machine, then lifted it up. "That's the problem - not enough altitude!"
Normally he wouldn't be able to do anything like this, but he knew that he wasn't working within what his limits were. He was Spider-Man, and it was his power, his responsibility and he would do what was needed and he threw the machine up as high as he could. It didn't come back to Earth.
"Well paint me green and call me Bruce," he said as he looked at the five beings. "Now if I were you, I'd run and keep running, because there's going to be a doctor looking for you in a little while, and he's a strange one..." They looked at each other and fled.
"They're not usually that smart," he said.
"Yes well, they know what's coming," said Ben, as he stood there. "They had their chance to escape, but it's not happened."
"What's coming?" asked Peter.
"A war," said Ben. "Be careful, son, and I'll see you in about fifty years or so." He nodded to MJ who came in.
"So," said Peter.
"So," she said. "I guess this is it."
"Not quite. We've... fifty years or so," said Peter, but the sadness in his eyes told a different story.
"It's a long time to be alone, Tiger," she said, her hand slipping in to his. "Don't be afraid to live a little. I never wanted you to be unhappy."
"You've never made me unhappy," he said. "I love you, Mary Jane." He kissed her and they closed their eyes and when he opened them, he was back in his motel room. "Was it real?"
Then the telephone rang...
Finally, he answered. He is looking I assume?
Yes.
Good. As soon as the sun sets, we will make ourselves known to him.
Peter Parker shook his head as he exited the library. There was very little on the big storm of 1984, but what there was gave some insight, but it was mostly hearsay. The family had been investigated but there had been some resistance from the official agencies and that was something that intrigued him.
If these people worked for the government, as looked increasingly likely, then what was their connection to him? Was it via his parents? All his answers gave him more questions and as the sun began to set he wandered down to the beach. He liked South Portland, and if he were to give everything up tomorrow this would probably be the kind of place he would come to.
There was an old-world charm to it, something he didn't get in the city. He could see himself settling down, raising May and just being Peter Parker. However every time he tried to stop being Spider-Man something got in his way and there were times that he wondered if he could ever stop being Spider-Man. It was... who he was.
"One day," he said to himself. "I promise."
What was the secret of the Rosemary, he wondered. He was a photographer more than a reporter. He was a scientist more than an investigator. If he had the right facts before him he could make an educated guess, but there was something here that he was missing? What was the boat, who was the woman and why was she calling to him? It didn't make sense, yet. He picked up a stone and skimmed it across the water, as if the ripples on the ocean would awaken some kind of supernatural force.
"I'm here!" he called out, but there was no answer to what he said. He hadn't expected it either and then he turned to go back to the motel but there she was, standing before him. The woman in his dreams was standing in his shadow and he jumped in spite of himself. He hadn't been warned by his spider-sense so she wasn't dangerous but as a thin beam of fading light struck her hand, it seemed to fade away. "Ho-kay," he said.
"Hello, Peter," she said, her lips out of synch with her voice and Peter knew he was about to step in to a whole world of trouble here.
"Hi," he said, in spite of himself. "I... It's just... who are you?" he asked.
"Now is not the time," she said. "I cannot reveal too much, because they are listening."
"Who are they?" he asked, but she did not answer.
"You must come with me, help me," she said, and there was something in her face, something that he knew he could trust, but first he had to know something.
"Why me?"
"Because you have the blood of the spider," she said. "And because there is no-one else I can call upon." Her finger reached out and slowly caressed his forehead. "The mark binds us."
"Mark?" said Peter, wondering what she meant, because there was definitely no mark on his forehead, or none that he could see.
"Do you trust me?" she said.
"I trust you," he said. "I came to find you."
"Then trust me now," she answered and she started to walk towards the junkyard he had visited earlier, and he knew that they were heading for the Rosemary. It was what he had been called here for, and he wished he was in the red and blue that marked him as Spider-Man, but he was simply Peter Parker and that was enough. The woman walked through the gates, quite literally and Peter shook his head. His spider-sense didn't detect any guards or dogs nearby, or even people so he jumped up, flipped and landed with ease at the other side of the fence.
"Not too shabby," he said to himself as he caught up with her and they walked to the ruined boat. By now the sun had set and it was getting quite dark, but the Rosemary seemed to have a faint green hue to it, a light that seemed to cast no shadows and Peter wondered how in all this time nobody had seen it before.
"Because they do not have your extra sensory perception," she replied, as if she could see in to his mind, and Peter realised that was how she was communicating, via some kind of telepathy. It was not telepathy as he knew it, as he had dealt with telepaths before, but this was as close an approximation as he could come to and as he grew closer, the light seemed to be coming from the crack in the boat.
"Touch it," she said and Peter hesitantly did so, waiting for the buzz in his head that told him his life was in danger, or there was a threat of some kind but there was nothing and as he put his hand to the crack, there was a sudden rush of vacuum and he was pulled toward it and it sucked him inside.
"I like it that Peter's not here," Jill said to Eugene.
"You don't mind I'm looking after May?" Eugene said and Jill shook her head.
He had been nervous when Jill had called him and asked what he was doing that night, and he'd been honest but she'd insisted she come round and though that scared him even more, he knew that with a child around nothing would get out of control and that gave him some comfort.
Not that he wouldn't have liked things to get out of control, but... well, he knew it was a little soon and he also knew it would be a big deal and he wasn't sure he was ready for that. Not yet. There was a knock at the door and Eugene smiled.
"Pizza," he answered.
"Good," she said," I'm hungry." Then Jill smiled at him and Eugene went to the door, to find it was open. He was unsure of what had happened there as he thought he had locked it after Jill had come in, but then again he was excited and he had other things on his mind so he chided himself and looked outside, but there was nobody there.
That's odd he thought to himself and he did another look down the corridor, and wondered if it had been one of the neighbours letting him know the door was open. He shook his head and turned back to Jill.
"Nobody there," he said and then he heard her cry out, just as something came across the back of his head and he fell to the floor dazed. His limbs felt like lead and he tried to stand, because Jill was in danger, but he could only just crawl and then he heard what sounded like a slap accompanied by the shout 'puta' and she cried out.
"Leave her alone!" he said, finding the strength to stand, but his vision was blurred and she fell in to his arms. The intruder was speaking to someone, but it sounded like it was in Spanish, or Mexican and Eugene didn't know what was being said.
"Take what you want and go!" he said, and he could hear May crying. "Just go!"
"Already have, cabron," the voice said, followed by the sound of two gunshots.
At the other side of town, Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat was watching as the Hobgoblin gathered together a new gang, though what he was up to was a mystery to her. However she knew it meant trouble and if she could throw a spanner in the works then maybe, just maybe she could convince Peter of her good intentions. He doubted her, and that was fine, as he had reason to, but if she could show him something... She had hope anyway.
"First things first," said the Hobgoblin, "before I reveal anything, let me introduce you to Officer Capriotti." He geustured and two flunkies threw the man to the streets. He was badly beaten and it looked as if had been done recently, the man turned to lie on his back, as if it eased his pain, and Felicia closed her eyes. Her plan had been to take out the goons, but the Hobgoblin changed things and she knew she was not going to be able to take them all by herself.
"Officer Capriotti has been working for the DA's office, and I am sure you are all aware of how grateful we are to them. Officer Capriotti thought he could use the gang to get to the Kingpin himself, and while that is what we are going to do, I doubt whether Officer Capriotti had the same intentions as we do."
"G' t'hell," Capriotti saids, spitting blood, as the Hobgoblin came down to stand over him.
"Hell won't take me," the Hobgoglin said and he placed a small pumpkin bomb on the man's crotch. "Let's see how they feel about you."
The bomb exploded, splitting the man in two with the force and Officer Capriotti's torso jerked and blood came from his mouth as he fought against the inevitable.
"A demonstration, gentlemen, so if anyone considers betraying us to the Kingpin, rest assured, they will die before we do." Felicia shook her head. Since the arrest of Fisk, the Kingpin's empire had been damaged, and though he had been freed, his grip had been lessened and the word was he was doing whatever he could to keep the empire going, but so far none of the major players had challenged him. Until now.
It was going to get bloody and brutal on the streets and she knew she had heard and seen enough. The question was who could she tell?
"Where am I?" asked Peter as he looked about. It looked like South Portland, but this was not the way he had seen it earlier. The small town in Maine had changed, become almost a ruined shell of what it was.
"The realm of the dead," said the woman. "This is why we brought you here, to ensure the realm is sealed. South Portland is dying, Peter. Only you can save it."
"This isn't my league," he said. "Try Doc Strange, or Ghost Rider, or someone who chose this."
"You chose who you became," said a voice, a male one this time. "In the realm of the dead, you see yourself as you truly are, and look." Peter looked at his arms and saw that under his shirt his skin was red and blue, with thin black lines running down them. "You see yourself as Spider-Man, because that is who you think of yourself as. You've a clarity that not all of us get, a perception that you were given your powers for a reason and you use them as it."
"With great power, comes great responsibility," Peter said and looked at the man. He too seemed familiar as if he were a younger version of... "Uncle Ben."
"Your spider-sense is more acute," the man said and he changed his appearance to something more familiar to Peter. "I shouldn't do this, but if it helps..."
"And you," said Peter looking at the woman, wondering how he could have failed to see her. "You're MJ, aren't you?"
"Yes," she said. "This is how I see myself, as that was how Ben saw himself. I've missed you, Tiger, but there's work to be done."
"There's so much to say..." he started, thinking that it had been a year and now he needed to say and do so much.
"There's not time, son," said Ben, putting his hand on Peter's shoulder. "This is more important, it's what Mary Jane does now, what I do as well. Everything happens for a reason, Peter."
"This isn't fair," said Peter, looking at the woman who, in life, had been his wife the woman he loved and whom he had lost as cruelly as he had lost everyone else he had cared about.
"It never is," she answered, "but Ben is right. In 1984, the US government were working on a project called Deep Mountain, which was a project that was designed to create a portal in to the afterlife, so they could contact those who had gone and learn from them."
"If it was from noble purpose that they did this, we don't know," Ben said. "The dead don't know everything, but we know a fair amount. What we do know was it was something that would have altered everything you understand about life and death and humanity isn't ready for it, not yet. The project was shut down by the avatars of Death herself."
"But something went wrong," said Peter.
"No," said Ben. "It worked, and worked well. The storm of '84 was the powers of Death herself unleashed on the government agents. The project was destroyed and the agents were all killed in the storm."
"No they weren't," said Peter. "They survived."
"Neither alive or dead," said MJ. "And outside Death's notice, until now."
"They've started the project again," said Ben. "And Death cannot intervene this time."
"There's a government agency at work," said MJ. "Or an agency, anyway. They're using the agents to restart the project and this time it will succeed."
"And you want me to stop it," said Peter. MJ nodded.
"You are not dead," she said, "and it's because of our link, that I can bring you here. You can affect both the living and the dead in your state. You'll be invisible to the living though, but the dead will see you"
"Then if you need my help, I guess I can't say no," he said. "Where are they?"
"Outside town," Ben said. "Near where you came in." Peter nodded and removed his shirt and he was off and away as Spider-Man went to work.
"What do we tell him?" MJ asked.
"Nothing," said Ben. "Breaks my heart, but there are rules, and we're bending enough of them now to do this." MJ nodded and hoped that Peter would forgive them both.
"Tonight," said the man in black as he looked at his fellow agent.
"The reporter from the Bugle was getting nosy," he replied. "I've taken measures though." The other nodded and they turned their attention back to the matter at hand. Contacting the dead was the only way they could do this, and if they could control death the way they had once done life, they could rebuild properly.
Then the first agent felt something wrap around him, pinning him to the floor as if he were trapped in some kind of netting, and he couldn't get up.
"What the hell?" asked the other agent, as he drew his gun, but the gun was torn from his hand and suddenly he felt as if he'd been hit by a car as he hurtled across the ground, his face pushing up the soil as he travelled and he stopped moving.
The other agent struggled, wondering what forces they had unleashed this night and managed to press a button to call for help. It was not going to arrive in time but a clean up crew could be needed, and the Irishman would not be happy...
Peter smiled as he looked at the agent struggling against the invisible webbing he had somehow fired from his wrist. Was that how he truly imagined himself, he wondered, not being reliant on web-shooters and that his webbing was a natural product of himself.
"Next time I'm writing the story of Spider-Man," he said to himself as he moved towards a small building and his spider-sense started to scream at him and he knew he was in the right place and he walked in.
"I was in the neighbourhood," he said as five people turned to see him, "and I was wondering what you did about pest control?" As one they threw bolts of energy at him and he dodged, ducked and weaved to avoid being struck. "DIY freaks?" Then he saw the machine they were using and he realised that they were using the energy they'd attacked him with to power it. Obviously their brush with Death had done more than Uncle Ben and MJ realised, or maybe they did know.
Either way, they'd called on him to deal with it and that was what he was going to do, and in a flurry of motion and webbing he had ensnared two of the three, and decked a third.
"You're not used to fighting back," he said, thinking this was easier than he had thought.
"You are not an agent of Death," one of the remaining ones said, as the second tried to focus their energy on the machine. "Our power cannot affect you as it should."
"Good to know," Peter replied as he fired his webbing but this time it was met with the energy discharge and the two countered each other.
"You are not drained by us," they said. "We cannot add your energy to the machine, as we did the others."
"About that," said Spider-Man, wondering what others they meant and now he knew why he'd been needed, as he vaulted over the one he was fighting and landed on the machine, kicking at the one powering it and knocking him in to his colleague. "I know a bit about these kind of things, let's have a look." He leapt down from the machine, then lifted it up. "That's the problem - not enough altitude!"
Normally he wouldn't be able to do anything like this, but he knew that he wasn't working within what his limits were. He was Spider-Man, and it was his power, his responsibility and he would do what was needed and he threw the machine up as high as he could. It didn't come back to Earth.
"Well paint me green and call me Bruce," he said as he looked at the five beings. "Now if I were you, I'd run and keep running, because there's going to be a doctor looking for you in a little while, and he's a strange one..." They looked at each other and fled.
"They're not usually that smart," he said.
"Yes well, they know what's coming," said Ben, as he stood there. "They had their chance to escape, but it's not happened."
"What's coming?" asked Peter.
"A war," said Ben. "Be careful, son, and I'll see you in about fifty years or so." He nodded to MJ who came in.
"So," said Peter.
"So," she said. "I guess this is it."
"Not quite. We've... fifty years or so," said Peter, but the sadness in his eyes told a different story.
"It's a long time to be alone, Tiger," she said, her hand slipping in to his. "Don't be afraid to live a little. I never wanted you to be unhappy."
"You've never made me unhappy," he said. "I love you, Mary Jane." He kissed her and they closed their eyes and when he opened them, he was back in his motel room. "Was it real?"
Then the telephone rang...