by Diane Duane
"We've been looking for you for most of the evening," said the SHIELD team leader—a tall, dark, crewcut man who looked at the bag with polite interest—to Spider-Man. "Sorry we couldn't find you sooner."
"Who sent you?" Spider-Man said curiously.
"Navy Department," said the team leader. "They said they had lost an item and that you were looking for it on their behalf. This it?"
"More or less," Spider-Man said, and he took the team leader off to one side, explaining as much as he could about the creature without letting on that some of the information had come to him from the captain of the Minneapolis—no sense getting Captain LoBuono in any trouble. He put special emphasis on keeping the little critters away from any source of radiation. The team leader nodded when Spider-Man was done. "Fine."
"Okay," Spider-Man said. He watched the SHIELD team seal the bag into a small containment vessel in their van and shut the van doors. "Give my best to Nick."
The team leader nodded, then went back to the van. It headed away more silently than the police van had. After a minute or two Spider-Man stood alone on the corner, being passed by incurious traffic, looking up at the sky. It was brightening to full blue now. Eastward, on the other side of this wall of skyscrapers, the sun was peering past Roosevelt Island and up over Brooklyn. Morning, when there had been a strong possibility of there not being a morning, all very pleasant. Even the air smelled less smoggy than usual.
Spider-Man smiled to himself, raised an arm, and shot a line of webbing into the air. It fastened to the top corner of a handy building. He hauled himself up and swung around the corner, heading inward and uptown. He had to make one more stop—then he could go back home and hug MJ.
It was actually more than one stop, and something like three-quarters of an hour later, when he came in through the bedroom window and found MJ lounging in front of the .TV, watching news coverage of the police van unloading Hobgoblin, to the delight of the assembled reporters, and Hobby's evident frustration (his webbing-gag was still in place). MJ jumped up and ran to him.
He hugged her hard, pulled off his mask, kissed her, kissed her some more, and then held her away a little. "Did you stay up all night?" he asked.
MJ looked at him as if he was out of his mind. "Could you have slept under these circumstances?"
Peter had to admit she had a point. "Any calls for me?"
"One," she said, with an odd look on her face, and went over to the VCR.
Peter looked at her with amazement, pulling off the top of his costume. "Since when do I get calls on the television?"
"Since this," MJ said, and hit the play button.
It seemed that MJ had been taping the news overnight, including the coverage of Hobgoblin's arrest. The first news that anyone had had of this appeared to have come with a phone call to 911.
"This is Venom," said a voice which Peter recognized all too well, while the news show displayed a file picture of him, with a banner over it saying "POLICE RECORDING—5:30 AM." "We have just been involved with the capture of the criminal called Hobgoblin, who will shortly be delivered to the authorities, and the dismantling of the nuclear device with which he threatened the people of New York City. We have also participated in the destruction of the creature which has for a short time caused the people of this city to believe that we, Venom, were murdering its innocents." There was a pause, and then the voice became, to Peter's informed ear, tinged with just a bit of grim amusement. "Spider-Man, an equal participant in these matters, will be able to confirm to the authorities that it was this creature, and not ourself, Venom, who was responsible for the murders in question. In return for this service, and other favors recently rendered, we find it appropriate for the moment to leave New York to pursue other matters which require our immediate attention—of which, for the moment, Spider-Man is not one."
Peter sat there, looking slightly stunned. Then he yelled at the television, " Well, don't say 'thank you' or anything!"
MJ looked at him, and very, very softly, began to laugh. After a few seconds, Peter joined her.
"So," he said, "how did that audition go, anyhow?"
"Actually, they offered me the role—"
"That's great!"
"—but I turned it down."
Peter blinked. "What? Why?"
"Because, thanks to Hobgoblin, they were urgent to fly out to LA—immediately. I couldn't just leave when I wasn't even sure if you were okay or not."
Peter stared at her. She had been going on for ages about how she wanted nothing more than to work. Obviously, there was at least one thing she wanted more. He pulled her into a hug. "What did I do to deserve you?"
"You were just yourself," she whispered. She kissed him on the cheek, then broke the embrace. "Now tell me what's in the bag."
"Bag? Oh." He opened it, handed her the bottle. "Is the city having a run on Woolite, or something? I had to try three places."
She grinned. "You remembered! And you need it, tiger, you and that costume both. Get it off."
Peter unpacked the camera and the last few spider-tracers, and the change from the Woolite, all of which he left on the table. "Which of us you going to scrub first?" he said, heading down the hall after MJ.
Her nightgown hit him in the face as he came up even with the bathroom door. "Come find out," MJ said, playfully splashing hot water at him as she climbed into the tub.
Peter smiled and went after her.
