Spider-Man 2

by Peter David

  Peter’s heart was sinking with every new tidbit of information. He’d delivered to HB&S. They were cranky and demanding customers. The Woolworth Building was many blocks downtown. Seventeen? How could this possibly get worse?

  “In eight minutes,” continued Aziz, answering Peter’s unspoken question, “I am defaulting on Joe’s twenty-nine-minute guarantee. Then not only will I be receiving no money for these pizzas, I will lose the customer forever to Pizza Yurt.”

  “Why didn’t you send Salim?” Peter asked, trying to find a way around the onerous task.

  Aziz was already in motion, grabbing pizzas being brought out to him by sweating chefs from the restaurant. “Salim was deported yesterday,” said Aziz briskly, shoving the pizzas into Peter’s arms. “I have no hope but you. You must make it in time.”

  He kept stacking pizzas to the point where Peter couldn’t see over the top of them. All the while he kept talking. “You are a nice young man, Peter, but you are not dependable. This is the last chance I can give you. You must cross forty-two blocks in seven and one half minutes. Or your ass is to be fired.”

  Not entirely sure why he was even bothering, Peter shot a glance at the clock on the wall of Joe’s Pizza. It read 1:52. The banner with the twenty-nine-minute guarantee on it flapped in the wind.

  Peter couldn’t help but feel that since it was Joe’s bright idea to issue that guarantee, why shouldn’t he be the one to undertake the impossible task that had just been set out? He’d met Joe once. Huge, beefy guy, could barely move his arms anymore because of all the flab hanging from them. Picturing that guy trying to dash forty-two blocks in less than eight minutes was an extremely entertaining mental image.

  It did not, however, bring Peter all that much amusement. Not when he was weaving his way through bumper-to-bumper Midtown traffic. He wasn’t in danger of falling off his cycle: Someone whose balance was so precise that he could walk across a web-strand stretched fifty stories high wasn’t about to take a header off a motorbike. But buildings didn’t try to hit you. They were comfortingly steady. In this case, Peter had to remain hyperaware of taxis, crazy New York drivers, and even crazier out-of-state drivers, all of whom seemed determined to cut him off whenever possible. Plus he had to watch the angle of his turns; although the pizzas were strapped to a rack behind him, they could still slide within the boxes. He didn’t want to deliver seventeen pizzas, all of them with the cheese piled to one side.

  All the while he knew that he was hemorrhaging time.

  He darted between two cars, zipped around a hesitant truck, and suddenly he was out in the open, ahead of the traffic jam. His heart soared.

  Naturally, that was when his bike stalled out.

  He couldn’t believe it. And yet—depressingly—he somehow could believe it, all too readily.

  He kicked wildly at the starter, hoping against hope that he’d catch one of those most ephemeral and hard-to-snag things of all: a break. Didn’t happen. The bike didn’t even cough or sputter. It just sat there under him, affording him as much transportation as a paperweight.

  Peter’s head snapped around and he looked up at a large digital clock outside of a bank. It read 1:57. He didn’t know if the clock was in sync with the one at Joe’s, but he couldn’t take the chance.

  With a quick yank, he snapped the cord holding the pizzas to the back of the motorbike. Then he ran down a nearby alleyway, moving as fast as he could considering the circumstances. Once inside the alleyway, he yanked off his outer clothing. Then, having webbed the pizza boxes together, he fired a web-strand to an overhanging ledge. It snagged on the underside. An instant later, he was drawing himself up the web-line as fast as he could go.

  From behind him, he heard shouts. “It’s Spider-Man!” called out one person, and another called out, “He stole the delivery boy’s pizzas!”

  He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. At least no one had I.D.’d him. They’d apparently been too dense for that, missing the obvious conclusion in favor of a determination that made him—Spider-Man—look bad. The problem was that these days people always seemed more than willing to believe the worst of him, mostly thanks to J. Jonah Jameson and his incessant attacks in the Daily Bugle.

  No time to dwell on it, though. Instead, he was too busy enjoying the convenience and freedom that his Spider-Man persona provided him. All the people crammed onto the sidewalks, all the cars lined up waiting for interminable red lights and scores of jaywalkers… When he was Spider-Man, it was almost as if they were a different species. Or maybe he was.

  Well, that would explain the incessant suspicion, now, wouldn’t it.

  He pulled his mind away from such depressing notions to concentrate on the business at hand. As opposed to his first tentative and frankly catastrophic efforts, web-swinging had become so second nature to him now that he didn’t need to pay attention to what he was doing. That was under ordinary circumstances, though, and these were hardly ordinary. Here he had one hand occupied, the other attending to the pizzas. So he had to swing in an arc, release the web-line, and then free fall until he could fire another web-line and anchor it once more. Swinging in such a manner couldn’t help but slow him down, at a time when he needed speed more than ever. But he had no choice.

  Something he noticed out of the corner of his eye snagged his full attention. A couple of young boys had been practicing dribbling a basketball on the sidewalk while preparing to cross the street to a basketball court on the other side. One boy had tried to snag the ball from the other and it had rebounded into the street. With the feckless belief in their own immortality that characterized the typical eight-year-old, they dashed after the ball, heedless of the Mack Truck that was bearing down upon them.

  High above, Peter didn’t hesitate. He tossed the pizzas in the direction of a nearby rooftop, not even wanting to think about what the condition of the pies was going to be when he retrieved them. But he had no choice. Having divested himself of his cargo, he aimed a web-lasso at the kids even as he angled down toward them. The web-line fell around them, snagging them, and the startled kids were yanked to the opposite side of the street as the truck shot past them, horn blasting.

  The kids lay on the sidewalk, bewildered, and then they looked up to see Spider-Man crouched atop a lamppost. He waggled a scolding finger and said, “No playing in the street.”

  Numb, the best they could manage was a “Yes, Mr. Spider-Man.” But Peter barely heard it, because he was already off, swinging up toward the roof, where he prayed the pizzas were intact.

  As it so happened, they almost weren’t.

  Miraculously, the boxes had survived the drop. Peter chalked that up to the durability of Joe’s boxes, so heavily corrugated that a panzer division could roll over them and do only minimal damage. A moocher had made the scene, however. It was a heavyset man, apparently hanging up some laundry, who had dropped what he was doing and made a beeline for the heaven-sent pies. He’d pried open the top box and was holding a slice of plain cheese pizza in his thick hands, about to shove it into his mouth.

  Then his eyes widened at the sight of a lithe blue-and-red form descending from on high and heading right for him. He managed a strangled gasp and then Spider-Man snagged the pizza boxes with a web-line and hurtled skyward. The man watched him go, his mouth still wide, thanks to the fact that his jaw had gone slack. Finally, he looked at the slice still in his hand—except a web-line zipped in, snagged the sole remaining slice by the crust, and whipped it from his hand.

  Pausing only long enough to toss the slice back into the box and web the container shut, Peter covered the remaining distance to the Woolworth Building at such breathtaking speed that he thought he was going to outfly his own costume. His destination loomed in front of him, and he snagged the pinnacle of the building with a web-line. He arced around it, the world blurring past him, and then landed on the roof.

  He didn’t know what time it was. He didn’t want to know. He eschewed the idea of changing back to his clothes right th
ere; it was too narrow, and it would be just his luck if some idiot tourist with a telescopic lens wrecked his secret for him.

  Instead, he went directly to the maintenance panel on the roof that was used to gain access to the elevator shaft. From that point it was a quick slide down the cables and through the trapdoor in the top of the waiting elevator car. Pushing the button for the twenty-fifth floor, he clung to the top of the car, keeping the pizzas close to him. The instant the doors opened, he moved like a literal blue streak, scuttling across the ceiling while the bewildered receptionist stared into an empty elevator and scratched her head.

  Moments later, Peter Parker—back in his regular clothing—emerged from a janitor’s closet. He held the pizzas aloft and called out, “Pizza time!”

  The receptionist stared up at him like a dead fish as he brushed away strands of web. Then she said nothing, but simply glanced in the direction of the clock over her head. It read 2:03.

  He forced his smile wider. It was in inverse proportion to the degree of happiness he felt. “Hey, c’mon,” he said wheedlingly. “What’s five extra minutes between friends, huh?”

  As it turned out, the receptionist was not his friend.

  “Joe’s twenty-nine-minute guarantee is a promise!” an apoplectic Aziz was shouting in Peter’s face. “I know a promise means nothing to you, Parker, but to me it is serious!”

  Aziz wasn’t even trying to keep his voice down, and passersby were glancing in Peter’s direction as the manager stood on the sidewalk outside the pizza parlor and chewed him out.

  His words stung Peter. If there was one thing he believed in strongly, it was promises. A promise had shaped the course of his life: The promise he had made at the grave site of his uncle, Ben Parker, never to allow through inaction an innocent to come to harm. The sacrifices he’d had to make because of that promise, the risks he had taken, the danger he faced on a daily basis—in comparison, pizza delivery was an inconsequential pastime.

  Unfortunately, it was an inconsequential pastime that paid the bills.

  Peter bit back the anger he felt and managed to keep his voice even as he said, “It’s serious to me, too, Mr. Aziz…”

  Aziz wasn’t even listening to him. “You’re fired!”

  “Give me another chance,” Peter said, knowing already what the answer was going to be before it was spoken.

  “No more chances!” Aziz thundered. “You’re fired! Fired!”

  At least this day can’t get any worse, Peter thought bleakly, and promptly he mentally kicked himself.

  “You’re fired!” J. Jonah Jameson informed Peter Parker at his customary decibel level.

  Unlike the passersby at the pizza place, not a single Bugle staffer bothered to glance in the direction of Jameson’s office. Not only were they busy at their own jobs, rushing to meet their deadlines before the late edition went out, but they’d simply learned to tune out Jameson’s tantrums. It was much the same as people living under a busy elevated train track who learned not to notice the train thundering overhead every five to seven minutes.

  That didn’t stop Peter from feeling as if he were under a microscope. His head slouched, his shoulders practically collapsed in on themselves. He looked so withdrawn that Jameson must’ve thought for a moment that he’d let his attention wander. “Hello! Parker!” he bellowed, and when he was sure once again that he had Peter’s undivided attention, repeated, “You’re fired!”

  “Why?” demanded a frustrated Peter. The truth was, he suspected he knew what Jameson was going to say. But he was stalling for time, hoping to come up with a handful of pithy rebuttals.

  Unfortunately for him, Jameson opted for the truism that a picture was worth a thousand words. And he chose to use Peter’s photos to pile on the words.

  Peter had been “lucky” enough to be in the right place at the right time and snap pictures of Spider-Man in action. But the situation had palled for him, and he had tried his hand at other photo subjects.

  Jameson didn’t appear interested. He was motoring through the stack of photos on his desk, ashes falling on them from the cigar he had clenched between his teeth. “Dogs catching frisbees… pigeons in the park… couple’a old geezers playing chess…”

  Betty Brant, Jameson’s secretary, stuck her head in. Reflexively her nose wrinkled at the cigar smell. The stench wafting through the air rendered Jameson’s office very uncomfortable to anyone who still happened to possess olfactory senses, or even lungs. “Boss,” she said.

  “What?” snapped Jameson, peering through the haze of smoke, obviously uncertain as to where the voice had originated. His eyes narrowed as he spotted her. “Not now!”

  Jameson’s preoccupation with shredding Peter’s hopes of a sale was once again stymied, however, as city editor Joe “Robbie” Robertson strode into Jameson’s office, with advertising manager Ted Hoffman practically nipping at his heels. Hoffman started to open his mouth, but Robbie cut him off with a brusque, “I said I’d take care of it,” and turned to Jameson in an endeavor to keep Hoffman silent. “We’ve got six minutes to deadline, Jonah. We need page one!”

  Hoffman took a fast step around Robbie and said in a reedy voice, “The university president’s furious.”

  Robbie fired him an annoyed look. Jameson just looked bored. “Why?”

  “Your editorial says he’s not even fit to teach kindergarten,” Hoffman explained, glancing nervously in Robbie’s direction.

  “Print a retraction!” barked Jonah Jameson, and Hoffman looked clearly relieved, until Jameson continued, “He is fit to teach kindergarten!”

  Hoffman moaned softly and walked out of the office. No doubt he was envisioning the university’s regular full-page advertising going the way of the dodo. Jameson, meantime, appeared to have forgotten Hoffman. Instead, he turned his energies and diatribes back upon the hapless Peter. “Parker, I don’t pay you to be a sensitive artist!”

  Betty looked helplessly at Peter, obviously wanting to get him off the hook somehow. “Boss—” she said more forcefully.

  She would have required the force of a wrecking ball to get Jameson off track. “Still not now,” he said. Betty shrugged helplessly and walked out. Peter desperately wished she’d stayed. He could use whatever support he could get, even if it was the mute, moral kind. Jameson, meantime, hadn’t paused. “I pay you because for some reason that psycho Spider-Man will pose for you!”

  “Spider-Man won’t let me take any more pictures of him,” replied Peter. “You’ve turned the whole city against him!”

  Jameson leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head. His cigar migrated from one side of his mouth to the other, apparently on its own. “A fact I’m very proud of! Now get your pretty little ‘portfolio’ out of my sight,” he swept the pictures aside with one hand, “before I go into a diabetic coma!”

  The intercom buzzed. Reflexively Jameson hit the button and Betty’s voice filtered through. “Boss, your wife’s on line one. She says she can’t find her checkbook.”

  “Thanks for the good news,” replied Jameson, and shut off the intercom.

  Peter used the brief pause in Jameson’s diatribe to jump in and try to appeal to Jameson’s very likely nonexistent compassion. “Mr. Jameson, please! Aren’t there any of these shots you can use? I really need the money.”

  Jameson responded pretty much the way Peter had expected: “Awwww…”

  Obviously dissatisfied with the outcome of her intercom end-run, Betty strode back into the office. Before she could get a word out, Jameson swiveled in his chair and said, “Miss Brant! Get me a violin.”

  Robertson, who hadn’t budged the entire time, simply stood there with his arms folded, maintaining patience honed through long years of practice. “Five minutes to deadline, Jonah.”

  Jameson turned to Robbie, and then noticed that Peter hadn’t left. “What? What? Why are you still here? Oh, devil take it! Anything so I don’t have to look at that clubbed baby seal expression.” He grabbed one of the picture
s at random and flung it at Robertson, who caught it. “Stick this in an empty space in the paper! Toward the back! On the obits!”

  “Two old men playing chess in the obituaries?” asked Robertson.

  “With any luck, one or both of them are dead by now,” Jameson said, scribbling out a voucher. “Besides, it’s symbolic, like in that Ingrid Bergman film.”

  “Ingmar,” said Peter.

  Jonah was holding up the voucher he’d just filled out and he glared at Peter. “You want this?”

  “Ingrid Bergman is my favorite director,” Peter said immediately, and snatched the voucher from Jameson’s outstretched hand. He was out of the office before Jonah could rethink his actions.

  Quickly, he went to Betty’s desk and handed her the voucher. “Hi,” he said, waiting for her to open the cash drawer.

  Betty barely had to glance at it. “Sorry, Pete. This doesn’t even cover the advance you got two weeks ago.”

  His heart sank. He’d forgotten about it. “Oh, right,” he sighed. Then he glanced at the clock on her desk and his stomach sank somewhere into his shoes. Jameson had kept him waiting so long that he’d totally lost track of time, and now he was running terribly late. “Thanks anyway. Gotta go.”

  And he was out the door, down in the street, and literally motoring toward the university campus. Briefly he’d considered web-swinging over there, but lately it seemed every time he crawled into the costume, disaster struck. Better to just stick to normal means of getting around for the time being.

  Upon arriving at the campus, he parked his motorbike and sprinted across the grounds. From the way people were gaping at him, he realized that he was moving far faster than any normal person should be going. But he didn’t have time to slow down. If anything, he sped up.

  He hurtled around the corner of the science building, backpack flapping against his spine, and at the last split second his spider-sense warned him that there was an obstruction in his path. His instinct was to somersault over it, but he fought it, and instead managed to break to a halt at the last instant. It wasn’t enough to avoid impact, however, because the “obstruction” had kept moving. Consequently, they collided, sending papers and books flying everywhere. Peter pulled himself together quickly, looked up, and saw that he had slammed into the very last person with whom he’d want to have such a violent encounter.