Peter was getting his food ready back at his apartment, when his phone started to ring. "Hello?" He asked.
"Hello, Mr. Parker?" The voice said on the other end.
"Yes, this is he." Peter replied.
"This is Brianna from the Daily Bugile. We're calling about your status for our photographer position." Brianna's voice came.
Peter nearly dropped his bowl of cereal at the news. "Uh......alright, sure. What's the status?" He asked.
"Can you come over to the Bugile by 10 today for the status?" Brianna said.
"Sure! Absolutely!" Peter said.
"Great! See you soon then." Brianna said before hanging up.
"Alright Pete, double time!" Peter said to himself, wasting no more time getting to his food.
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Hurrying into the Bugile, he boarded the elevator and straightened his clothes as best as he could. Stepping out, he once again was met with the smiling face of Brianna.
"Ah, hello Mr. Parker. Right this way." she said to him. Once again she led him straight to Jameson's office. This time around, Peter knew what to expect from him so he prepared for the worst.
"Hello Mr. Jameson." Peter said with a smile.
"Parker. Sit down." Jameson said, and Peter did just that. "You're probably expecting a bunch of who-ha and a long speech. But I'm gonna cut straight to the chase. You got the job kid."
"Wait....w-what?!" Peter asked, incredulously.
"You heard me kid you got it, you passed, congrats. Now get out of my office." Jameson said, going to his computer.
"Thanks Mr. Jameson! Thanks! You won't regret this!" Peter said as he exited.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." was the last thing Peter heard before the door shut.
"Congratulations Mr. Parker." Brianna said. "Here's a packet with all of the information for the job. Any questions you have after reading that can be answered here."
"Thank you Brianna." Peter said with a nod and a smile. He then took the packet and headed out of the building. But before he could exit, he nearly ran into that Brock guy again. "Hey, I saw you this time!" Peter joked around.
"Hey, yes you did." Brock said. "I don't think we've been properly introduced. I'm Eddie Brock." he held out his hand for Peter to shake, which he did.
"Peter Parker." Peter said with a smile.
"Nice to meet you Peter." Brock said with a grin. "Now I'd love to stay and chat but I have some important business I need to take care of." he added, motioning up. They must have called him for his status of a job too.
"Alright. See you around." Peter said with a smile, before heading outside of the Bugile.
He felt like he should celebrate. He got a job! And all by himself! After all the things that had gone wrong for him as of late he had finally gotten a shred of something positive in his life. Now he can pay his rent and maybe one day look to get a house in the city.
But his happiness was short lived as he passed by a nearby park. There sitting on the bench was MJ. And she was under the arm of another guy and laughing. The joy that had previously filled Peter had suddenly evaporated as he then watched them share a kiss with each other. Not being able to take another second of this, Peter just swiftly walked away.
This was in a way his own fault on why he was depressed now. Because he could have come and tried to get her to remember everything, like he said he would just before Strange cast the spell. But he didn't. And now MJ is with someone else.
Peter then took a deep breath and exhaled as he reminded himself of something. "Parker, it was the right thing to do. You had to do it in order to protect her." he said to himself.
It was true to an extent. The times that she was in danger, it was mostly because she was associated with him. The enemies would target her due to her being his girlfriend at the time, or she would get caught in the crossfires because of her feelings for him. Knowing that she is safe now from his dangerous lifestyle is satisfying for him.
Still doesn't change the fact that the sight he just witnessed sucked. Sometimes morality can be a double edged sword.
As he was too engrossed into his thoughts he bumped into someone on the streets. "Oh, I cannot see where I am going. Sorry about that Mr......" Peter started to say before he got a look at who it was that he just bumped into.
It was a man with a brown suit, a coffee in his hand and a disheveled expression on his face. Peter recognized him from the one time that he came to speak to his school a few years ago.
"Dr. Curt Connors?" Peter asked.
"Uh, hello." Connors said, with a rather uneasy tone of voice.
Peter then noticed a difference from when he last spoke to him. Before he only had one arm, as he was a former surgeon in the military, but it got blasted off one time in battle. But now it appears that he had his right arm back. But how?
"Is......everything okay sir?" Peter asked.
"It's......I'm fine. Just fine. Thanks f-for asking young man." Connors stammered. "I'm sorry but I have to get m-moving now." And with that he took of in a hurried pace in the direction that Peter just came from.
"What was that all about?" Peter asked with a confused expression. But he shrugged his shoulders and brushed it off and went about his way.
As Peter was walking back towards his apartment, six blocks down, Wanda was out in the streets, looking for any sign of Peter. She looked up and down the side walks and she looked up in the skies. But she could not find a slight trace of him anywhere. Especially with all of these people present.
'Maybe another approach is required for this.' Wanda thought to herself, albeit hesitantly. She could hover the skies as the Scarlet Witch and look from above for him. But she said she was gonna hold off on the magic until her corruption had ceased. Plus she did not want to draw too much attention to herself.
Knowing there was a chance that crimes may occur more often at night, Wanda then calculated a new plan. Just head back to the shelter and wait until almost nightfall to come out. And since it will be night out, it would be harder to see a person floating above the streets. Or at least that's what she hoped for.
But going through with her plan, she went back to the shelter in order to wait for the sun to set. And then she would resume her search for Peter.
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As the sun was setting on the New York horizon, Spider-Man swung out into the open space, on the lookout for any sorts of crime. He swung out past Times Square, where of course Jameson was spreading more negative news about him, and even went swung past the FEAST shelter.
But as he swung by the shelter, he couldn't help but feel like he was being watched. And this is a lot different than usual. He is always being watched whenever he swings through the city by everyday people so that part alone is nothing new for him. But this time there was something different about it. Like someone was following his every move. Instinct was screaming at him to turn his head around, so that's what he did.
But he saw absolutely nothing behind him. Although for a second, he could have sworn he saw a trace of red mist disappearing in the distance. But since it happened so fast, he just brushed it off like it was nothing and turned around.
But when he turned around, another thing caught his interest. A figure in the distance was jumping from building to building, and it seemed like they were swinging in a similar motion to him when they were getting to the building on the other side. Spider-Man got on top of a tall building and followed the figure's movements. His eye lenses narrowed when they saw the figure head into a nearby jewelry store on the roof.
"Hm. Smells like trouble." Spider-Man said, swinging off to the building. Coming to the roof, they say that the vent leading to the inside was opened, and he jumped in after them.
He couldn't get a good look at the figure since they were so far away. He didn't know how big they were, what powers they had, or what they were up to. But considering the fact that they went to this store and had to sneak their way through the vents, Spider-Man was not gonna take any chances.
The jump from the vents took him down to the main floor of the jewelry store. He then looked around to see where the figure had gone off to. "Alright, whoever you are come on out." Spider-Man called out. "Kinda odd to be visiting a jewelry store at this point of the day after closing hours, wouldn't you say?"
He then caught movement on his right side and turned in that direction. "Are we playing hide and seek?" Spider-Man asked.
"A comedian I see." said a feminine voice from the area where the figure last was.
"Oh you know it." Spider-Man said. "How about you step into the light miss?"
"As you wish." the voice said.
No sooner had that been said when his spider sense tingled. Then he narrowly avoided a black and white figure as it soared straight to him. Getting into fighting position, Spider-Man turned to see the attacker.
It was a woman with long white hair, a black suit with white gloves and boots. It seemed that the fingertips were rather sharp, as if she had claws. And there was a mask on the woman's face. And despite the current situation, Spider-Man couldn't help but think that she was extremely pretty.
"Nice to finally meet you Spider." the woman said, pouncing at him once more. Causing him to be pinned down to the ground.
"Who are you?" Spider-Man asked, once he realized her strength was abnormally high.
"Oh me?" the woman chuckled. "I'm Black Cat. And it looks like I have just crossed your path."
"Black Cat huh?" Spider-Man asked. "You're definitely eating your veggies." He then powered out of her pinning position and threw her to the other side of the store. She acrobatically flipped in the air to where she would land gracefully on her feet.
"Silly little spider! Cats always land on their feet." Cat said, charging at him again. But Spider-Man shot an impact web at her and caused her to fall to the ground, webbed up.
"Well they didn't that time." Spider-Man quipped. Black Cat then moved one of her hands and she split the webbing in half in a nanosecond.
"This kitty has claws." she said, showing one of her clawed hands.
"No scratching the bed post lady! And by bed post, I mean me." Spider-Man said, charging at her this time. Cat did a round house kick, which caused the hero to move to avoid the hit. He landed on the opposite side of her as she sent a punch in his direction. He grabbed her arm and threw her back towards the direction of the vent. But much to his misfortune, she fired what appeared to be some kind of grapple hook at the vent and used it to swing out of the room.
"Well that went well." Spider-Man scolded himself as he chased after her. The sprinted up to where the vents were and came outside of the store as quickly as possible. But there was no trace of her anywhere. "Damn, she's fast." he commented, shaking his head in disappointment for letting her get away. He then went to put the cap back onto the vent.
"Hello Spider-Man." another feminine voice said behind him suddenly. But unlike the last voice, this voice was very familiar.
Spider-Man turned around to see the amazingly beautiful Scarlet Witch herself in her iconic outfit landing onto the building with a smile on her face. Under the mask he grinned as well. "Greetings, Scarlet Witch." he said, causing her smile to widen. "So what's up?" he asked.
"I've been looking all over for you." Wanda said, the red mist diminishing.
"Looking for me?" Spider-Man asked. Then his mind flashed back to the mist he saw shortly beforehand. "So I was being followed earlier! It was you!" he said.
"Yeah.......he he." Wanda said, looking away for a second.
"So what did you want with me?" Spider-Man asked.
"Do you have a moment to talk?" Wanda asked. Spider-Man then got onto the small wall on top of one of the buildings and hung upside-down.
"Sure, I can hang around." Spider-Man said, causing the Scarlet Witch to laugh a little.
"Great. So, I wanted to talk to you about what you said the last time that we saw each other." Wanda said. "I'm ready to take you up on your offer."
"Wait......" Spider-Man said, jumping down and landing right-side up. "Are you saying...."
Wanda nodded her head with a smile. "I'd like us to be friends Peter." she said.