After a fairly uneventful patrol around the city in which both Spider-Man and Black Cat found very little criminal activity that day, they had instead decided to take a rest up at Felicia's penthouse in which both carried on with their backstories to each other and later on they would eventually meet up with Mary Jane at the coffee shop.
Peter happily reminisced about his early days at Spider-Man with all the villains he'd taken down and in Felicia, he found a keen audience, feeling quite flattered to hear the real story of Spider-Man. He was also asked Felicia how she was able to acquire this penthouse, thinking that a sense of dubious deals led her in getting the place, though amazingly Felicia revealed that it was handed down by her farther a few years ago and had lived there ever since. To Peter, he was sure that it was going to be one of these cases when the cheque would bounce and all would be exposed, now it seems that despite Felicia's past of being a cat burglar, it seems that she wasn't all quite the bad girl as he thought in the end.
Nonetheless when Felicia asked Peter if he wanted to move in her penthouse, the masked vigilantly didn't need asking twice and seemed determined to get out of that ominous apartment he stayed in. Clearly Peter was beginning to see some of the positives in becoming Spider-Man more often.
After some more pleasurable hours in the company of his girlfriend, Peter left Felicia's penthouse and headed back to his own crumby apartment to change into his civilian gear for him and Felicia to meet up with MJ. For Peter, it would mark a nice little moment for the crime fighting couple as they'd be together in civilian gear for the first time ("Just as Felicia said, a first for everything today," Peter would remind himself).
He was just closing the door while leaving when he briefly paused looking around the corridor seeing how shabby it truly was and happily in the know that he'd be leaving this place, something he'd never imagined doing just a few months ago, Felicia was truly a life saver for Peter.
He didn't realise how long he had been standing around for until he heard that certain voice..."RENT! Where is my money?!"
Peter groaned and looked over to see Mr. Ditkovich standing in his doorway on the other side of the corridor staring down the young brunette. "Hello—"
"Your rent is due NOW!" Mr. Ditkovich ordered him, his hand stretched out waiting for to be paid in cash, clearly he wasn't going to let Peter get away this time. Normally Peter would have to come up with an excuse to his landlord to explain to him why he didn't have the money, but now, he had a chance to get one over Mr. Ditkovich for once and maybe the last laugh.
At first Peter sighed, placed his hands in his pockets and looked up at the ceiling remaining quiet. Then he looked back at the landlord with a cheeky grin and from his pocket, he dug up a bundle of dollars, more than he would ever had made from his time at the Bugle or any other form of work, and handed them over to Mr. Ditkovich. With his smug grin, Peter walked off leaving his landlord shocked and speechless at the large amount of money in his hands; it was enough rent to last for three months.
Little did he know that the only reason why Peter had given out this amount of money was it would be a farewell 'gift' before he would move in with Felicia.
Once he was outside on the street, Peter burst out laughing after finding it hard to hold it in while trying not to laugh in the vicinity of his landlord. The money he had in question had been given to him by Felicia, who had also suggested the idea of handing over the crazy amount of money to Mr Ditkovich. Now normally with Peter knowing Felicia's background, he would questioned her if that cash had been her own to begin with or it had to be just been part of one robbery years ago, but in truth, when it came to his growing resent of his overbearing landlord, Peter didn't really care. Even a masked vigilantly can sometimes make a little exception now and again.
Nonetheless once he gained composure, went off to find Felicia at the location they'd agreed to meet at. The meet up spot was on the street corner near his apartment and Peter once again felt a mixture of excitement and apprehension of meeting his girlfriend out of her Black cat outfit for the first time, then again she'd probably be feeling the same thing of meeting him.
He eventually arrived at the meet up spot and leaned against a lamppost while glancing around at the passing crowds and trying and catch a glimpse of a certain platinum blonde woman. He stood there for a while and looked at his watch just making sure they wouldn't be late to meet up with Mary Jane. It was then he noticed a woman, looking rather lost, rounding the corner who was wearing tight jeans that hugged her curves, a beige turtleneck jumper and a leather jacket, but what attracted Peter to this woman was her short platinum blonde hair...
"Felicia!" Peter called out to the woman, who looked over to whoever who called her name. When she saw who it was, she grinned happily and raced up to him, embracing him in a tight hug.
"Peter!" She gleefully replied. "Spotting me out from the crowd there, was it that Spider-sense that helped you out that time?"
"Not quite," Peter laughed. "You're the only girl I've seen round New York with short platinum blonde hair."
The former cat burglar rolled her eyes with sarcasm. "Oh great, now I've got to grow my hair longer to not stand out then."
The couple laughed and Felicia wrapped her arm round Peter's arm as they began to walk off to the coffee shop to meet up with Mary Jane. Just as they headed off, Felicia remembered something.
"Say Pete, did you remember giving that landlord of yours that money?" She asked.
Peter nodded and chuckled remembering it. "Yeah, not only was his face a picture, but for once that's the first time I've seen him shut up about something. Come to think of it, I wish I had my camera on me to take that photo."
"I can see it now," Felicia replied with a sly grin. "Alas, no need to worry about him any more, you'll be moving in my place soon...Also, I seriously can't get over that apartment of yours and how it's not been condemned by the authorities."
Peter shook his head; he was never going to hear the end of it from his girlfriend. They chatted on for a fair bit as they walked onwards to coffee shop. His mind was speculating over what Mary Jane had to say to them when they got there. However, he had no idea of the madness that was to follow.
XXX
It didn't take long for them to find the coffee shop and Mary Jane was already sitting at a table near the window, not surprisingly making it easy to spot her. "Hey MJ," Peter greeted her.
"Surprised?" She asked remembering her voicemail call to Peter and how she could imagine Peter would've have been stunned to hear from her.
"Very," Peter replied then he looked back at Felicia then back to Mary Jane. "Um, MJ, I'd like to introduce to you my girlfriend, Felicia Hardy. Felicia, this is Mary Jane Watson."
The two girls acknowledged each other and shook hands. As they sat down, Felicia knew of Mary Jane thanks to the many billboards around the city and of the play she was staring in, but it was a strange feeling meeting her in the flesh for the first time, almost like she had never seen or heard of her before. In turn, Mary Jane stared at Felicia. Mary Jane noted how attractive Felicia looked; she couldn't blame Peter being drawn to her in the first place.
"Everything ok?" Peter asked noting the silence between them.
"You might say so," Mary Jane replied. "This has nothing to do with the wedding, it's just...the last meeting we had outside my apartment, you left me with a few questions."
"What did he say?" Felicia inquired, her eyes narrowing.
"I'm not sure how to begin," Mary Jane admitted. "Peter mentioned you and said something about being a great fighter and stopping crime."
Felicia muttered an insult to Peter under her breath before trying to find a way out of this hole that Peter had dug them into. "Well...it's quite a unpredictable life I have. But yes, I do sometimes stop crime."
Mary Jane's eyes widened. "Oh! You mean that you're a cop?"
Felicia held back the urge to laugh and Peter had to look away and try and keep a straight face at the irony of the comment. "If you only knew," Peter thought to himself.
"No, I'm not with the police," Felicia remarked. "I'm just out on my own doing my thing with Pete." She then noticed the rather large and expensive looking engagement ring Mary Jane had. "Good god that Jameson guy Peter tells me about must be loaded!" She thought in amazement.
"What are you saying?" Mary Jane inquired.
The platinum blonde woman sighed. "You see my life is...complicated."
"Sound like Peter," Mary Jane noted, in which Peter rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
"But as you're interested, I might spill the beans," Felicia suddenly admitted, in which Peter looked at her in shock, surely she wouldn't do it, right? "To answer your question. Yes, me and Pete both do attempt to stop crime whenever we can, even though you don't get much love from the press thinking that you're a bad guy and—what?"
Under the table, Peter tapped the side of Felicia's leg to indicate to her to shut her up. His expression was one of total horror.
Mary Jane on the other hand looked stupefied by Felicia's comments, only giving her more questions than answers. "What...what exactly do you two do?"
At first she thought Peter had almost blown their cover, now Felicia had gotten herself into trouble ("Me and my big mouth!" She thought angrily to herself.) "I...we...oh boy, um..."
Then, for either better or for worse, Peter's spider-sense went off and without thinking, he gabbed both woman and dived forward as a black car came crashing through the window causing panic in the coffee shop. Peter's face narrowly avoided the car's wheel until the car crashed on its side and did a roll over before crashing into the wall at the back of the café.
As he and Mary Jane stood up, Peter thought it was a driver trying to commit suicide by ramming into the place, but he looked back at the car and noticed there was no one in it, what was going on? Then the ground started to shake with what seemed like a huge thud of steps, outside people were running round like crazy, no doubt that the crashed car must've been linked with whatever was going on outside.
"What's happening?" Felicia asked in bewilderment, she had landed away from Peter and MJ near a pile of rubble. Then her answer was seemingly answered when the three of them saw who was responsible. Arriving into the wrecked coffee shop, with the help of his four metal tentacles, Doc Ock entered and behind his dark glasses, his eyes were fixed squarely on Peter.
"Peter Parker," Otto greeted coldly, then noticed Mary Jane beside him. "...And the girlfriend."
Then one of the metal arms grabbed Peter and dragged him close to him until they were face to face. "What'd you want?" Peter stuttered.
"I want you to find your friend Spider-Man," Doc Ock instructed Peter. "Tell him to meet me at the Westside Tower within the next hour."
"Why...why do you want him for?" Peter answered with growing concern in his voice.
Otto said nothing until one of the metal arms pulled off his dark glasses. "I have a little something for him...find him." Then two of the metal limbs surrounded a terrified Mary Jane. "Or I'll peel the flesh off her bones." One of the metal arms then clinked it's claws together seemly excited to do so.
Peter glared at Otto at his horrible comment to Mary Jane. "If you lay...one finger on her—"
"You'll do what?" Otto interrupted him, in which Peter said nothing, then without warning, Doc Ock threw Peter across the room, hitting the wall and landing within a pile of rubble, which more of it fell on top of him in the process.
Felicia was so shocked at what was going on that she was frozen in utter terror and couldn't do anything to help. Otto then placed his glasses back on and gave an evil grin towards Mary Jane, in which she screamed as one of the arms wrapped round her waist and began carrying her off. Doc Ock ignored the screams of the redhead woman in his clutches and the people in the streets screaming and running around trying to get out of his way.
Just as the mad scientist left, Felicia seemly managed to get out of her shocked state and raced over to the pile that Peter was buried under.
"Peter! Can you hear me? Are you alright?!" Felicia cried as she frantically pulled off some of the larger blocks of rubble off him.
Peter's eyes flickered opened as Felicia helped him up, his face was covered in dirt and some cuts. "W-what happened?" The force from the impact had knocked him out.
"That Doc Ock guy took Mary Jane!" Felicia explained and Peter's eyes widened as he then noticed in distance outside Doc Ock climbing up the building with a screaming Mary Jane in his clutches.
Peter looked back at Felicia, now with a determined look. "Come on, Felicia. We've got to get MJ back and stop him once and for all." With that said, the two ran off to find a place to get changed into their costumes. The day was only going to get more dangerous.