Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Vol. 2

Chapter 9

Coming around to his girlfriend's door, Peter gave a few gentle but firm knocks.

"Just a minute!" she called out in response. Peter rocked back and forth on his feet a few times as he waited patiently before the door finally opened, his girlfriend emerging soon after. She turned and locked the door behind her before greeting him with a kiss.

"You look lovely today!" he complimented her. She was wearing a casual but still stylish look of nice jeans and a new green shirt that complimented her eyes exceptionally well.

"Thank you," she greeted as they began walking down the hallway towards the elevator. "You clean up nicely yourself, Tiger. Been a good day at the lab so far?"

"Oh, fine, I guess," Peter said as he pressed the button and stepped back, waiting for the elevator doors to open.

"That sounds... exciting," M.J. said, her tone half teasing, half curiously concerned.

"It's just that I've been going over my current project so much in preparation for the presentation and it's already starting to feel a little monotonous," he admitted to her. "At this point, I'm almost thinking of at least trying to brainstorm a basic idea for my next project just so I don't drive myself crazy."

"I suppose that's fair," Mary Jane assured him. "Nothing wrong with mixing things up every once in a while. Variety is the spice of life after all!"

"Too true," Peter concurred. "Then again, I have precisely zero ideas at the moment, but I'm sure something will..."

The sound of Peter's text alert cut him off as he stopped, taking it out and glancing at it, letting out a light sigh.

"What is it?" his girlfriend asked.

"It's Matt," he replied. "Fisk was supposed to get transferred to holding at the Raft this afternoon, but he says he got word just now that they're actually getting ready to move him in the next ten to fifteen minutes."

"That seems sudden?" M.J. pointed out.

"Yeah," Peter agreed. "It could just be that they put out a false timetable to throw off any of his men attempting to break him free, though with my luck, it's probably the big man himself who's behind this. Either way, I told Matt I'd join him as a glorified babysitter during the process just to make sure that everything runs alright."

"Go," M.J. said, though Peter knew her well enough to see just the faintest cracks of disappointment in her otherwise encouraging facade.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It wasn't originally supposed to interfere with anything important today."

"I knew what I was signing up for," M.J. said, leaning in and giving him a kiss on the cheek. "And don't worry, I'll still get you a little something to eat for when you're done."

---

Approaching the scene, Peter spotted his horned ally standing on the corner of a nearby rooftop. Releasing his web, he landed gracefully a few feet from him.

"Sorry I'm late," he said.

"It's not a big deal; they haven't even brought him out yet," Matt explained.

"Guess a little extra time to take the necessary precautions makes sense, given who we're dealing with," Peter reasoned. "No extra intel on why they switched up the transfer time?"

"Nothing," Matt replied.

"Well, no news is good news... right?" Peter questioned.

"It's impossible to say," Matt clarified before gesturing to the scene below. "They're bringing him out now."