The Amazing Spider-Man 4

Chapter 1

"Peter?"

Peter glanced up from his computer screen to find Glory Grant standing at his desk, which basically meant only one thing.

"What'd I do?" Peter asked, holding his hands up.

"I don't know," Glory replied, "but Mr. Robertson wants to see you and Eddie in his office as soon as possible."

Oh great, Eddie too. This was likely to be good.

"Well," Peter said, rising from his seat, "if this goes south, I'm charging you with calling my aunt and my girlfriend to tell them I loved them and I wished I could see them one last time."

Glory donned an expression of faux seriousness.

"It won't be easy," she said, "but I'll find the strength to do it."

Peter offered the secretary a genuine smile. Glory seemed to have the unique ability to adapt to anyone's sense of humor and roll with it, a feature he had come to take advantage of more often of late, especially during more mundane workdays like today.

"Seriously though, any insight as to what it's about?" Peter asked as they walked, his tone more genuinely curious than before.

"No idea," Glory answered, "you know how Mr. Robertson is; he always likes to be the one to break the news."

"Yeah, I know," Peter replied. Really, he rarely got called into the office to be told bad news, but there was always a section in Peter's mind reserved for the words "but what if..."

He finally came to Robbie's office, with Eddie already there, of course. The man had a lot further to come than he did to the Editor-In-Chief's office, yet he always seemed to beat him anytime they both had to arrive there. It was almost like the man just looked forward to seeing his boss or was just so eager for some special assignment that he went running to him like a child who heard his parents say, "ice cream!" Granted, Eddie's enthusiasm was what had won him a Pulitzer Prize recently, so it was hard to argue with the results.

"Peter, please, come in," Robbie responded in his usual friendly greeting. Despite being a larger man, Robbie had made sure to cultivate a sense of warmth for his office space, always seeming to make sure that his employees never felt tense or nervous as if going to the principal's office in school.

"What's going on?" Peter asked as he walked up beside Eddie.

"I don't suppose you two have heard about what happened to Jeff Mace last night did you?" Robbie asked.

"The new sports reporter?" Eddie questioned. "What happened?"

"Oh, I think I heard Phil talking about it earlier actually," Peter said. "Didn't he get hit by a flyball at a baseball game or something?"

"Yep," Robbie replied. "It turned out to be worse than he initially thought; he has a concussion, so he's not able to cover the big Mets game tonight."

"Oh yeah, aren't they playing the Cardinals tomorrow night?" Eddie questioned. "That's a big game; their fighting for the top spot in the NL right now I think."

Leave it to Eddie to be the one up to date on all the sports stuff. Peter knew the basics from going to baseball and basketball games with Ben growing up, but his coworker/friend was like a walking encyclopedia on all the major sports, even though he'd only grown-up playing football.

"Exactly," Robbie replied, "and our new sports photographer, Victor, went home sick today, so I told him to get his rest and make sure he gets healthy. Listen, I hate to do this to you boys on such short notice, but I was hoping you could cover for them?"