The Amazing Spider-Man 4

Chapter 14

The next morning, Peter was up before the sun had even begun to cast light over the city. Really, he'd hardly slept most of the night, as it had been constantly interrupted by harsh, cruel dreams involving Mary Jane and a certain Russian hunter. He consistently saw her kneeling before him, with Kraven's hand around her throat.

"I told you that I would find out," the hunter would say.

It never seemed to matter what Peter did. He could never save her.

Now, having given up on sleep, he decided to go ahead and get up for the day. If he left now, he'd have some time to do a decent patrol before heading in to work. As he moved to get his suit on, his still wounded shoulder frequently tried to remind him that this was a bad idea. It had been healing well so far, but it would still likely take most of the day before it was back to one hundred percent.

Peter had just finally gotten his suit on when he noticed that he heard the familiar sound of his phone ringing. Curious as to who would be calling him at five o' clock in the morning, he walked over to his dresser and picked it up, seeing that it was May. Part of him wanted to ignore it and just call her back later, but he couldn't bring himself to do it, so he hit the answer button.

"Hello?"

"Hey Peter," she said. "I'm sorry I'm calling so early; I just got off work, and I just realized that I hadn't heard from you much recently, so I wanted to check in on you before I went to bed and forgot about it later."

That was a laugh, May forgetting about him? Especially when she might have had even the slightest reason to worry over him? Yeah, the day that happened would be the day the world was truly coming to an end.

"Yeah, I'm sorry," Peter apologized, rubbing his eyes with his gloved hands. "I've just, uh, I've been really busy."

"I'm surprised I haven't heard anything about a proposal yet," May commented. "Do you have a plan?"

There it was.

"Not really May," Peter explained, "I'm just...I'm just waiting for the right opportunity I guess."

There was only the briefest of pauses before May spoke up again.

"Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, yeah of course," Peter tried to assure her. "What would make you think that it's not?"

"Well," May began, "I can tell even over the phone that you're doing that thing where you're trying to sound like everything is okay because you don't want me to worry, but really I have reason to."

Peter shut his eyes, letting out a low, gentle sigh. May really did know him too well.

"It's nothing, really," Peter said. "I'm just dealing with a couple new bad guys, nothing that I can't handle."

"Then why does it seem to be bothering you so much?" May asked.

Peter hesitated, trying to decide how much he wanted to share, or maybe just put his own thoughts together. He was just now realizing that he'd never really taken the opportunity to process how all of this was affecting him, instead his worries and concerns assaulting his brain like a series of blasts from Shocker.

"The timing of it is just annoying," he finally said.

"Oh," May replied. "You're concerned about them finding out about her, aren't you?"

"I just need to put them away," Peter explained.

"Okay," May said, "you do that, and then what? What happens when more show up?"

Peter squinted his eyes shut, as if doing so would close his brain off for having to think about her question.

"I'm sorry," May apologized. "I didn't mean for that to sound the way it came out. It's just that, I mean, as long as you do what you do, you're always going to have to deal with people like that, but that doesn't mean..."