"Are you still making up excuses?" Shouted an angry J. Jonah Jameson. "After all that happened, you're still 'not sure if it's his fault'!?"
"Well, I'm not." Answered Ben Urich calmly, making an excellent contrast to his boss. "All the reports say they were fighting each other, not working together. And hundreds of policemen saw him rescue an unconscious woman from the building. There is more behind the scenes."
"They also said that he advised them to look for a new building and now look at the place!" Mr. Jameson shouted again, refusing to make his tone even remotely conversational. "It's a big pile of rubble! And there are eleven dead, killed by the collapsing building and that giant grey thing!" A little smirk appeared on Ben Urich's face but he quickly made it disappear before speaking again.
"But not by Spider-man." He said matter-of-factly. Mr. Jameson suddenly remained silent and his head started to resemble more and more to a huge, balding tomato, with veins popping out here and there (which looks as creepy as it sounds). But before he could let his rampage out, Joseph 'Robbie' Robertson put his hand on Mr. Jameson's shoulder.
"That's enough, Jonah!" He said firmly, with his deep voice. "Ben is clearly right and you're just letting your prejudice take a hold of you. Do you really want to discredit the newspaper over something like this?" He continued with relentless determination. Mr. Jameson started to visibly shake with fury, clenched both his fists so hard his skin turned cream white and grinded his teeth so loud that it sounded like a saw cutting through steel. It went on for nearly a minute before he finally let out a long breath, took a long drink of scotch (even though it was barely past eight a.m.) and turned toward the only other occupant of the office, without addressing the others.
"And what can I help you with, Ms. Brant?" He asked through clenched teeth, evidently still not calm enough. Betty, for her part, was so scared that she was wondering if she should pretend that her last name wasn't Brant anymore, making the question aimless. To her shame, it took her six full seconds to realize how stupid that thought actually was. So that's where the 'I'm scared stupid' phrase comes from. She took in a deep breath, glanced at the others then made a determined effort to look her boss straight in the eyes, to show her confidence. But it took less than one second to avert her gaze and start to study the suddenly very interesting morning dust on the desk. Regardless, she started to speak.
"I... I just wanted to ask what... ahm what kind of story Ned and I should work on now that Mr. Urich..." She stopped, not wanting to remind her boss any further of the previous discussion. She glanced up to see his reaction and wasn't surprised to see that his eyes were throwing lightning left and right.
"Ned should be more experienced than to ask stupid questions like this! Why hasn't he come here, huh? Why is he hiding behind his girlfrie..."
"JONAH!" Mr. Robertson interrupted with an angry glare. Betty felt her cheeks flush and tried to make herself appear as small as possible. She wanted to make excuses for Ned but her mouth became extremely dry after the implication. She did her best to remind herself that Mr. Jameson was just agitated and she was a professional and it shouldn't matter anyway. She took a deep breath and looked up again, still feeling a little dizzy. It must have been because of this that she saw Mr. Jameson send her an apologetic look. Great, now I'm hallucinating.
"Ms. Brant." Mr. Urich said, finally breaking the silence. "Since this whole Spider-man case is rather unprecedented and I don't want my pride to get in the way of the story." He paused and made a significant glance at Mr. Jameson, who looked ready to jump and demonstrate that people in their sixties can be formidable, too. Luckily, he still had Mr. Robertson's hand on his shoulder. "I would like to ask you and Mr. Leeds to help me out until you two find something else to work on." He continued calmly, as if not noticing the others reaction.
