Peter Parker | Angelica Jones
It had been so long since Peter had swung around the skyline of New York City. He almost forgot the adrenaline rush he would get from swinging around on his weblines. Before he became Spider-Man, heights bothered him. However, there was something different about web-swinging. He was in control. He was not relying on any railing, or the engines of a plane, or the cables of a ski lift. This control somehow made the situation feel different where he was able to get over his issues with heights.
Flying beside Peter was Angelica in her yellow and red costume. Angelica did not need anything to assist her flight: her microwave powers generated enough energy to propel her through the air with ease. This was almost the ultimate form of control. Peter had to rely on being able to hit sides of buildings or other objects to continue swinging. But her? As long as her mutant powers kept working, all she had to do was fly.
SNAP!
Suddenly, Peter found himself plummeting towards the ground. Peter wondered what he was thinking when he absent-mindedly took several month old cartridges of his artificial web fluid out for a spin. It was only a matter of time before this would happened. Peter stretched out his hand and compressed the trigger to his web-shooter. However, nothing happened!
“Great!” Peter thought to himself, “Not only am I using web fluid well beyond its expiration date, but the web-shooters I’m using are in desperate need of repair.”
“PETER!” Angelica rushed down toward her friend as he fell toward the streets of New York City that were below them. With an extra burst of speed from her microwave powers, Firestar reached her friend and wrapped her arms around his torso, under his arms. Then, she focused her powers on propelling the two of them away from the ground.
“Thanks, Angel” Peter said with a great sigh of relief after his friend had reached the roof of one of the neighboring buildings.
“That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?” Angelica gave Peter a smile and a wink. “Maybe you should refrain from swinging around until you got a properly mixed batch of web fluid.”
“You think?”
Before Angelica could make a response, both the young heroes heard a sonic boom from below them. Peter, crawling down the side of the building, covered the distance between the top of the roof down to the street floor in a blink of an eye. Swiftly behind him, but not at the same speed at which Peter had went, Angelica followed.
“Oh, Shocker, I see that you’re still wearing your yellow pajamas in public!” Peter mocked the villain as the latter walked calmly out of the bank door, blasted out with his vibro-shock units.
“Looks like destiny has brought us together to break our little tie that we made in our last two encounters.” Shocker answered, seemingly ignoring Spider-Man’s attempt to ridicule him. Then he saw Firestar float down beside Spider-Man. “I see that you needed to bring your girlfriend along to break this tie.”
While he was chuckling at calling Firestar Spider-Man’s ‘girlfriend’, Shocker did not realize that Peter had already dashed forward toward him. Before Shocker could even notice Spider-Man’s attack, let alone lifting up his vibro-shock units to face him, Peter had already slammed the Shocker into the bank wall.
“SHE’S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND,” Peter yelled at the Shocker, “THE WOMAN I LOVED IS DEAD AND NO ONE WILL EVER REPLACE HER!”
Peter released a fury of punches at the Shocker, each blow hitting its mark, no matter what the Shocker tried to do to avoid Peter’s anger.
“SPIDEY, STOP!” Angelica yelled at her friend, “You already knocked him out.”
Peter, finally snapping out of his rage after he heard his friend’s plead, looked at the unconscious body in his hands. Already hearing the screams that were echoing from the sirens of the approaching police cars, Peter set the unconscious Shocker against the bank wall. Then he darted back up the building’s wall, embarrassed at his burst of rage.
“Spidey, wait!” But in spite of Angelica’s pleas, Peter did not head them as he continued up the side of the building. Angelica only had one option: to follow him. And that what she did, zooming up the side of the building to catch up to her friend.
), Peter and Angelica do not have many opportunities for hanging out and having a nice meal was worth the price.
After they had been seated at a booth and had been served a half order of Texas Cheese Fries, Angelica hesitantly brought what had happened earlier back up.
“So, who’s this ‘Shocker’ guy?” Angelica asked Peter, keeping her voice down so that the other costumers could not understand what they were saying.
Peter just rolled his eyes. “Some mercenary with a worse sense of humor than me, and that’s saying something! He only beat me once because I was under the weather and I bruised my arm. My arm wasn’t quite broken, but it still impeded my effectiveness. Then after a couple good night sleeps, I was as healthy as a horse and easily showed him who’s boss. The better question is how in the world did he get out of prison?”
Angelica just shrugged her shoulders at Peter’s last question, not knowing the answer. The two friends continued making some small talk about their coming Junior year in high school (Midtown High for Peter and Xavier Institute of Higher Learning for Angelica), eating their appetizer as they waited for their meals.
On one of the television sets in the bar area of the restaurant, appeared the image of J. Jonah Jameson, the editor-in-chief and publisher of the Daily Bugle. When Peter saw the face of the man who was waging a one-man slander war against Spider-Man, Peter knew what was going to be coming up next.
“I believe that Spider-Man’s recent actions have proven that he is a menace to society! Physically assaulting a man in plain sight! What has this world come to?”
One of the news anchors asked “triple-J” whether the fact that the man, who was assaulted by Spider-Man, was a criminal changed the opinion of the owner of Daily Bugle.
“Of course not!” Jameson retorted, “Today we are lucky that he brutalized a criminal. But what about tomorrow? What will prevent him from attacking some little old lady? He has to be stopped and I plan on spearheading his downfall!”
After Peter and Angelica had finished eating their meals and paying the bill, the two headed out from the restaurant, about ready to head their separate ways.
“Don’t listen to that hot-head.” Angelica told Peter, mentioning the poison that Jameson had just spewed over the national television.
“Don’t worry about me. If I can’t endure some baseless slander, I probably should throw in the towel now.” Peter smiled at his friend. After this, there was a moment of awkward silence, neither knowing what more to say to the other. Finally, Angelica was the one who broke this silence.
“Peter, just remember that your friends are all around you. You don’t need to heal from those recent tragedies alone.” Angelica wrapped her arms around Peter, encompassing him in an embrace. “We all still love you, Pete. Never forget that.”
There was again another pause, another moment of silence. Angelica seemed to look like she wanted to say something else, something more to her heart-hurt friend. However, she obviously decided against it, as with this silence, they parted ways, heading back to their respective homes.
