PREVIOUSLY: Our favorite wall-crawler took down the Scorpion after catching him trying to rob a bank…but something tells Spidey that the villain may not have been working alone!
HEROES: The Fan Fiction Magazine presents:
The Spectacular Spider-Man
Episode Five – “The Bugle Calls!”
“Parker, you’re fired!”
I don’t have the heart to tell Jonah that you can’t fire a freelancer. It just isn’t possible. Of course, this would also be the third time he’s fired me this week. You’d think that I would get fed up with his bad attitude and constant harping on my webbed alter ego…but the truth is he just looks so cute when his mustache gets unfurled from yelling.
“Relax, J.J.,” Robbie chimed in. God bless Robbie. He’s one of the few supporters the Bugle has toward Spider-Man. Without him balancing Ol’ Jonah out I’m sure the front page of the Sunday edition would be nothing but smears against me.
“You relax!” Jonah yelled back. “I’ll relax when Parker admits to where he gets all these close-up shots of that webhead! What’s your secret, Parker? You best friends with this whacko in college or something?”
“Or something,” I replied. If you think Jameson is upset now, just imagine what he would be like if I told him that I was actually Spider-Man and I’ve been right under his nose for years.
Jonah threw his hands up in disgust, but his eyes never left the six “candid” shots of Spider-Man sprawled out on his desk. The one on top was my favorite: Scorpion had just thrown an SUV at my head, but I was able to quickly jump out of the way and catch it with a bit of slick webshooting. The tourists he had almost hit needed to change their underwear, but they were safe, and damn did I look good. Never left anyone tell you that being a vigilante doesn’t have its moments.
I call the shots “candid” because I knew where the camera was when the shots had been snapped. And I should know, I’m the one that webbed it to the top of the street light. Being Spider-Man is about responsibility and doing the right thing, but a guy has to eat. So, I set up the automatic camera, do a few poses during the fight, and sell the pics to the Daily Bugle for a hefty sum of cash.
“I ought to have you arrested for harboring a fugitive…” Jonah mumbled in my general direction.
“I’ll get this shot on the front page, Pete,” Robbie remarked as he snatched up the top photo and made for the exit. “Oh, by the way. I have an actual assignment for you if you aren’t too busy chasing after the webhead.”
My ears perked up and I’m sure I looked something like a kid on Christmas morning. Freelance work paid well enough but it was always hit and miss. Very rarely did I have a chance to show off my photography skills for something other than a downtown brawl concerning super-villains. If Robbie had an assignment for me, then that might be one step closer to steady work, which I desperately needed.
Robbie must have noticed the extreme look of anticipation plastered on my face because he didn’t wait for a response. “Meet up with Ben Urich out in the bullpen. I want the pair of you to head over to the wharf and follow up on a reported sighting of that Hydro-Man character.”
Thoughts of a Pulitzer Prize slipped away from me as I realized that it was an assignment connected to spandex. I didn’t mind being the go-to guy for that kind of thing, but I had hoped for something more solid. Wouldn’t it be nice if Peter Parker had a chance to shine while Spidey stayed in the dark for once?
Oh, well. That’s life. I waved to Jonah on my way out, which I’m sure he promptly ignored in order to dream up his next headline for making Spider-Man sound like a criminal. Ben Urich was one of the best reporters the Bugle had, so if I had to work with someone on this assignment that knew his way around the super-villain crowd, I couldn’t have hoped for a better partner.
Since we were just going to check out a sighting, at least there wouldn’t be any need for the webshooter. I mean, what could go wrong, right?
Famous last words.
TO BE CONTINUED