Civil War Prose Novel (27 page)

“IT’S
very dry here, dear. Good for my sinuses, I suppose. But I do miss the squirrels—”

“Stop, Aunt May. Please. I don’t want to know where you are.”

“Oh. Of course, Peter. I’m sorry.”

“No, Aunt May,
I’m
sorry. Sorry you have to—oh, dammit. Hold on a minute.”

The phone crackled in Spider-Man’s ear. He held it out and wiggled its old-style, spiral cord. He planted his feet on the brick wall, three stories up, and adjusted the wire connecting the phone to the junction box.

“Peter? Are you still there?”

“Yes, Aunt May. Sorry. I didn’t want to use my cell, so this setup is a little bit jury-rigged.”

A little trick Daredevil had taught him:
Landlines are still harder to trace.

“I’m worried about you, Peter. Are you getting enough to eat? Do you have a place to stay?”

“Yes and yes.”

That’s a world record, Parker. Lying to your aunt twice in three words.

“I miss you, Aunt May. I promise, things will calm down soon and you can come home.”

“I’m not worried for myself, Peter. But Mary Jane seems a bit on edge.”

“Can I speak to her again?”

“Of course.”

“Wait.” Spider-Man flattened himself against the building wall, sheltering against the chill autumn breeze. “Aunt May, are you still proud of me?”

“Of course I am. Especially when you
don’t
talk like a silly little boy.”

He laughed.

“Here she is, dear.”

There was a pause on the line, long enough that Spider-Man worried they’d been disconnected. He looked around at the five- and six-story buildings, old and weathered, dotted with lights in the windows. The renovated doorman buildings with fancy names, the old rent-controlled brownstones, the bodegas that never closed. The Upper West Side had been the site of his very first apartment, with Harry Osborn.

“Petey?”

Her voice was like a shot of warm coffee, soothing and exciting at the same time. A memory rose to his mind: Mary Jane coming up to visit that first apartment, dancing her way inside, stopping to flirt with both him and Harry. Bright red hair, even brighter lipstick, and a smile that seemed to burn right through him.

For a moment he couldn’t speak.

“Tiger, what’s going on? Are you there?”

“Yeah, MJ. I’m here.”

“What’s the situation? Are we safe yet?”

“I’m not sure.” He swallowed. “You know they offered us all amnesty…”

“Yeah. You’re taking it, right?”

“I…I don’t think I can.”

Another pause.

“It’s just…” He paused, lost for words. “I’ve been through so much with Tony. To jump back into that fire again…they’d probably make me do training in Montana or something. But that’s not really it. I guess…I’m just a loner, you know?”

“I know.” Her voice was hard, unhappy.

“And I know it affects you—”

“Cable news is buzzing with rumors, Tiger. Something they’re calling the ‘Secret Avengers.’ They say it’s connected with Doctor Strange.”

“I’m not in touch with them.”

That was a half-truth. The Falcon had sent him a brief text, a street address in the Village that sounded like Strange’s house. But Peter hadn’t replied.

“I’m sorry, MJ. About uprooting you, saddling you with Aunt May—”

“We’re fine, Peter. May’s much more adaptable than you give her credit for, and I spend half the year on the road anyway. I’ve already picked up a few modeling gigs here.” She laughed. “You know, it’s funny.”

“What?”

“On our wedding day…when you didn’t show. Afterward, all you talked about was what a terrible thing you’d done to me, to your aunt, to our friends. You apologized so many times, tried so hard to make it up to me. But you never realized what was really bothering me. It never occurred to you that what I was worried about, the thing that woke me up screaming at night, was what had happened to
you
.”

He blinked.

“How are you, Petey?”

“I…”

“And don’t give me some glib spider-quip. You’re not talking to Professor Octopus Man here.”

He took a deep breath.

“I’ve lost my job, MJ. I’ve got no apartment, no friends I can talk to without endangering them, no clothes except the ones on my back. The cops are after me again, and Jameson has launched a blistering new anti-Spider-Man crusade that makes all the crap he’s done before look like a kid’s birthday party.

“Every shred of my normal life has been blown apart. Except for you, I’ve got no contact left with the normal, human world. I’m really, truly alone.

“But you know what? I can sleep at night.”

“I guess…I guess that’s what matters.”

“Some things are just
wrong
, MJ. And somebody’s gotta stand up for what’s right.”

“Then that’s all there is to say.”

“Yeah. Except…MJ, I really want you to know, I always—”

“Save it, Parker. You’ll tell me in person, soon enough.” She drew in a deep breath. “Just water my damn tomatoes, okay?”

“Every day.”

The line went dead in his hand.

“I promise,” he said.

Spider-Man reached out and yanked the cord out of the junction box. He hurled the phone through the air, three stories down. It whizzed past a young woman, startling her, and landed square in the middle of a public trash can.

“Slam dunk,” he whispered.

A scream rang out, faint in the cold air. Five, maybe six blocks away.

Webbing shot out toward a lamppost; powerful legs tensed, then sprang up into the sky. Passers-by pointed upward, whispered excitedly. And once again, as so many times before, the amazing Spider-Man swung off into the night.

“YO,
Steve.”

Skritch skritch.

“Steve! You there?”

“Yeah, Raheem. I’m here.”

“What you doin’ over there? I hear some crazy
skritch-skritch
on the other side’a this wall.”

“Sorry if I disturbed you, Raheem. Just doing a little drawing.”

“Drawing! On the wall?”

“That’s right.”

“You a artist?”

“I was a commercial artist, for a while. I’ve done a lot of things.”

“Huh.”

“I’ll try and be quieter.”

“Don’t trip, brother. Anything’s better’n bein’ bored all the time.”

“Actually, Raheem, I like having time to think.”

“You a strange one, Steve. See if you can get yourself transferred to death row, you’ll have plenty of time.”

Skritch skritch skritch.

“Sound like chalk. How they let you get chalk, anyway?”

“A guard did me a solid.”

“You trade for it?”

“He owed me a favor. From before.”

“Pretty small favor. Sound like you got scammed.”

Skritch skritch. “I only needed three colors, anyway.”

“You losin’ it, Steve. How long you been in this joint?”

“Thirteen days.”

“You sure? Seem like more.”

Steve Rogers stepped back, holding up the red chalk in his hand. The cell was Spartan: bed, bench, bare metal toilet. But the wall facing him was covered with a meticulous chalk rendering of an American flag. He reached out and added the final strokes to the red stripe at the bottom.

The thirteenth stripe.

“I’m sure,” he said.

Steve frowned, then turned back to the hand-drawn flag. The upper left quarter was a solid block of blue. He placed the red chalk down on his bunk and picked up the white, juggled it lightly in his hand.

Tomorrow, he would start in on the stars.

THE
Iron Man armor hung in the air like a scarecrow, spread out on tiny gravity nullifiers. Tony Stark peered at the chestplate, then frowned at the right-hand shoulder joint. “Controller test,” he said.

Both arms snapped upward instantly, in perfect formation.

Tony smiled. In the helmet, he caught a glimpse of his own reflection. The new Armani suit fit perfectly. The scars from his battle with Cap had nearly healed, with the help of some minor but expensive plastic surgery. He ran a finger along his upper lip; still slightly swollen, but the goatee had grown in to cover it.

“So. Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

He turned, looking down one of the crisscrossing walkways dotting the interior of the Helicarrier. Miriam Sharpe, the woman who’d lost her son at Stamford, walked cautiously toward him, casting her eyes around at the buzz of technicians and repairmen working at consoles below. Maria Hill followed, her head lowered.

Tony smiled, held out a hand to Mrs. Sharpe.

“Why not? It makes perfect sense. I have close links to both the government and the superhuman community, and with Nick Fury gone…” Tony looked up brightly, turned to Hill. “Could we have a couple of coffees over here please, Deputy Director? Cream and plenty of sugar?”

Hill shot him a look that could ground planes. She turned and stalked away.

“I have something for you.” Tony rummaged in his jacket pocket, pulled out a small Iron Man figure. “Your son’s toy.”

Sharpe frowned. “I gave it to you.”

“And it helped me more than you can know. But I don’t need it anymore.”

Smiling shyly, she took the toy. Clutched it tight, like an old memory.

“’Scuse me, Director?”

Three S.H.I.E.L.D. agents moved toward them, carrying a huge metal plate and a canister of sealant. “Just repairing the last of the blast damage from…you know. Captain America’s little tantrum.” The agent nodded past Tony’s hovering armor, at the wall. A discolored, dented patch hung like a bruise.

Tony snapped his fingers, and the armor collapsed into his hands. He folded it quickly into his briefcase. “Let’s let the men work.”

He took Sharpe by the arm and led her down a small flight of steps.

“You won the war,” she said.

“Yes, and now we have to win the peace. I want everyone to understand, to get enthused about this new way of working.”

An elevator door opened. He ushered her inside and pressed a button. The elevator dropped, fast enough that his stomach lurched.

“Did you hear the state of Colorado just requested the Thunderbolts as their official team?”

She smiled. “I heard you have to fire a couple of the nutcases.”

“Nevertheless, it’s still a tremendous step. Giving offenders a second chance…it’s something I’ve always tried to do.”

The elevator door opened. A thin walkway led to a bank of windows, blazing bright in the midday sunlight.

“Do you know why we called our prison ‘Number 42’?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“Because it was number 42 of a hundred ideas Reed and I wrote down, the night your son was killed. A hundred ideas for a safer world, and we aren’t even at number fifty yet. Isn’t that exciting?”

At the end of the walkway, the chamber opened up into a multifaceted observation blister with a curved, transparent floor. They were on the bottom of the Helicarrier now; sunlight streamed in, reflected in all directions by the glass.

“Cleaning up S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Tony continued, “is idea number forty-three. Believe you me, ma’am, the super hero community just found the greatest friend it’ll ever have. Do you really think I’d let anyone else guard my friends’ secrets?”

Sharpe turned away. She looked down at the Iron Man toy in her hand.

“You’re a good man, Tony Stark.” A tear welled up in her eye. “You risked everything to give people heroes they could believe in, again.”

He smiled, felt a swell of pride. “I could never have done anything different.”

“I believe you. This is the beginning of something wonderful.”

Tony leaned on the railing, stared down through the glass at the city of New York. Laid out like a magical kingdom, ripe and full of promise. Sunlight glinted, clear and bright, off its proud spires.

No clouds today.

“The best is yet to come, sweetheart.” When he looked back up, there was steel in his eyes. “That’s a promise.”

THE END