Chapter 32: Gotcha?

"Why didn't you say anything to me?" Mary Jane blurted out without even bothering to say hello when she saw me on the street the next morning.

"I was just about to call you," I hugged the girl, drawing her into a kiss. "Good morning."

"Good morning," M.J. partially lost her edge and replied, but then she was back to her old self, and as we walked to the bus stop, she continued, "Peter, why do I only find out what they write about my boyfriend from Liz the next day?"

"I don't know what rumors you're talking about, but I know the answer: because Anna took your phone and computer!" to which I get a light tap on the shoulder.

"Don't turn this into a joke! Did you even see what the Daily Bugle said about you and Spiderwoman? Is that true?"

"What are you talking about?" Really, I faced the consequences of my sudden fame twice yesterday, but I never bothered to read the contents of the papers. And it's not the Spider-Man rumors being spread by Jameson, it's about me as Peter Parker!

"Unbelievable!" - MJ exclaimed.

By this time the bus had just pulled up and we hopped inside, looking for an empty seat. I immediately noticed a change in the way people were staring at me more than usual, and there were whispers on all sides. Though part of that might have been due to the aftermath of that fight with Thompson.

"Hey, Parker," some guy a year older yelled from the back rows, "Is it true you're dating Spider-Woman?"

I was, admittedly, taken aback by such a question. My mind immediately started lining up, shoving and shuffling incessantly, speculations and assumptions. The dominant one was, "Did someone film me and Gwen in that kissing moment?"

I cast a quick glance at Mary Jane. Although she doesn't look pleased, she doesn't seem surprised by the shout-out from a student unknown to me. I calm down somewhat, suggesting to myself, "It's a different world, Peter. It's quieter, it's not as awful." Even if we were seen, it's not the end of the world.

The notion of cheating here has very little application to men. I mean, since having several wives is the norm, obviously, before you marry any girl, you get to know her, date her, that sort of thing. After all, you can't go up to the first woman you like and ask her to be your second or third wife right away... well, rather the opposite, because it's usually the women who propose here.

The pause drags on, and we still stand in the aisle. I nudge M.J. toward the pair of empty seats next to her and speak, trying to keep my voice calm:

"I don't know where you got that idea, but whatever it is, it's none of your business," it's a little harsh, but the guy's no friend or even acquaintance of mine to address me in that tone.

"She doesn't care about Parker," the other guy cut in. "It's Spiderwoman! She could fuck anybody!"

"She must have very low criteria to pick Parker," says the first one, and he's backed up by a few uncertain laughter from the girls next to him, probably girlfriends and classmates.

That's the last thing I expected, a confrontation from the natives. What kind of confrontation could I have with the local men? To be honest, in terms of intelligence, these guys are more closely related to the monkey than to me. It may sound arrogant, but it's a fact. Underdeveloped physically and generally limited in their interests, can they counter me with anything?

I remembered going through the exact same situation on this very bus Mary Jane went through in the past world, shortly after transferring to our school. She had been tried by several girls whose only accomplishments were her pretty face and her ability to make herself look good. They didn't need intelligence, resourcefulness, or any outstanding physical attributes at all to feel like the top of the food chain at school. I can hardly remember how M.J. worked it out back then, but I'm sure her method wouldn't work for me. After all, she had always been a master at adapting and blending in with a new group by favoring its informal leaders. Oh, how well she kept her mask of a carefree and cheerful girl. I couldn't do that.

In any case, these two are looking for conflict, and they will get it. Even though I don't want to solve all problems at school with my fists, but playing on their turf by getting into long verbal altercations... you can, but it's definitely not worth it. Also, they clearly didn't do a very good job of probing the ground before launching a verbal attack: most of the students on the bus are slow to laugh. I sense their silent support.

"Are you two out of your minds?" I smirk. "You'd better think twice before you try yapping at me."

One of them jumps up, full of indignation, and opens his mouth to say something, but I interrupt him with a demonstrative shot from the web-shooter. The sound of a trigger and the whistling of cobwebs can be clearly heard.

Everyone here has obviously seen this gesture more than once before, either as a Spiderwoman or even as a recording of me. And the speaker is no exception. He frightenedly covers his hands in a vain attempt to protect himself from the web and falls back into his seat without saying what he wanted.

But I'm not crazy enough to attack students. I simply closed the vent above his ear with duct tape. Just a psychological attack, and it had one purpose: to make a fool of my opponent.

You can't make someone laugh if you've made a laughingstock of yourself.

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This time the laughter is coming from everywhere, and with it the questions:

"So is it true?"

"Did you make these things for Spiderwoman?"

"Do they shoot real spider webs?"

No matter what I did, school always caused me a lot of unnecessary hassle. I used to have a problem with Thompson's aggression, and now the unwanted attention of the students. They wouldn't get away from me that easily.

Already in class before the first lesson started, I managed to stay in relative peace and quiet, with only Mary Jane and our classmate Liz around to watch the ill-fated interview Gwen gave to the press, and the video of the accident with my heroics edited by someone from the scraps of eyewitness phone records.

In principle, Gwen got out of the uncomfortable situation the reporters had put her in with their questioning. Well, what else could she say when they asked her how some unknown schoolboy got a web like Spiderwoman's?

"Who is he?"

"Does he have powers like yours?" The reporters pestered the girl. So she was forced to give away part of the truth.

So Gwen confessed that the web is not part of her powers, but an invention of a friend, and immediately caused a new barrage of questions aimed at our relationship.

"How did you two meet?"

"Does he know your secret identity?"

"Is he your boyfriend? How old is he?" The last one was clearly a double-barreled question, because no one knew who Spiderwoman was or how old she was.

"No, no, he's just a good friend of mine. Yeah, we're old friends," Gwen started to make excuses, so that even a dumb person would know it wasn't clean. She should have kept her mouth shut and left those last questions unanswered.

When she realized she'd screwed up, Gwen ran away from the reporters, soaring into the sky on a spider web. I can't blame her though, it was all predetermined the moment I got in front of the cameras. If anyone to blame, it was the psychotic mugger who decided to take M.J. hostage. I couldn't just let it slide and do nothing! Bunny looked furious enough at the time to kill the restaurant worker who called the police.

The morning after the incident, my identity was already established, and many newspapers, though not yet on the front page, because there are hotter topics, carried articles with the headline: "Spiderwoman Dating an Average Schoolboy? Who is Peter Parker?" Some even used a photo of me, Bunny and Gwen that I had self-posted on my newly created social media pages.

And really, that's not the worst of all the choices. I'm surprised I haven't already been hunted by reporters, maybe the cops should be thanked for that, showing up at my house yesterday before they all did, which left the pen sharks without profit.

"Gotcha?" Mary Jane asks, seeing the original photo on my page.

I nervously lick my lips, wondering what to answer.

"I thought it was funny at the time," I tried to get out of it.

***

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