( minor TW: events of chapter twenty-eight mentioned a few times, mild violence )

Two Days Later
September 22nd, 2004
9:31 A.M.
Christina's POV

Christina pulled the brush through her brown strands of hair as she yawned a little bit, looking into her reflection in the vanity mirror. The candles on either side of the picture of her and Margaret were lit up and the flames were flickering gently on the wicks. She then examined how she looked, the turquoise jumpsuit she wore accentuating her facial features much better.

Humming softly to herself, she went ahead and put on her white high heels so she could get the gist of how they felt on her feet. She sensed how quiet the apartment currently was, as Sidney had left to take the bus to school a few hours prior. Unlike most days and nights, however, the silence didn't bother her as much as she would have thought; it felt nice, actually, as she had time to actually think to herself about how her day would be going.

Christina was preparing to go in for her shift at work, which she figured would mainly consist of going through files of children that were in the process of adoption. Afterwards, she would be taking the train to the station closest to where the university was so that she could have her appointment with her therapist before attending her night classes.

The brunette was the happiest she had been in so long, and the broadest grin was resting on her kind face. For the first time in nearly two years, her eyes were bright and uplifted; she was finally beginning to stop having thoughts of Margaret in bad context and in nightmares. Nowadays, whenever she would think about her mother, it was always in a good way and she hardly ever cried anymore whenever a memory appeared in her mind. It helped that her AA meetings involved people that related to her problems and she could talk to them with relative ease.

For a moment, her mind flashed back to the other night just after her and Peter's first date, and she smiled softly at the thought as her face turned red. Closing her eyes, she recalled the way his lips had felt against hers and she shivered at the memory as she longed to have another kiss like that with him again. Christina was aware that it wasn't actually her first kiss she had shared with Peter, as that had been August of two years ago when he was in his Spider-Man suit.

She had ultimately decided not to bother him too much about the topic for two reasons; she had the feeling that it would make him uncomfortable if she brought it up, and she did think that there was the slimmest chance that he wasn't Spider-Man. Don't get her wrong, she was ninety-nine percent sure he was the masked webhead that J. Jonah Jameson constantly slandered in the Daily Bugle papers, but what if he wasn't? There was just one possibility that he was just a regular New Yorker, but the brunette knew that was impossible.

Speaking of Peter, Christina hadn't heard from him since their date, which puzzled her a great deal. She thought for sure that he would have called her at any point over the past forty-eight hours. At the same time, though, she figured that he was a little too busy with classes and trying to stay on top of his rent so he had no time to contact her.

With this in mind, she walked over to her cordless landline and dialed Peter's number before placing the device against her ear.

She listened for quite a while as the dial tone kept ringing, and her heart began sinking into her stomach. She figured that he probably wasn't in his apartment at the moment, which was understandable, but her lack of self-esteem ultimately led to her thinking that he probably didn't want to talk to her for some reason.

Christina frowned as she hung up the phone, sighing to herself as she tried to forget about the small bit of pain that was brought to her. She then went back to her vanity as she proceeded to braid her hair, trying to maintain some bit of hope she had.

_____

Two and a Half Hours Later
12:14 P.M.
Peter's POV

Completely unaware that Christina had called him at his apartment, Peter was walking down the sidewalk as dozens of people passed him. Since the weather was a little colder now because of autumn quickly approaching, he was clad in a dark blue sweater in order to shield himself from the chilly air. It wasn't unbearable by any means, but it was just frigid enough for him to want to stay inside instead of being out in public.

But Mary Jane had called him just a few hours previously and had offered for them to meet up at a cafe in downtown Manhattan so they could catch up on their lives. It had been over a month since they were able to talk to one another and they had planned on communicating about how Christina was doing from time to time. However, the two of them had lost track of time and nearly forgot to do this.

But, today, they were going to hang out and discuss how things had been for their friend recently, as Mary Jane had been too busy planning the wedding to even talk to Christina.

Just the thought of the brunette woman he had kissed the other night made Peter's heart twist in an agonizing way. While the other night had probably been the best of his entire life, what with making Christina happy by taking her out on a date, the memory of them at the pier by the Hudson River, and especially their first kiss, he couldn't help but feel guilt for the thoughts that had entered his mind almost instantly after he had pulled away from the love of his life. He knew everything that had happened to her over the past two years was his fault.

He was to blame for her nearly dying at the World Unity Festival...

He was to blame for her being dropped by Norman Osborn at the Brooklyn Bridge...

He was to blame for her grief and depression...

He was to blame for Margaret Johnson's death...

And, worst of all, he was to blame for Christina nearly taking her life the month prior...

Just to make sure he was right about how he felt, he went and visited Aunt May the previous day after he discovered that she was moving out of their old home. While he was certain he would miss the memories he had made while growing up at that house in Queens, he was proud of May for finding a new place after the bank refused to comply with her.

The elderly woman had heard from Peter about Christina going over the edge and nearly dying as a result. May had initially gone to the hospital to visit her but she didn't speak to her nephew once, mainly due to still being in shock from what he had told her the afternoon before about being responsible for Ben's death.

When he had said this to her, she was in absolute surprise she hadn't expected to hear it from him; Peter had informed her that he had never actually went to the downtown library to study for his final exams, that he had gone someplace else to win money in order to buy a car, and that he didn't stop the robber that had supposedly shot and killed her husband. Him saying that he held Ben's hand as he died didn't make it any better to listen to.

However, when Peter visited her again, she seemed to be in good spirits again and she had forgiven him; this deeply relieved him, especially when he had found the answer he was looking for in something truly important May told him after his conversation with the young boy that lived across the street named Henry Jackson. She was referring to the kid wanting to be Spider-Man one day; Peter, of course, had asked why, and she responded with this:

"He knows a hero when he sees one. Too few characters out there, flying around like that... saving old girls like me. And Lord knows, kids like Henry need a hero. Courageous, self-sacrificing people... setting examples for all of us. Everybody loves a hero. People line up for them. Cheer them. Scream their names. And years later, they'll tell how they stood in the rain for hours... just to get a glimpse of the one who taught them to hold on a second longer. I believe there's a hero in all of us... that keeps us honest... gives us strength... makes us noble... and finally allows us to die with pride. Even though sometimes we have to be steady... and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams..."

Even though he would be risking his future, being alone for the rest of his life, and giving up the woman of his dreams, Peter Parker was willing to make the sacrifice the moment his beloved aunt had said this to him.

He just hated that he would be hurting Christina more than she already had been.

A little while later, Peter finally arrived at the cafe Mary Jane told him to meet up with her at. He walked inside with a small smile, looking forward to catching up with his friend when it came to their lives, especially when he spotted her almost instantly. Walking over to where she was sitting in front of the large window that looked out into the street, he placed his jacket on the chair across from her and sat down.

"Hey, how are you?" he greeted with a cheerful grin.

"Oh, pretty exhausted," Mary Jane replied with a chuckle. "But planning for a wedding does that to you. How about you? You doing okay?"

"I'm doing the best I can," Peter answered honestly, shrugging his shoulders. "It's been a while. How's wedding planning?"

"We're close to the finish line," the redhead said. "It's in three days now. I'm kind of nervous about it but I know I'm going to be really happy with John."

"I'm glad you found someone right for you," Peter pointed out with a proud smile on his face. "He seems like a good guy."

"He is... But enough about me. Have you talked to Christina lately?"

"Yeah."

"How is she?" Mary Jane pondered. "I haven't had time to call her or anything..."

"She's doing a hell of a lot better than she was," Peter said as he sighed. "She's finally going to therapy and attending AA meetings. She got her social working job... Everything seems to be going amazing for her. I, uh... I took her out on a date the other day, actually."

Mary Jane visibly brightened at this bit of information as she grinned. "You did?" she responded. "I'll bet she loved it. How was it?"

"It was great... Chris was really happy the whole time. I had never seen her smile so much in my life," Peter explained. "She looked so beautiful that night. We even kissed... finally..."

Mary Jane let out a chuckle of happiness as she patted Peter's arm. "That's wonderful, Pete!" she exclaimed. "I told you that making a move would work. Because that woman adores you, I swear. So... did you ask her out?"

"Um... no..."

Mary Jane's eyebrows scrunched together. "What do you mean 'no?'"

"M.J, I need to explain why..." Peter began with a frown, slowly meeting her eyes for the first time in several minutes. "I... I may have been stupid with what I did... taking her on that date and everything. I... maybe rushed into things. I thought –"

"Wait a minute," Mary Jane muttered, absolutely puzzled. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying..." Peter sighed heavily. "I thought I could be there for her... but I can't."

"What?"

"I want to be there for Chris, but it's almost impossible to be right now," he mumbled quietly. "My mind was playing tricks when I thought I could possibly have a chance...."

Mary Jane was in utter disbelief. What in the absolute hell was Peter talking about? Not only had he mentioned that he couldn't be there for Christina anymore but he said that he didn't have a chance with her. She was completely confused by this statement. He had been through too much with Christina and now it was all for nothing.

"Do you love her or not?" she asked him with a frustrated stare.

Peter thought about it for an excruciatingly long moment. He didn't know how to answer this question, and it was more difficult than any science or physics problem he had been provided with. He loved Christina, he truly loved her, but he would rather have stayed away from her and kept her safe than put her in harm's way. The image of her hanging off of her bed, overdosed on prescriptions and half-dead, hit him again.

"I..." he began, his heart wrenching painfully.

Mary Jane patiently waited for a response – any response – to escape Peter. She was mentally crossing her fingers, just praying that he would admit that he loved the woman that he had known for sixteen years. But a bad feeling entered her gut and she silently predicted what he would say next.

One thought entered Peter's mind... one he felt that he would repeat until his dying days.

I love her... I love her so damn much. I would do anything for her, I would die for her. I want to tell her that....

"...don't," he finished, on the verge of tears. He hated saying that word out loud. He wished that he were holding the woman with the most beautiful smile and brown hair in his arms.

The redhead visibly held herself back from shouting at Peter at that moment. She could hardly contain her sadness and fury at those words. After all that Christina Lily Johnson had been through, she was going to be hurt once again... just when she was becoming happy after all of the darkness she had been drowning in. On one hand, she despised that she had to be the person to tell her those agonizing words instead of her own friend saying them to her face, as she didn't want to be the one that broke her heart from that.

But, on the other hand, she found what Peter had said to her to be complete and utter bullshit. If there was anything she truly knew, it was that he adored every part of Christina and practically worshiped her. Him saying he didn't love her at all was a bold-faced lie and Mary Jane knew that.

She was able to see every single sign of Peter's love for her, from the way he would smile instantly whenever the brunette was around him to the way his face would turn pink whenever she held his hand. Every time Mary Jane had asked him about how he truly felt, he would stutter over his words and fail to come up with a comprehensible answer, which concluded her questions. So this out-of-nowhere lie about Peter having no feelings for Christina made the woman scoff.

"I don't believe you," she said bluntly, narrowing her eyes at him.

"What?" Peter replied dumbly, tilting his head out of bewilderment.

"I said that I don't believe a word you just told me," Mary Jane specified, chuckling humorlessly. "I know you love that woman. So don't say that you don't, because that's bullshit."

Peter couldn't say anything to that, instead lowering his head out of shame. He knew Mary Jane was one hundred percent right since he was convinced that, besides Aunt May, he would never love anyone more than he loved Christina. She was the girl that had been by his side for nearly twenty years and had supported him, and she had even grown to be in love with him over time. He hated that he was going to be breaking her heart but he needed to make that devastating sacrifice.

Sometimes, you have to be steady and give up the thing you want the most, he repeated in his mind, following May's advice to heart.

He just prayed that Christina would be okay without him in her life....

"I think there's another reason that you're saying this," Mary Jane said out of nowhere, a thoughtful expression in her eyes. "I think there's something you're not telling me."

Peter's eyebrows raised as his heartbeat began picking up speed out of anxiety. "And what exactly do you think I'm not telling you?" he retorted, deciding to test his friend on what she could possibly know.

Mary Jane just smirked as she shrugged her shoulders. "It's something that I've been wondering about for a while," she said. "I never said it around you in case it wasn't true... but you've been so obvious about it, especially recently. I should have figured it out ages ago. I think that you're –"

While Mary Jane did finish her sentence, Peter wasn't able to hear it since the hairs on his arms suddenly stood up. He could hear a screeching noise not too far behind him from outside, and his eyes widened behind his glasses as his entire body went rigid.

"Peter, are you alright?" the redhead spoke up with scrunched eyebrows, a little concerned for his well-being.

However, just as her question was non-verbally answered by what she saw behind Peter, she was grabbed by him as he dived across the table to get her out of the way. At the same time, a deafening CRASH sounded in her eardrums and made her shriek from fear of getting crushed. Peter held his friend close to protect her from the black car that had been thrown through the window and at them.

The two of them painfully landed on the floor three feet away from the table as the car passed over them, the front right tire inches from Peter's face for a brief moment. He closed his eyes and prayed for no impact to take place and, luckily, nothing happened to cause his death. The moment seemed like a scene right out of one of those Final Destination films and, for a second, he jokingly thought of the idea that Death was coming after him.

After the car rolled to the back of the cafe, Peter didn't hesitate to stand up, pulling up a stunned Mary Jane; her crimson hair had come undone from where it was pulled up but she hardly cared. They both looked around and, much to their relief, nobody else seemed to be hurt.

"You okay?" Peter asked Mary Jane, looking her up and down to check for any injuries.

"Yeah, I'm all right," Mary Jane answered with a huff.

A thunderous THUD from over a hundred feet away brought their attention to outside of the window, and that was just in time to hear dozens of people screaming in utter terror as they tried to flee the streets. Each stomp seemed to get closer but, for the life of them, Mary Jane and Peter couldn't see what was advancing towards them.

"What's happening?" the redhead asked, her voice slightly trembling as she tried not to show any anxiety.

Peter saw what it was, and he instinctively stepped in front of his friend with clenched fists.

To his surprise, Otto Octavius was making his way towards the two of them with his four metal arms still attached to him. Peter hadn't seen him since he had fought him at the Manhattan bank as Spider-Man almost a month ago. He remembered having to try and stop him from robbing the place of his money but that had changed into saving Aunt May's life when she was dropped from another building fifteen stories up.

Afterwards, words about 'Doc Ock' had been silenced for quite a while. It seemed as though Octavius had vanished without a trace, which is what Peter was hoping for; but, unfortunately for him, he was here again but he was after him, not Spider-Man. He was truly wondering why, but he couldn't care less at the moment because he knew that his friend could possibly be in danger.

"Peter Parker!" Otto yelled joyously once he reached the interior of the cafe and everyone else inside had already taken off. But, once he caught a glimpse of Mary Jane (who was unfamiliar to him), his eyebrows raised. "Who's this with you?"

"None of your business," Peter snapped back with narrowed eyes. "What do you want?"

Instantaneously, Otto had extended one of the arms towards Peter, which forcefully grabbed him and yanked him away from where he was guarding Mary Jane. He was pulled towards Octavius in one motion as the claws of the arm squeezed his throat madly, nearly blocking off all of his oxygen.

"I want you to find your friend, Spider-Man," Otto instructed the younger man. "Tell him to meet me at the West Side Tower at three o'clock..."

"Well, I don't know where he is..." Peter muttered, trying not to cough from the pressure on his throat. He was, of course, lying to his face but he wasn't about to let on that he wasn't telling the truth.

Otto removed his sunglasses and his once lively and kind eyes were now soulless and they lacked any sort of empathy and consciousness. All Peter could see was evil behind those eyes. "Find him," he blankly said. "Or I'll peel the flesh off of her bones..." From the way one of his free A.I. arms were motioning, he was referring to the redhead cowering behind the person he held.

Peter's blood boiled in his body as his mortified eyes transformed to an expression of rage and guilt for bringing Mary Jane into this. "If you lay... one finger on her..." he choked out, trying to form a comprehensible threat.

"You'll do what?!" Otto taunted him with a nasty smirk.

Seconds later, he flung Peter across the room and his back slammed against the brick wall; the force of his landing led to tons of debris collapsing onto him when he hit the floor. He was reminded of how he had tried to regain his powers the day before and he had plummeted over a dozen stories to the ground, just barely surviving.

Mary Jane, pure shock etched into her features, wanted to go help her friend that had been severely hurt. But all she could do was slowly move her gaze back to the monstrous man with the tentacle arms.

And the man was smiling evilly at her.

Not this shit again, the redhead thought as a horrified scream tore through her esophagus. One of the metal arms then wrapped around her waist and she was lifted off of the ground as she tried to pry it away from her.

As she was carried across the city, hearing the screeches of many people as they stared at what was going on in terror, Mary Jane tried her hardest to fight back against Otto Octavius as she was being kidnapped yet again. "LET ME GO, YOU FUCKING BASTARD!" she bellowed in a high-pitched cry, grabbing at the arm to get it to release her. "PUT ME DOWN!"

But it did nothing to help.

Meanwhile, Peter had tossed all of the debris off of him in one movement, yelling out with frustration. His breathing was heavy from the effort it had taken to do this but he didn't hesitate to dash out into the street as everyone was scattering around and trying to figure out what was going on.

Only now, for Peter, he could hardly see anything in front of him. The people looked like blurred shapes because of his glasses; at first, he just thought they had gotten foggy from the dust of the debris but, when he wiped them, it was still difficult to make out what he was seeing. Just to test it out, he briefly removed his glasses and peered in front of himself.

Everything was... crystal clear. His vision was perfect again; in case, though, he placed them back on.

It was impossible to see anything again.

They're back, he thought in amazement.

Not even thinking twice, Peter dropped the glasses on the pavement, not even caring that the lenses either cracked or removed themselves from the object. His hands balled up into fists as he stared ahead and in the direction he thought Octavius might have gone with Mary Jane.

He had a friend that he needed to save....

A/N: i apologize if this chapter wasn't as long as you guys would have liked.

ANYWAYS, thoughts on this chapter? did you like it, despite it being short?

do you guys think christina is truly happy now despite what's been going on?

what do you think about the scene between peter and mary jane? do you like how i changed the context of their conversation to where it was about christina?

what about the moment where peter said he "didn't love" christina? pete, that's a load of BS, you dumbass!

mary jane has been kidnapped yet again lol. but this time, she tried to fight back! thoughts on that?

predictions for the next chapter?

be looking forward to the next chapter! and, again, sorry that this one wasn't very long.

-denbroughswife