This is for...oh, you know who you are. ;)

----

"Everyone! Ten, tomorrow, and don't be late!" Rose Coral, director of the new hit TV show, Fallen Star, called to her cast. They were already turning away, as they were used to this last instruction.

"Like we could forget," Mary Jane Watson, newly hired star of the show, said, tossing her red hair and smiling that trademarked smile. "I swear, ten is programmed in my blood." She gathered up her purse and made her way toward the door.

"Mine too," Sarah Jackson, closest friend of Mary Jane, both in character and out, answered, as they stepped outside together. "See you tomorrow."

"Yeah!" Mary Jane called, turning away to walk down the street. She lived so close to the studio that it wasn't worth it to drive there and back. She rounded the corner, anxious to get home and rest.

"Damn," she said, seeing police tape stretched across the street in front of her. "What's going on here?"

There were several people standing there on the sidewalk, apparently trying to get the same question answered. A policeman hurried up to them.

"We've got a hostage situation in the daycare center here. I can't let you through."

"Damn," Mary Jane said for the second time in two minutes, and looked around for another way home. She'd only taken the alleyway once, and it had been perfectly safe then. Clutching her little can of mace in her hand, she started to walk down the alley.

"I wouldn't go that way if I were you," she heard a familiar-sounding voice say -- from above her.

"Spider-Man!" she exclaimed. "I haven't seen you in a long time! What are you doing here anyway?"

He executed a perfect backflip and landed in front of her. "Trying to see if I can help with the hostage situation. I don't think I can, at this point. But I'd better get you home."

A slow smile spread across her face. "You know where I live?" she asked.

"Yeah," Spider-Man answered, and there was a hint of laughter in his voice.

"I *do* have a superhero stalker," she said, laughing, as he picked her off her feet and swung up into the night.

"You just might," he said. "Anyway, that alley is dangerous. Good thing I happened to be in the area."

He was throwing out threads effortlessly, swinging her and himself along with perfect ease and grace. Mary Jane wasn't looking down, but was amazed that she felt perfectly safe with  him, so far up in the air.

They landed on her balcony, and she applied a small key to the door -- she'd had her balcony doors made unlockable from the outside, after she locked her keys in her room once. Now she always carried the balcony key on a little chain around her neck, so she wouldn't forget.

He made as if to leave, but she put out a hand. "Won't you come in?" she asked. "I can get you a drink. It must be thirsty work, saving lives all night."

He was shaking his head.

"You don't have to take the mask off," she said.

"Okay, but just for a little while," he said. "And I may have to leave abruptly."

They stepped inside as he continued talking. "I have this sense that warns me if there's any danger around that people need saving from. If I feel it, I'll have to go, and quickly."

"I understand," Mary Jane said, smiling at him.

----

"What would you like?" she asked a few minutes later. He was sitting at her table, just his mouth uncovered, like long ago that night in the rain.

"Do you have any Dr. Pepper?" he said.

She looked. "Yeah, there's one left," she said. "A friend of mine, Peter Parker, brought some over last week -- I don't usually drink it."

"Peter Parker?" he said, looking up at her through the mask.

She blushed. "A friend of mine, a very good friend," she said. "Probably the best friend I have ever had." She threw up her hands. "Okay, the man I'm pretty desperately head over heels in love with, who I'm sure feels the same way, but wouldn't say it when I said it. He broke my heart, and I can't find the strength to be angry with him about it." She sighed, grabbed a Coke, and sat down next to Spider-Man. "I'm not sure why I'm telling you all this. Must be the mask. Inspires confidence or something."

"Yeah, it tends to," Spider-Man agreed.

There was a silence, not an uncomfortable one, just a silence.

"You know, I --"

"Peter Parker --"

They both started the sentences at the same time, and Mary Jane laughed, then motioned for Spider-Man to continue.

"I know Peter Parker," Spider-Man said, as if he were feeling his way through the words. "He was my unofficial photographer, if you remember."

"Oh, that's right," Mary Jane said, blushing for an entirely different reason. "Don't tell him I said that, of course."

Spider-Man paused, seemingly confused for a second. "Of course not," he said finally. "I just wanted to tell you that he had reasons for what he did, and they weren't that he doesn't care about you." Spider-Man drew in a shaky breath. "Believe me, he does, very much." His voice got a little more passionate. "He's a good guy, he wouldn't do anything without a good reason for it, and he didn't want to reject you, but he had to."

Mary Jane laughed. "You sound like you have a little bit of a crush on him, yourself," she teased.

Spider-Man seemed to think that very funny indeed. "That would be --" he stopped what he had been about to say. Instead he simply leaned forward, and kissed her. She did not draw away, but leaned in. This was almost like kissing Peter, she thought, this masked man and Peter were alike in so many ways.

He was breathing hard when their lips parted. "I want to..." he whispered, almost too low for her to hear.

"What do you want?" she asked, resolving to deny him nothing.

He drew in a sudden gasp. "To make love to you," he said, standing up and taking her hand.

It was her turn to draw in a gasp. Sudden waves of chills went down her spine. "Yes," she answered, standing up with him. "But how?" she gestured to the mask and bodysuit. "You're not going to tell me who you are, are you?"

"No," Spider-Man said. "I'm not. I just want to..." he drew very close and whispered it in her ear, "worship you with my lips."

"Oohhh," was her only reply. "How could I refuse you anything?"

"Then..." Spider-Man said, swinging her up in his arms again. This time he just carried her to the bedroom.

----

It was a little odd kissing someone whose face you couldn't see, whose eyes you couldn't look into. It was also a little odd being completely undressed with someone who was completely covered except for his mouth, she thought. Not that she was complaining. It was also...mysterious and satisfying, in its own way.

In fact, she rather liked it. In the darkness of her bedroom, she could only feel the way he moved beside her, licking down her body with a tongue that was just as talented at this as it was at kissing, apparently.

And there was a joyous freedom to this as well, in not having to worry about him or what he wanted, just laying back and *feeling*. It was a pleasure she had never experienced before. She'd never done *anything* with Flash besides kiss him, and Harry had been...well, Harry, gentle and entirely clueless. The men since then hadn't really cared about *her*.

He reached a nipple and sucked it into his mouth, elicting a quick gasp. She almost had to force herself to return to the train of thought she was following.

This man did. Cared about her enough to give her pleasure and not make her worry about his. To just give and give and give...never take. What kind of man was this? This man who, apparently, not only knew just when to show up to save her from danger, but who also seemed to know every place she liked to be touched?

She laughed suddenly. Spider-Man. He was unique in so many ways.

"Good?" he whispered, pausing for a second on his journey down her body to kiss her on the mouth again.

"Oh yes," she answered. "But you..."

"If you think this isn't everything I ever wanted handed to me on a golden platter," Spider-Man said, suddenly serious, "you have far too low an opinion of yourself."

She laughed, again. "Just *how* long have you had a crush on me?"

He was caught off guard. "Since I was six years old," he answered.

"What?" she asked, a little startled, but he did not seem to hear, and soon what he was doing made her forget the existence of the entire universe, especially unanswered questions.

There was a small scar on her upper thigh, from when she'd cut herself with a piece of broken glass at the age of nine. That scar was extremely sensitive, and Spider-Man seemed to know it. His tongue curled around it and over it, and she whimpered...there was no other name for the sound she made.

Waves of chills were traveling up and down her spine again. All this, and he hadn't even touched her *there* yet.

Those fingers, gloved or not, were especially graceful and talented. She arched up to meet his mouth as it traveled down her thighs. Those hands caught her, supporting her, as he licked at the insides of her thighs, and finally moved to nuzzle at her clit.

"Oh!" She felt herself breathing in hard, and bright lights flashed in front of her closed eyes for a moment. There was a slight pause, then he bent again to kiss and lick and suck and nuzzle.

The universe contracted to the way his mouth moved over her. Without being conciously aware of it, she was arching her body toward him, moving in rhythm with his mouth.

She felt the orgasm building at the base of her spine, and gasping, let herself fall. Her body shook with tremors as he held her. Even after she thought it surely had to be over, small aftershocks shook her body. She was still breathing hard when he lowered her to the bed, and leaned up to kiss her again.

She could taste herself mingled with the flavor of him and thought only that it tasted just right.

"Who are you?" she whispered, more to herself than anything else. "Who *are* you?"

He took her seriously.

"Are you sure you want to know?"

"Yes, oh, yes," she said, sitting halfway up. "If you want to tell me now."

"Only remember that I love you," he said, sounding almost afraid.

"I know you do," she smiled. "I know you do."

And he took off the mask.

Peter! And suddenly it all made sense. All of it. Why he had to walk away from her, why he was so mysterious, why he'd said he'd loved her since he was six...why everything.

"You!" There was laughter in her voice. "You! I knew it!" And her arms went around him without even consulting her and her lips met his.

"You're not...disappointed?" he asked. "Didn't want it to be someone more glamorous?"

She was laughing almost too hard to talk, shaking her head. "No! I love you, I love you so much!"

He was laughing with her now, and holding her in his arms. Suddenly he seemed to hear something, and turned his head away, listening for a moment.

"Oh...no," he breathed. "I've got to go!"

"What is it?" she asked anxiously.

"Gunshots," he said, pulling on the mask, again becoming the perfect Spider-Man.

"Wait!" she said, getting out of bed, pulling the sheet around her. "Be careful."

He looked at her through the mask. "I will."

"I love you," she said, swallowing hard. "Now, go."

He looked at her for a long moment, then turned. She followed him to the balcony, just in time to see him swing off into the night.

She brought her fingers up to her mouth and let them linger on her lips. "Spider-Man," she whispered. "Peter." She blew the kiss gently off her fingertips. "Thank you for loving me."

She walked back into her apartment, and picked up a piece of paper that had fallen off her bedside table. She stared at it for a long moment, then, suddenly, started laughing as though she would never stop.

The paper read: "Courtesy, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man."

END