ACT 2: On the far side of the city...the individual holding captive Mary Jane sits on the ledge of a roof, squeezing his head, as though in pain. He speaks but a few words: "It's happening! He's almost ready! But not quite yet! Need just a little more time and then...peace."

ACT 3: [Spider-Man] "Everyone tells me that I've got to move on with my life. Everyone insists that you died in the plane crash. But they don't know you. Don't know us. Don't know my secret! We don't live ordinary lives. You're out there. I know it." Our hero web-slings away...

ACT 4: Back on the far side of the city, the individual having crumbled to his knees, is suddenly interrupted by a voice coming from his walkie-talkie: "Are you there? Can you hear me? I’m hungry. Can I please have some food?" The man stands up and comes off the roof.

ACT 5: Mary Jane is standing in the middle of a tiny cell, looking up at a video camera filming her every move: "Hello? Did you hear me? I said I’m..." She is interrupted by a noise coming from the door. A small gate opens and a tray of food is slid into the cell through the gateway. MJ picks up the tray and asks the man to stay a moment and talk to her. MJ begs him to open the door so she can see him. He refuses claiming she will try to escape and then he would have to stop her and possibly hurt her, something he does not want to do since it wouldn't help anything (the room where the individual resides is covered with Mary Jane posters, outfits she'd wear in the past). All signs point out that the man is very disturbed but what's his story?

ACT 6: Meanwhile, Jill Stacy, long time friend of Mary Jane and Peter drops by to see how Peter is holding up. At the sight of our depressed hero, Jill hugs him and tells him that MJ's gone and that he can't go on like this. Peter refuses to accept MJ's dead.

ACT 7: Again, back on the far side of the city, MJ tries to convince the individual to let her go and almost threatens him that her husband (Peter) will not let him go away with this. The man replies by saying that Peter thinks she's dead as well as the whole world. Perplexed, MJ asks him why they would think she's dead. The man retorts that it's better she doesn't remember. He adds that sometimes he wish he could forget but he didn't have a choice to do it; he needed time, a link. MJ asks him why he (as most guys) talks in riddles. He replies: "Believe me, no matter what you think, neither you, nor your husband, has ever met anyone like me before."

ACT 8: Back at Parker's home, Peter is still arguing with Jill about MJ still being alive. He says he needs a little more time to find her. Jill asks him when's the last time he ate as she goes towards the kitchen. As she makes her way back into the room, Peter has left (as Spider-Man) through the window.

ACT 9: The individual tells MJ he never would have treated her that way. MJ asks him what he means. He replies saying that he never would've left her alone, night after night, to go out. MJ, stunned asks him if he knew about...he interrupts and tells her that he knows about her husband being a super hero, about him being Spider-Man. He adds that he knows a lot of things...too much sometimes. She demands that he stops being so cryptic and tell her something she can understand such as who he is or why he's doing this. He replies: "He'll be here soon. You’ll have your answers." ACT 10: FLASHBACK: "A year ago, you would have passed me on the street and never given me a second thought. I was one of those crazies, that everyone avoids, thanking God that such a thing didn'’t happen to them. No one wanted anything to do with me. No one wanted to know what my story was...but I knew theirs. Every single detail of their lives was open to me. Every thought. Every emotion. Every secret. A cacophony of voices filled my head – the thoughts of anyone near me. There was nothing I could do to tune them out. The voices have been in my head since puberty. At first I thought I was crazy. Doctors even diagnosed me as schizophrenic. But the doctors and the medications couldn’t help. Isolation was the only salve for my pain. But only for a while. The world...the voices...humanity...wouldn't leave me alone! I couldn't get far enough away without countless voices screaming...tearing through my head...with the steady torrent of inane babble driving me closer and closer toward the brink of insanity. I don't remember exactly where I was when it happened...why I'd ventured outside that day. What I do remember was the silence. Then a voice, creeping into the back of my mind. No, not one voice. Many...speaking...thinking...as one. I remember every single person around me looking up, focused entirely on something above us...something on the rooftops. Pumpkins and webbing filled the air. Good Lord it was amazing! They were amazing! I guess I saw the explosion, I can’t be sure. Emotions surged forward, turned into unbridled panic. The crowd scattered...their minds began to pull apart...I knew I was in danger. And yet...all I could do was watch as a certain death descended upon me. Maybe it would have been a blessing. I'll never know. In a heartbeat, everything changed for me. In that moment I saw the possibilities unfold before me." (Spider-Man actually saved him from falling debris caused by the explosion of a pumpkin bomb thrown by the Green Goblin) The individual suddenly stops and says: "Ah! I can feel him...he's getting closer. That's okay...there's not much left to tell. We'll be ready for him." The flashback continues: "i>I don't know what it was – the simple fact of physical contact...? The unique nature of his biochemistry interacting with the surge of adrenaline and my own powers...? Destiny? What I do know is that when he touched me, I experienced something entirely new. I was provided a window into his mind...his heart...his very essence. I was him in his entirety. My soul was cold, my heart a calcified muscle – and now I had another life – his life – laid out before me. Aunt May, Uncle Ben. The radiation, the accident...the spider! I lived them all. I was Peter Parker. I was Spider-Man! His happiness, his pain – all of it unfolded before me. The burglar. The death of his Uncle Ben. His adventures, his victories, his losses – and everything in between. His family, his friends, his enemies, you! (speaking of Mary Jane of course) I saw the emptiness of my life...my own existence. Saw everything that I had missed. Everything." Mary Jane is disgusted about what she's just heard, calling the individual sick. He replies that perhaps he is, but not out of choice – and that he has never asked for this curse, that he's ready to be done with it. MJ screams that she'll never be his, no matter how long he'll keep her here. The man replies that it won't be much longer. That everything he's done since that day has built to this moment. And that after his experience with Peter, he found his focus, knew what he was now capable of, knew what he wanted and how to get it. He goes on reiterating about the phone calls, and how the harassment were merely meant to unnerve them both (Peter and MJ). To accomplish the next phase, he needed two things: a disguise and a drugged lollipop (remember when MJ met this old man on the airplane that later blew up into smithereens?). After all, no one would suspect a thing of the kindly old man who ushered his sick niece off the plane. A kidnapping in broad daylight. And no one noticed. Not that it would have mattered. MJ suddenly remembers the plane exploding and screams at the individual: "You killed them all...just to get to me!" The man explains that he needed the explosion for one reason: to make Peter think MJ was dead; his grief making him vulnerable. He then adds: "Ah...it's almost over. He’s here."

ACT 11: MJ requests to know who's there. As she starts banging on the cell door, it opens silently. Meanwhile, Spider-Man comes crashing through the front door of the building, as though guided by some sort of imaginary force. He starts looking around and goes through another set of doors only to find...Mary Jane. "i>I...I knew. I knew.", says Peter. "I knew you were alive!" And finally, the moment every spider-fan had been waiting for, Spider-Man is reunited with the woman he thought he had lost (Mary Jane, duh!). As they both cry tears of happiness, the individual shuts off Spider-Man's spider-sense and knocks him out before he can do anything to prevent this from happening...to be continued in Peter Parker #29.