The flashing lights of a police car. When you see them appear in your rear view mirror your heart rate goes up a bit. You pray that they aren’t after you and you instantly think of how it will effect your insurance costs.

Now just imagine you see those flashing lights in your mirror and you have the daughter of a New York Senator in the trunk.

State Police Officer, David El-Kadi had been following this one car almost since it crossed the river into Jersey. Its left brake light was broken, but there was something wrong that he couldn’t put his finger on. There was something about the way he was driving. Officer El-Kadi had been on the force for years. He could always tell when someone was driving casually. He used the MARVELTECH onboard scanner to check out the driver’s car.

The scan came back:

NO WEAPONS.

NO DRUGS.

HEART RATE NORMAL.

1 PERSON IN VEHICLE.

NO SCANNER SHIELDS.

Something still felt wrong, but Officer El-Kadi flipped on his lights anyway. The car took a few minutes to pull over, as if he was thinking about what to do. He hated it when they did that, El-Kadi was starting to feel right.

The Officer slowly steps up to the old 2000 Sable. The window rolled down, and he saw a white man in his early thirties. A man who smiled nervously up at him, from within the car below. "Good evening, Sir."

"S..Sorry! I didn’t see you there. Can I help you…?"

"You sure can. Did you know that your left taillight is out?"

The driver's laugh felt forced. "OH YEAH! I was going to take care of that tomorrow, thanks."

"Can I see your license, Sir?"

The driver didn’t say anything for a moment. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, flipping it open to show his license to the cop.

"Could you take it out…"

The Officer didn’t get to finish his sentence. He felt a sharp burning in his chest, a laser beam fire from the driver’s ring. The officer fell to the side of the road as the driver laughed to himself. "NO ONE MESSES WITH ME!!"

The driver pulled out, proud that he got out of the city with the senator’s child without running into any super-heroes or without being able to get away from the cops. His night was soon ruined by the 18-Wheeler that smashed into the driver’s side of his Sable at about 80 miles per hour. The Sable crumpled under the massive truck, causing it to slide off the highway and into the trees that stood innocently on the side of the road. The suspended animation chamber that was holding the girl flew out of the trunk and landed safely in the field across the highway. She would be found by the police in minutes, unaware of what had happened. The truck and its cargo never made its destination, and State Police Officer David El-Kadi lay dying. The driver’s motives for kidnapping the young girl would forever be known only to him.

Peter Parker’s hands attempted in vain to tie a tie that belonged to his tux. On his third try, he started to wonder how he could make skis out of webbing but be unable to tie a bow tie.

He stopped to gain a sense of composure. At that moment, his wife’s hands circled his waist and glided up his chest to take both ends of his tie.

"Well, Tiger, at least you can spin a web any size."

"I was just waiting for a fashion expert to come along and save me."

"Right. Pull the other one Petey."

"Well, if you want me to do that, you might as well not finish tying this tie." Peter could only see a corner of the elegant red head’s face. He also felt a tight pull around his neck.

"Be nice. It’s only an hour till the party."

It was the night before Peter Parker’s fiftieth birthday. The shy kid from Queens had come a long way. There was a time when he would push himself during the day as a freelance photographer to pay his way through school. And at night he would push himself just as hard protecting the streets of New York as Spider-man. Mary-Jane spun him around to face her and kissed him on the cheek.

"Peter, I’m gonna go check on the kids."

Peter had been married to this woman over half of his life and he still got a small thrill from watching her walk away. After she left the bedroom, Peter found himself going over to his desk for a minute. He thumbed through some term papers he had yet to grade. It still felt odd being on the other side of the desk at Empire State University. On his computer he spotted an invite to his birthday party.

COME JOIN US FOR THE

50^th BIRTHDAY BASH FOR

MARVELTECH C.E.O. PETER PARKER

"MARVELTECH C.E.O., it makes me sound important."

In the living room, Ben Parker and Victoria Parker sat on the couch, playing Trivial Pursuit. Tori was a twenty year old graduate of the Xavier School for the Gifted. Her short red hair would suggest that she favored her mother Mary Jane but, like her younger brother, she was adopted. With the loss of May, Mary Jane was no longer able to have children. Tori was adopted a few years afterwards, and Ben was adopted four years later.

"I don’t know, Vic, um…. X-Files?"

"No. Who wants to be a Millionaire."

He asked to see the card to be sure the she wasn’t making that up. He read that Who Wants To Be A Millionaire was the number one show in America from 1999 to 2000.

"What the hell kind of show is that?!"

"I don’t know, now ask me one."

Ben dug for a card, not knowing why he should bother. His sisters mutant ability gave her total recall, there wasn’t anything she couldn’t remember once she had been exposed to it.

"Okay, ‘Who had the number 1 hit single: Oops!… I did it again’?"

Tori chuckled at first. It was the silliest song title she had ever heard. She searched the furthest reaches of her memory, closing her eyes and letting herself drift back in time. Over the years, Tori had been exposed to hundreds and thousands of books, and websites concerning history. She thought it should have been a snap to find something in American Rock and Pop music about the song and who did it.

Ben waited and smiled at his sister. "It’s okay, this isn’t for a pie."

"Shut up! Ummmm…. Madonna?.."

And then it came, the greatest moment in Ben’s life…

"NO! It was Britney Spears!"

"Who the fuck is that?!!?"

Ben never answered because the two were interrupted by Mary Jane clearing her throat. Tori could tell by her tone that she wasn’t pleased with her shouting the f-word at her younger brother. It didn’t matter that everyone in the family was quite well aware of the word, she just didn’t feel like hearing it just now.

Now that Mary Jane had their attention, she informed them that it was time to go. She knew that the two weren’t happy about spending a Friday night with Mom and Dad’s ass kissing friends. However, they loved their parents dearly, and there was always the chance the some super-villain might take tonight as an opportunity to attack someone or other. Stuff like that always seemed to happen around their family. It’s no wonder they knew about Dad’s webslinging life.

Every time Peter Parker found himself in a car, it was usually a tough ride. He just stared at the building tops and marveled at how odd it was to see them from the ground. The sight from down there always made him feel small.

The restaurant, The Rose, had been closed off to the public for tonight. Mary Jane had rented the place for Peter’s birthday. The family entered to cheers from people that Ben and Tori had never seen in their lives.

"Wow! Dad, is it true that the Kingpin’s son owns this place?"

"It’s cool, Ben. He has long been reformed. Believe me, I was there."

Ben was about to ask about that story, but the four reached the main room filled with everyone waiting for them. Unfortunately two hours passed and no supper villains attacked. Tori and Ben began to chat with strange kids who belonged to someone. Suddenly, Tori closed her eyes. After a moment her head began to nod. To many it would seem that she was bored out of her mind. Actually she was, but she also had the ability to access tv and radio broad-cast signals with her mind. Something came across the police band that made her jump off her chair and quickly make her way through the crowded restaurant to find her dad. She found Peter having a chat with Flash Thompson, known as "Uncle Flash" to Ben and her.

Flash’s eyes lit up when Victoria stepped up to the two. It was hard for Flash to believe that he used pick on Peter so much during high school that he seemed to have considered it his hobby. Jump forward 30 years and he was now the Godfather of Peter’s daughter.

She kissed him on the cheek and whispered something private into her father’s ear. Peter suddenly looked concerned and told Flash that he’d be right back. Flash took Peter by the arm.

"Everything okay, Pete?"

"Yeah, Vic left something at home, I’ll catch ya later."

Elsewhere, Mary Jane and Betty Thompson were enjoying a glass of champagne while catching up. Betty asked if Mary Jane was finished filming her latest movie.

"Well, yes. We were finished, but they need me to fly to Colorado for a re-shoot. So, I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m just happy that I could be here for Peter."

"Speaking of Peter… I need to speak to him about the recent MarvelTech theft. I’ve put a team of reporters on the story. Since he owns the Daily Bugle, I don’t want anyone to think I was going soft on him. I also want to him to know that I trust him. I know he had nothing to do with these criminals using MarvelTech equipment." Betty’s cell phone rang, cutting her off. "Thompson… Really? Get an interview with the officer in charge. No, don’t even try to talk to Spider-man. Is someone there taking pictures yet?"

Mary-Jane suddenly realized she hadn’t seen her husband or daughter for some time. "Betty? I’ll go see if I can find Peter."

Betty waved "OKAY" as she continued her conversation on the phone.

It was some fight, Wall Street was torn apart like fresh bread. Cars were wedged in the sides of buildings and people had scattered all about the area. What was once a bold robber hoping to make some quick cash thanks to the pilfered robo-suit used by police to handle super criminals, now was lying in the street at the feet of Spider-man. The robo-suit was a MarvelTech unit.

"WHERE DID YOU GET THIS SUIT?!?"

"E-Bay…"

"I’ll do the jokes." He lifted the now limp Iron Man wannabe. He held him up close, face to face. "How did you get this suit?"

"I think you know him… heh heh… he’s an old "friend" of yours…"

He didn’t get to finish his sentence. An electrical surge ripped through the suit and, consequently, his body. The robber was dead before he hit the ground. Spidey’s hands stung from the shock. With nothing left to do, he gave a nod to Tori who was watching from the safety of the crowd. Spider-man jumped away releasing a webline and disappeared into the New York sky line like so many times in the past.

Victoria passed a woman in the crowd that seemed to notice her. She was made uncomfortable by the woman’s stare. She kept walking, but she took note of the 5’6" tall white woman with short brown hair.

The woman, in turn smiled and moved away from all the action. The street was far too messy for her to relax and plan.