The Darkest Hours

Chapter 18

I WENT INTO THE BEDROOM and shut the door behind me. Mary Jane took one look at my face and went pale.

"Peter?" she whispered.

I sat down slowly on the bed while she hovered over me.

"The thing is," I heard myself say, "you've got to feel the traffic around you. You've got to have your eyes watching other people, making sure some idiot isn't about to turn in front of you. The laws, the lights, changing lanes, all of that really isn't hard at all. Most people can drive while they're half asleep and stand a reasonable chance of arriving safely anyway. You just have to keep an eye out for the idiots. It's the idiots that mess up an otherwise decent system of transportation. As long as you know you've got your eye on any potential morons, it's a lot easier to feel confident about the rest of it."

She shook her head, lips pressed tightly together.

"It's like listening to music, You know it when something starts going wrong. You know how it's supposed to sound, and when you hear that first difference, that's when you know you've got to look sharp. Or like science. You know what's supposed to be in a given environment, and when something changes, you can see it, see what caused it. It's the same on the road. You listen for the change in music. You watch for the active variable. That's really all there is to driving, MJ."

She sat down with me. "Peter. You're scaring me."

"I just… I just don't want you thinking that this driving test is something big or complicated. It's simple. Sometimes the simple things aren't easy. But it isn't anything that's going to stop you for long. You'll beat it."

She took my face in both hands and made me look at her. "What happened?"

I told her about the Rhino's blindness and Mortia's phone call.

"So. I guess we'll have this finished by dawn," I said.

We sat together in silence for a minute.

"I have to go," I said. "If I don't…"

Mary Jane gave me a quiet smile. Then murmured, "Yet do I fear thy nature; it is too full o' the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way."

"What's that mean in English?" I asked her.

She kissed me. "That I love you."

We held hands for a while. Then she said, "Can you win?"

"Not that it matters," I said. "But I think so. If I could figure out how."

"You always do," she said.

"Yeah," I said, without really meaning it. "Maybe something will come to me."

"Well," she said quietly, "you'll need some dinner. And to get some sleep, if you can."

Sleep. Right.

"Come on," she said. "You'd better introduce me to our guest."

"MJ…" I said.

"He's our guest, Peter. Didn't you invite him to stay? Offer your protection to him? Didn't he agree to a truce?"

"Yes," I said. "But…"

"Then he's probably hungry, too. I'll see what I can put together." She stood up to leave.

I touched her wrist and said, "Just, uh. Be careful of him. All right? Don't go within reach of him. I'll move him to the couch."

"Where is he now?" she asked.

"Um. The kitchen floor."

"Oh,

Peter, for goodness' sake."

"I'll move him," I said. "As long as you promise to be careful."

"All right," she said.

"Oh," I said. "One more thing…"

* * *

"I am curious," said the Rhino as he sat on most of Aunt May's couch, with a cup of hot tea. The Rhino hat occupied the leftover space beside him.

He held the cup between two fingers and stirred very carefully as Mary Jane sat the sugar bowl back on the coffee table. "What kind of salary does a high-profile superhero's majordomo require?"

"Never as much as I'd like," Mary Jane responded. "But the hours aren't bad and there are decent benefits." She walked back toward the kitchen and rolled her eyes at me. I gave her a thumbs-up, while she plundered the freezer. Aunt May had a bunch of frozen hamburgers left over from the big end-of-summer cookout we'd had, and some pasta, and some tomato paste, and Mary Jane set about making something out of it.

"Benefits," the Rhino said. "Never have gotten anything like that. That is a problem, working as an independent contractor."

I had a cup of tea, too, but I wasn't sipping. Still too weird seeing the freaking Rhino on Aunt May's couch. Sipping tea. "I like that phone," I said. "Great speaker."

"Da, is also MP3 player," the Rhino said, pleased. "When I first get into this business, tried to carry radio with me, but I had no pockets in the suit. I lose or break half a dozen radios, then cell phones, and one day think to myself, Rhino, what kind of idiot designs suit with no pockets?"

Mary Jane turned her head away and bit down on a wooden spoon to keep from laughing.

"Yeah," I said, glowering at her. "Idiot."

I was going to design pockets into my costume.

Eventually. It wasn't like I didn't have better things to be doing with my time.

"Got to be practical in this business," I said.

"Exactly," the Rhino said. "Is business. Lot of people cannot accept this."

I was quiet for a minute. Then I asked, "Why'd you get into it?" The Cat had told me why he'd gotten his start already. I wanted to hear what he had to say.

The Rhino sipped his tea for a moment. Then he said, "The money. I had other ideas, back then. I was younger. Very naive. Stupid." There was more than a little bitterness in his voice.

"When you're young it isn't necessarily stupidity," I said. "It only means that there's a lot you haven't learned."

He shook off what looked like bad memories and resumed speaking in a neutral, conversational voice. "No, this I admit: I was stupid. Made stupid, young-man mistakes. After getting the strength enhancement and that first job against the Hulk, I had to find work. If you believe this, I had planned to enter professional wrestling. To become a wrestling star and make money." He let out a rumbling chortle. "Of course, I am stupid, but not this stupid. I realize in time what a disaster it could be and ask myself, Rhino, what kind of moron gets superpowers and sets out to enter professional wrestling?"

"Hah hah," I chortled with him. "Hah hah, yeah. Heh."

Mary Jane's face turned bright red, and she had one hand firmly covering her mouth as she stood over the stove.

"Of course," the Rhino continued, "you know what happened next. The armored suit began to bond to my skin, and I could not take the costume off." He shook his head. "There I was, young man, big, strong, plenty of money, stuck in a gray suit I could not remove. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to pick up girls when you have been stuck in armored suit for six months?"

I thought about it and shuddered. In that suit? "Ugh."

"Da," he said with heartfelt agreement. "The smell alone… I had to go through car wash to get even a little clean. So I start taking more jobs, to get enough money to remove the suit." He shook his head. "Is like low-budget horror movie. I thought that suit was an incredible asset, but it turns into horrible curse. You have no idea." He shook his head, finished the tea, and carefully put the cup back on the table. "As I say, stupid. What kind of moron gets himself stuck into costume he cannot even remove?"

My face turned red and I glanced at Mary Jane.

Her whole upper body started jerking in little hiccuplike motions from the effort of holding in her laughter, and she had to leave the room.

"I've got to ask you something."

I

said.

"Just something I've wondered."

He nodded. "Da."

I did my best to keep my voice neutral and calm. "Why do you keep that look? The big gray rhino suit. And… the hat."

"Bozhe moi."

He sighed. "The suit and hat. I hate the suit. I hate the hat."

I tilted my head and leaned forward. "Then why do you keep them?"

He waved both hands a little, a gesture of helpless frustration. "I have no choice," he said. "They have become business asset. Trademark."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"When I finally get the first suit off, I swear to myself never again. Hired a public image consultant. Bought myself business suit. Armani. Dark glasses. Big trench coat. Was good look, very hip, very professional." He sighed. "First contract was in Colombia and it falls apart."

"Why?"

"Because I reach employer for meeting, and he does not believe I am the real Rhino. He says I am fake. That real Rhino has hat with horn on it and big gray body armor suit. He says everyone knows that. So I must be fake, and I must prove I am real Rhino."

This conversation was like listening to a train wreck: fascinating, novel, and more than a little confusing. "What happened?"

"I get angry and prove it," he sighed.

"How?"

"I throw his yacht into his billiard room." He shook his head. "After that, no more questions, but contract falls through. Unprofessional. Is better for business to wear stupid costume. And stupid hat."

I shook my head. Good grief. Felicia was even more right than I thought. I had also been young and ignorant when I got my powers. There but for the grace of God, Spidey.

"You ever see yourself retiring?" I asked him.

His body language shifted, from politely conversational to totally closed. He shrugged a shoulder. "Do you?"

"Tried," I said. "Couldn't really stay out of it."

"Da," he said quietly, nodding. Then he relaxed a little and did a half-credible Pacino impersonation, complete with hand gestures. "They pull me back in."

I broke out into a sudden laugh, and he joined me.

Maybe three seconds later, both of us realized we were laughing with one another and not at, and there was an abrupt and awkward silence.

"Dinner," Mary Jane said with absolutely angelic timing. She'd returned to the kitchen unnoticed, but when she spoke I got a whiff of something delicious and my stomach threatened to go on strike if I didn't fill it immediately. She came out with spaghetti and meat sauce, flavored from Aunt May's own spice rack, and both me and the Rhino started wolfing it down.

In the afterglow, the Rhino sat back on the couch and covered a quiet belch with one hand. "Excuse, please."

"Why not," I said.

"You are not what I expected," the Rhino said.

I grunted. We were both guys, so the Rhino heard,

You aren't what I expected, either.

"I do not like you," he said, his voice thick. "That is not something that changes."

"I hear you."

He nodded, evidently satisfied at the response, and settled onto the couch a little more comfortably. Even if his face hadn't been all messed up, he would have looked exhausted. Add in the damage of Mortia's touch and he looked like death. He was asleep and snoring within seconds.

Mary Jane frowned at the Rhino for a moment. Then she set her plate aside, took one of Aunt May's quilts from the little trunk next to the couch, and spread it over him. She turned to me and reached out a hand.

I took it and regarded the sleeping Rhino for a moment. Then we gathered up dishes and went back to the kitchen together. She sipped a cup of tea while I did the dishes.

"It was good to hear you laugh," she said after a while. "I like it when you laugh."

"It's weird," I said. "It's like he's a person."

Her eyes sparkled. "Amazing."

"Heh. Yeah." I kept at the task. The hot water on my hands was soothing. Cleaning the plates and the pan was comfortable, a job at which I could achieve tangible, immediate progress. I found myself moving more and more slowly, though. If I finished the dishes, I'd have nothing but time—and not much of that.

"You should try to rest," she said. "Even if you can't sleep. Get a shower, lay down, and close your eyes. It will be good for you, and you'll need your strength."

"Maybe," I said.

"Definitely. After you kick the Ancients back to wherever they came from, you're coming with me to the driving test Monday. You'll need all the nerve you can get."

I tried to smile at her, but her flippancy didn't change the facts any more than mine did. I was alone, and I had no idea how to survive the night.

"All right," I told her. "I just need to make a call first."

She'd figured me out a long time ago. She already had her cell phone in hand, and she passed it to me. "Aunt May left me several numbers in case we needed to reach her. They're in the phone book."

I took the phone and got a little misty-eyed. "What in the world did I do to deserve you?"

She kissed my cheek. "I have no idea. But I'm fairly sure it isn't the sort of thing to happen twice."

I took the phone into the bedroom with me and opened up its list of contact numbers. The time flashed sullenly on the little display screen, the seconds ticking down with relentless patience.