"Watson!"
"Coming, Mr. Jameson!"
Interns, regardless of their department, were universally destined for a life of grueling grunt work and coffee runs. But Mary Jane Watson had a slight edge. She was sharp, fast on her feet, and possessed a sheer force of personality that demanded respect.
More importantly, J. Jonah Jameson liked her. The gruff editor-in-chief saw the raw, unpolished potential of a brilliant investigative reporter beneath her bright smile.
Jonah waved a rolled-up newspaper at her as she rushed into his office. He gestured to the tired-looking man sitting across his desk. "Watson, meet Ben Urich. He is currently the absolute best investigative journalist in the entire Daily Bugle bullpen. Second only to me, back when I was a young man with knees that worked."
Ben adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, not even looking up from his notepad. "If you were my age right now, Jonah, you'd still be eating my dust."
Jonah let out a loud, barking laugh, entirely ignoring the jab. He pointed his cigar at Mary Jane. "Starting today, you are Urich's shadow. You assist him with whatever he needs. Urich, you're currently digging into the true identity of that Devil of Hell's Kitchen, right?"
"Daredevil, yes," Ben said, finally turning to look at MJ. "But I'm not actually interested in unmasking him. I'm investigating the psychology behind the mask. Are these vigilantes genuinely trying to save the city, or are they just looking for a socially acceptable excuse to vent their violent tendencies without getting thrown in Rikers? That's the story." Ben offered a tired but kind smile. "You can call me Ben."
Mary Jane crossed her arms, genuinely intrigued. "That's a pretty heavy angle to take."
"It's the only angle that matters, Watson!" Jonah snapped, slamming his fist on his mahogany desk. "This is exactly why the Bugle has to hold these masked freaks accountable! It's not just about the law. It's about the fact that we have absolutely no idea what kind of sociopath is hiding behind that spandex! What happens if one of them is a violent maniac? What if they use the 'vigilante' title just to justify breaking bones? What happens the day they lose control and kill some mugger in an alley? Not out of self-defense, but just because they enjoyed it? Who stops them then?"
Mary Jane nodded slowly. Jonah was loud, brash, and aggressively stubborn, but when he framed it like that, she couldn't deny the terrifying logic of his journalistic ethics.
She followed Ben out of the loud, smoke-filled office and into the chaotic bullpen. Ben led her to a cluttered cluster of desks near the back of the floor.
"That's my nephew, Phil," Ben said, pointing a thumb at a young man furiously typing at a keyboard. Phil looked up, flashed a bright, friendly smile at MJ, and immediately went back to typing.
"He's a solid reporter," Ben continued as he pulled out his chair. "Finished his internship a couple of years ago and managed to secure a full-time desk."
Mary Jane set her bag down, looking at Phil with a hint of admiration. "That's amazing. Keeping it in the family. He must have grown up watching you work and wanted to follow in your footsteps."
"Hardly," Ben snorted, booting up his desktop. "Phil absolutely hates how Jonah reports on the capes. The kid is a massive superhero fanboy. He specifically fought for a desk here so he could try to push positive, heroic stories about them into the Bugle's circulation."
Ben leaned back in his creaking chair, rubbing his stubbled jaw. "I can't really blame him. There's a generational gap."
Ben had lived through the terrifying era of mutant discovery in the seventies and eighties. He had reported on the horrific wave of mutant-related terrorist attacks through the nineties. He remembered the sheer, suffocating public panic whenever Magneto was on the news, threatening to wipe out the human race. Humanity had spent decades terrified that they were being biologically replaced.
Then, everything abruptly shifted. In 2005, the Fantastic Four got their powers. The 'Heroic Age' began. Suddenly, the sky was filled with colorful heroes, and the world realized that extraordinary abilities weren't just a mutant anomaly anymore. Ordinary humans were becoming superhumans. Almost overnight, the intense, localized hatred for mutants was diluted by the sheer volume of new miracles.
Ben couldn't look at a superhero without seeing the ghosts of the mutant terror era, but kids like Phil? They just saw flying saviors.
Ben pointed to the desk directly across from his. "And this is Ned Leeds. Solid guy. Incredible researcher, but he rarely goes out into the field. Mostly handles the deep-dive office work. A couple of days ago, he caught a weird lead about a restaurant explosion in Manhattan, but it's been a dead end." Ben knocked on the partition. "Any luck, Ned?"
Ned Leeds jumped slightly, looking up from a stack of files. He was a quiet, unassuming man in his late twenties, wearing a wrinkled button-down shirt. "Uh, no. Nothing yet, Ben. The NYPD wrote it off, and the scene was wiped clean."
Mary Jane noticed a thick layer of white gauze wrapped tightly around Ned's left hand. "Did you hurt yourself, Mr. Leeds?"
Ned quickly pulled his hand off the desk, tucking it into his lap. He offered a nervous, tight-lipped smile. "Oh. Yeah. I was just... doing some handicrafts at home. My knife slipped."
"Keep some ice on it," Ben muttered, taking a sip from a stained coffee mug.
Mary Jane pulled out a notebook, clicking her pen. "Alright, Ben. What's my first assignment? Tracking down police scanners? Interviewing witnesses?"
Ben looked at her over the rim of his glasses. "Nothing."
Mary Jane blinked. "...Nothing?"
"You're a student, Watson," Ben said firmly. "Your focus is school. Jonah might think you're the second coming of Nellie Bly, but that is absolutely no excuse to burn out before you're twenty. The Bugle HR department requires a bachelor's degree for a full-time offer. You have to finish your high school and college before you can actually put your name in print here. So, for now, you read. You learn. You observe. Do not take on a heavy workload, and do not let this newsroom tank your GPA."
Mary Jane deflated slightly, but she understood. Ben was a veteran protecting a rookie. He knew exactly how fast this industry could chew people up.
"However," Ben added, tossing a thick manila folder onto her desk. "I do have a backlog. Ned, I'm giving Watson a copy of your restaurant bombing file. She can organize the index and cross-reference the witness statements for you."
An hour later, Mary Jane was fully settled at her desk. The rhythmic clacking of typewriters, the ringing phones, and the sharp smell of cheap printer ink filled the air. She took a deep breath. She had given up a promising, glamorous career as a television actress for this, and sitting here, she knew she had made the right choice.
She opened the file, scanning Ned's notes. Ned was thorough; his summaries were incredibly concise and clinically detailed.
Mary Jane tapped her pen against her lip, her brow furrowing. This doesn't read like a gas leak or a standard terrorist attack, she thought.
According to the file, an explosion had leveled the interior of a restaurant, killing three patrons. But the witness statements from the street outside all agreed on one bizarre detail: there was no deafening boom. The blast radius was incredibly small and perfectly contained, releasing almost no concussive shockwave outside the glass windows. It was why the police had initially brushed it off as a localized gas line failure.
But Mary Jane knew better. A contained blast with zero sound propagation?
That wasn't gas. That was highly advanced, military-grade technology. Or super-powers.
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