That same night over at the Osborn mansion, the head of Oscorp's research division, Harry Osborn, sat at his desk examining pictures of Spider-Man through various newspapers, practically those from the Daily Bugle while occasionally drinking his glass of whisky before then slamming his fist down on a random picture of infamous webbed vigilantly. It had been a month since the disastrous experiment in which Otto's fusion reactor nearly destroyed the city, almost ruining him financially due to the damages from the experiment and how much it had cost to perform and finally, regrettably, turning Otto into a monster now at large. Despite this terrible chain of events, his thoughts were not on that fateful day, it was all on Spider-Man.

It was a worst kept secret among the servants in the mansion and those in the higher ups who worked at Oscorp that Harry had a price on the Spider-Man's head, though for whatever reason they didn't know as Harry kept it quiet. Not unexpectedly this had led to rumors about why Harry had it in for Spider-Man, though they felt that only thing they could do was keep their heads down.

"Where are you?" Harry growled as he down another gulp of whiskey while seeing yet another newspaper picture of Spider-Man, he was getting more intoxicated with the amount of drinks he'd downed already.

"I'm leaving for the night, sir," suddenly came the voice of his faithful butler, Bernard.

Harry sighed, his train of thought stopped in that brief moment. "...Fine"

"Your father only obsessed over his work," Bernard replied, noticing how the young man seemed deep in thought over pictures of Spider-Man.

"...Good night, Bernard." Harry replied while not looking at him, feeling the urge to shout at the poor man in his current state about Spider-Man, though he managed to keep himself together thankfully.

Once Bernard had left the room, Harry gulped down his current glass of whiskey and started pouring himself another, it was almost as if he was on a drinking binge. Suddenly a slight judder was felt in the large room and Harry glanced round wondering what had happened. He felt it yet again and seemed like it was coming from outside. With admonition in his heart, Harry walked cautiously out onto the balcony while tightening his grip on his glass. The judder now felt like a thump one after the other. He looked left and right trying to figure out what was going on, with a few more cautious steps; he went towards the edge to peer downwards, apart from the occasion clap of thunder, it was silent. At that moment, the thumping stopped. Just as he could see the whole street below him, he came face to face with a thick metal tentacle.

"What the—" Harry was knocked back to the ground by the tentacle and his glass of whiskey went flying forwards...and landed in the grip of another tentacle. His eyes widened is he saw he was standing there on the edge of the balcony as the figure, with four metal arms coming from out of his back, drank from Harry's half full glass.

"Hello, Harry." Doc Ock smiled at him.

"Otto," Harry replied with a mixture of shock and confusion. "What'd you want?"

The fallen scientist stepped onto the balcony with a determined look in his eyes. "That precious tritium...but I need more this time."

The young Osborn's eyes widened in horror, he immediately knew why Otto would want tritium. "...More tritium...? Are you crazy?! You'll destroy the city! You're a ha—ARGH!"

One of the fearsome metal arms grabbed Harry by the leg and left him hanging over the edge threatening to drop him to his death while Otto grinned menacingly. "Hey! Hey!" Harry screamed. "Stop, stop! All right!" Otto knew he had Harry where we wanted him as slowly moved back onto the veranda. "All right, all right, all right. Put me down, we'll make a deal." Harry rambled as Otto lowered onto the ground.

Once he was back on solid ground, Harry's confidence returned as he stared at Otto. "...Kill Spider-Man, I'll give you all the tritium you need...on second thought, bring him to me alive."

Otto remained placid. "How do I find him?"

"Peter Parker."

"Parker?"

"He takes pictures of Spider-Man for the Bugle." Harry explained. "Make him tell you where he is."

For a moment, Doc Ock thought over the deal and nodded, his metal arms led him over towards the edge before stopping and looking back at Harry. "...Have it ready." With that said, Otto's four metal arms carried him off and he climbed down the edge of the building to begin his search for Peter Parker.

A sudden alarming thought went off in Harry's mind that Peter could be in danger somehow and so he raced over to the edge of the veranda looking down as Otto neared the bottom. "Don't hurt Peter!" Harry yelled down at the mad scientist.

Harry slowly stepped back and looked up at the night sky, a conflicting amount of emotions tore at him. On one hand the thought of him killing Spider-Man for his late father felt like justice was about to be served, yet he was about to lose all the precious remaining tritium he owned to Otto and feared of what might happen.

Unknown to the two of them and watching from a taller building nearby, a certain cat burglar had just noticed Doc Ock leaving the scene. Not knowing Octavius was planning with Harry Osborne, she decided to follow him and track down and hopefully find his hideout and see if possible what he might be planning.

XXX

The following day, sun rose over the city that morning and for New York's famous hero, it would seem like another day as he swung across the city. The only difference that had happened now is that he had Black Cat fighting alongside him. At first, the leather clad former cat burglar had been rather reluctant to join Spider-Man in his daytime patrols having preferring to come out at night, though after some persuasion from Spider-Man, she finally accepted to join him for the daytime action.

That said, while she seemed in her element at night, she seemed rather the opposite in the daytime looking uncomfortable mainly of the amount of rather unfavourable attention from members of the public, then again this was her first encounter with an unsuspecting public. Ironic considering her confident nature that she had always.

Nonetheless though, she got the hand of it eventually and now Spider-Man was on his way to meet up with Black Cat at their normal meeting spot. He had an early start for the Bugle and for once wasn't shouted at by J. Jonah Jameson, in fact, he had seemed rather happier than normal to all the fellow staff members of the Bugle, though it was only just because of his son's upcoming wedding and wouldn't stop raving about it, by then people working in the Bugle starting to get annoyed with him. Still, for Peter, it was a nice change for once in the rather frantic, madcap and sometimes rather unfriendly atmosphere of the Bugle.

Peter then came out of his thoughts when he noticed Black Cat resting against a wall, though didn't seem to take any notice of him. With his newly developed confidence, he decided to give his girlfriend a little surprise. He approached a building's pillar that just so happened to be above Black cat and hanged upside down using his webbing on the pillar. Once in place, he lowered himself down quietly.

"Excuse me lady but are you lost by chance?" Spider-Man joked as he was eye to eye with the platinum blonde haired woman.

Black Cat was surprised at first but quickly smiled. "About time you showed up," she laughed and pulled his masked down half way before giving him a kiss. It was to Spider-Man very reminiscing of another upside down kiss...

After the kiss and pulling his mask down (or up however one looked at it), Spider-Man quickly flipped himself round and landed on his feet again. "So Cat, how have you been then?" He asked her.

"Oh, just a little scouting..." Black cat replied with her voice hinting at something.

Spider-Man crossed his arms. "...Scouting? For what?"

The leather clad woman leaned in closer to him. "Well, let's just say...I think I've found Doc Ock's main HQ..."

Peter's eyes widened, then he grinned under his mask. "You found him? You sure about that?"

"Couldn't mistake a guy with four metal arms on his back making his along the city now could you?" Black Cat replied placing a hand on her hip while raising her eyebrow in the sexiest way possible.

"Where was he heading?" Spider-Man asked now sounding interested.

"Seems he's hiding out in that old wooden pier across the city," Black Cat explained. "Not most the original bad guy lair I might add, but my gut instinct tells me something big is about to happened..."

An awkward silence fell between them, Black Cat wanted to tell the spandex superhero about that meeting with Doc Ock and Harry Osborn but being far away from whatever they were planning, she felt a bit guilty of not hearing everything that was going on.

"It's ok if you think that way," Spider-Man assured her, placing his hands on her shoulders. "What's more important is that you've found his lair and that we can eventually stop him for good next time we face him."

Black Cat gave a small smile before replying about something else that had been on her mind. "Um...Spidey, before we go out on our big morning patrol, I sort of have a request for you."

"Uh-huh?" Spider-Man asked. "What would that be, Cat?"

Black Cat brushed a strand of hair away from her face. "I'm just thinking that if you're saying that we going to be serious about our relationship, do you think we should start revealing our identities to each other?"

Despite it might have sounded to anyone, Spider-Man didn't seem surprised that Black cat would bring up this question. "To be fair, Cat...I haven't really thought about it, when would want it to happen?"

"Not to sound too forceful," Black Cat replied. "But...would now be the time?"

Now Spider-Man was surprised, holding his hands up joshing. "Whoa, whoa hold on, Cat. Isn't it a bit early for this sort of thing? I mean—"

"What would be the point of waiting?" Black Cat asked crossing her arms. "If we're going reveal ourselves eventually, we might get it done with am I right?"

A moment of silence followed her statement as Spider-Man thought about it. In his mindset, he would give a month before thinking about doing it, but the truth was that Black Cat was right. They would need to reveal to each other at some point sooner than later and if they were to be together, Peter felt that he had nothing to lose, only worry that she might react badly to seeing him behind the mask. Spider-Man placed his hands on his hips, looked up at the morning sky and nodded. "Alright, Cat...we'll do it together, just don't get your hopes up too much if the person behind the mask isn't who'd you want it to be."

"What could possible go wrong?" Black Cat laughed.

Spider-Man grabbed the bottom half of his mask ready to pull it off while she held her own face man ready to do the same thing. "All right, on my count," Spider-Man sighed with trepidation. "Three, two, one..."

Without a moment's hesitation, both masks were removed and Peter felt himself vulnerable without his mask, something inside of him was yelling in anger at him for doing this. It was then Peter looked upon Black cat without her mask and vice versa with her looking at him. With her mask removed, Peter could see all her attractive face, though Peter knew she was always more than just a pretty face, but just who was Black Cat? In turn, she starred at the unmasked hero and her face went from a mixture of shock and amazement in about ten seconds.

Even though the moment of stillness between them lasted just about ten seconds, it felt like ten minutes to Peter until he decided to break the silence. "Um...hi," Peter muttered.

"...Hey," Back Cat replied softly, her expression now unreadable. "The name's Hardy, Felicia Hardy."

"Parker, Peter Parker." Peter answered back with some concern that maybe she felt overwhelmed by the revelation and that he felt maybe this wasn't a good idea.

"...Peter Parker?" Felicia asked raising an eyebrow. "Wait, I've heard that name before, let me think..."

"Daily Bugle?" Peter asked, hoping that it would give an easy clue to her about those certain pictures of Spider-Man.

"Yeah...that's right," Felicia nodded. "Wait, you're that guy who takes the pictures of..." She stopped midway through her sentence, her eyes widening in realization. Then she laughed. "...Of course! Those close up pictures of Spider-Man for the Bugle that no one else can't do! So...you've all this time been—"

"Taking pictures of myself? Yeah," Peter replied dryly.

The platinum blonde woman couldn't help the large smile now appearing on her face. "God, all of a sudden a billion piece jigsaw suddenly falls into place."

Peter was quite startled that Felicia didn't seem dissatisfied or even disgusted by the sight of him unmasked. "Wait, you're not disappointed by who I am?"

"Why would I be?" Felicia asked incredulously. "You know how lucky it is for me to be one of the few, if not the only one, who get's to see who you are really, no disrespect, but I find it hilarious that Spider-Man is nothing more than a nerd."

"A nerd," Peter laughed mordantly while rolling his eyes. "Geez, I can never win, can I?"

Felicia walked closer up to him with a flirty glint in her green eyes. "Ah, it's not so bad Peter. In fact, you have hit the jackpot I might add."

Peter felt better at that as he pulled her close. "True, not so bad indeed..." The two went in for another kiss, and they didn't seem to care how long the kiss was, all they cared about was being with each other and everything around them seemed to drop away.

However, their moment of affection was cut short by the sound of police sirens going down on the street below causing them to pull away. Peter glanced over at the sound then back at Felicia, it was time to begin the day in fighting crime.

"Care to join me my fair lady?" Peter jokingly said in a mock polite tone.

"Ooh, very flattering my good sir," Felicia played along with her arms behind her back. "Though you might need your mask."

Peter laughed at first, but then noticed that his mask was missing and franticly turned his head round looking for it. "What the? I thought I had it—"

He was silenced when he noticed Felicia holding his mask in her hands, now he noticed why she had her hands behind her back.

"You've got to be more careful," Felicia said with a smug grin on her face, showing that she still had some of her former cat burglar skills. "Wouldn't it be funny to think that Spider-Man has butter fingers?"

Peter laughed as he grabbed his mask back and placed it on while she did the same with her own. "So then," Spider-Man began. "Time to kick the day off. Let's follow that police chase."

Black Cat shot a cable wire towards a nearby building. "What are we waiting for then? Let's go!"

Without a moment's hesitation, the two swung off from the building to follow the police. For now on, the superhero couple was fighting not as just Spider-Man and Black Cat, but as Peter Parker and Felicia Hardy.

XXX

It was shortly after noon when Spider-Man and Black Cat had decided to take a break from their patrol. If some thought that revealing their secret identities seemed too quick and careless, Felicia then suggested that Peter should check out her place after they managed to stop another bank heist. It was an unusual request, but with his newly developed confidence, Peter agree to see for himself knowing that surely her place would be leagues ahead of his own apartment.

What he didn't expect to see was that she lived in a penthouse of all places. The penthouse itself was very well striking, well designed and modern looking, almost making Peter wonder exactly how much Felicia had made (or stolen) during her time as a cat burglar, not unpredictably, she kept quiet on that certain question. Bottom line, the penthouse did more than just put Peter's own apartment to shame. He really wouldn't mind staying here if asked nicely...

Once there, the two chatted about each other's lives prior before becoming their alter-egos. Peter discovered that Felicia was the daughter of the famed cat burglar Walter Hardy, an individual that Peter had heard a few times from the older generation working at the Daily Bugle, and that she was following in her father's footsteps...that until she decided to join Spider-Man.

Felicia then asked about his place and how he lived, Peter simply explained the 'show don't tell' method when they would arrive at his apartment. When they did get to Peter's residence, Felicia was stunned, in her view, of the poor state of the apartment, was clearly something of a culture shock to her.

"Bit of a comedown, right?" Peter noted to his partner, as the platinum blonde woman looked around the room completely speechless.

"Ok, this day get's weirder." Felicia finally spoke once she came to her senses again over while looking at one of the wooden pillars' flaking paintwork. "First I find out that Spider-Man is a really a nerd, no disrespect."

"None taken," Peter replied not looking at her as he pulled his mask off while going over to check for any voicemail messages on his phone that he might've missed while out.

"And another thing," Felicia continued. "Not only that, but that Spider-Man lives in a place that isn't like a secret cool lair, but just a garbage apartment, no disrespect again."

"None taken again," Peter repeated focusing on any voicemail messages.

Felicia then gave one final look around the apartment before shaking her head, placing her hands on her hips and looking over to Peter. "You know, when it does come time to move in, you're moving in with me at my place. No way you can stay here forever."

Peter faced her and smiled. "Let me think, a life here dealing with that damn landlord daily or moving into a rich place with a rather attractive girl, I wonder...feeling lonely at your place?"

"Good choice," Felicia grinned as she gave him an affection peck on the cheek.

"Why would I turn down that offer anyway?" Peter remarked as he went back to check on any voicemail messages, the thought of getting away from his unbearable landlord felt like a getting an offer from heaven.

Just as Felicia went on about condemning the place yet again ("How the hell does your landlord think this is ok? Are the other apartments like this?" She carried on), Peter then noticed one voicemail call from a familiar number...

"No way," Peter muttered as he punched in a few numbers to hear the call. "Why would she...?"

At that moment, Peter activated the voicemail to be heard. "Hi Pete," came the voice of Mary Jane. "I've been thinking about last night, I think we should have a talk, meet me at five thirty later today at that coffee shop we used to go to all the time. Also, bring along your girlfriend with you, I'm just a little curious about what you said about her."

Peter stepped back from the phone with a dumbfounded look, his tongue had got him into trouble this time. He turned to face Felicia, who in turned looked suspicious with Mary Jane's message. "...You did say that your last meeting with her was supposed to be a farewell before her wedding, right?" Felicia questioned.

"Yeah," Peter nodded. "Why's that?"