Webs We Weave



Chapter Five

DISCLAIMER :: This tale blends together aspects of Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy/Ghost Spider/Spider-Gwen from Marvel Comics, Marvel Television, and Marvel Studios. Fanfiction? Sort of. The world and characters are mine, but they may seem familiar.
Author's note: Sorry it's a day late, but I got it posted as soon as I could.

For the next couple of days, I kept a low profile. Getting breakfast and lunch was fine. Nobody but Ms. Maven and I were in the building. Dinner was a little tricky. All the shelter kids were usually in the building for dinner. I could hear the echoes of their conversations up in my room. Maven decided to accommodate me by delivering a dinner plate to my room. It helped avoid awkward situations. The first thing a person surrenders when greeting others is their name. I hadn’t decided on one, yet.

In my solitude, I’d ask myself why I had never really thought that much about a name. Almost immediately afterward, I would answer that. My mom had always been more permissive than my dad. After she was gone, everything started to get buried. Little by little, I stored things away about myself that were discouraged. It was always the little things like how I walked, how I said a word, how I moved my hands when I spoke, or how my speech tended to bounce around like a song. Everything that was deemed unacceptable for a “Parker Man” was locked away through scrutiny. I was never allowed to just act naturally. That was unacceptable. Everything was corrected. Before long, all the natural aspects of myself were so deeply stored that it was difficult to access.

I thought if I did well in school or did well in life that it would be enough. It never was.

Personal connections were the first casualties. I didn’t really have friends growing up or in college. Operating in the world of men was foreign territory. If being the smart kid in class wasn’t enough to socially ostracize me, then being someone who didn’t know how to relate to people made it that much worse. I tried to learn, but it was a skillset I just wasn’t built for. I always seemed to come off as awkward and disjointed.

After school, I just kept my head down and tried to make life work. That had been enough to keep my mind occupied. There’s no better way to get your head in a game than your life depending on it. If I wanted to eat, have clothes, and a roof over my head, I had to have money. I’ve forgotten how many times I’ve been told I’m “overqualified” for a position I was just trying to procure so I could eat and pay rent. It was pretty difficult until the pandemic hit. Then, gig work really took off and I didn’t have to worry about some hiring manager or HR rep telling me I was “overqualified” for anything. I never really had much time to focus on myself. My thoughts were dominated by survival.

Now, I had nothing but time. It was a little frightening, honestly.

Much of the time was spent trying to figure out what I was going to do with myself and what my name should be. To the former, I had no ideas. Technically, I had my phone, which meant I could feasibly get paid through the apps for doing deliveries. I just needed a bicycle, at the very least. The latter was like trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe. My mind was in overclock mode running through family names, names of my peers, and what resonated with my preferences. I envied perspective parents who had nine months to figure out what they were going to name their child. My window for consideration was much shorter. Most likely, I’d only have days. I was still coming up empty.

When Friday night rolled around, Maven brought me dinner and set the tray on the desk against the window. Instead of leaving immediately, she sat herself on the bed with me. I had my earbuds in, so I didn’t hear the first thing she tried to say. I hit the pause button on the music I was listening to and pulled out the earbuds. She took the cue and repeated herself.

“How are you holding up, love?” She wondered.

I shrugged meekly. “I don’t know yet.”

“Fair answer, given the state of things.” There was a pregnant pause before she continued. “We do have to get through that paperwork. I’ve a legal duty to process your intake and school enrollment.”

“I don’t know why I have to go to school with a bunch of teenagers when I graduated college a decade ago.”

“Have ya seen the mirror, love?” She chuckled and shook her head. “I might know that what you’re saying is true. The State of New York and the United States Government are a bit tougher to convince without indisputable proof, which we don’t have. Far as they’re concerned, I’ve an unaccompanied minor in my care that isn’t in school.”

“I know. I’ve seen the news on YouTube. Most of the data surrounding the event a couple of days ago is classified. Science takes longer than a few days to reach a consensus on a hypothesis. There’s an astrophysicist and cosmologist from the University of Chicago who’s been doing the rounds in the news. She’s the one who predicted when the thing would hit, but even she’s saying that they don’t know much about it.”

Maven nodded slowly. “Yes, so for a time, some adaptation is needed. I can complete most of the forms, but I need a name. Then, we need to take you in for registration and placement. You’ll need to take some tests so they can determine where to place you.”

“How are they going to be able to do that? I’ve got no paper trail. No transcripts. No immunization records. No identification. I literally just appeared out of nowhere.”

“Doesn’t matter. The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act stresses immediate placement in school. That’s federal law. We’ll work with the school to get all the documentation you’ll need after you’re in school.”

“So I have no choice?”

“Would you have it that I must close this organization down just to harbor you?”

“No. That would be selfish and unreasonable.”

“Right then. I’ll give you another day. By tomorrow at supper, I’ll need a name to put into the paperwork.”

My lungs released a heavy sigh. “Fine. Thank you.”

She tapped my leg. “Keep a stiff upper lip, love. It’s not the end of the world. Some people would give anything to go back to high school.”

“Those people are called ‘masochists’.”

She genuinely laughed for the first time since I’d met her. Her accent slipped a little to a more archaic New York inflection. “Ain’t dat right!”

My eyes met hers as if pleading. “I need to go into Brooklyn and gather some things. Am I allowed to do that on my own?”

“Of course, dearie. You need anything from me?”

I shook my head. “Thanks, but no. It’s some electronics and such. I’ll bring it back with my DoorDash bag, if it’s still there.”

“Just promise to be safe.”

My eyes rolled almost automatically. “Yea, of course. You’re acting like I didn’t grow up in Brooklyn.”

“Not with that form, you didn’t. Mind how you go, love.”

“I’ll be careful, okay?”

“Sure ya will.” She smirked at me before lifting herself off the bed and moving out of the room. “Be sure to return by eleven,” she added before closing the door behind her.

My mind couldn’t fathom why she thought I’d be in danger in my own hometown. Being honest, Brooklyn’s never really been “safe”. When I was a kid, we generally stuck to our own block when we played. As a teenager, I went to a zoned high school and kept to myself because being the kid of a cop wasn’t something anyone bragged about if they knew what was good for them. Although my high school did have notable alumni like Isaac Asimov and Rita Hayworth, that was in the older buildings on Marcy and Nostrand, respectively. By the time I was in the newer building on Fulton, the legacy was nothing more than a plaque on a wall to remind us of a time when the education system was funded well enough to produce Nobel laureates, lauded authors, and diligent members of Congress. Through it all, I learned some of my dad’s vigilance and kept out of trouble before it started. That’s how I stayed out of danger.

In the peace of my bedroom, I had my dinner. When I finished eating, I threw on a hoodie, grabbed my phone, put the keys in my pocket, and headed out of the building. One or two of the kids might have spotted me, but I was far enough away and moving fast enough to not be approached. Out the front door, it was a three-block walk to the subway. I took the route Maven had used to bring me to the house, but in reverse.

In the evening, there are people everywhere in the city. With everybody getting off work at roughly the same time, the streets, sidewalks, and subway cars were crowded. One of the first things I really noticed was that most of the women around me were about my height. The next thing I noticed was that almost all the men were taller. The world was feeling decidedly different from how it felt a couple of days before. Seven inches of height loss created an entirely new perspective. Swiping my MetroCard was easy enough. Navigating to the C train was a small challenge. I was lucky enough to find a spot to actually sit down and stayed there all the way into Brooklyn.

On the train, I opted to focus on my phone screen rather than the people around me. Most of them were agitated about something anyway. Par for the course, I guess. On my phone screen, I had several browser tabs open. Each one was connected to a name. I was running through the alphabet, letter by letter. There were a few that stood out to me as something that sounded nice and resonated a little bit. However, after slightly more than twenty minutes on the train, I’d barely made it to the B’s. One name kept echoing in my mind, even while browsing the others.

Getting off at the stop near where I called “home” just three days ago, I made note of the “dent” in the handrail as I made my way to the surface. I was still in awe of the things I could do and the indentation where my hand had been a few nights prior reminded me of them. A mental note was made to test the limits of my strength at some point in the future. Well, frankly, I’d have to test the limits of all my powers at some point. Refining would come after that. I had read enough comic books, watched enough television series, and seen enough movies to know that when someone has extraordinary abilities and they don’t know their limits, bad things can happen. I certainly didn’t want that to be the case.

After only taking a few steps, the back of my head started tingling. I took the opportunity while I crossed the street to get a better feel for my surroundings. I scanned my periphery and found a group of three guys near me. For the time being, I kept walking. The sensation of their eyes on me felt as if their eyes were made of high-powered plasma projectors with pinpoint precision. They chatted amongst each other about my body as if I wasn’t even there. The more uncomfortable I felt, the deeper into my pockets my fists tried to go. After they followed me for two blocks, I diverted my course. I knew they had nefarious intent when I entered an alleyway and started walking through it.

The three guys fell for the bait. They closed the distance between them and me when they thought there were fewer prying eyes around. I didn’t have a plan and I didn’t know what I was going to do about the situation. Just in case, I pulled the sleeves of the hoodie up to about three-quarters the length of my arm. Fear bubbled up to the surface.

“Hey, girlie,” one of them shouted at me. “You lost, honey?”

I didn’t acknowledge him. I just kept walking. They may have been trying to make me feel afraid. It was working.

“Hey, little bitch, I asked you a question!” He shouted again.

I made no indication I was going to do anything but keep walking. I was too scared to do anything else. The hell was I thinking, diverting into that alleyway?

Their footsteps grew louder as they got closer. Eventually, one reached out to grab my shoulder. Without thinking, my hand batted away theirs. A second tried to grab me in some kind of bear hug. Just before his arms closed around me, I crouched down and he tumbled overtop of me. The third reached out to grab my hair. I spun around and smacked his hand away. I was then looking into his eyes. The anger and entitlement in his eyes were tangible. It caught me off guard enough that the first guy grabbed me by the upper arm and pulled me toward him.

The guy I was still looking at smirked. “I like feisty redheads. You got some spice to you, little one.”

“You sound like one of the guys they’re protecting by not releasing the Epstein Files. Not a good look, my guy.” I taunted him. “What do you want with me? Why’s it take three dudes to talk to a girl?”

“Who said we’re doin’ any talking?” The ringleader advanced on me with a smile that would send fear into the heart of any of the bravest people in the world. The upturn of one side coupled with the absolute malice in his eyes sold it.

Never before had I felt such all-consuming fear. I’d been taught to feel afraid of my fellow human beings, but not in the way I was feeling in that moment. Being a cop’s kid, some fear had a tendency to rub off. To a certain point, I was always afraid, but not in the ways my dad tried to teach me. I had become afraid to admit the person that I truly was, even to myself. To anyone else, it would have been paralyzing. The fear in me now, brought on by those men in that alley, was a whole new level I was not prepared for.

Somewhere deep inside, something snapped. My eyes narrowed on the ringleader. “Let’s dance.”

I extended my arm, the spinneret popped out, and a glob of webbing smacked the guy in the face. He cried out and started clawing at his face. The guy holding my upper arm tried to grab my other arm. I twirled around and open-hand struck him on the left side of his back. I could hear a couple of bones break and he called out in pain as his body lifted off the ground. He flew a few feet and fell on the pavement like the limp meat sack that he was. The third guy leapt at me again and I bent over like I was in a limbo competition. He kept flying past me and I finished the move into a back handspring. It brought me back up to my feet. I was starting to realize that my agility had been dialed up to eleven.

The ringleader finally pulled the webbing off his face and came at me with renewed ferocity. He threw punch after punch. None of them landed. I was moving so fast that everything else seemed like it was moving in slow motion. The punches weren’t working, so the guy tried a sweeping kick. My body executed a no-touch cartwheel over his leg. He was only getting angrier and angrier.

“Hey, buddy, why don’t you stop trying to hit me and hit me?” I quipped, then immediately chuckled. “Wow, I sound like Morpheus on helium.”

The ringleader lunged at me with a power hook so telegraphed it might as well have been on a teleprompter. Once again, I limboed under it as it moved on slo-mo. It was almost too easy. The back of my neck tingled again and I glanced back to see that the leaping guy was back on his feet. Seeing an opportunity with the ladder of a fire escape, I flipped over a few times, doing back handsprings until I reached it. I leapt up, grabbed the ladder, pulled it down, and shot some web strings at the guy. Well, I tried to. A bunch of goopy webbing shot at him before I finally got a line attached to him. Line attached, I pulled him to me at the latter and did whatever I could with the webs to tie him to it.

“Dance card’s full, my friend. You may not cut in.” I told him.

With one guy writhing on the ground in pain and another tied to the ladder, it was down to just me and the ringleader. He looked at me with a confused expression.

“Are you supposed to be some kind of spider girl or somethin’? Am I in dreamland, right now?”

“Not yet, twinkle toes. Do you wanna be?”

He stood there for a minute. His eyes darted between his friends and me. “I ain’t never seen nobody move like that, except in the movies.” Those eyes finally landed on me. “Who the fuck are you?”

I advanced on him, the malice now in my eyes. “Sorry, honey. It’s a masquerade. No names.” It was his turn to be afraid. The more I advanced, the more he recoiled. “What you’re going to do is call the cops and an ambulance. After that, you never hurt anyone in this neighborhood again. Understand?! I’ll be watching.”

He threw up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay… you win, Spider-Girl. Whatever you say, alright?”

“I’m not Spider-Girl or Spider-anything, got it? You tried to hurt the wrong person. Leave it at that. Call the cops.”

He fumbled for his phone. Once he had it in hand, he showed me that he dialed 9-1-1. The dispatcher picked up immediately.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” the voice that sounded like a bad impression of Fran Drescher requested over the speakers. Flushing really goes hard on their accent, I tell ya.

“My buddies and I got beat up by this weird girl. You ain’t gonna believe what she can do.” The ringleader spoke into the phone.

“I’m sorry, sir?” The dispatch operator almost sounded like she was joking.

“Three grown men decided to follow a Brooklyn girl into an alley and got themselves hurt,” I yelled toward the phone. “We’re near the Potomac Playground. You’ll find three guys here. Can’t miss it.”

“And who are you, Miss?” The operator asked.

I didn’t answer. I simply walked away. The ringleader and the dispatch operator continued their conversation as I did so. Three blocks later, the adrenaline caught up with me and I was shaking like a leaf hanging on for dear life during a windstorm. Even though I was the ostracized smart kid, I’d never actually been in a fight before. That night was technically my first one. Going over the series of events in my head as I walked along, I noted places where I could have done something different. It also solidified that I needed to practice some things more. I cracked a couple of ribs on some guy, which wasn’t optimal. Healthcare is expensive, after all.

The performance hit me next. I didn’t even know I could do any of that. I was hopping around like Simone Biles without even thinking about what I was doing. How would a pulse or wave of energy suddenly turn someone into an Olympic-level gymnast overnight? A lot of things didn’t make sense. There again, all of this originating from the bite of a radioactive spider made even less sense. Comic books make very little sense. Reality is less consistent, especially when you add dark matter to the equation.

Thankfully, there were no more surprises as I made my way to the old row house. Standing on the sidewalk in front of it, I considered a plan of attack. As had been made apparent, I couldn’t go through the front door as if nothing happened. My idiot roommates who couldn’t reason their way out of a paper bag would just call the cops and I would be in the system as “Jane Doe”. There was no guarantee NYPD would agree to simply deliver me to Tír na nÓg upon request or place me in some nightmare of a group home. I would have to be discreet and unseen. My eyes wandered over the brick façade. There were four floors and my bedroom was on the second floor. The window on the front of the building was the bathroom. I’d have to sneak around back in order to crawl through my own bedroom window. A thought crossed my mind: ‘Can I even jump that high?’

My eyes darted back to the ground as I contemplated jumping onto the roof from the sidewalk. Sure enough, my DoorDash bag was still there on top of a bicycle that had been moved a little. In the past couple of days, someone had actually tried to steal something off the bike but the parts were worthless, so they left it alone. Grabbing my DoorDash bag and slipping it on, I prepared myself for something crazy. Feeling a little nervous, I stepped back a few steps into the street. Taking a few quick breaths to psyche myself up, I stepped twice and jumped from the sidewalk.

My eyes watered a bit from all the air rushing past them. The speed at which my body was thrust skyward was mind-boggling. At the apoapsis of the jump, I could finally see. I was above the whole neighborhood. Looking down as I started to fall again was a mistake. I learned that not only could I jump a 4-story building, but I could jump twice that, easily. I had never been that high in my life. Never even flew on a plane. The blood-curdling scream that erupted from my mouth was as genuine as they get. I closed my eyes and braced for impact. There was a sudden stop at the end, but not the one I had anticipated. It took a few seconds, but I finally opened my eyes to discover I’d landed in a pose I’d seen in comics and movies for years. It was confirmed to me that a classic Spider-Man landing was actually plausible and effective.

“Huh,” I aspirated. The experience was frightening and the end left more questions than answers, but I was at least alive.

I remained in that position for a few moments. The sounds of confused and concerned neighbors reached my ears. They all seemed to be investigating who the scream queen was and if she was okay. When I heard the voices of some of my roommates, it signaled that I had an opportunity. I had inadvertently created my own distraction. Carefully and quietly, I made my way to the ledge and took a quick breath. There was still some trepidation in me that the Van der Waals force wouldn’t work and I’d fall to the ground below. Cautiously, I started trying to crawl down the wall to the rear window of my room. To my relief, the physics held up and I slowly made my way down the back of the house to the second-story window.

Upon arrival, I managed to get the window to open and I slipped inside. The place was a mess and smelled unpleasant. It’s a wonder I never noticed the smell before. Shrugging off the embarrassment from the state of the room, I began cataloguing what I’d need. Obviously, all the chargers and cables went into the bag first. No point in electronics you couldn’t provide an adequate power source for. Stepping up, I grabbed my laptop that was only a few years old, my gaming console with all its peripherals, the monitor I used as a television, and my alarm clock. As I stepped up to the framed Master’s degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I let out a heavy sigh. It was really the only thing to signify that I’d accomplished anything meaningful in my life, so far. Carefully placing it in the bag with everything else, I glanced around. The last thing to get stuffed into the bag were my pillows along with my Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars bedspreads. That was it. That was all the bag would accommodate and the only things in my life worth grabbing.

With one last solemn look at the remnants of my former life, I exited the same way I came in and shut the window. It really seemed like that chapter of my life was over.