Webs We Weave



Chapter Thirteen

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: I apologize for the tardiness of this submission. It's something of a tradition that I read the chapter aloud to my spouse before I post the chapter. Their feedback is vital to me. We hadn't had a chance to sit down and do the reading, so I postponed the posting. Sorry guys.

(( Chapter Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPOrNGF0YZs ))

The next couple of weeks felt like a temporal displacement. There were school days, homework afternoons, and movie nights that seemed to pass without much notice. Thankfully, I didn’t have any more one-on-one moments with Evelyn but that doesn’t mean dance class was easy. My technique was still being criticized and corrected almost constantly. Matcha and I found a few strips of the flooring material stored at Tír na nÓg that we could roll out and practice on. If I was given homework, I breezed through it quickly so Chispa and I could complete our fabrication and prototyping. Weekday nights were spent on rooftops in The Village while weekend nights were for whatever movie somebody pirated that week.

On that first weekend, Maven asked me to accompany her ‘on the town’, as she put it. The moment we entered the first shop and she had me measured for a fitting, I knew she had ulterior motives. She was well aware that all we had at the shelter was donations that don’t encourage self-expression much. The underwear stop was the most embarrassing. It was a little difficult for me to do a shopping trip because I’d never truly been able to express myself before. Given permission to do so, I cracked under the pressure. I grabbed a bunch of things that reminded me of my first time in adolescence combined with things I’d been seeing around school. The one thing I did ask for help with was locating a good summer dress. The weather was getting warmer and I had a promise to keep.

Maven made it a point to take me to a dancewear shop. Ever observant, she had seen Matcha and me practicing. Worse, she had seen me struggling. She offered to arrange some private sessions with someone reputable in the city to bring my skills up to speed. In the meantime, I’d need a lot more clothing for my dance bag. The flurry of activity in the shop of spotting things, trying them on, and purchasing the things I liked as well as what fit was dizzying. Just before we moved to the checkout counter, I spotted something. It was a jacket and leggings combo. The jacket had a hood and those little thumb holes. The set was in an interesting design with purple as the main color and black as secondary. It fit quite well and was slated in with the purchases.

That first Sunday was Mother’s Day. I took the day for myself. The dress we found was like one of the ‘peasant tops’ that were popular in the ‘00s turned into a dress whose hem was at my knees. It was a powder blue with yellow floral pattern. Maven selected some cream-colored flats to pair with it. Seeing myself in the mirror made me happy cry. Every piece of clothing was mine. The body was mine. The reflection was mine. I could hardly believe it, but one can’t argue with observable, empirical evidence like that.

Using my new phone, I found a florist nearby to get a bouquet of flowers. I hadn’t given my mother flowers in a long time, so it was overdue. The subway ride was fine and the purse Maven had gotten me was helping me juggle everything. Having linked my earbuds to the new phone, the hour-long ride on the A-train had its own soundtrack. Giggles were exchanged in a text conversation between Hailey and me. Before long, the train arrived at Broadway Junction and I began walking toward The Evergreens Cemetery.

The weather cooperated wonderfully. It was in the low 70s and there was not a cloud in the sky. The pleasant sun shone through the trees as I walked the paths. There were a few people around with flower bouquets of their own. I had never assumed I’d be in the cemetery by myself that day. It was Mother’s Day, after all. A lot of people had the same idea as I had for as long as I could remember. That would be the first time it would be different for me.

Arriving at the plot, I once again cleared debris from the headstone and gently laid the bouquet in the small provided vase off to the side. My labor done, I stood and stepped back a bit to do my best at giving my mom a ‘good look’.

“Hey, Mom,” I started my soliloquy, “I’m back, as promised.” As if on instinct, I did a little spin in place. “What do you think? I picked it up the other day with this really great woman I’ve met recently. You’d like her, but maybe not the reason why I met her.” My eyes started to tear up. “I know it’s probably not what you would have expected, but I really feel comfortable. It’s a pretty dress and I like how it makes me feel. It’s—”

“Lizzie?” came a familiar voice echoing off the surroundings.

My body froze in place. For the life of me, I couldn’t deduce why the tingling sensation hadn’t activated and alerted me. I knew that voice. I hadn’t heard it in a little over ten years, but I knew it all the same.

“Am I seeing things?” the voice asked again.

My head moved incredibly slowly toward the voice. Coming toward the plot was a middle-aged man wearing a dark blue uniform. Unlike others in his profession, he kept up a fit physique and hadn’t had to alter his uniform in however many years. His appearance had always reminded me of Thomas Jane. His soft brown hair had a couple of “widow’s peaks” on either side of his forehead, but he wasn’t bald. His blue-hazel eyes showed a bit of worry and confusion. The NYPD badge on his chest and the shield on his shoulders completed the look. My father was approaching.

When he was close enough, he shook his head as I remained standing there like a deer blinded by headlights. “Are you real or am I going crazy?”

Something compelled me to respond. “I’m… I’m real… I’m pretty sure.”

“It’s weird,” he began, finally stopping next to me in front of my mother’s grave. His eyes moved toward the headstone. “I could have sworn for a minute that you were a ghost.” He nudged his arm slightly toward the grave. “Her ghost.”

“I’m alive, last I checked.” My voice was wavering a little. I was more than taken aback by his appearance. I never knew that he visited.

He awkwardly chuckled. “You look a lot like her. She was my wife. She might have been a little taller than you, but not by much. You’ve got the same hair, the same skin, and even the same green eyes with a little bit of blue in the middle.”

“That is weird.” Honest, yet nervous, answer from me.

“How do you know her, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Now the tingling came to life. Delayed reaction. I had to think of something fast. “I… I don’t… really.” It wasn’t a total lie. A thought train finally arrived at the station. “I’m here for a project. We go around putting flowers on the graves of mothers who were killed by drunk drivers.”

He slowly nodded. “That’s good. Very kind of you. She’d have appreciated it.” I could see tears start to glisten in his eyes. “She loved being a mother. We only had one kid: Preston. She enjoyed every little noise he made as a baby—didn’t matter if he was laughing, crying, or anything else. As he grew, she knew he was smart. She tried to tell me a hundred times how to handle him. I wasn’t the smart one. She was. They were both big on science.” He sniffled. My eyes felt hot again and tears soon rolled down my cheeks. “All I knew was football, basketball, and being a cop.”

Neither of us spoke for about a minute. Then, he continued. “If you’re gonna tell her story for your project, you should know who she was. Her name was Maxine. She didn’t like being called ‘Max’. Those that loved her called her ‘Lizzie’ from her middle name or ‘Mom’. She loved the stars. She could tell you more about a single star or comet than I can about the New York Penal Code. She taught at the Boys and Girls High School just over in Bed-Stuy. She loved that job.” He sniffled again. “Her laugh could fill a room and brighten everyone’s day. She was the most kind, compassionate woman you’d ever meet.” He choked back a sob. “Now I gotta tell her that her son is gone.”

In my mind, a subway train smacked a brick wall at ninety miles an hour. Cover story engaged. “He passed?”

“We don’t know. He’s been missing since the 29th.” His tears returned. “I had to tell him the night his mom died that she was gone. Now I gotta tell her that I don’t know where her beloved son is.”

I couldn’t hold back the sob. “I’m… I’m so sorry… I’ll leave you be…”

Before I could leave, he turned to me. “What’s your name, miss?”

“I’m… I’m Saoirse.”

“Captain Greg Parker, NYPD. Thanks for listening.”

“You’re welcome.” I don’t know why I hesitated. “I’m… I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Go home and hug your mom. You never know, y’know?”

My heart sank down to my knees. “Wish I could. She’s gone.”

His body seemed to wince while he nodded. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks.” I spun around and took my leave.

There were so many things that could have gone very wrong in that conversation. I thought I was the only one that came out to visit my mom. As it turns out, my dad occasionally does as well. He poured his heart out to some girl he’d never met before that moment. That girl was me… the child he didn’t know he had. I was of two minds about the situation: the man that tried to raise me didn’t recognize his only child, and that man was torn apart by the fact a missing persons case had come across his desk with his child’s name on it. My mind could not accurately decipher how to feel about either situation.

The encounter haunted my thoughts on the subway ride back to Manhattan. At some point, I would probably have to reveal who I was to my dad. The very idea of it frightened me in a way that can’t accurately be described.

The expression on my face worried Maven when I got back to the shelter. I wasn’t ready to talk about it, so I took my leave. Instead, I checked in with Chispa—she complimented my dress. The web shooter prototypes were ready for practical testing. We’d done all the lab work we could. It was time to see if they held up under pressure. I accepted the devices and scurried away to my room.

In that space, I changed quickly. Off came the dress and on went the purple-and-black leggings and jacket. While Maven was distracted, I’d managed to independently procure a balaclava and gloves in the same purple as the rest of the outfit. The instructions from Matcha about how to tie my hair in a low bun had come in handy when I slipped on the balaclava. The hood of the jacket further helped to hide any identifying markers from my head. In the mirror, I became just some chick in purple and black.

Making my way to the roof, I knew the lower building heights of the West Village wouldn’t do for an adequate test. Thus, I followed the rooftops down 6th Avenue until I hit the taller buildings of Soho. That neighborhood wouldn’t have the giant skyscrapers of the Financial District or Midtown, but they’d be tall enough for testing. If I happened to end up in Tribeca, that would be fine, too. I had to divert a little to where 7th Avenue becomes Varick Street because of the jumble where 6th Avenue meets W Houston and about six other streets.

My first test happened at W Houston. It was on top of a building before the crossing. The road is pretty wide and I wasn’t sure if I could jump it. There was no better time to test the attachment of the webbing as well as the elasticity. Doing the math in my head, I positioned my hands and shot the webs. The internal triggers of the device initiated exactly as designed. They also cut off the web line production precisely when I wanted to. With the lines attached, I stepped back a little. The lines flexed and stretched on command until I achieved the amount of tension I was looking for. With a quick release of breath, I did a little hop and let physics do the rest.

I miscalculated. The elasticity was storing more potential energy than I had anticipated. My body was thrown two and a half blocks. It was the most exhilarating and terrifying thing I’d done up to that point. The scream coming out of me reflected that. At first, I was practically flying over the buildings on Varick before the wind resistance and gravity began bringing me closer to the ground. The buildings along Varick were tall enough. With the asphalt of the street below me looming, it was now or never. I shot a line to my right and held on for dear life. It was a short swing and I was flung skyward again. The jubilant screams from my dream were brought to life. I shot another line as I was falling back toward the ground. I wasn’t flung as high after releasing the second line, but that was to be expected. The physics of pendula were at play.

Unfortunately, I didn’t see a moment of the swings. The air moving was causing my eyes to water. Immediately, I knew I’d have to pick up some goggles. I was letting that tingling sensation guide my actions, for the most part. It came in pretty handy. I would still need to be able to see for the best placement of the web lines, but the web shooters were working exactly as anticipated. All the testing Chispa and I had done would get the credit for that. Using different angles to change direction, I propelled myself toward a good landing spot. Not being able to burn off the kinetic energy, I knew the landing might be a little rough.

The moment my feet hit the gravel on the building’s roof, I tried to skid to a stop. It wasn’t enough. An air conditioning unit was too close. After a small hop, my body was propelled on top of it and performed a side aerial, then several back handsprings before I could finally land firmly on my feet. At the end of the successful landing, my heart was pounding in my chest and my breathing was labored. It hadn’t been the result of physical exertion so much as all the excitement and screaming I’d been doing. Unseen beneath the balaclava, my smile was gigantic.

When I arrived back at the shelter, the first thing I did was report that the modular bio-crystalline launchers were functioning as intended to Chispa. Our next task would be a set of goggles with actuated shutters for focus and eye protection. Otherwise, it had been much better than I anticipated. It was incredibly exhilarating to swing from my own webbing down Varick Street at an accelerated velocity.

Once again, the temporal displacement. I was falling into something of a rhythm. If it was A-day, I dressed and did my hair for dance class while packing street clothes in the dance bag. If it was B-day, I made sure to bring clean gym clothes for the end of the day. I walked to and from school with the other shelter kids. In a short amount of time, they’d really made me feel like one of them. At lunch, Hailey was my constant companion. We were moving into ‘joined at the hip’ territory.

There had been a rumor or two about what happened on Sunday. A couple of people had videos, but everybody dismissed it as AI. That made me feel better because the last thing I really wanted was to go viral for a short test down Varick Street. However, I was emerging like a mind-numbed zombie from the LTC only to come face-to-face with Hailey and all the shelter kids. Everybody was excited and shoving phones in my face. The one I took to actually view the video was Peach’s. I nearly dropped it afterward.

“Careful, you ginger clutz!” Peach playfully scolded me.

“Mind-blowing, isn’t it?! A girl our age with powers like freakin’ Superman just over in Chicago! This is crazy in all the best ways!” Hailey screeched.

My mind had already done the comparative calculations. With references like the height of individual floors of shopping malls, I was able to deduce the height of the girl in the video: 1.78 meters. Then, when she jumped and zipped away in a blur, it was obvious she was the same person from the video from exactly one week ago. “She’s the blur. I was right.”

“What do you mean you were right?” Lowkey wondered, his head tilted a little to the side.

“I did the calculations on the video from last week. I analyzed the shape of the blur, light and dark patches, and the placement and angle of the Prandtl-Glauert singularity to determine the object was a human female roughly 1.78 meters tall.”

Everyone looked at me funny. If there was ever a time I needed Chispa around, that was it.

“Wanna break that down in English, maybe?” Salty scratched his head.

We all started moving down the hallway, making our way to the stairs, as I spoke. “Well, everybody’s seen the footage from last week, right? That object was there and gone before you could blink, right?” Everyone nodded, listening intently. “Use a little math when you go frame-by-frame, use the building windows as scale reference, and you can work it all out.”

“Seda, nobody but you and Chispa can do that kind of math.” Salty shook his head.

“I’m barely making it through pre-calc.” Hailey admitted.

A sigh escaped my lips. “Okay, the standard size of a large section of window on a skyscraper is 1.5 meters. Using that, you can determine the length of the ‘blur’, otherwise known as a laminar flow anomaly, which is 21.85 meters in a single frame. That, tied with the length and placement of the Prandtl-Glauert singularity, is how you find the height and sex of the person you’re seeing. The singularity forms on the lower third of any object it appears on at supersonic speeds. The angle of it tells you how fast the object is traveling, which is about 600 meters per second or Mach 1.74.”

“Seda, we asked for an answer in English.” Jefa rolled her eyes.

I pointed at the person whose face was obscured in the video. “That girl is the same height and bone structure as the thing caught on SkyCam last week. I knew she had a wider hip to shoulder ratio because of the placement of the vapor cone—hence, female. The shutter speed and constant measurement of the windows told me her height: 1.78 meters.” I still got a lot of blank stares. “She’s five-ten. She was also traveling faster than the highest operational speed recorded for the F-35 Lightning II.”

Everyone breathed in a breath of astonishment as we descended the stairs. I could smell their brains exploding.

“Yo, y’know what this means?” Matcha began. “We ain’t got no Superman… we got a Superwoman on the loose in Chicago!”

“Crazy to think about, ain’t it?” Jefa postulated. “I kinda thought that stuff from last week was AI or somethin’. Maybe that shit from Sunday was real, after all?”

My heart nearly stopped.

“Nah, I’m still flaggin’ that as AI. The lighting and colors were off to me.” Lowkey noted.

“It’s weird to think of people having powers, right?” Peach started thinking out loud. “I mean, it should be impossible, right?”

“Statistically and biologically impossible, yes.” I added.

“But now there’s video of somebody with the powers of Superman taking on someone with the powers of the Human Torch,” Matcha argued.

“I’m confused enough by math. This is breaking my brain.” Hailey butted in.

“Girl, dat’s all of us. Ain’t none of this make sense.” Matcha admitted.

“What does it mean for the world, y’know? Like… big picture kinda stuff.” Lowkey wondered.

“Only time can tell, guys. We’ve gotta survive Regents, first.” I interjected.

Everybody started laughing. All of us moved together to the bottom of the stairwell. A tingle ran up my spine and encompassed my skull. Four steps short of the bottom, we all immediately stopped. Someone was standing in our way.

He pointed at me. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

My heart fully stopped and my eyes grew to the circumference of dinner plates. “M-Me?” It was Mark.

He nodded, then his eyes drifted to each person in the group. “If that’s okay with you guys?”

Peach and Lowkey chorused a typically lyrical “Ooo” noise one might hear when a particular romantic situation was about to occur on a sitcom. Jefa smacked them both.

“C’mon, guys. Don’t be cringe.” She commanded before leading everyone off down the hallway a bit.

Mark seemed to chuckle and perhaps blush a little bit.

Hailey gently squeezed my shoulder and whispered, “I want details when you’re done.” She joined the others further down the hallway.

Mark watched them walk down the hall. When he felt they were a sufficient distance away, he looked back up at me, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make that awkward.”

My entire body wanted to vibrate. Instead, my palms started sweating a little. The whole area felt a little warmer. “It… happens… I guess.”

“Yea… I guess.” He nervously laughed. “Look… um… I’ve seen you catching glances sometimes. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was doing the same thing. I wanted to formally introduce myself: I’m Mark. Mark Watson.”

For a moment, I couldn’t speak. I wanted to say ‘I know’ but my internal voice said that was a bad idea. “I’m… Saoirse. Saoirse Parker.”

“I know.” He lowered his head and wordlessly scolded himself. “That came out weird like I’m some kind of stalker. Sorry.”

He got me to smirk. Good job. “It’s… okay.”

“Yea… I know we’ve got English and Math together, so… maybe… I dunno… we could walk to class together… sometimes? Maybe get to know each other… and be less awkward?” He shrugged. “I… think you’re cute and… kinda fascinating. I wanna learn more about you. Sound like a plan?”

Words were failing me at the concept stage. “S-sure… sounds cool… I guess.”

He nodded quickly. “Cool… uh… guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

I mirrored the head motion. “Yea. Cool.”

He started to move away, walking backwards a little. “Nice meeting you, Saoirse.”

“You too,” was all that would come out until he disappeared around the corner.

My breathing returned to normal once he was gone. Multiple subway trains rammed brick walls inside my head at ninety miles an hour simultaneously. All the thoughts erupted at once. ‘That boy is half your age!’ screamed one. ‘The hell is wrong with you?!’ screamed another. ‘I am not okay!’ screamed a third. More thought trains hit walls. More screams echoed in my prefrontal cortex.

The “pulse” or “wave” or “event” or whatever people wanted to call it had done a hell of a thing. Eighteen days earlier, I had been a broke, thirty-something, outwardly male trying to make ends meet. I was so far in the closet that Mr. Tumnus and I were neighbors. A freak astronomical phenomenon that clearly gave physics the middle finger struck Earth. In a single afternoon, I became everything I’ve ever wanted… except becoming a teenager again. And then, there I was standing on the fourth step of a concrete flight of stairs reeling after an awkward conversation with a boy I was clearly attracted to.

Given events of the past couple of weeks, a case could be made that my entire being was regressed to that of a sixteen-year-old, my brain included. It’s feasible to say I was walking around with a brain that wasn’t fully developed like any other teenager. However, I still had the memories of someone who had lived thirty-three, nearly thirty-four, distinct revolutions around the star at the center of our planetary system.

Math is easy. Emotions are hard.