Webs We Weave



Chapter Twenty-One

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: Sure seems like Saoirse is winning a lot, lately.

(( Chapter Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FhQhoh7XqA ))

No part of me was ready to process what happened on the stoop that night. Maven helped me get out of my dress and take my hair down. I washed the makeup off my face, hung my dress, and went to bed. Zero fanfare.

The next morning, Maven woke me up in her usual training attire. I whined about needing five more minutes like any other teenager. She wouldn’t let me get away with it and practically threw my butt out of bed. Of course I screeched and complained. She ran a brush through my mangled hair, scolding me about trying to skirt responsibilities. I actually wasn’t. It all came down to the fact I’d probably only had about four and a half hours of sleep. The updo had created a few mats overnight and removing them was a little painful. After some time, Maven managed to tame my locks enough to get the braids done. She plainly told me that I had ten minutes to put something on before she would dress me herself. I believed she could do it.

After I relieved myself and moved back to my room, I found Maven standing with a smile on her face. I immediately suspected foul play. She requested I meet her on the roof wearing my underwear and a robe. She didn’t answer any probing questions. I followed her request, exiting the door to the roof wearing a robe and flip-flops. She was still wearing her smile when she pulled a white, hooded flight suit from behind her back.

“What is that?” I asked, still suspicious.

“It is your suit, love. It’s crafted to your specifications as one piece with an enclosure similar to a flight suit. I forged the bronze of the zipper mechanism myself.” She answered matter-of-factly.

“Why is it all white?”

“I’ve not had the opportunity to apply any of the dyes, yet, obviously. I’ve made the mask, boots, and gloves as well. For the moment, try it on so we can adequately assess the fit and stretch.” She held out the suit dangling from a hanger for me to take.

Holding my glance on her, I gingerly took the hanger and moved toward the door to the interior of the shelter. An internal sense of modesty wouldn’t allow me to slip into the suit with so many potential eyes on me in the surrounding area. It was completely irrelevant because I’d started all my patrols from that very rooftop and even had my mask off a few times. Regardless, I lowered the zipper, took the suit off the hanger, put my robe on said hanger, and hung it all on the banister just inside the door. One foot after the other, I stepped into the suit and started pulling it over my body. It was a little difficult to get it over certain curves of my body, but it was actually a tad more loose on me than my dance leotard. It was somewhat snug, but had some room to breathe. Pulling the zipper closed secured it around my upper body.

Unceremoniously, I opened the door and stepped out onto the roof. There was not a hint of suspicion of Maven’s smile at that point. It was approval and satisfaction of a job well done.

“How does it feel?” She asked.

I absent-mindedly moved a few joints. “Not bad. It’s nice and soft, but seems like it’s breathable too? Don’t ask me how. The overall fit is just a little more loose than my leotard—as if you calculated a size up from the ones in my bag.”

“Two sizes, in point of fact. I wove the silk in such a way that it will allow airflow as you move rather than the closer weave of traditional silk garments. It would become far too hot to wear otherwise.”

I continued moving limbs, testing the tension. There wasn’t any. “Smart move on that one.”

“Agreed, though I would still advise wearing a short-sleeved leotard underneath for moisture wicking. You’re an active teenager—”

When I stopped moving, the sensation of someone holding their finger close to me after rubbing sock-covered feet on shag carpeting struck me in the ribs. I squeaked, interrupting her. Then, it happened again near my ankles, causing another squeak. The occurrences increased in the next few seconds as I fell to the ground screeching and writhing.

“What the devil has gotten into you, girl?!” Maven objected.

“I’m getting—OW—fucking—OW—tased—OW—by my own—OW—fucking suit—OW!”

She jolted into action as I was on the surface of the roof trying in vain to escape the hundreds of little zaps I was experiencing. They were getting stronger the more I writhed, but there were fewer of them. In the moment, there’s no way I could have answered all the questions floating around in my head. My only instinct was to get away from the pain. Meanwhile, Maven was desperately trying to reach for the zipper.

“Hold still, girl! If we must get you out of the suit, then I must undo the zipper!” She nearly shrieked.

I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth in an effort to calm down enough to comply. Over the next few seconds, I did whatever I could to halt my movement. As I did so, the jolts became less frequent. Soon, Maven was able to get to the zipper. My brain started working once again.

“Okay,” I breathed. “Go ahead and undo the zipper, then step back, please.”

“Why on Earth would I do a thing such as that?”

“I have a hypothesis. I want to test it.”

Reluctantly, she complied. The zipper opened and a bit of my torso was exposed. She stepped back and I lay still for a second. The jolts stopped. Then, I moved one arm at the elbow a few times. At first, nothing happened. After a few seconds of repeated movement, electricity arced across the space between the lower zipper teeth. The experiment stopped. I lay still with my head on the ground looking directly at the sky.

“Fuck me.” I groaned at the sparse clouds.

“Out with it, Saoirse! Whatever is the matter?” Maven urged me.

“It’s generating and conducting piezoelectricity.” I exhaled a heavy breath very quickly.

“Whatever do you mean?”

My eyes rolled. “Of course! It’s a biocrystalline polymer… the silk, right?”

“I’ve no recollection. You’re the scientist, not me.”

“Whenever there’s an earthquake, people report a flash of light. It’s because the sudden movement and pressure cause quartz crystals deep in the Earth’s crust to generate a very short burst of electricity. Spider silk is a biocrystalline polymer. Under deformation it’s piezoelectric. It’s a fancy word that means it produces electrical energy when under the stress of movement and pressure… like a human body doing exercises to test a suit. Apparently, the stuff that comes out of my body inherited that quality. I’m getting zapped by the energy created when I move. Electrons want to find an equilibrium, so they go to ground. When the only contact with the ground is my body with bare feet, it’s shocking the hell out of me like a taser.”

“Is there a way to stop this process?”

I chuckled. “You might as well be asking if we can stop the fusion reaction within the sun itself. Spoiler alert: that’s a ‘no’.”

Maven folded her arms over her chest. “No need to get testy, young lady. Believe it or not, I do endeavor to help you find a solution to this problem. The suit is wonderful, but you can’t do anything if you’re the victim of your own design.”

“I know.” I lifted an arm to rest my hand against my face. “I need to think.” As my mind worked, the train of thought was spoken aloud. “I could use polypyrrole, but procuring the pyrrole and ferric chloride would be expensive. In order to create that capacitor, the whole thing would need to be a three-layer system just to not be zapped from the Bronx to Staten Island, screaming the whole way.”

Maven giggled. It was a rare enough occurrence to be of note. “Humorous visual, but highly impractical.”

“You’re not wrong,” I agreed. “Not to mention, the whole chemical process would stink to high hell. Pyrrole by itself comes from burning bone down to a blackened substance. Pair that with the ferric chloride and you’ll definitely have to replace the drapes. You’ll never get that stink out.” Someone pulled the emergency brake on the train of thought. “Wait a minute! Blackened substance…” Like a security guard, I searched within the thought train for the passenger I was looking for. “...carbon. Pyrrole is black because it has four carbon atoms, five hydrogen atoms, and one nitrogen atom. Simplify that down and you have just carbon.”

“Where precisely are you leading me, Saoirse?”

I sucked in a good bit of air as the moment struck me. “Carbon black. I was an absolute genius without even realizing it…”

“I could have informed you of such, but would you mind informing me why you believe so?”

“Remember when I told you that I’d like the suit to be purple and black because I liked that particular color combination?” She nodded in response. I continued. “Carbon black is absolutely dirt cheap. It’s ultra-fine elemental carbon powder. I can coat the inner portion of the suit in a slurry of the stuff, then we can use it strategically as the ‘dye’ on the outer portion of the suit. That will allow everything to hit the percolation threshold and turn the whole suit into a printed circuit. The things I used on my wrist? The ‘web shooters’? They won’t need to be as big because I could power them with the suit itself! I could add a whole host of electronics to the suit and, so long as I have a couple of small voltage regulators, the suit itself would be one big supercapacitor! The untreated purple parts will generate that charge which flows into the black dyed parts to be safely transferred to the lower slurry layer that stores the energy. My own sweat will actually make the whole thing more efficient!”

Maven wrinkled her nose. “Lovely science lesson, dearie. There is one problem you seem to be overlooking: you’re a teenage human who sweats when they move. How do you propose to launder such a thing? You certainly don’t believe you’ll never wash it, do you?”

I was silent for a moment out of embarrassment. “You have a point.” Then, biochemistry came back. “However, carbon is inert! It doesn’t react with the chemicals in sweat, nor does it degrade from repeated exposure to the alkaline ingredients of laundry detergent! I’d just have to make the electronics easily removable and it’s machine-washable!”

Maven nodded slowly. “So… I did not weave that contraption in vain, after all? That is good to hear. What you are telling me is that we have turned your project, rooted in protection, into a portable powerplant?”

“Exactly! Now… I just need to get out of this thing. You wouldn’t happen to know any artists, sculptors, or pottery workers would you?”

“Dozens, actually.”

“Perfect. Please help me get out of this thing. Being shocked like that is incredibly painful.”

After she helped me out of the suit, I scrambled for the door to get the robe back on as quickly as possible. Once covered, I rushed back down to my room to put on some actual clothes to spar with Maven in. On went a sports bra, some athletic leggings, and a pair of tennis shoes before I practically raced back upstairs. When I got back to the roof, Maven had hung the suit and put it to the side for the time being.

“I’ve been meaning to ask, Saoirse: how did yesterday go with that boy of yours?” She asked as if she already knew the answer.

Taking on a ready stance, I huffed. “Error 404: answer not found.”

She looked rather defeated when taking her ready stance. “Very well. Keep your secrets. Let us begin.”

Predictably, she beat my ass again. I got in a couple of good hits, but not many. Practice lasted through the morning and we broke for lunch. I finally got my coffee, at least. After getting nearly tased into oblivion, it was nice that the jolt came from caffeine and not electricity. I took a sandwich up to my room. There wouldn’t be any Regents to study for until later in the month. I’d been studying enough of the material that I was confident I could pass the test if it were administered that week. Instead of studying, I finally looked into something Aegis and I had discussed: crime maps. I regretted it the moment I started looking into the metadata from the 6th, 10th, and 1st Precincts. The sheer amount of metadata was enough to make my eyes glaze over. I immediately started working on some code to sift through the data. Forget diamonds. Python is a girl’s best friend.

It took a while for the script to parse the data into something I could realistically use. Taking one look at my leggings, jacket, balaclava, gloves, and goggles, it was decided that a patrol would do me some good. It really felt like things had fallen into something of a rhythm, for whatever that was worth.

The next morning was mostly uneventful. The English (ELA) Regents exam was set for the 17th, but that’s all Mrs. Vintergrime would tell us. Interactions with Mark had changed a little, but were just as awkward as they had always been. Mr. Bell was a lot more open about what we should be studying for, but reassured us it wasn’t as difficult as we thought it might be. The Regents for my math class would be the 24th. The only one left would be the Languages Other Than English exam for Spanish set for the 23rd. The other two we’d sat for had apparently been earlier than the NYCDOE guidelines, but no one was going to respond to complaints about that any time soon.

One day just seemed to bleed into the next. It was almost like the absolute horror show I assumed returning to high school might be was completely unfounded. The first time around, I was the rare white kid in a mostly black and Hispanic student body. It was worse that my dad was a cop. It was “the nerd who got bullied” trope from after-school specials dialed up to eleven. The second time around, I was just that redhead girl that Mark Watson took to Prom. I was nothing special or notable. It made the experience that much more nonchalant and survivable without trauma I’d have to unpack with a therapist later.

That first week, the metadata was parsed from crime statistics for the most recent few months. While that was collating, I worked with Chispa to engineer new ‘web shooters’, though I’d started referring to them as ‘silk dispersal regulators’. I couldn’t really tell Chispa that a whole self-powered suit was in the works, but I think she got the idea. Once those were finished, the voltage regulators were crafted. After that, a bit of mask insert for around my mouth complete with a microphone and voice modulator. I was also able to craft something that went over my ears that connected to my phone while I was in the suit. Finally, I started crafting some vision lenses to replace the goggles. They came out looking like gray alien eyes with a white coating that reduced glare. The actuating shutters were the hardest to engineer because Chispa and I had to dumpster dive several times just for the smallest of components.

Engineering those components ran into the second week as well. The main distraction was when Maven showed up with carbon powder and acrylic fabric medium. I got to work coating the inside of the suit, boots, gloves, and mask with the stuff. As the solvent evaporated, I had a well-bonded coating separating me from the wearable taser. With an airbrush setup, I could get the suit operational in just a day or two. While I was painting the gloves that lay on cardboard on the roof, my senses tingled and someone approached.

“Hey, Seda,” Chispa greeted.

I had to pull the earbuds out of my ears because I was listening to music while I was working. She had legitimately startled me. I hadn’t been expecting anyone to come up to the roof with all the studying going on in the shelter.

I turned slowly and gave her a goofy smirk. “Hey, Chispa. What’s up? Not studying for Regents?”

Her facial expression remained neutral. “You’re that Silk Warden chick, aren’t you?” When I started making sounds, she stopped me. “It doesn’t take advanced calculus to add two and two, Saoirse. I caught you up here doing weird shit, like, what, a month ago?”

Air expelled from my lungs quickly. I tried to find a way to answer her that she might find acceptable. I ended up stammering like a guilty defendant on the witness stand. Random sounds came out but nothing formed into words.

Chispa smirked. “I even helped you build those web things that you wear on your wrists.”

My head bobbed in a rapid succession of nods. “You’ve got a point.” My body slumped. “I’m terrible at lying. It just eats at me like a malicious bacterium.” After a moment of sucking in some air, my eyes met hers. “Yes, I’m Silk Warden.” Admitting that to her lifted the weight of a building off my shoulders. However, reality came crashing back down on me. “You’re not… gonna tell anyone, are you?”

“Who else knows?”

“Uh… Maven? She’s not thrilled about the idea, but she hasn’t tried to stop me.”

Chispa’s eyes drifted to the gloves I was previously airbrushing. “Are you building a new suit or something? I thought your gloves were just purple.”

My head turned toward the gloves and snapped back to Chispa. “Yea, I am. The ones I have right now are just winter gloves I got at a drugstore in Midtown.”

“What’s the new suit made of? That doesn’t look like any fabric I’ve seen.”

“My own silk. Though, the stuff is piezoelectric, so I have to coat the interior with carbon black and use it as an accent so the whole thing turns into a wearable capacitor.”

Chispa nodded slowly. “Oh. That tracks. You tried wearing it without an insulator, didn’t you?”

My head fell so that my eyes focused on the roof. “Unfortunately. I’m still learning, okay?”

Chispa giggled. “I bet that was hilarious.”

My tone became sarcastic. “Oh, yes, absolutely hilarious to realize you’re wearing a taser.”

Chispa’s giggle calmed down and she looked me over. “I’m not going to tell anyone. I get the whole ‘secret identity’ thing. I’ve read a few comics and seen a few Marvel movies. The reasoning is sound. It’s okay to let other people in, Seda.”

My body turned back toward the gloves. I spoke with my back to her. “I’ve never really been good at that.”

“Maybe it’s time to start.” She breathed heavily.

Even if I didn’t want to admit it, she was right. From that point forward, we collaborated on the suit and its mechanics. She had the idea to embed some sort of metal snaps into the gloves, boots, and mask so the electrical current traveled between suit components more efficiently. She even had a plan for the shutters over the eye lenses that was absolutely inspired. Everything really started coming together quickly after that.

When the 14th arrived, everybody from Tír na nÓg participated in the “No Kings” march. Maven was right there with us claiming she was merely acting as a chaperone but probably yelled louder than the rest of us. Given her history in Ireland, she’d probably seen her share of despotic tyrants and had quite enough of that. As we marched down 5th Avenue, I wished my new suit was finished so I could swing over the crowd. The building heights were certainly conducive to the endeavor. I had to remind myself that the debut would come soon enough.

The news stations were ablaze with reports of some girl in a blue suit with red boots, trunks, and cape in Chicago at their “No Kings” march. None of the news cameras got anywhere near her and apparently forgot they had a zoom function. All the videos on the news were from a distance. Social media, however, had great videos of the situation. Some even captured her speaking to the AVS operatives, but I couldn’t make it out. The way she shrugged off a standard taser and ripped through an electrified net with ease was spectacular enough. Then, she put her fist and upper arm through an armored vehicle. I was beside myself with awe at the sight. What struck me the hardest was when she rescued a couple of people from the back of that very vehicle and ensured their safety afterward. It told me everything I needed to know about her. I was already trying to be that way, but she inspired my deeper conviction.

The following Tuesday was the first of the final Regents exams for the year. School didn’t stop because some “Windy City Wonder” or “Blue Angel” appeared in Chicago. People were talking about it, but life continued on as it always did.

The day after that, I was finally able to put the full suit together. I popped my lenses into the mask that looked like gray alien eyes and tested the shutters that reacted to the muscle movements of that quadrant of my face. The flexible “plate” over my mouth and jaw with the speakers and microphone went in next. Then, the equally flexible portions over my ears were slid into the mask. Voltage regulators were installed, completing the mask. Another regulator was positioned near my wrists to power my webbing regulators. A silicon insole was installed into the thin boots for insulation. The purple dye was overlaid atop the carbon black layer to create an aesthetic pattern on the hood, mask, arms, torso, legs, and boots.

At dusk, I suited up in my bedroom for the first time. I climbed into the suit and closed the zipper. The boots went over my feet and attached via the little snaps Chispa recommended. My gloves followed afterward and were snapped into place. The webbing regulators attached to my wrist. Finally, I slipped on the mask. Two snaps were fastened at the base of my neck and there was one at the top of my head to keep the hood in place. With an indiscernible smile on my face, I climbed up to the roof. Maven and Chispa were up there waiting for me. The HUD I had designed in the lenses started to come online.

“How do I look?” I asked both of them, able to speak clearly for the first time.

Maven shrugged and her expression was hard to read until she opened her mouth. “Perfectly satisfactory, considering I’ve not touched a loom in a century.”

Chispa’s eyes snapped toward Maven. “Wait… what now?”

“I’ll explain later, love. It’s not important at the moment. Saoirse asked a question. Don’t be rude.”

Slowly, Chispa turned back to me with wide eyes. “I mean, I think you look like a kickass baddie, but there’s a whole new level of lore I think I’m missing out on.”

“Nice can of worms you opened up, there, Aunt Mae,” I teased. “You guys have fun with that. I’m gonna take this thing for a spin.” I turned to head for the ledge, then remembered something. I twisted my upper body back toward the two of them. “I don’t have the audio system running. You can hear me okay, right?”

Chispa nodded, giving me a double thumbs-up. “Probably an improvement from talking through a ski mask.”

“Perfectly articulate, love. You did good work.”

With a mock salute, I headed for the ledge. In a single leap, I was across the street and navigating the rooftops of Greenwich Village. Having crafted a special pocket along my thigh, my phone was secured and charging thanks to a little voltage regulator. The Bluetooth connected to the HUD in my lenses, the microphone in the jaw plate, and the tiny speakers over my ears. The HUD itself was functioning exactly as intended. Parsing the metadata from the NYPD had taken some time, but I was able to plan my patrol based on actual crime data. A map of the area with my planned patrol was part of the HUD and secure swing points came up every so often. The new webbing regulators proved themselves viable in the first few uses. The suit was more badass than I could have anticipated. I was excited that it was working so well.

While I was running along my patrol route, a tingling sensation ripped up my spine and traveled through my head. Half a second later, a woman’s scream echoed off the surrounding buildings. I had gotten used to the differentiation of the tingle to be able to determine exactly what was setting it off. A squint from me forced the actuating shutters to activate and I was able to focus on a man trying to run through Abingdon Square toward the chaos of the Hudson Street/8th Avenue/Bleecker Street intersection. From the south, my only swing point was the Abingdon Court apartment building and it would be a shallow swing because the building wasn’t very tall. If I leapt outward, threw a line, and then swung around toward the intersection, it would work… in theory.

There was no time to debate the wisdom. I went for it. Getting a little running start, I jumped toward Hudson Street and tapped the paddle of my regulator. A line zipped out and attached near the top of the apartment building. I grabbed the line and held on for dear life. The swing started out well, but the angle fell toward the end. I smacked a tree branch and tumbled toward the intersection. Thanks to my agility, I was able to land on my feet in front of the fleeing man. He saw me, panicked, fell onto his backside, and slid a couple of feet on rough Manhattan asphalt. That was gonna leave a mark. He held onto a cream-colored purse by a single handle. He was wearing blue jeans and a brown jacket.

“Far be it from me to judge anybody, but that purse doesn’t match your outfit.” I blurted out.

A woman screamed from the park, trying to run in heels. “He stole my purse!”

My eyes darted from her back to the man. “Well, that explains the mismatch. I’m gonna have to ask you to—” He dropped the purse and ran away from me. I groaned. “Or not.”

Shaking my head, I picked up the purse and gathered some things that had fallen out of it while the guy was running with it. The woman reached me and nearly collapsed, breathing very laboredly. She started crying. A slight tingle up my spine made me glance up. At least six phone cameras were pointed at us. I finished gathering the wayward bits that had fallen out of her purse and handed it to her.

“Here you go, ma’am. I hope that’s everything that fell out. That's all I could find.”

She looked into the lenses of my mask. “Are you… ? Nah, it can’t be…”

“Silk Warden? Actually, I am. I’m the one you’ve probably heard about. The suit is new, though, so I can understand the confusion.”

The woman gingerly took her purse back. “Well, it looks very nice. Thanks for helping me. My whole life is in this damn thing.”

She couldn’t see it, but I gave her a warm smile beneath the mask. “I get it. Be careful getting home, okay?”

“I feel safer knowing you’re out there.”

“It’s what I’m here for. See you later.”

Turning toward a building, I charged a jump and leapt toward it. The patrol went well and the suit performed exactly as designed. Two months of concepts finally coalesced into a street-worthy feat of engineering.

The final week of June started with tests. I could have done both of them in my sleep. The first was the Languages Other Than English exam, which I took in Spanish. My mind was numb afterward. I was sure I passed with top marks, but it was a hassle to prove I knew what I was talking about. The final Regents exam was the worst. To me, it was as easy as simple grade school division. By the end, my brain was a mush of remediocrity.

The good news was that all the finals from our classes were finished and all the state-required Regents exams were behind us. The bad news was that there were only three more days of school until summer vacation.