Webs We Weave



Chapter Eleven

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: Sad to say, but part of this chapter could not have existed without Dance Moms. My wife got me into it. Blame her/them.


From Saoirse: "Happy Pi Day!"

(( Chapter Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XleOkGsYgO8 ))

For the fourth time in a row, I had to dodge something Chispa threw out of her way. She was dangling into a dumpster while using her pelvis as a fulcrum. Thank goodness for my senses because her behind was practically in my face and I was not looking. Her upper body was dangling over the lip of the thing and not visible from where I was standing. Neither of us had any homework, so she invited me to join her dumpster diving excursion. She’d shown me some hauls from her recent exploits and it seemed to be a winning strategy. How else were a couple of poor kids supposed to work with complex electronics that were usually insanely overpriced?

“Jackpot!” Her voice echoed from the confines of the giant metal box. She grunted a few times and then exhaled heavily. “Seda, I could use a little help. The mechanical affinity of my body as a lever is insufficient.”

“What’d you find?” was my curious retort.

“Computer tower. Recent. Can’t tell most of the components but there’s two read-writeable Blu-Ray drives in it. Who uses disc drives anymore?”

I started climbing the side and maneuvered myself around her. “Rich people with way too much money and way too little sense?”

She started to giggle, then protested. “I can’t laugh bent over like this! Halp!”

“Keep your overalls on!” I chuckled as I hopped into the surprisingly clean rubbish receptacle. “I didn’t expect it to actually be clean in here.”

“Welcome to Tribeca. The dumpsters do have food gunk in them, but this one usually just has clothes and last year’s electronics. I try not to ask too many questions when there’s a gold mine like this so close to the house.”

“Heck of a find.” I nodded while acknowledging the rectangle of metal and tempered glass that she found. “That’s a heck of a tower. It’ll be fun to figure out what kind of hardware it’s got inside.”

It really didn’t take much effort at all to lift the large machine out of the dumpster and help Chispa right herself once again. I had lifted paperweights that had more heft to them. Even Chispa noticed how effortlessly I was lifting the computer tower.

“How does that feel in your hands?” She tilted her head to the side while brushing whatever was on the side of the dumpster off her bib overalls.

“Like an oversized pencil, if that,” was my response as I handed it to her before climbing out of the dumpster.

She grunted rather dramatically. “¡Mierda! This thing is heavy!”

I took the tower out of her hands and didn’t so much as flinch. “Not to me.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Must be nice having the proportional strength of a spider with the theoretical capability of lifting a friggin’ tank over your head.”

“That is an unsubstantiated claim. I haven’t been able to really test that yet.”

“Think about it, Seda: if you’ve got the abilities like everybody’s favorite red-and-blue-clad webslinger, then it’s safe to say we can catalogue what you might be able to do. Is it not?”

“Given what you’ve seen and I’ve experienced, it’s feasible the hypothesis is sound.”

“Good. We can do some math, work out some numbers, and test the hypothesis.”

“You’re gonna expect me to lift a tank?”

“Don’t be silly. Where are we gonna find one of those in New York City?”

We shared a laugh. “That’s not the problem I’m currently working on, though.”

She picked up a sack of different things we’d salvaged and we began walking toward Greenwich Village. “Oh? What’s itching at your brain?”

A sigh escaped my lips. “This is gonna sound gross…”

“Seda, we just went head-first into several dumpsters without considering that they’ve probably not been washed in a few years. I’m fine with ‘gross’.”

“Remember when I landed less than gracefully yesterday?”

“Like a puffin returning to the nest? I still laugh when that image pops up in my brain.”

“Have you noticed the little divots in my arms that look almost like tiny blowholes?”

“I don’t pay that much attention to your arms, Seda. Are you saying that’s where the web stuff comes from?”

“Yes, it’s exactly where it comes from. It’s these little spinnerets that pop out and produce the webs. There’s just one problem: without a mechanism to guide them correctly, I just get globs of goo most of the time. The protein polymer requires something to pull at the strands so the web is deployed like it’s supposed to be. Spiders have their back legs. I don’t have anything.”

She nodded slowly as we walked. “Ah, so you need some sort of delivery device that can produce consistent results? Are we talking about legit web shooters?”

With another heavy sigh, I nodded. “Yep. Pretty much. I’ve been cataloguing different components that might be needed. I need to get things into CAD and try formulating a device that encompasses the different components. After that, time to prototype.”

“I could probably help with that. I’ve got a whole kit back at the house. We’ll have to fabricate some of the parts with a dremel, but I’ve at least got a soldering iron and magnifying glass.”

“We have to keep it a bit on the down-low, though. I don’t think everybody needs to know about all this. It’s bad enough you and Maven know.”

“Wait… how does Aunt Mae know?”

My heart nearly stopped. My mind searched for a believable excuse. “Uh… she caught me on the roof before you did.”

“Yea. Okay.” She narrowed her eyes on me. “Once you’re done with designs in CAD, we’ll go over these schematics you’ve devised and see what we can come up with salvage-wise. I don’t necessarily have anything I wanna make out of this stuff yet. Two heads are better than one, right?”

“Usually. I don’t mind another set of eyes going over the designs. Let me know if the math is over your head.”

“Not likely. We’re the same age and I’m in AP Calculus.”

‘Very likely,’ my mind responded before self-correcting. “Well, that’s true.” Lying was starting to affect me a little. It was never my natural state of being.

However, honesty with Chispa had a ceiling. Under it, we covered a lot of ground on the walk back to Tír na nÓg as two scientific minds cataloguing the parameters of my abilities. It was less of a conversation and more of a checklist. That part, at the very least, didn’t require any lies at all.

Our exchange became akin to a comparative essay featuring myself versus Stan Lee’s favorite creation and Marvel’s most successful trademark. Every nerd worth their salt was well aware of the abilities of the cordial area male arachnid. Chispa would refer to the checklist when she asked me questions. Thus far, I had demonstrated an almost unnatural level of agility, enough durability to faceplant rooftops as much as I had without so much as a small bruise or scratch, a jump height that would make professional basketball players jealous, and the ability to produce my own webbing from my body. She asked about the danger sense and I couldn’t accurately quantify it. She said she’d formulate some testing parameters and I was noncommittal. Neither of us knew of a way to test the limits of my strength safely.

Once back at the community house, Chispa led me downstairs. After renovations, Maven had knocked out walls dividing the basement levels of each building she had purchased. In houses like these, the lowest level was generally constructed into an apartment just like the upper floors above the ground. It was obvious that whomever had done the demolition considered the load-bearing capacity of each basement wall and compensated with large columns along the outer concrete walls. What had been created was minimally-invasive sections that could be utilized as either a single space or cordoned off into smaller pieces. The first area we encountered when descending the stairs in #30 was an art and music space with all sorts of supplies and a few instruments. The second space, under #28, had been converted into a sort of theater area with some seats, but bean bag seating dominated the area in front of the projector screen. The last space, under #26, had been turned into a sort of metallurgy and electronics space. It was where Chispa spent most of her time, according to her. To me, it was the perfect spot to fabricate some prototypes and do a little testing.

Dropping off the many pieces of discarded yet fully functional electronics, I asked Chispa if she’d save me some pieces for after I had finished the designs I was working on. She told me she had some intuition about what might be needed and that she’d save me as much as she could—namely the Blu-ray drives out of the tower because she had no use for them. She made it clear the tower we’d brought in with what looked to be an Nvidia 4000 series GPU and 32 GB of RAM was spoken for. Part of me wanted to fight her over the shiny new computer, but she did find the dumpster in the first place. Finders keepers.

Taking my leave, I decided against any parkour that evening. I wanted to expand into the neighboring blocks, but the puzzle of the web shooters had my brain occupied enough. Through classes too boring for me, I’d been making a checklist of what might be needed. Pulling out my laptop and those notes, I began to formulate a design for modular, wrist-mounted bio-crystalline launchers. Working through the evening into the night, I scrapped more designs than I cared to count. I fell asleep with my laptop still open in my lap.

When I heard the alarm coming from my busted-up old phone, I nearly scrambled off the bed. Thankfully, the powered-down, battery-depleted laptop didn’t go clattering to the floor. Instead, it smacked the wall and bounced on the bed. The alarm sounding was the Star Trek “Red Alert” sound from the Voyager days. It was my last chance alarm, which meant if I didn’t get moving I would be late for the first class of the day.

Checking the time resulted in an almost screamed expletive before I began tearing off the clothes from the day before and scrambling for clean clothes for the day ahead. Once dressed in whatever was available and clean, a brush went through my hair, a backpack slipped over my shoulders, and shoes were tied onto my feet. I was out the door in record time. My feet thundered on the steps while I descended to the ground floor. I practically ran out the front door, barely hearing Maven’s morning salutation. Thankfully, I can run faster than before and categorically faster than the average human athlete. A nagging thought in the back of my mind scolded me for using powers so liberally, but it was quickly silenced by the thought of what could happen if I were late for school. I already wasn’t getting breakfast.

It was becoming expected that the other shelter kids and I would move as a unit to and from school. Safety in numbers. I wasn’t that lucky that day. I reached the 4th & Washington Square station, swiped my MetroCard, and boarded the train alone. Getting off on 14th Street, it was a dash for the school building. Several morning commuters objected as I rushed past. I entered the building with a swipe of my student ID and got through the metal detectors with six minutes to spare. One thing I noted: even after all that, I wasn’t even winded. No sweat or labored breathing. That was a good sign at least.

Immediately, my hands reached into the backpack to pull out the schedule and my eyes began to scan it. The only class left that I hadn’t yet attended was called “Performance Dance Ensemble”. It hadn’t even registered in my mind until that very moment. For the life of me, I couldn’t put my finger on why I was in a dance class. I’d never done any dance in my life that didn’t include awkward undulating or slow circles at school dances. Why was I in a dance class? My brain couldn’t produce any other answer than it was up on the sixth floor, so I’d better start climbing the stairs.

My ascent of the stairs was a bit slower than it normally might have been because I was still trying to work out why I was placed in a dance class. By the time I reached the fourth floor, the first bell of the day sounded. I was a slower-moving molecule among the rushing molecules that was the student body going to class. On the sixth floor, I double-checked the room number and cross-referenced it with the numbers in front of my eyes. By that point, I’d figured out the numbers began on the east side of the building and increased as classroom doors continued westward.

Finally, I arrived at the door to class. I opened it and stepped inside. The first thing I noticed was the floor. It was matte black and seemed to be a little more forgiving under my feet than every other surface in the school. The next thing was the mirrors. There were a lot of them on three walls. On the wall that didn’t have the mirrors was the next thing I noticed: two long, wooden rods running parallel to each other and secured to the wall. The final thing to catch my attention were the various students in the room. Three-quarters of them were girls wearing what looked like a black one-piece swimsuit and little pink slippers on their feet. The boys wore a tight tank top and even tighter shorts with little blue slippers on their feet. The only person not wearing something akin to a uniform was a young woman in her late twenties who started yelling at me the moment I entered the room.

“Shoes off! You’ll ruin the marley floors!” She barked. “Who are you? What’re you doing in my class?!”

My body immediately recoiled as she advanced. “I’m sorry! I’m supposed to be here, I think.” My feet scrambled to get the tennis shoes off.

She stopped a couple of feet in front of me and folded her arms. “You must be the STH kid I was told about. Parker?”

My head meekly nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Saoirse.”

She turned to the others in the room. “Finish your warm-ups and run through your choreography. Evelyn, apply corrections if they’re needed.”

My heart nearly stopped when I spotted none other than “Flashdance” nod her head firmly. “Got it, Miss Kyle.”

I felt a hand wrap around my upper arm. “You, grab your shoes. You’re coming with me.”

Obviously, I didn’t argue. My shoes were picked up and I was led out of the main room. I noticed this woman was only a couple of inches taller than me. Her dark brown hair was tied up in the most secure bun I had ever seen. Her physique seemed a bit on the smaller side but even her grip was unexpectedly powerful. She was covered in an ensemble I’d heard cheerleaders refer to as “warm-ups” back when I was in high school the first time. Her bare feet clapped on the linoleum of the hallway floors.

She opened a door and led me inside. It was a smaller room almost like a locker room with benches built into the perimeter walls and six different ottomans arranged into a table or collective sitting location in the middle of the room. There were shelves and little hooks around the room which had various jackets hanging from them. The benches were littered with several duffel bags. There was a door on the far wall that led I knew not where. She crossed the room and picked up what appeared to be a brand new duffel bag of some variety.

“The first thing I want to ask,” she began as she crossed the room back to me, “is whether or not you have any dance experience at all. Have you ever danced before?”

My eyes shot wide as dinner plates. “Uh… no?”

She rolled her eyes and thrust the duffel bag into my chest. “Why did you sign up for this class, then? You realize that you’re going to be incredibly confused and irritating to my seasoned dancers, don’t you?”

My arms wrapped around the bag. “Technically, I didn’t sign up for the class. It was probably the guidance counselor who made the decision.”

“Which one did you speak to?”

“Uh… Mr. Davis?”

She scoffed and dramatically rolled her eyes at me. “Of course… brand new female junior shows up with a certain body type and he slates them into my class simply for the arts credit.” She sat on one of the ottomans and pinched her nose. “Okay, look, I understand it’s probably not your fault but both of us may just have to deal with it for the time being. That bag is your dance bag. It’s got a pair of pink canvas ballet shoes, a pair of black canvas jazz shoes, three sets of tights, and three leotards. We’ll go over the other odds and ends when the time comes. I need you to pull out a set of tights and one leotard. You’re going to completely strip down before you put on the tights first, then the leotard. Understand?”

“Not even a little bit. S-strip?”

“Yes, down to your birthday suit. The tights have a gusset to protect your nether region and maintain your modesty. The leotard has a whole other degree of support for everything. If the tights and leotard are too tight or loose enough that they don’t fit you like a second layer of your own skin, we’ll have to adjust the sizing. Now, get those street clothes off.”

“You’re not gonna watch are you?”

She laughed. “Oh, honey, in performing arts, you’re gonna have to lose that body shyness. Eventually, you’ll have to worry about costume changes and we don’t have any time for people to be shy about their bodies around here.” She let out a sigh. “But for the time being, I’ll excuse myself on your behalf. Remember: tights FIRST, then the leotard.” She spun and crossed to the mystery door, which apparently led into the main studio area.

I set the duffel bag onto one of the ottomans and opened it to examine the contents. There were several compartments inside. The clothing pieces were all rolled up and organized. The shoes had their own separate compartment on the sides of the bag. The first things to stick out as secondary were a white towel and a large, reusable water bottle. There were other odds and ends I wasn’t going to explore yet. I felt encouraged to accomplish my assigned task quickly.

I pulled out a single pair of nude-colored, high-waisted dance tights with a hole in the foot that was apparently supposed to be there. With a heavy breath, I sat on one of the ottomans and began taking off all the clothes I’d thrown on that morning. As more of me was exposed, my anxiety climbed. Depositing the clothes into the duffel bag, I held up the tights. I had seen enough examples of people putting similar articles of clothing on themselves that I worked out how to put them on. It was harder than it looked. It felt like a sausage casing had been wrapped on me from my toes to my ribs.

Next, I pulled out one of the black one-piece swimsuit things. I would have to remind myself that the thing is called a “leotard” from now on. Upon inspection, it appeared that I would have to step through the leg holes and pull the garment up over my body. After execution, I slipped my arms through the respective holes and noted the garment didn’t feel quite right. A second later, the young teacher came through the door and zeroed in on my form with her intense green eyes.

“Tights need a size up and leotard needs a size down.” She stated almost clinically. She disappeared into a small room I hadn’t noticed before and emerged with more clothes that she set on the ottomans near the bag she’d given me. “Take the old ones out of the bag and put the new ones in it. Save a set of tights and a leotard because you’re going to change out of the ones you’re wearing. Hurry up, please. We don’t have all day.”

Without another word, she was out the door again. Once again, I had to remove everything covering my body, which caused the anxiety to return. It was attempt number two with the tights. They went on a bit easier the second time around. Putting on the leotard, it was immediately apparent the size was smaller. With both articles of clothing in place, I felt a little confined but not in an uncomfortable manner. On instinct, my hands roamed over the body I’d been given a little over a week ago. I could feel all the curves, indents, and angles caused by the musculature, fat distribution, and skeletal structure. It was mind-blowing how thorough the process had been… and how euphoric I felt about it.

A sharp, tingling sensation shot up my spine and through my skull. My eyes darted toward the door to the studio. In the next half-second, the teacher swung it open and gave another once-over.

“Looks like we found just the right fit. Put on the ballet shoes and join the class, will you?” She instructed me.

I hadn’t noticed, but I had been holding in a breath. It was released when the door clicked shut. It took a second for the instructions to register before I turned to the bag and found the pink shoes. They looked tiny and weren’t all that comfortable when I put them on. Apparently, they’re supposed to fit like that. They break-in over time, but they also subtly reshape your feet. With trepidation, I crossed the room and opened the door.

Besides the teacher, there were seventeen bodies in the room. Evelyn was running them through some choreography and the teacher came at me again. This time, she attacked my hair. With a few swipes of her hand, a bit of twisting, and application of some sort of elastic band, my hair was pulled tight against my scalp and there was a little tuft of it atop the crown of my skull.

“This is how you need to be every morning when you have class here. You’re to have your tights on, leotard on, and hair up in a bun. You will wear your tights rolled on your calves when you have street shoes on. There is a set of warmups in that duffel bag. Wear those to school. You roll your tights down and put on your dance shoes only in that ready room we were just in. If you get the idea you need makeup, I will correct that impulse and wash it off myself. Is that clear, Miss Parker?”

“Yes, it’s clear.” I nodded. “What was your name again?”

From halfway across the room, Evelyn interjected. “You’re speaking to Jakobi Kyle, three-time Tony Award-winning dancer and choreographer. Show a little respect, Parker.”

The teacher sneered and turned to the interruption. “No need to be rude, Miss Thompson.” She turned to me. “A simple ‘Miss Kyle’ is fine. Do you know what’s involved in the stretches and warm-up exercises?”

My head hung low. “No, Miss Kyle. I really don’t.”

She let out a huff. “Thompson! You’re going to pair up with the new girl and show her the ropes. Get her stretched and warmed up. If there’s time, run her through some choreography.”

Evelyn rolled her eyes and I almost heard her growl. “Yes, Miss Kyle.” She started moving toward us as if we’d insulted her ancestors.

In moments, she reached us and kept walking. Awkwardly, I followed behind and offered a meek smile to Matcha as I passed. At least there would be someone in the class that could look at me and not hate everything about me. Evelyn led me to another studio room with less square footage. She got to the center of the room and grunted like she wanted to let out a scream. She turned to me with the glare of a thousand daggers.

“I don’t know why the hell I’m doing this or why you’re even in this class. You appeared out of nowhere on Monday. Do you even have any dance experience?” She growled.

“N-no… I d-don’t…” The girl was terrifying me.

Her hands flew to the sides of her head. “Oh my fucking god… you’re completely green?!” There was fire in her eyes when she looked at me. “Little Ginger, I’ve been dancing since I was four years old! I’ve done Joffrey twice! I’ll be damned if some know-nothing poor kid is going to roll in off the streets and make the last twelve years of my life look like a mockery! If Miss Kyle wants me to get you up to speed, you’re going to work harder than you’ve ever worked in your sorry little existence! You will not complain! You will not talk back! You will not disrespect me! Got it?!”

There was no way to tell where the defiance came from, but it bubbled to the surface nonetheless. My brow furrowed and my stance stiffened. “Look, I get it: you’re the queen of this school! You’ve got all the money in the world and you flaunt it like it’s some kind of badge of honor! Everybody bows down to you and the crowd parts like it does in every teen movie ever released! We’re all supposed to get out of your way and do what we’re told, right?!” My breath heaved out and back in quickly. “I didn’t ask to be put in this class! I’m just trying to make shit work, okay?! It’s only my third day in an incredibly confusing, hectic environment! I didn’t ask for my whole world to be upended and land me here! I’m not trying to step on your toes! I’m just trying to learn the steps and do the best I can, all right?!”

She almost charged me and got in my face before speaking at low volume with a growl lingering in her throat. “What if you can’t hack it, Parker? What if you never learn the steps?”

I didn’t back down. “Then I’ll just have to fucking work harder, won’t I?”

We remained in the stalemate.

“You don’t even know what a plié, grand jeté, or an arabesque is, do you?”

“Nope. Isn’t that what you’re here for?”

“You’re going to wish you kept that smart mouth shut. Let’s get started.”