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Chapter Text

27 June 2029

5:17 PM

A Random Rooftop, Somewhere in Midtown, Manhattan

“Part of the journey is the end,” I say, randomly. 

“What?” Miles asks.

“Just something Mr. Stark used to say.” 

“Oh. You don’t talk about him much. Were you close?”

I take a deep breath, “Yeah.”

I could feel the weight of the time that has passed without him hit me. “Morgan, his daughter, had her 5th grade graduation today, that’s all. Just sucks he couldn’t be here to see it.” My face softens up, and I could feel tears build up in my eyes. 

“Sorry, Miles,” I say, letting out a small laugh.

“For what?” 

“I don’t know, crying, I guess,” I laugh again. 

“It’s cool, man. Take your time.” 

Miles surprises me everyday with how mature he can be. He worries me, though. He’s so young, only 16. I just don’t want him to get hurt the way I have. But I know I can’t convince him to stop right now, while he still can, and run away from this life. So might as well try to prepare him for the road he has ahead. 

I reach in my jacket pocket to pull out a picture I took of Morgan and Ms. Potts today. I took it for Mr. Stark. I want to take it to his grave, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do that. I’ve never been there alone. Even at 23, and with all I’ve seen, I don’t think I’d be able to stand visiting Mr. Stark’s grave alone. 

“What’s that?” Miles asks, looking at the picture in my hand. I hand it to him. “Oh. That’s his daughter, I assume.” I nod. He hands the picture back and we sit there in silence for a few minutes. 

“Hey Miles, you think you could do me a favor?” 

“Sure, what is it?” 

“I want to take this picture to Mr. Stark, to his grave, but I’ve never been there alone, and…” I stop because I’m embarrassed that I’m asking a 16-year old to accompany me somewhere because I’m not man enough to do it alone. 

“For sure, Al, I’ll go with you. You’ve always been there for me when I needed it. It’s time for me to repay the favor,” he says, getting up. 

I grunt to get up, “Thanks Miles.” 

I see Miles walk over to the edge of the roof, ready to swing wherever we needed to go, but I don’t have it in me to swing anywhere. “Nah nah nah. None of that today, sorry kid. I’m driving, let’s go.”

He slumps his shoulders, but listens either way and follows me back down to the street where my car is parked. “You know, I only barely got my license a couple months ago,” I say, turning the key to the ignition. 

“You’re 23 though?” 

“I never had a reason for it. With—” I make thwip sounds and pretend to fire a web shooter. “Don’t be like me, though. Actually get your license. Ya hear me?” I say, pulling out of my parking space. 

“Yeah I hear, I hear. Got my permit already, don’t worry,” Miles says, relaxing in his seat letting out a small laugh.

6:49 PM 

The Green-wood Cemetery, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn

After about an hour or so drive, we finally pull up to the cemetery of Mr. Stark’s resting place. I instantly feel cold. I don’t wanna get off the car. I take out the picture again to look at it— to remind myself why I’m here. 

“You can do it,” Miles speaks up. I turn to look at him and give him a small smile. 

“Okay,” I say between short breaths, “Let’s go.” 

We walk through the cemetery, and I’m taken back to all those years ago when I was here for the first time. I still know exactly where his grave is: just below a majestic elm tree in a barred off area towards the eastern side of the graveyard. I take out my keys and fumble to pick out the right one to unlock the gate. Happy, Mr. Stark’s former head of security, had given me a copy some years back, in case I ever wanted to come visit. I feel guilty that this is the first time I’m using it.

Miles was following quietly behind, but chose to speak up before he entered the compound, “You want me to come with? I can wait out here. So you can say what you wanna say, just you and him.”

“Uh… Yeah. Yeah. Yeah… I can do this. I’ll be quick,” I say turning away from him. 

As I’m walking away, I can hear him whisper to himself, “Take your time.” Or maybe it wasn’t a whisper. With the loud pounds my heart is making, I can barely hear a thing. Why am I so nervous? As I get closer and closer to the gravestone that marked his resting spot, I feel more and more guilty. Why hadn’t I came before? Well, maybe that was the feeling. Not nerves, guilt. I just didn’t know how to face this. I didn’t know how to face it when I was 16, and I still don’t know now. I’ve lost people before, but Mr. Stark— he saved me. He truly changed my life, and from one day to the other, he was gone. 

And now, it’s been six years, and it’s the first time I’ve come to visit on my own. I stand there, deadpanned, for a few seconds, but finally choose to slowly sit down a couple feet away from the gravestone, which reads: 

Anthony Edward Stark

1970-2023

Beloved Father, Husband, Hero.

I can’t help it and start crying right then and there, “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark. I’m sorry for not coming to see you…” I feel really out of breath from only a few seconds of speaking, “I’m sorry.” 

A few minutes go by and I have to remind myself why I’m here. I pull out the picture. “Morgan graduated 5th grade today,” I say, wiping away some tears still trying to fight their way to the surface. “I thought you should have this.” I face the picture towards him—towards the gravestone—as if he could actually see the picture. “She’s smart like you, sir. I know you’d be proud, I am,” I say smiling, trying to hold back the river building up in my eyes. I reach forward and place the picture so it’s leaning on the gravestone, and I finally exhale. I spend a while telling him about Spider-Man stuff, and about my experience at ESU [Empire State University], and how I’m hoping to study at MIT next year for graduate school; just catching him up on the things he’s missed, basically.

“Before I go, look, you see that kid over there?” I nod my head in Miles’ direction, which catches his attention. He waves at me, I wave back. “He’s like me. I’ve found someone to mentor, to teach, to look after, like you did me. He’s going to be great— he is great. And he’ll only grow. I can’t wait.” I smile again, though this time, I’m feeling slightly better. “Thank you, Mr. Stark, for everything,” I say, getting up from my spot on the grass. “I’ll come visit again soon, I promise. I love you 3000.” 

9:28 PM 

Morales’ Apartment, Harlem, Manhattan

I park right out in front of Miles’ Harlem apartment, and rub the back of my neck. “Hey, again, I’m sorry, Miles. I didn’t mean to put a burden on you today.” 

“And I said don’t sweat it. We’re Spider-bros, we gotta look out for each other.” 

“Spider-bros?” I say, intentionally cocking up an eyebrow. 

“Yeah, it’s new. Ya like it?” he asks, looking excited. 

I start laughing on the spot. “It’ll grow on me,” I say, nodding. 

He smiles proudly. “Hey Al, before you go. I wanted to ask— I don’t know if it’s an appropriate time though.” 

“Just ask.” 

“Okay, um… you bringing up Iron Man today and how you guys were um… close… I just— it got me wondering, is there any chance you could tell me a couple of your stories from when you were younger?” 

“Younger? I’m not that old, Miles. I’m 23,” I say, laughing a bit. 

“No, no,” he laughs too. “I mean, you’ve never told me much of your adventures as… ya know… The Amazing Spider-Man!” he says, making weird hand gestures for dramatic effect.

I laugh looking down at the steering wheel. “You’re right, I haven’t…” I look up, thinking of what to say next. “There’s a lot of baggage that comes with those ‘adventures’ though, Miles. In order to understand what happened, and why I did what I did, you need to know the full story. Do you really want to?” 

“Of course I do! I loved Spider-Man growing up. And now I’m— we’re Spider-Man. Spider-Men?”

“What happened to Spider-bros?” I say, teasing the nickname from before. 

“Exactly! But that ain’t the point. Look, if you need a good reason to take me on a stroll down memory lane then…” he stops, clearly trying to make something up. “Maybe telling me about some of your stories will be like a guide to me. They’ll show me how to balance school and relationships and family and Spider-Man-ing,” he finishes, looking satisfied. 

“You know, for a bs’d reason… that was actually pretty good,” I say, laughing. 

“So what do ya say?” he asks, looking hopeful. 

“Fine. But not today or— or how ‘bout this: I’ll write ‘em down, and then give ‘em to you. Like a book, then they’ll really be stories.”

“Why don’t you just tell me? I mean, I’ll read ‘em, but why?”

“Because like I said, some of these memories come with a lot of baggage that I’d rather revisit when I’m alone.” 

He’s visibly taken aback. “Now I feel guilty. I don’t want you revisiting stuff that makes you sad.” His smile, dropping from his face. 

“No, no, it’s cool. As your mentor, it’s my job to prepare you for what comes next. And you’re right, I think you could learn a thing or two from my past mistakes. But anyways, it’s late and it’s a school night, get to bed,” I say, unlocking the car door. 

“No it’s not. Today was the last day of school.” 

“It’s still late and your mom wanted you home before 10, so go.”

“Aight, aight, I’ll go.” 

As he steps out of the car I call out to him, “Thanks Miles, have a goodnight alright? Say hi to your mom for me.” 

“For sure. Have a goodnight too, Al. Thanks.” 

28 June 2029 

3:30 AM

My Apartment, Midtown, Manhattan

It’s 3:30 and I can’t sleep. I’ve been tossing and turning for hours, and nothing. To be completely honest, I’ve been busy reliving some of my so-called ‘adventures’ according to Miles. “The Amazing Spider-Man,” I say to myself. I lay there, staring at the ceiling for a bit, and can’t help but letting out a small laugh. “The Amazing Spider-Man,” I say again. 

I hop out of bed and walk over to my bookshelf. I search through the titles until I find the one untitled journal wedged in between some dystopian novels from when I was a teen. My teenage years seem so far away now; god does Miles make me feel old. 

I walk over to the desk in the corner of my apartment, and place the journal on top of it and stare at it for a while. It had worn out black leather and dark green piping that traced its frame. I’d never written in it before because I had no words to write. Not until now, at least. This was my mom’s old journal from who knows when. She has no recollection of ever buying it, so I took it for myself one day; she didn’t mind though. 

I take a breath and pick up the pen next to me. I open the first page and write: 

For Miles Morales:

“Part of the journey is the end.” 

But in order to appreciate that end, we need to go all the way back to the beginning. 

This is for you, Miles. Whatever you do with this after you’ve read it is completely your choice. All I can do is hope they help you in some way. So anyways, hope you enjoy?

Your Spider-bro,

Allen Iglesias

Chapter Text

28 November 2015

It’s a sad one, the life of a hero. You try to save everyone, but you can’t. And even if you swear that you will, you won’t. I want you to remember this, Miles, so please take to heart what I’m about to tell you because it will save you from so much pain. If you can’t save everyone— if someone dies on your watch, it isn’t your fault. I wish someone would’ve told me that sooner. The first person I couldn’t save, after becoming Spider-Man, was Captain George Stacy of the 115th precinct. He was also Gwen’s dad. 

Gwen was my first girlfriend. I was only 14, a freshman in high school, at the time—as was she— and at this point, in the November of 2015, we’d already been dating for about a year and a half. I still think about her from time to time, even over a decade later. 

I remember the day of his funeral like it was yesterday. The sky was clear but everything seemed grey. The air was frigid, so you could tell winter was only a couple weeks away. I stood a couple feet away as Gwen and her brothers each took their own turn shoveling a scoop of soil into their father’s grave. 

I remember feeling so unbearably guilty. All I wanted to do was run away and never see Gwen again. But I knew I had to be there for her. I was forcing myself to not cry. I felt like I didn’t deserve to cry. My eyes were burning because I wasn’t blinking. Because if I blinked, I knew the flow of tears wouldn’t stop, so I stood there silently, waiting for Gwen to come back to my side. 

The truth was that Captain Stacy died saving me. But I didn’t see it that way, not at the time. I saw it as I failed to save a good man. Well… a good man at heart. When his wife passed, he became emotionally absent with his children and never fully recovered. Gwen used to say he did his best, even though she practically raised her little brothers, and herself, on her own. 

But I guess having her dad’s presence was something at least. It was everything, actually. She’d lost her mother, too, only a couple years before, so he was all they had left, and he was gone. 

“January 7th, Gwendolyn, you have until then to say your goodbyes,” said her Aunt Cher before she drove off, leaving me and Gwen the only ones left at the burial site. My mom was supposed to pick us up in 30 minutes, and for that half hour we said nothing. Just sat next to each other on the wet, late-autumn grass with nothing to say. 

It took me until later that night, when Gwen had already gone home, to process what her aunt meant. On January 7th, she, and her brothers, would be moving to England indefinitely. With her dad now passed, they were a family of orphans who needed a caretaker, and the only willing relatives were her Aunt Cher and creep-of-an-uncle Raymond who lived all the way across the Atlantic. 

I wanted to be upset— I was. But the truth was that a part of me was relieved. You see, Miles, I loved her more than I had ever loved anyone. She was my first love after all. But knowing me— loving me— is a dangerous thing. I have to be selfish enough to put you in the line of fire, and whomever I love must be selfless enough to jump into the line of fire for me. 

When I was 14, I didn’t understand that. 

Captain Stacy did though. His dying wish was made to me: to leave Gwen out of it. It being my life and the danger it comes with. And with her moving, it granted his wish for me. If I’m being honest, even after all these years, I still am unsure of whether or not I would have been able to let her go on my own. 

Christmas 2015

That year, Christmas came and went. Being honest, I can’t remember what I got for Christmas that year, it was all kind of a blur to me. More so because Gwen only had two weeks left here in New York. 

For the last few weeks of 2015, I had grown exceedingly oblivious to anything other than my relationship with Gwen. Looking back, I would’ve done things differently. Not because she wasn’t my priority, because she was, but because I had completely ignored the catastrophe that had built up right underneath my nose. 

Right now, you’re probably confused, so let me give you some context. I was a novice back then and was in way over my head. I was a 14-year-old kid who had only recently got his powers, and could barely control them, who decided he wanted to play superhero. 

The night Captain Stacy died, we— Captain Stacy, Gwen, and I—saved the city. That is perhaps the only victory I took away from that night. After that, everything else in my life seemed to spiral out of control. Before this, the most dangerous thing that had ever happened to me was breaking my nose playing baseball in middle school. And from that to intentionally putting my life on the line for the greater good— it was a huge step up that I wasn’t prepared for at all. 

The nights that followed were sleepless nights. On the off-chance of me somehow falling asleep, I always woke up to the same nightmare: watching Captain Stacy take his final breath as I could do nothing but hopelessly watch. And then I had to show up to school and baseball practice pretending like none of it happened. Evidently, my grades slipped and I would make up every excuse to Coach Wilson to skip practice, until I just stopped going entirely. 

I remember my mom and sister being really worried as I had began distancing myself from them because I felt like they wouldn’t understand without knowing the full story, and I didn’t want to drag them into the mess I had gotten myself into. 

My intention isn’t to intimidate you, Miles. I know how much being Spider-Man means to you, and I would never stop you from becoming the Amazing hero I know you’ll become. I just want you to be aware of how traumatic this life is. I don’t think the pain goes away with age. I think you always carry that baggage with you, and as time moves forward, you get stronger, so the weight of the burden becomes lighter; you eventually learn to live with it. That realization, and acceptance of that realization, requires a level of maturity not even a kid as bright as yourself is capable of. At the start, I didn’t have someone to tell me all this, but just because I didn’t doesn’t mean I’m going to let you figure it out on your own too. On that traumatic note…

As of New Year’s Day 2016, Dr. Connors was set to serve life in a maximum security prison in the waters of the East River: the Raft. So in my adolescent mind, that problem was solved and over with. What I didn’t know was that every problem has an aftermath that must be dealt with; every action, every choice has a consequence. And what I hadn’t realized was Oscorp was still in possession of the Decay Rate Algorithm Dr. Connors used to create the Lizard Serum. Not to mention: I hadn’t grown aware that Norman Osborn’s wife, Emily, had been diagnosed with a condition known as Retroviral Hyperdysplasia. If you’re wondering how any of this is relevant to the catastrophe I mentioned earlier, just be patient with me. 

To quote Gwen, who was Dr. Connors’ intern while working on the Lizard Serum, “The Decay Rate Algorithm is a formula which has ties to successful regeneration in human cells when incorporated with cross species genetics.” Government officials from the Department of Damage Control had run a clean sweep of Oscorp Tower to run an investigation on the Lizard incident, which shut down its operations for months. 

According to Harry, Norman Osborn’s son, who had become a good friend of Gwen’s in her time at Oscorp, so by association, had become my friend too, they confiscated everything in Dr. Connors’ lab and from his whole department. And yet, Mr. Osborn managed to stow away a vial of Lizard Serum and a copy of the Decay Rate Algorithm before then. 

Mr. Osborn not only was the genius CEO of the multibillion-dollar, multinational corporation Oscorp, he was also the Mayor of New York City at the time. His and his wife’s work as philanthropists and the accomplishments of Oscorp easily secured his seat in office, which easily let him stunt one of his numerous properties as an unregistered, off-the-grid laboratory where he continued his search for a cure for his wife. 

Chapter Text

02 January 2016

7:25 AM

My Apartment, Chinatown, Manhattan 

Harry called me early that morning. He sounded exhausted and empty, “Mom passed last night,” I remember him saying. 

I didn’t know what to say, “I’m so sorry, Harry,” was all I could get out. 

Silence filled the air for a couple seconds before he started again with a soft breath, “We’re having a service for her tomorrow morning. It’d mean a lot to me if you’d come.” His voice, empty, yet full with so much pain. “Listen, I gotta go, dad’s calling, but I’ll text you the time and place later.” And with that, the line cut off. 

Harry and I had only been friends for a couple months at this point, but I knew how much his mother meant to him. For most of his childhood, she was all he had. She’d passed down a lot of her interests to him like reading, classical music, jazz, and art, along with a love for the Earth and the environment. He always said that one day they were going to heal the world together. His dad was in his life, but he was hardly ever around, with running a company and being Mayor, he had other manners to attend to. Harry used to say that he didn’t hold it against him, used to. 

I think I was Harry’s second-ever friend that was his age, Gwen being the first, so he opened up to me rather quickly. He was a nice guy, innocent and impulsive because he didn’t quite understand the consequences of stepping out of line just yet. Neither did I. 

I always secretly pitied him, I’m unsure why though. He was rich and privileged and had his whole life set up for him before he was even born. He lived in a penthouse and had several personal servants and had absolutely zero responsibilities. I guess I overlooked all that and took pity on him because of his father. Although frequently absent, Norman’s approval was all Harry ever wanted. But all Norman ever wanted in a son was what Harry wasn’t. The expectations that he placed on Harry guaranteed disappointment, and as Harry aged, he continuously bottled up those emotions, and the grudge he held against his father only grew.

***

I sat next to Gwen at the service. It was closed casket. For the most part, we stayed silent. It reminded me of November, when a similar service for her father was held. I remember the venue being filled to the brim; a lot of the people whose lives had been touched by Emily had come by to pay their respects. 

I remember Harry’s speech, “Emily Lyman-Osborn represented the best of us. She wasn’t just my mom. She was everything I wanted to be. She was kind, compassionate, and caring, and most importantly, she was the woman who taught me how to love unconditionally. She taught me that good deeds are not always rewarded, nor should we expect them to be. She was the embodiment of what it meant to be a good person. My mom…” And here he stopped to catch his breath because the emotions had finally got to him. I knew he had more to say, but didn’t have the strength to finish, “I want to thank you all for coming to say goodbye to her. Mom, I love you. And I’ll always carry you with me. And I promise to continue being the person you taught me to be.” 

I remember watching Harry slowly walk back to his seat next to the rest of his family, as a sort of echoey whisper filled the room. I felt a sharp tingle in the back of my head as the hairs on my arm rose. Norman stepped up to the mic and began his speech, but no words came out of his mouth. Everyone in the room, including Gwen, silently faced Mr. Osborn and listened intently to nothing. I remember trying to whisper over to Gwen if she heard the echoing, but no sound came out of my mouth either. 

I got up from my chair and looked around the room to see if I could pinpoint the source of the echoey voice, and it was like no one even noticed I was there. Everyone continued looking forward, unbothered by my sudden movements; the people whose view I was blocking, it was as if they were looking straight through me, like I wasn’t there. 

I was thoroughly creeped out. The voice was so far away, yet felt like it was being whispered directly into my ear; almost trying to tell me something. A word, a single word, being repeated over and over again. But I couldn’t make it out. I looked around some more before I noticed a grey fog coming from the door, which was ajar; the tingle in the back of my head spiking once more. I tried alerting Gwen, but she was frozen like everyone else, hypnotized by Mr. Osborn’s silent speech. 

As I steadily neared the fog the echoey song became louder and more profound. But as its volume increased, it became harder to make out what it was trying to say. More voices joining in, almost like the fog, itself, had a voice. I reached for the door, but stopped when the room behind me erupted in applause, Mr. Osborn had finished saying his piece apparently. I jumped and let out a silent yelp, as still no sound came out of my mouth. I turned my attention back to the door once more and pushed it wide open and was met by pure darkness. The entrancing song went quiet, and the fog was no where to be found. 

I stared out into the darkness for a bit and felt it engulfing me, the tingle in my head was going crazy. I remember my head feeling like it was going to explode. I shut the door, and faced the room again, which was completely frozen. Everyone was positioned like statues, all glued to their seats. All of their eyes were locked on one singular object in the front of the room. As I tore my eyes from where Gwen was currently sitting and followed her gaze, I realized what everyone was looking at. The casket was suddenly open. And there was the song again. 

As I began making my way to the front of the room, the fog started coming out of the casket, which stopped me in my tracks. When the fog reached my feet, the song no longer sounded like it was so far away. The sound in my ears, feeling like nails screeching along a metal surface, begging me to listen to what it had to say. 

“…dred,” it said. I didn’t know what that meant, so I closed my eyes, and focused on it once more. 

“KINDRED,” it said again, louder, which sent a shock of pain throughout my skull. I remember blood trickling out of my left ear, which snapped me out of my haze, which got me moving again. 

I remember the lights of the room flickering with every step I took. I looked down into the casket and there was Harry’s mom. She was dressed in white and her blonde hair was styled nicely in front of her shoulders. A delicate, golden locket lay at the neck of her dress, and I couldn’t help but admire how much it shined; it looked priceless. When I noticed the bouquet she was holding, my eyes froze at the sight of her hands. They were grey and the skin was cracked and there was dry blood on the fingertips of her cracked nail beds. 

“Kindred! Kindred! Kindred!”

The chant, coming from the room of people behind me, sent a chill down my spine. I looked back at the room of people behind me, and Harry, Gwen, everyone for that matter, was chanting that same word over and over again in unison. Everyone but Norman Osborn, who was giving me a look like he saw straight through me. A sly smirk broke through his lips as everyone went dead silent. There were no more chants or echoes and there was no trace of the song that was ringing throughout the room. Suddenly goosebumps formed on the back of my neck, and I looked back to where Emily was meant to be laying down. Only now she was sitting up looking at me. Her eyes were black and the bags under her eyes were blood red. 

I remember trying to call out to her, before she let out a deafening screech and jumped at me. I tried jumping backwards, but that’s when everything went black, and I woke up, screaming. 

3:38 AM

My room was dark and cold. I remember sitting up on my bed, out of breath, staring at my black tv screen, with my hands on the back of my head, hoping that would make the sharp sting that was there go away. I was struggling to process what had just happened. It was a dream, yet my spider sense was active. That was the first time my spider sense had ever been activated by a dream sequence. I didn’t know what it meant. Kindred, I thought. I reached for my phone to write the word down.

That’s when I noticed the scratching at my door. I jumped at the sudden noise. I heard a soft bark on the other side, and relaxed immediately. It was my dog, Appa— well my sister’s dog, but she was studying abroad during this time, so it was just me and my mom for now. I got up and walked to the door and there he was sitting patiently with his usual look: one ear up, one ear down with his head tilted to the side looking up at me. 

“It’s okay buddy, I’m okay,” I remember saying, picking him up off the floor, still out of breath, “Let’s go back to sleep. Let’s take you back to mommy’s room,” I said, in the most kiddish voice ever, like I was actually talking to a little boy. But my mom had left for work already. She used to work the early morning shift at the airport. So it was just me and Appa, which I guess I was grateful for because at the time, I was way too out of it to muster up a believable cover up story for waking up screaming. I couldn’t sleep after that, but I remember taking Appa back to my bed, and letting him fall asleep on my lap as I pet his little head. I think I stayed there the rest of the night staring into the darkness, being thankful that I wasn’t completely alone. 

7:53 AM

Harry called me early that morning, but I hesitated to answer this time around. I remember staring at the caller-ID for a couple seconds before finally answering. 

“Hey, Al! Glad you’re awake,” he said in an overly peppy tone. 

“Heyyyy, Harry, what’s up?” I said in return, dragging out that first word a little too much for comfort. 

“My mom…” he paused for a little, and even if it was only for a second, that second felt like it was stretched into thousands, by the way my heart sank into my chest, “She’s all better! Could you believe it?! We’re having a little celebration for her tonight and dad said I could invite anyone I wanted to. Gwen knows already, so be at my place at eight, if you can, and dress nice,” I could hear how happy he was, and I was happy for him and for his mom, but not without hesitation. 

“Oh, that’s great to hear Harry!” I said, trying to be convincingly happy for him, “I’ll be there.” 

5:30 PM

Gwen was over at my house by 5:30 that evening even though the party wasn’t for another two and a half hours. According to her, she couldn’t stand being at home because it felt nothing like a home to her anymore. Since moving day was nearing, that’s all either her aunt or uncle wanted to talk to her about. I guess she just needed a break sometimes. And that break was me. 

Speaking of talking about things, Gwen and I had yet to talk about what we were gonna do about our relationship once she moved, which was in five days time. I didn’t know whether she was purposely putting it off or if she hadn’t realized that it was a subject that needed to be discussed; and I didn’t know how to bring it up either. 

I was in the middle of getting ready as she spoke, “I know my brothers are small, but it’s like they don’t even miss him. They’re so excited to move to England because my aunt has them convinced it’s some sort of long term vacation,” she ranted while giving herself a scornful look in the mirror.

“Gwen, Phillip is seven and Simon is five. Your aunt is just trying to make sense of a terrible situation for them. Pretending it’s some overseas adventure probably makes them feel better whether their little brains realize it or not,” I said, hoping it would calm her down a bit. 

“I know. I just… wish it made me feel better too. I can’t help but think this whole thing is my fault,” she said. I remember her taking a seat on my bed as she batted her eyelashes trying to make the tears stop, presumably to not mess up her makeup. 

I let go of my tie, which I was halfway through tying, and knelt down in front of her. I remember taking her hand before I said, “Gwen, how could any of this be your fault?” 

“I was Dr. Connors’ intern. I helped him develop the Lizard Serum. And the Lizard killed my dad. How isn’t this, at least partially, my fault?” she said, taking a pause to catch her breath. I was speechless, “And now, we have to move to England because my mom is dead too. So now my little brothers have to go their entire lives without their dad when they already don’t even remember their mom.” After this, she looked up to prevent any tears sliding down her face, as I rubbed the top of her hand softly, thinking of what to say.

“Gwen—” I started, but was cut off immediately.

“You think we can talk about something else right now?” she asked exasperatedly. “Please? We’ll talk about this later, I swear. I just need a distraction right now— I swear if my makeup gets messed up, I’m gonna lose it,” she said, as she got up and walked back over to the mirror. 

As I bookmarked this conversation for a later time in my mind, I thought this was as good a time as ever to bring up that weird dream I’d had earlier that day, “Well, there is this one thing.” 

“Yeah?” she asked, drawing her attention from the mirror to me. 

“It’s about Harry’s mom,” I confessed. I let her take that in for a moment, but her silence told me to continue, “I had this dream that she was dead. And we went to her funeral and her body… her hands were all old and decayed, and— and Norman! He was there too,” I said, in a mess. 

“Norman? You mean Harry’s dad?” 

“Yeah. He was giving me this menacing glare like he knew something. And then she— Harry’s mom came back to life and attacked me.” 

“Well, it was just a dream, like you said, Allen. Let’s just try being happy for Harry, yeah? I’m sure you’re just being paranoid,” was all she said. 

“But it didn’t feel like just a dream, Gwen. It felt like a warning. I even woke up with that stinging tingle I get when I’m in danger,” I said, trying to convince her. I probably sounded insane now that I think of it; trying to disprove Emily Osborn’s good fortune. 

“Your spider sense,” she said, recalling a nickname she’d given my sixth sense in the past. I gave her a deadpanned look, “What? It’s cute.” 

“Gwen, I’m being serious,” I pleaded with her as I finished tying my tie. 

“I know... Look, we’ll keep a watchful eye on her tonight, but won’t go looking for any trouble. Got it? Harry invited us to celebrate his mom, let’s not ruin that for our friend especially when all we have are some premature suspicions you have from your dream, okay?” 

“Okay,” I agreed with her. I remember this subtle feeling of guilt building up in the back of my mind. But, in my mind, as long as Harry didn’t find out, before I could confirm anything, there was no harm done.

8:10 PM

Osborn Penthouse, Upper West Side, Manhattan

Harry was waiting for us outside his luxurious apartment complex when we got there. He led us up to the penthouse him and his family resided in, which was at the very top of a 40-story building. Tons of people were there already. A line had formed to greet Mrs. Osborn, so Harry led us there, but told us he had to go and greet the rest of the guests, so that he would meet up with us later on. 

When we neared the front of the line, I had finally gotten a decent glimpse of her, and couldn’t help but stare. Her hair and her dress were identical to what she was wearing in my dream. Her hands were being covered by silk gloves to match the fabric of her dress. And she was sitting next to Norman, who was letting her do most of the talking. 

“What?” Gwen asked, noticing my look.

“She’s wearing gloves,” I whispered, leaning over a bit so she could hear me. But I said it like it made sense to her in the way that it did to me. 

“And she’s not the only one,” she whispered back as she nudged my shoulder and pointed with her head to the woman behind us, who was dressed in a similar manner.

“In my dream…” I said, again in a quiet voice, but was cut off by Gwen because it was our turn to greet Harry’s mom. 

“Hi, Mrs. Osborn, Mr. Osborn,” Gwen said, looking at each of them while shaking their hands, “I’m Gwen Stacy,” she introduced herself and looked over at me. 

“Allen Iglesias,” I nodded, and shook both their hands, being extremely cautious coming into contact with Mrs. Osborn’s. 

“We’re friends of Harry,” Gwen said.

“I know who you are… Harry speaks very highly of both of you,” Emily said with a vibrant smile on her face, happy to meet who her son spent his free time with. However, before speaking up, she had looked over to Norman, who nodded, almost as if she needed his permission to speak. I had considered I was being paranoid, like Gwen had suggested earlier, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of impending doom I was feeling. 

“The feeling’s mutual ma’am,” Gwen smiled. 

“We’ll leave you to it,” I said with a half-convincing smile, “Congratulations on your recovery, Mrs. Osborn,” I finished, as we walked away. 

“Mr. Iglesias and Ms. Stacy,” Norman called out to us, in a menacingly relaxed voice, “Make yourself at home. Any friends of Harry are always welcome here,” he finished with that same sly smirk he had given me in my dream; it sent a chill down my back. 

I nodded and gave him a small smile that barely broke through my lips and walked into the next room where the rest of the guests were conversing. There were tables set up, and a dance floor, with live music, and a corner bar which was getting more packed by the second. I remember a chandelier being hung up high in the center of the room. I couldn’t help but admire the way the lights glimmered, and made everything look a little more alive. 

“See,” Gwen said while placing her bag on the table, “Nothing to worry about.”

I wanted to disagree, but had no compelling reason to. Maybe I was just being paranoid. Maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to see and there was no real reason to be suspicious. 

“Yeah,” I said half-heartedly, “Yeah, you’re probably right.” 

“Right, so how ‘bout we save this for later, and you come dance with me,” she said, getting up from her seat, reaching out a hand to me. 

I took it, and we danced for about an hour, stopping to talk every once in a while, but for the most part we just enjoyed the exclusive company we gave each other in a room full of people we’d never met. 

When we got back to the table, Harry was waiting for us with appetizers. 

“Hey, Harry,” Gwen said pulling him in for a small hug, “How ya doing?”

“I’m doing great! Haven’t felt this good in a long time. Also, guys, help yourself,” he said, with a hopeful look in his eye while gesturing to the oysters on the table. And there was the guilt again. 

Harry hadn’t been doing well since he got the news about his mother’s disease, and although I had a terrible feeling about it, it was a sweet sight to see, Harry regaining his hope. 

While Harry and Gwen chatted about the nonsense teenagers usually talk about, I scanned the room to look for Emily. She was sat at a corner table opposite the bar, and was being accompanied by some posh ladies along with a cold-looking woman with platinum silver hair. 

I recognized the woman as Silvija Sablinova, Silver Sable for short, the head of Sable International, the Symkarian mercenary firm Norman hired to protect him and his family.

As mayor, he hired Sable because he didn’t trust the Special Investigations Unit officers that the NYPD’s Office of the Chief had assigned, so in true Osborn fashion he took care of it like he does most problems, buying the best money can get. 

Since I was so busy eyeing his wife, I hadn’t noticed that Norman had walked up to my table to tell Harry to go sit by his mom because he had to step out for a bit. 

“Dad, you said no business calls during the party,” Harry said. 

“And now I’m telling you to go watch after your mother, it’ll only take a minute. Now go,” Norman said. To my knowledge, Norman never talked to Harry in a casual tone. It was strictly business at all times, even for birthdays, holidays, or vacations. He does have a soft spot for him, however, he’s his son after all, but he’s always done such a damn good job at hiding it. 

As Norman walked out of the room, I eyed him his whole way out, “You don’t think…” 

Gwen sighed, “Allen…” 

“Gwen, you remember what Harry told us. His dad kept some of Dr. Connors’ research, including the Lizard Serum. Mix that in with research only a pocket as deep as Osborn’s can afford…and then voilà, Emily’s all better. It’s not a coincidence.”

She thought for a couple seconds before answering, “I mean I can see where you’re coming from, but…” 

“I know my suspicions are premature,” I said with air quotes, cutting her off, “But I swear there’s something fishy going on here, and it’s not just the oysters.” 

No smile broke through her lips, but I remember there being a glimpse of playfulness in her eyes, “Technically, oysters aren’t fish.” 

“Technically, they smell gross,” I said holding one up to my face, cringing at the terrible smell, immediately placing it back down, “…You don’t have to back me on this, I know it’s pretty messed up what I’m doing, at least to Harry. Just text me if Norman comes back or if Emily leaves,” I said, getting up.

“What are you gonna do?” 

I discreetly lifted up my coat’s sleeve, which revealed my suit, which I had worn underneath my tuxedo, which earned me a more-than-slight look of disapproval from Gwen, “Imma go sneak around his office, see if I can find something,” I said, turning to walk away. 

She stepped in front of me, “Well, I’m coming with you.” 

“No… you’re not.” 

“Yes, I am. You need me. I’m familiar with Oscorp’s servers, I can help—” 

I cut her off again, “The feds shut down Oscorp’s operations months ago… think I remember Harry mentioning that Norman had the servers shut down too. No reason for them to be online, risking a data breach, and whatnot… so no. I don’t need you right now. Just text me if they make a move.”

I walked passed her without looking back. 

Instead, I was looking at her dad straight on as his cold, lifeless eyes looked straight through me. Ever since the night he died, whenever I’d hangout with Gwen, he would show himself to me to remind me that I had a promise to fulfill, a promise I had broken repeatedly and, at this point in time, had no intention of keeping. He stared at me the whole way out of the room until I turned the corner down the hall where I slipped on my mask that was stashed away in my coat’s inner pocket.

I remember Harry mentioning to me one time that Norman’s office was on the third floor of the penthouse, “The one with the terrace,” he said. However, when I first got to the party I noticed that there were Sable agents stationed at each of the staircases leading up to the upper floors, so I took the elevator shaft. 

There was a camera monitoring who goes in and out of the elevator, and I didn’t want to risk being caught on camera since that would alert security, so I leaped up to the ceiling and crawled my way over to the camera. 

Now you don’t know this Miles, but I once had your same ability; to create some sort of bioelectric discharge. I haven’t used it in many years due to a health related complication that arose because of it, but around this time, as I was still a newcomer, the accuracy with which I utilized this gift was shaky to put it nicely; sometimes I was right on, other times, well… you’ll see what I mean in a second. 

Knowing that, it shouldn’t surprise you that when I attempted to send a bolt of electricity to fry the camera’s circuits, I blew it up, which made as loud of a noise as you can imagine and sent me falling to the floor. 

I heard footsteps, which made the floor rumble a bit while I was down, four— maybe five can’t remember exactly how many— guards were on there way over to investigate my very subtle attempt at stealthiness. As I was down I saw the little red light above the elevator signaling, “4”, so I knew the elevator wasn’t on my level, and I certainly didn’t have the time to wait for it to get there.

I fumbled to get up, and pried the elevator doors open just before they turned the corner down the hall. I remember the elevator shaft being colder than the rest of the building, and the creaking sounds the mechanisms made seemed to bounce off the walls endlessly. 

I climbed my way up to the third floor and threw my tux off and webbed it to the wall of the elevator shaft. I made my way into one of the open vents that connected to the open space I was in, and began crawling in the general direction of Norman’s office, hoping one of the vents connected to it. 

Throughout the penthouse, Norman had some sort of open-ceiling plan installed, so from certain points in the vents, I was able to see people below. Additionally, in every major room, there was an access point to the ventilation system, in case repairs were needed. Norman loved his accommodations; he had a passion for making his life easier in whatever way he could. 

I followed two Sable agents down a hallway that led to a set of large, black, wooden double doors. I could hear Norman talking from the other side. Inside his office, Norman continued that same phone call he was on when he approached my table at the party. When he became aware of the two other men in the room, he threw a finger up in the air alerting them to be quiet.

I had no idea who he was speaking to, on the phone, or what about; all I heard was the end of the conversation, “I’m as aware of the possible side effects as you are, doctor. I hope, for your sake, you haven’t forgotten about our arrangement. We can benefit from each other, but only if and when I receive everlasting results, will I fulfill my end of the bargain.” 

As he hung up the phone, he put the finger down, but the two agents in the room remained silent until given approval by their client to speak up. Norman nodded to the man on the left, which gave him his voice back, “Sir… there’s been a breach in the building.” 

I remember him taking a couple seconds to process that before he started scrambling around his desk for something, “Get Emily and my son out of there. Now!” he said, unfazed. 

“What about you?” the two men asked in unison. 

“I pay you to guard my family. Now GO!” 

As the men exited the room in a sprint, I remember watching Norman scramble into a few drawers before he found what he was looking for. The item was white and tiny, metal maybe. I couldn’t get a good look at it from where I was. As he made his way out of the office, I watched him attach it to the area behind his right earlobe. 

I had the temptation to follow him, but that wasn’t what I was there for. I waited a couple seconds after he closed the door to drop down into the room from the access point Norman himself had installed. 

His office was grand, to say the least. I could just tell the whole room alone cost more than my house. There was another chandelier hung up high in this room, not as big as the one down at the party, however. The light that came off of it was dim, and gave the room an eerie feel, fitting for Norman Osborn. 

I searched his computer files for anything related to the Lizard Serum or Emily, but there wasn’t anything in there that I didn’t already know. I tried thinking of something else even slightly related to all this, but my mind was racing. 

This was the first time I had ever snooped around somewhere I shouldn’t have, so I expected someone to walk straight in and catch me. And yet, when that very thing happened, I panicked and froze. 

“Relax… it’s me,” Gwen said, revealing herself, holding my phone up in her hand. Naturally, my first instinct was to check the little pouch I made inside my suit by my right hip, where I usually kept my phone, but it was empty. 

“Emily left… and I texted you, but you left your phone at the table… before you say anything.” 

All I could do was swallow whatever words wanted to come up as I redirected my attention back to the computer. 

“Find something useful yet?” 

“No…” I remember rubbing my hand on my temple through my spandex mask because I could physically feel the thoughts swirling around in my brain. 

“Hey…” she said, coming around behind the desk to stand next to me, “Just relax, alright? Panicking never got anyone anywhere.” 

I let my head lean backwards as I steadied my breathing. I closed my eyes, and listened intently to my general surroundings. I remember being able to hear the traffic down in the streets, a street vendor taking an order from his last customer of the night, the flock of birds that had just flown by Norman’s office window, the song that was playing down at the party: Frank Sinatra’s My Funny Valentine; Harry used to love that song. He told me his mom used to dance him around the house to it when he was a little boy… it was the only song he would listen to while his mom was in the hospital. 

I took one more deep breath, and that’s when I caught the sound of Gwen’s heartbeat. I stayed there, taking its sound in for a couple seconds letting it slow down my racing mind. 

Kindred.  

My eyes shot open, and I looked around the room in a hurry ready to jump at sudden danger. It sounded like someone had whispered the word in my ear. The word I’d heard in my dream.

“What? What happened?” she asked, startled by my sudden movements. 

“You… you didn’t hear that?” I said, trying to steady my breath, once more. 

“…no?” 

Placing my fingers back on the keyboard on Norman’s overly prestigious wooden desk— mahogany, I’d guess— I typed in the word. 

K-I-N-D-R-E-D.

“Kindred?” Gwen asked, “Am I supposed to know what that means?” 

“I heard it in my dream,” I said, my eyes locked on the screen as it found the file under the name.

What we found was an encrypted code protecting the information from possible intruders such as ourselves, and at this point in time, I had barely finished my first semester of a beginner coding class. In order to decipher the code, I would’ve needed years of mastery. Years I didn’t have. 

“Great,” I whispered, under my breath. 

“Hold on… move,” she said, pushing me out of the way, inserting a flash drive into the computer. 

“Who just carries a flash drive with them?” 

“Someone who’s looking for information. See… I knew you’d need me,” she said, looking overly proud with a big smirk on her face. 

“Yeah… now what? Now we have this— I don’t even know what it is… how is it useful if we can’t read it?” 

“Well that’s why we’re gonna get someone to read it for us,” she said, like the solution was oh so obvious. 

“Unless you know a guy… or girl.” 

“My Uncle Raymond used to work at ESU. He might have a contact— someone who specializes in cryptology. They might be able to help,” she said, finally bringing me into the loop. 

I nodded, and let out the smallest full-of-relief laugh, “Next time lead with that… let’s get out of here,” I said pulling the flash drive out of the USB port as the data had finished downloading. I slipped it into the hidden pocket in my suit along with my phone. 

But before I could even get out from behind the desk, the worst stabbing pain hit me in the back of my head, I quickly grabbed hold of Gwen, and put her behind me. 

“Get under the desk now, no matter what don’t make a sound, until I say so,” I commanded, knowing something was coming. 

“Why, what’s happen—”

“Now!” I said, in a stern whisper. 

She obeyed, and the lights in the room began flickering including the computer’s screen. As it flickered from off to on, Captain Stacy’s final words appeared on the screen, flashing in a repeated sequence: 

KEEP. 

GWEN. 

OUT OF IT. 

I remember my heart sinking into my chest, and my breath hitching. Out of instinct, I took a couple steps back, and bumped into a filing cabinet knocking over a picture frame Norman had placed on top. As it hit the floor, I heard the glass crack. Picking it up, I couldn’t make out the picture since the lights were going in and out and the glass was cracked. I held it closer to my eyes, and realized it was a photo of Norman and Emily on their wedding day. The cracked glass perfectly set on her young face. 

Suddenly, the lights stopped flickering and the room went dark. I remember hearing Gwen’s breath hitch as the sudden darkness positively frightened her, but she remained quiet. I closed my eyes, and focused on picking up another heartbeat in the room. 

I picked Gwen’s up, whose was pumping much faster than usual, but I knew it was hers. Shakily letting out a small breath, I picked up another heartbeat by the door. This one was different though. Instead of two thumps, there were three that thumped non-rhythmically, unlike Gwen’s whose heart rate had increased, but had kept its rhythmical pattern. I could hear a faint electrical current humming from their general direction, which didn’t make sense to me at the time, because the lights were out. 

“Who are you?” I asked in a forced deep voice, trying to act brave in front of Gwen. 

The other body in the room didn’t answer, but when the lights came on, my body visibly stiffened. It was Emily. But her flushed cheeks, I’d seen at the party were drained and hollowed in. She looked the same as she had in my dream, “…Emily?” I called out, which earned me a mere twitch from the discolored body blocking my exit. She opened her mouth and a dry croak came out, like all the liquid in her body had been sucked out. The inside of her mouth, purple. 

From the corner of my eye, I could see Gwen looking up at me, she was frightened. Emily picked up my distracted look, and threw a knife she’d been hiding behind her leg my way. 

I leaped out of the way, onto the wall behind me, as she limped her way across the room. I webbed the chandelier hung up high in the room, and pulled downwards as hard as my shaky limbs allowed me to. It came crashing down, but she evaded it. Another dry screech escaping her mouth when she jolted to her right. 

Despite being plagued with a limp, and looking like a literal plague herself, Emily was almost as quick I was. Consequently, when I shot myself at her trying to strike a blow strong enough to knock her out cold, she rolled over and jumped out of the way. 

My fist hit the wooden flooring resulting in a loud crack, as the planks cracked under the impact. With me being in a crouched position, near floor-level, and her up on two feet, she took it as her opportunity to tackle me and pin me to the ground; her two legs taking hold of my arms. 

She let out a deathly screech and reached for the seam that separated my suit from my mask to uncover my identity. I tried squirming, but with me only being 14 at the time, I just wasn’t strong enough to push her off of me. When her cracked, colorless hands met the seam of my mask and started pulling upwards, out of pure natural instinct, I shocked her with a small bolt of electricity strong enough to remove her hand from my mask. 

With an inexplicable, new found confidence, I muttered, “There’s a lot more where that came from,” and jolted my body, in an attempt to repeat my previous action, but that’s all it was. A feeble attempt at confidence that immediately fizzled away. I still cringe at the memory, after all these years. 

My arms were still pinned down, and her weight on my chest was starting to make it really difficult to breathe. My legs flailed in the air, trying to somehow knock her off of me, but with each kick, the more the force behind it dissipated, and the more out of breath I became. 

With her now angered, she put her hand around my neck and squeezed. The harder she squeezed, the redder the bags under her eyes became. As she brought her face closer to mine, I witnessed the final bit of humanity left in her eyes vanish, and be replaced by the coldest darkness I’d ever seen. Being inches away from my face, she opened her mouth and let out a screech so loud it ruptured my eardrum, causing blood to drip out of my left ear.

I tried to scream, but the force of her hand was crushing my vocal cords. I could only watch as this lifeless woman choked the very life out of me. A muffled whimper made its way to the surface as all sounds began fading out. 

The Lizard, the only other being I had fought prior to Mrs. Osborn, was one thing, and so are all the others that succeeded her, but in this very moment, I was experiencing a level of fear I’d never faced before. I was only a kid, in way over my head, and had idiotically, mistakingly underestimated my newest foe. From underneath her weight, I was useless— hopeless. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe; I had no chance to win this fight. 

That was the first time I really felt like I was going to die. 

In my weakest moment, seconds from collapse, Gwen got up from underneath the desk, wielding the same knife that had been thrown at me moments earlier, as she charged at Mrs. Osborn from the right. Her scream, completely drowning out the screech that busted my eardrum, keeping me awake. I remember feeling the blood that leaked out of my ear soak up in the fabric of my mask, leaving a darker red stain on the already red fabric that would never get completely washed out.

The knife entered the side of her head, and dark red blood seeped through the fresh wound. Yet, it didn’t kill her. Gwen stood there with a wide-eyed look, traumatized by what she was witnessing. Angered, she shifted her focus from me to Gwen, and she tackled her into a roll, as she launched her towards the window with an inhumane force. 

I tried regaining my breath as I got up, holding onto my neck. 

The force with which Gwen hit the window was strong enough to break the glass clean and send her flying out the window, completely unconscious. I ran passed Emily with the little strength I had left, and jumped after my girlfriend. 

Keep Gwen out of it. Was all I could hear as I tried catching up to her falling body. 

I remember on my way down it’d felt as if time had slowed almost like the universe was taunting me. With every second I shortened the gap between us, but with every second she fell three more stories. And even with my accelerated fall, I worried if I’d catch up to her on time. 

When I finally reached her body, there were only five stories separating us from hitting the pavement. I held onto her body tightly and shot a web at the building the Osborn’s resided in. I pulled upwards, and as if almost brutally fatal, my feet hit the ground sending a shock through my body. If it weren’t for my body’s enhanced endurance, that force would’ve probably shattered every bone in my legs. 

I remember my body wanting to give out. But I knew I had to leave the area, knew I had to take Gwen to the hospital, so I tried making my way to Metro-General, the closest hospital by the Osborn penthouse. But that was all the way in Hell’s Kitchen, and with every swing, I felt my grip waver. Her unconscious body weight plus mine was too much for my beaten body to withstand. I could feel my throat swelling more with every passing minute as I gasped for air trying to keep going. 

I was only a couple blocks away, but knew I was completely tapped out. Despite being able to see the hospital building from where I was, if I had pushed forward and failed, the consequences of that fall would have been far more disastrous than my current situation. As my vision started to go black, I counted my blessings and landed on a rooftop across the street from the Lincoln Center. As soon as I placed Gwen down, relieving her weight from my shoulders, my body collapsed in front of her, the back of my head hitting the ground on the way down. As I closed my eyes, I remember worrying how my mom would’ve reacted if she saw me in this state. 

Chapter Text

02 January 2016

11:32 PM

Across the street from the Lincoln Center, Upper West Side, Manhattan

I woke up to a freezing touch on my neck, and a ringing noise coming from my left ear. Gwen had regained consciousness who knows how much earlier than I had, and had gone down to the convenience store around the corner, and bought a few things to reduce the swelling on my neck, and clean me up a bit. I’d been out for over an hour when I came to. 

I tried speaking to her, but she hushed me, as speaking would’ve made my *situation* worse. 

“The swelling mitigated a little over the last half-hour,” she said. “Now that you’re awake, your enhanced healing should kick in…” she continued, rubbing a cotton ball on my left ear to clean up the blood stain, “Try to stay quiet, and— when you feel ready, text your mom. She um… called me, and she was sweet, but- she sounded pissed at you for not responding. I told her you were helping Harry with something for his mom, but… yeah.” 

I struggled to sit up straight, so Gwen helped me lean against a ventilator on the roof we were on. I took my phone out, and the screen’s brightness lit up Gwen’s face in front of me. I saw she had a cut on the right side of her forehead, but she had patched herself up beforehand. I remember reaching for it, but she grabbed my hand and placed it down, giving me a small smile to let me know she was okay, like that somehow made it better.

“Oh— and Harry texted to ask where we went, but I told him you weren’t feeling well. He said sorry for having to step out and that he hopes you feel better,” she said, scrolling through the messages.

I opened my mouth to respond, but with the mere movement of my jaw I could feel my throat swell tenfold, so I just nodded.

When I looked back at my phone, I saw I had three missed calls, and six unread messages from my mom. If your mom is any similar to mine, this is a part of the job you’re gonna have to accustom yourself to, Miles, at least in your early years. I opened the chat, and thought of what I could possibly say to not get grounded. 

                    sorry for not answering i had to help harry with something I texted, piggybacking off Gwen’s lie, trying to be convincing. 

          I have to wake up early u need to answer me when I text u

                    ik sorry

          Are u on ur way home? 

                    can I sleep over at harry’s? it’s late and it’s cold outside

          I guess… make sure u ask his mom first. I’m going to bed, goodnight love u

                    goodnight i love you

I looked up at Gwen who merely shrugged as she sat down facing me. She was looking at me, but I couldn’t bare look back at her. Not when I felt the presence of her dad’s soul watching me… and when it was almost entirely my fault she almost died hours before. 

“Here…” she said, putting my mask back on to hide my face. “We’d never make it back to my place… just try to get some sleep— leave the icepack on overnight. We’ll leave early before someone finds us and kicks us out,” she finished, taking out a blanket from the plastic bag of supplies she’d bought.  She snuggled up next to me on the roof, trying to stay warm somehow. I remember wishing I could’ve offered her my jacket, but my tux was more likely than not at the bottom of the elevator scape as my webs naturally dissolved after two hours. The midnight, winter wind was freezing, which made the icepack feel unbearably colder. 

25 November 2015

Oscorp Tower, Midtown, Manhattan

This was the night Captain Stacy died, one of my most vivid memories that is forever engraved in my mind. 

From atop Oscorp Tower, I could hear a helicopter in the distance, a news crew, a couple more were probably on their way, but who cares. The sound of shattered glass crunching underneath my feet, as blood trickled down the slash on my forehead was making my ears bleed. The city that never sleeps was wide awake that night, the sounds of the city, responsible for its undying character. The silence, however, from Mr. Stacy made everything else that was going on seem irrelevant. 

The sounds a person makes, the way one speaks, the way they breathe, how their heart pumps blood throughout their body, they reveal a lot about the true nature of who a person really is. Mr. Stacy’s sounds revealed a… profound presence, for a loss of words. He always spoke a little louder, always made sure *his* point got across, and his heart always pounded just a little faster than the average joe- probably because of that high blood pressure Gwen was always so worried about. 

And now, as I helplessly watched the faded light in his broken eyes finally be snuffed out, he was, for the first time, completely silent. 

His heartbeat had been growing increasingly faint since I had gone back to him, but I think the silence that came after it stopped beating was deafeningly louder than ever hearing it at all. 

I’m not going to pretend to care about him or give him some sob-story for you to empathize over. Because that’s not the case. To put it lightly, George Stacy was an alcoholic, poor excuse of a father who gave up on raising his children after his wife died. Tragic, but not a feasible excuse to emotionally abandon the people he chose to bring into this world; as insensitive as it may sound. 

However, he didn’t do all wrong. He did do a couple things right. One being that when it came down to the wire, he pleaded with me to protect his daughter. In his final moments, I saw the regret in his eyes. The look of a man realizing his time on Earth was over, struggling to come to terms with the fact that he’d never get to make it up to his daughter, who he made responsible for her two younger brothers at the age of 11. 

On top of that, he hated me because, according to Gwen, I was a reminder of how his wife passed. In 2012, when Loki battled against the Avengers here in New York, his wife was caught in the crossfires trying to help people out of a collapsing building. You can probably connect the rest of the dots yourself. Consequently, ever since then, he lived by a very ‘all supers must die’ sort-of mindset. He let self-pity and alcohol take over his life, and, gotta be honest, part of me still wonders how he could ever think he knew what was best for his daughter when *he* basically abandoned *her* in the first place. 

And yet, even with a life as sinful as his, when he reached the end of the line, Captain Stacy saved my life. When the Lizard almost had me beat, he showed up and inexplicably took the fall I thought I was destined for. And for that, I’ll always be in his debt. 

In the years that led to his downfall a very tainted self-image was painted across his mind. An image he hated when he looked in the mirror. An image he feared for his children to be around. That’s what I saw in his eyes that night, Miles. Right before that light that had been flickering for years finally went out, I saw a father praying for the safety of his children. 

That’s why I promised him that I would keep Gwen safe. That I would keep her out of my life. Because I knew, even through his askew judgment, that he was right. 

But being young, I didn’t understand the severity of the circumstances I lived in. I didn’t think what he feared could ever be possible. And when I discovered she would be moving, I figured that was the universe’s way of getting her out of my life for me. Boy if only I knew how wrong I was… 

This was my recurring nightmare, Miles. Every night from the night he died ’til she left for England, I was haunted by his memory. Except now, the guilt plagued me a little worse because she was sleeping next to me with a cut on her forehead, after being feet away from falling flat on the pavement in front of the Osborn penthouse. 

03 January 2016 

5:17 AM

When I woke up, I woke with a dry cough as I felt the airway in my throat open up after the swelling had drastically reduced overnight. The soft vibration coming from the ventilator I was leaning on, somehow relaxed my back muscles making me forget the stinging agony I was in before I passed out. 

I looked over at Gwen who had her eyes closed, head on my shoulder and arms tucked into her dress to protect them from the bitingly crisp winter air. 

As I listened to her slowed breathing, a moment of clarity had finally dawned upon me. Although my admiration for that girl was indescribable, and even though she made all the suffering in the world worth it, after the events of the night prior, I knew a serious conversation was overdue. I knew it was time to fulfill my promise to Mr. Stacy.  

Chapter Text

03 January 2016

10:23 AM

4 Star Diner, Forest Hills, Queens

I swung Gwen home after she woke up. As she showered, I went back to my place to freshen up a bit, and get a new change of clothes for myself. The cuts on my face were, for the most part, gone, and the swelling on my neck was hardly noticeable anymore. However, the ringing in my ear didn’t go away for another couple of hours or so. 

I was sat at a table-for-two by a window when she walked in. I hadn’t noticed at first; I was too busy thinking about how I’d tell her to stay away from me while I dealt with Norman’s mess. 

Without skipping a beat, she excitedly slammed her hands on the table and said, “So I talked to my uncle, and he said we could speak to Professor Dean Montesi, an expert cryptologist he used to work with; has an address here in Queens, too,” as she slid a piece of paper my way. 

I handed her a pastry she always used to order to hopefully soften the blow I was preparing to deliver. 

“What’d you ask him? I mean- like how did you ask him without directly giving away what we’re doing?” I asked, taking out my phone to input his address. Professor Montesi’s place was about ten minutes from the restaurant, well for me at least. 

“By ‘talked to my uncle’ I mean logged onto his computer while he wasn’t looking,” she said, innocently. 

I processed that for a while, “Gwen… I don’t want you getting into any trouble with your uncle.” 

She scoffed, “What’s he gonna do? Ground me? He’s not my dad.” At this statement, she froze as she realized how unintentionally awkward she had made our situation. 

“Sorry…” she said, under her breath. 

“It’s fine,” I whispered. I gulped a little louder than I should have ‘cause I had no idea how to bring up the conversation I wanted to have now. 

She cleared her throat, not ‘cause she had to, but because it was an easy way to break the suffocating silence between us, “So… should we go?” 

“No,” I said, plainly. “I’m going, you’re staying,” but of course, in typical Gwen Stacy fashion, that didn’t cut it for her. 

“I’m sorry? Who’s the one who gave you your only working lead, huh? Face it, Allen. You need me. You needed me to take down Dr. Connors, you needed me yesterday, and you need me now.” Me benching her for the second day in a row, clearly struck a nerve. 

“Would you keep your voice down?” I said, looking around the buzzing diner, hoping people were too self-consumed to eavesdrop into our conversation. 

I got up from our table, and led her out of the dingy yet unexpectedly charming diner, into the alley around the corner, “Gwen… I don’t know how to say this nicely, so I’m just gonna say it…” I paused to see her reaction, but she remained as pissed off as she was a couple seconds ago at our table inside. 

“If you’re gonna say that ‘it’s too dangerous’ I’m gonna punch you in the face,” she said, mockingly.

“You almost died last night, why the hell aren’t you scared out of your mind right now? I am.” 

“I am scared, Allen. Of course I am. But that is exactly why we have to keep fighting this fight. Norman’s so rich that no news outlet even knows what happened at the party yesterday… If it’s true,   what you’re thinking, and he’s using Dr. Connors’ work- my work- the same serum that created the monster that killed my dad… we can’t let him get away with this,” she said, teary eyed. 

She looked down to prevent me from seeing her cry. She always hated being seen as vulnerable, even with the people she trusted most. 

“Gwen,” I said, lifting her chin up so she could look me in the eye, “I know that this is personal for you, and I’m sorry that it is. It’s not fair. But you could’ve-” I stopped, struggling to believe that I somehow managed to drag her into another life-threatening situation, “You could’ve died last night… I can’t risk that happening again.”

She sniffled and wiped her tears away as she tried stabilizing her breathing, “Allen you can’t do this, please. You never kept me away from this until yesterday, and now that it might actually mean something to me personally, now you want to push me to the side?” she asked with the shakiest breath I ever witnessed her take. 

But before I could open my mouth to speak, she started again, “And don’t say that it’s because of what happened yesterday. Don’t disrespect me like that, you know I’m smarter than that,” she paused for a bit to sniffle, still struggling to balance her breaths, “You tried sidelining me even before that, at the party… Tell me what’s really going on with you.” 

I stared at her blankly. My eyes were burning, and I could feel blood starting to trickle out of my left ear again, as my eardrum had yet to fully heal. I took a shaky breath and looked behind her, and there was Captain Stacy, at the end of the alley, haunting me. A manifestation of the overwhelming guilt that was eating away at my self conscious.

“What is it? Allen… whatever it is, you could tell me,” she said, warmly, cupping my face. 

I knew she had backed me into a corner, and that she was far smarter than me, so there was no way I was going to find my way out of it, “I see your dad everywhere I go. Whenever I’m with you.”

“What?” 

I stared at her through a blurred vision. Instant regret slapped me in the face. I never wanted her to know that, but it’s hard lying to someone who knows you so well, and I was tired of it. 

“Is he here? Right now?” she asked quietly, looking around as if she would be able to see the ghost too. 

I nodded and looked in his direction, “Look, Gwen…” I said, grabbing her hands pulling her attention back to me, “Please, go home. I’ll take care of this myself. I’ll focus better if I know you’re at home, where you’re safe.” 

She looked at me for a long minute. Her eyes were a mix of understanding and fiery anger. Opening her mouth to speak, I could tell she had to bite her tongue to avoid protesting. She agreed, and I’ll admit, while it was a great burden lifted off my shoulders, I knew this was temporary. A problem for later, I reasoned with myself, and threw off the sweatpants and hoodie I’d worn over my suit, handed them to Gwen, and headed off in the direction of Professor Montesi’s house. 

11:05 AM 

Professor Montesi’s House, Long Island City, Queens

I think you’ll find, Miles, that following a lead is one of the harder parts of being a young hero. You want to get information out of someone, but when they see a kid, they won’t take you seriously, so your only hope is to keep the suit on and hope they don’t recognize the boyish charm in your voice. 

I stood just outside the fence that barred off the Montesi property. I had not planned out what my story was gonna be at all. I think I was solely relying on luck that he would recognize who Spider-Man was. Even though I had only just stepped onto the scene… and the one big accomplishment I had was snuffed out by Norman to prevent any excessive media coverage of the incident. 

Before I made a move, I caught a whiff of barbecue coming from the backyard, and could hear a man, who I guessed was the professor, humming along to the beat of some song I’d never heard playing on his stereo. I leaped onto the roof and crawled my way to the back of the house. I cleared my throat to get his attention because I had no idea what else to do. 

Instinctively, he was immediately alarmed, but seemed to recognize me, “You’re that guy that took down that Lizard-freak,” he said, relaxing after a minute. 

“Guilty as charged,” I said proudly, puffing out my chest a bit, putting my hands on my hips. I leaped down onto the pavement below. 

“What are you doing here? How did you get my address?” he asked, going back to the steak he had on the grill. I didn’t know whether I was relieved or insulted that he wasn’t in the slightest bit intimidated by me. 

“My contact pointed me in your direction,” I said, trying to sound like I knew what I was doing. 

“Contact?” he asked, looking over his shoulder. 

“Uh- Dr. Raymond Warren, an ex-colleague of yours— said you were an expert cryptologist.” 

“Raymond Warren… never thought I’d hear that name again.” Whatever that meant, I had no clue, but couldn’t care less. 

“Well, young man, this is my home, you shouldn’t be here. Whatever it is you need, I can’t help you.” 

“You haven’t even heard me out yet.”

“I assure you, whatever it is, it’s not to my concern,” he said plainly, his heart skipped a beat at that statement. 

“Please, sir. I need your help. A really powerful man is doing a really immoral thing, and he doesn’t care if he hurts people along the way. The information on this drive can help me stop him, but I need your help reading it,” I pleaded, pulling out Gwen’s flash drive from the hidden pocket in my suit. 

As if my words went in one ear and out the other, he continued to attend to his steak, which looked about half way done from where I was standing. 

“Look, if you really need to know, this man is trying to cheat death by bringing his dead wife back to life and I need to know how he did it. He’s using the same serum that created the Lizard, I have to stop him before he creates another monster. Something in that drive will pinpoint a weakness, I’m sure of it.” Speaking the severity of the situation out loud, made it seem so unreal; like a cheap science-fiction novel. 

“Who is this man?” he asked, putting his tongs down for the first time since I arrived. 

“If I tell you, will you help me?” 

He didn’t answer, but he shifted in his place like he was trying to hide a feeling of anxiety. 

“The mayor,” I revealed.

“Norman Osborn,” he said, the look in his eyes revealing another side to the man I had only just met. He walked over to his stereo to turn it off; his heart rate spiked. 

“I don’t suppose he had your vote,” I said with an awkward laugh. 

He wasn’t amused, however. He turned off the grill, and walked over to me, “You wanna know something kid? A while back an old student of mine came to visit me at my office. A journalist then, for The Pulse, Jessica Jones— if you’ve ever read her by line. Point is, she was following a case just like you are now. An encrypted file had fallen into her hands… guess what corporation she was looking into.”

“Oscorp,” until now it hadn’t occurred to me how far deep Norman’s problems ran and how many people he’d crossed to get to where he was today, “well- what happened?” I asked, eagerly. 

“Nothing happened. Ms. Jones was laid off before her exposé was published, and I was fired and stripped of my credentials for using my university-granted funding for ‘illicit activities,’” he said with air quotes. 

He shifted in his place again, though this time revealing an object attached to his right ankle, the light on it, red. It was an ankle monitor. 

“You’re under house arrest,” I said, almost in disbelief, “He framed you.”

He nodded, “I tried reporting it to the authorities, but I was turned away. Half of the force is on his payroll, at least. The media is in his pocket too, same reason Ms. Jones was laid off. Even if I wanted to help… I would need some sort of cipher key to help me break it down. Without it, it could take weeks— years even to crack.” 

“Please. Just take a look at it,” I said, holding the drive out to him. Suddenly, I heard multiple police sirens approaching from the distance. I looked over at him, confused. 

He sighed, “They have my entire place tapped, as soon as you stepped foot on my property, they were alerted. Sorry kid, I can’t help you.” 

“Please… just think it over,” I said, leaping onto the fence to make my way out. He walked back over to the stereo, and turned it on. I stuffed the drive back into my pocket.

“You mentioned a name… Jessica Jones. Where can I find her?”

The cops were in the driveway. 

“Why?” he asked. I could hear them fumbling around getting into formation by the front door.

“You cracked an encrypted file for her, right? If she had a cypher key, since it’s from the same source, maybe it can help us out now,” I suggested, in a hurry.  

They were in the house. 

Professor Montesi walked back over to his grill with a coolness that suggested we had all the time in the world. “Hell’s Kitchen. Alias Investigations. Around the corner from some bar—Josie’s, I think,” he said, turning the flame back on. 

“Awesome, thanks Professor. Hang in there… we’re gonna nail this guy to the ground. I promise,” I said, joyfully. I shot a web at a neighboring building preparing to leave.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, young man,” he said, attention back on his steak. 

He couldn’t have known how painfully ironic his words were, but in that moment, it seemed as if anything and everything was a manifestation of my unwavering guilt. Before I swung off, I remember feeling Captain Stacy’s presence near me. My muscles tensed, but I had no choice, but to push forward. As I swung away, I remember hearing the cops begin to interrogate the professor as they inspected his ankle monitor. I hoped they were gone by the time I came back. 

I headed off for the Queensboro Bridge to make my way back to Manhattan, hoping Jessica Jones was home. 

6:35 PM 

Alias Investigations, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan 

I’d recognized the name Josie’s. It was across the street from Omar’s, a pizza parlor my mom used to take me and my sister to every Friday night when we were small. It made me realize how much I missed the bond I had with them; I hated having to push them away. 

To my luck, Ms. Jones had other business to attend to, so I waited atop the building ’til she got back. It’d been six hours since I got there. For some reason, I wanted to prove to myself I had the patience to withstand a stakeout. My mom called me around 2 o'clock to ask where I was. I used the same excuse I’d been using for a while: hanging out with Gwen before she leaves. 

Speaking of Gwen, around the 6:30 mark, she had called me with news, saving me from my boredom. 

“Yeah what’s up?” I answered.

“So I was packing up the rest of my dad’s things- just junk I hadn’t got to in his closet, and I found this old police scanner he had stowed away. I got it working, and I was able to pick up an alert from Chinatown. They want all available officers to report to the Damage Control building, something about a break in.” 

I scoffed, “Gwen, I told you to stay out of it,” I said, sitting down on the edge of the rooftop, letting my feet dangle off the side of the building. 

“I think it’s Emily- at least from the description they gave,” she said, ignoring my words; her usual tactic whenever I tried telling her to do something she didn’t want to do.  

“What? Why would she break into Damage Control?” I asked. 

“They seized a lot of Oscorp’s things after the…” she said, trailing off, “…maybe Norman’s taking back what’s his.”

“No… he’d wait to move if it were that,” I said, as the line went quiet for a couple seconds, “Wait,” I continued, remembering something I’d heard last night at the party, “I overhead a phone call he was having while I was in his office. He said something about needing everlasting results or whatever. What if the serum’s effects on Emily are only temporary? Like how Dr. Connors would turn back into a man after a while… what if there’s only a set amount of time before she… before she dies again.” 

“Maybe… he might not have enough resources to maintain her condition,” she suggested. 

“Yeah….” I said, as I spotted a woman with a black leather jacket crossing the street. Her hair was matted, and she smelt of alcohol. She entered the building I was perched on, cursing to herself about a migraine that wouldn’t go away. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” 

“What happened?” Gwen asked. 

“Nothing, I’ll look into it… Finish packing,” I said, as I hung up the phone. Jessica Jones was home, impeccable timing, may I add. As I stood up, a couple cop cars zoomed past. I remember being able to hear the police radio in one of them, they were responding to the alert Gwen warned me about. 

I couldn’t begin to put into words the amount of rage I felt swinging after the cop cars. Six complete hours down the drain. I’ve hated stakeouts ever since. 

Chapter Text

03 January 2016

7:00 PM 

D.O.D.C. Building, Chinatown, Manhattan

I had reached the Damage Control building before any of the officers that I had been following did. I had stopped on a rooftop across the street from it because there were cop cars stationed at the entrance, surveilling the only main point of entry and exit to the building.

The order to shoot-on-sight had been lifted from my name after Captain Stacy’s successor, Yuri Watanabe, took command. That didn’t mitigate the feeling of uneasiness and fear that I felt when around an officer, however. 

I closed my eyes and tried picking up Emily’s irregular three-thumped heartbeat, but between the sirens from the police down below, and the radio connecting the officers outside to the D.O.D.C. guards inside, I couldn’t focus. 

You’ve probably caught on by now, Miles, but if you haven’t, you’re going to find that heightened senses are simultaneously a blessing and a curse. I know you’ve mentioned getting frequent headaches from how loud everything is; that’s your body’s way of adapting to the sudden change. At the start of my tenured, my body’s natural response was that my left ear would frequently leak blood. As you progress and mature, it’s inevitable that you’re going to hear things that you’re going to wish you never would’ve heard, but you can also use your heightened hearing as an extension of yourself to be more connected to your surroundings; it’s a useful tool when investigating and when going into a fight.

I shivered a bit on the rooftop I was on, across the street from the Damage Control building, which didn’t have any windows; its thick walls made it difficult to hear anything on the inside too. The sun was going down, and the cold winter night was ready to settle in. And my suit didn’t offer much protection. 

I was caught off guard by a buzzing, and it took me a couple minutes to realize it was coming from the lit up Damage Control sign on the top-left corner of the building. I listened more intently to try and trace the current back to its source, and was met by an aggressive sizzling sound. I remember my left ear start tingling, as my ear drum was still overly sensitive from the night before. 

Nonetheless, I ignored the growing pain and picked up the sound of a light gust of air hidden behind the sizzling. The sound was coming from a vent on the back side of the building, but the entrance seemed to be electrified to stop intruders from entering.

I landed on the pavement directly below the vent entrance hoping to find where the building got its energy supply from. I figured that if I shorted out the circuit, that in the time it would take for the back up generator to come online, I would have enough time to make my way into the building. 

From where I stood, I could hear loud surges of electricity flowing into the building from an underground distribution network. There was wiring connected to a circuit box; I hadn’t a clue how any of it worked back then, however. 

I took a shaky breath, feeling impossibly unconfident in my ability to create a bioelectric surge strong enough to short out the circuit, yet also discreet enough so I wouldn’t alert the units stationed on the other side of the building. 

I placed my left hand onto the wiring, and the soft humming coming from the electricity running through it coursed from my hand throughout my body, as I felt the energy beginning to build up inside me. I closed my eyes, and focused on redirecting the energy to my fist. 

You’ve never personally seen it in action, Miles, but my energy, from the very beginning, manifested itself in a hue of diamond blue light, unlike yours, which is more of a bright neon orange. The hairs on my arm would always raise, and my heart rate always spiked whenever I utilized this ability. I remember the first few times I used it, my finger tips were left charred from the heat, and I would have to wait for the skin to peal from my hands for them to go back to normal. 

Nevertheless, I used to love that feeling of heat and raw power coursing through my veins. Even though for the life of me, I could rarely control it, that power made me feel unstoppable. For people like us— people who are, by birth, disadvantaged and often marginalized— it’s easy to feel weak and vulnerable when confronted by people with power. So, Miles, I understand that it’s easy to lose yourself in that power when it’s finally in your possession. And like I said earlier, I can’t use this ability anymore because of a health complication, which I’ll address later, I just want to remind you that these abilities don’t give you superiority over others. Our job is to protect them from the people who believe in their privilege and from those who abuse it, like Norman Osborn. 

With my hand still on the circuit box, I could feel the energy flowing into my fist from the rest of my body; my body felt like it was on fire. Despite that, that very heat and energy filled me with a sense of exhilaration, which made it difficult to concentrate. Being an amateur, I hadn’t a clue how to estimate how much power I needed behind the blow, so when I threw a punch towards the circuit box, redirecting the built up energy from my body to the circuit, a flash of bright blue light erupted and a loud boom sent me hurdling backwards. 

I don’t know how long I was on the ground for. But when I came to my senses, I felt a soft rumbling on the ground alerting me to footsteps approaching from my right. My vision was blurred, and my ears were ringing, but I could make out the image of a couple police officers aiming their weapons at me, ordering me to stay on the ground. 

Slowly, I got up trying to stabilize my already shaken senses, as I lifted my hands in the air suggesting my surrender. It seemed to confuse one of the officers, so when he took his eyes off me to look at his partner, I shot a web at him, as his partner fired her weapon at me. 

I flipped out of the way, as the sound of the gunshot sent an aching through my temple, leaving me feeling disoriented. I was able to focus just enough to shoot another web in her direction, knocking her to the ground. 

I could hear the mechanisms of the backup generator softly whirling as it was powering up, an immediate response to the power outage of the facility. I leaped up onto the building, and crawled into the vent as more officers approached. 

I heard one of the officers report into his radio, “OFC reporting: Shots fired on the north side of the building. Spider-Man spotted entering the premises. Two officers down.” The generator let out a click sound, and I could feel the heat from the electrified barrier blocking my exit come back on.

Once in the vent, I immediately picked up a sound. An irregular three-thumped pulse led me to one of the lower, more secured sub-levels of the building. The vents were dusty, and got smaller as I traversed further downwards, it was making me feel hazy. So it didn’t surprise me that when I peered into the room below, it took me a couple seconds to realize what I was looking at. 

It was dark; the back up generator automatically compartmentalized power to keep the security measures active, so naturally, the lighting was expendable. Two officers were conversing in the room below about having to be discreet about something. There was a flashing red light that went in and out, which was alerting them to an intruder, or the power outage. Nonetheless, they both seemed unfazed by it. 

In one of the officer’s hands, I remember being able to make out a flashing white light, which stood out amongst the room’s red hue. The flashes synchronizing with the a-synchronous pulsing of what I thought was Emily’s heartbeat. Now that I was in its proximity, the sonic waves were vibrating my skull. I felt a warm trickle of blood ooze out of my left ear, once again as a pressure built up in the area between my eyebrows, which felt like it was going to crack my skull open. The other officer was busy inspecting a batch of chemicals, which all had Oscorp’s notorious purple logo plastered across their vials. Everything in the room was plastered with it. This was the Oscorp vault. 

The officer was loading a small Suzuki APV, which had the D.O.D.C. logo on its left side. 

Gwen had been right, the break in was a supply run, but not in the way we predicted. Norman had some of his men doing the work for him, whereas Emily’s mission remained a mystery. I struggled, going back and forth, wondering whether or not Emily was a diversion or was here for something else entirely. Either way, I knew I needed to find her. 

I tried refocusing my hearing on anywhere else in the building, but the sonic emitter was still running, and was distorting my senses. Norman knew I’d come; he mimicked her heartbeat to lure me away from her. He automized the sonic waves’ frequency to where only I’d be able to pick up its sound. 

Norman always prepared for the long game, setting up potential plays that may not ever occur to prevent any weak points or possible mess ups from occurring. He was one step ahead of me, a lesson I’d come to learn repeatedly with Mr. Osborn.  

I waited for the officer who was loading the truck to pick up another box to drop down into the room below, to catch him in a position that would prevent a quick reaction time. My feet hit the ground quietly, as I tackled the officer with the flashing light onto the ground, and smashed the emitter. I webbed the officer with the box onto the wall behind him before he could draw his weapon as I knocked the one on the ground unconscious. 

Relief washed over me with the pulsing now gone, like I had cleared my sinuses. 

I walked over to the truck to analyze its contents, but had no clue what I was looking at. It could have been the materials to recreate the Lizard Serum or it could have been something else entirely, I wouldn’t have known the difference. 

Chemistry and biology and all that sort of medicinal stuff had interested me before this point in time, but I had never cared enough to actually indulge myself in it the way Gwen had, so I pulled out my phone to take a picture of the crate making a mental note to show it to her later. 

I immediately cringed, realizing I had warned her to stay out of it, and that I would handle it myself. 

At the same time, the officer I had webbed to the wall grunted in an effort to escape my webbing, but to no prevail.  

While my forte was more mechanically centered, thus, I crafted my own web shooters, Gwen had created the first version of my web fluid. It was immensely durable, even I struggled to rip through it if enough of it was applied. On top of that, she brilliantly chemically engineered it to automatically dissolve after two hours to prevent any detrimental effects to the neighboring ecosystem and its organisms from developing. There wasn’t a thing that could explain her greatness. Back then, Spider-Man was incomplete without Gwen Stacy. I needed her to do this, and she knew it, which is why she got so upset at me for thinking her help was expendable. 

Guilt began to creep up on me once again after realizing how much I depended on her, and how big of a part she had continued to play in my life after I had explicitly promised her father I would do the opposite. 

You could only imagine how difficult things would become for me when she moved away a couple days from now, as both Allen Iglesias and Spider-Man.

In the midst of my own self-brooding, I picked up a faint heartbeat originating a couple hundred feet Northwest from my current position. It was different from last night, however. It was beating more erratically, and its rhythm was unpredictable, no longer abiding to its three-thumped nature I had previously picked up on. Still, that heartbeat was too faint for me to trace it back to an exact position, and I hadn’t the time to go on a wild goose chase.

I looked over at the officer on the wall, who was still pathetically struggling. His breath hitched as he made eye contact with me, “Look man, I don’t want any trouble. I got a wife and kids,” the man pleaded. 

For the first time, someone had been intimidated by my friendly alter-ego. I stopped in my tracks letting it sink in. I couldn’t help but let a small smile crack through my lips. 

He must’ve seen the fabric of my mask shift as he said, “You think this is funny?” Another pathetic jerk, which only exhausted him further. 

“I do,” I admitted, taking a couple steps closer.

“Wha- you’re just a kid,” he said, immediately recognizing the voice of an adolescent male whose voice had barely dropped an octave. 

“So? Which one of us is: A. Standing straight up for himself, and B. Not knocked unconscious?” I said, trying to reassert myself as the one with power in our current circumstance. 

“I’m not-” 

“Not yet,” I interrupted, creeping closer to his face, trying to make my voice slightly deeper without completely giving myself away. I remember seeing his face get hot, and hearing his heart rate spike ever so slightly. 

With the poor lighting, I probably did look slightly intimidating despite being a 14-year old under the mask. My suit was covered in dry blood from the night before, and the fabric was charred from the explosion I had caused minutes ago. On top of that, the left lens of my mask had been cracked by Dr. Connors months ago, which left a slit that left my eye visible in enough light. There were three slashes going across my chest, which I poorly sewed back up that ruined the spider logo I used to be so proud of. I didn’t have the cash to repair it, or make another one, so I worked with what I had. Intimidation points are always a plus, and when you’re young, you take them wherever you can get them, even if it means being a cheapskate, DIY superhero; not that I’ve outgrown that financial struggle yet. 

“What I’m thinking is that Norman planted you here as sucker bait, to lure me out… is that right?” I asked him, pacing back and forth, “If he has you in here, it’s not one of his own things he’s *really* after… so that begs the question: what does Norman want that the D.O.D.C. has?” I stopped to face him.

Nonetheless, he remained silent, refusing to give into a kid. 

As he stared at me, silently, I observed his features. He had brown hair, and dark green eyes, so dark you’d almost miss their color if you were impervious to his existence, which I wasn’t. He had some scruff on his face that looked like a 5 o’clock shadow, and had pasty skin, and dry curls that poked out from under the sides of his service cap. I watched as a drop of sweat trickled down the side of his face, as he gulped a little louder than he intended to. 

“Where is Emily Osborn?” I asked him. 

He opened his mouth to speak, but the words that came after weren’t from his mouth. Rather, from the unconscious officer’s radio, who was still face-down on the pavement behind me, “Back-up requested. Threat: category four. Several officers down.” He was in a panic, and seemed exhausted. It was difficult to make out his words, there were gunshots in the background. I ran to pick up the radio. 

“Stand-by. What is your location, officer?” the dispatcher replied back, but it was followed by silence on the radio, “Control to OFC. Repeat. Where are you, officer?”

Again, silence.

As I impatiently waited for his response, there was a noise on the other officer’s radio, who was apparently on a different channel. He struggled in my webbing, trying to reach for his belt as I shot a web at his face, which had been untouched beforehand, to cover his nostrils. 

As he panicked, gasping for air, I adjusted the webbing around the man’s right hip to detach the radio from his belt. Pure static filled the air, which felt like scratching against a chalkboard in my head, but eventually the signal got through, “… Stone, are you en route to extraction?” 

It was Norman. 

I looked up at the man, and ripped the webbing from his face, which earned me a high-pitched yelp; some of his scruff was torn off with the webbing, “I don’t know where she is,” he finally said, gasping for air.

I looked him in the eye, “Ask him where Emily is,” I commanded, as I pressed the button for him to talk. 

“There was… a complication sir,” he said hesitantly, responding to Norman’s initial question.

“What are you talking about?” Norman asked, in his typical condescending tone as if no one was competent enough to satisfy his demands. 

I looked at the federal guard, and could tell he was thinking of his next words very carefully.

“Did he get to your family?” I asked him, curious to know how Norman could possibly have an inside man in a federal organization. Sure, he was the Mayor, but to have this kind of influence? It baffled me, the amount of strings this man had control over, and how he somehow managed to never tangle them up. 

He nodded. 

That made three: Jessica Jones, Professor Montesi, and the guard with the last name of Stone, all whom have been personally more-than-screwed over by Norman Osborn. Along with the flash drive containing information on a project Norman had named “Kindred”, I was unintentionally building a case against Mr. Osborn with potentially cooperating witnesses, at that, to potentially testify against him, if it came to that. 

Building a legal case was never my intention. I was 14, and was severely underqualified to do so. I barely understood half of what was going on. But if anyone had ever bothered to take a closer look at Mr. Osborn’s business, political or personal, they would have been able to start connecting the dots the way I was beginning to as well. 

That’s not to say there weren’t contesters that predated me, however. Ms. Jones and Professor Montesi just happened to be the only example I was and continue to be aware of. I strongly doubt they were the only ones though. As for Mr. Osborn, I guess when you excessively and habitually create the need to have to consistently cover up your tracks, you’re bound to leave a few bits of residue behind. 

“Stone, what the hell is going on?” Norman spoke up again, his patience as short as ever.

“Get him to tell you where Emily is,” I told him, again. 

“Uhh… there’s a disturbance in the building, route to extraction currently unavailable sir.” 

“Stay clear of the upper sub-levels, use the back entrance. I’ll coordinate transport to your position, hand off the package and join the rest of your squadron after. Your son’s schooling arrangement will be dealt with after I receive my product, clear?” 

“A back entrance?” I asked him, “I thought there was only one.” 

“There’s an underground exit that leads to the abandoned F.D.R. subway station; security reasons…the location of it is unknown to the public,” he responded.

“Stone, are we clear?” Norman repeated.

The man looked at me, nervous. 

“Get him to tell you where Emily is,” I repeated, again. I turned the radio on for him.

“Clear,” he said, with a loud gulp. 

I took a couple steps back from the man in disbelief and said, “Those officers need help. You’re going to let them die.”

“Yes, to protect my family,” he said, instantly, “I’d kill you if that’s what it took,” he said with a gloomy look in his eye. 

I felt immediate remorse for trying to shift the blame on him. He was saying one thing, but his eyes told a completely different story. I could hear his heart beating loudly, and could sense the anxiety he was going through from where I stood. It spread goosebumps on the back of my neck. Norman had backed him into a corner, and this poor guy was simply doing all he could to keep his loved ones safe. 

I swallowed loudly as I rubbed the top of my head thinking of what to do next. 

“You understand,” he said while looking me up and down, “You must do what you do to protect someone too.” A tear fell from his eye and rolled down his face, which was still red from where I tore off the webbing making me feel worse. 

Unbeknownst to him, his words sparked an internal crisis in me, as I began to question who it was exactly I started this fight for. When I first became Spider-Man, which was only two months ago at this time, it wasn’t like my family had been directly in the line of fire; I had done my best to keep them as far away from all this as possible. I started to reason with myself, and said that I wanted to help Gwen defeat Dr. Connors. I hesitated after realizing that if that were the case, I would’ve stopped as soon as he went away. Simply thinking “because it’s the right thing to do” didn’t work for me either, at least not at 14. As much as I like to pretend it, I’m not that noble of a person to risk my life for the greater good without a considerable reason. Doing this for Gwen seemed most right. Norman was abusing the work she helped create, and all of this, at least from the way I saw it, traced back to what happened to her dad, so that’s what I decided to run with. 

You’ll come to learn that it’s vital to find that purpose, Miles. It’s your anchor, and will always keep you grounded. We’re capable of accomplishments others could only dream of, but our emotional ties make us just like everybody else, which is why their importance is immeasurable. 

I didn’t knowingly react to what he said. I stared at him blankly, as I subconsciously cut him loose from my webbing, “I don’t know what Mr. Osborn is going to do with this shipment, but I know if you don’t get to him, he’ll make things harder for your family. So go, and take your… friend with you.” I said, pausing to look back at the man on the ground behind me. I handed him back his radio. 

“You’re a freak,” he said, rubbing the redness on his face. He walked over, almost in a sprint, to pick his partner up, and grunted as he did.

“Yeah well, if all goes well… Osborn should be off your back soon enough. No thanks necessary,” I said, trying to be snarky.

As he sorted out the rest of Mr. Osborn’s shipment, I could tell his mind was spinning. He had sweat through the back of his shirt, and was practically drowning in his own saliva. I eyed him as he shut the back door of the APV; he avoided eye contact by all means. Before driving off, he blurted out, “Just leave my family out of it.” 

The Oscorp sub-level was buried deep under the building. The crawl back upwards didn’t take too long, but the tiny ventilation shafts made my muscles cramp up. The dust particles in the air made my throat feel scratchy, and threatened a sneeze, which I made a point to avoid because of the mask. 

I decided to wait for Emily near the entrance from an unseeable vantage point. I didn’t want to run the risk of her making her escape while I looked in the wrong place. My patience was thin after my failed stakeout at Jessica Jones’ place earlier, so when no signs of Emily came, I was quickly frustrated. 

I straightened my back, and took a deep breath. I rolled my neck to crack it, and the crepitations echoed in my head from ear to ear. It sent a chill down my back. When the sound cleared, I was able to hear what was going on outside. A crowd had gathered nearby to get a look as to why several armed officers were stationed outside a government building. Many news outlets were on the scene already, and the chatter from each of the reporters sounded like when you blend ice in a blender, but forget to put on the top. 

I closed my eyes and focused on the police officers. They were mainly quiet, the only sounds were from the readjusting of their grip on their assault rifles and from the occasional siren, which signified another unit appearing on the scene. I listened more intently to try and pick up on their radio chatter, but felt a sharp sting of my left ear. My busted ear drum was making me annoyingly susceptible to certain sounds. 

I tilted my right ear to face the entrance trying to push on, when I heard, “OFC to Control. Repeat, Dispatch 10-9. You said the suspect has fled the scene?”

“Affirmative.” 

She was making a run for it, but hadn’t came through yet. 

I listened again, more closely, and heard a woman’s voice, “You hear anything from the men on the inside?” she asked one of her officers. It was the new Captain: Yuri Watanabe. I recognized her voice from a telecast I had watched when she assumed Captain Stacy’s position. 

“They insisted we remain on stand-by,” one of the officers said, “Also said the suspect was last seen headed for sub-level four.” 

“Crap.” The captain responded, worry heavy in her tone. 

“You recognize it?”

“The Presidential Vault. We were briefed on an alternate exit route through it, no clue where it leads up to though. They wouldn’t disclose that information with the force,” she said, as she clicked her tongue, thinking of what to do next. 

I remember wondering if this was an act or if they were truly as in the dark about the whole situation as I was. The professor had warned me earlier in the day about the police force being on Norman’s pay roll, but how was I to know which ones I could trust?

It clicked to me in that moment. The F.D.R. subway station. The Presidential Vault. That’s where it leads up to, that’s where the guard was headed off to. And that’s where Emily was going to hitch her ride out of here. 

I wasted no time, and hurriedly crawled my way downwards once again, to sub-level four, where I was met with the sound of gunfire and Emily’s wretched screech. She had dropped five officers already, and was making frighteningly quick progress on her sixth, as I dropped down onto the pavement below and webbed her right arm from behind, preventing her from slashing her next victim’s throat. 

“GO! Get out of here!” I yelled, as I pulled backwards as hard as I could, which knocked her to the ground; a screech escaped her dry mouth as she hit the cement flooring. 

As she got up, I analyzed her features. She was drenched in blood, and her clothing was torn to shreds. She had new burn marks on the left side of her face, which reminded me of my charred fingertips any time I used my bioelectricity. I remember tracing the burn marks from her deformed face to a knife in the side of her head, the same knife Gwen had stabbed her with last night. 

She huffed, as she rolled her neck, mimicking my same action only minutes ago. I heard a messy buzzing coming from her direction, and for the slightest second, I swear I saw a spark exit the wound on her head. 

I noticed a small, white object in her left hand— the true objective of the break in, I assumed. She followed my gaze, and was apparently triggered by my line of sight, which confirmed my hypothesis. I felt a sharp sting in the back of my head as she jolted her right arm, and sent a set of knives hurdling my way. I shot two webs at the wall behind her, and slingshot my way forward in a sideways motion to evade them. I tackled her to the ground, and leaped up onto the wall as she struggled to get up.

As she struggled on the ground, looking for the object, I spotted it slowly sliding away from her. It was a metallic container of some sorts no bigger than three or four inches. It didn’t have an insignia, and the color pallet was pure white, so it was difficult to connect to a particular manufacturer. 

As she went to grab it, I leaped off the wall and webbed it. With both our grasps on the object, we pulled in opposing directions with everything we had. 

Last night, she had been considerably stronger than me, but she was still wounded, and exhausted from her previous fights so it was evenly matched. However, after a couple draining seconds, my footing had begun to falter, whereas she was presumably impervious to the effects of the physical excursion her body was going through as she managed to pull harder as the seconds went on, screeching louder and rougher as the seconds went on.

The sound of a gunshot reverberated through the vault as I went tumbling backwards as the the small white object landed in my hands. Once again, the sudden, nearby gunfire left me feeling disoriented, preventing me from standing up properly.

Somewhere in the background noise, I heard a withered sob as a body hit the ground. As I shook my senses back to a forced sense of normality, I looked towards the entrance, where my gaze was met by an NYPD officer who stood there with his rifle speaking into his radio. Looks like the Captain disobeyed the D.O.D.C. officer’s orders to stay outside.

“OFC to TFC. Awaiting critical shot authorization.” He readjusted his grip on his weapon. I looked back at Emily who was struggling to regain her footing. She had been shot in the leg.

“TFC reporting. Critical shot authorized.” 

And with an inexplicable sense of certainty I shot a web at the officer as he fired his weapon which sent him flying towards the wall behind him. 

He missed his shot. 

After years of reflection on this moment in time, my feelings towards this decision have evolved and devolved a number of times. For the last decade or so, I’ve had a neutral outlook on it because despite which way I lean, nothing will change. But in the moment, a feeling of regret washed over me instantly.

“OFC-one down. Spider-Man conspiring with the suspect. Awaiting confirmation, dispatch.” The next officer called out, and before I knew it, Emily had slipped into the exit and I was being surrounded at gunpoint. 

“Your focus is displaced!” An angry Captain Watanabe said, as she made her way through the crowd. She had a leather jacket and shoulder-length black hair; she was about my height, maybe a couple inches shorter, and had a fierceness in her walk that left a trail of fire behind her. 

“Stand down on Spider-Man. She went through the blue shipment container, after her!” she said, as she approached me. The officers complied and moved in a perfect formation through the hidden exit. 

As she edged closer to me, I remained still. I was still shocked at my own impulsive decision.

“You,” she said, pissed off staring right into my eyes, hers were like daggers, “I lifted the kill order on your name and this is the bullshit you repay me with? Saving a murderer who’s just killed five officers, who knows how many more… Whose side are you on?”

I truly had nothing to say, “I…” 

“You may not be the threat they make you out to be, but next time, *stay* out of the way. Or I won’t hesitate to reinstate a shoot-on-sight order. Don’t follow us,” she said, as she walked away after her units leaving me alone in the Presidential Vault. 

I watched her on her way out as the taps of her boot’s heels echoed in my head as it faded in with the rest of the sounds of the cold, flashing, red room. I looked over at the body to my left, then at the other just a couple feet away from that one, then at the one right by the entrance, and finally at the one pinned up on a wall, a pair of daggers going straight through his neck. The sound of leaking blood made mine run cold as I looked around in disbelief at how each guard was murdered differently and with complete, gruesome intent. 

Emily Osborn was a kind, giving soul. That woman was gone. Whoever that was just now, she killed five people, and that was just in this room. I remember wondering how anyone could be capable of such an evil purposeful travesty. 

The on-hand paramedic team had made their way into the room by now. I think they saw me, but I couldn’t be too sure. They had far worse to deal with at the moment, and I, per usual, could do nothing but helplessly stare. 

In the midst of the settling yet soul-wrenching chaos, I briefly wondered if the police intervening could’ve been a facade run out by Norman’s officers on the force to avoid public speculation as to why the police did nothing once word got out, but quickly reconsidered after remembering the relationship between Captain Watanabe and Mr. Stacy. Gwen had told me that they were brought up in the academy together, and that when they were both still detectives, they were even partners. He trusted Captain Watanabe, and as much as Mr. Stacy lost his way, if he was one thing, he wasn’t a dirty cop. 

I made my way up to the roof to avoid any confrontation by any officers left outside or any news outlets. I tried swinging away, but my body felt like shutting down. So I just sat there, in complete, unequivocal defeat on the edge of the building, staring down at the mysterious object I had stole from Emily minutes ago. At once, an untold, overwhelming amount of shame hit me as I realized how I had been patronizing Officer Stone about being at fault for several officers’ imminent deaths, but it turned out that it was I who let the actual culprit walk away alive while her victims bled themselves to a painful death.

I knew I had messed up, but in the moment, I was scared. I was terrified. Terrified of watching another person be killed in front of me. Ever since the birth of my web-headed persona, death seemed to have begun following me like a plague. But as I’m immune to most illnesses and plagues alike, I’m merely an active bystander as others around me can’t help but to succumb to its clutches; the grip of death seemed to always fail to catch up to me. 

Mr. Osborn had sent in two parties, and I had both of them cornered. But with hesitation and fear ruling my judgment, I let both of them go. The blood of those officers was on the Osborn’s hands, but I ultimately did nothing to slow down the abominable rampage that pierced each one of them viscously and expeditiously. Whether indirectly or not, their deaths were on me too. And I’ve carried that with me ever since then.

Chapter Text

04 January 2016

8:45 AM 

My Apartment, Chinatown, Manhattan

When you were so cleverly creating any excuse possible for me to write you these stories, Miles, you mentioned the concept of family. I’ve seen the relationship you have with yours. They may not be aware of what you do in your spare time, but you shouldn’t make the mistake of shutting them out because of it like I did. Lean on them when you feel like all else is failing, and trust me, they’ll always help you regain your footing. Tell them whenever you’re ready, never feel forced to rush the process. Revealing this part of yourself comes with consequences you won’t be able to ignore, so make sure you’re prepared to handle them when the time arises. 

Of course, as you may know by now, not telling them has its own consequences that must be dealt with as well. Like I’ve mentioned, in the last couple months, I’ve intentionally faded the relationships I have with my mom and sister. Obviously, I’m not proud of it, and would never encourage you to follow in my exact footsteps. It pained me to do so, but for some reason, at this exact moment in my past, I believed this was for the best. 

My sister’s name is Bella, I’ve always called her Belly, though. There’s a four year and three month age gap between us, which made her a freshman in college at this point. She was overseas on some French study abroad program I don’t remember much about anymore. I remember growing up, we had our differences, like all siblings do, and would often frustrate and upset our mom because of our constant bickering. But in many ways, we’re very similar to one another; we have the ability to understand each other in a way not many others could, which is probably the root for being at each others throats constantly. 

She dealt with a lot as the older child in a single mother household. I know she wishes our roles were reversed at times, but she never held it against me. When she first moved away for the year, we used to have weekly phones calls every Saturday. I stopped calling after what happened to Captain Stacy; small talk and catching up seemed pointless even if it was with my own sister. Ignoring her was the easy part. I think my mom told her that I was upset with her for moving away, which I guess is how she made sense of my sudden detachment. After not being able to make it home for Christmas, I guess that wasn’t entirely untrue. 

When my mom confronted me about my sudden, unexplained shift in behavior towards my sister, I piggybacked off the fabricated story she had created for me. However, eventually, I found some truth in it. When I was small, even while going through her own battle, she would put on a strong cover, and support me through even the shallowest of conflicts. Her absence was like a vacuum molded into a shape only she could assume. I would be lying if I said, that while growing up, she wasn’t a key player in my support system, but after she moved, when I went to lean on it, the ringing of a phone call didn’t work the same as a warm embrace. It was a change I needed to adapt to, but with all the changes that were going on in my life at the moment, I wanted my relationship with my sister to be the one constant I could’ve depended on. 

My mom, Mina, immigrated to the United States as a little girl. Alike many Mexican families, she was one of many children. My grandparents are genuine, kind-hearted people, but they raised their kids unaffectionately, not by choice, but because they couldn’t afford the luxury of affection with barely scraping by when the bills were due. When I was a little kid, there was some overly exaggerated family drama that broke my family apart. Because of it, my mom hasn’t spoken to some of her siblings in almost half a decade. And I’m not counting the one time we came together for my my aunt’s funeral. Families shouldn’t only ever see each other at funerals. Even for holidays, it’s usually just the three of us now. 

I think that created some sort of irrational fear in her for her kids to end up the same. Part of having a sibling, is learning the dance of argumentation, but any time my sister and I would argue, my mom would get easily frustrated. So when I shut my sister out, it took a toll on her. I wish she knew that I separated myself from her intentionally, but not because I wanted to; I just, for some reason, believed I was meant to travel this road alone, to keep them out of my life, just like Captain Stacy had told me to do with Gwen, who I saw as the exception— the novelty of being a young protector and a hypocrite. 

I remember hearing my mom cry in her sleep every once in a while. As parents tend to do, she had learned to fake a smile around my sister and I to not worry us; I guess it didn’t transfer over to her dreams. 

I frequently found myself in the bathtub with my head underwater. It was the only place I could escape to that would muffle her whimpers. My own sanctuary yet own personal dungeon that was a soundless void. A desolate sanctuary I would retreat to to attempt to relieve myself of the unwavering guilt I was feeling. Guilt over the death of Captain Stacy, over an unfulfilled promise, over Gwen, over letting Emily walk away, and from the constant lying and deception to my family. It was the only place I could go to try and scream the guilt away.

That’s what I was doing on the morning of January 4th, 2016, but as I came up for air, my mom knocked on the door. 

“What happened?” I asked, worried she had caught on. 

“The food is ready. Gwen is here, so apúrate,” she said as I heard her walk back to the kitchen. 

After a silent breakfast, Gwen and I headed into my room. Silent on my part, that is. Gwen and my mom had always had a comfortable relationship with one another, so they chatted up a storm about what seemed like everything: school, the future, me, and January 7th, her moving day. I guess they were just trying to make up for the time they’d soon no longer get to spend together, which made me wish I could do the same. Instead, I was letting Mr. Osborn run circles around me as I wasted the little time I had left with Gwen. 

As I closed the door, my mom called out, “Not all the way!” 

I heard Gwen let out a quiet laugh as I fixed the door. Her laugh was soft and bounced around in my head, which typically made me feel warm inside, but I just wasn’t feeling it at all that morning. 

“Are you okay?” she asked, taking a seat at the edge of my undone bed, my dog, Appa, jumping up onto her lap. 

I looked around my room, avoiding eye contact. Anyone could see that it was a mess, even in the dark. My suit was on the floor, peaking out from under my bed. My baseball bag was poorly stored under my desk in a lazy attempt at cleaning. There was a pile of folded, clean laundry on my desk that I hadn’t put away, and a couple of empty water bottles were on the TV stand. Not to mention the backpack that was tossed open on the ground, my books that had slid out over the floor being illuminated by the only ray of sunshine that snuck through a crack in the blinds. 

“Sorry about the mess,” I said, scratching the back of my head. My hair was still wet from the shower from before breakfast. I rubbed my hand on my shirt to dry it off, as I opened the blinds on the window. 

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said, as she pet Appa’s little head, his eyes squinting to deal with the glaring sunlight that just burst through the room.

“What? Oh yeah… I’m fine,” I said putting my baseball bag away in its proper place in the back of my closet. I heard little footsteps on the wooden flooring leave my room, and when I turned back to face Gwen, in her arms, she had replaced Appa with my suit, which she took out from under my bed. 

She ran her fingers along the char marks that spanned the entirety of the torso and the mask and after a moment, asked, “What happened yesterday?”

“Nothing,” I said, snatching it back from her, tossing it in my closet, “What are you even doing here?” I asked, a little rudely, but mainly defensively. 

“Can’t I just check up on my boyfriend?” she asked with an airy voice, initially trying to lift up the mood. 

Once she saw that I went back to cleaning up, or rather finding ways to avoid confrontation, she continued in a much less friendly tone, “Especially when I’m hearing on the news that at least five people died at the place I sent him to.” I felt her gaze burning into the side of my head. 

“… you could’ve called before just showing up, you know,” I said, trying to change the subject. I knelt down to the backpack on the floor to put everything back in it. The thought of returning to school next week was miles from my train of thought, it felt impossibly irrelevant. 

“I did,” she said placing her phone in front of my face, her call history displaying five attempts, which I apparently ignored, “So tell me, what happened yesterday?” 

I stared intently at nothing for a couple seconds, thinking inwardly, my thoughts, completely overpowering my being. Each one bled into the next and I was finding it impossible to pinpoint which worry was the root of all of them. 

I wanted her to be safe. I wanted to keep her safe. But I knew she would tell me that that wasn’t my job, or that she didn’t need saving, so I didn’t bother giving her that excuse— or rather reason— to keep her out of it. 

I finally gave way to gravity and collapsed onto the floor, sitting with my arms around my legs.

“What’s gonna happen… to us, after you move?” I said, out of the blue. That is, out of the blue in this context, not that it hadn’t been on my mind as of late especially since it had been a topic of discussion at breakfast. 

She visibly sighed, and her facial expression dropped to a level I’d only ever seen a couple times before. As she ran her hand through her messy, blonde hair, she joined me on the floor and said, “Truthfully, I don’t know.” 

“I been thinking about it,” I said, honestly. 

“Me too,” she whispered quietly, almost only mouthing the words. 

Uncomfortable silence settled in as we were both dreading what’s to come in three days time. My mind reimagined the feeling of being underwater as I let my surroundings fade out into a muffling haze. 

I hadn’t realized the tears that had begun sliding down my face, and it wasn’t long before Gwen was by my side trying to comfort me. It was an unemotional cry, more of a stifled show of emotion; an expression of what lies beneath the surface, which only managed to escape because my focus was drawn away from the present; my mind, in a dissociated state. 

I came to at the sound of Gwen’s voice, “Hey, hey, you’re alright, I’m right here… and as long as I’m here, I’m not going anywhere,” she said, combing the fingers of her left hand through my loose, damp curls. 

I remember hearing her heart rate go up as it usually did when she got anxious. She continued combing my hair until I calmed down, which was when I finally spoke up, “I need your help, Gwen,” I said, my eyes burning, still not looking into hers; still not looking at anything really. 

“Yeah anything…I wanna help,” she said, her voice, again, soft like before.

“I can’t— I can’t do this alone,” I paused to finally look at her, “I need you.” 

This fact had solidified itself into my head yesterday. I didn’t care about admitting that I was wrong to her. What I cared about was her, and with her, came her family. And, I didn’t want to feel responsible for further destroying a family I felt I had already helped break, in the event of something terrible happening to Gwen Stacy. 

“That’s okay, Allen,” she responded, as if it was oh so simple. 

“You don’t get it,” I said, feeling frustrated.

“Then make me get it, tell me what happened. Tell me what’s going on with you,” she said, as she stopped combing my hair to take a seat in front of me. 

“I DID!” I said, louder than I should’ve, recalling yesterday’s confession in the alleyway. Her body visibly reacted with my tone. The look on her face changed from compassionate to devastated as she remembered out conversation. 

I stopped and looked to the door worried my mom would hear our conversation. Once I heard the shower running, I closed it, quietly, and then tried apologizing, “I’m— I’m sorry, I shouldn’t— I should’ve have yelled,” I cupped my own face with my hands and dragged them down it stopping, for a moment, at my mouth, inwardly cursing at myself for not being able to get a sentence out without stuttering. 

My mind drifted to Captain Stacy, and how quickly I was to, once again, break the promise I had sworn to keep. When I looked back in Gwen’s direction, my eyes were met by her dad’s battered body laying on my bed. I jumped backwards, my back, immediately hitting the door. I remember hearing Appa let out a small bark at the sudden noise from the living room. 

I stared as Captain Stacy clutched his chest as blood oozed out of his mouth onto my pillows, staining their white covering. His face was disfigured by claw marks and his bloody police uniform was shredded, just like it was on that hollow, November night. At his side, lay his shotgun, the barrel dented upwards. The explicit, deathlike reminder that was burned into my mind, taking me back to the night he died. 

Captain Stacy gasped, as he choked on his own blood that bubbled as it splashed down onto my messy bed sheets. He looked over at me, and once again, struggled, in between breaths, to say, “Promise me… promise me that you’ll keep Gwen out of it.” 

“Allen!” Gwen yelled, as she placed her hands on the sides of my head forcing our eyes to meet. “He’s not real. My dad’s not here, you’re safe. I’m safe. Relax,” she said, as she stared at me with yawning blue eyes through overgrown fringe. 

I looked back over at my bed, and when I saw that it was empty, I finally let out a breath. 

I remember being embraced in her arms until she could no longer feel the thumping of my heart through my chest as our bodies were pressed together. As I tended to do, I let the sound of her heartbeat fill my eardrums until it calmed my restless mind. 

“I’m sorry,” I said, letting go, walking over to my closet. 

“We can talk about it,” she offered, following me, but stopping a couple feet away. 

“I don’t want to,” I said, way too quickly and positively rudely. “Sorry, I…” 

“Stop apologizing to me, Allen,” she interrupted. 

“Okay,” I nodded, softly, opening up my closet to take my suit back out. 

But was it so wrong to apologize for feeling worse about the murder of someone who wasn’t even my own father than the actual daughter of the man who died?

 I hated putting my own turmoil about this on her as it was already such a delicate issue for her, more so than to me. It was selfish of me, in a sense, to have taken it worse than her. I can’t describe it any better than saying I felt so devastatingly and humiliatingly weak. 

You see, Miles, one of the things I loved most about Gwen was that the necessity for apologies between her and I had always been nearly nonexistent. We used to always understand one another, even at such a young age. But experiences change people, and what happened to her dad I think set us on two different psychological paths that were destined to gradually grow further apart as time progressed. That realization came years later, however, and in those years I learned to understand that even if she would’ve stayed in New York, in the long run, I don’t think we would’ve lasted. 

I sat on my bed, and gestured for her to join me as I reached into the hidden compartment in my suit where I stored the container from last night. Before revealing it to her, I said, “Promise me you won’t do anything crazy.” 

She merely nodded. 

“Gwen, I’m serious. Your brothers need you, I— if something happens to you,” I stopped, turning my body to face her. 

“I’ll be okay,” she said as she looked at me for a while, the look in her eyes, eventually, going soft. Her facial features flinched as she pierced her lips, “Promise. Listen to my heart, I’m telling the truth,” she said.

She was.

“So this is what Mr. Osborn was after yesterday,” I said, pulling out the little canister I stole from Emily last night, “I don’t know what it is though,” I said, handing it to her so she could observe it. 

As she spun it around in her hands, she asked, “Have you tried opening it?” Her fingers, tracing the seam that separated the lid from the base. 

“No, I…” I said, drifting off into thoughts of last night, “You can try, if you want,” I said, nodding to her.

She grunted as she tried twisting the cap off, but to no use. A bright red light gleaming through the seam in the metal when pressure was applied. A safety net to protect its contents when unauthorized access was trying to ensue. 

“Let me try,” I said, taking the object from her hand. 

The sudden electricity that was working to keep it shut intensified my senses. It felt like a shock that shivered my body, and tempted my deepest desires to feel a surge of power, working like magnets to keep my fingers glued to it. 

Putting my hands on both chambers of the metal canister, I twisted as a sizzle sound emanated from the little red light, which grew brighter as I applied more pressure. I stopped to position myself on the other side of the room from Gwen in case of some accidental bioelectric discharge.

“Get under my bed, just in case,” I told her in which she complied. 

As I grunted trying to force the two sides to separate, I remember jolts of electricity flickering from my fingertips, an electrified buzz tingled my veins as a lightbulb in a lamp in the corner of my room exploded. My TV flickered from off to on switching between inputs as the ceiling fan, hung up high in the room, began spinning, swaying left to right as I felt the wind ruffle my hair. 

And finally, after a stinging moment where I could see the skin on my fingers turn a sort of charcoal black, the metal container let out a click sound, as a tiny bit of smoke escaped the seam that separated the once sealed chambers. 

Inside, I found a tiny, flat cylindrical object, which didn’t remind me of anything in particular. It called me almost as if it, itself, was a beacon. I dropped the lid, and it unevenly bounced on the wooden flooring a couple times before coming to a stop by the edge of my bed. 

As I picked up the object, I remember it lighting up bright white as sprits of electricity jolted out of my fingertips, which made me drop it instantly. Gwen, who was now out from under her safe spot, caught it before it hit the ground, the white light going out instantly. 

“That’s so cool,” she said, looking giddy.

“What is? That it almost tore my fan off the ceiling?” I said, sarcastically, jumping up onto the ceiling and grabbing hold of one of the slowly spinning blades to stop the swaying. 

“No,” she said, in a nerdy trance, looking up at me, “It sets off your bioelectricity at a touch, like you were plugged into an outlet, almost like an extra charge being dealt to an already full battery.” 

“So it’s like… a power source?” I asked, taking a pause to leap back down. 

“I don’t know…” she said, deep in thought, “All we know really is that it reacts to your touch, it’s too early to know anything right now. That was just my initial observation.”

“Why would Mr. Osborn risk so much for something so—” I stopped, remembering something from last night, “Yesterday, I swear I saw sparks coming out of Emily’s head,” I said, incompletely.

“What?” she asked, confused by my statement. 

“At the party, when you stopped her from strangling me— you stabbed her. But the thing is, she never took the knife out, it was still there in the side of her head yesterday. Her face was charred like it was slowly being burned, and I swear there were sprits of electricity coming out of the wound, just like my fingers when I picked that thing up,” I said, slowly, using all my brain power to form comprehensible sentences. 

“What are you saying?” Gwen asked.

“What if the knife damaged it? You don’t think it could be some sort of replacement?” I said, pointing at the tiny, white thing in her hand.

“You think this thing,” she said, as she held it up close to her eyes, “Goes in her head? Like a chip. You think Mrs. Osborn has a chip in her head?” she said, unbelievingly. 

“Well… I don’t know, does it not look like one?” I said, completely unconfident in my theory. 

She thought for a second before saying, “I’m not sure either of us knows how an intracranial implant looks like Allen, but either way, she hasn’t displayed any capabilities of electrokinesis,” as if the last bit made any sort-of sense to me. 

I shook my head in confusion. 

“This thing, whatever it is, it doesn’t react with me. See,” she said, switching it between her hands, “In order for it to react with Emily in the way that it does with you… it would make sense for her molecular structure to share similar properties to yours— at least I think it would have to. Only thing is, we have no idea what changes Mr. Osborn made to the Lizard Serum in order to make her the way she is.” 

“Wait,” I said running over to my phone on my nightstand, “I took these pictures last night,” I continued, handing my phone over to her, “It’s some shipment Mr. Osborn had federal guards smuggling out of the building, I wanted to show it to you to ask what it was.” 

She studied the pictures for a while, in silence, “I don’t… It’s definitely not for more Lizard Serum, but, if Mr. Osborn has the proper medical equipment, which I assume he does, some of this, maybe— and that’s a huge maybe— could be used to treat severe hypokalemia. See there’s some potassium supplements in one of the boxes,” she said, slowly and curiously, pointing at it in the lower right corner of the picture. Her voice, however, full of uncertainty and hesitation. 

“What’s that? Hypo…kalemia,” I asked, stuttering half way through the last word. 

“It’s when your blood has too little potassium. If it reaches a severe level it can cause serious heart rhythm problems. It’s a long shot though, since there’s a whole lot of other stuff in the truck,” she said, thinking. 

“Emily has an irregular heartbeat,” I revealed to her. “It used to pump three times instead of two, but last night it was erratic and sometimes aggressive and other times faint,” I said. “You think it’s related?” 

“Maybe,” she said sighing, “It’s hard to really know anything,” she said, again.

She handed me back my phone, and thought silently for a minute. In the silence, I circled back to what she had theorized about the shipment and how it may trace back to hypokalemia. I reexamined the photos on my phone and looked over at the potassium supplements that Gwen had pointed out. A sense of familiarity was on the tip of my tongue, and when it finally clicked, I remember thinking how I could have missed it when I saw it last night. 

I practically ran over to my nightstand and scrambled through the mess inside the drawer looking for the bottle I hadn’t opened in almost three months. With my chaotic scavenging catching Gwen’s attention, I heard her ask what was going on, but before I could care to answer I found what I was looking for. There my name was, Allen Jose Iglesias, printed on the bottle of a prescribed medication of oral potassium chloride meant to replenish depleted potassium levels. 

Before I go on, Miles, I want you to remember the health complication I told you that I’d tell you about. You remember? The one that prevents me from using my bioelectricity. Well let me just tell you, you’re not there yet, but it’s related, so make sure you pay attention. 

When I was 13, I started feeling really ill to the point where I’d pass out during my practices. I’d get muscle cramps often, and would feel faint. Other times my muscles were so weak I couldn’t move; doctors would say it was temporary paralysis. But to sum it up, one way or another, I had a severe case of hypokalemia. After about a year with no progress, I got transferred over to a different doctor, and after putting me on a biweekly treatment plan where they’d inject stuff straight into my veins, along with two daily pills of potassium chloride, I was back to normal health after a couple of months. The first doctor thought I would be like that the rest of my life; you could imagine his shock when I was magically healed by mid-November. 

I’ll catch you up on the rest of it later, but for now…

“You said too little potassium?” I asked Gwen. 

She nodded.

“I used to have that,” I started, her attention pulled back to me. I tossed her the pill bottle. “Last year, remember? Up until— it went away after I got bit,” I said. 

“That’s right, you did,” she said after a moment, remembering my frequent treatment appointments throughout the fall semester. 

She continued, “That’s interesting ‘cause Emily’s presumed hypokalemia, if my assumption of the shipment is right, is being caused by Retroviral Hyperdysplasia, the disease she has.”

“I don’t— I knew she had that, but I don’t know what it is,” I said, shrugging. I always felt so underdeveloped talking science with Gwen. She definitely made me interested in it, but she also reminded me how far along the way she was, and how far I needed to go to catch up. 

She looked around the room for a second, thinking of where to start, “Okay so, the Lizard Serum was the result of one of many research projects that Oscorp carried out to attempt to cure that disease, right?” she stopped, pausing. Once I nodded, she continued on, “The disease has been running in the Osborn family for a couple generations, so when Dr. Connors hired me as his intern, my dad was asked to sign an NDA— mainly on my behalf— since Oscorp and the Mayor’s Office didn’t want word getting out, but I guess it doesn’t really matter anymore, huh?” she said, laughing a little to herself.

“Well wait then— Emily isn’t part of the Osborn bloodline. If it’s an Osborn disease, how did she— I mean unless they’re secretly cousins or something,” I said, feeling disgusted. 

“No,” she said, laughing, “In the file that Dr. Connors showed me, it said that when Emily became pregnant with Harry, the baby, which naturally contained the genetic potential for the disease, sort-of mutated some of the cells surrounding her uterus. She was, in a way, infected through the umbilical cord. Eventually it got into her bloodstream, but they didn’t notice it until some time last summer when she started expressing symptoms of the disease. 

“Although the progression of the infection is slow, it’s hard to detect because there isn’t an official treatment for it. By the time they hired me, the mutated cells had reached her brain. After that, there’s really no coming back; the disease leaves you brain dead like a vegetable. It eats away at all of the necessary atoms and isotopes— one being potassium— that are responsible for producing energy in the body and for maintaining a person’s internal electrical system. That would explain why her potassium level would be so low, assuming I’m right about the shipment,” but after that final word, she halted. Retracing her dialogue, her neck twitched slightly to the right to look me in the eye, a discovery dawning upon her. 

“Maybe it is a power source,” she said, “If it reacts with her in the way that it did with you, it’d also be like plugging her into an outlet, but unlike you where it’s an extra charge, for her it would be… like a portable life support, giving her body the energy it needs to keep running,” she said, almost guessing.  

I remember my brain hurting from the massive amounts of information I was taking in. I wanted to completely trust her hypothesis, since she knew far more than I, but it didn’t feel right to me, “That doesn’t make sense though. How would this thing know that by the touch of a finger that I used to be sick? And I don’t have it anymore, remember? I got bit by that spider, and it went away.”

But before she could muster up a response, a stinging sensation hit the back of my head alerting me to someone coming into my room. I took the object from Gwen’s hand, and stashed into the canister. A small spark escaping my hand just before shutting the lid. I flipped onto my bed and threw my suit into the closet just as my mom barged in, my hand behind my back hiding the object, “Que te dije? Keep the door open,” she said with slight attitude, and with a towel wrapped around her wet hair. 

“Sorry ma’, I forgot,” I said, scratching the back of my head with my one free hand. 

“What happened to your hand?” my mom asked, noticing the black on my fingertips.

“Oh— we— we were doing… I was trying to clean up some of my mess, and— yeah. My room’s kinda dirty,” I said, fumbling on my words. Gwen softly laughed through her lips, as she slowly looked back and forth between my mom and I, watching us talk.

My mom gave Gwen a shy smile, embarrassed for me, “Y no te da verguenza…” she paused, waiting for me to answer. I gave her a cheeky smile, “Are you guys going out today?” she asked, sighing, which caught Gwen’s attention. 

Gwen looked over at me, expecting me to answer, “Umm, probably just Gwen’s house,” I lied.

“Yeah, I still need to finish packing the rest of my things, and Allen said he’d help,” Gwen said, smiling, innocently. 

“Okay, just tell me when you leave,” she said, as she walked away towards her room.

As Gwen wandered back to my bed, I spoke out, “Alright— we’ll figure something out about this thing later,” I said quietly, peaking my head out of the doorframe to make sure my mom was gone, “I’ll drop you off at your house and then go talk to the P.I. that the professor pointed me to, which is what I was trying to do yesterday before you distracted me,” I said, walking over to my closet to change into my suit. She scoffed, and was about to disagree, but I beat her to it, “Can you like— leave the room while I change? My mom will kill both of us if she sees the door closed again,” I said with a small laugh. 

As she closed the door, on her way out, I remember hearing her play with Appa, and make light conversation with my mom, which reminded me of how tremendously lost I was going to become once she was gone. 

Three days, I told myself. 

Three days. 

Chapter Text

04 January 2016

11:23 AM

Alias Investigations, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan

I was on the roof again for the second time in as many days staring down at the little white object I had stolen from Emily last night. This time, however, Jessica Jones was in her office. I could hear her shuffling around from where I sat. The sound of metal drawers being opened as she sorted through old files was messy. She sounded messy; her footsteps were weirdly paced and the sound of whiskey filling up a cracked glass was consistent over the 20 minutes I had been there. I could only imagine how her office looked. 

The main street around the corner was busy. Every so often I would have someone notice me sitting on the ledge as they passed by, some waves here and there. Through the spandex— and smog— it smelt earthy because of the dry cleaners across the street. They kept the door open so the smell of whatever it was they used to clean the clothes would linger in the air nearby. 

I thought back to what Gwen said about me and Emily and how hypokalemia may connect us to one another. On the way to her house, she mentioned that it is always a symptom of another underlying disorder, and asked what mine was. 

Truth be told, I didn’t know. But like I’ve mentioned before Miles, I had an aunt that passed away when I was young, and that’s what I told Gwen about. I told her how she was also diagnosed with hypokalemia, which is why my mom speculated I was sick with the same thing she had. My aunt lost her battle to some sort of neurological disorder that effected her ability to control her motor functions— another reason for my mom’s speculation as I was experiencing episodes of temporary paralysis. 

She had the doctors scan me for it, but I came out clean. They had even brought up her old records to show my mom that my aunt’s condition was slow-progressing, so even if I had it, it would have been far too early to detect anything. 

Moreover, I still didn’t understand why my body had an electric reaction when I touched the white object, I was just hoping that there would be some useful information on the flash drive, which leads me back to the present…

As I was trying to figure out what it was that I was going to say to Jessica, a woman with matted, black hair appeared in my peripheral vision on the street below. She angrily yelled out, “You spent all day up there yesterday. Gonna do it again today?” 

I stared at her blankly, shocked and embarrassed that she was aware of my presence the entire time. 

“What the hell do you want?” she asked. 

I hopped down onto the street below, putting the tiny, white device into my suit’s pocket on the way down. We were about the same height, I was maybe an inch or two taller, yet it felt like she was staring me down. 

“Can we talk inside?” I said, unpreparedly. 

“No.”

“O…kay,” I said, almost laughing. I didn’t expect her sharp abruptness. “But it’s kinda private. What if someone hears?” I said, looking around. 

“If I saw a random guy dressed in tacky, ripped spandex in the street, I don’t think hearing what he has to say would be at the top of my priority list,” she said, walking towards the door.

“I think I look cool,” I said, not knowing how to comeback to that; my ego, secretly taking a hit.

“You look like an asshole,” she said, reaching for the door. “Look… I have a crapload of work to get through for a case that’s really kicking my ass, I don’t have the time nor do I give a shit to help you on whatever case you’re running, alright?” she said, exhausted, trying to close the door. 

“It’ll be quick,” I tried reasoning, stopping her. 

“I don’t care,” she said, blatantly, as she shut the door and locked it and made her way back up to her office. I was pleasantly surprised by her strength. 

I climbed up the building and waited for her outside her window, which I pried open with ease. She had it covered with newspaper. In fact, the whole floor was covered in random sheets of paper. It looked about as bad as I imagined it up on the roof, but the smell— coffee, liquor, and dirty piping— was disgusting. 

It was poorly lit, and a couple of bullet holes traced the wall by her desk. Her wallpaper was discolored and torn and the glass part of her front door was smashed in and was being covered by some more newspaper. I remember wondering how this wasn’t an active crime scene. 

I looked over some of the brown stained papers that were scattered across the floor. One of them had information on the Roxxon Corporation, a “We’re Pleased to Serve You” throwaway coffee cup a couple of inches away. In the corner, a pullout mattress was tucked into the wall, the bottom of it, ripped. I remember hearing her open the door and her telling me to get out, but I was frozen in shock.

“Do you live here?” I asked, my hand going to my face.

“What does it matter to you?” she asked, pouring another shot into the cracked glass on her desk. 

Her attitude surprised me, despite getting a shot of it outside. I guess I should have expected it, however, knowing partial bits of the story the professor had mentioned. The idea of someone hiring her on purpose, however, for a case baffled me. She seemed impossibly dysfunctional. 

“Professor Montesi said you could help me,” I said, quickly, trying to get to the point. 

I wanted to get outta there, her attitude was almost as bad as the smell, which was making me feel dizzy. But my feet stayed where they were, planted firmly on the scratched, wooden flooring. From the few minutes I had known her, Ms. Jones intrigued me. She was rude and annoyed me, but she was once a passionate journalist who just so happened to be pushed off her pedestal. Looking at her now in her janky, old chair, broken and blue, I couldn’t help but feel bad for her— pity would be a better way to describe it. 

“You spoke to Dean?” she asked, bewildered, sitting up straight. The mention of his name causing her guard to drop, just a little. 

I nodded, noting that she’d been on a first name basis with the man I’d only just met. I wondered how far their relationship ran.

“When?” she asked, immediately picking her guard back up.

“Yesterday morning. That’s why I was here but— I got caught up with something else…” I said, hoping she wouldn’t ask what that something was.

“Did you make sure no one was following you?” she asked, going to the window to close it.

“Obviously,” I said, hoping it was true. 

“Does anyone know you’re here?” she asked.

“No,” I said, lying to her, once again. 

She looked at me for a second before opting to believe me, “Is he okay?” she asked, referring to the professor. 

“He’s fine, but the cops came to his house just after I left. I accidentally set off some sort of silent alarm,” I said, embarrassed. 

“Accidentally?”

“How was I supposed to know his place was tapped? I didn’t know he was under house arrest,” I said, defensively. 

“How do you know him then?” she asked. 

“That’s not important,” I said, quickly.

“Like hell it is,” she said, even faster. 

“All you need to know is that I have a flash drive I need him to check out,” I told her. 

“What’s on the drive?” she asked, not losing pace. 

“Why do you think I’m here?” I said, barely keeping up. 

Her chin perked up at that, my words, apparently, hinting at a sign of competence. She gave me silence, as she finally deemed me as worthwhile.  

“He said you would have a cipher key for me,” I said. 

“What?” she asked. 

“The professor. He said you’d have a cipher key from the Oscorp case he helped you on. The information on the flash drive is encrypted, I figured that since it’s from the same source, it could be useful.” 

“You’re looking into Norman Osborn?” she asked, her voice, for the first time, aggression-less. 

“Yeah,” I said, “The professor told me what happened.” 

“Then you should be smart enough to know that I’m gonna warn you to drop it while you still have your life,” she said, looking at me with an unforeseen sadness hidden somewhere in the back of her eyes, which almost made me feel like there was some compassion behind her thorny exterior. 

“And you should be smart enough to know that I’m gonna ignore that warning,” I said, trying to push the conversation forward. 

We stared at each other for a couple seconds, her gaze leaving a permanent tattooed mark from its searing intensity, “I’m giving you a chance— one chance— to save your life. My advice: take it.”

“I’m not asking for your advice,” I said, trying not to sound arrogantly rude, “I’m asking for the cipher key. Do you have it or not?” 

“Even if I did, why the hell do you think I’d give it to you?”

As I thought of an answer, I looked at her and then around her apartment, and it told me all I needed to know about her life the last few years, “After you went after him,” I started, but stopped after she stood up from her seat, silently warning me to utter my next few words very carefully, “All I’m saying is it looks like you haven’t picked up much of the life Mr. Osborn left you with.”

“You don’t know me,” she said, sloppily walking out from behind her desk.

“I know enough,” I said, standing my ground as she inched closer, however, internally, I was panicking. 

She was in front of me now. Her breath seeped through the thin fabric of my mask, and the heavy trace of whiskey almost made me flinch. We were in a staring contest, and stayed there for what felt like minutes before I decided to finally answer her question, “Why give me the cipher key?” I asked rhetorically, repeating her question, “Because maybe you’ve given up and accepted the place he put you in… but—”

“But what? But you’re different? But it’ll be different this time?” she said, mocking me, “I fucking tried, kid. He beat me.” 

She’d backed off a bit, and seemed a little more relaxed as she reflected on her experience. Maybe relaxed was a poor choice of wording. Defeated. She seemed a lot more defeated than I’d first pictured. I took a couple steps back to alleviate the tension that had built up in my traps and said, “I don’t get it. What is it to you whether you give me the key or not? It’s not like I’m asking you to run the case for me.”

Her heartbeat stuttered, however, her mouth responded without skipping a beat, “You’re young and messy. You already brought the cops to his place once. This time, you got lucky. If you fumble even once more, he’ll catch onto you. I don’t want anything being tied back to me,” she said, as she meandered around her place. 

“I mean— respectfully,” I added to sound like less of a jerk, “How much harder could he hit you? There’s no where to go from here but up,” I said, as innocently as possible, hoping there wasn’t a point in life lower than this. I wondered how she got here and what went wrong during her first case. I wished I could ask, but she wasn’t exactly an open book. At this moment, I remember I had begun looking around her worn apartment, but mainly at her. Her footing seemed random but she seemed to stick by one particular part of the room more than the rest. She seemed to be doing loose figure-8’s around the coffee stained papers I’d noticed on the floor earlier.

I wouldn’t have thought much of it if it weren’t for the excruciating sense of submerged anxiety in her heart and breath. I think she noticed me studying her, so she finally spoke up again, “For somebody asking for my help, you have a lotta shit to say about me,” she said.

“Sorry,” I said, embarrassed.

“I gotta think about it, kid. Come back some other day, I have too much on my plate right now,” she said, nudging me towards the window I’d came in minutes ago. 

“But I don’t got another day. I need the information on that drive now,” I said, the desperation in my voice, growing ever-present. 

“Then I guess you’re all outta luck,” she said opening the window hatch, waiting for me to exit. Once I obeyed and turned my back to the rest of the room, she retreated back to her figure-8’s, but when I turned around to face her for a last time I noticed one of the papers on the ground was gone.

It was one of the coffee stained papers, the one containing information on the Roxxon Corporation. I’d noticed that one most due to a schematic prototype being plastered on it. I remember wanting to take a closer look, but being too distracted by the atrocity that was her apartment.

“How is Roxxon related to Osborn?” I asked, re-entering the room. 

“What?” she said, remaining calm. At this point, I was analyzing her completely; her body language, her breathing and heartbeat. She was as stoic as ever, disregarding the slight hiccup her heart murmured as she said the word. 

“You picked up a paper. I don’t know when but you did… Is that the case you’re working on? Against the Roxxon Corporation?” I asked.

“You’re seeing things, kid,” she said. Her heart jumped. 

“It is,” I said, curiously, “But what does it have to do with Osborn?”

She walked over to her desk calmly, and took a seat. She went on her computer and dismissed me and whatever it was I was gonna say. 

At this point, I was already desperate and was quickly starting to get very impatient. She wasn’t budging and her opinion seemed immovable. She was right to some extent, about me being messy and inexperienced, but at the time, I saw it as her offending my skillset— if I even had one at the time. 

I didn’t like the way she looked at me; like a liability. At 14, I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and although I had a minute understanding as to why she was hesitant and impatient and untrusting of others, I simply couldn’t wrap my head around as to why she wouldn’t help me out; especially since there was a chance she could benefit from it. 

So, I started laying everything on her. Disregarding Gwen’s involvement, every bit of my situation, and information that I had, I planned to spew out at her until she gave in. The plan, if you could call it that, would have failed deplorably if I hadn’t revealed the device I’d stolen from Emily the night prior. 

I had kept talking for a couple more seconds before I realized her gaze had finally lifted from her computer screen. In my hand, she looked at the tiny, white canister’s contents and a sense of discovery glistened across her droopy eyes. 

“Where did you get that?” she asked. 

“Mr. Osborn was after it last night. I stopped him from taking it,” I responded, unintendedly not answering the question. 

“Where?” she asked again.

“The D.O.D.C. building. Some vault. I don’t know which one,” I answered, growing hopeful to finally be getting somewhere.

She pulled out the paper I’d noticed from her jacket pocket, and lay it flat on the desk, flattening the multitude of crease marks from her exceptional disorganization.

Though faded, the paper was now in front of me, and it was clear the schematic prototype printed on the sheet was the blueprint from the device I held in my hand. 

After a moment, Ms. Jones reached for it but I quickly pulled away.

I shook my head and bargained, “Give me what I want… then I’ll let you see it.” 

She looked at me, thinking. 

“Our cases are obviously connected,” I said, feeling hopeful, yet pathetic for continuing to try and persuade her, “Why don’t we… I mean— we can help each other,” I suggested, timidly. 

“I’m not taking help from someone I just met. Let alone some kid,” she affirmed, standing up straight.

“But I’m the one with the chip. You’re not,” I said, assuming my leverage.

“You don’t even know what it is,” she said, going back to her computer. 

“But I have it… And it was enough to get your attention, so that means I have to do be doing something right,” I said, stopping to look at her.

Although her attention was away from me again, I knew I wasn’t dismissed this time. I could tell she was intently shuffling through files, and once she found what she was looking for, her attention would turn back to me… or so I hoped. 

She was taking a while, so I spoke up feeling uncomfortable in my footing, “If not a chip, what is it?”

She paused for a mere second to look at me deadpanned, then continued on her screen looking for whatever it was she was looking for. I pictured her desktop to be worse than her apartment/office. 

Annoyed, I took a step closer to the desk to study the schematic blueprint she had laid out a couple minutes earlier. It was marked up and seemed to be a printed copy of something written in pencil. There was information that was redacted, which made the design look messy, and other notes in sloppy, red handwriting were scattered across the page. The only thing I could read was “funded through Virgil Enterprises”. 

Finally acknowledging my presence, she slid the paper back to her side of the desk, and held up a flash drive in her left hand. 

Although the scent still lingered in the air, the recent revelation of potential new information had definitely sobered her up. She looked at me and said, “I’ve been at a dead end for months. My contact at Roxxon is unresponsive, and it’s damn near impossible to make new developments when Osborn is up my ass the way he is… I’m not stupid. I know your game, and for the most part, your rep’ on the street is clean,” she said, thinking.

“Soooo… we’re partners?!” I asked, overly excited. I felt proud that I had a ‘street-rep’.

“No,” she said, impassively, “Our interests are just temporarily aligned.”

“Sounds like a partnership to me,” I said, relief finally dawning on me.

“Don’t get used to it,” she said placing the drive on the desk for me to grab, but as I went for it she covered it quickly, “What’s your plan?”

“My plan?”

“Last time you pulled up unannounced, the police showed up. How are you going to prevent that this time?” she asked. 

“Uhh…” 

“You haven’t thought that far yet,” she said, judging me.

“No I haven’t thought that far yet,” I said quickly, “This superhero gig is harder than it looks,” I said, poorly defending myself. 

She sighed, sliding the drive back to her side of the desk, “I’ll check out the property tonight, see what surveillance we’re dealing with. I’ll contact you after,” she said, opening up a drawer on the side of her desk.

“How will you—” but before I could finish, she tossed me an earpiece. Instantly, I put the canister on the desk and marveled at the earpiece, “I get my own earpiece?” I asked, giddy. 

“Can you at least pretend you’ve done this before?” she asked, tired. 

“Not really, no,” I said, turning around to slightly lift my mask to put it in my right ear. I put my hand to my ear, and said, “Hello? Test one- two,” feeling like I was in a movie. 

“What are you doing?” she asked. 

“Making sure it works,” I said. 

She groaned and ignored me, going back to work observing the device I had left on the desk a couple seconds ago, and was searching, once again, for something on her laptop.

“So… do you know what this thing is?” I asked after the excitement had passed.

“It’s some sort of biological scanner, from what I’ve put together so far,” she said.

“Woah, woah— a scanner?” I asked, confused. 

“Yeah, but— I’m expecting a call and I got a lot to catch you up on and we don’t got much time, so you better be paying attention, kid. So… even though it’s manufactured by Roxxon, most of the funding is through this company Virgil Enterprises,” she said, recalling the name I’d seen on the schematic a couple minutes ago. “Interestingly enough, Virgil is a subsidiary owned by Stromm Technologies,” she said. 

“Wait,” I said recognizing the name, “Stromm. Isn’t that one of the guys who—”

“Helped found Oscorp, exactly. There were a couple other private funders on the project, but one thing remained the same: they all run their money through this offshore company: Apex National Bank, which is where Osborn runs all his finances through… My contact at Roxxon said there were two projects linked to suspicious fundings; I was able to track this one down, but the other one I’m in the dark about. He’s developing it through Roxxon, so it’s easier to keep it off book,” she said, taking a pause to flip her laptop over to show me what she was looking at.

“It’s not just a scanner though, you see? It’s… self-learning, semiautonomous artificial intelligence, too. It scans the subject’s genome for a specific mutation, and then learns to work with the nervous system to send out an artificial current to make up for the lack there of,” she said. “There’s no official patent license on any data base I’ve searched— my best guess is he must be running unregulated human trials on it; whatever it is he’s doing, there’s no trace of it anywhere… all I know, once we figure this out, it’ll make for one hell of an exposé. Even if I’m not the one to write it, as long as we get it out there to expose him,” she said, passionately. Osborn lit a fire in her that enhanced every bit of that dim light in her drunken eyes.

I guess Gwen’s hypothesis was right, it is a power source.

I studied the screen for a while before my eyes landed on something I’d recognized. “Retroviral Hyperdysplasia,” I said, reading the name off the screen.

“That’s the mutation it scans for. But I’ve asked around, there’s no information on it… not online, not in any book I’ve looked in; even the best doctors I’ve talked to— nothing,” she said with a sigh. 

I thought back to the NDA Gwen told me about, and how Norman and the Mayor’s Office wanted to prevent the news of the Osborn plague going around, and was shocked, not by the news being kept under wraps, but by the fact that this disease was so infinitely rare that it’s only recorded existence in history belonged to the Osborn family. I remember wondering how it even came to be.

“It’s what his wife is sick with,” I revealed to her. “It depletes— or rather, destroys, I think— your body’s energy to the point where it’s no longer able to convert resources like food and water into energy, which is why it needs that artificial current; it acts like… a portable life support,” I said, copying Gwen’s words.

“How do you know that?” she asked. 

“When I was snooping around his computer… when I got the file,” I falsely clarified, “I saw some information on it,” I quickly lied, wanting to leave Gwen’s involvement completely away from this conversation; she believed it.  

Before she could continue the conversation, her phone buzzed on the desk; an ‘unknown caller’ tag popping up on her cracked screen. “I gotta head out for a bit, kid,” she said, putting the phone to her ear, “I’ll check out the place tonight, be ready when I call you,” she said. 

“O…kay,” I tried to say, but she was already on her way out the door. 

I took back the canister that was left on her desk, and headed back outside the dingy apartment, making sure to close the window behind me. I decided I’d hang with Gwen for the rest of the day and fill her in. 

Chapter Text

04 January 2016

9:57 PM

My Apartment, Chinatown, Manhattan

It’d hit me on the way over to Gwen’s that the device I was carrying scanned for Retroviral Hyperdysplasia. If it was reacting with me, that would’ve meant that I was still sick, and that I was sick with the seemingly incurable Osborn plague. I remember wondering if that’s what my aunt was sick with too, the doctors never did find out.

I don’t feel sick, I remember thinking, I feel better than ever, actually. 

Despite knowing the effects it has on the body, this disease was beginning to become an incredible mystery to me. It was turning into an itch I desperately needed to scratch as it was somehow linking me to Emily and the Osborn family. Also, the possibility of me still being sick low-key freaked me out, but there was too much going on at the time, so I forced myself to subdue that feeling of eeriness and panic.

I had just got home, and my mom was asleep already. She’d left a note on the fridge letting me know there were leftovers in there. The thought of her making dinner for the both of us, and me leaving her to eat it alone made me feel awful.

I had the thought of asking her about my aunt, so I could learn more about the disease, but I quickly tossed that idea as I would’ve just been using her time to benefit me and my case; not to actually bond with her— not to make sure she was okay.

I’d never asked her how losing her sister affected her or how she was doing after not speaking to some of her siblings for over five years. What the hell was wrong with me? The pure agony was enough to completely ruin my already starving appetite, so I sat at our lonely kitchen table for a couple minutes, sulking to myself, wishing I could go back to before any of this started happening.

After a while, I remembered the old cajon my mom would keep full of old medical bills, records, our personal documents and just stuff related to the family like pictures and whatnot in her room. 

She always used to leave the door open a crack just in case Appa wanted to go in and out whenever he pleased throughout the night, so I lightly pushed the door just a little further open so I could fit through hoping that it wouldn’t squeak. It was dark, so I couldn’t really see what I was looking at, but I pulled the cajon open and took everything that was in there and headed back to the sala to investigate whatever it was that I grabbed; Appa followed me on the way out.

I sat on the floor with the lamp facing me, and spread everything out into organized piles, so I wouldn’t get lost in the mess. Out in front of me, were old pictures— one of my mom with her late sister the summer before she got sick was on top. To the right were the medical bills and records and to the left I put the personal documents making a note to myself to not get those mixed up with other things.

I reached to the right to look through the records and bills first, and on top were the ones relating to my treatment last year. My heart dropped once I saw the outstanding balance we still owed. In big, bold print at the bottom of the page it listed a debt of over $35,000. 

I remember frantically flipping through the rest of the pile hoping to learn that the debt somehow got settled, but instead, I learned my mom was also still paying off the loan she got to pay off her sister’s medical treatment as well. I remember being so angry with my already estranged uncles for not helping her out with that. Was my aunt not their sister too?

And I guess I was so caught up learning all this new information that I hadn’t realized how much noise I was making flipping through all these pages; I had woke my mom up, and she had came to join me in the living room.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Oh— sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up,” I said, trying to make order of the mess I’d made, “I was just looking through old stuff…”

“Did you eat? I left food in the fridge,” she said.

“Yeah, thank you, it was really good,” I said, lying, “Mami, why didn’t you tell me that we’re in debt? Especially over my treatment,” I said, being too impatient to ask her about this later.

“You’re not the parent, mijo,” she said, sitting down on the couch in front of me, Appa, joining her on her lap.

“That doesn’t matter, mami! Thirty-five thousand?! Just on me. And then my tia’s loan you’re still paying off, I mean— do my tio’s even know about that?” I asked.

“Your Tio Ricardo me ayuda de vez en cuando,” she said, acting as if it was normal.

“That’s it?!” I asked, “Out of your six brothers, one helps you out?” I asked in disbelief. 

She gave me a look that told me that this was the way things were, and that we couldn’t change them whether we wanted to or not.

“Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve— I could— Does Belly know?” I asked.

“About your treatment, yeah. She was helping me pay some of it before she left for school,” she said.

“How is she even paying for that?!” I asked, speaking emotionally, mainly with my hands. “I mean,  seriously, how could we even afford that right now?”

“She got a scholarship, the school’s paying for everything— I told her to go,” she said. 

Slight relief washed over me for only a moment before I started again, “But still, I could’ve got a job or… quit baseball— something, I don’t know. I know that’s a lot of money…” I said, feeling really anxious. 

“You’re not the parent, mijo,” she repeated, this time, with a breath over the last word, “If I say I can afford it, I can afford it,” she said, her heart unknowingly skipping over the last sentence. I felt guilty. 

While I sat there, taking all that additional stress in, she seemed to notice the pile of family photos I’d left out in front of me.

“Is that—” she said, reaching down to pick up the top photo of her and her sister.

“You and my Tia Lorena, yeah. When we took her to Coney Island that one time,” I said, smiling at the memory, missing that time.

“I hate that she got sick,” she said, “It was so scary… that’s why when you got sick, I got so scared because I didn’t want you having what she had,” she finished, still looking at the photo.

I looked up at her, wanting to ask more, to learn more, but also not wanting to push for information when I’d already woken her up at such a late time and when this was the first real conversation I’d had with my mom in a long time.

“What did she have?” I asked, feeling like a complete asshole, but I also knew that if I, by chance, happened to have what my aunt did, I needed to learn more if I wanted to catch up to whatever it was Norman was doing. 

“I don’t know, the doctor’s didn’t know either,” she said. 

“But she had… hypokalemia though, right?” I asked, remembering the term Gwen had mentioned earlier that day.

“Mhm,” she nodded, “…so did you, that’s why I thought you were getting what she had… it’s not new in our family, for us to get it. But, you were the first kid from the new generation…” she said, unknowingly connecting a couple dots but creating a million more to connect. 

“What?” was all I could muster up, fearing I might have imagined her response.

“Our family… my brothers and me, when we were little, very little… every one of us got it… not as bad as your tia, but we all got sick from it at some time,” she said.

“Do you know why?” I asked.

“No se, no,” she said, shaking her head. “Your grandpa tried taking us to the doctor, but they didn’t know either… people in the rancho used to make up pendejadas like maybe it was brujería or something, but— your grandma used to say that she used to think it came from being bit my some spider when she was pregnant with your Tio Ricardo… she got sick right after being bit, with eso… hypokalemia,” she said, pausing to make sure she pronounced it right, “…but she got better, then Ricardo was born, and he got sick, but then better. Then me, and yeah...”

“Did you say spider?” I said, my jaw almost hitting the floor.

“Yeah, I remember when I was little, like little little maybe five or six… just before we moved here, that some American scientists came and set up tents everywhere around the rancho, it was weird, but they said they were collecting all the spiders and moving them somewhere else… they were dangerous, apparently.”

The dominoes were cascading in a line, so I decided to push on, “Do you know who the scientists were?” I asked, feeling like I already knew the answer.

“No, I was little… I was just happy they were moving the spiders… why?” she asked, looking really sleepy.

“Nothing, I just can’t believe I’ve never heard this story before,” I said.

“People would always say your abuela was crazy for her theories. Your grandpa said she needed to stop telling people that story, so she did,” she said as she yawned, “…Ya me voy a costar… I have to wake up in like four hours,” she said.

As she got up to walk away, even though we spoke on mainly grim things, I was reminded how much I missed my mom. 

I’ve never really brought it up to you, Miles, but I’ve never had my dad around. He walked out when I was a toddler. I’ve seen him a couple times in my life, but I don’t even remember what he looks like anymore. Point is that I’ve always been real attached to my mom, and in order for me to deal with pushing her away at this time in my life, I had to keep myself distracted with other things all the time. Only when I slowed down, like on this particular January night, did I realize how big of a gap her absence left. 

As she was about to turn the corner, into the hallway that led to her room, I called out to her, “Mami?” 

“Mm?” she hummed. 

“I’m— I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting… with you and Belly,” I said, ashamed.

“‘Ta bien, mijo,” she said, walking back towards me, so I stood up. 

“Me and Bella have talked about it… we’ve both just been waiting for you to come talk to us about it, whatever it is… si necesitas algo, solo nos avisas… entiendes?” she affirmed. 

“Sí, mami,” I said, nodding, looking down.

“I love you, Allen, mijo,” she said.

“I love you too, mami,” I said, smiling fighting a flood of tears, “Que duermes con los angelitos, drive safely to work, okay?”

“Tú también, and I will,” she said as she kissed me on the forehead.

As she laid back in bed, I heard the worn bed frame slightly creak. I remember hearing Appa’s little gallop onto the mattress to join her. I looked around at the mess of papers I’d made on the floor. The day’s events beat me, and I couldn’t find it in myself to clean up the mess I’d made that second, so I sat on the couch, and turned on the TV and put on the late night reruns of my favorite shows from when I was small; I told myself I’d get up after an episode (I didn’t).

I spent my last few waking moments of that day reminiscing on a worriless age longing for time to go backwards. At 14, I had started my tab of regrets that I’d take years upon years to let go of; being so honest, I can’t so surely say I’ve cleared my tab yet. 

Chapter Text

05 January 2016 

2:03 AM

Finally, I was having a dreamless night. No haunting images, no ghosts from my past, no guilt tripping manifestations that had me screaming myself awake; it was just… quiet. I didn’t know if I liked quiet. This type of quiet was empty, but I guess I preferred that. Compared to what I’d been experiencing, this type of quiet, this emptiness was peaceful. Nothing was better than hurting, at least that’s how I saw it back then. 

After a while, however, I remember being able to hear a whisper somewhere far, far away, “Hey kid, you awake?” I heard in the back of my mind, mid-sleep.

A few seconds passed by, peaceful silence came back to me. 

A couple more seconds and again, “Kid,” a female voice said, this time however, it was more aggressive, but still in a whisper, “You awake?”

“What?” I said, trying to hold onto sleep.

“Were you asleep?” the woman asked, her muffled voice was coming from my pocket. It was Jessica.

I reached in my pocket for the earpiece she had given me, and placed it my ear, “Well yeah,” I said, yawning, looking over at the stove to check the time, “It’s 2:03 in the morning… you weren’t?” I asked. 

“I said I’d stop by the professors,” she said, “lesser chance to be seen after nightfall.” 

“Yeah but at two in the morning?” I said, sitting up straight, waking myself up.

“Do you wanna hear what I found or not?” she asked, polite as ever. 

“Yes, yes,” I said, already missing that peaceful quietness I had just seconds ago, “What did you find, Ms. Jones?” I said, sighing. Anytime I talked to her I felt defeated. It was always an uphill trek, even just one conversation made me feel like I’d just ran a marathon, and I’m superhuman.

She continued, “First off, I don’t think it’s just the police surveilling him… they have to be working with Sable or they’re at least using their tech,” she said, pondering.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Their insignia’s all over the tech… the installation was pretty half-assed in some parts, but they’re packing some serious shit: a couple CCTV’s, some well planted mic’s… there’s even a sensor that can read vocal frequencies,” she said, talking extremely quietly. It sounded like she was constantly looking over her shoulder, maybe she was. 

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It means that they’re taking precautions, just in case certain people of interest stop by unannounced,” she said.

“What does that mean?” I asked, again, feeling insecure at the amount of questions swirling around in my head.

“Even if we evade the cameras, if we speak, the whole mission would be compromised- it’s too risky,” she clarified.

Anxiety began to crawl its way up my spine and give me goosebumps all over; not that it ever left. I was waiting for her to bring up what I was thinking: if they can hear us, wouldn’t they know Ms. Jones was helping me out? That they know about the flash drive? That Norman was aware of the whole thing? 

“And the professor,” I said, trying to sound as composed as she was, “He was just… okay?” I asked, worried. 

“Yes?” she said, confusion clearly present in her voice, “He was asleep, why?”

“Just curious— I was worried the cops might’ve done something to him,” I said, quickly, choosing to keep my skepticism to myself. 

“We’re gonna need someone else to talk to the professor for us,” she said, getting back to business. 

“What why?” I asked. 

“Seriously, kid? Are you even listening to anything I’m saying?” she said, sternly whispering.

“Sorry,” I said, quietly, “I am,” I said, once again, defeated. I wasn’t aware that it was that obvious. 

“Okay then, why?,” she hastily asked. I can tell from her tone that she was pretty annoyed, which annoyed me. 

I blankly stared at the living room wall feeling pressured to get this right, “Osborn is tracking your movements, it’s safe to say he has your vocal pattern tracked too. And I set off the alarm… it’s hard to say if they were tracking me before then, they coulda just seen me on the cameras, but there’s too much on the line to risk it, which is why we need someone else to deliver the encryption key for us,” I finished. 

“Good job, kid,” she said, the annoyance dissipating in her tone. I couldn’t explain why her glamorous stamp of approval made me feel good, “Do you have anyone we can trust?” she asked. 

Immediately thinking of Gwen, my heart dropped into the pit of my stomach, “Don’t you?” I asked, deflecting. 

“Norman caught me once, already,” she said, “he knows everyone I trust. It has to be someone on your end.” 

I said nothing. I couldn’t help but feeling this was the universe’s way of taunting me for not letting go of Gwen and breaking a sacred promise. 

“Are you sure there’s no other way?” I asked.

“Unless you have any other ideas,” she said, “it’s too risky to try anything else.” 

I slammed my back onto the couch once more, staring up at the ceiling. I cursed myself into oblivion regretting keeping Gwen by my side up ’til this point. How could I be so stupid? I thought. It was wishful thinking. Thinking that these last few days with her were going to pass by easily— well, as easy as it could have been. I pondered back and forth wondering what she’d say if she were here now. I knew she would say yes. Then she’d say yes again. And then a couple more times just to show how down she was. And at the end of the day, it was her decision to make. But I knew that decision already, and I knew it would put her in danger. I also knew how important this mission was. After January 7th, and after I’ve forcibly said goodbye to Gwen, Norman and the city and the corruption that plagues it, it would all still be here. Learning from Ms. Jones’ experience and past mistakes, I knew the opportunity we had in front of us was one we would not get back for a lengthy period of time if we didn’t act immediately.

She would want to help I reasoned, as hairs stood up on the back of my neck. 

I sat up to meet a healthy looking Mr. Stacy sitting at the other end of the couch. He looked over at me. The desperation in his eyes, Miles, was indescribable. It made me feel small and ashamed for even considering it. His presence typically felt haunting, wicked, and hostile, but right now, it was soft, sad, and hurt like he’d been betrayed.

“I’m sorry,” I said aloud. 

Hostility crept into his eyes, as he shifted back into his bloodied, disfigured form. I wasn’t scared this time, however. I simply felt ashamed for turning my back on a man’s dying wish. 

“What was that?” Ms. Jones asked.

“Nothing,” I said, closing my eyes, tears were streaming down my face by this time, my eyes burning, trying to keep them all in; it wasn’t working. “There’s one person. She could talk to him for us,” I confessed, opening my eyes, Mr. Stacy was gone.

I heard Ms. Jones begin to ask a series of questions, but I wasn’t understanding what she was saying. Acknowledging that I’d never taken his promise seriously from the beginning, the mere realization that I’d officially turned my back on it, and completely thrown it out of consideration was incredulous. He was finally gone. I somehow knew that from this moment forward, he would be leaving me alone. But I wasn’t relieved. He’d given up on me. Whatever he was, if he was actually Mr. Stacy’s soul checking up on me or if it was a meager (severely meager) guilt trip I’d unconsciously put on myself, I knew I’d let him down. I couldn’t help but feeling like I was the worst person in the world.

“Kid,” I heard Jessica say, “You still with me?”

I wiped the tears from my face, “Yeah, yeah, sorry,” I said, “What’s up?”

“Who is ‘she’?” she asked, referring to Gwen.

“Before any of that,” I said, prefacing, “You need to promise me that you won’t let her get hurt,” I demanded.

“Aw-ww,” she said, mockingly whisper-laughing at me, “You afraid your little girlfriend’s gonna get hurt?” she asked. 

“I’m serious!” I said, loudly. Appa’s soft bark from my mom’s room brought me back into my own head. I proceeded, this time, in a much quieter tone, “I cannot, you hear me? Cannot afford for something to happen to this girl, alright? You have to promise- no. Swear it. You have to swear to me that you’ll help me protect her. Even if something happens to me, you have to swear that you’ll get her to safety,” I said. By this time I’d begun pacing back and forth in front of the TV.

“And the mission? Is that not more important?” she asked.

“Swear it!” I demanded, as the TV went to commercials, my voice echoed through the small apartment in the new-found silence. It made me shudder.

“Yes, kid,” she said, “I’ll protect your girlfriend,” she was mocking me, but I could tell she was serious. “Now who’s the chick?” she asked. 

But I hesitated before disclosing such delicate information, “Ms. Jones?” I asked, hesitantly. 

She hummed, giving me the mic.

“Wouldn’t this be a dead giveaway to who I am?” I asked, “If you know who my girlfriend is, finding out who I am is the next step. You’re a P.I., finding people is literally what you do. I doubt you’d be able to turn a blind eye,” I said.

“I guess that’s a risk you’d have to be willing to take,” she said, “do you trust me?” she asked.

“Honestly,” I said, pausing, bracing for her reaction, “No. I don’t.” The truth was she scared me, and I think she knew that.

“And I don’t really trust you, but now, you’re the only person conspiring with me against the mayor,” she said, “Leap of faith, kid… I took one on you, now it’s your turn to close the gap.”

“Why do ya have to say ‘conspiring against the mayor’?” I said, defensively, “Makes it seem like we’re committing some federal offense,” I said, cracking my fingers. Now I was the one looking over my shoulder. 

“You’re a once-wanted fugitive-vigilante and I’m a disgraced reporter who was fired and tried for alleged defamation against the genius, billionaire asshole we get to call Mayor of New York City,” she said quickly, with an emphasis on one particular word. “This is illegal,” she finished, deadpanned.

“You’re not selling yourself that well,” I said, nervously, wishing I’d never brought up Gwen in the first place.

“Why lie?” she asked, “You jumping or not?”

I thought for a second, pacing faster and faster, my mind was spinning. After a horrible moment, I stopped, dead in my tracks, before plunging to my doom, “Her name’s Gwen Stacy,” I said, finally sitting down.

She thought for a second, “Stacy… isn’t that the name of that police captain who- shit, kid,” she stopped, catching herself, “I saw the media coverage… is she his daughter?” she asked. Her deduction skills took me off guard, though I don’t know why coming from a P.I. and a former investigative journalist, or maybe it was just a lucky guess. 

I didn’t say anything, which gave her confirmation.

“I swear,” she said.

“What?” I said, sniffling. I hadn’t realized I’d started crying again.

“I swear— that, no matter what happens…” she paused, maybe regretting her choice of words, “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe,” she said, empathizing with a teenage girl with a recently dead dad. “As long as it doesn’t kill me,” she finished, trying to lighten the mood, but it didn’t work. 

Again, pure static on my end.

“Osborn’s attending a charity event tomorrow afternoon,” she said, reverting to her strong suit— strictly business, “That’s the best time to rendezvous with Dean,” she stated.

“Okay,” I said. “Where do we meet you?”

“Sixteen Oaks Grove. It’s a couple blocks out from the house,” she said quickly, like she already had it all mapped out. “2:00 PM. Do not be late, I’ll let the professor know we’re stopping by,” she said. 

“How?” I asked, but the line had already cut off. 

And while she was off, doing God-knows-what to contact the sleeping professor, I was left alone with my thoughts regretting every word I uttered here tonight. I felt horrible. Excruciatingly, painfully, unimaginatively, and every other type of adverb to describe the unfathomable feeling of guilt I was experiencing. It was such a heavy feeling, yet to be honest, I felt nothing; I felt empty. But unlike the peaceful emptiness that got stripped from me early that night, this emptiness was numbing and heavy as if it would sink me all the way down to a place I’d never been to before. 

I didn’t want to imagine life in a world without Gwen Stacy. Even if she wasn’t part of my life, knowing that she was out there, walking in the wind, gracing Europe with her exceptional perfections, that was enough to keep me going. 

She’s going to be okay I told myself. She has to. 

I repeated these words ’til I fell asleep. 

I was saddened and also relieved to find that silence came back to me once I shut my eyes. I floated around in a hollow, black abyss for a couple hours ’til I woke to Appa licking my hand in the morning letting me know he had to go potty.

Mr. Stacy was gone, and I didn’t know how to feel about it yet.

Chapter Text

05 January 2016

9:15 AM

Ted’s Internet Cafe, Upper East Side, Manhattan 

She’s going to be okay.

She has to.

She’s going to be okay.

She has to.

Those eight words ran through my mind even after I woke up. For the better part of my morning, I kept repeating them until I felt I was going mad. I’d filled Gwen in about everything that was said last night over a phone call, and like expected, she agreed wholeheartedly. Again, no Mr. Stacy.

Gwen told me to not worry about it, as if it was that simple. I had around five hours until I met up with Ms. Jones, so instead of sulking about my very-much-still-alive girlfriend, I decided to try and listen to Gwen and let myself be convinced by my repetition from the night prior. I forced my thoughts to shift to the conversation I’d had with my mom last night, which wasn’t much better as far as putting me at ease goes. Worries about Mr. Stacy and if or if not I would be the cause of losing Gwen and whether the police or Mr. Osborn were aware of what we were trying to do just got traded for other worries about my aunt, a five-figure debt, and why me and Emily Osborn were connected via a sickness that turned her into a massacring zombie. 

I sat a corner PC at an old internet cafe towards the south end of the Upper East Side, when I pulled out a half-filled notebook from my backpack where I’d jotted down some of the things I remembered from last night:

• A spider bit my grandma
• Hypokalemia common in family
• American scientists in Mexico
• Spiders were dangerous

      maybe: sick with Retroviral Hyperdysplasia?? (hopefully not)

The world’s been weird lately. A city falling out of the sky in Europe. A giant tank keychain crashing through the 13th floor of a building in San Francisco. A lizard trying to take over New York City. I figured tensions must be high and that it wouldn’t be out of the question for the governments of the world to be surveilling its peoples more closely. I used to watch this show with my mom and sister where the government was continuously searching the web for keywords and reasoned that it wasn’t impossible for Mr. Osborn to do something like that too, even if it was just a television show.

My mom used to bring my sister to Ted’s to do her homework before we got a laptop of our own. I just liked it because I got to play Coolmath Games on the computers. I’d come here because I was afraid of being tracked. I even left my phone and the device I’d stolen from Mr. Osborn at home in case trouble showed up.

I started with searching for the disease Mrs. Osborn was sick with. Following suit with what Ms. Jones had told me, nothing came up. Across the screen read: ‘Your search — Retroviral Hyperdysplasia — did not match any documents.’

I switched gears and focused on the American scientists that had visited my mom’s rancho to extract the arachnid specimens. I searched: ‘American scientists extract spiders Jalisco 1975’. Nothing obvious came up, which I expected. An article written in spanish was all I could find. It was on some old Mexican news outlet’s website that I didn’t really recognize, and the format of the website was outdated and plain. The date under the link said it was from 1991. 

It described a business deal that had gone south between an American start up and the Mexican government over a newly discovered class of spiders. Mexican authorities were trying to reacquire the specimens as they claimed they were indigenous to the western state of Jalisco and were endangered. The American start up claimed they were a danger to the natives, and had to be contained until they no longer posed a “threat to humanity” or from becoming an invasive species to a pre-established ecosystem. The problem ended up being resolved in a court trial where the governing body sued the newly founded company over a property dispute claim to the spiders.

At this next part, my eyes bolted to the next line in excitement over a discovery and recognition. I had to remind myself to read one line at a time. In Mexico v. Virgil-Stromm (1991), the winning party was the Mexican government who immediately regained possession of its “assets”. The losing party was Virgil-Stromm, the American start up focused on bio-technology and chemical manufacturing.

I’d recognized both names. Virgil for Virgil Enterprises, a name Ms. Jones had given me on the schematic of the scanner I’d stolen. And Stromm for Mendel Stromm, a founder of Oscorp.

I wrote down the information so quickly as if it would vanish before my eyes. 

Just as quickly, I researched the Stromm Technologies’ subsidiary Virgil Enterprises. Other than being founded by Amberson Osborn, Norman Virgil Osborn’s father, minimal stuff came up; it had gone out of business over twenty years ago, which confused me more. It was bought off by Stromm some time in the early 90’s and after that went dormant. I wondered if there was some kinda merger between the two then remembered how Ms. Jones claimed they were behind the funding of one of Osborn’s projects, only thing: Mr. Osborn’s father passed some time in the early 2000’s. 

Nothing seemed to be adding up. I successfully confirmed my suspicion over Mr. Osborn having connection to the American scientists that established camp at my mom’s childhood home, but other than that I didn’t discover anything new. I wondered if the spider that bit me was the kind of spider they had a dispute over, then realized it wouldn’t have been possible if the rest were in possession by the Mexican government, who never released the specimens back into the wild, according to the court document.

A threat to humanity I wrote down, remembering that my grandma had gotten bit by one of these threats. But why? I remembered what Gwen said about Retroviral Hyperdysplasia, but didn’t want to tie the knot on what seemed like two so separately disconnected dots. Could the spider bite have caused a generational plague to curse both our families? Was I sick in the way Emily was?

Before I began drowning in my own worries, I decided to research the start up company that Norman’s father and Mendel Stromm started. During their undergrad at Empire State University, they worked on a project together where they were tasked with displaying their shared innovative vision for the medical industry to ESU’s College of Medicine and Natural Sciences’ board members and potential sponsors and donors. They realized how aligned their visions were and decided to pursue them together. Their joint venture barely got off the ground after being sued by the Mexican government. They went their own ways, however, and managed to become successful businessmen. They finally came back together once Norman Osborn came into the picture, when Stromm became Norman’s professor at his time at ESU. However, in an old photograph, I discovered there was a third person involved when they went on their Mexican exhibition. A partner they constantly associated themselves with: Spencer Smythe, a Harvard Med School alumni who specialized in biophysics and genetics. 

Smythe I thought. I recognized the name. Though I couldn’t remember from exactly where. 

As I sat in the now busy internet cafe surrounded by kids who came in to play games like Call of Duty: Black Ops III and Halo 5, I tried to remember where I’d heard the name. I researched the man, but nothing significant came up. 

Smythe I told myself, hoping something would come to me, but nothing did. And then suddenly, the hairs on my arm began to raise, and a stinging ache burned the back of my head. Someone was coming. Although nervous about the oncoming threat, especially since I was in normal clothing, odd satisfaction somehow soothed me knowing I was barking up the right tree. I quickly packed my stuff up and closed the browser, and headed out of the cafe.

I had just turned the corner when I heard two silver Chevy Tahoe’s racing down the street I’d just come from. My heart sank before realizing they had no idea who I was under the mask, so I kept walking trying to keep my composure. I turned the corner into an alley where I was out of sight and slipped on my mask, which I kept in my inner jacket pocket; the rest of the suit was in my backpack and I figured I didn’t have time to change. I scrawled up the wall onto the roof and made my way back to the cafe, where as expected the two trucks had parked in front of, blocking traffic. 

Car horns filled the air, not that that was uncommon in New York. It was just more prominent and constant right now. It calmed down after a second when cars started filing into the other lane, which was starting to get backed up. 

By carefully peeping my head over the side of the building, I saw a woman dressed in silver step out of the first vehicle. It was Silver Sable, Norman’s personal bodyguard. Her agents filed out of both trucks after her waiting for her command, “Wait here,” she declared, in a Symkarian accent, “I’ll look for the source,” she said. 

Hairs on the back of my neck rose, as she looked up, somehow feeling a watchful presence. I luckily pulled my head back just in time, as I dropped my backpack and changed into the suit. Now freezing in the bitingly crisp winter morning, I tightened the straps on my backpack in case I had to flee the scene. I listened in to the cafe down below to monitor her movements, but was met with nothing. Just the clicking of keys and the disgruntled groans of teenage boys losing at their games, it was mainly a load of cursing or cheering, nothing more. Her guards were still at watch outside, but where was she?

As I crouched down near the edge of the roof, still out of sight, I listened in more closely, completely disregarding the need to watch my back. My head began to sting and before I could react I was slammed onto the ground by what seemed like nothing. I heard the sound of an electric buzz as two invisible electric pistols were pointed straight at me. And that’s when she revealed herself, materializing out of thin air. 

“What is your business with Osborn?” she asked, her accent heavy. Picture a Romanian accent with hints of Serbian influence, at least that’s what I think a mix of the two would sound like. 

Up close, I was able to examine all her features. She was tall and muscular with a jawline as sharp as her accent. The sunlight seemed to glisten off her snow white skin and her eyes were a sort of winter grey that matched her hair, and her name. I’d heard all about her from Harry: she was fierce and strong willed, but he called her crazed and boundless. I think he was just scared of her, which I was now. 

“Nice to finally meet you,” I said groaning, trying to hide my fear, “I’m Spider-Man,” I said.

“Where is it?” she asked, not moving. I was still as can be, my backpack below me, making my position horribly uncomfortable. 

“Where’s what?” I asked, trying to shift to a more comforting position.

She brought her guns closer. “The scanner you stole from Osborn,” she said. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I said, feeling horrified for being pointed at, but proud for finally having an upper hand, “What does he need it for?”

“Get up,” she demanded. I gladly complied, her weapons, still pointed firmly at my skull. 

“Do not move,” she demanded, her tone, cold like her eyes. As she inched around me, my guess to investigate my backpack, I sensed her agents coming up the stairwell, the same way she’d gotten up to the roof. I didn’t know how I knew that, it was like the vibrations from their footsteps down below met my feet from up above; they were only two stories away from surrounding me at gunpoint. 

I needed to get out of there.

With her now behind me, I waited for her to lower one of her pistols to open my backpack, but to no prevail. She continued her roundabout until she was in front of me again, “Open the bag,” she demanded. 

One story away. 

I took off the bag and held it in front of me. With her gaze not leaving me, I looked down at the bag to unzip it, as I became increasingly aware of the agents nearing the roof. I lunged at her, bag first, as she shot her pair of silver pistols at me, a couple of short, red laser bullets penetrated my backpack as I leaped to the side, taking my backpack with me. She’d burned a hole straight through, leaving burn marks on the pavement on the roof from where they landed. As she fired at me again, I flipped out of the way, shooting a couple webs at her, which she dodged.

As she quickly gathered herself, I took it as my opportunity to web up the door to block the agents from exiting onto the roof. I heard a couple of metallic bangs up against the door as they pushed to get through to help their commander-in-chief. 

I shot a web at a neighboring building to make my escape, but she cut the web-line with a red laser bullet. I was horrified yet immensely impressed by her aim.

She let out a Symkarian battle cry as she charged at me, shooting more lasers my way. I flipped to the side, thankfully unscathed, as I shot a web at a ventilator behind her. I pulled myself towards her to try and tackle her, but she rolled under me. I caught myself just before I hit the ventilator and flipped backwards to face her, once again. But she beat me, and as my feet planted firmly on the ground an electric trap rope tied around my limbs making me collapse on my knees in front of her.

The rope stung and burned my arms through the already worn out fabric my suit was made of, and made my vision go in and out. I looked down at the rope through a blurred vision. The rope was silver, as all her equipment was, but was ignited by a crimson bolt of electricity. The two ends of the rope were black magnetic spheres that seemed to attract one another, which made it impossible to break free. 

As I pushed and groaned, I barely moved. She walked towards the webbed up door, and shot off the blockage, letting her agents through; they surrounded me. As she walked towards me, through the swarm of Sable agents, she placed her pistols in the holsters by her thighs. I began to panic, then realized the burning from the rope had stopped. In fact, it was never there to begin with. The heat I felt was the same rush of power that filled my body a couple nights ago when I blew up the D.O.D.C.’s power supply. I was absorbing whatever energy the rope was giving off. And just like the device Silver Sable and Mr. Osborn were after, the device that *I* had, it was like giving an already full battery an extra, powerful charge.

As she inched closer, she halted, as sprits of blue bolts began to escape my fingertips. My heart felt full and fast, and my blood felt hot. I was dizzy, yet completely oriented. As the crimson light from the rope began to fade, she reached down for her guns, as I let my shoulders fold inward and shut my eyes.

She let out another cry, as I broke through the rope causing an explosion of blue light on the roof. All the agents and Sable went tumbling backwards, and I hoped none of them would fall off the roof. Now, on my hands and knees, I felt out of breath and like I was descending from the highest of highs. 

As clarity reached me, I got up onto my feet, as did Sable. Her bearings, however, were well off center, allowing me to make my escape. I took the long way home that day hoping I wouldn’t be tracked. 

12:17 PM

Gwen’s House, Forest Hills, Queens 

I’d arrived at Gwen’s with about an hour or two to spare before we had to meet Ms. Jones at the park. After catching her up to speed with everything that happened that morning, all she had to say was, “Don’t you think it’s a bit weird?” as she packed up the rest off the stuff in one of her drawers. 

“Which part?” I asked, agreeing, but being entirely confused by what she meant, “The killer spiders or the fact Osborn’s dad got sued by Mexico?”

“No,” she said, extending the word just a tad, “he’s been sending Emily on all these missions… why’s today different? Why Sable?”

“Maybe ‘cause she’s an elite-class merc who could’ve easily blasted my head off if she didn’t need me alive,” I said. 

“No,” she repeated, fully certain that she was right. “Mr. Osborn’s contract with Sable is public information. He took a big risk sending her out into the field today,” she said, thinking.

I knew she was right. I guess I was just so fried from all the information I’d taken in earlier that I hadn’t sat down and processed it.

“Maybe we were right,” I said after a moment, making her head perk up. “Maybe you did damage it,” I said, looking down at the white device that was still in its canister, “Ms. Jones told me it was some sort of scanner that learns to work with the nervous system. Nervous system includes the brain, right?” 

She nodded.

“And we don’t know whether the truck of shipment ever made it to Osborn or not,” I said, almost finishing. “The cops are still looking for it.”

“There’s a chance we just… incapacitated her,” she said, less certain than she was a moment ago.

“And she was shot a couple nights ago, too,” I added, immediately feeling nauseous at the memory.

“So does that mean that…” she said, slowly, I’d never seen her that confused before, “that we won?” she said, looking small. “This doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would feel,” she finished, slumping her shoulders. A look of remorse washed over her features. She looked so fragile.

“It doesn’t feel good because we might’ve just killed our friend’s mom,” I said, a wave of goosebumps shot up my back taking in that very real possibility. “Are we bad people?” I asked to no one in particular. I pushed my legs up to my chest, pushing my back further into the wall I was sat up against.

“But she’s not Harry’s mom anymore, Allen,” she said, now playing defense. Anybody could tell she was torn. “I saw her brain scans. There was nothing to save… Dr. Connors said it himself,” she gulped. “I remember he asked me ‘is a shell of a human still a human?’” She looked as if she was just now debating on it. 

“I don’t know,” I whispered. I don’t know if she heard. 

In the silence, flashes of the battle came back to me in a blur. Remembering what Emily did to those guards made me feel cold and anxious and sick. In that moment, all the guilt I was feeling immediately vanished. I wondered how their families took the news. 

“No,” I said.

“You don’t think so?”

“Emily isn’t,” I said, hesitating at her name. “She killed five guards the other night. Guards with families. I’ll apologize to Harry if I have to, but she isn’t dead, no way she is. So, let’s stop talking about her like she is,” I said, my conscience, for once, guilt-free. I guess it’s easy when you associate bloody murder with somebody. 

“None of it changes what Mr. Osborn is doing,” I said, trying to move on.

She sealed off the last box she was packing and joined me on the floor, “This is… a lot,” she sighed.

“I know. You finished packing pretty quickly,” I said, looking at the piles of boxes, each neatly labeled. I also just wanted to lighten the mood. 

“You know that’s not what I meant, Allen,” she said, sorrow and relief both present in her tone.

“Yeah, I know,” I said, taking her hand in mine. “This is way more than either of us signed up for.”

"I just wanted to avenge my dad,” she said, a little teary eyed.

“I know,” I said, feeling sorry, waiting for Mr. Stacy to show up. He didn’t. “But we-” I said, stopping to correct myself, “I can’t just walk away anymore. Nobody knows about any of it except us… what kinda person would I be if I just walked away?” 

A couple nights ago, I might’ve disagreed. A couple nights ago, the D.O.D.C.’s guard Mr. Stone had me thinking that the whole point I was doing any of this was because of Gwen. But Ms. Jones changed my perspective. Well rather, the information she (and the professor) provided me with changed the way I saw things. From my new perspective, I still saw Gwen as my priority. If things went south, I’d abandon it all to keep her safe. But before all this, honestly, I was preparing to hang up the web shooters for good once we said goodbye. 

Ignorance is bliss, or at least that’s how the saying goes. Bad things happen when people turn a blind eye. Mr. Stone did it. Politicians do it, so do cops and the press. I wondered if Mr. Stacy did it, as well. Either way, I didn’t want that to be me. It was a complicated feeling. Not a proud one because it wasn’t a responsibility I was taking on for the sake of the greater good. You’ve heard the phenomenon on how guilt and generosity are connected, right, Miles? And at this point in time, I, perhaps, had about as guilty conscience as anyone. Guilt was my north star; Obligation was my compass. I felt obligated to help; it was my duty. 

“It’s not your job,” she said, cupping my cheek with one hand, echoing the same words she’d told me months ago about the Lizard.

“I think that’s exactly the point. Nobody stands up to him because they have a job they need to keep to feed their families,” I said, remembering the D.O.D.C. guard. “I’m just a kid in spandex. What’s the worst he can do to me?” 

She sighed for a quick second, but I somehow knew it was a sigh of agreement, or acceptance maybe. “What’s the worst he can do to us?” she said, correcting me, “You were right the first time… we can’t just walk away.”

“Gwen-” I started, but of course, was cut off.

“For better or for worse. Whether you want me to or not. I don’t care for whatever promise my dad swore you to,” she said, with a wide eyed gaze that seemed to puncture my soul. “I know you’re worried that something might go wrong today, but I’m gonna be okay.”

“You know neither of us can ever know that for sure.”

“I know. But I need you to know that this my choice. Not yours and not my dad’s. Nobody makes my decisions for me… For better or for worse,” she repeated, her blue eyes, brave and assertive, “I’m with you.” I have a feeling I returned a look in complete opposition. 

A shy smile broke through the corners of her eyes, as tears were trying to force their way up mine. “I promise I’m not gonna let anything happen to you,” I said, squeezing her hand softly. 

If only I knew how helplessly incorrect I was. 

2:07 PM

Sixteen Oaks Grove, Long Island City, Queens

We sat on a bench right by the sign that read ‘Sixteen Oaks Grove’ not really saying anything. I was nervous, way more nervous than Gwen was. I wasn’t in my suit since Ms. Jones practically assured me she’d look into my identity last night. I remember wondering if that was easy for her. 

“She said to not be late, and she’s late,” I said, getting a little angry that things were starting off poorly. “Maybe we should rethink this,” I said.

“We’re not rethinking anything,” a woman behind me declared. “Unless, of course, Ms. Stacy is having doubts?” she said, holding out a flash drive to my girlfriend, a motorcycle helmet in her other hand.

Jessica stood tall in her seemingly-now-clean leather jacket. She looked put together today. A hint of alcohol still laminated her aura as its rancid scent permanently lingered in her breath from years of drowning her sorrows, but she looked hopeful, which put me on edge.

“Of course not,” Gwen said, shooting up from her seat next to me. “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Jones,” she said politely. 

“It’s nice to meet you too,” she said, a smile on her lips. I didn’t even know she was capable of a smile. “And you,” she said looking over at me, “Allen Iglesias,” she nodded, her lips straightened as a proud look washed over her eyes, which were now glaring down on me, which forced me to my feet.

“We get it. You’re good at your job,” I said, kinda annoyed she immediately felt the need to prove herself. 

I knew she was examining my face, which made me feel even younger than I was. I remember wishing I could grow facial hair to seem just a little bit older. “I gotta admit, kid— kids,” she said, adjusting her sentence to now address us both. “I knew you were young, but I didn’t really expect to be working with someone so… kiddish,” she said. But she said it in a way that opposed her usual mannerisms, maybe ‘cause Gwen was there, who she apparently already took a liking to. 

“And I didn’t expect you to ride a motorcycle,” I said, finding it parked by the sidewalk. 

“There’s a lotta things you don’t know about me, kid,” she said. 

“Yeah, like how you talked to the professor last night… or what the plan is,” I said, slowing down near the end.

“Lighten up, Spider-Boy,” she mocked. “This is going to work.”

I gave her a serious look. 

“Did you bring it?” she asked.

“That’s the only reason we’re here, right?” I said, grabbing my backpack from the bench. I pulled out the flash drive and gave it to her then she gave it to Gwen. 

As Gwen studied both drives in her hands, remembering which was which, Ms. Jones analyzed our surroundings making sure nobody was around. “The plan is simple. Ms. Stacy, you’re gonna walk up to the door and knock.”

“You can call me Gwen,” Gwen smiled politely. 

“What about the cameras?” I asked.

“You positive nobody knows about you?” 

I nodded and looked over at Gwen to confirm. She did.

“Then she shouldn’t be on any sort of watchlist,” Ms. Jones said, confidently. 

“And the mics?” I asked.

“The professor still offers private classes on his own. Luckily for us, tutoring has no age limit, so Gwen, I signed you up for an appointment today at 2:30,” she said, showing us the confirmation email with Gwen’s name on it. “They’ll know she’s coming, which is good. They really only allow scheduled visits. Just don’t go around stating the obvious and we’ll be fine.” 

“I don’t know about this,” I said, hesitantly. I hoped my skepticism from the night prior was just anxiety freaking me out. 

“We don’t have any other way, kid,” Jessica said.

“I’ll be fine, Allen,” Gwen said. I hated when she said that.

I forced my lips into the smallest smile, and looked back over at Ms. Jones waiting for her next command.

“We should get going. Go change,” she told me as Gwen and I followed her back to her motorcycle. “There’s a property that’s for sale a couple houses down from his. I called ahead, nobody’s checking the house out today, so we’ll set up shop inside.”

I nodded. 

“Gwen,” she said, looking over at my girlfriend. “Hop on, I’ll drop you off.”

Before she could comply, I grabbed her hand stopping her in her tracks. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I hoped I didn’t look as nervous as I felt. She should’ve been the nervous one and I should’ve been the brave one, but that wasn’t the case.

“She’ll be fine, kid. Remember. Keep her safe,” she said, reminding me of the oath I swore her to. 

A small, relieved smile escaped my lips as Gwen looked between us, confused.

“He made me swear to protect you,” Jessica muttered, as if it was some silly little promise.

Gwen looked over at me like I was small puppy that’d just been stepped on then kissed me softly. “That’s cute,” she said.

I pulled her into a hug and then let her go. She hopped on the bike all while still holding my hand. “Good luck,” I said. “I’ll see you soon.” 

As they drove off and turned the corner under an overpass I ran off to the nearest alley to change. I checked my phone for the time. The appointment was in 15 minutes. 

In 15 minutes, I’ll officially roll the dice on Gwen’s life.

3:22 PM

Professor Montesi’s House, Long Island City, Queens

For the past hour, I had been listening in to Gwen’s position, but it was pretty uneventful except for the clicking of keys and the occasional fake advice the professor was giving Gwen on decryption. I was really only listening for a keyword: college. Ms. Jones had cautioned me to be on the alert for it. She told Gwen to say it if she needed to get in contact with us (she warned us against using phones). 

Since trouble was no where in sight, my nerves had begun to calm at the almost-hour mark. I was hung upside down on a web looking out the window since Ms. Jones had only brought a chair for herself. The stakeout house was just down the street from Gwen and the professor.

Professor Montesi lived on a beautiful street in a high-end neighborhood.but you know how every neighborhood has that one house that’s just kinda an eye sore compared to the rest? Yeah, that was the stakeout house. It seemed as if it’d been empty for years. It was poorly maintained with dusty countertops and worn carpet flooring. The air was stiff and stale besides the warm scent from the coffee that Ms. Jones was drinking. I took off my mask to get a whiff, as the muggy air was starting to give me a massive headache.

“You want a sip?” she offered.

“No thanks. I don’t drink coffee,” I declined.

“Good. I wasn’t really trying to share,” she said, deadpanned, taking a long sip out of a thermos. 

“So, how long do you think this’ll take?” I asked. “I’m not the biggest fan of stakeouts.”

“Not sure,” she said. Her feet were kicked up on the window ledge and her eyes seemed to be unfocused.

“How long did it take last time?” I asked, trying to get her to snap out of it. 

“What?” 

“The first time you asked for his help,” I said, which finally brought her back to me. 

“I— I forgot,” she said, but I knew it wasn’t true.

“You know I can tell when you’re lying, right?” 

She lifted her chin in curiosity.

“Heartbeat,” I said, matter-of-factly. 

“That’s kinda an invasion of privacy, you know that, right?” 

“Wouldn’t have to listen in if you just told me what you’re thinking,” I said, feeling inexplicably comfortable. I couldn’t explain it, but it felt really cool being suited up, unmasked with a partner by my side. 

She readjusted to a more upright position and checked her radar once more to ensure that the house was still safe. “I’m thinking that we should stay focused on the house,” she said, deflecting. 

“You gotta trust me, Ms. Jones. Partners, remember? I know I’m just a kid, but I been through a lot these last few months. Maybe I can help,” I said, but when she didn’t budge, I continued, “If nothing else, I could at least listen.”

At this point, I think it’s pretty safe to say that I’d earned her trust and at least half her respect; and she’d earned mine (all of my respect, however). But I still hardly knew her. She’d intrigued me from the get-go, but I knew she’d be even more difficult to crack than the drive the professor was working on. At least he had an encryption key and my genius girlfriend to help. I remember wishing so badly that I knew the whole story between her and Mr. Osborn.

By the way she reacted, I wondered if anybody had ever offered that to her before. Her breaths were calm and she didn’t seem anxious, but I knew her mind was spinning trying to decide between sharing a shred of vulnerability or remaining guarded.

When she didn’t answer I went back to listening in on the house.

“So it’s all about finding patterns in the cipher text?” I heard Gwen ask.

“Precisely,” affirmed the professor. I listened into their back and forth mock-tutor session, and it seemed like Gwen was actually picking up a lot of things. She was having a better time than I was that’s for sure. 

While trying to pick up a few useful tips myself, somewhere in the background I heard Ms. Jones’ voice, “Three years.” 

I opened my eyes to meet her gaze. “Is that how long it’s been?” I asked.

“Three years since the professor lost everything because of me.”

“Ms. Jones, you know that that’s Mr. Osborn’s fault, not yours,” I said, but was met with a disapproving look. 

“You said you would listen… can you do that? Just that,” she clarified.

I nodded, swearing my lips to silence.

“It has to be different this time,” she started, clenching the thermos in her hand. When she dented it, my heart dropped.

Did she have super-strength? I had to remind myself I swore myself mute. 

“I told myself that I wouldn’t get too hopeful and here I am… almost excited,” she said. Her expression was hard to read.

“It’s okay to feel hopeful,” I said.

She sighed. I guess I didn’t get the point she was trying to convey. “Do you understand the gravity of it all?” she asked, looking over at me. 

“I have a lot riding on this too,” I said, hoping to be keeping up for once. 

I was mistaken, however. But she didn’t seem disappointed or annoyed this time. “I mean— do you understand the type of shot we’re taking? We’re prepping to take a shot at the man on top… you know what they say about taking a swing that big.”

“‘When you aim at the devil, make sure you don’t miss’,” I said, thinking of a song I can’t put a name to. 

“And I did. I took a shot at that stupid son of a bitch and missed,” she said. The lack of regret in the look in her eye surprised me. Calling it anger would feel like serving it an injustice; it was more like fiery passion— or borderline desperation— if anything. “I can’t let that happen again.” 

“It won’t,” I said, unfaithfully. Truthfully, I had no idea if we could pull this off.

“No stupid decisions,” she said, but it didn’t look like she was talking to me. I wondered what went wrong the first time around; how Norman caught up to her. I know I gave her a longing, curious look but she ignored it. 

“No stupid decisions,” I echoed her words quietly as silence overcame us once again. My eyes, locked outside the window focused on where Gwen was. Ms. Jones’ eyes, locked on her computer. 

I wondered what her first case was about or why she chose to go after him in the first place. I figured it was something related to political corruption or maybe money laundering with all the suspicious transactions he ran through Apex National Bank. I figured to let it rest until this mission was over. 

Another hour went by, and I pulled out the notebook I had wrote down all the information in this morning. As I flipped through the pages hoping to connect a few more dots, I heard Ms. Jones call out, “How could you even read like that?” she said, gesturing towards my web that hung me upside down.

“I don’t know. Just feels natural, I guess.” I went back to my notes.

I read through it all until I flipped to the last page where I’d jotted down the name ‘Smythe’. It was bolded as I’d written over it two or three times and circled it to make sure I’d come back to it.

“The name ‘Smythe’ ring a bell to you?” I asked Ms. Jones.

“No. Why? Dead end?”

“Sorta. I know I recognize it, but I don’t know from where. It’s killing me,” I said. “Feel like it’s related to all this.”

I gave her the notebook and as she flipped through its contents, the whooshing of the pages began to hurt my ears. She asked me questions about the sickness I had and I answered painfully. Even when she stopped, the sound of a page flipping rung in my ears. When she actually did flip it, it boomed in my head causing a nasty, itchy, buzzing sound in my ears like when a speaker gets busted.

Ms. Jones asked a couple more questions, evenly curious as to how this could potentially link me to the Osborn family and muttered something along the lines of ‘Do you know what this could mean?’ Without me answering, she continued looking through my research, her eyes as bright as Gwen’s when performing a chemistry experiment. The view of the house down the street was becoming more blurry as the seconds went on and a lump seemed to be trapped in my throat preventing me from asking for help. 

One by one the pages went. 

Whoosh 

Whoosh 

Whoosh 

Then suddenly, an all too familiar stabbing pain hit me in the back of my head as I heard Ms. Jones call out to me. But I didn’t answer. Before I knew it, my grip on the web suspending me in the air slipped and I fell to the ground headfirst with a loud THUD. 

As my eyes closed, the pain didn’t fade; just an ever-growing pulsing that made my ears feel buzzy. I felt myself slipping from the present as my conscious was being pulled somewhere else out of my control. Another couple sounds of pages flipping cursed my eardrums, then I was out like a light. 

Chapter Text

17 August 2015

Metro-General Hospital, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan

Whoosh

Whoosh

Whoosh

The sound of pages flipping ached my temple as my eyes shot awake. I was blinded by the white lighting of the room. My legs were cold, so was my back. I felt weaker and smaller. And for some weird reason, I knew it wasn’t the same day anymore. 

Finally coming into focus, I could see my mom in the corner seat of the room flipping through pages of medical paperwork looking about as stressed as she did during my treatment. I called out to her, but her name only echoed in my mind until it eventually faded away. I tried looking to my right but my head went left as my body reached for my phone. I willed my body to listen, but had no control.

When my phone lit up, I saw a text from Gwen: 

         good luck today :) hope the new doctor is nice!! 

New doctor? I remember thinking. I wondered where Ms. Jones went or how I got here or why Gwen thought I was seeing another doctor. I had no idea what she was talking about or where I was. 

Nonetheless, my body texted back: 

                thanks gwen

                i’ll text you right after it’s over :)

After what was over? I remember trying to ask but the voice just bounced around in my head over again. The stress I was feeling soon evolved into utter panic when my body continued to move involuntarily. It was as if I was just thoughts. A mere watcher into a moment in time of my life, a memory, maybe. But which memory? And when? And why? 

On the screen, I caught it: August 17th, 2015. My body put the phone down and I caught a glimpse of the hospital gown I was wearing as the door opened. A huge, muscular man walked in wearing a long, dirty apron with marks all over his body that looked like were left behind by smoke, dust, and fire. He had a grizzled, dark brown beard and wore a gas mask that rested above his temple. The man had a tattoo on his left bicep that I couldn’t quite make out and was shaking my mom’s hand. She looked happy to see him, which made me more confused. 

 As they talked, I thought about the date. Gwen said this was my new doctor. I couldn’t quite remember his name, but I knew he wasn’t a jacked blacksmith. As I watched the two talk, the lights began flickering in and out, which made my soul jump. My body, however, watched motionless as if it’d expected this to happen.

WHY-WON’T-YOU-MOVE? I tried to force at least a small twitch, but nothing. I was frozen ’til  whoever was in charge decided to move. 

When there was light, it was the blacksmith and my mom going through paperwork. When there was darkness, there my mom sat, beaten and unconscious. Her face was bloody and her curls were tangled like she’d put up a fight.

MOM! I tried to yell, but my body was immovable. A weird purple vapor lingered in the air around her, which made the room smell like grapes, and it was starting to make its way to me.

Then, there was the blacksmith who had brought down his gas mask over his face. Walking through the flickering light, I recognized the man as Mr. Osborn. I did a double take and it took a good number of flashes for me to finally identify him in the dark room, but once I saw him, there was no denying it was him. With his tall figure and dark auburn hair and enigmatic smile, I’d never forget his spitting image. He turned, in the darkness, and gave me a stern look that made it impossible to know what he was thinking.  

As he inched closer, the blacksmith appeared in the light and said, “You must be Allen.” 

RUN! I remember thinking. 

FIGHT BACK! But my body was anchored down by the past.

“Yep, that’s me,” my body said. I sounded nervous and my voice was higher pitched than I was used to. “Nice to meet you.” My body extended its arm to shake his hand. 

As the blacksmith returned the gesture, seconds stretched to hours as the room flickered from darkness to light as the man in front of me transformed in-between two figures. When our hands finally met, my eyes locked with Norman Osborn’s as he gave me an all-knowing smile. 

I let it trick me into a moment of confusion before the lights came on where I was confronted, once again, by the bull-sized blacksmith. The man gripped my hand tightly and injected me with something that instantly made me feel woozy. He gave me a smile that stretched into an evil sneer that turned the room colder than it already was. He squeezed my hand once more and then pulled me down to the floor with such an incredible force that I broke through it and fell countless levels filled with patients on their deathbeds; I swore I saw my aunt in one. 

Finally, I inexplicably landed on a surgical bed under a bright light. The surgeons were masked and stood over me muttering all sorts of medical terminology I didn’t understand. I knew they weren’t very worried about me, though.

“He’s not responding well, sir,” a surgeon said.

The blacksmith unmasked himself (still wearing the gas mask I’d seen in the other room) and was standing by my right arm, which was still immovable. His beard looked gross and unwashed, and his face was rugged. His eyes looked wild and tired from months of exertion— nothing like I’d seen back in the other room.

“Boss said it was fine if he didn’t make it. He knew this wasn’t an exact science,” said another surgeon a little too calmly.

I remember the temporary paralysis, the fatigue, the injections, and the lists of medicines I had to be on, but I don’t remember this. Was I dying? I didn’t understand any of it. My mom would have told me if something like this happened. I would’ve remembered, surely. Then suddenly, I heard the EKG machine let out a constant beep that echoed throughout the room. 

I was flatlining. 

I felt my heart tug as it jolted to a stop. The stillness my body was in haunted me deeply. This whole time, my body felt weaker and like it was fighting against something. But now, it’d finally been brought to an abrupt halt. 

I fought and willed my body awake, but was stuck. I looked between the blacksmith and the other surgeons in the room wondering if they would meet my gaze, but I somehow knew my eyes were closed. I mean— I was literally dying of course they were closed. 

I’d heard somewhere that if you died in your dreams, you died in real life. Maybe that’s a kiddish camp fire folktale that used to spook me when I was a kid, but I didn’t want to test its validity. 

WAKE UP! I yelled inwardly, trying to scream myself awake. 

“The defibrillator. Now!” the blacksmith commanded, urgency heavy in his tone. The surgeons, however, didn’t share his same sense of imperativeness.

Pushing the other men out of the way, the blacksmith rushed to the defibrillator and brought it over. He hovered the two paddles over me, which sizzled with bright blue electricity. He brought it down and my body jerked. The beep of the flatline continued.

Once more, the machine whirred and the blacksmith crashed his heavy hands onto my chest and again, no response. 

WAKE UP! I willed, but I was stuck here until the scene played out.

“Think it’s time we call it, Doc,” the surgeon behind him said.

“NO!” the blacksmith yelled. “This is my life’s work! I’m not letting it die!”

It?  

Life’s work? 

What the hell? was all I could think. 

With desperation filling his eyes, the blacksmith charged the defibrillator for a final time, this time with full power.

“Doc, you know how they respond to electricity,” another surgeon warned. 

“I don’t care!” the blacksmith roared. “This has to work!” 

“Big man won’t be happy if you cause a scene,” the surgeon cautioned. 

The blacksmith seared a scornful look his way, and with a final, powerful thrust the paddles crashed into my chest and I felt the power rip through my veins. In a moment, where it seemed like everything stopped, I could feel my heart restart as my blood burned and felt like it was sizzling. Bright blue light bursted from my chest as the light that hung overhead exploded as did the rest of the lights in the room. The blacksmith and his accompanied surgeons yelled as they went hurdling backwards crashing through the window that allowed other medical staff to peer into the surgical room. 

My body sprung to life as it gasped for air. I felt my eyes open for the first time since I’d crashed into the room. I tried to stand, but still wasn’t in control. My body lay there, weak yet more powerful than before as smoke settled in the air above me. 

Gasping for air, I knew I’d pass out soon. My breaths were heavy and my ribs hurt. The blacksmith must’ve broken a few of them trying to bring me back. He was the first one back to me.

“Yes! It worked! He’s aliiiive!” he said, sounding like an evil scientist.

I didn’t move. I didn’t say anything. I just huffed and winced as my eyes threatened to flutter closed again. The room grew darker and colder as everything started to look very far away. As the wretched dream came to an end, the tattoo on his left bicep came into sight one more time. It was bold and drawn with red ink. I tried to read the word but my vision blurred as I slipped away into the present.

05 January 2016

5:06 PM

Professor Montesi’s House, Long Island City, Queens

I jolted awake as if I’d been brought back to life for a second time. As I was gasping for air, Ms. Jones knelt to my side holding me upright.

“Woah, woah! Kid!” she breathed, almost as hard as me. “What the hell happened?”

“I, uh—” I said, struggling to catch my breath, “Gwen! Is she… is she—” I said, remembering the reason we were here.

“She’s fine. Still in the house.”

“What about—” I tried, but she wasn’t having it.

“Spider-Boy. Chill-Out,” she said, giving me a look that told me ‘shut the hell up or I’ll clock you in the jaw’ and seeing how she’d dented a metal thermos earlier, I didn’t want to be her punching bag.

It took a while, but eventually I steadied my breathing. 

“What were you dreaming about?” she asked. 

“How did you…?”

“You were talking in your sleep,” she quickly revealed, taking a seat in the lawn chair she’d brought for herself. “Kept telling yourself to wake up… looked like you were gonna shit your panties.” She kicked her feet up back on the window seal, a small smile broke her lips as she took a sip from the dented thermos. 

“They’re not panties!” was all I could say, feeling embarrassed. I wondered if that’s how I usually looked when I had nightmares, which was pretty often. 

“So what did you see?” 

“A blacksmith,” I said. Out of all the things I saw in my dream, that one stood with me the most (other than almost dying, and Norman beating up my mom, which I didn’t wanna talk about). 

“Are you certain it was a blacksmith?” she asked, intrigued. 

“Tall guy. Muscles and a beard. Dirty apron,” I said. “Pretty sure he was a blacksmith. Why’s that important?” 

“Smythe,” she said, opening the notebook. “It means blacksmith.” 

The blacksmith’s tattoo came into focus in my mind. There, on his bicep, which was bigger than my whole head, written in bold, crimson ink, was the name ‘Smythe’. 

“Alistair Smythe,” I said, remembering the name of the blacksmith who wasn’t a blacksmith at all. “I transferred doctors midway through my treatment. He was my new doctor,” I said. I remember that day so clearly now. It hadn’t played out anything like my dream-memory-thing. “How could I have forgotten that?” 

“So this Smythe guy… he was your doctor,” she said, flipping through the notebook as if she’d find something new. “Any idea what it could mean?” 

“Well Spencer has to be his father, right?” I suggested, referring to the third man in the photograph I’d seen back at Ted’s.

She shrugged, “Safe assumption. You said it all feels connected.”

Ms. Jones was right. I did feel it was all connected, which made it all the more worse. I didn’t know for certain how it was all related, but I had a feeling I knew the reason. I’d just been afraid of admitting it to myself for the sake of cursing it to fruition. 

I took out the white canister that I’d brought in my backpack and opened it unveiling the scanner. A sense of dread washed over me. I hovered my hand over it as it lit up a bright, neon white. My body felt tingly, like when your arm falls asleep and it buzzes. Only this made me feel exhilaratingly energetic and like I needed to jump around the room. 

She leaned towards me to take a better look. “Hmm.”

“You said it scanned for a genetic mutation,” I said, inwardly hoping I’d heard wrong.

“You think you have it?” she asked, confirming my statement.

“Grab it,” I said, holding out the canister to her. The device immediately went dark. 

“It has to mean something,” I said, dreadfully. “I was sick.” 

“Sick with the same thing?” she asked. 

“No— I don’t know,” I said, thinking. “They treated me for hypokalemia, but Gwen said that’s only a symptom of another disease. Just like my aunt, they never diagnosed me.” 

“Your aunt?” she asked, intrigued. She peered back at her laptop to make sure the house was still in the clear.

“My aunt passed away some time ago,” I started, remembering the conversation I’d had with my mom last night. “I was pretty small, so I don’t really know what her symptoms were. I just know she had hypokalemia. And if Gwen is right about the shipment, so does Emily.”

“What shipment?”

“The night of the break in, Mr. Osborn had a couple guards smuggle out a truckload of chemicals and medicine,” I said.

“A Suzuki APV?” she asked. I looked at her confused on how she knew that.

“I have a contact on the force,” she revealed. “That call I took yesterday, she told me she’d call to let me know when they found it.”

“Thought I was the only one conspiring with you?” I asked.

“Well, when it all goes to shit, you’re the only one they’ll be shooting at,” she said. In some twisted way, coming from her, I knew that was supposed to be a nice thing.

“I actually snapped a pic of it. Here look,” I said, taking out my phone to hand it to her. “That’s how Gwen and I started connecting some of the dots with the whole… me being sick…thing,” I trailed off because I’d seen her eyes had landed on something she recognized. 

“What is it?” I asked.

“That’s not right,” was all she said.

“What is?” I asked again, standing up. I looked over her shoulder to see what she was looking at.

“That shouldn’t be there,” she said, pointing to a large, clear vile. It contained some weird purple dust-looking thing. I’d seen it when inspecting the truck a couple nights ago, but had thought nothing of it. 

“Well, what is that?” I asked for the third time.

She practically threw my phone back at me and rushed onto her laptop. She whipped out a thumb drive she’d kept hidden in her jacket pocket and inserted it into her computer; its user interface completely changed at the insertion. 

There were loads of files scattered everywhere, but, weirdly, I knew she had some sort of system sprung up. She had everything labeled under specific codenames only she would be able to understand. She clicked through several files before finding the one she was looking for; code name: KTA-020-F0. The image she pulled up was a vial identical to the one in the truck. It was containing something called the Chasselas Doré particle. 

“These were making their way around the black market a couple months ago,” she said. “I thought I cleared them out.” She looked completely distraught. 

“What is it?” I asked again, for the fourth time. 

“A sample collected from an airborne virus, the Chasselas Doré particle leaves the mind susceptible to manipulation,” she said. She pronounced it like Chass-Lah Door-Ay.  “Why would he need something like that? Why now?” 

“What do you mean ‘now’?”

She didn’t answer, however. By the look in her eye, I knew it rattled her nerves. Like really rattled them. I also knew it was more of a rhetorical question than a literal one. And thank God because Lord knows my mind was blank.  

Nonetheless, I attempted to think of an answer. While she sorted through her messy desktop looking for a possible lead, I flipped through my memory trying to recall if I’d seen something related to that when I was on his computer a couple nights ago. But all that came to mind was being half strangled to death while Gwen was thrown out the window. How could that Emily be the same one we’d seen at the party? I know I was suspicious of her already, but she’d seemed so gentle by Norman’s side when people were lined up to greet and congratulate her; like the way Harry always described her to me: so beautiful and elegant. Then, I remembered something. Something off putting I’d noticed when she spoke to us.

“By manipulation you mean like…” I started. 

“Mind control, brainwash, alter memories… twisted shit like that,” she said, not looking up from her screen.

“Soooo you’d be able to control what people say and when they say it?” I asked, ignoring how scary something like that sounded. 

“Yes, kid,” she said, annoyed. Realizing I may actually be onto something, she turned to me and said, “What’s this about?”

“At the party…”

“What party?” she asked, quickly.

“Mr. Osborn’s party,” I said, slowly. I wasn’t going to let her rush an answer out of me this time. “To celebrate his wife’s recovery.”

“Some recovery,” she said, her usual tone fully present. “What were you doing at his party? Didn’t take you for a high society person.” 

I didn’t know whether to be offended by that or not. “I’m not. I’m friends with his son.”

“Ah… the wannabe playboy.” 

“He’s actually really nice,” I said, coming to Harry’s defense. Since I actually knew the guy, I often forgot his father was borderline famous. He had a whole public image and everything. I guess certain parts were true, others not so much. 

Since she didn’t buy it, and I didn’t care much to convince her, I got back on topic. “At the party, I went to congratulate Mrs. Osborn on her recovery. But when she talked to us… it was like she needed his permission.” I looked up at her and heavy skepticism plagued her eyes. “Maybe I’m crazy,” I said, justifying myself. 

“You think he’s mind controlling his wife?” she said, after a while. At least she lifted her eyes to look at me. “That sounds…”

“Insane, I know.”

“Like complete bullshit, yeah…” she said, at the same time. “Although, it’s not out of the question considering who we’re dealing with.” Her eyes went back to her computer. 

“The Chass-eh-lah Dory,” I said, trying to mimic her enunciation. “May I ask why you were lurking around the black market for this thing?” 

“No,” she said, shutting me down like she did when we first met. “What are you gonna do about the Smythe thing?” she asked, clearly changing subjects.

“I don’t know,” I sighed. “In my dream, I saw something. It’s like I went through surgery kinda. But I don’t remember that happening. If Smythe was my doctor and his father had affiliations with the Osborns, I don’t wanna wait to see what that could mean.”

She gave me a nod of fake approval, though I don’t know why. I figured she’d just asked me that to get me off her back so she could go back to her laptop. She was basically hunched over with her eyes mere inches from the screen. She was clicking the keys so hard and fast I expected it to snap in half. Only then had I realized her keyboard was actually missing a couple keys; probably for the same reason. This thing, whatever it was, shook her to her core, which for her was boarded up by reenforced steel walls. 

I mean, yeah, if Norman got his hands on a mind control agent, that was, from what I understood a gas or something you inhale, that meant not very good things for our little team. But Ms. Jones didn’t peg me for the type to be easily shaken. She said she tracked them down across the black market. Maybe she had an even darker past than I gave her credit for. 

I glanced up at her, and seeing as she was still locked in her haze, I knew that I’d probably gotten all the conversation I had out of her for a while. I let curiosity take over my mind as anxious thoughts and concerns swirled in my head about everything that was going on. Amidst the chaos, one thought haunted me just a little louder than the rest:

I can’t be sick again. I can’t. I won’t.

Now, Miles, I know I haven’t really spoken to you much about how it was for me when I was sick. Because even now, I still don’t really like talking about it. It was scary… horrifying to be honest, at least for a seventh grader. I was 13 when I first passed out during a baseball game. I remember it so clearly. I’d felt different all day, but figured I’d just slept poorly. My muscles ached more than they ever should have for a young kid, but I was hoping the game day adrenaline would make it disappear. When it all really started going wrong, I was rounding first base on my way to an easy double when my vision started going blurry. Next thing you know I went down face first on the red dirt. My teammates laughed as did the parents because they thought I tripped, but when my helmet rolled away from me and I continued to lay motionless on the ground, that’s when they got serious.

My mom rushed me to the hospital, the doctors blamed it on not eating properly, and that was that. Then it happened a couple more times, then the episodic paralysis started, then the fainting got worse, then the treatments began and that’s when the panicking started— or worsened, to be honest. 

The good part: I didn’t have to do P.E. class anymore, which I weirdly hated as an athlete. The bad part: I basically had to quit my travel baseball team and was homeschooled for the rest of that school year. I remember being crushed that I couldn’t see Gwen everyday. I went back to in person school the next year, but wasn’t cleared for physical stuff yet, so I didn’t get to pick up baseball again ’til the summer before I started high school, when I’d finally started returning to a normalized state of health— thanks to Dr. Smythe.

Along with the physical strain that came with being sick, you should’ve seen the way my mom began to treat me. I mean, even my grandparents flew out here from Los Angeles just to come see me (they never did that). Those estranged uncles and aunts and cousins I told you about, even they called to ask to see how I was doing. Because of the speculation that I was sick with the same thing my aunt had— the thing that took her from us— everyone in my family, especially my mom, treated me like I’d just been served a death sentence. 

Her look of pure, compassionate sympathy is still seared in my memory. And I know what you’re thinking: ‘Why’s that such a bad thing?’ And I know, trust me, even now, years later, knowing the truth about my condition, I still feel guilty about being upset over what was essentially my mom caring for me in one of the most stressful times of my and her life. She put on a strong face for me, and I knew that. She always asked if I was doing okay, and I knew she genuinely meant it. And she’d even gone into a several thousand dollar debt just in the hopes I’d make it. 

But do you know what it’s like having someone look at you like you’re a sob story? Like you’re already dead? I knew that my mom and family were just looking after me, and I appreciated it all and for evermore will, but even at 14, I knew their questions and check-ins were all— whether intentionally or not— laced with the undertone of me being fragile. Flashes of sorrow plagued their voices, their looks, entire expressions even whenever they were around me, and I hated it. I hated it more than being sick. 

Gwen was the only person to never treat me like that. Always so fair. Always so brave. The thought of her drew me back to reality. I’d noticed Ms. Jones hadn’t checked the radar in a while.

Maybe I should…

“College…” I heard Gwen say, pretty loudly. I’d been so caught up in my own inner-monologue that I was worried I’d missed it. I hoped she hadn’t been saying it for a while.

“College!” I yelled. “College! She said college! Now what?” I asked, completely unsure what the plan was after she’d said the codeword.

Ms. Jones, without skipping a beat, shuffled through different tabs then double clicked a key on her laptop. She pulled up some program I’d never seen before and waited patiently for a shift.

“…credit,” Gwen clarified, randomly. “Do you think this would count for any college credit?”

“Wait, no,” I said, afraid I’d screwed up. “She was asking the professor if this counted for college credit.” I was waiting for her to snap at me. 

“No. No. She got it,” Ms. Jones said. 

Her screen glitched for a second then shifted to one that matched an interface similar to the computer in Norman’s office. I had to look real closely to even read what was on the screen then realized the headline on the document we were looking at said: ‘GR-17: Kindred Program’.

Goosebumps trickled down my spine. It was the file.

“How did you do that?” I asked, leaning in close to her face.

“Stop reading over my shoulder,” she said, shrugging me away. She was downloading all the information.

“I wanna see!” I said, kneeling down next to her. 

Just as quickly as it came, the screen glitched back to normal and Ms. Jones sighed in relief. 

“Wh—Wha—What happened?” I asked. “Where’d it go?” 

“I told her once she said the word she’d have about ten seconds to input one of these into the computer,” she said, holding up a black device that looked like a flash drive but a little more advanced. “It would sync mine with theirs, so I could get the information off of it.”

“What? Wouldn’t that look suspicious?” I asked.

“Not if I knocked the V out of their AV,” she said, nonchalantly. “Same way I delivered the message last night.”

I was impressed to say the least. I was looking at her like she was a god-send.

“I looped the video for a short while before they realized it’s not their equipment,” she said. “Believe we got all of it though.” She pulled up the file she downloaded.

I guess I was looking at her so awestruck she chose to offer an explanation to dim my curiosity. “I used to check in on him when he first went under house arrest, okay?”

“Aww, Ms. Jones,” I said, mocking her. “If I didn’t know any better, I would actually say you were friends with him before this all went down.” 

“I have friends, asshole.”

“Right. I can tell by how much of a people person you are.”

She gave me a pissed off look, and went back to work. 

“So does this mean she can get out of there?” I asked, hoping this stress-fest was over. 

“No, uh, look,” she pointed at her screen, which displayed a remaining portion of encrypted information. “Still got some way to go.” 

“Oh,” I said, pretty disappointed. 

I wanted this stakeout to end. Not for the reasons you’d think though. My first ever stakeout put a bad taste in my mouth, but right now, I just wished I could take Gwen home. I was aware that Ms. Jones was a capable good guy— and I say good guy because she hated the H-word— but I hated how out of the loop she kept me. It always made me feel like things were going to go wrong. I had no idea about the codeword plan. She told Gwen about it on the way to the house and she only told me to be on lookout. For all I could’ve known she could’ve been in real danger.

“No way that trick works again, Ms. Jones,” I said, nervously. “How we gonna do it next time?”

“This’ll do for now,” she said. “She did good.” She nodded at me like that was supposed to sooth my ever-trembling nerves. She also said it in a way that said ‘Leave me alone. I’m busy’. 

“Can you at least fill me in?” I said, almost pleading.

“What?”

“You keep not telling me things. It’s freaking me out,” I said, looking at her. She ignored me, attending to her laptop sorting through the file Gwen had sent over.

“I’m nervous as is, Ms. Jones, please,” I said, leaning in closer to the point where I was blocking part of her screen. “We’re partners, c’mon.”

She finally took the time to look up at me; her jaw clenched as her eyes lit ablaze. “Alright, enough of this partner crap, okay? I let you have your fun for a while, but I’m over it. There is no we,” she said, like I didn’t matter. 

It pissed me off. My body visibly jerked. This whole time I thought we’d been getting along. 

“I told you. Our interests are temporarily aligned. You did a good job getting us here… Now let me do my thing,” she said, shutting me out.

Anger ignited in me. What was her problem?

I stood up and ripped her computer from its place on her lap. That didn’t make her happy, but at least it got her attention.

“Give it back if you know what’s good for you,” she warned, standing up.

“Gwen is my person! Not yours. If something happens to her, I’m the one left to pick up the pieces!” I said, assertively. “You may have shut everyone out, but I still got people I care about. I don’t care what you said. I told you, I cannot let anything happen to her… Now, you fill me in right now… if you know what’s good for you,” I muttered, echoing her own words.

She laughed a bit, “Was that a threat?”

She was really pissing me off now. “Let me remind you: I’m the only reason you got this far. If it weren’t for me, you’d be at the bottom of a bottle right now.” As soon as I said it, I regretted it. 

“No. Let me remind you: I got your girl’s foot in the door. If it were up to your happy ass, Montesi would be rotting in a jail cell by now… or worse.”

I didn’t know why she was acting like that. Ever since she spotted that vile, something in her snapped— it triggered her. I wanted to know why. But, of course, she wouldn’t tell me. Just like she wasn’t telling me a lot of things. 

My grip on her computer had tightened. I felt the metal crumple a little between my fingers, which snapped me out of my rageful daze. 

“Look, Ms. Jones, you’re stuck with me either way. I’m just asking to be kept in the loop… it’d make this whole thing easier for the both of us.”

She sighed as she ran a hand through her hair. She held her hand out for her laptop, and I gave it back to her. Her nostrils flared a bit when she saw the fingertip-sized dents I’d left on her keyboard. But as she sat down, she spoke up, “Look, kid, don’t take it personally. I got some skeletons in my closet, and I don’t think talking about them with some kid is going to help me out. Just—” 

“Then don’t talk about them, I get it. I gotta couple of my own,” I said, cutting her off. I wondered if she knew how much I actually understood her pain. “But I need to know things… I’m responsible for Gwen’s life right now. This is all really important to me.” Usually, I found it hard to hold her eyesight. Her eyes were always so searingly intimidating, but I said that looking straight at her.

“Like I was saying, just let me read through the file, and I’ll fill you in. Okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed, thankful to finally have gotten somewhere. 

As she went back to work, I took one look at the disgusting carpet I was kneeling on and decided to return to my web I’d hung from the ceiling. My head was starting to hurt from everything that was going on and because I hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning. The fight with Sable earlier drained me. My body was starving. I chewed on some gum I had in my backpack to ease the grumbling pit in my stomach. 

As much as Dr. Connors’ Lizard incident stressed me out, I felt impossibly more overwhelmed by everything going on at the moment. My mind felt like it was collapsing in on itself. To try and make order of the quickly developing chaos, I tried listing all the things that were freaking me out:

For one, Gwen, but when was I not freaked out about her? 

For two, we were trying to dethrone Mr. Osborn, which could potentially have disastrous consequences not only for me, but my entire family, as well. I thought maybe number three would be better… wrong. 

For three, Emily has been M.I.A. since she was shot a couple nights ago. Did I mention she had a knife sticking out the side of her head? I wondered how Harry would feel if he found out his only two friends in the world helped kill her. 

For four, Ms. Jones knows my identity. So far, I’ve gotten the impression that she isn’t even capable of bothering enough to expose me to the world. But who knows?

And finally, for a gracious conclusion to this demonic list, coming in at number five on the list of things that shivered every bone in my body, the settling realization that I was still sick without even knowing it. I figured my powers were the only thing keeping me healthy, which didn’t really make me feel better. 

I couldn’t get over the fact that my doctor had a connection to Norman. I’d dreamt about it too. Dreams like that only come to me when danger is quickly approaching, and this one had completely knocked me out. 

I figured it was safe to say that the two Smythe men were father and son, so that was a connection sealed in my mind. But what I didn’t get was how any of this tied back to the spiders in Mexico or the sickness. I wanted to put this behind me to focus on the mission at hand, but I had a crippling feeling that everything was related in a way I just didn’t understand yet.

I thought back to my dream when I was in the room with my mom and the blacksmith who was actually Dr. Smythe, but was also Mr. Osborn, too. It made my head hurt even more. Flashes of my mom’s battered body made me feel cold. That day happened so differently in my mind. I would’ve remembered my mom getting into a fist fight with my doctor, surely. Or almost dying and then blowing up the room. 

There’s no way things played out that way.

Then I remembered the purple mist lingering around her body. I pulled out my phone to look at the picture of the shipment. I scanned the photo ’til I found the vial of dust Ms. Jones pointed out to me: the Chasselas Doré particle; the vial glowed a deep shade of lavender. She said it was extracted from an airborne virus that leaves you vulnerable to mind control or brainwashing. Could that have been the vapor I’d seen in my dream?

That didn’t make sense. Why would my mom get brain washed? And why would Norman Osborn need to brainwash her of all people?

I wanted to completely trash that ridiculous idea, but a voice in the back of my mind shot a rebuttal to combat my overbearing doubt. Wouldn’t that explain why I don’t remember any of that happening? Because he brainwashed me into forgetting?

But that was crazy. Why would Norman even do that?

And then I felt a spark in my mind that signaled another connection being made. A connection that haunted me to my core. If it turned out to be true, that meant I was sick with Retroviral Hyperdysplasia like Emily. And Gwen said that the Lizard Serum was one of many research projects Oscorp carried out to try and cure the Osborn plague. What if I was one of them? 

Norman’s father referred to the spiders as a “threat to humanity”. My grandma was bit by one. My family has a history of getting sick with hypokalemia. We have two cases of it getting bad: me and my aunt. The Osborns, well… I had no way of knowing for sure. All I knew, was Norman’s father visited my mom’s rancho in 1975, and Norman was born in 1976.  If the spider bite did cause the genetic mutation known as Retroviral Hyperdysplasia, that would’ve given it enough time to run its course and mutate the sperm that would one day give Norman life. 

Gwen said it was one of the most slowly progressing diseases that Dr. Connors had ever studied. It took Emily from November 2000, when Harry was born, to summer 2015 to even start showing any symptoms. Norman’s father died in the early 2000’s, and because of Harry, I knew that the real reason he died wasn’t a heart attack like the news reported. It was this disease, this spider-plague, the Osborn plague. 

Maybe my grandma wasn’t crazy after all. Maybe that spider did cause a generational illness.

The purple mist was meant to brainwash us into forgetting all about it since he didn’t want word of it getting out; the same reason he had Mr. Stacy sign an NDA on Gwen’s behalf. So we could go on believing that I was sick with only hypokalemia. And live the rest of my days believing I was undiagnosed, the way my aunt did. 

Was that it? Was that what my dream wanted to tell me? 

But what could that even mean? What was that supposed to give me? How did that help me with any of this going on?

I’d let go of my web to stand up straight on the floor to massage my temple. The awful sensation of a hunger-induced headache was really starting to hit me. 

As if on cue, Ms. Jones had finished going through the file at the same time. “Looks like you were—” she started, but stopped once she saw my face. “What’s wrong? Gonna pass out on me again?”

“No,” I said, opening my eyes to meet hers, it took a while for my vision to steady. “I’m just trying to figure out if that Chass-eh-lah whatever thing was used on me and my mom.”

“Why would you think that?” 

“Because in my dream, I saw it. It was like a purple mist… I don’t know,” I said, before she could answer. “I feel like I’m going crazy.”

“I could’ve told you that just by looking at you,” she said. “But that’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about. Look,” she said, pointing at something on her screen. I leaned in closer. “What did I say about reading over my shoulder?” she snapped, so I took a knee down next to her.

With a satisfied huff, she continued, “Turns out you were right about the Chasselas Doré particles.” It rolled straight off her tongue. “He’s using it to engineer the second device I told you about.” 

“To mind control his wife?” I said. “Why would he need to do that?”

“It’s not necessarily that. Look,” she said, pointing at the document again. “The particles help stimulate brain activity. The device just focuses on those brainwaves and multiplies them. There’s two parts: an emitter and a receptor. In theory, the person is meant to wear both. One on each side. The right sends the command and the left processes it… I guess Osborn only gave her the left one.”

I scanned the screen in front of me. It had the picture of the back of someone’s head and showed the way the two devices worked together. The device I had with me, which was an intracranial brain implant that produced the electricity her body was missing and the “mind control” devices, which go behind each earlobe.

“I actually saw that,” I said, remembering. “At the party. In his office. He put it on before Emily attacked me.”

She turned to look at me before going back to the file. “Wait. What the hell?” she said, looking like she’d found something she’d missed the first time around. I didn’t like the look in her eye. “Kid. What the hell is this?” I didn’t like the way she said that either, it sent goosebumps all over my body. 

She clicked her keyboard and the screen shifted to something else entirely. As she said earlier, there was a remaining portion of code left encrypted, but not the same as before. 

What I saw sent me into a craze that only worsened the debilitating anxiety that was weighing me down. A message that added another level of concern to my demonic list from before. A message that confirmed so many things, yet left everything open to interpretation. 

At the top of the screen was another one of those weird headlines: ‘GR-10: Little Rock Church’. 

Just below it, lay the words: 

FOR THE SPIDER-MAN: 

C:// KEYWORD: _ _ _ _ _ 

Chapter Text

05 January 2016

5:47 PM

Professor Montesi’s House, Long Island City, Queens

Ready for a math lesson?

When two lines come to a point at infinity, Miles. It’s a geometric expression, as you know. And it explains how two lines, that are parallel in projective geometry, do not form an angle. Instead, they are said to have a common point at infinity. 

I know you’re probably thinking: ‘Allen, WTF are you talking about? Get back to the story!’ But I’m serious when I tell you this is one of the most important lessons I’m going to teach you, so don’t skip over it or I’ll know!

I’m, of course, not talking about actual math. The two lines that I mentioned are more like two lives. Our two lives: 

Allen Iglesias and Spider-Man | Miles Morales and Spider-Man

When I was your age, I, honestly, saw them as two separate beings. Two completely different guys who knew different people and dealt with different issues. Two parallel lines destined to stay apart. And hopefully you’re smarter than me, but on the off chance that you’re not, I want you to highlight this section when you read it, so it really sticks with you. 

In projective geometry, like previously stated, it is said that two parallel lines share a common point at infinity, thus, in a projective sense, intersect. Almost like, eventually, those two lines were destined to cross paths. Our two lives, Miles, will always, inevitably, bleed into each other— or intersect, for the sake of the math lesson. You can hide your identify from your family, like I did for a while, but then an ever-growing gorge gets wedged into that dynamic that begins to ruin your family life. If you tell them, you end up merging parts of your two lives, which creates a whole other mess I’ll get into later down the road. 

If you’re still having trouble understanding, than do me a favor and picture two trains traveling in the same direction on two parallel railroads. Each train has passengers. Let’s call them Train A and Train B. 

Train A is home to Allen Iglesias, or in your case, Miles Morales.

Train B is home to Spider-Man.

Train A holds our parents, siblings, families, partners, friends, classmates, teammates, and basically anybody else you know in your daily life.

Train B holds our “professional" associates like Jessica Jones, currently, and in the future Daredevil, Mr. Stark, the Avengers, and a whole lot of other cool people I can’t wait to tell you about. It also holds less friendly people like Dr. Connors’ the Lizard and Norman Osborn and his zombified wife Emily. 

But I want you to notice something. 

Amongst all those dangerous people traveling on Train B, amongst all the danger that comes with riding on Spider-Man’s train, Gwen is there. She’s on both my trains. And no matter how unintentional my actions were, this slightly brought those two trains closer together, permanently rattling the railroads threatening to derail both of them.

I merged Gwen into my two lives, which leads me back to a point I made earlier in the book: That loving me is a dangerous thing. I have to be selfish enough to put you in the line of fire, and whomever I love must be selfless enough to jump into the line of fire for me. She jumped into the line of fire delivering the encryption key. And I’d thrown her into it letting her go. 

All I can really say is be careful with who you grow close to, Miles. It’s easy to believe that the threat of harm and death isn’t there. It’s easy to believe you can have it all. But our emotional ties make us just like everybody else, and believe me, I’ve learned that the hard way.

Actually, the first of many lessons is about to be served to me. Don’t be too excited to keep reading though… I cried about it for weeks. 

Ms. Jones was grilling me about this keyword I was supposed to know.

How the hell am I supposed to know? I wanted to say, but I figured I’d watch my tongue after that bottle comment I made earlier.

“What if he knows who you are?” she asked, looking more stressed than I’d ever seen her look. 

“There’s no way he knows that! I’ve been so careful.” 

“Jesus, kid,” she said, brushing her jet black hair out of her face. Her face threatened a look of regret and I knew she was rethinking trusting me with a gig this big. “Well, think. It was meant for you to see. It’s a five letter word. How hard can it be?” she said, like it was simple. 

“I don’t know, Ms. Jones,” I said, defensively. This didn’t help ease my headache at all. I was starting to feel dizzy and the pit in my stomach only kept growing. “What could this even mean? And why is Gwen still in there if the only thing left to uncover is through a word I’m supposed to figure out?”  

“Maybe the professor could bypass it,” she suggested. I didn’t like that idea. I could tell she was growing impatient with me almost like if the message was meant for her she’d know exactly what to put right away. Her gaze was melting into my skin and I was sure she could burn a hole straight through me if she really tried.

Catching my breath, I took a seat on the dirty, old carpet to try and center myself. I guess I looked pretty pathetic with my head hung low in my hands because I heard her sigh as her body relaxed.

“Look, kid— Allen,” my name sounded weird coming out of her mouth. “I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting. This case just… really hits home to a lot of sore spots I thought I’d gotten passed.”

“Like what?” I dared to ask.

I knew she was hesitating. That same look of hesitation she’d shown earlier. Her jaw clenched, highlighting her defined cheek bones. Her body looked frozen like she wouldn’t let herself move until she made a decision. Carefully, she finally decided to share, “I used to be in with some bad people… I’d like to blame it on a rough childhood, but I don’t want to make excuses. The Chasselas Doré particles were harvested from the powers of a man I used to work for: Zebediah Kilgrave. He used to use people to do his dirty bidding,” she paused. She looked scared to keep going.

“What did he have you do?” I asked, carefully.

When she didn’t answer, I immediately knew why. Her body language shifted to something I knew all too well. If there was one thing I could recognize, after months of being haunted by Mr. Stacy, it was guilt. And it was painted all over her. 

“Nevermind,” I said, knowing how awful it was to talk about it. 

“Osborn used to be in tight with him. He would pay Kilgrave to manipulate people, so he could bend the system to his will. That’s how he rose to power.” 

“That’s why you went after him in the first place,” I realized.

She nodded, sadly. 

“What happened to him?” I asked. “To Kilgrave.”

She looked over at me and any trace of sadness in her eyes dissipated into nothingness. Her eyes were cold and dark and empty, and for the first time I understood what it looked like when someone crossed a line they’d never be able to come back from.

“I killed him.”

I don’t know how I reacted, but I remember the chill that erupted over my body. I felt like it was the shot heard ‘round the world. I didn’t know what I expected when I went to ask for her help, but this was nothing like it. I didn’t judge her for it though. 

I’ve always liked to think of myself as a good judge of character. I knew, from the moment I met Gwen, that she was special. I knew exactly who Mr. Stacy was and how he saw me. And I knew exactly how people saw me once I became sick and how it took a while for it to go back to normal even once I got better. And that was all before I got my powers, which only amplified that talent— if you could call it that.

The sounds a person makes reveal a lot about the true nature of who a person really is. I said that before about Mr. Stacy. It applies to Jessica Jones, too. In contrast to the former police captain, Ms. Jones’ sounds revealed a quiet presence, which was hard to read. She was an observer and no matter what situation she was in her heartbeat never faltered. Before she told it to me, I had already figured she’d had a tough upbringing even before Mr. Osborn ruined her life, which made her downfall all the more depressing. Whenever I was around Ms. Jones, I felt this severely submerged sense of anxiety coming from her, which always stuck my arm hairs on end. But the one thing I could say for certain was that she was a good person. No matter what she’d done in her past, or what she blames herself for, I knew she was.

I knew this because she’d never set off my spider sense. When I revealed the scanner to her the day we met, nothing. When I told her Gwen’s name, nothing. I hadn’t even detected when she’d arrived at the park earlier because I felt no threat of danger near her.

“You’re still a good person,” I said, quietly. I didn’t know if she needed to hear that.

A small tear ran down the side of her face, but she cleaned it up before it fell to the floor. “Yeah, well, I thought after that, the worst of it was over. But early last year, I caught a lead that some of his men were lurking around the black market… Turns out they had farmed some of his particles before I… and learned to convert it into a vapor,” she said, pausing to see if I was still following along.

My eyes were locked on her. Few things could pull my attention away from her even if they tried.

“I got most of it off the street, but some time in the summer, I got word that a shipment of it was purchased somewhere in Maritime Southeast Asia, in Madripoor. I looked into the buyer and they kept transferring their assets from one company to the next, but I couldn’t figure out what it was exactly they did. Eventually, I was able to track down the funds to an account number belonging to a former Roxxon employee: Miles Warren,” she said. 

“That’s how you began looking into Roxxon.” It was all making sense now.

“I know I’m gonna hate myself for saying this, but… I guess I saw it as a sign?” she said, almost like a question instead of a statement. “It sounds stupid, but I saw it as a second chance to try again. To try and knock that asshole off his rocker the way I did with Kilgrave.”

That sent a chill down my spine. “Ms. Jones… I don’t wanna kill anyone,” I said, hoping I’d misunderstood.

“Don’t worry, you’re not gonna kill anyone,” she said, stoically. I was suddenly way more afraid of her now than I’d ever been.

“And you?” I asked.

But before she could answer, I heard a window slide open somewhere far in the distance. A stabbing pain shot through the back of my skull and I realized where the sound was coming from. Footsteps that belonged… not to Gwen, they were too heavy to be Gwen’s. They were far too swift to be the professor’s and too evenly paced to be Emily’s. I’d recognized the pattern, however. Where from?

“What is it?” Jessica asked.

“Someone’s in the house,” I said. “The professor. Gwen! We have to go, now!” I said, getting up, ready to charge out of the house. 

She gripped the strap of my backpack, which held me back. It also confirmed to me that she had super strength. She’d never be able to hold me back if she didn’t.

“What’s your problem?” I struggled.

“Think,” she said. “Don’t just charge in. What do you hear? Who’s in the house?”

As the echoes of footsteps on the stairs filled my ears, a sense of familiarity began to dawn upon me. My spider sense was going haywire though, which made it hard to form clear thoughts. I needed to go help now, but maybe Ms. Jones was right. Maybe knowing who we were fighting would help us out.

The footsteps sounded like soft taps on the floorboards, which made it seem like whoever it was was walking on the balls of their feet. I heard a soft electric hum, which made me shiver with warmth. I’d recognized it from earlier this morning.

“Silver Sable.”

“How many agents are with her?” Ms. Jones asked.

I listened in. “None. It’s just her.” Could that be right? From the scene earlier on the rooftop, I’d figured she would never travel alone.

“We can take her,” I said, confidently, knowing I’d already done that alone. 

“Let’s go,” Jessica muttered, quickly packing up her stuff. I’d already made my way out of the house and was swinging down the neighborhood from lamppost to lamppost.

I stopped just outside the house on the street realizing Sable had obviously not set off any kind of alarm. She was enough to deal with, I didn’t want to bring anymore trouble our way. I remembered what Ms. Jones had mentioned to me right when we started our stakeout. She had forgot to mention a lot of things like the codeword plan or how she talked to the professor last night, but she did tell me about a gap in the surveillance in case something happened. 

I sneakily creeped my way around the property, making sure to stay out of the cameras’ lines of sight to a window on the right side of the house. It led into the living room. 

Before I slid the window open, I thought of a plan. I wasn’t sure where the cameras in the house were planted, but if I could find a way to evade them… maybe by crawling on the ceiling. As long as I stayed quiet and remained undetected I could catch Sable off guard. The only problems were that she was probably invisible, and I had no idea why she was here. Had she caught on?

I took out the scanner from my backpack and tossed it in my pocket just in case worst came to worst. She was after it this morning, maybe she’d come back to finish the job. I tightened the straps on my pack and entered the house.

Gwen and Professor Montesi were at work in his private study on the second floor. I could sense Sable’s presence in the room adjacent. It’s like she was watching them. I noticed a camera in the corner of the room, so I carefully made my way towards the staircase on the opposite side. Halfway up to the second floor, my grip wavered and I had to catch myself with a web before I completely blew my cover. I was starving.

As I’m sure you know by now, our fast metabolism demands a hefty meal intake. And I hadn’t ate in over a day. Yesterday’s events spoiled my appetite and I woke up with the same awful feeling, so I had chose not to eat. And right now, I was really, really regretting it. 

None of the matter, when I heard a slight creak on the floorboards above me, I pushed ahead. She’d taken a knee. But I didn’t know how I knew that. It’s like I could feel her movements in the air. Ms. Jones had warned us against using our phones, but I figured it was an emergency; I pulled it out and shot Gwen a text to warn her that Sable was in the house. 

Now on the second floor, I could hear her sorting through things quietly. It sounded like she was preparing something. I tried peaking my head out the corner, but didn’t want to risk too long a look as she’d seen me with incredible ease the same way earlier that day. She was invisible, so it was pretty pointless either way. I knew she was just outside the door, though. I could feel her. She was waiting. But for what? Suddenly, her breath got heavier and thicker after I heard the sound of liquid sloshing. It sounded like she was breathing through a filter. 

The hairs on my neck rose as a slight sting hit the back of my head. It sent a shock through my body that made me feel dizzy and light headed. Usually, my spider sense gave me perfect knowledge to everything and everyone in the room. If you could imagine a vibrational outline— like a map— that let me know where things were positioned, it was something like that— though I don’t know why I’m explaining that to you, Miles. You already know that. 

Anyways, right now, everything seemed fuzzy, but I could at least make out Sable’s invisible silhouette; she was making her way for the door. I needed to move now or she’d get to Gwen. If I revealed myself and after the ruckus I was about to cause, I knew I’d only have minutes until the police arrived. But maybe that was my best option. She’d technically beat me in combat earlier, and I was in no shape to fight. I just had to hold out long enough. 

Outside, I heard a motorcycle— Jessica’s motorcycle— pull up in the driveway, which caused Sable to hesitate as she reached for the doorknob. Knowing I’d run out of options, I jumped down onto the flooring below and shot a web at her and pulled her my way with a force that launched her body in the air. But she immediately reacted and spun into a kick that would’ve knocked me out cold if I hadn’t rolled out of the way. 

She shot a couple of her iconic laser bullets at me. I flipped on and off the wall behind me as the bullets punctured through windows and left holes in the once nicely coated paint job. As I landed back on the floor, she tossed another one of those trap ropes my way, but I’d seen it this time and evaded nicely. If it weren’t for my spider sense, I would’ve been beat a long time ago. I was completely depending on it right now, and even then it was shaky.

While I gained my bearings, she shot some more lasers my way that landed in the wall that protected the professor’s private study. I heard Gwen let out a small yelp and I couldn’t help but let myself grow distracted.

“Gwen!” I yelled.

Another sharp tingle hit the back of my skull, and my head whipped around. Sable was still invisible, but I felt the charge of her electric pistols getting ready to fire. I shot a web at her and tried pulling her my way once again, which proved to be a rookie mistake. She’d predicted that move and wrapped her arm around my web making it an extension of herself and pulled me her way, which flung me in the air. 

She kicked me onto the floor and I felt the wooden planks crack underneath me. She pressed her knee against my neck, which caused the rest of my body to squirm. Pressing a small button near her temple, she finally unveiled herself, and I had been correct. She was wearing a gas mask and had something that looked like a really advanced spray gun strapped to her hip. It had a purple substance floating around inside, like the vial I’d seen in the shipment. 

She put one of her pistols against my head, and the electric hum actually somehow soothed my prolific headache. Through a thick accent and muffled breath, she said, “My business here does not concern you, Spider-Man.”

Then why was she here?

Quickly, she changed the settings on her pistol from fatal to stun and shot me in the chest, which sent a burning sensation through every muscle in my body. My muscles had began uncontrollably spasming as it tried to fight against the electricity. 

But before Sable was able to walk away, Ms. Jones charged upstairs and tackled her to the ground. She was a straight brawler and wasn’t afraid to cause destruction. Sable had the upper hand on combative skills and weaponry, but that was easily matched by Ms. Jones’ raw strength. As the two ladies brawled it out, I was still on the ground feeling like I was being burned alive. 

Concentrating on the singular spot she’d shot me in, I began to channel the electricity from the stun-bullet into my body, which made me feel hazy. Being electrocuted usually was a power boost, now it was just causing a searing headache that blurred my vision even more. Slowly, I regained control of my arm and ripped the bullet from my chest and got myself to my feet. 

Sable had just landed a swift kick to Jessica’s jaw, which sent her crashing into the professor’s door bringing it down. Sable unclipped the spray gun from her hip and leaped over Jessica’s body into the room. I shot a web that landed on her back and pulled her down mid-jump. She’d landed straight on Ms. Jones’ body, which caused both women to groan.

“Sorry!” I yelled at my sorta-partner-in-crime.

Nearing in the distance, I heard the sound of police sirens as the cops had began making their way to the property. Just a little bit longer. I figured because of what Gwen said, about Sable and Norman’s contract being public, that she’d been warned about making a scene. I’d say this was more than a scene. 

I jumped over the two women who were struggling off each other into the professor’s study and found the professor hiding in the corner with Gwen safely stowed behind him, his laptop in his free hand. I appreciated that he’d done that, but the look in her eyes was enough to make me sick with guilt for the rest of my days. She was terrified. She was here because of me. That fearfulness was my fault. Seeing her in this state freed my body of whatever weariness it was powering through. Straight adrenaline was pumping in my blood. I couldn’t let anything happen to her. 

“Get them outta here, kid!” I heard Ms. Jones yell as her fight with Sable resumed. 

The only way out was the window. 

“Sorry for what I’m about to do,” I said looking at the professor, as if I hadn’t just ravaged through his beautiful home. I rushed behind his desk and wound up my remaining strength and threw his desk chair out the window; it broke through with ease. 

‘Take the girl first,” the professor said, leading Gwen over to me. 

I grabbed her in my arms, and quietly said, “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

But as she began to nod, a sharp sting cursed my head. I pulled Gwen out of the way and shot a web at the professor and yanked him towards me behind the desk. Ms. Jones came crashing through the wall sending books flying everywhere. She was wrapped in an electric trap rope and was out cold. 

I could see Sable through the hole in the wall and she looked a mess. Ms. Jones had roughed her up; blood dripped from her mouth and her silver hair was all over the place. For a woman with no superhuman abilities, she was proving insanely difficult to beat. Harry was right, she was crazed and boundless. As she crouched onto the floor to pick up her gas mask, which I guess had fallen off during her brawl, she aimed a pistol my way. Gwen was squeezing my hand and I could hear her heart pounding. 

I reached in my pocket and threw the scanner on the floor in front of her. “Take it,” I said. It wasn’t worth any of this, not when Gwen was in danger. 

She quickly stowed it away, but still looked dissatisfied, like her mission was incomplete. “I am on direct orders from Osborn. He wants the girl.” 

“What does he want with me?” I heard Gwen speak up. She was clearly frightened, but she spoke with a great sense of bravery, her voice unwavering. 

“I do not concern myself with details. Osborn pays, I work,” she said, spitting out blood before she covered her mouth with the mask.

As she lifted the futuristic spray gun, I was certain the substance inside was the mind control agent that freaked out Ms. Jones. She sprayed it and the room erupted with the smell of grapes.  

“Hold your breath!” I yelled before shutting my mouth.

As Sable rushed towards us, she let out her typical battle cry, shooting stun-bullets at only me. I pushed Gwen and the professor towards the door as I flipped out of the way. As the silver haired mercenary closed in, the desire to breathe became so intoxicatingly tempting. The room was filled with a purple mist that seemed to slow down time. 

Still, I was able to see Sable inching her way towards Gwen and I shot myself towards her into a tackle. We crashed into the wall and rolled around the floor fighting one another for control. Gwen let out a yelp, as she ran passed us, but it was too late. She’d already breathed in the toxin. 

“Dormi!” Sable managed to yell under my weight. I figured she yelled “sleep” in her language as Gwen’s body collapsed onto the ground, the professor followed soon thereafter. 

I found myself growing more and more drowsy, but fought the feeling with everything that I had— pure panic and adrenaline. Pinning her arms to the ground with my legs, I tried to rip her gas mask off so she’d be equally susceptible to the intoxicating air. But before I could do so, she managed to get her foot onto my chest and kick me upwards. I landed on the floor on my back and all the air I’d been holding left my body instantly. 

I tried to get up on time, but it was too late.

“Stau!” Sable commanded. I didn’t know how my body knew to listen to commands in Symkarian, but I was frozen in place. 

“Gwen!” I struggled. “No! Please don’t do this.” My voice was trembling. Tears instantly swelled in my eyes and I got the sense that I was going to puke. I was about to lose her. 

Why did Norman want Gwen? She was a genius, nobody could deny that, but what could he possibly gain from her help?

“Tǎcere!” Sable said, sternly. Suddenly, my lips felt like they were stitched together. My tongue felt dry and all the teeth in my mouth hurt. Even if I did throw up, I was sure it had no way of coming out. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. I was stuck with nowhere to go and no way to help Gwen. 

As I lay there, powerless, I watched as she disappeared into the purple fog taking Gwen and the professor along with her. I could hear my heart pumping in my chest, like it was going to explode. A single tear escaped my eye, and as it rolled down my cheek, it felt like lava. 

I’d failed her. The sight of her frightened eyes with her trembling breath replayed in my memory as my body was frozen in place. My blood felt like it was burning from the inside out, yet my whole body felt cold. I rolled the dice on Gwen’s life and rolled snake eyes. I couldn’t believe I thought I’d roll anything else. 

I wanted to panic— I was panicking. But I forced myself to focus. What was that thing Gwen told me before? ‘Panicking never got anyone anywhere’. She was right. She was always right. 

I tried getting my affairs in order; I’d been doing that a lot lately. Why would Mr. Osborn take her? He was corrupted, twisted, and horrible. But was he cruel enough to hurt her? I was slowly learning how he had a reason for everything. I just didn’t know what the reason for this was yet. 

I heard Ms. Jones groan as she was beginning to wake up. As the sirens got closer and closer, I felt the spell of the lavender haze beginning to wear off, not enough to make my escape, however. I tried yelling out to Ms. Jones, but my my mouth was still sealed shut. The mist’s affects felt like I was burdening the weight of the world crashing down on my shoulders. I fought against Sable’s commands and managed a sound that sounded like, “ERGHHH!” 

C’mon Ms. Jones. Please! I thought. She was our only chance to get out of here. The police were only a couple streets away.

“ERGHHH!” I yelled again. She groaned again as she started sitting up. Her hair was even worse than Sable’s and had bits of wood pieces tangled in it like she’d been mistaken for a bird’s nest.

“Kid?” she spoke out, her voice sounded like she’d gotten the wind knocked out of her.

“ERGH!” I said, wiggling a finger at her. 

I think she heard the sirens too because she started rushing to her feet as she straightened out her hair; didn’t do much to help the wood pieces, though. “We got our asses handed to us,” she said. “Didn’t expect that from her.” 

I widened my eyes at her and gave her a look that screamed ‘Get us out of here!’ and she finally realized I was stuck. 

“I give you your will back,” she said, sarcastically waving her hand in the air.

It felt like an unfathomable weight had been lifted off my shoulders as every limb now felt impossibly light. I’d been straining so hard to move that now everything felt weightless. 

“C’mon. I know a place we could lay low for a while,” she said. 

No. We have to save Gwen I wanted to say, but since I guess that was a command I followed her downstairs like a good little soldier. By the time we reached the drive way, I was able to let out another ugly groan and stop myself in my tracks.

“Wait,” I said, out of breath. The power of the mist was awful. I get why it freaked out Ms. Jones so much. 

“What’s going on?” she asked. 

“The mist,” I said, quickly. She understood what I meant.

“We have to save Gwen,” I finally was able to say.

“Okay then, where is she?” she said, mocking me once again. “We don’t have any leads. Our best bet is to track down the APV. Maybe it could lead us to something. But we need a place to reset first. Cops are gonna get here and all they’re gonna see is a kidnapping and a bunch of vigilante bullshit. We need to lay low.”

I suddenly remembered the laptop in the professor’s study. “Cracking the rest of that file is our best bet.”

“What help does that give us? You don’t know the damn keyword,” she said. 

“I can. I just need time to think.”

“Right,” she said, with a smug look. “As I said, time to reset.”

I hated how right I always proved her.

“You know Fort Washington?” she asked, revving her engine.

“The park in Washington Heights?”

“Meet me by the lighthouse,” she said, racing off. The police were just around the corner. 

I ran back into the house, and raced into the remains of the professor’s private study as the police pulled up outside. They began getting into formation. 

Luckily for me, the mist had cleared out, so when the police started yelling, “NYPD! Come out with your hands up!” I didn’t actually come out with my hands up. The problem, though, wasn’t the police. It was finding his computer. His office was totally trashed. A wall was caved in, his bookshelf was destroyed, its contents all over the floor, and I’d thrown his chair out the window for no good reason. 

I started to retrace his steps. He was holding it when I’d barged in, but I looked everywhere under the debris, and nothing. I checked behind the desk where I’d pulled him, but again, no computer. 

CRACK!  

CRACK! 

CRACK! 

They were breaking down the door. 

“Crap, crap. Think. Think. Think,” I said, aloud. 

“Show yourself!” a policemen shouted as the rest rushed in. 

“OFC to Control,” an officer reported. “Spider-Man refusing to cooperate. Requesting lethal force authorization.” 

Refusing to cooperate? They’ve given me two seconds! I thought. I hated the police. Gwen said they weren’t so bad, but I couldn’t stand any of them. I knew the feeling was mutual. I know your dad is a police officer, Miles, and he’s one of the good ones, but could you blame me? Captain Stacy used to have a shoot-on-sight order placed on my head. Didn’t exactly mean I was free to join them for coffee and donuts. 

“Lethal force authorized,” the control lady said. I hated her too.

Resuming my search for the computer, I suddenly recalled the professor had passed out somewhere on the first floor. I peaked my head out of the hole in the wall and spotted a couple of officers making their way up. 

From the way I saw it, I had two options. One: brawl it out, while my body was still very weak. Or two: jump out the broken window and sneak my way in and hopefully grab the computer undetected. 

Two. Definitely option two.

As I jumped out the window that I’d smashed to pieces, I heard an officer say, “I think I have something! Standby.”

I snuck in through the kitchen this time. I figured I could grab a snack to help me out. Plus, there was a clear shot of the staircase, the professor couldn’t have gotten far from there. From the ceiling, I suspended myself in the air and lowered myself down to grab a banana from the counter. It wasn’t much, but I felt so much better instantly. My head was still pounding, but at least I had something in my system to give me a little more juice. 

The kitchen had two exits. One by a hallway that led to a bathroom and the staircase and one that led into the living room. As I crawled around the ceiling, I peered into the other rooms as best I could without arousing suspicion. The officer who claimed to have seen something, unknowingly did me a huge favor by luring most of his buddies up to the second floor. However, there were still a couple checking out the ground level, particularly, the living room. 

That’s when I spotted it. His computer was right by a glass case that held tons of trophies. Some from sports, others from academic excellences, some not as shiny participation trophies. Did the professor have kids? I suddenly felt a lot worse for the man I’d let get kidnapped— like that wasn’t enough on its own. 

The computer was at the feet of a couple officers who had their weapons out ready to fire. I needed to lure them away somehow. I looked around and was able to see a tall lamp by the TV. I figured if I knocked it over, that could lure them away long enough. It could work. It also could not work. 

It works in the video games I figured.

I figured wrong. Well, sorta. When I went to knock down the lamp, another officer happened to come check out the kitchen, and caught me red handed on the ceiling. 

“Freeze!” he yelled.

My body stiffened instantly. I noticed, however, that his hand trembled as he said it, and from the lack of my spider sense warning me I knew he wasn’t going to shoot me. He was young, too. I figured he was new— newer than me, that is. The other officers had began making their way towards us; there was six in total. 

“Okay, but only if you promise to play nice,” I said, trying to sound snarky whilst deescalating the situation. As all four of my limbs were still attached to the ceiling and due to the fact I had a gun aimed at my back, I had to strain my neck to look below me. I dropped the banana peel onto the young officer’s face, which made him flinch. “Hold this for me, will you? Thanks!” 

I let my feet drop from the ceiling while he caught his bearings and wrapped my legs around him. I kicked him upwards and traded places with him. Before he could fall, I webbed him face first into the ceiling as he crashed into it with a loud THUD. 

“Sorry, buddy. One of us has to be the new guy,” I said, meeting eyes with an officer in the living room. 

He shot his pistol at me, and I rolled out of the way. I’ll never miss the way a gunshot vibrated my skull when I was still getting used to my powers. On top of still being weary due to hunger, the gunshot disoriented me a bit. I quickly forced my senses straight, as I shot a web his way before he could get another clear shot. 

I sensed another two officers coming into the kitchen, and figured I’d meet them before they met me. I rolled into the living room and caught them off guard. Before they could aim their weapons, I shot a web at each of their chests and yanked them together as they kissed crashing into one another. They fell to the ground with a couple harsh groans as I webbed them stuck in place. 

As one of their guns had slid away towards the laptop, I flipped towards it, evading another couple shots from the officers on the staircase and threw it at them. It collided with the first one’s head and knocked him out cold; I hoped it didn’t hurt him too bad. 

As for the last officer, he was busy trying to lift his fallen comrade off of him, so as he did that, I grabbed the laptop and let myself out the way I’d came in. I didn’t want to risk the front door in case back up had arrived. 

I grabbed another couple snacks from the kitchen and stuffed them in my backpack, along with the computer, and headed off for Fort Washington Park to meet Ms. Jones. I hoped she got there okay. 

On my way, all I could remember was Captain Watanabe’s warning to stay out of her men’s way or she’d make sure to have my head. I remember hopelessly praying that all this trouble would be worth something in the end.