Chapter Text
Hello,
If you’re reading this, you’ve found yourself stuck in my universe. Let’s start at the beginning one last time.
I’m Lola Lane. I was bitten by a radioactive spider back in Texas, and for the past month, I’ve been Brooklyn’s one and only Spider Pink (might change later). Well..let’s say it’s certainly been a journey for a teenage girl.
Nobody has suspected anything, yet. Donna has been quite enthusiastic about this certain heroine for the past week, not knowing it’s me she’s talking about. I feel guilty. I would love to tell her, but like the movies say, the secret identity persona is crucial in scenarios like these.
My parents, Pamela and Henry, haven’t suspected a thing either. I certainly noticed the muscle growth, enhanced senses and also the ability to grip and climb on walls and ceilings. I was completely freaked about it the first time like any sane person would have been. My fingers were completely stuck onto my favorite hairbrush, which is probably at some garbage dump now.
Why me, you might be wondering?
Well, I don’t really know either.
I remember a glowing pink spider crawling on my hand and simply looked in awe, until it bit me. Those three days afterwards were some of the worst days I have ever experienced in years. We were in the process of moving to New York during that week. My mom almost postponed the move because of my condition, but I insisted. I pulled through with Phoebe at my side.
After that me and my family quickly settled into Brooklyn near a suburban-like neighbourhood. I started attending Brooklyn Height’s where I met him.
Ben Brookes.
The dreamiest guy in the world.
He often wears a cream colored, long sleeve shirt with a platted green flannel on top and some worn out brown jeans. He’s often in the art room, listening to music through his earbuds. I think it’s admirable. This reminds me..
A couple of days ago.
Ben was walking around with a deadpan expression, his hands in his pockets and seemingly listening to music once again.
Lola immediately noticed him and she stared at him with a furious look on her face. Her hands in fists, she started walking towards him in quick and coordinated steps before stopping, staring at the ground to look at her pink sneakers. She quickly raised her left leg, taking hold of her pink sneaker and sliding it off her foot. She then threw the shoe, it landing on his forehead with perfect precision. He let out, “Ow! What the fuck?!” She seemed a bit shocked about her throw but decided to quickly shrug it off, continuing to walk towards him. He saw her, his deadpan expression turning into shock.
“Fucking dipshit!”
“..Lola?!”
“You could’ve just told me you didn’t want to go out with me! You didn’t have to say you were and then NOT show up!”
The people around them let off different reactions, which quickly turns to gossip. The whispers filled the hallway in seconds as Lola’s hands were balled into fists.
His jaw dropped a bit as he stuttered for the right words, but Lola didn’t care.
“Shit Lola..I’m so sorry-“
“You embarrassed me in front of my parents!”
“Wait Lola, it’s not like that, I swear..I have an explanation!”
She rolled her eyes as she scoffed and walked closer, shoving her finger onto his chest.
“Ugh, all you men are the same! And..I swear one of these days I will-“
“I got trapped with Ricky in the building!”
The whispers stopped as Ben confessed. He gave Lola a look of genuine guilt but also fear. Her eyes blinked and she slowly distanced herself from Ben, giving him an awkward smile. She looked around, the others turning away as she looked at them.
“..What?”
He looked around, seemingly shallowing down on the lump in his throat.
“We..we fell asleep during community service and..our phones were out of battery. I tried to rush to you, but without any security around, we were stuck for hours. We were in here for around..18 hours! You can ask Ms. Watson. She found us, lying near the doors, and some old lady wouldn’t lie about shit like this.
Lola felt a little dumbfounded and she anxiously grabbed a lock of hair, twirling it.
“Oh.”
“Yeah..”
The both of them fell into anxious silence, staring anywhere else besides the huge groups of teens, gossiping, whispering and giggling.
“This is..”
“Awkward.”
“Yeah”, Ben let out an anxious laugh as he rubbed his hands on his worn out jeans, trying to wipe off nonexistent sweat.
“I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have..jumped to conclusions. Sorry about the shoe.”
“It’s okay. Anyone with a brain would’ve thought the same thing. I totally get it.”
Lola let out a sigh, leaning down to grab her shoe from the floor, dusting it off before sliding it back onto her left foot.
“We probably should’ve exchanged numbers before we made any plans.”
“Mhm..you’re right. So then, maybe you’d want to reschedule or..?”
“Of course. It’s the least..I can do.” Lola nods, grabbing her phone from her back pocket, unlocking her phone to open her contacts app and handing it over to show her phone number. Ben grabs her phone before taking his own out of his front pocket and typing in his password, unlocking his phone. He quickly opens his contacts app, typing in the number in his phone. He then typed out Lola before handing her phone back. She smiled at him. “Uh..so I’ll call you, all right?”
She nods once again, shrugging her phone back into her back pocket. “..Listen, I’m really sorry about that. I’m sure your parents aren’t impressed by that.”
“They aren’t.”
“..But I hope we’re cool now.”
“Yeah no, of course we’re cool!”
They both glance at each other with awkward smiles.
“Cool.”
“..Cool.”
“Um..well, I’ll see you in English then, Ben.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me.” He rolled his eyes, which made Lola let out a giggle. She waved at him as she started walking away. He returned the wave with a more nonchalant one but the slightest hint of a smile on his face. She turned her head around and smiled to herself, grabbing her phone out of her pocket and started spamming her best friend with texts.
We planned the date to be on Friday, so I need to wait a couple of days, but it's worth it for him. Anyway, I should probably talk about my first night fighting crime, which went pretty well, I think?
I was wearing a black ski mask, which I found from my brother’s room, some old sunglasses under the ski mask, a black hoodie and some pajama pants with my pink sneakers. I put my hair up into a high pony and leaped out my window. The sun was only just setting, but the neighbourhood felt quiet, so I trusted myself to go out like this at this time of the evening. The swinging was terrifying at first, but I slowly got used to it. There’s a specific set of moves for it, but I’m not spoiling everything.
My spidey senses, as I like to call it, directed me towards a huge and luxury neighbourhood. I found some middle aged women wearing all kinds of uniforms. I suspected something from their conversation. They were talking about all kinds of luxuries and how they were going to sell them. I remember it quite vividly. I thought they had mentioned some kind of surname, but it was too faint to hear clearly in the evening breeze. You can see the rest of the story for yourselves.
Lola stood behind the corner of a building, staring at the tallest figure of the group, supposedly the mastermind of the entire plan. The others had their entire focus on her. She continued to loom over their conversation as they deepened into their main target. It seemed to be about some paintings, jewellery and antiques. She heard one of them mention the parents weren’t home at the moment. Before she could process the entire situation, they started running over to the targeted house, separating into pairs. She scrambled for anything until she looked at the building next to her.
She looked up at the brick wall, a hesitant feeling stirring up in her gut, but she gulped down her anxiety and stuck her fingers onto the wall, dangling on it. She then brought her legs up with ease, being able to properly stick onto the wall. She took a deep breath before starting to crawl, looking up at the sky. The building wasn’t really tall, but the trip from the ground up to the roof was still a lengthy one. She felt the cold breeze prickling her skin as the air stiffened and fogs up. Lola ignored it and focused on reaching the rooftop, fastening her pace.
Eventually she was able to reach the rooftop, looming over the building underneath. Her ponytail whipped around with the breeze in the air. She checked around for the women, but all she saw was an opening to the building on the far left side. It seemed like a security door had been opened, meaning someone out of the group must have the code. Her eyes perked up as she smiled under the mask and she took another breath in, slowly exhaling it out.
“Maybe..maybe this’ll work out.”
She stepped on the ledge of the rooftop before launching out a web into the sky. The web lands onto a taller building next to the mansion. She put her left hand on top of her right one and leaped off the ledge, swinging with the luminous moon shining in the sky.
I think my adrenaline rush peaked here despite the fact I knew it had to be done sooner or later. Stepping off the ledge was something I had to practice for a week or so before I could really do it. I spent countless hours on Brooklyn rooftops, trying to figure out the proper stances and ways to swing in the air. It was still pretty fun. Seeing all the sights during the morning, afternoon or evening. Sun rises were probably my favorite thing to see during practice. It felt so natural and enchanting to see something like that on the weekends. I did lose one of my earrings in the process. It was one of my favorites. Even Phoebe frowned because of it.
Her right hand was off the web, launching another one closer to the ground. The other web starts nearing the building, which made her let go. She swung to the side of the building, her feet and hands sticking to the brick wall. She then turned her head to directly look at the opening into the mansion. Her right hand came off the wall with ease. She flicked her wrist to launch a longer web, stopping at some point as it stuck to something. The tingling in her brain got heavier and her eyes perked up once more. She prepared to launch herself, deepening her grip onto the wall with her legs. She then pushed herself off, swinging towards the opening. She fit through the opening surprising well and landed inside of the building, observing the area.
The mansion was packed with all kinds of furniture, rooms and luxuries. She continued to observe the main floor until she saw a family picture on the wall. There were two adults, maybe seven years younger than her parents. They seemed proper and quite elegant. The woman had short hair, a blue dress on with some gold rings and a striking look. The man beside her had a tired look but still as striking as the woman’s, glasses and a faint stubble. He wore a dark suit, but a light blue tie to compliment the dress's color. Her eyes then landed on the boy. He had glasses on, just like the man, a gentle smile on his complexion and some slicked back hair. He wore a light blue vest to complete the picture. There was a certain familiarness from the boy, but she couldn’t understand how. It was on the tip of her tongue, until she looked into his eyes more. She let out a gentle gasp.
They were robbing the King family’s house. Stuart’s parents were gone, but he wasn’t. He was probably somewhere inside the house, asleep. She immediately turned her head to observe her surroundings. It was quite dark, but she decided to continue moving ahead with gentle and quiet steps. She couldn’t hear the women as she moved around the house. Probably infiltrating with some kind of silent treatment. She knew they must be somewhere inside the house, but..where? She could sense some nervous heartbeats, but there were too many to pinpoint one.
Suddenly, something dropped. Her senses now activated and she was able to pinpoint someone’s location. The crash came from somewhere deep. Probably a vault room. She paced around the house, stepping around a bit louder. She could hear some cursing and shouting coming near the room, and then she started running. Her sneakers slightly squeaked from the running, echoing in the halls. She hoped they thought she was someone out of their crew.
She turned a hard left and found two out of the criminals making aggressive gestures at each other. Lola looked at the two before shooting out a web at the woman on the right, the other left shocked as she flung the woman on the right directly onto the vault door, a loud bang escaping from the impact. She laughed before she shot out another web, blinding the woman. She started scraping to get the web off as Lola jumped, landing on the ceiling upside down. She pushed her body so that her hands could be on the ceiling, initiating crawling once more. She crawled over to be closer to the criminal, but still turned around to directly look at the back of its head. Lola then let her legs off the wall, leaving her dangling by her hands. She started pushing her body back and forth with some force until she had a strong enough swing, hitting her feet on the woman’s head. The woman dropped onto the floor from the force, landing near the other one with her. In the process they both had dropped some items in two black duffel bags. She let go from the ceiling, landing onto the ground again. She quickly looked inside the duffel bags. She found some jewellery, money, just luxuries in general.
Geez, does anybody actually need this much jewellery and money? Sure, robbing someone isn’t morally corrected but people don’t need this much of anything. But..I feel like one of these criminals is somehow connected to this house. Maybe a maid or some kind of cleaner. Someone who clearly knew the home’s structure and layout. Also somebody who likely knew the vault code. It must have been more coordinated than I had thought. I should probably..
She looked at the ceiling of the vault room and decided to get some web outside of her web shooter. She wrapped the duffel bags with the webs and stuck them to the wall before binding the criminals hands and feet with it.
She continued to walk ahead, needing to find three more of the women, but not until she could sense someone near her current location. She pulled her hood up and turned around, putting her hands into fists and putting them near her body. A light was shined and she found Stuart King there, yawning and giving off a tired expression.
He looked at her, his eyes suddenly widening.
“What are..you doing..here?”
Lola’s eyes perked up before she swallowed down the lump inside of her throat, trying to come up with a response. Before she could think clearly she cleared her throat and tried to deepen her voice.
“Uh..there’s robbers..inside of your home, sir.”
Stuart raised his brow before glancing at her, up and down, before sighing.
“And how aren’t you one of them?
“..I’m your..friendly neighbourhood..Spider-Woman?” She shrugged her shoulders, hoping he wouldn’t shoot her at the spot.
He blinked a couple of times before taking his phone out of his pocket. He had one of those modern day flip phones, so he flipped it open and dialed a number.
“Go..continue your business..I’m calling the police. They’re probably in my parents room, if you’re wondering.”
She nodded, turning around to continue investigating the house for the robbers. She could hear Stuart talking to the police on the phone, talking professionally. Must have happened before.
She was quickly able to find the other criminals, her senses now on more guard. She’s glad she got some help from Stuart, but most of it came from herself. She was able to detain the three criminals, but seemingly one escaped in time. She got a couple of punches and kicks in from the criminals themselves but nothing severe. They did laugh at her when they saw her. That did make her a bit upset. Too bad they got beat up in the end. Like with the other two, she detained them with her webs and soon enough, the police sirens echoed from outside. That was her sign to leave the scene. She was actually quite glad the night went a lot quicker than she had thought. She wouldn’t have wanted to stay up any longer. After all, she had an exam coming up, which she wasn’t super excited about.
Yet, Stuart tried to stop her in time so that he could ask her some questions, but she simply gave him a pretty lame excuse before exiting the house, disappearing into the night.
And that’s when he started talking about this “mysterious Spider-Woman” at school. Saying how weird the coincidence was, especially because of her demeanour. I simply continued my day, until he told his club members about it. The next day the school paper had it on the front page, and that’s where Donna’s interest peaked. Really didn’t want all of this attention after the first night even if they don’t know it’s me who’s behind the mask.
I still feel bad for Stuart’s family. Nothing seemingly got sold, at least of huge value.
But basically, don’t venture to people’s houses who talk about something like this the next day. Anyway, Donna’s calling me! Gotta go!