Chapter Text
New York. The city that never slept.
An apt title, as the night was anything but dead. In the buzz of dark, car headlights streaked across near-frozen streets, slashing the sidewalks with bright beacons of light. Along those paths people scurried this way and that, forming an amorphous mob of noises and smells none of which were particularly pleasant.
Among that crowd were two individuals who, under the cloak of the night, managed to slip away from the rest. Creeping into the suffocating crevice of darkness between the towering spires that made up the skyline. Deeper and deeper away from the prying eyes of the public, the two men slunk through the shadows and made their way towards an old and boarded up building.
“This is the place?” the first man asked, pulling a dark, woolen mask over his head.
“Yeah, this is it,” the second responded, mimicking the first man’s action as he hoisted a bag over his shoulder.
“Harry, are there even cameras out this far? Do we really need the masks?”
“Probably not, but I’d rather not take any chances this time Marv,” the second man, Harry, said as he reached into his bag and fished out a small crowbar. Not an intimidating sight by any means, but more than enough to serve the purpose expected of it. “Keep watch,” he grunted.
“Right, just be quick.” Marv snapped back as he pulled out a dinky little flashlight that shot a barely visible lozenge of light down the dark alley they had just traversed.
Wasting no more time, Harry hastily wedged the crowbar into the crook between the frame and the door and began to push. As he did, Marv scanned the environment around him. The small opening in front of the building did not offer much answer as to why, whatever this building may once have been, had been forced to close its doors. Hidden away in a largely unknown slice of the city, the abandoned edifice sat now as a lonely reminder of what once might have been. A dead-end alley choked by dumpsters and wedged between high-rises whose rusted fire escapes formed long shadows along the path.
But then, as if the sight of cracked stone and cobwebs at the dead of night couldn’t get any creepier. A peculiar noise, distant yet bizarre enough to notice, caught the crook's attention. The sound of something thwipping through the air, followed by a distinct whoosh.
“Did you hear that?” Marv yelped as he frantically swerved the small halo of light around him, searching for the source of the disturbance.
“Nope, nuth’n,” muttered Harry, largely ignoring Marv.
“Hurry, I really don’t want to get caught out here,” said Harry between soft but visible breaths as the cold air seemed to close in around him, the faint gleam of his flashlight failing to find any culprits to the prior whoosh.
“Would you relax? Who's gonna find us this deep in the city?”
“Well, you know the whispers of that spider-freak, right?”
“Oh yer kidding,” Harry spat, letting up from his, up until now, vain attempts to pry the door open. “That shits a myth. A story crooks tell their crooklings to scare ‘em crooked at night!”
As Harry barked out a loud laugh, Marv again frantically swung the flashlight down the end of the alley to confirm they were alone.
“Not so loud,” he hissed, “I’m serious.”
“So am I,” Harry said, placing both hands onto the crowbar once more.
And with that, Harry shoved on the crowbar’s end with all of his might. Enough so as to cause the wood to splinter with a loud CRASH!! As chunks of the door went flying outward, what remained on the hinges swung limply open, revealing an inklike interior obscured in shadow.
“See?” Harry cackled in delight, “no scary eight legged freak waiting for you in the dark. There’s no such thing as the spider-freak!”
Then, as if on cue, a familiar sound was heard echoing out of the darkness. A quick thwip.
“Agh,” Harry yelped out, more in shock than anything else as the crowbar tumbled out of his arm. An arm that was currently bound to the interior of the doorframe as if by some kind of glue. It didn’t take Marv long to realize however that he was wrong, as upon stepping up to help free Harry, he found it wasn’t glue.
It was webbing.
“You’re right, you know.” An unfamiliar and sharp voice chirped from the darkness inside the building. “There isn’t a spider-freak.”
Marv slowly stepped back, away from the doorframe.
“But there is me!”
And suddenly, as if in a flash of lightning, a figure clad in pink and white came rushing out of the darkness, she burst from the shadows straight at Marv, and then-
BEEP-! BEEP-! BEEP-!
###
BEEP-! BEEP-! BEEP-!
“Ughhh…” Jecka groaned, rolling onto her side so as to slap her hand down onto the end-table in an attempt to silence the ear-piercing shriek of her alarm clock and earn an extra ten minutes of sleep. Slamming her fist down blindly she was instead met only with the hard stinging of flesh against wood as she jolted upward out of bed with a yelp, glancing over, only to recall she had intentionally moved her alarm out of arm’s reach the night prior to prevent her from doing that very thing.
With a grunt, she held out her still stinging arm, and lowered her hand. Then, with a quick THWIP, a strand of web snapped across her room, hitting her alarm directly on the snooze button, finally silencing the accursed gadget. Belatedly taking the chance to look at the time emblazoned across the front, she was more than a little annoyed to be met with the digital glowing sight of ‘5:01 AM’.
With an exhausted exhale, she flopped backwards onto her bed, now far too awake to whatever dream she had been in the midst of. Glancing around the small room, she watched as the strands of golden light bled through the cracks of the blinds, illuminating what she had come to call home.
The walls were barren, some posters still rolled tight into cylinders, leaning against the crudely painted over walls, spidered in cracks that splintered from what had probably been years of stress. The dressers and shelves sat empty, only a single photo framed on one of them. A younger her, and a girl in glasses she hadn't spoken to in a long time. Longer than she’d lived here.
Across the floor, clothes sat discarded, some in messy piles, long forgotten. Others scattered where they’d been dropped, still waiting to be kicked aside to one pile or another. Then there was the chair, pushed up against the door. A precaution she took every night, more habit than actual protection at this point.
As she picked at the edges of her sprawled golden hair, she wondered what had been so urgent that the Jecka of two and a half hours ago had gone through the trouble to move the alarm? A step she would typically only take if it was absolutely imperative that the Jecka of the here and now actually woke up on time.
Suddenly, she shot up in her bed, the realization of what day it was flooding back to her like a dam had burst inside of her skull.
“SHIT! SCHOOL!”
Indeed, the very worst part of waking up was beginning to creep into her mind. Responsibility. God, she hated that word. Specifically the part of responsibility that encouraged her to actually be on time for her first day of eleventh grade. A particularly important first day as it was her first one at this new school.
Jecka hated cities. They were loud, smelly, and just all around dangerous. She had experienced that firsthand more than a few times. Then again she was sort of seeking out the danger part, so maybe that was more on her. But what else was she supposed to do? You wake up one morning, fresh off of getting sick from a spider-bite of all things, only to discover that it had given you the ability to shoot webs from your wrists, climb up walls, and most importantly, abs. Of course she tried them, she wasn’t about to ignore superpowers, and it wasn’t like she had anything better to do over the summer anyway. No friends to chat with, no boys to fawn over, and no interests to occupy her.
But none of that mattered now. Summer was over, and as much as she already knew she would hate it, she still had to go to school. Pushing herself out of bed, she began her morning routine. A shower, her hair, this and that, she was thorough if nothing else. After finally pulling her hair into the bun she so often favored, and as she was stuffing the last of her items into her bookbag though, something caught her eye. The folded up fabric of her suit that she had hastily shoved under her bed the night prior.
All things considered, under the bed was about as good of a hiding spot as she was going to get in this dinky bedroom. Their apartment was already small enough, and she didn’t have many reliable hiding spots throughout to ensure that her suit would be safe from prying eyes. Prying eyes in this case being her dad. Normally she took the suit with her everywhere she went. It was pretty easy to hide under her street clothes, and made for a quick swap when needed.
The issue now was that she was rarely out for much longer than an hour or two at most. Having to hide the suit for an entire school day would be more than a little tricky. But she also realized it wasn’t as if she could just leave it here, the risk of her dad snooping about in her room while she was out was too great. So, with a sigh, she hastily grabbed the suit and stuffed it into her bookbag.
“Today is the first day of school,” Jecka thought to herself as she got up, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “You are NOT going to use the suit. You are NOT spider-whatever today. You are Jecka Valentine. Nothing more.”
With that final mental note drilled into her own brain, Jecka crept through her door and out of the apartment. Her dad wouldn’t necessarily have any reason to yell at her today, but that had certainly never stopped him before. Best not to even give him the chance, she figured, as she closed the apartment door and bolted off towards the nearby bus stop.
#####
“I said, wake up,” a harsh voice screamed from the other end of the rickety wooden door that separated Nicole from the rest of the world. Reluctantly, she began to clock back into the land of the living as she sat up. She felt like complete shit, her brain stewing in grogginess like a broth, but what else was new?
She sat up, her vision first locking on the dent in the wall across from her, an artifact of a fight she had long forgotten the meaning behind, but she was sure she had a pretty good reason for the dent. Or maybe that had been her mom. She couldn’t keep track anymore.
Just as she was wiping at her dreary eyes, her door swung violently open as her mother’s angry form filled the frame, a half empty bottle visible on the counter in the room behind her. “Nicole,” she shouted, clearly expecting to find her daughter still fast asleep.
“Jesus fucking christ, I’m UP!” Nicole bellowed out as she turned her body to sit over the side of her bed, stamping her foot harshly on the thin floor as she did. She knew the neighbors would likely complain again, but she also knew she wasn’t the one that would have to deal with those complaints.
“You can’t be late for your first day, Nicole,” Her mom snarled back, tapping her foot.
“I think at this point it hardly matters which days I skip,” Nicole groaned, finally pushing herself out of bed if only in the vain attempt to get her mom to stop her bleating. “Just fuck off, whore. I’ve got to get ready if I’m ever going to make it at all.”
Her mom was silent for a moment, her stern glare still fixed on her daughter. “You were never this bad when your father was still here,” she muttered, before turning to leave the room, the door slamming behind her.
Nicole stared at the now closed door, as if to watch the paint peel from it in real time, and unleashed a heavy sigh. It was going to be a long day.
#####
Jecka barely managed to hop onto the bus before the doors began to shut. She was fairly sure she hadn't been late, it just seemed that the bus driver was more than a little impatient. Catching her breath for a moment at the lip of the bus, she began to make her way down the corridor of faces and leather seats.
Most of the other kids ignored her, the ones who didn’t however were predictably all male, and not even ones who could be bothered to be hot. Making a concerted effort to ignore the unsubtle attempts each of them made to shift over in their seats in hopes of attracting her to sit beside them, Jecka made her way to the back of the bus where a lone seat sat otherwise unoccupied. As soon as she sat back in the seat she let out a deep sigh of her own, just happy to finally be sitting down again. The only threat now was drowsing off in the seat. She knew she would regret staying out so late the night prior, but as always, that never stopped her.
Jecka once again internally cursed her past self.
As the bus shifted into gear and began to progress down the road, she sat back in her seat, her eyes closed as she gathered her thoughts. At least until she heard a sound in the seat on the opposite row from hers that made her eyes flit open, instantly alert. A soft fwump that could only mean one thing. To her mounting horror, she glanced to her side to see perhaps the sweatiest and greasiest of the boys sitting at the seat beside hers. Perhaps the only thing that had stopped him from sitting on the same one directly beside her was the careful placement of her bag, which was now the only obstacle between herself and the sweat-caked creature sitting across the row.
“Hey,” he wheezed, adjusting his comically round glasses on the bridge of his nose, “you look new!”
“Yeah,” Jecka turned dismissively towards the window, before she stopped. A strange vibe overcoming her, something she otherwise only felt in those fleeting moments of action. Something that told her to pay attention, be it a warning of danger, or something else. It wasn’t just a vibe, it was a sense.
Then, staring out the window, she saw her. As the bus doors closed, a raven haired girl clad under a hastily made ponytail, rushed out of the apartment complex she herself had just left. She took maybe two steps before looking up to notice the bus that was now jolting to a start.
Instantly, she waved a hand over her head, bolting after it, but it was too late. The bus had already started.
“Hey,” Jecka called out. “There’s a girl there trying to get on.”
“Eh?” the bus driver glanced over to his mirror, before smirking at the sight. “Well, she shoulda been quicker. I’ve got a schedule to keep.”
“It would take like five seconds to-”
“Listen tutz, I ain’t got time to wait around.”
Jecka’s brow furrowed, and she got up, walking past the sea of onlooking students as she stopped right before the bus driver, leaning to whisper into his ear.
“If you don’t stop, I’ll tell the school board you touched me.”
“You’ll what?”
“Stop the bus,” Jecka stood back up, commanding again.
Nervously, the man chuckled before bringing the bus to a stop, “fine, there, y’happy?”
“Not remotely,” Jecka grimaced, before turning around just in time to see the other girl darting past her. Never pausing to make eye contact, and instead making her way to the far back, slotting herself into the seat that had previously been Jecka’s.
“Get back to yer seat,” the bus driver said, in a tone that indicated annoyance, but restrained partially out of fear.
That was fine, Jecka had little desire to continue standing up here in front of everyone anymore. Making her way back, she took the outer half of the seat that the raven haired girl had taken, thankful she hadn't used her bag to stop her from doing so.
“So,” the girl piped up as the bus began to roll out again. “You stopped the bus?”
Jecka glanced over, “yeah.”
“Hm,” she nodded absently, still staring out the window, her own bag clutched to her chest.
“Not gonna say ‘thank you’, or anything?”
“Wasn’t planning on it, no,” the girl turned to her, “I woulda been better off missing the bus.”
“How would you have gotten to school then?”
“That’s the neat part,” she smirked, “I would have the perfect excuse not to.”
Jecka matched her smirk, “fair, it’s my first day and I can already tell this is going to suck.”
“For your first day, willingly choosing to interact with that beached whale in human form that calls himself a bus driver is ballsy,” she paused, before turning to her again, curious. “How’d you get him to stop?”
“I just used my feminine wildes,” Jecka fluttered her eyelashes, earning a wry chuckle from Nicole.
“Well, I’m still not gonna thank you just for being some uppity do-gooder like that spider-freak in the newspapers, but cool.”
“‘Cool’ sounds like a thank you to me,” Jecka teased.
“Well that’s good, cuz it’s as good as you’re gonna get.”
“Surely I can get one more thing.”
Nicole raised an eyebrow, “and that is?”
“I’m Jecka, Jecka Valentine,” she said, “What’s your name?”
“Well, if we’re doing full names,” the raven haired girl smiled, “Nicole Yu.”
###
The rest of the ride was uneventful. As the bus lurched itself to a stop into the packed lot, and the doors swung open, Jecka and Nicole both joined the line of students funneling out and before the school building. It was a surprisingly wide building located at the heart of the city, that from the outside almost looked more like a skyscraper that the designers had given up on after only 3 stories.
“Well,” Nicole began, hoisting her backpack over her shoulder, “I guess this is where we part.”
“Right, ugh, first period math,” Jecka grunted, clutching the orientation paper that contained her classes.
“Wait,” Nicole glanced at her, “who with?”
“Mr. Harrington?”
“Shit,” the brunette gawped at her, “guess this isn’t where we part, I’ve got the same class.”
“Shit,” Jecka gawped back, “guess we can walk there together.”
“Well...” Nicole drawled, “we could do that, or, we could skip?”
“Skip?”
“As in skip class?”
“As in skip class, yes,” Nicole nodded, “I know a good shawarma place down the street.”
“Well, sounds fun and all, but today being the first day and all is kinda important.”
“It being the first day back is all the more reason skipping should be harmless. Nobody gives out homework on the first day.”
“Nicole, I can’t go skipping on my first day, I’m new here. I have to give it, like, at least a week before I can risk that.”
Nicole’s smile turned downwards, her eyes looking into Jecka’s, and for a second she worried Nicole might get mad.
“Fair,” she eventually sighed, throwing up her hands as they entered the main building, “Let’s get going to your oh, so sacred math class.”
“You aren’t skipping?” Jecka asked.
“Nah, it’s no fun alone.”
“Well, I’ll catch you up. I need to drop some stuff off at my locker before class.”
“Right,” Nicole waved a hand over her head as she continued walking down the hall. “Don’t be late, it is your first day after all.”
Pulling away with a chuckle, and making a mental note to make it up to the first closest thing Jecka had made to a friend later, she diverted towards the hall of lockers that matched the one listed on her paper. Finally taking the chance to take in her surroundings, she tuned into the sounds of lockers slamming around her, the squeaking of sneakers as students blazed past, and the smells they carried with them. At least the building itself smelt nice, a summer's worth of cleaning all in a vain effort to give off the illusion of pomp. The building’s layout was simple enough, and her locker was near enough the entrance not to give her any trouble.
What was currently giving her trouble, was the folded up costume in her backpack. She already knew the risk of taking it into class with her was far too great, especially as she would be fishing through it midclass for her books and binders. As such, locking it away in her locker seemed the far safer option.
Eventually she arrived at her locker, located at the very end of an empty hall, right next to a large glass set of double doors that looked out over the busy city road ahead. It was a little out of the way, and reeked of cleaning supplies from the nearby janitor’s closet, but at least she wouldn’t have to deal with crowds. With that thought, she inputted the combination and swung open the metal door.
No sooner had she done that however, than chaos made itself known.
Her head did that thing again, that weird tingling, and as she stepped back, a palm against her forehead, she heard a loud droning honk. The kind that could only belong to a big, heavy truck. Then, she glanced out the glass doors just in time to see a massive vehicle befitting of the horn, rocketing down the road, followed closely by police sirens whizzing after it.
Shit, and she was just getting situated too.
She stared for a second out the door, then back behind her down the hall. Towards her classes, and teachers, and Nicole. Then with a sigh, she turned around again, towards the glass double doors. Whipping her suit out of her bag, she began to make a beeline, pushing herself out and into the world.
As she ran, she pulled the mask over her face, mentally lamenting the inevitable chaos this would do to her hair which she had spent all morning perfecting into that little bun she so rarely got to wear now. Oh well.
She could probably wrap this up before the period ended at the very least, right? And as she pulled the mask down over her face, she held out her hands, shooting a line of web from either one before pulling herself forward and out onto the main road, swinging overhead.
The Spider-Woman, or whatever name she ended up on, was here!