Chapter Text
“I’ve waited for this.” Vessel, Sin
“Oh, how I’ve waited for this.” The witch cackled, which, Peter had to admit, was fairly unnerving. “You, my dear, shall be the new vessel for the root of all sin in this world!”
And, well, Pete had a few key problems with that.
One, as previously established, he had absolutely no intentions of being possessed by anything or anyone. Well, with one exception: Robert Downey Jr. And, really, who could blame him? Oh my god, it’s Robert Downey Jr .
Two, he was pretty sure that the “root of all sin” being made manifest on Earth was categorized as a Very Bad Thing, which meant he had to stop it from happening.
Three, it was a school night, and if he missed his curfew again, May was actually going to kill him, and Pepper would help her hide the body. He was pretty sure that being a “vessel” would take longer than the- he checked the time- hour and a half he had left to finish up and go home.
“Yeah,” he said, as if he’d actually considered it. He technically had, but she didn’t need to know that. “I’ve made a list of pros and cons, and I have to say, I think I’m going to have to decline your offer.”
He flipped off of his perch, and made a valiant effort to web her up quickly. She blasted his webs away with her sparkly red magic, like the Scarlet Witch knock-off she was.
“After that stunt you pulled in my lair,” she snarled, “I don’t believe I’m going to give you much of a choice!”
Peter gasped, and put his hands up to his cheeks in faux-shock. “That was your lair?! Omigawd, I’m so sorry! I swear, I had no idea! I just, there was a wolf spider in there, and, well, that meant the whole building was basically condemned, anyway, y’know?”
“You burned down my lair,” she screeched with unholy fury, “because you found Harold ?!” And with that, she began throwing medium-sized fireballs at his head. Really, it wasn’t like he knew the wolf spider was her pet!
“You named your pet wolf spider Harold ?!” Peter dodged all of her attacks gracefully, as per usual. “And I wouldn’t’ve had to burn it down if you didn’t have a super-secret lair of death magic to start with!”
“Death magic!” She huffed angrily. “I am no necromancer, Spider-Boy.” She blinked at him, pausing in her onslaught. “And really? You’re afraid of spiders ?”
He sighed and shrugged at her. “It’s a long story.”
“Ah, well. Carry on, then.”
—-
“…and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for you meddling superheroes!” Deep-Red Witch shouted as the nice NYPD officer shoved her into the backseat of his cruiser.
“Y’know, I made that joke about you being Velma, but this is a little ridiculous,” Ned’s voice crackled in through the speakers in the spider suit.
“Ned! Where have you been? You missed Harold-the-wolf-spider’s backstory!”
“He has a name?” Ned questioned.
“He has a backstory?” Asked MJ.
“He has an entire character arc,” confirmed Peter, and then they had a moment of silence for Harold.
“Anyway,” Ned continued on, after Karen typed a few fs in chat. “I found some leads on this ‘original sin’ entity.”
“Oh, awesome,” Pete said, feeling genuinely grateful that he didn’t have to spend his time or clog up his search history by googling that. “Whatcha got for me?”
“Lilith,” MJ supplied. “That’s, supposedly, the person who committed the first sin.” She paused, clearly holding back.
“And…?”
“I’m trying to save the lecture on misogyny in organized religion for a more appropriate timeframe.” She huffed.
Peter nodded. “I appreciate that, Em, I really do.”
—-
“She was keeping that thing as a pet?” Tony raised an eyebrow, elbow-deep in a piece of machinery. It was lab day, again, and since Peter was there in person, he was giving his weekly report.
“His name was Harold,” Peter confirmed, tapping his fingers against the workbench mindlessly. “She was really broken up about it. I wonder if he was, like, her familiar or something.” Here, he paused to find a bit of metal to fiddle with, like a little adolescent ADHD gremlin. “That’s a thing that witches have, right? Familiars and cauldrons and stuff?”
“I dunno, kid. That’s not really my area of expertise. Have you called Strange yet?”
Peter hummed. “Not yet. I was waiting to get your opinion, first.”
Tony blanched at him. “Again, I’m not that kind of superhero.”
“And Dr. Banner isn’t that kind of doctor, but you still make him patch me up,” came the kid’s reply, along with a smarmy smirk. Tony had no idea where this attitude had come from, honestly.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Tony snarked back. “Next time, I’ll just call Aunt Hottie to deal with your stab wounds. She’s a fully qualified nurse, right?” His tone was light, but his intentions were pure evil.
Peter’s face paled. “Uh, no, Mr. Stark, that’s alright. Aunt May doesn’t really need to know about that.” He shuffled, awkwardly, before attempting to change the subject. “Um, what did you say Dr. Strange’s number was?”
Tony snorted, but had Friday pull up Strange’s contact info.
---
Harold was a clever spider. Harold also resented being named Harold, but he loved his witch, so he dealt with it. Really, she’d been so young when she’d named him, so it was forgivable. He’d been her familiar since she’d made her contract, which, by human standards, had been a very, very long time ago. Almost three hundred years, in fact.
As such, he was a very old, and very, very clever spider. So, when one accident-prone Spider-Boy had set his mistress’s lair on fire, Harold had already burrowed his own little set of emergency exit tunnels. He’d tugged on his connection with his witch, and once he knew she was safely away from the workshop, he’d made his escape.
Foolish Spider-Boy. Harold had survived for centuries; he could never be killed by an adolescent with more jokes than common sense. The young one had waved a candle about, while screeching, “kill it with fire!” as if a familiar spawned from the depths of hell itself could be killed by fire.
Preposterous.
But, now, little Harold was facing a dilemma. The Spider-Boy had finally caught up with his mistress, and now she was locked away in a human prison. Somebody, evidently, had given the mortals a way to bind her to her cell: Harold found this binding a more-than-minor inconvenience.
To be frank, Harold was pissed.
With the night of All-Hallow’s-Ever growing ever closer, Harold was on a strict timeline. Without his mistress’s help to gather ingredients, Harold was finding the preparation for the spell more than a bit taxing.
Before this set-back, his mistress had wanted to make the Spiderling a vessel out of petty spite; Harold now had the determination to make that outcome inevitable.