Chapter Text
“Why do you tremble little man?” She whispers.
The man, no, the boy trembles before her as she looms over him. Silver gray eyes blown wide with fear. Hands clenching the webs strands below him. Knuckles turning ghost white.
Amusement ripples through her from the fear emanating from him. “My bite brings death only to those of evil intent…”
She sensed no evil, no, this boy was different than the men her spiders just encountered. There was fire inside of him. Smoldering just beneath the surface. Aching to burn away at the evil that rotted away at this world like an infected wound.
The thought of this skinny boy being able to carve out the infection made her laugh.
Yet…she had been trapped away in that statue for so long. She can’t say how long at this point. Spent locked away and alone with nothing but her spiders for company. Unable to purge the festering rot. There was much work that needed to be done. Maybe with a bit of her power, he could turn into a blazing fire that scorched the earth. Yes, this boy would do.
“…I will bestow on you a greater torment…the curse of power…”
Thousands of her spiders swarm the web. Skittering towards the quaking boy. Crawling up his legs and torso. Covering him with their numbers until only his eyes were uncovered. She leans down and looks into his wide gray eyes. Yes, he’ll will do.
Peter Parker does her work, and he does it well. She watches him closely from the shadows. Watches as he burns away at the festering rotten center of this city called New York. Burns like a raging wildfire that leaves behind nothing but burnt lifeless husks. It was marvelous. It was lovely. It was beautiful.
Men may have their follies at times. They let greed and selfishness become their own downfalls. But there was one thing they certainly knew how to do well. Create weapons for the purpose of destroying their fellow men. Before she had become trapped in that statue, humans were hacking away at each other with spears and crude swords. Now they had this wonderful new invention called guns.
Oh, how she loved the loud pop-pop noise it made. Boldy announcing another soul purged from this earth that no longer deserved to breathe. Ringing out the death knell. It was much cleaner than the primal weapons she remembers. Peter wielded a pair of them with great accuracy, even against lowlife scum how had gotten their own hands on one of these guns as well.
Yet even then they were no match for Peter Parker. Not with the gifts that she had granted. He easily broke their bones into dust and left them gasping for air. Peter’s webbing cocooned the vermin, leaving them squirming and begging for their lives. Like flies trapped in a web.
Whispers of the Spider begin to circulate. Rotten beings began to look over their shoulders more nervously as night crept into the city. When the city turned into the Spider’s hunting grounds.
The strands of Peter’s life, his connections to others, slowly begin to snap one by one.
Ben Urich is shot. A great motivator in taking up the name the Spider.
Robbie is as good as dead. Nothing more than a distraction to Peter. He would get over it. There wasn’t any room for distractions in his life now.
Felicia Hardy refuses to see him. Good.
The people that don’t die or leave him. Peter himself begins to remove himself from their lives. As the curse of power puts strains onto these thin and fragile threads. As the burning desire to hunt, kill, purge out corruption and greed overpowers Peter Parker.
Slowly strand by strand, Peter becomes hers. Just for her to enjoy. Her creation. Just hers. No one else could have him. She alone gave him such wonderful gifts. Had given him the ability to do something. To get out from under the heel of those that would’ve happily squashed him.
She loved to remind him that she was always there. Even if he didn’t know it. Sending the soft breeze that teased at the ends of his coat and tousled his hair. Let it curl around his body and cool the wounds that were starting to web around his body. Sooth his aching wrists as he pushed himself to keep swinging.
He didn’t need anyone else; he was just hers.
Oh, how she was starting to long for the ability to touch him herself. Feel the hardened muscles, that had been built up over time. Let his warm human body bring heat to her cold, cold, one. How that would feel so wonderful. Peter in her arms.
But as the strands break, a change comes over Peter. He continues to fight as he always does. Swinging out of the shadows and descending upon his screaming prey. But that wonderful fire that had been behind every swing, punch, pop of the gun, and slash of the knife. It was starting to die, ever so slowly. Until there was nothing more than a numbing iciness.
Peter begins hurting himself.
She watches with great concern as he pulls out matchstick after matchstick. Lighting up the little gray flames then watching them intently until it burns down to his fingertips. Leaving behind nothing but burns that scar his fingers.
He’s also starting to eat less, sleep less, and talk less.
She wants to scoop him up and comfort him. Wrap Peter up in her web and soothe his hurts. But getting to the physical world was currently beyond her ability. She was trapped in her own realm, only able to interact with the physical world through the eyes of her spiders. Until she could find her totem that allowed her to take a physical form. It had become lost to the sands of time. When she wasn’t watching her darling Peter, she was searching for the thin strands of connections to her totem.
If something wasn’t done soon, then Peter would be lost. He was fading fast. Had burned too fast. She would lose him. She would lose her darling Peter.
Peter is gone.
Nowhere to be found in New York. She couldn’t find him anywhere in this world. He wasn’t among the living or the dead. Somehow, he’d found a way to drop off the face of the planet.
No, no, no this couldn’t be happening. Peter couldn’t just be gone! She tries to follow the thin web strand that connected her to Peter. But it had grown thin and brittle. He was somewhere beyond her reach.
No! He was simply not gone! She redoubles her effort in finding her totem. There was little she could do in the physical world without the help of her spiders. And even they had their limitations as to what they could accomplish.
For three days she frets and worries.
For three days she searches every shadow, gutter, hole, and crack for her Peter.
On the third day a vibration, so strong it jolts through her like electricity, sends shivers through her web. She follows the vibration to its source.
There! Peter has returned!
She finds him standing on top of a building. Like he had never left. Standing taller than he has in month and vibrating with a new energy. Oh, how beautiful he looks. So handsome standing so confidently among his web. Surveying his hunting grounds.
She is sure that he’ll be going hunting and she’ll be there to watch this newly rekindled fire. No doubt by the fact that he’s been missing his city. Missing the thrill of the hunt and the cries of the damned as he pounced upon them.
He goes running for the woman he calls Aunt May.
Small connections with other people are allowed. They are okay. They keep Peter going. Allowing him to continue the one-man war against evil. Melting the freezing numbness that threatens to snuff out his inner fire.
But he is still hers. She was waiting impatiently for the day she could hold him in her arms. Encouraging with sweet words as he burns the world. Soothing his aches and pains and giving him the strength to continue. That day was drawing closer and closer all the time.
Peter disappears from this world sometimes, with the help of technology that was beyond the capabilities of this time period. But he always returns back to New York, a little happier and with a bit more energy. More than ready to throw himself back into the fray.
She worries every time he leaves, that one day he won’t ever come back. In the end he always does. But until he does, she frets and worries and waits and waits. She can’t watch him when he leaves this world, and their connection grows thin and stretched out. That will change one he is hers.
With each coming and going, Peter has started to change how he hunts. Where before he left behind a trail of bodies and destruction. More and more low-life scum are left with nothing more than black bruises and shattered bones. Bullet grazes instead of wounds. Restraint instead of unbridled fury.
“Finish him,” she whispers repeatedly as he looms over his helpless prey. Her words fall upon deaf ears and he turns away and moves on. It irritates her to see how much that fire inside of him has been tamed. The burning rage has slowed, and the infection is allowed to linger.
Another thing that must change once she is reunited with her darling Peter. Together they will burn away at this city until there is nothing more than a scar left behind. Then they will go beyond and burn the world. Then and only then once their work is done will they be allowed to dampen the fire.
“I didn’t know you had a cat.”
Peter had brought a stranger to his world. On purpose. Sure, others had come before, but Peter was quick to send them away. He wasn’t sending this stranger packing.
Nothing more than one of his ‘friends’, she is sure. A weak connection that will be easy to break once Peter is hers.
She watches closely as Peter leads this ‘friend’ across the city. His name is Patrick, she quickly learns. They stop on a roof to drink some of those egg creams that Peter loves so much. Sitting side by side and talking as they take little sips of their drinks.
This Patrick is loud, making wide sweeping motions with his arms. Nearly spilling his drink several times as, he tells some story. Peter listens intently to this buffoon prattle on and on.
Their conversation is interrupted by a pair of gang members shooting up the street. Peter quickly jumps into action and leaps off the roof, swinging after the bad guys. Patrick, however, the coward, turns and jumps through a portal. Well good riddance, Peter was better off without him.
She returns her attention to Peter. Who’s swinging effortlessly around the corner of the building. He pulled out his gun. Aiming it at the speeding car. A shiver of anticipation runs up her spine. Waiting for that delightful pop! Of the gun.
Peter’s finger tightens around the trigger. Her nonexistent heart flutters.
Then he appears.
Bursting onto the scene on top of a horse of all things. Patrick wields a pair of guns as he steers the horse in front of the car. As the gunmen veer to avoid the horse.
Bang!
Instead of a bullet followed by a spray of blood and the cry of a dying gunman. A sticky white web sprays instead and glues the gunman’s gun to the pavement.
The moment is over. Peter questions the gunmen and leaves them hanging from a light post. She watches as the pair return to the roof, along with the horse. Who dumbly follows its rider.
Peter and Patrick laugh and talk late into the night. Until Patrick reluctantly says he has to leave. They’re stalling as they say their goodbyes. A spark of anger appears as she watches.
Patrick leads his horse through the portal and disappears. Peter stands there looking longingly at the spot the portal had been for some time after Patrick leaves.
She flushes with anger. Her web quivers beneath her legs. Spiders scatter and flee from her way. Peter was not allowed to be with another! Peter was hers! Not Patrick’s!
It meant nothing, she tells herself. Patrick was nothing more than a distraction, just like Robbie. Soon Peter would know better and soon forget this outsider and his dumb, stupid, horse. She just has to be patient.
Peter crawling back from battle. She watches as he shakily starts to climb the side of the building to his little office he called home. He had been fighting for the past three days straight. Leaving behind a trail of bodies, like crumbs of bread for her to follow. Peter has done well, more then well, he has done spectacular. Some of his best work yet and she reveled in every moment she was able to watch. He deserved some well-earned rest.
Peter pauses outside the window of his office for a brief respite. Resting his forehead against the glass.
She itches to hold him, stroke his hair until he falls asleep. Promising to keep him safe while his wounds heal and he’s ready for the next hunt.
There’s a loud crash from inside of the office. Peter jump and with a quick punch he shatters the window and leaps inside. Only to come crashing into Patrick’s stinking beast of burden. The horse drags Benj towards its master. Who was laying on the floor in a pool of his own blood, his guts spilling out of his cavity.
“Pat? Pat! Patty!” Peter cries over Patrick. Feebly trying to summon some shred of webbing, to help stop the bleeding. Foolish Peter, your friend was as good as dead. No man could survive such a wound.
Then Patrick begins speaking.
“But I couldn’t miss the chance to hang out with you. Benj you’re the most handsome silver laced badger I’ve met,” the dying Patrick starts to ramble. Peter is hanging onto every word this man was saying. Even as his body started trembling and was on the verge of collapsing. He hung on. “S’your like a splash of green in the desert. Your eyes are like the pretty full moon and I wanna howl when I see them.”
“Pat,” Peter gasps. Then he pitches forward. His still very human body finally gives out after pushing it so hard. Collapsing next to the dying outsider.
“I wanna go out with you Benj Parker.”
What?
No!
Peter was hers! Just hers! No one else could have him! Peter was allowed these small connections, these small friendships. Thin strands that just kept him going. Just until she could sweep him away and make herself his entire world.
This outsider. This stranger. This Patrick. Was not going to steal her Peter away.
Her only satisfaction she got was the knowledge that she was going to watch Patrick bleed to death. He was already weak. His stupid horse couldn’t even rouse him anymore. The blood on the floor was growing thick and black.
A swirling orange portal opens.
More outsiders spill out and rush to Peter and Patrick. They grab both of them, loading them onto stretchers. Carrying them away and back through the portal. Then they leave as fast as they came, even the stupid beast. All but one who was staying behind to clean up the blood in Peter’s office. Clearing away all traces. As if Patrick was never there.
Disappointment courses through her, unable now to watch Patrick gasp his last breath of air. But still he could go die in another world for all she cared. Peter would come back. Yes, he would come back. And she would be there to comfort him. Sooth his pain and promise of better things that this Patrick could never even dream of.
Patrick was alive.
She watches with burning hatred as Peter leads a limping Patrick through a portal. Nearly two weeks had passed since Patrick had been dying in Peter’s arms. Peter had returned a few days ago after no doubt spending a few days recovering from his own injuries. He still a little bit more recovering to do, but she was so relieved to see that he was doing well.
They sit together on the rooftop, watching a band playing below. Leaning in close together. Peter wraps an arm around Patrick’s shoulder. Even after the music has stopped playing, the cuddle close together. Patrick resting his head on Peter’s shoulder.
She screeches her outrage. Tearing her web to shreds with her legs. Patrick had the audacity to survive his wounds and pursue a courtship with Peter. One that Peter obviously accepted, but she could forgive Peter. He didn’t know better. Obviously falling for the charms of this outsider. He would soon learn.
Patrick, however. She was going to destroy him. Make him regret ever laying eyes on her Peter.
But she could touch Patrick, he was of this world. From one that was beyond her reach. She watches as Peter leads Patrick back through the portal and away from this world. Out of her reach.
Of course, such a devoted young man would certainly come running to Peter’s ‘rescue’ should he think he was in danger. That or he would forget Peter and never come back at all. Either worked for her, but she preferred it if he came running. Straight into her web.
The pieces were almost in place. A plan being set in motion. She just had to be patient. Then she would destroy Patrick O’Hara.