Chapter Text
“ Jax, just move over- ”
“ No! Shauna it’s my computer, I know where she’s going, just let me- ”
“ The way you’re leading her is right into a dead end, the building got renovated like a month ago, that room doesn't exist- ”
“ Oh please, I knew that, I was taking her up the elevator- ”
“ Isn’t the signal coming from below the ground? Why would she go up- ”
Nat groaned as she listened to Jackie and Shauna bicker over the comms. It was painful, having her friends arguments be constantly ringing in her ears. She loved them, truly and dearly, but holy shit they would not stop. She shot her webs onto a lock in hopes to break it and get through the door.
“ Shauna just- ”
“Oh my god, shut up,” Nat hissed at them, under her breath so as not to alert anyone still on the premises.
“ Sorry Nat, ” Shauna said, not sounding sorry.
“Jackie, where the fuck am I going?” She asks, and gives up with subtlety on the lock, kicking out the door.
“ There’s an elevator shaft down at the end of the hall there, just go down to the bottom, ” Jackie said. “ The vault is down there somewhere, and that’s where the alarm was tripped. The rest of the hostages should be through there, ”
“Where do I go once I’m down there?”
“ Hm? I’ll let you know, ” Jackie said absently, a loud clicking noise was heard in the background, she was already trying to plan ahead.
“Last time I had to go underground I lost connection, so please just tell me now,”
“ I thought Shauna fixed that? ”
“ I’m not a fucking miracle worker Jackie, ”
“ I never said that you were! Oh my god, I’m not doing this with you, ”
“I didn’t want to do this with you in the first place, you started it.”
“Guys!” Nat wanted to scream. She could only handle so much of their bickering. It was less like a cute old married couple, and more like middle aged parents on the brink of divorce.
“ Right, sorry Nat,” Jackie apologized this time. “ When you get down there the vault should be down the hallway to your left,”
Nat runs towards the elevator and hits the button to open it. She waits a second before hitting it again, harder. “Jack, it’s broken,”
“You have super strength Nat, just open it,” Shauna snaps. She sounds further away, so she’s probably sulking on the other side of Jackie’s bedroom. Nat is grateful for the excuse of something to take out her frustrations on, getting her hands between the door and pulling.
She got it open and saw the elevator sitting at the bottom of the shaft, she’d have to pull it open when she gets down there. Web on the wall and then she’s freefalling. The web goes taut right before she slams onto the metal of the elevator.
The comms didn’t go out, but Jackie and Shauna are arguing again so she takes it out and crushes it beneath her foot, reveling in the subsequent silence.
“Alright, where-” She turns down the hallway and sees an open vault. “Oh,”
As she sneaks towards it she overhears someone speaking. A gruff voice, a man’s. “David, would you just- the tape, put it on her mouth, I can’t take this anymore,”
“She fucking bit me last time, I’m not-”
“Get closer and I’ll do more than bite,”
Well, this day just could not get any better. Nat groaned far too loudly.
Lottie fucking Matthews was in there. The journalist who couldn’t stay away, who always needed to be in the middle of everything. Who hated Nat. No, who hated Spider-Woman. She was civil with Nat, since they worked in the
“Who’s that?” The first man called, and Nat stepped out from behind the wall showing herself.
“Just perfect,” Lottie, tied up in a chair, rolled her eyes.
Nat sneered-well, as best she could through the mask- and turned away from her.
“Get out of here, Spidey, we have the hostages, there’s nothing you can do,”
Nat squinted her eyes, allowing Jackie’s computer to activate within the goggles of the mask and identify the men. David Levi, petty theft, was the one who hesitantly reached towards Matthews with the duct tape. The other man was George Stevens, a large rap sheet complete with murder along with the grand theft.
“Well, I can’t leave without the hostages, so I guess one of us isn’t going to get what we want.” Nat quips, and brings her wrist up to shoot the gun out of George’s hands, she shot again and his arm gets trapped against the wall.
“David, don’t just stand there, shoot!” George shouted. David jumped away from Matthews, relieved to be doing anything else. He shot at Nat, missing widely. “Don’t hit the hostages you fucking idiot!”
Nat dodged him, flipping around, leading the gunfire away from anyone important, she ducks behind Lottie.
“Are you using me as a shield?” Lottie tries to twist around to yell at her.
“Kinda,” Nat ducks as George releases himself and flies towards her, fists out. “They don’t want to hurt hostages, and you-oh shit,”
David’s grabbing the bags and sprinting out the vault, Nat shoots webs towards his feet, tripping him. In the momentary distraction, she’s pulled away from her hiding place, and lifted one handed by George.
He grabs a pistol from a holster under his shirt and points it at a hostage at random, a bank manager.
“Here’s the deal, pest, you let me and my boy here go, and I don’t shoot anyone,”
Nat tried to escape, coming up with a plan. “Let the hostages out first,”
George thought it over.
“Let them go and then I’ll let you leave with the money,”
“Fine, but to keep ya honest, I’m keeping one here with us,”
“Fine,” Nat says. “You’ve got a deal, Georgie. So long as it’s that one,”
She points at Matthews. She knows Lottie can hold her own during a fight, maybe not this one, but a fight. She was fast, if Nat managed to let out, she could run fast enough to get out. Matthews was predictable, at least predictable enough. The others, she had no idea what they were capable of, no idea of what they could or couldn’t do.
The hell you know, right?
Matthews makes a sound of pure anger. “What the fuck Spider-Woman? Why me,”
“Shut up,” Nat hisses at her.
George thinks it over. “Fine,” and drops her to the floor.
Nat lets David up first, and he gets ordered to let the hostages out, George training his gun on Matthews, and Matthews piercing Nat with a glare she could feel more than see.
“Great, now just-”
“I don’t think so, Spidey,” George nods at David to raise his gun. He points his own at Nat, while David has his on Lottie. “You know the kind of respect I’d get for getting rid of you? Betcha Martinez would look the other way, if Spider-Woman was found dead in here. Yeah, I’d bet he’d look away for a lotta things,”
Nat’s eyes widened. Shit. The chief of police, Bill Martinez, hated Spider-Woman. She got involved in a lot of things she legally shouldn’t. But it wasn’t like she could just let it go. George could shoot her here, and they’d probably just bury her in the suit.
“Now, Georgie, let’s not do anything rash,” Nat says, trying to de-escalate the situation. He fired, a bullet just barely grazing her side. “Fuck me,”
She dodged the bullets, aiming her webs at his gun and arms. He kept shooting, she dodged each, thankfully, but they’re were some close fucking calls. She finally kicked the gun away from him, cornering him against the wall and sticking all four limbs to the wall.
“David!” George shouted, and Nat remembered Matthews and the gun. He grinned. “It’s you or her, Spider-Woman, who will it be?”
She stared at Lottie, who’s eyes were widened, fear for the first time Nat could remember. She couldn’t let someone get hurt because of her.
Not after her mom. Nat could see her in Lottie now, could see a woman about to sacrifice herself for Natalie, a man holding a gun, pointing it at one and delivering ultimatum by bullet.
“Me, shoot me,” Nat says. And David points it at her.
“What the fuck? No,” Lottie replies. Nat whips her head around, so too does David.
“What are you talking about? I’m not letting him shoot you for me,” Nat tells her, Lottie looks at her, infuriated. Which is confusing, because she’s not yelling at Nat, but sacrificing herself.
“Well, I can’t let him shoot you either,” Lottie snaps. “You’re the only useful thing in this city,”
“See, the words are a compliment, but the way you say them is-”
“Shut up Spidey. You’re not sacrificing yourself for me,”
“I wouldn’t have had to if I let you out with the rest of them,”
“What? So someone else could let you die, absolutely not,”
“I don’t get your fucking martyr-complex, Matthews, I really feel like you should talk to someone about that,” Lottie sneers at her, turning her head to look at David.
“Just shoot me already,” Lottie pushes her head against the barrel of the gun. He steps back, confused and concerned. He throws a panicked look at George.
“Figure it out, David,” George snaps.
He hesitates. Then levels it on Matthews. “Seems like Spider-Woman really doesn’t want you to die,”
“No, she just wants all the glory,”
“What glory!” Nat explodes with frustration. Lottie gives her a look, one that makes her feel dumb, like what Lottie was saying is common knowledge.
“And you’re protecting her,” The rusty wheels in David’s head are turning. “You must know each other,” He decides. “Lovers,”
“What?” Nat says, bewildered.
“Ew, what the fuck?” Lottie looks at him with pure disgust.
“Yeah, I would never date her,”
“Okay, well you don’t have to be rude, ”
“Okay miss ‘ eww , what the fuck’”
“I do not sound like that!”
“You totally do,”
“I’m just going to shoot Spider-Woman,” David says.
“Thank you,” Nat throws her arms up in exasperation.
“NO!” Lottie shouts. “Fucking coward, shoot me, and let her go,”
David does. He levels the gun and pulls the trigger. It misses.
“Fucking idiot, give me that,” George tears all but one arm out. David hands him the gun and before Nat can move towards George aims and- BANG.
It’s almost slow motion, the bullet flying at Lottie. Nat can’t let someone else take a bullet for her.
She dives, pulling herself in front of Matthews, and a sharp pain explodes in her ribcage.
She falls to the ground and Matthews screams. The girl isn’t in the chair anymore, and it confuses Nat, who’s incredibly distracted by the pain.
“Idiot! I had a plan!” She hears Matthews yell. There’s commotion, the sound of a man shouting in pain. She dips in and out of consciousness. Another gunshot, another shout, and Nat’s being pulled up.
“Christ, you’re lighter than I thought,” Matthews tells her. “You really need to eat more,”
“What's happening?”
“Shot the big guy, threatened the smaller guy, he let me go.” Lottie tells her, and Nat realizes the door to the vault was closed. She leans Nat against a wall.
“I’m calling the cops,” Lottie tells her and digs a broken phone out of her pocket.
“Why were you gonna let yourself get shot?” Nat asks, fading fast.
“I told you, I had a plan, you messed it up,” Lottie says. “Hi yes, I’m calling from the bank on twenty third, yeah I’m fine, yeah about the robbery. Everyone else got out- no, just me, they’re armed, but one is injured.”
She hangs up and then starts inspecting the spot where the bullet went through. Lottie had thrown herself from the chair when Nat had leapt in front of the gun, and it had missed her completely.
“Oh,” Nat says. “So you were just saying all that to buy time?”
“I did mean some of it, you’re important to the city,” She frowns. “It went through, luckily, but you should have a doctor look at it. I’m taking you to the hospital,”
“No!” Nat cries.
“Spider-Woman, I can’t just let you-” Lottie starts, Nat cuts her off.
“No, not that. Just, the mask and everything. My friends a doctor,” Ish. Shauna never finished her residency. “Let me use your phone, I’ll call her.”
Lottie looks reluctant, but hands over the phone, and Nat punches in Shauna’s number.
“ Hello? ” Shauna says after three rings.
“Hey, it’s me,” Nat says.
“ Oh my god, what the fuck did you do to my comms? ” Shauna immediately accuses.
“Nothing!” Nat defends. “It broke, not my fault,”
It was entirely her fault.
“ I don’t believe you, ”
“Yeah, yeah,” Nat replied. “Listen, I got shot,”
“ You got shot?”
“A little bit,”
“ What the fuck do you mean ‘a little bit’? Did you get shot, yes or no? ”
“Yeah,” Nat sighs. “Just send her to the bank, Matthews and I will meet her,”
“...Lottie is there?” Shauna says, Nat can hear the smile in her voice, so she hangs up before another word can be said. She deletes the number from the history before she hands it back to Lottie.
—
No matter how fast her healing is, she can’t get over a gunshot wound in a night, so Jackie makes her stay home instead of going into work. To heal or whatever. She watches TV and sneaks out the window when she sees someone try to rob the convenience store across the street.
Jackie chews her out for that when she gets back.
Shauna stops her when she goes to leave for work the next morning. “Jackie called in again for you, you should be in bed,”
“I have to go to work Shauna,” Nat tries to push passed, but Shauna is freakishly strong. “Matthews saw me at the bank, she’s in the same building as me. If I don’t go to work and pretend everything’s fine, she’ll get suspicious,”
Shauna thought it over, and relented. She always saw Nat’s logic.
“We never saw each other, got it?” Shauna says as she moves out of Nat’s way.
“Course,” Nat replies. “See you later Shipman,”
-
Natalie gets all the way to her desk before she runs into an issue. She’s sitting down, wincing as the stitches pull at her skin. The sound makes Jackie look up from the printer, and as their eyes meet a stone cold anger clouds her face.
“I’ll fucking kill her.” She says simply, marching over to Nat.
“Kill who?” Van pokes her head out, curious to see what’s going on. “Oh, Nat, good morning.”
“She didn’t let me out Jackie,” Nat says, nodding to Van. “I slipped out the window when I heard her leave,”
“I’ll kill you then,” Jackie says, approaching with a fury that, frankly, terrifies Nat. “I told you to stay home, you need to rest,”
“Why does she need to rest?” Matthews approaches them, two coffees in hand. She offers one to Nat. Black, from the place across the street. Jackie watches curiously.
They only just started getting coffee for each other, and only if one was going to the cafe. It was easily the best in the area. Last week they both showed up there, looking exhausted one monday morning, and both had gotten chewed out by Tai for being late, so now one goes and the other covers from their boss, just in case.
“She’s sick,” Jackie blurts unconvincingly. Lottie looks at her in confusion, then back at Nat, inspecting her for symptoms. She brings a hand to her forehead, which Nat slaps away.
“I’m fine, Jackie’s being dramatic,” She huffs.
“I dunno man, you look kind of awful,” Van tells her, and Nat glares. “Why not just take a sick day?”
“Because I’m fine!” Nat exclaims. Jackie frowns and pokes her ribs. “Ow, fuck you, like actually,”
“You’re not fine, you should be at home,”
“What happened anyway? Since you’re not sick,” Lottie walks a little ways away, still close enough to be a part of the conversation. Nat looks at her, trying to see if she knows something, but she can’t identify anything past friendly concern.
Nat glares at Jackie, who’s panicking. Jackie who is the world’s shittiest liar and has been since playing werewolf in elementary school.
“She fell off our fire escape,” Jackie ends up lying. Nat’s glare deepens. Lottie’s brows furrow. “Bruised her ribs pretty hard, it wasn’t fun,”
“When did that happen?” Lottie looked worried now, genuinely. She glances at Nat.
“Sunday,” Nat knows that there is no digging herself out of this lie, so she may as well dig lower. “But Jackie’s just dramatic. I didn’t fall off, I just slipped, I never reached the ground or anything,”
Matthews nods, about to open her mouth to say something when the door to Taissa’s office opens. She smiles, standing at attention, as if Tai has any actual sort of control.
“You should all be working, why are you around Nat’s desk?” She sounds genuinely confused, and she looks…worse for wear. Dark circles under her eyes, and a defeated stance.
“You should send her home, she’s not well,” Jackie points at Nat, who groans loudly.
“I am fine Jackie, leave it alone,” She protests. Tai blinks.
“Hey Tai,” Van says shyly. Her crush on their boss- married boss, Nat should add- was no secret in the department. Tai nods to her, and Van looks elated.
“Do we have this weeks issue planned out?” Tai asks Jackie.
She waves the stack of paper she’d been printing. “It’s here, I just need Nat’s photos,”
Shit.
They’re all looking at Nat now, who’s scrambling to open her computer.
“I didn’t get a chance because-” She starts, looking for an excuse. She can’t tell the actual truth, that she doesn’t have them because she was too busy getting kids out of a burning building, or fighting the latest supervillain of the weekend or getting shot.
“She fell off the fire escape and I made her go to the hospital,” Jackie finishes, wincing already.
Tai looks ready to tear Nat a new one, before she just throws her hands up and walks away, back into her office.
“Bye Tai,” Van calls as the door shuts.
“I have no fucking photos Jack,” Nat hisses at her.
“I know,” Jackie whispers back. She hands the papers over, the formatting with all the text from their various article’s. She reads them quickly; Misty Quigley, Genius or Mad Scientist? ; Artist Adam Martin gone under mysterious circumstances ; Spider-Woman valiantly saves local’s from a fire .
The first had an easy answer (Mad Scientist, evil, really. The public doesn’t know this), she really didn’t want to talk to Misty again this month. The next is a cover up thanks to Jackie, always protecting her fiancee and roommate from the stupider decisions. And the third- Byline says…Lottie Matthews? What?
It’s a kinder article about her, compared to the last few ( Where do we draw the line for Vigilante Justice? Spider-Woman and her secrecy. Spider-Woman’s latest ‘save’ causes devastation for local business. Spider-Woman and her most recent fuck-up. ) But it reads without the usual emotion Lottie’s work normally has. Nat appreciates her articles, even the ones tearing her alter ego apart, but this one is, it feels like a puff piece. Nothing like Lottie at all.
“Matthews!” Nat calls. Lottie slides out from her desk space to look at Nat. She shakes the paper. “What the fuck is this?”
“Do you not like it?” Lottie frowns.
“Did you get AI to write this or something?” Nat accuses. She doesn’t genuinely believe that, but it just sounds too robotic.
“What? No, of course not.” Lottie replies, looking lightly offended “I wrote it myself,”
“It sounds robotic,”
“I thought you wanted me to lay off Spider-Woman? What’s your problem?”
“It’s fluff. You don’t do that.”
“What is it that I do?” Lottie asks, brows furrowed.
“You write like, shit you believe and are passionate about. This is- this is fucking emotionless garbage.”
Lottie rolls her eyes, and turns back to her desk.
Van leans against Nat’s desk. “It’s cause Tai made her write something pro Spider-Woman for once,”
“ Tai? ” Spider-Woman’s biggest haters in this city were Bill Martinez, Taissa Turner, and Lottie Matthews, in that order. Van shrugs.
“Maybe she had a change of heart,” She sounds hopeful, throwing a glance at the woman’s office.
“She is getting a divorce,” Lottie speaks again. “I think she’s fumbling for something, some sort of mid-life crisis.”
“She’s like, thirty.”
“WHAT?”
“Keep it down,” Lottie hisses. “She might hear you,”
“What do you mean she’s getting divorced?”
“Okay, don’t sound too excited now,” Jackie teases.
“Mari told me she heard Tai say something about it,” Lottie shrugs. Nat frowns. Fucking Mari.
Van is almost bouncing with excitement. “Do you think-”
“I’m not letting you finish that sentence,” Nat cuts in. “For your own sake. Your delusions don’t need to be voiced.”
—
Jackie doesn’t let her go out as Spider-Woman for about a week. Nat’s fine after two days, but Jackie won’t hear it. She’ll sneak out of her window, or try to, before getting caught and dragged back inside. Eventually (four days in, Jackie wanted a two week break) she left and escaped the apartment without being detected.
Luckily, nothing big happens while she’s on leave, Doctor Q is being oddly quiet, leaving her alone for a whole week. A record. Truly. She gets to spend that time worrying about other parts of her life, like taking pictures of graffiti and trees, and recultanctly sending an email to Misty Quigley for a photo, CC’ing Tai on it. Just in case.
She helped cats in trees, stopped a car crash without destroying anything, stopped some pick pockets. Light work for spider-woman.
One night, after she got antsy having finished all her work for her actual real person job, she sneaks out and swings around the city until Jackie realizes and starts to blow up her phone.
While feasting on a hot dog on top of a building she feels her alerts go off. A chill down her spine and the instinct to move . Then she hears it.
“Open your purse.”
Nat’s alarm bells go off, and before she fully drops to the ground she spins her web and uses it to slowly grapple down, preferring to stay in the shadows at night.
She drops down behind the guy, and almost blows her cover with a groan. Her. Again. Why? Why must this be her life?
“Is that-” Lottie starts, as she opens her mouth the mugger pushes the gun harder against her back. “Is that gun from the Dollar Store?”
“What?” The man faltered. “No, it’s a real gun, I really will shoot you.”
“If you were going to you would have already.” Natalie suspects that Lottie truly does have a deathwish. “I doubt it’s even loaded.”
Nat needs to step in, before this woman gets herself murdered in a dark alleyway. One quick shot and the gun is not in his hands, but Nat’s. It feels way too light and-
“Dude, did you get this at the Dollar Store?” She finds herself echoing Lottie. Natalie looks closer at it. “This is a toy.”
“Spider-Woman!” The man yelps. “I was-I was just-”
“Two times in one fucking week just my luck.” Lottie mutters.
“Are you serious?” Nat glares from behind her mask. “Are you really going to be like that?”
“Yes!” Lottie throws her arms up. “I was fine! It is a toy gun, I can handle myself spiderwoman.”
Nat snorts, even if she knows its true. “I swear to god Matthews you have a death wish.”
Lottie sneers at her. “You don’t know me.” She grabs her bag. “You can deal with him. I’m leaving.”
“Thank you!” Nat calls after her. She looks on, deep in the blank abyss in her mind. Before she is interrupted.
“Cool, so I’m just going to-” The man starts. Nat, without looking, shoots a web in his direction, pinning his arms to the wall nearest to him.
“I won’t call the cops, since you know, you didn’t actually steal anything. But like, stay there and think about it, I don’t know.”
-
“Where were you?” Jackie appears just as Nat turns her bedroom light on.
“Out.” Nat grunts, flopping into her bed.
“Seriously? You got shot less than a week ago-”
“And I’m fine, it’s not even the first time I’ve been shot.”
Jackie purses her lips. She’s silent for a time before she speaks again. “I just wish you’d take better care of yourself Nat. We have a deal, remember?”
Jackie says it in such a small voice, and it hurts Nat more than a punch to the gut- which don’t really hurt anymore but that’s besides the point- she hasn’t heard Jackie like this since she’d found Nat beside her dad’s body. Gun in her hands and suddenly orphaned.
Since then she’d been strong, unwavering in passion and boldness.
“I know Jackie. I am.” Nat promises. “I’m safe, I have you.”
“Yeah. Okay.” She goes to leave. “Goodnight.”
“Hey, no.” Nat interrupts, Jackie looks back in confusion. Nat opens her arms. “I know you want to give me a hug, don’t be stupid.”
Jackie grins and rushes at her.
“Ow fuck Jack, not so tight.”
“Sorry.”
-
Sometimes Nat really fucking hated her job. Not her day job, that was just vaguely annoying, no her other job. The one that was fun when it was just swinging around the city and stopping the stupid guys.
The times she really hated it- hates a strong word, and she doesn’t
hate
it, really, it’s just- when you’re stalking around in the dark, like a hunter, knowing there’s something there, every instinct telling you to look behind you. But then you listen to it, you look, and the feelings gone, replaced and behind you, again.
“Miss me that much?” A voice purrs from beside her ear. Nat jumps nearly a fucking foot, which earns her a low laugh.
“What are you doing here?” She demands. Antlerqueen is smirking at her now, she can see it under her dark mask.
“Well, I was bored.” She replied easily. “And just maybe, I missed you?”
Nat face burns. “Fuck off, tell me what you’re doing here Antlerqueen.”
“Hmm.” The thief pretends to think. “No, I don’t think that’s your business.”
“What? I-I wasn’t
asking
.”
“What are you going to do about it, Spidey?” Antlerqueen approaches. Spider-woman backs up with every step Antlerqueen takes forwards, until she’s against a wall, the other woman towering over her. “Will you force me to tell you?”
Nat can’t find her words, she’s searching, distracted by the soft lips inches from her face, the small sharp canines of Antlerqueen’s grin. She opens her mouth to speak, and suddenly there’s a click, a safe opening in the wall.
Before Nat can process anything, Antlerqueen is off her, and Nat’s pushed to the side.
“Oh fuck no-” Nat moves to chase, but she’s suddenly tied to the chair, being pushed back into it.
Antlerqueen observes a moment, clicks her tongue. “A shame I have to leave you like this . I would love to do more with you tied up.”
And Nat is speechless and blushing furiously again. “Fuck you.” Is all she manages, through clenched teeth.
“Am I hearing a request?” Antlerqueen asks, laughing loudly at Nat’s full body reaction. “Not now, Spider-girl. I unfortunately have to run.”
“It’s Spider-woman!” Nat corrects, but it’s useless. She’s fucking gone, again.