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The first thing Trinity Santos notices about the suit is the quiet. Fabric had always made noise before. Hoodies rustled. Jackets snagged on brick edges and fire escapes. Denim carried a faint friction when you moved fast enough. The suit? It doesn't make a sound.
The material Dennis chose moves with her like a second layer of skin, flexible enough to stretch without pulling, tight enough not to snag when she slides between railings or lands on gravel roofs. The night air skims across the yellow webbing stitched along the arms and shoulders as she crouches at the edge of a building overlooking Liberty Avenue. The world is cast in a slight yellow tint, not dissimilar to the paintball mask she'd been wearing. Her field of vision is, thankfully, clearer.
She peers over the edge of the roof. Below her, two men argue loudly outside the convenience store. One shoves the other. The second swings a fist and misses. A third man steps out of the shadows holding a pistol.
Trinity tilts her head slightly. “Well,” she murmurs through the mask. “Let’s test this thing.”
She steps off the roof. The webline catches the fire escape three stories below on the opposite building with a satisfying thwip. The tension absorbs most of her weight before she swings forward and drops behind the men. Her boots touch the pavement almost silently.
The man who whiffed his punch startles, jumping into the man that shoved him. “What the fuck?”
Trinity spreads her arms slightly. “So,” she says casually. “Quick question.” The yellow lenses glow faintly under the streetlight. “Do you guys like the suit?”
For a moment nobody moves, but then the man with the gun unsettles the stillness. He raises the gun, training it on the spider emblem on her chest. “That’s cute.” He fires, and the sound of the shot cracks through the alley. It makes her ears ring, but Trinity moves before she even consciously processes it, twisting sideways as the bullet slams into the brick behind her. A puff of brick and mortar dust floats in the air beside her head before disappearing.
“Rude,” she gripes. Her left hand snaps forward, webbing shooting from her wrist that glues the gun to the shooter's hand, his index finger stuck to the barrel and not the trigger.
He stares at it in confusion. “What the hell is this?” he shouts, shaking his hand violently as if that will dislodge the web and/or the pistol. He's distracted when she yanks, and the force pulls him forward hard enough that his feet leave the ground. He crashes into a nearby stack of trash bags with a wet thud.
The other two men stare. One of them reaches for a crowbar she didn't see, and he swings like his life depends on it. Trinity ducks just as the metal whooshes past her hood.
“Okay,” she says, grabbing the crowbar mid-swing. “You definitely don’t like the suit.”
She twists and the crowbar flies from his hands. Her foot sweeps his legs out from under him, and she fires a webline that wraps securely around his shins like leg irons. The second man lunges and she sidesteps, letting his momentum carry him straight into the dumpster behind her. The lid slams shut with a metallic bang.
Maybe she should invest in a dumpster manufacturer. They're turning out to be incredibly handy in this crime-fighting business.
The man with his legs tied groans, flopping helplessly on the ground like a landed fish as he tries to stand.
Trinity dusts imaginary dirt from the suit’s sleeve. “Honestly,” she says thoughtfully. “I thought the yellow accents were a nice touch.”
She webs them all to the alley wall for good measure and swings away into the night.
-
The emergency department smells like antiseptic and exhaustion.
Trinity pushes through the staff entrance just as Dana barks across the nurses’ station. “Santos! You're late!”
Trinity freezes. Dana points down the hall. “South sixteen. Trauma consult.” She gives Dana a thumbs up and continues on towards to the lockers when Dana's voice rings out again. "Now, Santos!" With a sigh, Trinity tosses her bag onto one of the empty chairs at the hub and books it towards the exam room. Inside, a construction worker sits hunched over the bed clutching his shoulder while blood soaks through the sleeve of his shirt.
“Piece of rebar,” Donnie tells her from the foot of the bed. “Missed the artery by about a centimeter.”
Trinity steps closer, snapping on a pair of gloves. “Let’s take a look.”
The wound is deep but clean. Painful but fixable.
Donnie's ready with the saline when she asks for it, and she irrigates the laceration carefully, speaking calmly to the patient while Donnie puts together a tray of suture tools. “You’re lucky,” she tells the man. “That’s a lot of blood for something that didn’t hit anything important.” She warns him, "Little sting," before pushing the lido-epi as a local.
The man laughs weakly. “Lucky’s not the word I would use. Don't think my boss would use it either.”
Trinity tries to offer him a faint, supportive smile. It's apparently passable because he relaxes a bit, even as she picks up the driver and forceps. Her movements as she sutures are efficient and practiced, and when Collins drops by to check her work, she gets an approving nod. "I think even Dr. Garcia would be impressed," she says and Trinity can't do anything to hide her blush. Dr. Collins just smirks and continues on her way, leaving Trinity and Donnie to finish with the patient.
Hours later, nearing the end of her shift, she’s leaning against the nurses’ station charting when a familiar voice speaks behind her. “You’re bleeding." When she turns, Dr. Robby stands behind her with his arms crossed.
She glances down. A thin line of red has seeped through the sleeve along her forearm where the crowbar from the night before had reopened a healing laceration from a knife slash a week earlier. It had ruined one of her favorite hoodies and made her that much more appreciative when Huckleberry presented her with the finished suit.
“Bike accident,” she says too quickly.
Robby stares at her. “You ride?”
“Uh, sure,” she answers, entirely unconvincing. At least she didn't say it was a paper cut. Through her shirt. (That went over real well with Perlah the week before.)
Robby's expression doesn’t change. “Santos.” The way he says her name this time carries weight, and she feels it settle over her shoulders like a yoke. "Trinity," he tries again, the concern more evident in his tone. “You’re a good physician,” he continues calmly. “But you’re starting to look like you’re getting into fights outside the hospital.”
Trinity holds his gaze, steeling herself for whatever look of disappointment he's about to throw her way when she says, defiantly, “I’m not.”
Robby sighs. “Then whatever you are doing,” he says quietly. “You should probably stop before it interferes with the job.”
A second voice drifts from behind him. It startles Robby but Trinity had seen him inching towards them. “Or,” Dr. Abbott starts casually. “We could let her figure that out herself.”
He turns, spotting Dr. Abbott leaning against the doorway with a cup of coffee. His posture is relaxed, but his eyes are sharp and observant in a way that makes the hairs on the beck of Trinity's neck stand on end.
Robby frowns. “Abbott.”
Abbott shrugs. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Yeah,” Abbott responds. “And I’m saying you might scare her off if you go full dad mode.”
Robby exhales slowly. “You volunteering to handle it?”
Abbott takes a sip of coffee. “Sure.” He looks at Trinity. “We’ll talk later.” The way he says it makes her spine stiffen, and she wonders how much later 'later' actually is and whether or not she can avoid him for the next hour. He must see it in her posture because he says, "Don't run. I'll find you."
"Well that's fucking ominous," she swears under her breath.
Robby just studies both of them, shaking his head in exasperation before finally walking away.
Abbott waits until he disappears around the corner before he glances back at Trinity. “You box?”
She blinks. “No.”
“Kickboxing?”
“No.”
“Self-defense classes?”
“Krav maga.”
Abbott smiles faintly. “You should consider taking up Judo. I like it for grappling and faster takedowns.” His eyes flicker to the blood still coloring the long sleeve of her undershirt. "Should take care of that."
She looks back down at her arm. "Yeah. Probably," she says, unbothered by the blood and more by whatever she's putting out there that Abbott's picking up on.
Unfortunately, he doesn't give her anything else, just nods once and says, "Holler if you need anything, Dr. Santos." And then he walks away like an asshole.
-
Later that night, Trinity crouches on a different rooftop, listening to the traffic and staring across the river, the city lights glittering.
She's already stopped one carjacker, helped a cat out of a tree, and eaten a shitty gas station hot dog. The guy's face had been priceless when she'd walked in wearing the suit, grabbed some food, and paid in cash that was tucked into the hidden pocket Huckleberry had sewn. When she said she didn't want the receipt, he asked if she'd autograph for it for him. Spider-Woman, of course, obliged, and drew her best rendition of a spider— it wasn't great but she thinks it was at least recognizable. The cashier had been happy, at least.
She rolls her shoulders experimentally. The suit still moves perfectly. Through the yellow lenses, she catches sight of a scuffle down the block. "Round two," she says, probably more gleefully than she should, and sprints across the rooftops towards her second carjacking of the night.
Spider-Woman drops down behind them, clicking her tongue to get their attention. The two criminals and the would-be victim all turn to look at her. “Uh."
Trinity raises both hands slightly. “Before we start, I just want some feedback.”
All three of them stare at her, mouths slightly agape.
“The suit,” she clarifies. “Be honest.”
The victim takes advantage of the distraction and dives into the driver's seat of his car, slamming the door before speeding off with tires screeching against the asphalt.
The guy closest to her does a double-take at the now-empty parking spot, and his face twists into something like anger with a tinge of embarrassment. He jumps towards her with a switchblade out-stretched. She sidesteps out of the way, grabbing his wrist and twisting until the blade clatters to the ground. The other guy charges, trying to throw a punch with brass knuckles on his hand.
“… so that’s a no,” she deadpans. She flips the first guy onto the pavement as she ducks low to dodge the second one, tripping him as he stumbles past her. He catches himself before he can face plant and turns to lunge him again. She kicks him onto the hood of the parked car a spot over and he slumps to the ground with a groan.
Silence settles again.
Trinity plants her hands on her hips. “Okay,” she announces to the unconscious criminals as she webs them to a parking meter. “Mixed reviews.” She sighs dramatically before swinging upward into the Pittsburgh night, finding another roof to perch atop. High above the streetlights, the yellow lines of the suit catch the moonlight, and for the first time, Trinity Santos feels like she might actually be getting the hang of this.