Chapter Text
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Pamela reached a lazy hand out of bed, whacking the snooze button of the alarm. She sat up, brushing the bangs out of her face, as her face-framing tendrils of hair hung languidly at her cheeks, while she let out a gaping yawn.
Pamela rolled out of bed, throwing on a hoodie and jeans, and grabbing a sling-strap camera, before pulling up a red and blue suit and mask, and leaping from her apartment balcony.
Before she could hit the ground, a white web fired from her wrist, sticking onto a nearby building, and allowing her to swing along, above the bustling street. As she swung her way through the city she would occasionally position her camera on a building, allowing it to take photos of herself.
Approaching the city centre, she swung herself into a hot dog stand, picking up three loaded hot dogs. “You can have them free!” the seller announced, handing them over to her, “thanks for saving the city Spider-Man!”
Spider-Man, Pamela let out a sigh. The identity that had been a blessing and a curse for her. She had been Spider-Man for close to three years now, longer than she’d even been Pamela, and it had allowed her to protect the people of New York, and put lots of criminals away, but recently it had felt a lot like a burden. She was weighed down by having to be this identity she had first embodied when she was a completely different person. And hearing the name so much… hearing the name felt like a stab in the guts.
Before she knew it, Pamela had finished off the hot dogs, and was swinging into a changing room, where she took off her costume, shoving it in the bottom of her camera bag, and emerging, now just as Pamela Parker, freelance photographer, and (hopefully) soon-to-be college student.
She rushed up the stairs of a nearby office building, finding herself in the bustling headquarters of the Daily Bugle. “Parker! Just who I wanted to see!” A gruff voice called from the largest office, belonging to editor-in-chief J. Jonah Jameson. His grey handlebar moustache curled as he smiled watching Pamela hurry across the room, “what’s that on your face, Parker?” He brushed off a spot of spilt food on her cheek with a handkerchief.
“Mustard, sir, I had a hot dog for breakfast on the way”
Jameson nodded, “I assume you’ve got more pictures of Spider-Man for me?”
Pamela carefully extracted her camera from its bag, handing over the SD card to Jameson. “Right he- what’s with the flag?” Pamela suddenly noticed a large blue, pink and white flag on Jameson’s wall.
“I wanted to make sure it was known that I support my employees, no matter who they are,” he smiled proudly, “you’re a good kid, Parker, I’ll make sure that Ms. Brant sends across your money this afternoon”
“Thanks Mr. Jameson,” Pamela smiled nervously, “you really didn’t need to do the whole flag thing…”
“I think I did. It’s very important that everyone here at the Bugle knows this is a safe place to be!”
“I understand, sir, I’ll be going now!”
“Have a good afternoon Parker! And stay safe”
“I will, sir, have a good one too!”
Pamela made her way back down the stairs onto the street. Work was over, and she had the rest of the day to herself. Ah, the luxurious life of a freelancer.
Not long later, Pamela found herself in a burger bar near Prospect Park. “Can I get three, wait, no, four burgers with everything?” She ordered from the man behind the counter.
“Eating with friends?”
“No, just for me,” she let out a jittery laugh, fidgeting with the zipper of her jacket.
“Just for you…? Are you sure, ma’am?”
Pamela felt herself smile as she was called ‘ma’am’, and began to look down at the counter. “Yeah, I’m sure”
“Alright, that’ll be fourty-eight dollars,” the man held out an eftpos machine for her to tap her card.
Lucky Jameson pays me well. Pamela tapped her card on the machine, and sat at one of the bar’s provided seats, waiting for her meals to arrive. After some time they did, and Pamela took a hungry bite into the first of the burgers, quickly devouring it along with the others.
Buzz-buzz! She didn’t have long to enjoy it though, as she felt her phone going off in her pocket. She pulled it out to see exactly what she’d expected, a notification from Villain-Tracker, an app she had designed herself, which monitored social media and alerted her to sightings of any known supervillains in New York City. “Thanks for the burgers, gotta go!” she called, rushing into the park to change. According to the app, Vulture had been spotted near the Brooklyn Bridge, not too far from where Pamela was.
She quickly changed into her costume, swinging towards the location of the sightings. Soon enough she saw the Vulture, perched atop a skyscraper. Vulture wore their typical costume, an armoured flightsuit, with large metal wings, each with a large turbine built in, as well as a pointed, beak-like flight helmet, which showed only the glowing green goggles of the pilot within visible from the outside.
“Vulture!” Pamela called, swinging towards the winged villain, “I thought you were still in pris-aaahh!!”
Pamela exclaimed as she was swatted away with one of Vulture’s wings. “Silence Spiderfreak!” called the distorted voice from within the wingsuit, as they swiped again at where Pamela had been just seconds before.
“You’re going to have to be faster to hit me with that again,” Pamela called as she swung away, using her webbing to stick her camera to a nearby building, preset to take photos every few seconds.
“Let me kill you, you stupid bug!!!” The mechanical voice roared, as Vulture took off from the building, flying at Pamela, who kicked off a nearby building, swinging into a kick, which hit Vulture squarely in the chest, launching them backwards through the air.
Oops, Pamela thought to herself as Vulture struggled to right themselves, still figuring out my own strength.
Vulture let out a distorted scream as they charged through the air towards Pamela, as a pair of missiles fired from their shoulders, barely missing Pamela.
“Woah, that’s new!” Pamela exclaimed, catching the missiles with her webs and carefully dropping them on a nearby rooftop, “been innovating during your jailtime, Vulchy?”
“This is where you die, Spider-Man!!” Vulture screamed, hovering over the rooftop where Pamela stood.
Pamela let out a sigh. “Let’s get this over with then,” she spoke determinedly, firing her webs into each of Vulture’s wing turbines, causing them to begin falling from the sky, before firing two cords of webbing to catch Vulture as they fell. “It’s over, Vulture.”
“Not today, Spider-Man!” Vulture exclaimed, gloating, as the turbines accelerated their rotation speed, shredding Pamela’s webs, and allowing Vulture to cut the webs Pamela had fired at their back, before they flew away, faster than Pamela could hope to pursue.
“Dammit!” Pamela exclaimed, watching Vulture disappear like a speck into the distance. She retrieved her camera, deleting any incriminating photos as she swung back towards the Daily Bugle headquarters.
“Parker!” J. Jonah Jameson smiled as Pamela returned to his office, “I assume you got photos of Spider-Man fighting that winged guy”
“He’s called the Vulture… but yes, sir”
“Excellent, excellent. I knew I could always rely on you, Parker!”
As Pamela left his office, Jameson began to look through the images she had brought in.
“Wait a minute…” he zoomed in on one of the images, in which Spider-Man seemed to be wearing a badge on her chest. He looked at the badge, then looked at the flag on the wall to confirm the likeness. “Spider-Man’s a trans woman!!” He slammed his fist on the desk, “of course that web-slinging menace would try to bring down the good name of the trans community!!!” He leaned down to a microphone on his desk, announcing over the PA, “Parker, I need you in my office!”
Seconds later, Pamela came rushing into the office, a bead of sweat on her forehead. “What is it Mr. Jameson-!?”
“I… have bad news, Parker,” he pointed to the picture on his monitor, showing the pride badge. Pamela swallowed nervously. Dammit! I forgot to take that off, she thought to herself, at least my boobs look good in that photo. “It would appear that Spider-Man is trans. I am sorry that such a devious individual is associated with your community”
“I-I see…” Pamela breathed a silent sigh of relief.
“Actually, we’ll need a new name for her. We can’t keep calling her Spider-Man obviously”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea, sir,” Pamela stood awkwardly as Jameson talked to himself.
Jameson rubbed his chin in thought. “Spider-Woman isn’t original enough… Spider-Girl is too infantilising, this is a menace to the city, not some little girl…”
“Does Spider-Ma’am work?” Pamela timidly made a suggestion.
“I hope you’re joking, Parker,” he lost himself in thought once again. “Aha! I have it. We’ll call her Spider-Lass!”
“Spider-Lass? Are you sure, sir?”
“Do I pay you to make editorial suggestions, or do I pay you to take pictures of Spider-Lass?”
“Take pictures of Spider-Lass?”
“Exactly!” He seemed to snap out of his thoughts. “Excellent work, Parker! This’ll be on the front page tomorrow”
“A-alright, sir,” Pamela slunk out of Jameson’s office. Spider-Lass… I guess it could be a lot worse.
As she swung back to her apartment, Pamela felt a single buzz of her phone in her pocket, pulling it out to find a message from her aunt May.
Hey Pammy!
I just wanted to let you know that Miss Watson is going to be coming back to town tomorrow. I thought you two might want to catch up.
MJ’s going to be back in town… Pamela felt a shiver down her spine, and a cold sweat on her forehead, as she remembered how things had ended with MJ. The two hadn’t talked a single time since.