Marvel – I am Spiderman

someone's here come now

Sixth period. Peter read the text under his desk.

No period. No capitalization. Cindy typed in full sentences. She'd texted him a paragraph about web solvent last week with semicolons in it. This was five words with nothing holding them together, and Peter was out of his seat before the teacher finished turning to the board.

He made it to Cindy's house in minutes. Would have been faster if he'd swung, but her neighborhood was residential and it was the middle of the afternoon and people had windows. He took the bus to Kissena and ran the last six blocks and his spider-sense was doing something he'd never felt before.

Nothing.

The spider-sense returned nothing. A blank space, like tuning a radio to a dead frequency.

He knocked on the front door. Mrs. Moon opened it.

She was smiling. Mrs. Moon didn't smile at Peter. She tolerated Peter because Cindy's grades hadn't dropped and because Peter was polite in the specific way Korean mothers tested for, removing shoes without being asked, using both hands to accept a cup.

"Peter. Come in. We have a guest."

The living room. The good tea set was out. Peter had been in this house a dozen times and he'd never seen the good tea set. It was white with gold trim, something Mrs. Moon kept in the high cabinet, and it was laid out on the coffee table with the sugar in a bowl instead of the box and real cream instead of the carton.

The man sitting on the couch was maybe fifty-five. Slim, grey at the temples, wearing a suit that cost more than everything in this room combined and managing to look comfortable in it on Mrs. Moon's couch with the plastic still on the armrests. He had warm brown eyes and good posture and he was holding his teacup with both hands the way Korean guests did and Mrs. Moon had noticed.

Cindy was in the armchair by the window. Her legs were pulled up under her. Her hands were in her lap and her fingers were laced together and the knuckles were white. She looked at Peter when he walked in and her jaw was tight.

"Peter Parker," the man said. He stood. Offered his hand. His grip was dry and firm and normal and Peter's spider-sense continued to produce nothing. "Ezekiel Sims. I was hoping we could talk."

Peter shook his hand. Sat in the other armchair. The one Mrs. Moon usually sat in. She was in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, watching with the expression she used when a good thing was happening to her family and she didn't trust it yet.

"Talk about what?" Peter said.

"About what happened at the General Techtronics exhibition." Ezekiel sat back down. He picked up his teacup. "About the spider. About what it gave both of you."

"I don't know what you're-"

"You do." Ezekiel's voice was warm. Patient. "Peter. You were bitten on the right hand, between the thumb and index finger. Cindy was bitten on the left ankle, between the jeans and the sneaker. The spider died immediately after. It was the last of its kind." He took a sip. "I know because I've been looking for it for twenty years."

Peter checked his spider-sense. The sense was there, active, aware of the room, aware of Cindy six feet to his left, aware of Mrs. Moon in the doorway. But for Ezekiel Sims it returned nothing. A gap. Like looking at a wall and there's a section where the paint is the same color as the wall but you can tell something was covered over.

He checked his other database. The one he'd brought from his old life. MCU movies and Wikipedia binges. Spider-Man. Green Goblin. Venom. Thanos. Doctor Strange. He ran the name through every movie, every post-credits scene, every actor's face he could remember.

Ezekiel Sims didn't exist.

The cheat sheet was blank.

"Totems," Ezekiel said. "That's what you are. Both of you. Spider-totems. Connected to something called the Web of Life and Destiny. It sounds dramatic. It is dramatic." He put his cup down. "The bite wasn't random. It chose you. Both of you."

"Why?" Cindy said. First word she'd spoken since Peter arrived. Her voice was flat.

"Because you were compatible. The spider needed hosts who could carry the connection. It found two in the same room." He looked at Cindy. "You feel a bond between you. A pull. Sometimes it's loud and sometimes it's quiet. That's the totemic link. It's real. It's not going away."

Peter watched Ezekiel's face. The man was telling the truth, or he believed he was, and Peter couldn't tell which.

"There are things that hunt spider-totems," Ezekiel said. Casual. "Old things. Patient things. They move between worlds and they feed on what you carry. The totemic energy. They can smell it the way a shark smells blood in water." He looked at Peter. "Right now, you're young. You're new. The scent is faint. But it gets stronger. And they're always hungry."

Mrs. Moon was still in the doorway. She'd uncrossed her arms. She was leaning forward.

"I can help," Ezekiel said. "I have resources. Training facilities. Knowledge of what's coming and how to prepare for it. I'm offering both of you-"

"We'll think about it," Peter said.

Ezekiel looked at him. Mrs. Moon looked at him. Cindy was looking at her own hands in her lap.

"Of course," Ezekiel said. He reached into his jacket. A business card, heavy stock, embossed lettering. He put it on the coffee table next to the good tea set. "Take your time. But not too much." He stood. Buttoned his jacket. "The costume needs work, by the way. But you're doing well."

He said goodbye to Mrs. Moon in Korean. She walked him to the door. Peter heard her voice in the hallway, the register she used for authority figures, respectful and careful. The front door opened and closed.

Mrs. Moon came back. She looked at Peter, then at Cindy. She picked up the business card and read it.

"He seems like a good man," she said. In Korean, then in English, like she'd started in the language she thought in and corrected. "Cindy, we should consider-"

"Mom." Cindy's voice was tight. "Not now."

Mrs. Moon looked at the card again. Put it in her apron pocket. Went to the kitchen. The sound of water running. Dishes.

Cindy grabbed his wrist. Hard. Spider-strength hard, the kind that left marks on someone without healing factor.

She pulled him down the hall. Her bedroom door opened and he was through it and she closed it behind them and put her back against it and looked at him and her chest was moving fast and her eyes were wide and wet.

"How does he know."

"I don't know."

"How does he know about the bite. How does he know about the bond. How does he-" Her voice cracked. "Peter. He was sitting in my living room drinking my mom's tea and he knew everything."

"I know."

"My mom liked him."

"I saw."

"She's going to say yes. If he comes back she's going to say yes and she's going to send me-" Her breath hitched. She pressed her palms against the door behind her. "She's going to send me somewhere with that man because he had a nice suit and he spoke Korean and he-"

"Cindy."

She looked at him. Dark eyes, wet. He hadn't seen her like this since the first week after the bite when the webbing wouldn't stop and she'd called him at 3 AM crying because her sheets were stuck to the ceiling.

He stepped toward her. She grabbed his shirt. Both hands, fists, pulling him in. Her mouth found his and the bond flared from its resting two to five or six, a sudden heat in his chest and behind his eyes.

This was hard. Her teeth hit his lip. Her hands pulled his shirt so tight the collar cut into his neck. She pushed him backward until his back hit the door and the door rattled in the frame and she was pressed against him, all of her, her hips and her chest and her mouth on his.

"Don't let him take me anywhere." She said it against his mouth. Not pulling back. Her lips moving against his lips. "Promise me."

"I promise."

"Promise me again."

"I promise. Cindy. I promise."

Her nails found his back under his shirt. She dragged them up. Harder than she'd ever done it, hard enough that the skin parted, and his healing would close it in minutes but right now it was sharp and bright and her mouth was on his neck and she was saying something in Korean, fast, the words coming without her choosing them, the way Korean escaped her when she stopped thinking. Her hand was on his thigh, high, gripping, her fingers digging in through his jeans.

"Cindy-ah!" Mrs. Moon's voice from the kitchen. Sharp. Questioning.

They both stopped.

Cindy's hand was on his thigh. His back was bleeding through his shirt. Her mouth was on his neck and her breath was hot and fast against his skin. Neither of them moved.

"Cindy-ah! Jeonnyeok meogeo!" Dinner. The specific tone that meant come now, not later.

Cindy pulled back. Her lips were swollen. Her eyes were still wet. She wiped them with the back of her hand and the hand was shaking.

"Go," she said. "Window."

He went. The window was open. He climbed out and his hands stuck to the brick because he was still running hot and the scratch marks on his back were warm under his shirt.

He dropped to the alley behind the house. A recycling bin was overturned and the cans were all over the concrete and he stepped on one and it crunched and a cat ran out from behind a dumpster. His hands were shaking. His back was bleeding. The bond was settling, four, three, two, but his hands kept shaking.

Ezekiel Sims knew about the spider, the bite, the bond, the totems. Knew about things that hunted them. And Peter's spider-sense had returned blank and his foreknowledge had returned blank and both of his cheat systems had failed at the same time.

He'd have to do it the old way. Pay attention.