I sat in my room, humming to myself, as I span around in my chair. A pencil sat on my upper lip, and I half focused on balancing it, my mind wandering ever so often to bigger things.
I’d calmed down since yesterday. I mean it was still pretty weird seeing videos of myself in the Spider-Man costume online, but I wasn’t as freaked out as I had been. It wasn’t so much that I’d come to peace with the situation, but more so that I’d been so exhausted by the constant nail-biting anxiety that my brain had short circuited. After dinner yesterday I’d walked to my room in a daze and just fallen asleep. I didn’t even remember falling asleep. I’d just opened my eyes, sat up and been confused by the fact it had been full day light outside.
Even now that I’d showered, eaten breakfast and sleep wasn’t nipping at my heels, I still felt exhausted. The entire situation felt far away, like the noises of the city when I had my headphones on.
The only thing that did bring back that spark of anxiety was going outside. I knew now that nobody had figured out who I was, but I didn’t feel it. There was a disconnect somewhere between my thoughts and my feelings. It was probably a blessing in disguise that Dad had grounded me. It meant I had a reason to sit cooped up in my room without suspicion. He probably thought I was just sulking or something. If he expected me to be normal, like take Ryo out for a walk or just play games with him, he’d be able to tell something was off. I was too out of it.
But now that I could get away with being stuck in my room all day, I had a ton of time. I definitely wasn’t using it to do homework, no, I’d decided to do something a lot more important. I’d started my detective work. Well detective work was a bit of stretch, it was closer to mind mapping ideas on how to find Spider-Man. And it wasn’t exactly going well. That probably should’ve been obvious from the start, I mean this was Spider-Man we were talking about, if some random kid could figure out a way to just figure out his secret identity then it was more than likely that some super genius villain would’ve already discovered it.
Still, I thought I’d at least be able to come up with some theories on my own. But nothing I did seemed to spark any ideas. Doing a handstand was useless. So was sit ups, staring at the wall, using the web-shooters again and even my go to, spinning in my chair. Nothing worked. Not even doing nothing. Usually when I sat on an idea and though about random stuff something came to me. Well, that was usually for thinking about a climbing route or drawing inspiration. This wasn’t exactly sketching in the ledger lines of a school books.
I frowned before coming to a stop and staring at my notes on the paper in front of me, my mind still empty. I read over the only words I’d written
ASTORIA?
My eyes drifted and I groaned, looking over the drawings of Spider-Man’s mask and symbol at the bottom. I let my pencil fall to my lap and rested my hands on my knees. I’d spent more time thinking about doing stuff than I had actually doing stuff. I leant back in my chair, the base creaking loudly. There had to be something. Something connecting him to the suit somehow. I mean there might be DNA and stuff in it, but I couldn’t exactly get a scan for stuff like that. And I doubted the police database would have the fingers of someone like Spider-Man.
I craned my neck to the side, my view of the room tilting on its side. I was just going around in circles. What else was there? Nothing really. I’d found the suit in the alley and that was it. Suddenly my brain lit up, an idea bursting to the forefront. The alley. There might be a clue in the alley! If I’d found the suit there, then there might be something else. Wait how long had it been? Two days? Three? I’d found it, Tuesday? I think?
Crap what if someone had thrown out the trash? I could deal with that when I got there. It was better to actually go then assume the worst. I jumped up, changing out of my indoor clothes, grinning to myself. I can’t believe I didn’t even think to check for a note. To be fair, I didn’t think it was the Spider-Man suit at the time. Well, that gave me some hope right? If I hadn’t instantly realised the importance of what I’d been holding then, chances were if something else important to Spider-Man was in that alley, nobody else would either. I jumped up, snatching my jacket off my bed, and throwing open my bedroom door.
I rushed over to the shoe rack and began pulling on my shoes.
“Yu? Where do you think you’re going?” Dad said sternly, his arms crossed as he stood at the end of the hallway.
“Eh?”
“Don’t act dumb. Did you really think you could sneak out without me noticing”
Oh right. I couldn’t leave the house.
I facepalmed, and then began pulling off my shoes.
“Sorry Dad I completely forgot” I said. I set my shoes back on the rack and stood up, face flushed with embarrassment. Dad frowned as he watched me slowly trudge back to my room in silence.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
I closed my door slowly, groaning to myself as I bumped my forehead against my fist. Idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot. I got caught up in my own excitement. I sighed and pulled of my jacket and throwing it at the chair before slumping face first onto my bed.
Rolling over I took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling. This was pointless. There probably wasn’t any secret clue and something terrible had probably happened to the real Spider-Man. This wasn’t some kind of comic book. There was no fairytale ending where I fixed all this. The real Spider-Man was probably watching the videos online laughing it up at the poor sod who put on his costume.
Wait.
I sat up quickly and brought my hand to my chin. The real Spider-Man had probably seen the videos. I mean, he’d thrown away the costume and suddenly someone appears imitating his in his own suit. He had to have seen them, right?
The floor seemed to shift beneath my feet as my abstract thought coalesced into a solid idea. if I went out in the costume again, he’d see me for a second time. Was there some way to get some kind of message out to him whilst in the suit? Maybe I could say some code in a video whilst out in the public? I could say something about the alley I first found it in. Then only me and him would know where to go. I’d have a little difficulty coming up with some cool wordplay, but it wouldn’t be hard to draw a crowd in a suit. It’d be easy to get videoed.
Oh wow. This was good. This was really good. Crap. Considering I was grounded I had a very short window to pull this off. Wait, that could work in my favour. If I was only out in the costume for a short time, then there’d be less chance I got caught up in any crime stopping. I felt my heart rate pick up. Ok. Ok. This was probably a lot stupider than I thought it was, but it was something, And anyway I’d already decided I wasn’t just going to sit here and do nothing. The city needed Spider-Man and I was going to get him back. I was doing this. I could do it Monday. On the walk home from school.
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Clone 7E5
She stared out over the city, munching away at her third hot dog of the day gratefully. It was really nice to finally eat. Sure, she’d had to steal, but it’s not like she had any money to actually buy stuff. She’d earned this. It’d been a hard week and she’d been seriously hungry for a while now. And cold. Really cold. Staying outside for days at a time in the winter would do that. She shivered slightly, and quickly pulled her jacket tighter around her frame, before finishing off the last piece of her hot dog.
Her mind wandered back to the facility she’d come from and she clenched her jaw. She knew what the place had been now. Alchemax. It was different from the one in her memories. This one had been in the middle of a park in Brooklyn. It’d been huge, big enough that she’d ran around in the vents for practically half an hour and never got higher than the third floor. The old one had been smaller, and in Manhattan. And it hadn’t had any clones as far as she remembered.
The same guy owned both places though, Mr Banks. She remembered him. He hadn’t liked her because she’d always been late.
Well… not her. Peter.
She clenched her fists tightly, biting back the pain from the headache. Her head was filled with memories. Memories of a life, a family, of friends.
She remembered Uncle Ben dying in her arms. She remembered her childhood crush on MJ. She remembered getting bullied by Flash at high school, all the fun she’d had with Harry, how fun it had been at college. Maybe too fun.
She remembered meeting Otto, remembered how much she looked up to him, how great it had been when he’d taken her on after she’d failed to get into her Masters’ program.
She remembered messing up, losing some of Otto’s work, watching him spiral and then get fired by her best friend.
She remembered feeling aimless, remembered Gwen comforting her even when she’d been struggling herself.
She remembered Lucas’ fight with Ricardo. She remembered the agony, the sheer terror she’d felt being trapped under all that rubble. Then Gwen’s death. Being dragged down by the fear of it all. And rising out of it. She remembered being Spider-Man. She remembered Flint, Vulture, Panzer, Rhino, The Bears, Mr Ice, the Prowlers, Electro, the clones, Mysterio. She remembered it all. And none of it was hers.
She sniffled, wiping at her eyes. There were more memories too. Ones from someone else. They were fewer and further between, and all of them were horrible, but they were there. Memories of getting beaten by some drunk, getting locked in her room. Staying strong for her younger sister Sarah. The last memory she had from that was getting kidnapped by some scientists.
All of the memories shook her too her core. She didn’t really know what to do about it. She couldn’t just forget, no matter how badly she wanted to. She’d gone to some of the places in her memories, but they were different. The drunk from her memories had been home, but no on else. She hadn’t bothered with him. But there had been different people at Peter’s apartment. The hideout was in the middle of some massive construction sight, and she hadn’t seen any news about Spider-Man at all anywhere. Liz hadn’t lived at her apartment anymore either. And when she’d gone to May’s house, she’d looked a lot older, and she hadn’t even recognised her. She’d ran away in tears after that. She hadn’t even bothered with Lucas’ school. Of course May hadn’t recognised her. She wasn’t Peter. She knew that. Knew she was some kind of abomination, some twisted scientific creation, but she was still a person, right?
A bark from below made her jump. She sailed through the air, flipping gracefully before landing against a wall. Her heart thudded dully against her ribcage, and she let out a sigh. She looked around. It was getting dark. She needed to stop thinking about this and find somewhere to sleep. She didn’t want to go to one of those homeless shelters. Because she was a kid, they asked way too many questions.
She leapt of the side of the building into an alley and land against the ground with a thud. She looked around for clothes when a newspaper caught her eye. She could use that as part of her mattress if things got rough. Snatching the paper up off the floor, she paused and took a long look at the front page.
SPIDER-MAN RETURNS
Well damn.
She’d been so lost these past few days. But now she had something concrete. Peter was out there. He hadn’t just vanished off the face of the Earth. Now all she had to do was keep a lookout for him. Once she found him, once she explained everything, he could help her understand everything better, and maybe even give her somewhere to belong. She grinned slightly to herself, then looked up staring up at the sky. It was time to find Spider-Man