TANGLED WEBS

Part I

By Wesley Overhults

New York City, Earth-719

Gwendolyne Stacy, Gwen to her friends, sighed as she crouched on the edge of a rooftop, staring down at the Osborn Industries facility across the street.  The red and blue costume she wore did little to keep out the chill in the air.  Winter was approaching and Gwen was suffering through it in her own unique way.  She saw no signs of movement from inside the facility and decided that it was time to come in from the cold.  She idly wondered what her father would say if he could see her now.  She wondered the same about her best friend Peter Parker but knew that his reaction would be the complete opposite of her father’s.

Once upon a time, Gwen was the most average high school senior you could ever meet.  The only remarkable thing she ever did was play drums for Midtown High School’s marching band.  Something changed though and Gwen kept that secret closer to her chest than anything else in her life.  She knew that no one in her life would understand what had happened inside that same facility only a few months ago.  Something amazing happened that fateful day and Gwen was just trying to make the most of it.  Protecting the citizens of New York City was all well and good but tonight’s excursion was personal for her.  Tonight, Spider-Woman was getting the answers that she needed about the accident that made her who she was today.

Osborn Industries, Two Months Ago

“So be real, how big of a nerd-gasm are you going to get from this?”

Peter Parker blushed at his best friend’s question, straightening his lab coat out of anxiety.  Gwen knew that this class field trip was important to him.  It was a chance for the other students to see Peter in his natural element.  Gwen and Peter had been friends forever, ever since they were children.  It started when Peter came to live with his aunt and uncle, who lived next door to Gwen and her father.  Gwen was always an outgoing child but Peter was almost a recluse.  They were total opposites but they had formed a friendship that had lasted well into their teenage years.  Unfortunately, Peter wasn’t always the greatest at making other friends.  Gwen sometimes thought that she was his only one.

“This is serious stuff in here, Gwen,” reminded Peter.  “No clowning around, okay?”

“I promise,” swore Gwen, noticing the direction that Peter was looking in.  “I can’t speak for the caveman and his friends though.”

Eugene “Flash” Thompson and his two female cohorts Sally Avril and Liz Allen were off to one side, laughing with one another like a pack of hyenas.  It wasn’t a far-fetched comparison given the way they liked to tear Peter apart on a daily basis.  Gwen always felt sad whenever she saw Peter looking at the two girls, knowing that he most likely had a crush on one or both of them.  She knew he wasn’t the type to ever say anything and she wasn’t the type to play matchmaker.  She just tried not to think about it too much.

“Dr. Connors will have to see to that,” said Peter.  “There’s something I wanted to show you.  It’s actually something my dad was working on before . . .”

Gwen only nodded, knowing that Peter never liked talking about his parents.  When she was a child, Gwen had asked Peter only once why he lived with his aunt and uncle instead of his parents.  Peter didn’t say anything but she could tell he was starting to cry.  Her father was the one who told her that Peter’s parents had died and after that, she never asked him anything about his parents.  It wasn’t as if she was without her own family tragedy.  Losing a mother could be hard on a young girl but she still had her father.

“So where and what is it?”

“It’s not in this part of the lab.  I’m really not supposed to show it to anyone but . . .”

Gwen let out a fake gasp, acting as if Peter had just suggested some forbidden act punishable only by death.  “Why, Peter Parker, are you asking me to help you break the rules?”

“Gwen.”

Gwen knew that Peter could sometimes be prickly in his demeanor when it came to her teasing him.  He suffered enough abuse at the hands of Flash and the other kids and it left his emotional armor more damaged than most.  She enjoyed thinking that they were comfortable with one another on a level that allowed for some occasional teasing.  Gwen looked at Peter and could tell that he was very serious about this whole experience.  It was his workplace after all and he took his job seriously.  Gwen knew that he was just passionate about science.  Peter always had been a junior scientist ever since Gwen had known him.  Sometimes she worried that his dedication to his work interfered with the growth of his social skills.  It was yet another thing she preferred not to think about.

“C’mon, Peter, I was just kidding,” she explained.  “You know I’d love to see it.”

Peter’s eyes darted one way and then the other, taking in his surroundings.  He marked where Dr. Connors was and realized the scientist would be busy dealing with the rest of the students.  If he wanted the two of them to sneak off, now would be the best time for it.  He motioned for Gwen to follow him as they both left the room and went down the hall to another room.  Peter put his hand on the palm reader and both of them heard the hiss as the door unlocked and opened.  Peter led Gwen into the room and then looked toward the apparatus in the center of it.

Gwen didn’t exactly know what she was looking at.  It looked like a giant terrarium that was sectioned off into different blocks.  Each block contained a spider but none of them looked the same as the others.  All of them were doing various spidery things, nothing out of the ordinary as far as Gwen could tell.  She didn’t see what the big deal was.

“They’re genetically modified,” explained Peter, seeing the look on Gwen’s face and knowing what she was going to ask.  “Osborn Industries is working on a new material created from their webbing.  These little guys can make webbing that’s stronger than steel.  You could build a suspension bridge with it and the cables would be sturdier than if you used most any metal.”

“And your dad started this?” asked Gwen.

“Yeah, it was his main project while he was here,” explained Peter.  “Dr. Connors showed me this room when I got hired.  Cool, right?”

Gwen could see that this room and its contents meant a great deal to Peter.  She wasn’t exactly thrilled with spiders but as long as they didn’t both her, she would show them the same courtesy.  Peter was clearly enamored with his father’s work.  Gwen could relate on some level.  If she ever found something like this concerning her mother, she would hold onto it as tightly as she could.  She felt almost honored that Peter would show her something so personal like this.

“Pretty cool,” she told him.  “I don’t want to crap on this but we should probably get back to the rest of the group.  I mean I’m technically not supposed to be here.”

“Yeah, true,” he agreed, staring at the spiders with a look of adoration before turning his gaze to Gwen.  “I come here to feed them.  It’s quiet in here so it’s a good spot to think.”

“What do you think about?”  Gwen noticed that the look in his eyes hadn’t changed when he turned his gaze from the spiders to her.

“What it would be like to be different.”  Peter wanted to tell her something else but knew that he was already risking too much by taking her into this room.  “Sometimes I just want to have a different life than this one.”

Gwen took his hand and squeezed it gently before letting go of it.  Peter smiled at her and then led the way towards the exit.  Neither of them noticed that one of the spiders was missing from its cage.  There were so many of them that one of them could easily go unnoticed.  The arachnid was in the process of crawling along the ceiling before dropping down on a tiny strand of webbing.  It lodged itself in the hood of Gwen’s jacket and was content to hide there for the time being.

“Happy to have you rejoin us, Mr. Parker,” said Dr. Curt Connors as Peter and Gwen snuck back into the main room.

“I was showing Gwen where the bathroom was,” explained Peter.  “You know, can’t have unauthorized people just wandering around the facility.”

“No we cannot.”  Dr. Connors used his only arm to beckon Peter to come stand with him.  “I was just explaining to your classmates my work with reptile DNA.  I thought perhaps they would like to look at some of the specimens we have here.”

“Bet that Parker feels right at home with the rest of the creepy crawlers.”

Gwen heard Flash Thompson’s muttered musing and glared at him.  It wasn’t Peter’s fault that he was socially awkward.  She just wished that the others could see Peter the way she saw him.  He wasn’t so bad when you got to know him.  Life could be so unbelievably cruel to certain people.  Sometimes it seemed like the universe just wanted to crap on people who had already dealt with so much.  Gwen’s father was a police captain, and he always stressed to her the importance of protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves.

“Better watch out or he’ll get his girlfriend to come after you.”  Sally Avril was, at least in Gwen’s opinion, easily the queen bitch of Midtown High.  She was always making sure to cut everyone down.  “Way I hear it, she’s tougher than him.”

“Tougher than your boyfriend you mean,” cut in Gwen.  “Back off of Peter, Flash.  He already takes enough of your shit.”

“Someday you’re not going to be around to defend him, Stacy,” retorted Flash.  “Guy’s gotta learn to be his own man.”

Gwen rolled her eyes at Flash’s display of machismo and motioned that he should pay attention to what was going on with Peter and Dr. Connors.  It was at that point that Gwen Stacy’s world was about to radically change.  The spider currently hitching a ride in the hood of her jacket decided to boldly venture out into new territory.  It skittered up her back and narrowly avoided being squished by Gwen’s errant hand.  In retaliation for this perceived attack, the spider sunk its fangs right into the back of Gwen’s neck.  The bite stung, eliciting a mumbled curse from Gwen as she managed to squash the arachnid with another slap of her hand.  She felt something sticky on her hand and absently wiped it on her jeans, the dead spider falling onto the floor.  Gwen blinked and her vision started to blur a little.  The room began to spin a little and she felt lightheaded.

Peter noticed that something was wrong and pushed past the others to get to Gwen.  She coughed and mumbled something incoherently.  Peter helped her out into the hallway, this time actually taking her to the bathroom.  He didn’t even care which door he went through as long as he got Gwen in front of a toilet before she threw up.  To her credit, Gwen managed to hold her stomach in check until she spewed all of its contents in the toilet.

“Are you okay?” asked Peter, watching Gwen’s eyes lazily try to focus on his face.  “Gwen, what’s wrong?”

“I’m . . . I’m alright,” said Gwen as she began to steady herself.  “I think I’m good.”  Her vision started to clear but she still felt a little nauseous.  “I dunno what that was but I think I need to go home.”

“I’ll tell the teacher,” decided Peter.  “Just wait here.”

Gwen watched Peter leave the bathroom and she felt well enough to get back on her feet.  She looked at herself in the mirror and splashed some water on her face.  She didn’t want to screw things up for Peter in front of the other students, but she knew she needed to go home.  There was a nasty flu bug going around the school, the reason why Randy Robertson was home sick for the day.  She figured she was just the latest one to get bitten by it.

Osborn Industries, Now

Spider-Woman uncoiled her legs and flew across the empty air separating her perch from the Osborn Industries lab.  She flipped effortlessly in the air and hit the wall of the lab on all fours, sticking to it like glue.  She crawled along the side of the building and looked at one of the windows, trying to determine if there was an alarm attached to it.  She didn’t see anything connected to it so she used a fraction of her enhanced strength to lift the window up, breaking the lock on it in the process.  She slunk into the room and landed on both feet, immediately moving to the door and then into the hallway beyond it.  She hopped in the air, turning over in mid-flight and sticking to the ceiling.  A quick crawl down the hallway led her to the stairwell.  She jumped over the railing and shot out a line of webbing that stuck to the ceiling of the building.  Letting out more of the web line caused her to lower herself slowly down the stairwell until she reached the ground floor.

She knew the way to the room by heart.  It was funny the things the human brain could remember.  There was no way she was going to forget where she was the day her whole life changed.  At first, she felt like she was walking around wearing a giant sign that read “I’m a freak”.  She never wanted to be anything but normal but the more she thought about it, the more she realized what she could do with her powers.  Gwen loved her father and idolized him for his courage and heroism.  She thought maybe she could be a hero too.  There was something else driving her though.  She wanted to know why that spider was loose that day, why it and those of its kind even existed in the first place.  She loved Peter but she knew firsthand that those spiders were dangerous.  She didn’t completely buy his explanation for why Osborn Industries had created them.  She had a hunch that there was more going on than anyone was supposed to know.  Her father used to tell her all the time that a cop’s best friend was his or her instincts.

Spider-Woman made her way towards the lab where the spiders had been kept.  She dropped down from the ceiling and panicked a little when she saw the door to the lab left open.  As far as she knew, Peter was the only one who had access to it.  There was no way he would just leave the door open for anyone to come waltzing into a space he considered very private.  Spider-Woman moved into the room and found it completely empty.  The giant terrarium was completely gone along with every other piece of equipment in the room.  There was nothing left to suggest that the room had been in use at all.

“Damn it,” she muttered under her breath, her words muffled by the mask covering her entire head.

Something wasn’t right about this whole thing.  Spider-Woman knew that there was only one reason why Norman Osborn would have this lab scrubbed.  It was because he had something to hide and that something was his precious spiders.  Ever since that spider bit her, Gwen had wondered if she was just a fluke or if all of them could give people superhuman abilities.  Maybe Osborn knew that and that was why he was keeping them a secret from everyone.  She knew that Osborn was shady but she had no proof of that.  Even if she did, she couldn’t go to the police with it.  The media was extremely wary of her and the police even more wary than that.  It meant that she was on her own when it came to this case.  She couldn’t even bring her dad in on it because it would compromise her identity.

“What the hell have you gotten involved in, Peter?” asked Spider-Woman to her herself before she made her way back to the window she had come through and then out of the building entirely.

NYPD Headquarters

“Captain Stacy.”

Captain George Stacy looked up from the paperwork he was currently entrenched in.  There were times when he absolutely hated getting the promotion to Captain.  Stacy wasn’t the type to enjoy the tedious nature of filling out forms.  He was more comfortable patrolling the streets of New York than he was behind a desk.  Still, Stacy had sworn an oath to protect and serve.  If protecting and serving meant doing paperwork then that was what he was willing to do.  He told himself it was all for the greater good of New York City.

“Detective DeWolff,” greeted Stacy as the redheaded woman took a seat across from him.  “Please don’t tell me this is about you-know-who.”

“Afraid so.”  Detective Jean DeWolff let out a sigh of resignation, not certain if she should feel embarrassed or thankful that someone else was attempting to do her job for her.  “She struck again last night.  We found a couple thugs hanging from a streetlight thanks to her crazy webbing.  Everybody in the lab is still trying to figure out what that stuff is made out of.”

Captain Stacy nodded, his gaze stern.  He understood that criminals had to face justice for their crimes.  That much was a given considering the code he lived by.  However, he knew that he couldn’t have a civilian running around in tights doing vigilante work.  Law-enforcement was left to the duly deputized law-enforcers, at least in Stacy’s book.  The fact that his department couldn’t catch this “Spider-Woman”, as the press called her, was a bit irritating.  Stacy had enough irritation in his life, a good chunk of it stemming from his well-intentioned but headstrong daughter.  She still hadn’t put any effort into her college applications and she was already into her senior year.  There was no way that he was going to let Gwen miss a scholarship opportunity just because she would rather play drums than apply herself.

“I don’t want to start a manhunt,” said Stacy before seeing DeWolff’s facial expression concerning his chosen terminology.  “You know what I mean, DeWolff.  The fact is that we can’t just go kick in doors trying to find out who Spider-Woman is.  It’s unconstitutional and we all know that.”

“Jameson and a lot of the media vultures like him are calling her a menace,” reminded DeWolff.  “Half the people in the bullpen think she’s a damn hero and the other half want to crucify her.  You’re close to having a mutiny on your hands here.”

“If you and Detective Castle have some ideas, I’m all ears for them.”

“We need a special taskforce on this, sir.  It might be just her out there now but no one knows what’s going to happen next.  What if she’s just the beginning?”

“I’ll take your idea under advisement, Jean but that’s all I can do right now.  Like I said, I won’t have my department involved in a witch hunt.”

“I know,” said DeWolff, her frustration clearly evident in her body language.  “I think it’s going to become a reality whether we like it or not.”

“You and Castle hit the streets,” suggested Stacy.  “You two are my best.  I want you doing real work instead of chasing down leads on Spider-Woman.  Give her enough time, she’ll slip up and when she does, that’s when we nail her.”

“You’re the boss,” said DeWolff.  “Have fun with your paperwork, George.”

“Don’t remind me,” muttered Stacy as he stared back at the papers on his desk.  He wondered if he could convince the higher-ups to give him an early retirement but then decided against it.

Detective DeWolff left Captain Stacy’s office and immediately turned her attention to her partner standing just on the other side of the door.  Detective Frank Castle was high-strung and that was putting it mildly.  DeWolff sometimes wondered if the man ever slept at all.  Everyone at the precinct knew Castle’s story, the one about the shootout that killed his family and almost him as well.  Castle had taken a leave of absence to deal with his grief but he passed his psychological evaluation when he returned.  DeWolff couldn’t tell exactly how much he was faking it to get through each day.  It bothered her but Castle was her partner and he did solid work.

“I heard.”  It was all Castle felt like saying and it was all DeWolff needed him to say.

“And you’re pissed,” noted DeWolff.  “I’m sorry, Frank.”

Castle managed a nod of thanks before the two of them made their way through the building to get back on the streets.  As always, Castle stayed silent through the trip.  The silence persisted even as they got into the car and put it back on the streets.  They were a block away before Castle finally broke the silence.

“He was right, you know.”

DeWolff cast her partner a sideways glance from the driver’s seat to indicate he should elaborate on his statement.

“Sooner or later, Spider-Woman will screw up,” explained Castle.  “I’m just praying that no one gets caught in the crossfire when we nail her for that mistake.”

“Trust me, partner, the two of us will be the first ones in line when she does,” assured DeWolff.  Both of them were silent once more as they drove on into the night.

Forest Hills, Queens

“Sorry I’m home late.”

Gwen looked up from her math homework and saw her father walk in the door.  She hugged him as always, thankful that he made it home in one piece.  Her fears about her father’s safety had dimmed ever since he got his promotion, but he was still a cop and that made him still a target.

“Work keeping you busy, Dad?” asked Gwen.

George Stacy smiled at his daughter and wished that he could be more like her.  Gwen seemed to take everything in stride, shrugging off hardship in a way that only a teenager could.  Stacy had never been like that even when he actually was a teenager.  Of course the world was a much different place back then than it was now.

“Spider-Woman struck again last night,” said Stacy.  “Honestly, sometimes I wish I was back down in the trenches with the others.  Being captain is a lot of responsibility.”

“I’d prefer not having my dad get shot at.”

“Well your dad prefers not getting shot at it either, dear.”

Gwen smiled at her father but couldn’t shake what he had said about Spider-Woman.  She wanted to explain to her father that what she was doing was a good thing.  She was protecting people just like he was even if the method was unconventional to say the least.  She wanted him to see that her heart was in the right place but she knew that she couldn’t tell him.  He was a cop and took his duty as one very seriously.  He would probably arrest her on sight if she told him that she was Spider-Woman.

“Dad, have you ever thought that maybe Spider-Woman’s trying to do something good?”  The second Gwen said the words, she instantly regretted it.

“Gwen, you’re young,” began her father.  “I know you kids see Spider-Woman on the TV and you think she’s cool.  She’s not.  She’s reckless and she’s going to put someone in real danger someday.  If she really wants to help people then she should choose a different occupation than vigilante.”

“It was just an idea, Dad.  You don’t have to lecture.”

“I wasn’t lecturing, Gwen.”

Gwen gave him a look that plainly said that he was.  Stacy had seen that look on his daughter’s face more than once.  Gwen reminded him of her mother in many ways.  Stacy missed his wife though he never chose to really dwell on it.  He knew that doing so wouldn’t do either he or his daughter any good.

“I need to finish this up,” explained Gwen, motioning to her homework.  “I already ate dinner because I didn’t know when you’d be home.”

“I’ll call next time I’m late,” promised Stacy.  “I don’t want you worried about me.”

“Me, worry?” asked Gwen with a grin.  “You really don’t know me very well, Dad.”

George Stacy watched his daughter scoop up her textbooks and move to her room.  He couldn’t exactly say what it was but he knew that Gwen was keeping a secret from him.  They were always close and Stacy liked to think their relationship was based on trust.  He knew that Gwen sometimes had a lack of direction in her life, but he trusted that if she had a problem she would confide in him.  Lately though, she seemed distant.  She was a little too flippant about things, more than she normally was.  He chalked it up to her just being a teenager but sometimes it got to him more than he wanted to admit.

“Gwen?  You know that I’ve always got your back, right?”

Gwen had one foot in her door before she turned around and looked at her father.  She smiled and it killed her inside that she couldn’t tell him the biggest secret of her entire life.  It was the best for both of them though.  She never minded putting on the front of the irresponsible teenager for everyone else but her father was a different story.

“I know, Dad, and I’ve always got yours.”  With that, Gwen ducked into her room before her father could catch her crying.

Norman Osborn’s Penthouse

“We had an unexpected visitor.”

Norman Osborn’s fingers clenched around the phone in irritation.  He had suspicions about who that visitor was but he didn’t enjoy entertaining them.  Apparently his suspicions had been correct as he saw a copy of the video surveillance footage that the person on the other end of the call sent to his phone.  There was no mistake that Spider-Woman had paid a visit to one of his labs.  She apparently knew her way around it very well, something that unnerved Osborn even further.  He knew from the first time Spider-Woman made herself known to the public that scrubbing that lab was a smart move.  It had housed some very sensitive materials that he didn’t want falling into the wrong hands.

“You’re sure there was no trace of anything in that lab?” asked Osborn, always a perfectionist when it came to his business.

“We scrubbed it clean, sir,” answered Donald Menken, Osborn’s chief of security.  “Parker’s spiders have been moved to a more secure location so that the work can continue, as you requested.”

“Good.”  Osborn relaxed his grip once he realized he again had control of the situation.  “Spider-Woman’s involvement still troubles me.  She seems to have a talent for escalating whatever tense situation she manages to blunder her way into.  I don’t want her ruining everything by getting too close.”

“Tell me what you want me to do then,” said Menken.  “You say the word and I’ll get it done just like always.”

“Get me in touch with Smythe,” ordered Osborn.  “You know how he loves to show off his new toys.  I think this is the perfect opportunity for it.”

“Right away, sir.”

Osborn ended the call and looked out over the city from the confines of his penthouse.  When Spider-Woman made her first public experience, Osborn had been intrigued like the rest of New York City but for different reasons.  He knew that this girl’s abilities most likely had to do with Richard Parker’s spiders.  He had Peter and Dr. Connors take a sample of the spiders’ venom in order to analyze its properties.  When it was combined with human DNA, it produced no positive results.  There was something about this girl’s DNA that made her special and Osborn wanted to know what it was.  More than that, he wanted to get Spider-Woman out of the public eye before she could knowingly or unknowingly expose his experiments.  His company’s name was possibly written all over her genetic makeup and he couldn’t have that.  He would get Spider-Woman in one of his labs, find out what made her DNA so compatible with the spider venom, and then he would dispose of her once he had used her up.  The military applications of a formula that could give ordinary people superhuman abilities would make him a fortune.  He already had another team working on a performance enhancer but they were years away from anything that would be approved.  If he could combine the spider serum with his performance enhancer, he knew the government would pay very handsomely for an army of soldiers with superpowers.  Spider-Woman could be just the thing he needed to set himself up for life.  He wasn’t going to let anything stand in the way of that.

“Spin your little webs, Spider-Woman,” he muttered to himself as he stared out at the city below him.  “I’ve got much bigger plans for you and this city.”

Next Issue: Attack of the Spider-Slayer.