Speechless by Blu Wynd Faerie

Rated PG13

Chapter 1 – How Red Rescued A Savior Unseated

It would be so easy to fall.

As Spider-man dropped one rope of web and free-fell thirty feet before shooting out another, he wondered what it would be like to simply let himself plummet to his untimely death like an anchor to the bottom of the sea. It would be so easy and look so accidental. A fire-laced rush lined him at the mere thought of letting himself die; the feeling was partway of fear, partway of release. Would it be better that way? He saw himself tumbling in his mind, weak as a rag doll; his eyes shut as his form hit pavement and he whip-lashed before falling still. His mind fell to a solemn silence at the idea.

But he kept shooting out more spider webs to the cornerstones of buildings, and he wondered why. Spider-man blamed the fact that the motion was automatic at that time, and something about avenging his dead uncle rang bells in the back of his head, but, in truth, he had become a lifeless robot. He was dull and vacant and everything seemed to blur together in a meaningless blob that was his life.

Life was a thing that did not seem too straight anymore. Spider-man's life was certainly hardly worth living. It constituted risking his feeble life daily, watching his best friend cry nightly in front of his father's murderer, denying himself the one thing, the one love, which he craved more than food, sleep, or any other usual, necessary function. He saved some, he hurt some, he destroyed some. He was losing himself to the whirlpool that sucked him dry: existence. What kept him holding on, doing what he did? He could hardly remember anything anymore except for that painful burn, itching sting, heart-wrenching tease. Shreds of himself littered the world.

He flipped himself onto the edge of a building, clinging to the molding. What if it gave, crumbling under his weight, letting him topple down in the direction of hell? He made a sleek move, catlike, stepping backwards on to the roof, and crouched down, silhouetted against the sunset's rainbow of reds, oranges, and pinks. He was on city patrol, as usual, and with a cautious eye he watched the busy crowds swarm out of buildings.

Below him, things were so small. People looked like flecks of dirt, insignificant and vulnerable, and the streetlights ran from red to green to yellow in a monotonous, boring cycle. The cars looked like disproportioned neon ants. The sides of gleaming, glassy buildings made a sort of boxed hallway down to the street below, inviting, edged in the silver and gold lights as the moon peeked out and the sun slipped beyond the rose-colored horizon.

If he died, would any of them care about the passing of Spider-man? But, then, what did it matter? They couldn't give him what he wanted. They couldn't forgive him, couldn't save him, couldn't take away his cursed alter-ego. 

Things were still enough. It was time to take up the offer.

Thoughtlessly, Spider-man flung himself off of the edge of the 50-story tall office building, diving as if he were about to skim off a pool. He spread his arms as he fell, as if he was crucified. Partway, the comparison was correct. He was the savior unseated, unappreciated. Wind washed over him furiously as if he were caught in a tornado.

The streaks of light became unending beams. The rush of mirrored windows cast a glare into his eyes. Flipping as he fell, he knew that he could make a decision. If he wanted to, he could let himself fall until he hit earth, let those familiar New York streets take him captive.  That city, made of steel and pavement, was haunted for him with ghosts of murderers and fires, thieves and sickness, and a dead uncle that stirred lifelessly in his grave. What had happened to the beauty, the human life whispering and screaming at once in the heart? He had lost that. Sadness enveloped him, bleak and gray.

Spider-man reasoned with himself. Why should he stop himself? His mind blanked as he lost himself to the passionate feeling of freedom as gravity yanked him down. Who was he again? Wasn't he Spider-man? But there was another being under the suit whose name he had forgotten, a being who had grown numb and mute. 

The ground was nearing, the black streets similar to jaws waiting to snatch him up; the black teeth were the citizens he had saved and saved again. How far was he now until his demise? He had fallen so far, so long, it seemed.  He had suffered so long.

And it was then that something red swept him away.

The red was a fever, a virus taking over his system. The red was a zeal, a blinding zodiac sun in his mind. The red was a hand reaching out and taking his wrist and a voice saying, "Come back." The red was two eyes watching him mournfully, pleading with him to shoot out a curling tendril of webbing and cling to life. The red was the back of a head, covered in vibrant hair; the head turned and the eyes watched him from the other side and a smile cracked and saved him.

Spider-man shot out a strand quickly and swung with it to a ledge of a low building. The red became a seething memory branded to his brain. He looked down, and the red was all over him: on his face, on his hands, spread across his chest, imprinted over his heart.

Mary Jane was red.

He panted a few times, shocked. What had he almost done? He woke up, silver eyes masking the fear behind the blue. Pushing black night from his brain as the true dusk fell softly, he swung himself down an alley as a shortcut and to a small apartment building. Perching across the way from it, Spider-man gazed through a window, curtained in green-blue fabric. Outlined by a weathered light, Mary Jane stood, her face to the mirror opposite the window, the reflection watching the girl. She played her fingers along a few wisps, slipping them behind her ears. She ran a glinting silver comb through her hair, that red, that saving red. Sweet music played from inside.

The eyes in the mirror flinched. The reflection spotted Spider-man outside the window. She turned around to the window, and he was frozen, discovered, his sticky feet almost glued by her gaze. Glass lifted, but walls remained.

"You must have a name," she suggested to the masked man, "a name that you hide under your getup." Her voice sounded like lilacs tumbling onto a marbled floor, like water hissing over steamed rocks. He could have slept at her voice. In his deep dreams at night, the ones he craved to hold but always forgot, he could hear her singing him old lullabies.

"Nobody knows that name," Spider-man answered coolly.

"Are you so certain?" she challenged, leaning out, her fingertips strumming along the windowsill. Her face was emotionless except for the slight narrowing of her eyes which hinted at the rebel lurking like a beast inside of her night. Terror gripped him by the throat, lashing green fingers across his windpipe.

He craned his neck towards her curiously. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Mary Jane replied, "Some things we just have to figure out for ourselves." He blinked at her underneath the mask, jaw agape. Could she see through the silver sheen of his mask's eyes? He felt weak and exposed and out of himself, as if the world had fallen away from him to land in pieces at his feet. Before he could question her, she asked, "What are you doing here so late?"

He told her honestly, "I was watching you."

"Why? I didn't take you for a spy." Mary Jane crossed her arms in expectation as if she were anticipating an apology from a disobedient child. Why did she make him feel so small, hardly a hero at all? At, yet, when she had kissed his lips under the mask, Spider-man had never been stronger, more glorious, more eternal. She confused him. He loved her still.

Spider-man shrugged, appearing nonchalant to the careless observer. He was getting very good at hiding his true feelings. He was actually literally trembling in his boots. "You're very beautiful," he said softly. She blushed pink and recoiled slightly from the window.

"If you're trying to pursue me-" she started, her voice somewhat warning.

"No," he protested, shaking his head, regretting his words and this strange game he had been playing. Did he think that the mask gave him a chance to flirt, to chase her, to play at love? Did he think he wasn't endangering her this way? The mask had made all the trouble and it would stir up more if he tried to fake a romance outside of his real skin, inside the red suit. "I'm sorry. I know that you love someone else."

"So, he must have told you," she said bluntly. "Well, Spider-man, I don't want to ask too much of you, but if you are going to talk to him, could you tell him that I'll always be waiting?" Something in her eyes pierced him. Who was she really talking to? Was she seeing through the costume which now seemed so sheer?

He nodded dumbly, mute, paralyzed. "Sure." Would she really always wait for him? But it would be a wait in vain. It would only ache inside of her for so long before it turned her as numb as ice, like him.  There's only so much strain that the human heart can take, and he could bear the thought of himself pushing her to her extreme. Either way, the sky was grim.

"I appreciate it," she whispered. He wished she hadn't said it, and, yet, he was glad that she had.

"He means best," Spider-man blurted out. "He really does. He never meant to hurt you." Under his second skin, he bit his lip. He was stupid, and careless, and he had thought he knew restraint inside and out.

"I know, but that doesn't mean he didn't," Mary Jane corrected. Those words reached deep down inside of him and wound up his heart into a great biog knot. She paused, laughing. "Are you going to watch me some more, Spider-man?" she asked, stressing the first syllable in a jest. He chuckled and shifted uneasily.

"I'll go, then, and let you sleep," Spider-man murmured, leaping up to a higher ledge, not looking at her, hearing his voice fall on the deaf bricks and closed windows with the lamplights burning dim.

"Wait," Mary Jane called after him. He looked back at her, the fake eyes searching. "Don't you have something to say?"

He did. That was why he had come after all. "There are a lot of things that we don't understand, that we don't really know," he said in an obvious fashion.  He couldn't bear to meet her eyes, even if she couldn't see his own. "There are things we can't see."

"Of course," she said breathlessly. Her eyes were wide, as if she were waiting for something that she was sure would come, like the sunrise or the half-tide falling.

"And, though you might not know it, you do things for Peter that you never see. You affect him in so many ways. He might never be able to stutter out the words to you himself, so that's why I'm telling you that you are every shred of strength he's got," Spider-man uttered cautiously, casting foreign, alien glances at her.

She chewed her lip, and he could see her tremble. "You think?"

"I know," he said with certainty. "Goodnight, Mary Jane."

"No! Don't leave me like this on the edge. You've got to tell me one thing, please," begged Mary Jane, her head sticking out of the window, knuckles pale.  "Do you think that strength stems from something deep?" she whispered across the alley between them, her lips moving in perfect, crisp pronunciation.

Spider-man saw helixes twisting, his DNA changed and contorted, the bonded ladder rungs cracking and splitting and regrouping into chemical strength. He saw an elderly man sprawled on the concrete, blood seeping through weathered shirt and jacket from a moist hole, the red liquid all over his own hands, making him fierce with strength. Spider-man saw webbing fueled by red strength, red hair over pale shoulders, brilliant eyes and lush lips coaxing him over the hill in a joint caress.

"Yes."

"That's all," Mary Jane said quietly. "I'm sorry I kept you, but I had to know." Spider-man nodded, wanting to smile but unable to. His finger, alone, traced the edge of brick and mortar. It was awkwardly still.

"Somebody's calling me," he said, hearing a voice in his mind scream, claw at his brain, his cursed sixth sense.  "I have to go." Mary Jane watched him swing away from her, singing a hasty "So long!" and vanishing away from her limited view. Her eyes grew teary and she sighed and closed the window with a slam, her gaze on the street below.