Chapter One.
Miguel O'Hara.
Upon first glance, it isn't terribly difficult to understand the disinterested look etched into the long haired, disheveled young man that sat in the far back corner of the classroom. It was roughly a quarter past eight in the morning; who in their right mind would adore the idea of learning advanced bio-chemistry at eight in the morning?
"And when the two chemicals interact like this, we can confer, from their chaotic nature, that…"
What they did, how they reacted, and hell, even what these chemicals were had fallen on the long haired boy's deaf ears. He'd been gnawing absentmindedly and somehow also aggressively on the number two pencil between his fingers. Beady eyes adorned with numerous bags of weariness were trained on the analog clock that hung above his homeroom teacher.
"…given what we know on how they're made of, if we can assume that…"
Oh, how he wished that glorious clock would just land squarely on top of his head.
No, no.
Miguel was never this cynical.
But on said first glance, how could one not assume this?
They could not know the events that had transpired within the last few weeks.
How hard he had fought. The lives he had risked.
The lives he had lost.
Experiences that would surely leave bags under beady eyes.
Adrenaline that would flow through you so strong that it would leave you gnawing on anything you could get your hands on.
And finally, sights that would leave you empty and disinterested in virtually anything and everything else.
Miguel could not take mediocrity he had now found himself in any longer.
He needed to get out. He needed to breathe, alone, if only for a moment.
Miguel springs from his desk so quickly that the chair nearly follows with him, screeching loudly across the classroom floor. It isn't that he had been planning on making his exit a stealthy or even inconspicuous one, but he didn't appreciate all eyes latching onto him the moment he'd dashed towards the main door.
"Uh, Mr. O'Hara?"
Damn. Only had one finger on the doorknob.
"I'm afraid I can't excuse you just yet. We're only fifteen minutes in after all."
His ears pick up on muffled laughs from behind, and even in his disheveled state he can't really blame them. "Mr. Oresette, I need to go," he says simply, swinging the door open.
"I can't have you leave; if you do I'll have you-"
"You'll have me what?" he snarls, daring a quick look back as he vanishes through the doorway. "I could teach this class."
He slams the door shut with far greater force than he had originally meant, the door frame shaking violently from it. A student's rather voluminous voice bellows "damn!" from behind it. He doesn't allow himself to grin at the student's reaction however as Miguel sprints away from the room in case his instructor felt the urge to regain dominance, and an even further urge to use him as an example.
Darting around a corner a moment later awaits his karma however.
A locker ornamented with a large variety of flowers and sympathy cards catches his eye. He knows beyond a doubt whom this particular locker belonged too but he drifts towards to it warily all the same. His fingers tremble slightly as he lifts the lock.
And his mouth damn near hits the floor.
The locker itself had been dressed with several cards, some homemade, and some of the hallmark variety. All their messages roughly bore the same text though: You Will Be Missed, Courtney!
The items inside the locker are remained untouched, out of respect he assumes.
A few textbooks, a hooded sweatshirt, and an incredibly out-of-date CD player that looked all too familiar.
Yet it is one thing that makes his heart sink.
One item that makes him gasp.
A thing that quickly makes him realize he'd never seen inside her locker until now.
A photograph of himself and a blonde haired, freckled and bespectacled young woman, whose arms were slung around his shoulders, grinning from ear to ear. On his right a dark-haired young woman was preoccupied putting bunny ears behind his head, while another young man was far too busy doing the exact same to her.
"Oh my God…" a fragile voice from behind whispers.
He looks over to his right as a familiar looking brunette takes the photograph from his hand.
"She liked us," she whispers, more to herself if anything, entranced by the picture. "She actually really liked us."
"Sheryl, I," he swallows, his eyes scanning the area around their feet as if the words he needed to say were embedded on the floor. The air between them is so electric that his deductive powers don't push him to ask what she was doing here and not back in class. "I was there. I was there when she-"
"When Spider-Man got her killed?"
If he still had been holding the photo it most likely would have reached the ground the same moment his jaw now had.
It was funny, he thought deliriously; even in a moment like this, she still had the uncanny ability to catch him off guard.
If only he had a special sense for that.
"What?" Miguel murmurs stupidly.
"She told me… she told me, Miguel." She looks up at her best friend, tears frothing in her eyes so quickly that it takes every inch of his willpower to hold her gaze. "She was rushing off to find him. She said something stupid, that he was fighting for us, and he needed something only she could give him. I was right there, Miguel. Right there with her. All I had to do was stop her from going, and I didn't, I, I-"
Sheryl gasps as Miguel pulls her into a tight embrace, and sobs uncontrollably against his chest for what feel like hours, and almost fails to retreat from him for a moment. "I'm sorry… it just all came over me."
He doesn't speak.
He merely hugs her again, pats her back, and takes off back down the hallway, leaving her best friend to grieve the rest of the school day in peace, but alone.
He had no choice, none at all. How could he look her in the eye any longer? To feel as though he had the slightest bit of right to console her?
When he knew that it was actually because of him that their best friend was no longer with them?
That he had failed so terribly that the damage was irreversible?
That he was Spider-Man?
Reaching the stairwell that led up to the roof, he's alone and more importantly free of his high school teen façade. As any normal teenager would race to the top skipping one or two steps at time here and there, Miguel effortlessly leaps a story's length vertically as talons spring forth from his fingers and toes. As they enable him to cling onto the surface as if held aloft by invisible wirework, he climbs to the exit door in no time at all. A door that is normally heavily and electronically locked to prevent students from accessing the school's rooftop provides no challenge to this teenager however. With one quick flick of his wrist, the metal door cries in agony as it swings open, almost off its hinges.
The sun hits his face as tears finally roll down it. It was a ridiculously bright and cloudless day. Had the world not known that someone so special had left it forever?
And it had been his fault?
Miguel rears his chest and lets out a howl like the damned.
-Voicemail Initiated- Mr. O'Hara, You Have One Unheard Message!
He almost doesn't hear his holo-watch's notification over his own sobs. He raises his arm up after taking a minute to wipe his face, "Power down, Lyla."
Are You Sure Mr. O'Hara?
"Yes, I'm sure."
Weirdly he smiles as he confirms this.
He can almost hear Courtney's voice come from outside of himself rather than within… she always had been annoyed by the fact that every electronic device seemed to question doubly whatever action you wanted to do. "Duh, of course I want you to shut down, I asked didn't I? Why is once never enough?" he imitates to himself.
Exhaling, he walks toward the edge of the rooftop, the talons in his feet and hands retracting as he stares directly downward, avoiding the Sun's gaze as best as possible. Having Accelerated Vision did have its perks, the ability to see in the dark, telescoping distant objects with ease nearly able to see things at the microscopic level but the enhanced sensitivity to light was not one of them.
Thankfully the city streets miles below were shaded to a more comfortable disposition. TecCars zoomed on by through the designated airways, a nearby holo-television blaring an Alchemax advertisement for what had to have been literally the thousandth time this week.
Ah, Alchemax. The super-duper-mega corporation that practically ran their city (if not perhaps their entire state), and practically made Miguel the young man he was today, them and their lovely cross-species genetics division.
The reason why spider D.N.A was now embedded into his own.
The reason why everything within the last week had happened the way it had.
Everything.
Miguel curses the company as his head hangs low.
"I'm so sorry, Court..."
