The Legacy of a Hero
Chapter Twenty-Four
"I can't believe you told them everything," Rhi said in amazement the next day at lunch.
"Didn't really have a choice. They were going to find out eventually anyway." Heather shrugged her good shoulder as she speared a bite of soggy mac and cheese with her fork.
Her arm was still sore from the bullet wound, but it was more of a bad cut now than the gash it had been. She hadn't even needed stitches for it, that's how quickly it had healed in just two days. She was trying not to think too much about it, otherwise it made her head spin a little.
"And your dad is really cool with helping you?" Mike asked, raising one dark eyebrow at her. She didn't blame him for being skeptical, she still couldn't really believe it herself.
"He said he was, and so did mom. Well, to be fair, mom almost seemed like she was pushing him into it. But he did say he would help me, so I guess I have to take his word for it." Heather glanced around the cafeteria, spotting Josh and his girlfriend feeding each other french fries.
She rolled her eyes and focused back on her own tray. I can't believe I ever went out with that jerk. Although… Maybe I owe him an apology. I did accuse him of spiking my drink. There's no way I could have that conversation with him in front of Melissa though. Maybe if we run into each other later when we're both alone, I'll tell him I was wrong. It would be the right thing to do.
"So what's the next move?" Rhi asked expectantly.
Heather shook her head. "At this point, I have no idea. He told me to meet him at the university after school. He has a lecture he has to give, but after that we're going to strategize I think. He has access to resources that I don't have, so hopefully we can speed this along. I want to give Mr. Chen some answers soon."
"Why do you care about him so much?" Mike asked. "He's like a mob boss, right? I thought you were supposed to put guys like that in jail."
Heather shook her head, like it seemed backwards to her as well. "Right now, he's a grieving father not a mobster. I don't know yet if this was linked to his business, so at this point he's not a suspect – he's the victim. I'm going to treat him as one until I find good evidence that says otherwise."
"When's the funeral?" Rhi asked in a hushed tone. The school was arranging a memorial service in Iris' honor for her friends, teachers and classmates. Iris' father was of course having a private funeral service for her, but the school felt it would give the student body closure if they held a public service for the fallen sophomore.
"This coming weekend, I think," Mike answered, putting an arm around his girlfriend who leaned into the comforting embrace.
"Friday at eight is what I heard," Heather confirmed, suddenly not as hungry as she thought she was. She put her fork down and ran a hand through her tangled red hair. "I'll be so glad when we can put this whole thing to rest."
"Heather," Rhi began hesitantly. "You… you do realize that even when you find out who was behind all of this, it's not going to change anything. Iris will still be, well, gone. You know that right?"
"Of course I know that," Heather snapped irritably. She saw the look on her friends faces and took a deep breath. "Sorry," she murmured, more calmly. "It's just… if I don't do something I'm going to go crazy. As it is, I can barely live with myself." She rubbed her hands anxiously, her skin feeling tender from the repeated times she'd washed them this morning. She knew that was a dangerous habit to fall into. If I don't figure this out soon, I may never stop feeling like I have blood on my hands, she thought, reaching into her bag and grabbing a bottle of moisturizer. She rubbed some into her palms as she continued, "I know none of this will bring Iris back."
Mike smiled at her. "But it's the right thing to do," he finished. "Heather the hero," he added softly and Heather felt herself flush.
Some hero, she thought.
Empire University was a sprawling campus spread out over several city blocks on the north side of the city. Heather remembered visiting it more often when she was young. If her parents couldn't find a babysitter for her, and her mom had an audition or a rehearsal, her father would bring her to campus and have her wait in his office with a few toys until he finished with lectures, supervised by one of his teaching assistants or another trusted colleague. Occasionally though, he would have her sit behind his desk in the classroom while he taught. She had fond memories of various students 'awing' over her as she studiously took 'notes' in her coloring book, copying his mathematical formulas from the whiteboard to the best of her ability. Some of the students had even brought in stickers or little dinosaur erasers for her. She realized now that some of those girls had probably been trying to sucker her dad into a good grade, or even butter him up for a date (even though he never removed his wedding ring, and there was a picture of her mother on his desk), but it didn't make those memories any less fond for her.
It had been several years since she'd visited her dad at his work here, but she remembered the way to his office well enough. When she got there, she asked the professors who held the nearby offices with her dad where he was teaching his current class and they gave her directions.
She glanced in the door's window, surveying the room. Her dad was mid lecture, his back turned to the door as he wrote a long equation on the board. She quietly slipped into the room and took an empty seat in the back. A few of the boys near her smiled coyly and she waved awkwardly. They probably weren't that much older than her, but the attention made her a little uncomfortable. There's no way they know I'm their professor's kid. If they did, they wouldn't be flirting with me, she thought, turning her attention back to her father as he surveyed the room for questions.
Peter caught her eye and smiled at her, and she couldn't help but smile back. They hadn't really talked over the issues she'd brought to his attention, but maybe they could start moving in that direction. Heather hoped they could. She really wanted to make this work between them. I want him to think I can handle this. I want him to be – she looked down at the long table she shared with the other students, frowning. What did she want from her father? His attention? His respect?
Once the students had cleared out of the classroom, Heather walked down the stairs while her dad erased the whiteboard. She hopped up on his desk and sat cross-legged, watching as he shut down the smartboard and gathered his notes.
"You know there's a perfectly good chair right there," Peter said, a note of amusement in his voice as he filled his briefcase with papers.
Heather pretended to think about this. "Nah, this is more comfortable."
"You hungry?" He asked.
She shrugged, "I could use a coffee."
"Of course you could," he chuckled. "I think you're more addicted to caffeine than I am. Come on, there's a cafe on campus by the library."
As they walked along the sun soaked sidewalk, Heather wondered if he felt as awkward as she did. She hated crying, and she'd done a lot of it over the weekend. Worse, she'd cried in front of him. Crying in front of Rhi or her mom was one thing, but in front of her dad it felt like she was letting him down. She knew that was probably silly, but she couldn't shake the feeling that he was disappointed in her.
She glanced up at him through her tangle of auburn hair.
In the sunlight of the afternoon, her dad looked a little less worn out today than he had yesterday, but he still had dark circles under his eyes. She realized that in the little she'd seen of her dad the last few weeks, aside from when he was Spiderman, he looked older. There were crows-feet wrinkles at the corners of his eyes from squinting into the sun, and he had worry lines in his forehead. Her mom could easily still pass for fifteen years younger on any given day, but her dad seemed to have aged ten years since the last time she'd really looked at him. She wondered if it had to do with his lifestyle, or from worrying over their family affairs. Even superheroes had to pay the utility bill every month.
Once they had coffee and sandwiches, they found a table on the patio that was more isolated from the rest of the students. Tall ivy-covered brick walls surrounded them on three sides, and the closest students were engrossed in laptops and textbooks, their heads bobbing along to the music blasting from their over-sized headphones.
"Alright," Peter said after they'd both taken a few sips of coffee and settled in. "Let's compare notes. What do you have so far?"
Heather wrapped her hands around her paper cup, soaking warmth into her suddenly cold fingers. "Well," she hesitated. "The night Iris died, I was in Soho…" More quietly than before, she related the rest of the events from that night for her dad for what felt like the hundredth time. She managed to keep her stomach under control this time, but the ham sandwich in front of her was suddenly a lot less appetizing.
"What's so significant about Iris Chen?" Peter asked after a few moments.
"I mean, other than her dad, nothing. Valedictorian candidate, kept to her circle of friends, quiet," Heather shrugged, sipping her coffee. She grimaced as the bitter liquid made her queasiness worse. She set her cup down on the table and began picking her sandwich apart into tiny pieces.
"The mob boss, right?" Peter opened his laptop and booted it up, his brow furrowing in thought. "Your angle was a power struggle, wasn't it?"
She nodded. "Either between Mr. Chen and his brothers, or between him and the Sinister Six… that one was his guess, not mine. I hadn't even considered supervillains until he brought it up."
"Whichever it is," Peter continued as he began typing something into his computer. "Their bargaining chip against Chen is gone, which means they're going to get desperate. They'll strike again, and soon, I can feel it."
She pulled her legs up to her chest and laid her folded arms on her knees, watching him work. She put her chin on her arms. "Are you mad? You know... that I didn't tell you?"
He glanced up at her over the screen. "I'm not mad," he shook his head. "I guess I'm more… Surprised. I just assumed, well, I guess that was my first mistake. The bite did alter my DNA, of course I knew it could affect my children. When you and Harry never showed any signs, I just…" He blew out a breath and shrugged, his eyes back on the screen. "I should've known, really, and been waiting for it. I wasn't paying attention, and I'm sorry for that."
She looked down at the grass growing between cracks in the concrete. "You don't have to be sorry," she said quietly. "Just…" She looked around the patio, feeling lost. She wanted to say 'just be there, just pay attention – that's all Harry and I want', but now didn't feel like the time to bring that up again. She and her dad were getting along, and she didn't want to shatter the peace they'd made today.
He didn't seem to notice that she'd trailed off, now fully engrossed in his laptop. "Chen's main income, as far as the government is concerned, is the clubs. There's a lot of cash flowing through them night after night. Makes it very easy to hide other income and launder it through the business."
"What is his main income? Off the books that is," She asked. Up until now, she had been looking the other way when it came to Mr. Chen's illegal affairs. She'd been focusing on him as a victim in this scenario, a grieving father – that's what she'd told Mike and Rhi. She still thought of him as that, but she had to admit it would be naive on her part to ignore that the man was a mobster.
"Protection racket," Peter said crisply.
Heather frowned. "What do you mean?"
"The businesses in the neighborhood around his clubs pay him for protection against super-powered attacks – whether it's collateral damage from a hero or intentional damage from a villain," Peter explained, still typing. "He and his brothers' employees make sure that no one with powers comes anywhere near their clients, and that any damages which may occur to their stores accidentally are swiftly repaired."
"I got the impression he didn't like capes," she muttered. "But basing his whole business around keeping them away from the neighborhood feels a little overboard."
"His wife was caught in the crossfire of a meta fight with a blast of radiation. She survived, but it gave her a very aggressive form of cancer. She died within a year of the attack," He explained and Heather felt her stomach drop.
"Oh," She said, her voice suddenly small. Suddenly, Mr. Chen's comments about metas made a lot more sense. She couldn't even imagine how Iris must have felt, losing her mom so suddenly, or losing her mom at all. And Iris died because of me, a meta… "Dad, I have to go." Heather stood and gathered her messenger bag, leaving her half drunk coffee and mangled sandwich on the table.
"Go?" He finally looked up from the laptop. "Heather, we have stuff we still need to talk about."
"We'll talk later," She said over her shoulder, already hurrying away. "I'll see you at home." She didn't wait for a reply, running across campus.
"Heather!" Peter called, and she heard his loafers thudding on the sidewalk as he bolted after her. Heather ducked through knots of startled students before ducking into an alley between two buildings. She leapt over several piles of trash, but as she glanced over her shoulder to see if her dad was still following her, her legs collided with an overturned metal can and she tumbled to the asphalt.
"Heather! Are you okay?" Peter skidded to a stop as Heather was slowly getting to her hands and knees. He knelt beside her as she examined her skinned palms through blurring vision.
Heather sniffed once and swiped at her eyes with her arm, the sting of broken skin minimal compared to the lead in her chest. "I should have been able to save her. It's my fault," she muttered, sick with self-loathing.
Peter sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. "C'mere kid," he said gently, pulling her into a hug.
Heather stiffened for a second in surprise before accepting the embrace. Sitting sideways to him, she leaned into his chest and held his arm. She felt his chin resting on her head and closed her eyes, letting herself just be in the moment.
"I wasn't much older than you," Peter said softly after a minute, "when I lost my girlfriend, Gwen. You remind me of her in a lot of ways. She had this spark in her, this joy… she died because I couldn't save her. One of the hardest things to accept about this job is that you can't save everyone. You can't change what happened, but you can move past it, if you learn to forgive yourself."
"I don't know if I can," Heather whispered, voice watery.
"Despite everything that you can do now, you have to remember that you're still human. You're human, Heather, and no one is perfect. You do the best you can, you remember the people you saved, and you forgive yourself for the ones you can't. That's all you can do," She felt him press a kiss into her hair and she sniffed.
"It's just so hard, Dad," she choked out between sobs.
"I know it is, kid, I know. But you're strong, Heather, just like your old man. I know you can move past this." He rubbed a hand down her back soothingly.
She couldn't remember the last time her dad had been this gentle with her, and she tried to press the feeling of this moment down into her memory, willing herself to hang onto it. Knowing that her dad didn't blame her for what happened, knowing he'd been through this too, she felt a tiny bit of the weight on her heart lift. It wasn't much, but it was a start.
After a few minutes, Heather pulled away from her dad once she felt like she wasn't going to fall apart without his support. She scrubbed her face with her skinned palms, wincing as her tears mixed into the broken patches of skin. "Well I think that's officially more emotional breakdowns in two weeks than I've had in three years."
"You've been through a lot," Peter said simply, helping her to her feet. "Come on, kid. I paid one of the students at the cafe to watch my laptop and bag, but I don't want to push my luck. Thirty bucks might not have been enough incentive to keep them from hacking my computer for test answers, but it was all I had in my wallet."
She pushed her hair out of her face and tried for a smile, "I guess if you end up with an unusual amount of hundreds on your next exam, you'll know for sure."
"The problem with my students," He complained good-naturedly as they began walking back to the cafe, "is they're too smart to make perfect grades on my tests. Knowing them, it will instead be an influx of ninety-sevens."
Heather stood in front of her siblings bedroom door, feeling ridiculous. She'd been the one who wanted to explain everything to her little brother, insisted on it to her parents, but now that she was standing here in the hallway she was hesitating. She just didn't know how he was going to react. C'mon, now or never, she thought with finality. She knocked twice then poked her head inside.
Harry was putting together one of his Star Wars Lego sets at his desk, pieces spread out in front of him in little categorized piles. On the rug in the middle of the room, Audrey was stacking letter blocks and Heather could tell she was trying to imitate the way Harry had his toys organized.
Heather felt the familiar warmth of affection glow in her chest as she watched her siblings play. She'd been so excited when her parents told her she was going to be a big sister. No matter how much her brother and sister annoyed her at times, she loved them more than just about anything or anyone else. As Harry looked up from the section of the Millennium Falcon he was working on, it occurred to Heather that part of the reason she worried about telling them the truth was the same reason her dad hadn't told her. She wanted to keep them safe.
If no one tells you to look both ways before crossing the street, then how would you ever know there's danger? Heather thought, and that made up her mind. "Hey guys," she said, coming inside to sit on the floor opposite Audrey.
Her little sister grinned at her, crawling into her lap for a snuggle. Heather held her tight for a minute, before letting the toddler go back to her blocks.
"What's up?" Harry asked, signing at the same time. It was a habit both he and Heather had developed to make sure their sister was able to keep up with the conversation.
"I wanted to talk to you both about something important," Heather explained, taking a deep breath. "You know how I've been kind of weird lately?"
"Lately?" Harry teased with a raised eyebrow.
"Brat," Heather replied automatically, rolling her eyes. "Anyway, I wanted you guys to hear this from me and not from Mom and Dad. Dad and I, well…" She wasn't sure how to put this into words. Maybe she should have thought of that instead of focusing on how her brother would react to her news.
Maybe straight forward is best, Heather decided when Harry just looked at her. Audrey looked confused at her sister's unfinished sentence. "You and Dad what?" The toddler asked.
"Dad… Dad is Spiderman," Heather said finally, "and I have powers too."
Harry blinked at her for a few seconds. "Sorry, could you run that by me again? I think I had a stroke, because what I thought I heard you say is you and Dad have superpowers."
"You're so dramatic," Heather rolled her eyes again out of habit.
"No, seriously, what the hell Heather?" Harry asked, so distracted that he even cursed in sign language.
"Harry!" Heather scolded.
"Heather!" Harry repeated emphatically, and she noticed that his face had gone pale.
She took a deep breath. "Right. Sorry. Alright let me just explain everything I know from the beginning." It took several minutes, especially with Harry making her backtrack at certain points, but finally she sat back on the palms of her hands and watched her siblings gather their thoughts.
Audrey, she could tell, didn't necessarily understand everything but got the basic gist. "You can...?" She asked, throwing out her arms like she was shooting off webbing. Heather figured she must have seen Spiderman doing the move on TV at some point.
She smiled at her little sister, feeling a little embarrassed. "Yeah, I can. I'm really strong now too."
"Is that why?" Harry said quietly. Heather focused on him, noticing how he'd crossed his arms and was staring at the floor but not really seeing it. "Is that why he's never around?"
Heather frowned sympathetically. "Partially, yeah. I do think he's really busy with work as well, but…"
"Are you going to be gone all the time now, too?" Heather felt her heart clench at the sight of her little brother tearing up.
"Hey," Heather said softly, leaning forward to lay her hand on his knee.
He rubbed his eyes and sniffed once. "I just – I mean who's going to help me with homework if you're always gone too?"
She smiled sadly, knowing there was more he wanted to say but didn't know how to. "I'm not going to disappear on you, bud. I guess you could say… it's like I have a new after school job, you know? It's just something I have to fit into my schedule now. Besides, I doubt Dad's going to let me be out with him past midnight on a school night. You and Audrey are always going to come before anything else."
Harry looked skeptical, but he nodded. "Okay, Heather." Slowly he smiled, lifting a questioning eyebrow. "So, you gonna show us?"
Heather colored, feeling embarrassed. "It's not that impressive," she muttered.
"C'mon, Spidergirl," He teased.
"Widow, actually," she corrected, getting to her feet. "'Spidergirl' is lame."
"Noted. So?" He rolled his hand like, 'get on with it'.
"Yeah, yeah, okay." Heather sighed, and yet she couldn't help smiling. Her little brother looked excited for her, which was better than she ever could have hoped for. Being careful to avoid stepping on any of Audrey's toys, she approached a relatively bare section of wall and crawled up it to hang from the ceiling by her fingertips.
Audrey giggled in delight and Harry laughed. "Holy crap," he sputtered between chuckles. "I didn't really believe you until now," he admitted, craning his neck back to gawk at her.
"Believe it little brother."
"You're not dizzy? From like, blood going to your head or something?"
"Surprisingly no. Weird huh?"
"It's awesome," he grinned at her. "I finally have a cool big sister."
"What do you mean 'finally'?"
AN: When I tell you I had to rewrite this chapter like five times sigh anyway… I hope you all enjoyed! I'm still working on editing past chapters of this so if you see the story has been updated on your alerts but the chapter count hasn't changed, that's why. I rewatched "Into the Spider-Verse" the other day (the best Spiderman movie, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise) and I realized that my Peter is a lot like 'Peter B Parker' in that movie. A little tired, a lot older, a little jaded – basically not the optimist he once was. I don't think my Peter is necessarily a bad guy, I think he's just sort of lost the mojo he once had. Hopefully that comes across well. I think as the story goes on, you'll understand better why he is the way he is. Just to warn you, he's only going to get one more chapter written from his perspective, and I'm saving it for the epilogue. This is Heather's story in the end, not his. I hope you've all had a lovely day and I'll catch you guys next time.