A frigid gust of wind swept through the back alleys of Gotham, stirring up discarded newspapers and fast food wrappers. Huddled in the shadowy recesses, fifteen-year-old Stephanie Brown adjusted the makeshift purple mask that hid her identity. She had given herself a name, the Spoiler. It was fitting, a nod to her intention of spoiling her father's criminal plans. Arthur Brown, better known as Cluemaster, may have been a second-rate villain in the eyes of Batman, but to Stephanie, he was the first hurdle in her self-imposed mission for justice.

Hunched over, she pulled her dark purple hooded cloak tighter, her gloved fingers fumbling with the binoculars she'd 'borrowed' from her dad's stash of oddities back before he'd gone completely down the 'supervillain' rabbit hole. There wasn't much to her outfit: a purple suit she'd sewn together from some old clothes, a black utility belt stuffed with whatever useful items she could scrounge, and the mask. The mask was the most crucial part: a simple makeshift bandana tucked into her collar, exposing her eyes below her hood.

She'd remembered this location from the maps and blueprints her father had left lying around when her mom wasn't home. Squinting through the binoculars, Stephanie watched as a group of hooligans unloaded crates from a truck down the street. "A little late for moving, don't you think?" she murmured.

Suddenly, a strange sensation prickled at the skin under her sleeve, and she glanced down, yanking her sleeve up to see a small spider crawling up her arm. Her eyes widened as she held down a yelp, preparing to slap it away, but the creature bit her before she could. "Ouch!" she yelped, shaking her arm violently. The spider fell away, disappearing into the darkness. "That's what I get for hiding behind a dumpster," she said with a sigh, rubbing the bite mark with her hand.

Shaking off the pain, she refocused on the task at hand. But as she tried to stand, a wave of dizziness washed over her, and she stumbled, her vision blurring. Panic welled up within her. She was alone in a Gotham alleyway, and she was about to pass out. "This isn't good..." she mumbled, collapsing against the grimy brick wall behind her.

When she woke, Stephanie was sprawled out on the cold concrete, the echoing sounds of Gotham's nightlife faint in the distance. Gritting her teeth, she pushed herself up, her head throbbing. The spider bite on her arm throbbed, a strange warmth spreading from it.

Then, a torrent of thoughts and ideas came flooding in, overwhelming her. Advanced physics equations, chemical formulas, architectural blueprints, strategic plans, they all filled her mind like a torrent. She saw herself swinging through the city, using some kind of webbing. She envisioned gadgets and equipment far beyond what she could've dreamt of before.

Stephanie gasped, her heart pounding. She knew these weren't her thoughts, her ideas. But where were they coming from? Was this a side effect of the spider bite?

Overwhelmed, she stumbled to her feet, a strange, newfound agility coursing through her. She felt stronger, faster, more aware. "What's happening to me?" she whispered, her voice echoing in the empty alleyway.

She clenched her fists. She needed to get home. Stephanie looked up towards the fire escapes that she'd descended to get here in the first place. She leapt upward, expecting to grab onto the ladder hanging just above her. But instead, she soared even higher, landing nimbly on the side of the six-story building.

"Whoa!" she breathed, staring down at the alley below, her heart racing with fear and exhilaration. She was on the side of the building, fearfully hugging the wall, unmoving, unsure of how exactly she was sticking to the bricks but not wanting to test her luck by making the wrong move and falling. Her chest heaved with quick breaths as she panicked.

Stephanie stayed there for about a minute, too afraid to move. Her senses slowly came back to her, and her breathing slowly went back to normal as she calmed down. She looked to her left, and there, just a couple of feet away from her, was the fire escape. With her arm shaking, she pulled her left hand away from the wall and nervously reached out, but it was too far to grab. As her hand came short of the railing, she clamped her outstretched hand back onto the wall in fear.

With her hand on the wall, she nervously tried to pull it away from the wall, this time not as forceful as before. The center of her palm detached, but her fingers stayed stuck. She tried her right hand and received similar results. Stephanie gulped nervously as an idea formed in her mind. She detached her right hand, moving it closer to the left before pressing it to the wall. She tested it again with a pull, still stuck. She tried her shoes with similar results. Repeating her actions, she slowly shimmied her way to the railing of the fire escape. As soon as her hand felt the cold metal on the railing, she quickly pulled herself onto the safety of the fire escape. She scrambled over the barrier, falling on her back as she breathed a breath of relief. She laid there, her heart pounding in her chest.

"What the hell is happening to me?"

Stephanie got to her feet and looked at her hands. She went to look over the edge of the railing at the ground that she was on just minutes ago. She stumbled forward slightly and tightly gripped the metal railing in fear. A groan of metal being crushed echoed, and she let go of the railing. Where she had grabbed it, the railing had warped and deformed under her grip. Her world began to spin, her vision blurring. She gripped the railing harder, trying to fight off the dizziness threatening to pull her into unconsciousness. The feeling eventually passed after some effort.

"Time to call Mom," she mumbled out. Getting chewed out over a half-baked attempt at being a superhero seemed much more preferable than dying on a fire escape. She reached for her phone, pulling it from her pocket. Much to her misfortune, the phone stuck to her hand, the screen stuck against her palm. With her other hand, she tried to pull it away, but it didn't budge. "Come on, come on, come on, please unstick," she pleaded while quickly waving her arm in an attempt to free her phone.

After a couple of seconds of frantic swinging, her phone flew free… directly off the side of the fire escape. "No!" she shouted as she reached for it. Her luck very nearly turned around, as much to her surprise, she caught it. Her hand snatched it from the air with lightning-fast reflexes. Unfortunately, however, the screen shattered in her grip. 'If I make it home alive, Mom's going to kill me,' she thought dejectedly as she stared at her now ruined phone.

"Ok, Steph, you can do this. You just need to get home, and everything'll be fine," she said to herself as she slowly and carefully climbed her way up the fire escape, taking caution not to grab anything. Her hands had caused enough trouble for her today. She finally reached the top and took in the familiar surroundings. She'd planned this night to go much better than it had, but at least one thing hadn't been ruined: her way back.

She had spent several nights devising a route to the abandoned warehouse she had been surveilling. One that would keep her hidden, and, for once in her life, Gotham's poor city planning had worked to her advantage. The closeness of the rooftops meant that after climbing the fire escape outside her bedroom window to the roof of the old rundown apartment building she'd lived in, she could jump from roof to roof with little effort, leading her straight to her destination. All she had to do was follow the path back to her apartment building to safety,

She took a running leap over the first gap, only a couple of feet long. She had made similar jumps countless times while exploring the roofs of Gotham. Not afraid of falling short, she pushed off the edge of the gap only to be met with the opposite problem. In her need to get home, Stephanie had forgotten how she'd ended up in this problem in the first place. She once again overshot her jump.

As she soared forward, Stephanie could see the quickly approaching middle of the gravel-covered rooftop. She winced, preparing to be met with a painful crash as she hit the ground. Only to be met with a soft thud and the noise of gravel crumbling under her feet as she landed, sliding forward slightly as if she'd made a small leap instead of a jump that would have made Olympians that jealous.

She laughed in relief and shock, deciding that she needed to test a little bit before she ended up flying off a roof. Stephanie turned and looked back at the previous roof. From her position, she lightly jogged toward it and, with the effort of a small hop, flew through the air, her gymnastics training from her younger years kicking in as she turned the shaky landing into a forward roll, ending up cleanly on her feet on the spot she had jumped from initially.

"Haha!" a joyful laugh sounded out from her mouth. She jumped back and forth, easily clearing the gap each time.

'Maybe some good did come from that bite after all?' she thought.

She continued her journey home, adrenaline pumping through her as she leapt from roof to roof, letting out laughs of excitement. Stephanie arrived at the last building before her apartment. This was the one she'd first explored after discovering she could make the jump from her fire escape. The roof had 2 levels, with the higher being about 6 feet taller than the one she was on now. There was a ladder connecting them she'd used countless times. This time, however, instead of using the ladder, Stephanie had a new idea.

Stephanie looked down at her hands and said aloud, "If you suddenly stop being sticky after all the trouble you've caused me, I'm gonna be pissed."

With that said, she approached the wall before her, hands outstretched. She reached one hand up, pressed it against the wall, and tugged on it, confirming its stickiness. She did the same with her other and then went for it. She pulled herself up, her shoes leaving the floor as she stuck to the wall. She pulled her left hand from the wall before sticking it higher and pulling her body up. Then, the same with her right. Eventually, as she made her way up the side of the building, she fell into a rhythm. She got the hang of climbing, alternating hands and feet until she efficiently crawled her way up the brick wall to the top.

As she climbed onto the roof, she could see the fire escape leading to her bedroom window. Even without her newfound abilities, she could easily make the small jump from the fire escape. However, after figuring out how to crawl on walls, she decided to push her limits. She leapt directly onto the wall next to the escape before turning herself upside down on the wall to crawl downwards to her window.

Suddenly, after a couple of seconds of climbing down, she is again hit with a wave of dizziness. "No, not here, not now," Stephanie said, worried. She tried once again to fight off the sensation but was unable to. She felt her eyes close as her limbs detached from the wall. The last thing Stephanie felt before losing consciousness was the cold rush of wind as she began to plummet downwards from eight stories up.

In the midst of unconsciousness, Stephanie's mind was unaware of the danger she was in, but her body wasn't. Something sparked inside her, a warning, an alarm blaring in her mind. Her eyes snapped open, and she found herself in a free fall. Panic spiked within her as she saw her bedroom window passing by her and the ground rushing up to meet her. Her heart pounded in her chest, the wind whistling in her ears. She felt her body move on its own accord. There was no thought, just instinct. She twisted in midair, reaching out towards the fire escape with her hands, her fingers found purchase on the metal rails.

Her downward momentum stopped abruptly as she stuck to the fire escape. The old fire escape creaked and groaned as she grabbed on, the force threatening to tear it from the building as the rickety structure shook. Her body swung under her grip, her feet landing on the platform with a loud clang.

Now fully awake, adrenaline coursing through her, she gathers her thoughts, assessing the situation. She'd fallen 4 floors past her window and needed to climb back up. She went to use the stairs of the fire escape. She made it up the first floor when she felt that the dizziness was coming back, more intense this time. She could feel her vision starting to blur again. In a rush, she scrambled up the stairs faster.

She pushed onward, feeling the metal warp under her palms and the soles of her shoes. Each step upwards felt like a mile, her breath coming in ragged gasps. With great effort, she made it to her window, opening it and tumbling inside. She closed the window behind her, the dizziness and fever making the room spin around her. Sweat was pouring down her face, soaking through her homemade costume. She could feel the heat radiating off of her skin, a fever that was making her feel like she was burning from the inside.

"I can't die here," She murmured to herself as she fell to her knees, the effort to speak making her head spin even more. With a groan, she pushed herself off the floor. She couldn't let her mom find her like this. She didn't want to be found in her makeshift costume, her secret revealed in the worst way possible.

She quickly stripped off her costume. She lacked the strength and will to put on anything else. She barely had time to hide the costume under her mattress before she felt herself stumbling, her body finally giving in to the rest it so desperately needed. Stephanie collapsed onto her bed, the room spinning as her eyelids fluttered closed. She was unconscious before her head even hit the mattress.

As she fell into a deep sleep, her body began to change. The fever raged as her DNA was rewritten, her senses were heightened, and her body changed in various ways. The transformation process was painful and exhausting but necessary. When she would awake, Stephanie Brown would not be the same girl who had fallen asleep. The night was fraught with feverish dreams, filled with webs, spiders, and a strange, overpowering sense of responsibility. Stephanie tossed and turned, unknowingly acting out her internal struggle. By morning, though, the fever would break, and she would awaken to a brand new day and a brand new life.