I had forgotten that this site doesn't allow review replies. Bummer.

"Wow. This is…this is a lot to process, Roxy," Alejandro said under his breath.

His gaze shifted away from Roxanne, who was currently hanging upside down from his apartment's ceiling, wearing her Seda outfit minus the face mask. After having changed into the outfit in his bathroom, she had decided to ease his boyfriend into the big news by first sitting him down and telling him the story of how she came to obtain her powers, during which she tried to get the point across with as little rambling as she could. Once she finished, she proved the verity of her story by demonstrating her powers in front of him, which made his jaw drop to the floor as soon as he saw it.

"Yeah, I know it is," she agreed as she carefully descended to the ground and stood a few feet away from her boyfriend, sheepishly rubbing her arm. "It took me a while to come to grips with this, too."

Alejandro ran his hand through his dark hair and let out an uneasy laugh. "So, all this time, this weird spider lady that's been roaming through the city, has been you?"

Ro couldn't help but feel a bit self-conscious at the way he had said this, almost as if he had been mildly grossed out, though he had tried to hide it.

"Yup, that was me." She looked up at him and removed her yellow goggles, giving her boyfriend a pleading look. "Look, I know this whole thing is crazy and weird, but trust me. I'm still the same girl you fell in love with; I haven't changed. So, if you need time to take in the news, that's fine by me, but… I hope none of this changes the way you see me."

Ro and Alejandro looked at each other for a while, until he finally broke eye contact and looked away, deep in thought. He exhaled and sat on his couch, resting his elbows on his knees, looking down in meditation. The young woman decided to give him a few moments since that seemed only fair after the bomb she had just dropped.

After a few minutes of uncomfortable and incredibly tense silence passed, the man finally looked up at his girlfriend and locked eyes with her with a completely blank expression. Ro looked at him expectedly.

At last, his expression broke into a relaxed smile. He got up from his seat and walked towards Roxanne, grabbing her by the face and kissing her. It took the girl a second, but once she realized what this meant, she finally relaxed, kissing him back.

Alejandro broke up the kiss and looked down at Ro with a cool, almost smug, grin. "Of course this doesn't change the way I see you, preciosa. Nothing ever could. Not even you becoming, well, this could ever change my feelings. In fact, I don't think I've ever been happier in my life."

"Really?" she asked him gleefully. "Why is that?"

"Well, your plan is to become a superhero now, and you decided to tell me your greatest secret. That must mean you trust me with your life, right? It's not like with those 'siblings' of yours who stumbled upon it. You're willingly trusting me with this information." He grabbed her hands in his and pulled them close to his chest. "Does this mean you see me as the most important person in your life, mi amor?"

Normally, Ro would've rebuked him about the disdainful way in which he said the word "siblings", but after the argument she had just had with them, she was not really in the mood to defend them right now. So, she decided to brush it off and focus on the rest of the statement. "Well, of course, I trust you with my life, baby. You're my boyfriend, and I love you."

Alejandro closed his eyes, chuckling softly. "Come on. Say it."

"Say what?"

"That I am the most important person in your life."

For a moment, Ro didn't say anything, and just looked at Alejandro nervously. She wasn't sure why, but for some reason, it didn't feel entirely right to say that. She hesitated.

Alejandro's smile faded. Without breaking eye contact with Ro, he took a hand to the back of her neck and squeezed it, not excessively tightly, but just enough that it hurt her a little. "I am the most important one to you, am I not, Roxy? I don't think you would've told me your little secret otherwise, would you?"

As her boyfriend's grip didn't loosen, Ro smiled uneasily. "No, no, I mean, yes, of course. You absolutely are. You're more important to me than anyone else, Alejandro."

As she said these words, the man's increasingly cold stare softened and he grinned once again, satisfied. He moved his hand from her neck to her chin, giving it a slightly gentler squeeze and lifting her face to place a kiss on her lips.

"Now, you won't forget that when you become a world-famous Avenger and go save the world one day, will you?"

Ro chuckled. "No, of course I won't. Though I don't think I'll ever get to do something that big."

Alejandro then let out a dry snigger, almost taking her aback. "Of course you won't, I was just teasing you." He sighed. "But in all seriousness, don't you ever forget that I'm the best thing that's ever happened to you. You promise you won't forget?"

She smiled. "I promise. I love you."

"Good girl." He gave her one more, long kiss. "I love you, too."

Suddenly, that odd feeling from earlier came back. That stinging tingle on her temples. She jumped back this time, looking around for any signs of possible danger but finding none. UGH! What the hell was up with this? It felt different from her usual danger alert, but it still seemed to tell her to get away somehow. Why did she always feel it around Alejandro? What did it mean!?

"Woah! What's the matter, preciosa?" the man asked her, taking notice of her tense and visibly confused state.

She looked at him until the sensation died down, and she once again shook it off. "I'm sorry. I'm still getting used to my powers, and well, they sometimes trigger out of nowhere. It's probably nothing. I'm sure I'll get the hang of them eventually."

He looked at her in confusion at first, but then let out a lighthearted laugh. "Sure, you will, Roxy. But hey, now that everything's settled, how about I take you out somewhere? I was thinking of taking you tomorrow morning, but now, I'm just way too excited for you to see this. I can't wait until then."

Ro raised an eyebrow at him. Her boyfriend didn't usually show this eager side to him. "Uh, sure, I guess. Where are we going?"

He grabbed her by the hand and began walking out of the apartment with her, not giving her a chance to change out of her gear. "It's a surprise. You'll see when we get there."

The couple once again rode Alejandro's motorcycle, this time heading towards the opposite direction in which they had come from. Helmet on, Roxanne held on to her boyfriend's back, not knowing what this "surprise" place they were headed to could be. The only thing she could speculate at the time was that he had planned something extra special for an anniversary date.

Nothing could have prepared her for what actually awaited her at the end of their destination.

After not more than 20 minutes on the road, Alejandro parked his bike by an alleyway near a medium-height building located in an obscure and uninviting street, which appeared to be completely deserted. He got off the bike as Ro looked around in confusion and removed her helmet.

"What is this place? Why are we here?" she asked him.

"Shhhh," Alejandro lightly shushed her, placing a finger on her lips and leaning close. He whispered to her. "Don't ask questions, mi amor. You wouldn't wanna ruin my surprise."

He winked at her, and she smiled in response. A cold breeze blew through her hair. As hard as she tried, she wasn't able to shake off the uneasy feeling that she currently had, and this wasn't coming from any of her newfound abilities or powers. This was more of a gut feeling that something was about to go terribly wrong. She hadn't felt this eerie anxiousness ever since…

"No, stop it! Don't think about that right now," Ro thought to herself. "This isn't like that. You're with Alejandro, nothing can go wrong right now."

The girl watched the man in question as he walked towards the building's back entrance and used a key to unlock the door, which led to a darkened room.

Alejandro stepped into the door frame. Once he was out of Ro's earshot, Alejandro discreetly turned on a walkie talkie that he was hiding underneath his leather jacket and spoke softly into it. "Target approaching. Have guns and guards at the ready."

He stepped outside again, examining Roxanne's expression to make sure she hadn't heard him, and upon finding no suspicion in her face, he smiled flirtatiously at her, and she replied with a sheepish grin.

He extended his hand towards her, beckoning her to get closer. Ro finally got off the motorcycle and walked hesitantly to him. She took his hand in hers, grabbing it tightly, searching for comfort and stability, but oddly, she found none of those things in his touch this time.

Alejandro pulled her closer to him and noticed that the handkerchief that Ro used to cover her nose and mouth while she patrolled the city as Seda was hanging from her pants pocket. He grabbed it and placed himself behind her, now using the fabric to blindfold her.

"Oh, hey! What are you doing?" Ro asked with a nervous giggle, although she tried to disguise it as an amused and playful one instead.

"No peeking allowed, Roxy," he teasingly answered as he finished tying the hanky behind her head, covering her eyes completely. "Now, follow my lead."

He once again grabbed his girlfriend by the shoulders and proceeded to direct her as they stepped into the building, lightly but hurriedly pushing her in different directions. Roxanne could not see a thing, but she could perceive different lights being switched on as they walked past. Despite being in Alejandro's arms, her anxiety was only increasing. He did not say a word as he guided her or even warned her whenever there was a step, causing her to stumble a couple times, but she didn't have a choice but to let him lead her. The more they walked, the more intense her "danger tingle" started becoming, but this time around, she did not know how to react to it.

Finally, they came to a stop. Alejandro's grasp moved from her shoulders to her arms and tightened, almost as if trying to restrict her movement. Ro's breath became agitated, and her heart accelerated as the tingling sensation and her anxiety both seemed to peak at the same time. She wanted to raise her hands to remove the blindfold, but she was paralyzed both by her fear and by Alejandro's now rough and painful grip.

"Alejandro, where are we?" she finally asked him, panic having completely invaded her voice.

The response the girl got was of him brusquely grabbing her wrists and pulling them behind her back. She heard a metallic noise and felt a cold pressure on them, now unable to move them. She didn't need to see what had happened to know that she had been handcuffed.

"You're about to see," Alejandro whispered in her ear, but his voice felt different than usual. It was the same voice he'd always had, but now, she perceived no warmth at all in it, only a gruff and cold cynicism, which sent a shiver down her spine.

Before Roxanne could react, a sharp noise was heard followed immediately by an electric shock that shot from her lower back, causing her to scream in agony. The hot current felt as though it burned through her entire nervous system, making her contort backwards. It must've lasted less than 10 seconds, but the pain made it feel endless.

Weakened, Ro fell to her knees, still in pain but fighting to recover her breath. The blindfold slipped off her face as she hit the floor, but she couldn't lift her head for a few seconds from pure exhaustion. She smelled the scent of burnt flesh, and a drop of blood came out from her nose.

Suddenly, she heard a loud and mocking cackle looming above her. It was coming from Alejandro, who cast a tall shadow over the kneeling girl. She had never heard such unnerving laughter come out of him before.

"You have NO idea how LONG I've wanted to do that, preciosa!" Alejandro screamed with twisted and heartless delight, letting out the last word in a tone drenched in irony and condescension, completely removed from the suave and inviting texture that his voice used to have.

Finally, Ro weakly lifted her head, to find herself in a near-empty and dimly lit room, with her boyfriend standing tall over her, looking at her with the most deranged eyes she had ever seen, complete with a wicked grin and a dominant stance. Behind him stood half a dozen armed, uniformed guards, all of them pointing their guns right at her. Alejandro was holding a metal contraption in his hands, which still emitted sparks of electricity and was ready to strike again at a moment's notice.

"What…?" Ro began asking, staring straight at the guards and then at Alejandro, hardly believing her eyes. "What's going on? Alejandro, what is this?"

He laughed dryly, slightly shaking his head as he did so. "Ay, ay, you've always been a little stupid, haven't you?" He unzipped his leather jacket and removed it, handing it over to one of the goons, who in turn handed him a bulletproof vest that he began putting on. "Maybe this will refresh your memory. 2003. A freak 'accident'. Running away in a panic." He laughed once again. "I gotta admit that it took longer than I expected for your powers to finally resurface, but you were almost worth the wait."

As he stood in front of her, resting the handle of the electrifying device on his shoulder, Ro looked at the circular emblem printed on his vest with wide eyes. It was the image of a skull with six octopus-like tentacles underneath it. Images of that same emblem all over the screens and the uniforms of the guards who were pursuing her that horrifying night nine years ago flashed before her eyes.

"I, I don't understand," the girl said under her breath, completely unable to believe what was happening before her eyes. This, not unlike the day she lost her parents, felt like a horrible nightmare.

Alejandro pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned in frustration. "I have to spell everything out for you, don't I?" He knelt to her eye level. "Fine, I'll give it to you straight, then. This was never a relationship. To me, at least, it wasn't. For the past two years, I've been on a very important undercover mission, a mission to retrieve one of HYDRA's most valuable lost assets, the one surviving test subject of a project that started a decade ago: Arachne." He roughly grabbed Ro's chin in one hand, forcing her to look at his smug expression. "That would be you, preciosa."

Ro looked back at him with a horrified expression, tears forming in her eyes. "You, you've been lying to me this whole time? You only wanted to take me back to the people who experimented on me and turned me into this?"

"¡Vaya! You're starting to catch on," he exclaimed sarcastically. "You might be a bit less stupid than I thought you were. Of course, I would've gladly saved myself the trouble and taken you here as soon as I found you, but you were worthless to us unless I had confirmation that your special abilities were indeed still functional. Luckily for me, you were moronic enough to start using them in public and even let me in on your little secret. Thanks for that, by the way. I was beginning to think this tedious task of pretending to give a $#!+ about you would never end."

He dismissively let go of her face and got up. At that second, Ro felt her heart breaking, as if it had shattered into a million sharp pieces inside her chest, each of them piercing her body painfully. She shook her head as the tears fell down, her horrified expression unchanged. "No. No, no, no, NO! This, this can't be true! You can't be serious!"

Alejandro glared down at her, and out of nowhere, he sent an overwhelmingly strong kick right at Ro's stomach, taking the air out of her with a silent scream. She fell on her side in pain, both physical and emotional, and remained motionless but conscious for a moment.

"Do I look like I'm joking?" he growled down at the whimpering girl, who gasped for air as she laid on the floor, looking away from him. "I mean, really. Did you think that someone like me could be genuinely interested in you? An unattractive, useless, idiotic little orphan who got picked up from the streets out of pity? HA! As if anyone in their right mind would waste the time of day on you! The only reason you're worth anything is because of that spider serum that turned you into this disgusting freak you are now. Aside from that, you are nothing."

Alejandro's words hurt Ro more than the kick and the shock put together. Every one of her insecurities was being confirmed by the one person she would've least expected, whom she had trusted and loved with every fiber of her being for the past couple of years, and he did so in a very deliberate way.

As she cried, she thought back to all the memories that she had treasured next to Alejandro and suddenly saw them in a whole different light. Every date, a distraction. Every compliment, false. Every smile, kiss, and embrace, empty. Every time the two made love… meaningless.

What crushed her the most was that her siblings were right. All along, their suspicions had been accurate, probably more so than even they thought. Ro was filled with regret as she remembered all the discussions and fights she had with them over this topic. If only she had listened to them. She should have listened to them.

Holding on to the last sliver of hope she had left, she turned her head towards Alejandro and looked up at him, her tearful eyes pleading. "Was any of it real?"

Not even looking at her, Alejandro smiled contemptuously. "Oh, it was all real. To you." He chuckled to himself.

At that moment, the last of Roxanne's hope vanished, and all remainders of her heart blackened. For the first time in two years, her rose-tinted glasses had been ripped off, and now, her vision instead turned red. While her hands were still cuffed behind her back, she slowly got up fueled by pure, unadulterated rage.

"You…" she huffed, glaring at him. "YOU $$#0L3! HOW COULD YOU HAVE DONE-!?"

She jumped forward at the traitor, who electrocuted her before she could finish her sentence, once again making her scream in pain and fall to her knees. She attempted to get up again, but the shock left her whole body trembling and her legs feeling like jelly. He struck her with the device once more for good measure, and she shrunk into a fetal position as she tried to dissipate the pain. The guards stepped closer and circled her, guns still pointed at the girl.

"Save it, Arachne," Alejandro rolled his eyes. "You're not the first woman to give me that spiel, and you won't be the last." He spoke to two of his goons. "Pick her up and take her to the lab! There's someone I'd like her to meet."

Okay, since this is the chapter that I think probably warrants comments more than any before it, I'm going to do the following: I won't continue to update on this site until I receive reviews from AT LEAST two different people (because I'm almost certain the person who's been leaving reviews is someone I know, sorry…). This site is just a bit of a hassle to post to and doesn't even allow images, so I want to make sure there's people here actually reading this and I'm not just wasting my time.

So, yeah. If you've been silent up to this point, now's the time to let me know you're reading.