Harris Porter wished God would finally throw him a bone.
After the divorce from his wife, he got falsely accused for a crime he had no involvement in. Because of how short in the span of time the events were to each other, sometimes he thought it was because of his wife after learning she had to pay for child support.
She used to be so honest...
What made her this way,
He didn't know.
All he knew was that it became harder for him to find a job after all of that, and, coincidentally, no ounce of that child support money ever arrived, despite the official paperwork. He didn't want to hear from another secretary or representative about how 'the paperwork is being reviewed.' So he had no choice but to work 'odd jobs.'
To support himself,
And his daughter.
Kids really were cruel. Somehow, word got out of her old man being a 'criminal.' She didn't cry when she got home, but looking into her eyes every now and then he saw the sea in them. He tried calling the school to do something about it, but nothing really came of it other than an 'attempt', if it could even be called that.
With everything that had happened in his life, he couldn't help but think darkly -
That he wanted power,
Power to smite the world for the wrong doing and unjust things done to him and his daughter.
But he couldn't entertain those thoughts.
He wasn't sure if she really understood why her old man worked at inconsistent hours,
Why sometimes she had to make her own lunch before going to school,
Why sometimes she couldn't have lunch,
Why he came home frustrated and did everything within his power to prevent himself from screaming.
But, with the look she had when looking at him, how she turned away sometimes, her glances - she knew. But did that stop her from loving him?
No.
Because they were all they had left.
Her world started with the word 'Dad,'
His remained steadfast with the word 'Daughter,'
And her name, Marie, kept him going.
That kept him sane as he worked with this team of crooks to rob a shipment container of its merchandise to pawn it off to the right people. Things like medicine, or even things like toilet paper and game consoles can be sold for a high or a lucrative low if people are looking for those prices.
Which was why the pay was always inconsistent,
Stealing merchandise to sell it on a high or a low was dependent on the times for the pricing. No one except hipsters, grandparents, or those that are actually looking for them, want typewriters, for example. To the modern people they are merely antiques or pieces of technology past. But if there was a delay in shipments for toilet paper, or companies being unable to produce an adequate enough of game consoles - those were the times of profits.
And the irony of the merchandise they are stealing -
Guns. After the attack of those black goos, those weird people wearing leather going around killing notable criminals, and how even the first Spiderman became aggressive during those times - people began to realize that they couldn't just rely on two supernatural people. Despite saving them so much, despite that they were the reason that the day was saved, people realized that they couldn't depend on the Spidermen.
They were two people at the end of the day.
After opening yet another shipment container, Harris and the others rushed in and pulled out the crates with practiced haste - move in, move out, the window for these opportunities tended to be short.
Harris put the crates of the guns in the van and clicked his tongue when the more bold members of this cohort were already opening the boxes. They even whooped and cheered when seeing the sheer amount of heat hidden inside the crates.
The one he always hated working with - he believed his name was Freddie - pulled out a shotgun from one of the crates and had this big smile on his face as though Santa had gotten what he wanted for Christmas. Out of everyone trying to make a buck in this business because of circumstances like Harris, this line of work, was the only place that Freddie could fit in. One could tell just by looking at him.
If these were cowboy times,
He would be an outlaw, maybe even the mysterious stranger vigilante,
Hell, Harris even joked that he could be a Tarzan,
If Tarzan was more gorilla than human in morality.
It was only a joke, but sometimes Freddie would get a look in his eyes. It was like he was a cat, his pupils didn't dilate, but just seeing that look one could know right away -
They weren't going to make it unscathed.
As Harris put another crate away in the van, he saw white out of the corner of his eye and his head perked up and snapped in that direction.
He faced palmed -
It was just a waxing moon peaking out from the clouds.
Yet he couldn't help but look over his shoulder.
His concern fell when his bolder teammates kept opening more crates, pulling out more guns and playing with them and trying to act cool with them like 80s action heroes.
"Guys," Harris said, "C'mon! We don't have the time! Get a move on!"
Harris grit her teeth when it was Freddie that spoke to him -
"An hour thirty, Porter. We kin have some fun." There were grins and there were grins - grins that one could tell it was made out of hearing a joke or seeing something funny; then there was the grin Freddie wore, the ones that seemed friendly on the surface but were fangs held against one's jugular.
"The sooner we get out, the sooner we get paid." Was all he said and set another crate in the van.
"Huh - pretty straight for a crook, Porter. Its no wonder you can never have fun."
"I don't like having more things on my rapt sheet, Freddie."
Freddie got that look, "Oh? Then tell us, 'Porter'. What do you have on your back?"
Harris sighed, realizing what he had gotten himself into, "Nothing pleasing."
"Bet you haven't had any women, Porter."
"Yeah, cuz I'm not a fucking -" He stopped himself, Freddie wasn't blinking, staring straight at him, his eyes boring deep into him like a ray of the sun cast by a magnifying glass.
Freddie took a rifle from one of the crates, "Like... What? Porter?" He loaded it.
The reasonable crooks stepped away, even a few of the rowdy ones near Freddie. Sweat broke out on Harris's skin, his breathing slowed but his heart pounded in his chest.
"Uh..."
Freddie grinned as he racked the bolt, "Say it. Because you're wearing a lot of black, Boy Scout."
He couldn't move his mouth,
Freddie's finger sat on the trigger.
Harris's eyes widened -
A police officer walked out from behind a shipment crate. He shook his head head, knowing what was going to happen.
"Freeze! Put -"
Bang!
The officer's head snapped back and he dropped like a pile of rocks.
No one breathed,
Except Freddie, who turned the rifle back at Harris.
One of Freddie's posse spoke up, "...Freddie... He's got a kid..."
Freddie pulled the trigger.
Harris fell back as there was a small explosion that blew up Freddie's rifle. No one saw the Lady in White snatch the bullet from the air with webs that ejected from her wrist and threw it back into the muzzle it came from. But they saw her once she landed and began shooting webs at everyone.
Harris couldn't stand, he was trembling and patting his body and feeling his face and neck to see if there was a bullet wound anywhere. Hearing his cohort yelp in fear and pain, made him look up and what he saw didn't help him.
A woman in white raining kung-fury on everyone -
With a furious swiftness,
She stepped up someone like going up steps - one on the chest, the left foot on the face, the right again on the face again, then her left leg went high for an axe down, yet again, on the face.
She webbed someone to pull them to her only to then kick a hard straight,
She flipped back to kick someone's fist up then make leapt to do a spinning kick at their head,
She checked another punch out of the way then sent a flurry of jabs at their torso before finishing with a leaping uppercut that twisted her body to face the one that was trying to strike her from behind. She webbed the ground and launched herself at the attacker with a flying kick
Harris staggered to this feet, still checking if he was hit, not believing that he wasn't, when the members of his cohort started to gather after recovering from the element of surprise. Here, the Lady in White started shooting her webs like a cowboy shooting down outlaws -
Left,
Right,
Left,
Jump,
Flip,
Dodge -
If it weren't for her acrobatics, Harris could hear the six shooter popping off. It was in the way she twisted her body, the way she moved her arms.
Then Freddie grabbed a shotgun.
Even as Harris was yelling for Freddie to stop, the Lady in White spun around, and he could see her eyes -
Full dark moons that glinted with alarm,
And worry as she looked at the man that was between her,
And Freddie.
Freddie loaded the one shell he needed as the Lady in White webbed the man between them and tugged him out of the way, before doing the same with the one behind her.
Bang!
But she wasn't fast enough -
She leapt out of the way unscathed, but the collateral damage had the one between her and Freddie get a pellet in his leg.
Catching her eyes again, Harris saw her demeanor change, her dark eyes gaining an ominous, sharp glint. She webbed Freddie and he went flying towards her once tugging her arms sharply. She caught him by the neck and slammed him to the ground. Shaking her hand, she then immobilized him by shooting him with webs before she waved her hands across and over Freddie, webs in swaths emerging from her palm, until he was fully encased in webbing.
His muffled cries went ignored as she planted a foot atop the cocoon.
She looked over at the remaining crooks surrounding her -
All of them were holding up their hands and backing away slowly,
But one of them panicked and grabbed a pistol from a crate.
As he screamed and fired, everyone broke off, rushing into the maze of shipment containers. Harris remembered the van he was next to and dove into it, aware enough to close the doors carefully so as to not make the Lady in White hear where he had hid.
He pulled the piece he had brought with him from his jacket and crouched in the dark of the van, listening -
Bang, bang, bang!
Whap!
Thud!
A moment later, there was a sound that was soft yet oddly piercing and what sounded like strands strumming together.
He dared not to move,
Even taking care not to breathe too much lest it somehow alert the Lady in White to his position.
Silence came.
He didn't move.
The crooks had fled in a panic across the maze of shipment containers in this shipyard.
They wouldn't get far,
Their panic would prevent them so,
Panic made one reject even an obvious place of safety if it was even just slightly unsafe in their eyes. Panic made them think that time was scarce, making them be constantly on the move so long as it latched onto their minds.
She glanced down at the prey encased in her webs,
Because of what it had done, she would leave him last -
After all, the fear and panic radiating off of him was a nice treat, the vibrations she can sense as he desperately tried to move around. After he had tried killing his fellow crook and after killing that officer, things like him didn't deserve mercy.
She looked up at the web she had so proudly made, where the one who had tried shooting at her was entangled.
Summoning her webs in her palm, she swept it across her face, hiding her eyes, but tore off the webs hiding her mouth,
She smirked -
It was time to change tactics.
She grinned, It was finally time to have fun,
It was what she finally deserved,
It was finally time that she breathed.
Having all grabbed a gun of some kind, the crooks dashed up and down the shipyard, their minds clouded by panic to such a degree that some of them didn't even realize that they were running around in circles.
Panting,
And sweating,
And flailing their arms, pulling themselves around corner, even tripping over their own feet.
One of them fired above upon seeing movement on the shipment containers, and hearing the shots in the distance was the barking that alerted the others in the shipyard. They raised their guns, glancing around with panicked eyes, darting up and down at every dark corner.
The Lady in White landed into a crouching position,
The crook screamed and opened fire -
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
No matter where the crook shot, the Lady in White dodged with in-human agility as though she could see the trajectory of where the bullet would fly before hand, moving out of the way as though there were an invisible current that pulled her body to and fro.
She dashed forward,
Her grin gradually growing the more fear she heard in the crook's panic.
She lunged,
A scream split the air.
Then soon,
More.
A crook couldn't handle it anymore and found a dumpster. He braved the stink and hid inside. He held his nose, breathing through his mouth, his gun pointed at the lid.
He heard a few more screams in the distance before a quiet fell over everything. He stared on, not looking away. If that thing -
That thing was faster than the two Spidermen,
Videos of them are almost everywhere online, showing how fast they can move, not just in the air, but also on the ground, on foot.
But that thing...
That thing he could barely see when it fought, especially when it webbed up Freddie.
Goddamn it!
They should have iced Freddie long ago!
With how he was, he could easily intimidate people when needing to do operations that involved a little 'persuasion.' But its because of him that all of them were in thick ice right now!
The crook's blood ran cold when he heard loud footsteps nearby -
He couldn't tell if it was that Freak,
Or if it was one of the guys.
He didn't want to take the risk to peek out.
The footsteps faded into the distance,
Perhaps it actually was another guy of the cohort, maybe he could have brought him into the dumpster with him, seeing as how the other guys were quickly getting picked off one by one.
Then -
RAP,
TAP,
TAP.
Slow, methodical,
Against the metal of the dumpster.
He couldn't help but gasp.
He raised his gun in his trembling hands.
RAP.
TAP.
BANG!
The crook screamed and squeezed the trigger once the metal indented near his head, waving the rifle up and down until the click signaled the empty magazine.
Panting from fear, he looking through one of the bullet holes and saw that the freak was no where to be seen, no body, no blood. Just the dark of the night and its cool air.
Thunk!
From above, something hit the lid of the dumpster,
And the lid began to lift itself up.
He yelped and snatched it with any foothold he could get on it and pulled it down to little measure,
His body hopping up with whatever was pulling the lid up -
Hop,
Hop,
Hop.
He screamed -
He screamed to god,
He screamed for him to help him,
He screamed for him to take him away from this situation.
He begged,
Pleaded,
He squealed.
He wailed, tears streaming down his face, trying to muster the strength to pull the lid back down -
"NO! NAAA-HAAA! NAAAA!" He cried.
The lid suddenly yanked out of his fingers and flew open -
It was the curtain to the stage,
Bringing his eyes to look up -
Clinging to the side of a building beside the dumpster, high up, she looked down at him,
The Smiling Spider.
His screeching become muffled after she dropped down and swiftly encased him in webs so fast that all he could see was white.