FIREWEAVER | A Spiderverse Fanfic

Chapter Thirteen

Felix Fontaine worked tediously at the knots in his shoulder. It had been a week since the fight in Times Square. He grimaced just thinking about the dancer who under-minded him.

Weeks of planning and preparation, perfecting the enhancers he made to help channel psychic energy, were gone in a few minutes from her weird acid.

He looked at the purple and blue patches on his pallid back in the mirror, hissing in pain. It wasn't hard to see he was battered up even with the dirt and dust smudged across the reflection.

The sound of his faucet dripping filled the silence, his once-white sink black and brown with mold and dirt.

He could hear a fly buzzing somewhere, traffic from outside, and a pigeon cooing filtering through his open window.

His phone sang with his favorite song by Maria Carie, the screen identifying the name of his mother in bold text.

He sighed and transferred the call to his holo watch.

"Allô?"

His mother again. He groaned. She was nagging him again about coming for Thanksgiving. 'Stupid American traditions,' he thought.

He cut her off mid-ramble about something with his cousins winning a Nobel prize, "Mom, I'm busy today. Thank you for calling, I have to go."

He sighed and held the edge of the sink basin, his grimy hands digging into the surface that was once seen as white marble to maybe a tenant decades ago.

This small crappy apartment, his nagging mother, even his crappy job as a bus boy at the restaurant down the street, he had enough of it. He had almost gained the power and fame he so desperately craved had that little araignée dansante* not meddled with his plans.

(dancing spider*)

He walked into the living room, scrounging through empty take-out boxes and finding the remote.

He pressed a button, turning on his TV just to see the latest headlines surfacing. He paused to see the camera show three men tied up in an alleyway, lifted and loaded into the back of a police van. The material that restrained them looked familiar to Felix, silk that shimmered into woven rope, tightly binding the criminals like flies.

His gut twisted with anger. The commentator held a mic to her lips as the camera panned back to her, speaking words his cheap speakers weren't able to project loud enough to hear, so he turned on the subtitles.

"...this latest capture of thugs from Goliath's crime ring is the latest from the strain of anonymous tips the police have received just in this past week. Many have also seen sightings of this mysterious vigilante in Manhattan and Brooklyn, dressed in a tight suit swinging from what spectators can only describe as webs."

Felix narrowed his eyes, moving to the small counter island and grabbing an apple, one of the few items that were there in his otherwise bare kitchen.

He continued to read the captions with a crunch as juice dribbled down his chin, teeth raking the green flesh with a vice.

"Sources have found this 'spider-woman' has also been a known entity online, going by the username 'FireWeaver' on an anonymous website called Watchdogs of NYC. Authorities are asking anyone to please submit more information about this person, claiming that the woman is an endangerment to herself and others."

Felix shut the TV off, throwing the remote.

"Damn spider-woman!"

He was supposed to be gaining stardom- not this pesky insect. How dare she take what was his?!