chapter one!
001. one and only

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    JUST BECAUSE May Louise Parker had spider-sense, didn't mean she also had common sense.  She could sense things before they happened▬danger, swinging fists, falling debris and wayward pigeons, but sometimes sensing the obvious was a little above her superpowered abilities. 

    Her feet skidded across the light frost coating the tops of the buildings in Queens as the borough of New York was met with a chill with winter right around the corner. She tilted forward and landed on the palm of her head, pushing herself off the edge of the building and soaring into the streets. in the distance, the streets near Brooklyn Visions had turned into a vicious storm and light show. An entire block was without power, and right above the posh gifted school, forks of lighting struck between the lights of their football field in colours of blinding yellow, white and blue. 

    She heard the cheers from a group of people waiting to cross the street and pulled herself up higher, twisting her body and somersaulting▬The cheers grew at the spinning tricks she performed before she swung away. 

    May Louise Parker wasn't just any teenage girl. While she might do a lot of things predictable for someone her age▬like not cleaning her room until it was absolutely necessary, doing the exact opposite of what her parents told her to do, or grumbling with annoyance whenever her younger brother decided to come into her room▬there was something exceptional about her that made her very, very different. 

    She swung around the edge of a street lamp and called out with delight into the streets as her body was propelled even faster down the road. 

    May Louise was born with powers genetically passed down from her father, given to him by the bite of a radioactive spider when he was fifteen. These powers gave her the speed, superhuman strength and agility of the same spider who modified her father's genetic code all those years ago. And so, since she turned fifteen just a few months ago, she had taken on the mantle her father retired to become New York's one▬and only▬Spider-Girl. 

    In just a few months, Spider-Girl has saved as many people as she possibly could (which was a lot), had her best friend find out her secret completely by accident, stopped robberies, put an end to high-speed chases and▬her favourite▬kicked her very own supervillains in the face with a loud KAPOW!

    Finally, May Louise Parker had become exactly who she was supposed to be: Completely and utterly awesome! Amazing, spectacular▬Ultimate, even. The Amazing, Spectacular, Ultimate Spider-Girl (it had a nice ring to it, right?). 

    And New York seemed to agree. 

    Not one person seemed to complain, and every person she had saved thanked her instead of reprimanding her. Spider-Girl even gained the attention of very important superhero teams and even the Young Avengers offered her a place alongside the best of the new generation running the streets. 

    She was having the best time of her life. And never once▬not once▬has Spider-Girl yet lost a fight. Never has she met someone she could not beat. Never, ever, has she been struck to the ground. Never once had she ever regretted making this choice, and she never will regret it. 

    She felt unstoppable. 

    Spider-Girl was unstoppable. 

    The only thing she wasn't Amazing at▬

    Even with the sirens in the distance and the helicopters overhead that were following the same pathway as Spider-Girl, her enhanced hearing always seemed to pick out the very sounds she dreaded. The moment her phone set off, it was a shrill sound in her ear that almost made her swing straight into the side of a building. 

    She gasped and somersaulted out of the way, scrambling to attach another web to keep up while simultaneously reaching into the pocket she had sewn into her suit for her phone. Spider-Girl gritted her teeth as it continued to ring and she swung backwards in a low arch between two cars. They honked their horns but Spider-Girl didn't care, desperately trying to answer her phone, hold it against her ear and swing one-handed. "Uh, hey Mom!"

    "May Louise!" her mother's voice was laced with worry. She sounded like she was at work, having managed to sneak away to call her eldest child and daughter. "Mrs. Jones from school called. She seemed worried. You said you seemed desperate to get out of class▬Are you feeling all right?"

    "Feeling all right?" May Louise pulled herself up on a web and pressed her two middle fingers down on the trigger of her web shooter to thwip! another one in front of her. She arched her body upwards. "Mom, I'm fine. I just had to▬like▬go, you know?"

    "Are you sure?" Her mother wasn't convinced. Nina Parker was the last person May Louise ever wanted to cause to worry. If she could protect her mother from everything and anything, she would. Nina Parker often fretted about her children over anything▬whether it be them tripping over, or even having the slightest fever. May Louise couldn't blame her. She had two children who before they could crawl, were climbing up the walls instead (and also a husband who could do the same). Nina Parker was the only normal human being in the household. She had no powers▬no super strength or spider-sense▬but she had her own superpowers. She would have never gotten this far if she weren't stubborn, brave, compassionate and incredibly intelligent. And she was. She was the best mother in the entire world. "If you're feeling unwell, honey, your father is working from home, I can call him and he can come and pick you up▬"

    "No, no▬!" May Louise blurted out and winced afterwards at how desperate she sounded. She hated lying to her mother and her father about what it was she was doing▬because it was incredibly hard. If her father picked her up from school, he would find that she was not there. It wouldn't take him long to join the dots. Her lies were very thin and on the surface of falling apart; a web that could easily break if one thread came loose. So far, she somehow managed to convince the original Amazing Spider-Man that the new superhero swinging through the streets was someone else▬perhaps another clone and someone he shouldn't worry about. The moment he started to worry about it, would be the moment he'd figure it out. "No, Mom, I'm fine. I promise. Please don't worry about anything▬Whoa▬!"

    Spider-Girl launched herself up quickly to avoid turning into a squashed bug on a semi-trailer's windshield. 

    "What was that?" her mother demanded immediately. "What was that noise? Louise, honey▬"

    "Nothing, nothing!" May Louise rushed out, running over the top of the semi-trailer and leaping back up into the air to continue swinging. "I'm just▬I'm just running track at school and nearly tripped over, it's fine. I'm fine."

    "Running track?" said Nina Parker, sounding incredulous. "You're running track, now?"

    "Yeah, just▬uh▬getting ready for tryouts, you know? Thought I'd▬I'd do a sport, all that extra-curricular stuff is good for ... you know ... college one day." Her excuses were so weak, May Louise wondered how she managed to keep this secret for three months. "Mom, aren't you at work?"

    She heard her mother huff at her daughter's words. "Well, my daughter is more important than my work. I'm worried about you. Your teachers are saying you are falling behind▬"

    "I'm not," that was another lie, and they both knew it. "Mom, please."

    "▬And I really don't think you taking on any extra activities will help the workload▬"

    "▬Mom▬"

    "▬And do you really think you should be doing something like track?"

    That confused May Louise. She ran across the side of a building and spun back into another swing, continuing to increase the speed of her momentum to reach Brooklyn Visions quickly. "What? Why shouldn't I?"

    "Well," said her mother in that voice that made May Louise feel as if she had to sit down after her brother told on her, crying, even though it was he who started the argument, "you are a very special girl, Louise, and the other kids trying out for track, and on the team, aren't as special as you. It might be unfair to them if you tried out."

    "But what about me?" May Louise couldn't help but grow a little frustrated. Even if it stemmed from a lie, Spider-Girl has had this conversation many times before▬about anything she wanted to do at school that she'd excel at because of her powers. "If I'm good at something, why can't I do it? Why do I have to care about what everyone else thinks? If I was on the team, everyone would love me."

    She knew her mother hesitated. She knew her words made her hold back a soft sigh. Nina Parker always wanted the best for her children, but it was always hard to have this conversation with her eldest. "Speak with your father about it when you get home, honey," she decided to say. 

    "But he'll say no▬"

    "And he'll explain to you why," the slight sternness her mother brought to her tone made May Louise purse her lips. 

    "Look, I gotta go, Mom," she said and she wished she didn't sound so curt and distant. "Gotta practice for tryouts, so... Love you."

    May Louise hung up before she'd have to deal with her mother's response. Taking a deep breath, she continued to swing her way through the streets heading towards the electric storm right above Brooklyn Visions. 

    After that, it didn't take Spider-Girl long to reach the destruction, and she landed on the edge of the buildings opposite the Brooklyn Visions campus. Her breath hitched at the sight, and she held her hands up to shield herself when a strike of lighting seemed to get ridiculously close. She frowned. This wasn't natural, she could tell that much. The stormcloud was barely a stormcloud and looked more like a festering electrical swarm▬bright yellow and vicious blue forks of lighting jetted away from it, hitting the edges of buildings and the ground. The school seemed evacuated, and the street surrounding it was in the process of being closed off. People were screaming. The strikes were focused and articulate▬aimed and not thrown at what was considered to be predictable of lightning. 

    Spider-Girl needed to get closer to figure out what was going on, even if she didn't want to. She took a deep breath, already feeling her hair stand on end. She fiddled with her web-shooters anxiously, but couldn't let her fears keep her from saving the day. 

    She set her jaw and ran forward, leaping into the streets crowded by sirens and emergency first responders and swinging right into the danger. 

    Spider-Girl landed next to a police officer and helped him pull up the wreckage with her enhanced strength, helping paramedics get to a man who was trapped underneath by his legs.

    "Spider-Girl!" exclaimed a firefighter, sounding relieved to see her. Once she helped the officer place the wreckage down after the man was freed, she turned to the firefighter. "Thank god, you're here."

    "I came as quick as I could, ma'am," May Louise put on her best professional 'I'm a superhero' voice. "I'm sorry I wasn't quicker. What's happening?"

    "The storm came out of nowhere," said the officer. "The school is empty, everyone has been evacuated. Police have evacuated and closed off a five-block radius."

    "That's not a storm," said Spider-Girl, glancing up at the growing ferocity of the swarm of lightning above. Her spider-sense was on high alert and she acted, tugging the first responders near her away as a lightning strike hit dangerously close. The fires grew and a group of firefighters acted, but they were soon going to be outnumbered. 

     Spider-Girl raced over, propelling her body upwards and landing on a street lamp. She pressed the trigger on her web-shooters multiple times, hoping to help snuff the flames. But when another strike exploded behind her on the other end of the street, she quickly realised that she needed to stop the core of the problem▬very quickly. 

    She glanced up again, confused. She knew it wasn't something natural▬at least, something she had never seen or read about before. It could be an anomaly, or it could be man-made▬and if it were man-made, she needed to find the source of it. 

    Something flickered in the centre of the hive near the very top buildings of Brooklyn Visions. May Louise's eyes narrowed, and so did the lenses of her mask. The shadow flickered again▬and she recognised it very quickly as a figure; a human figure. 

    Fear struck her chest. She told herself to ignore it. The Amazing Spider-Girl wasn't afraid. So far, in the past months, everything she has faced has never bested her▬she did not need to be afraid of something. But this was different. Her stomach and chest twisted▬her spider-sense warning her and making her feel like a cornered spider, ready to run away the moment she saw someone raise their boot. She might be superpowered and enhanced, but one strike from that lightning could easily fry her▬and she most certainly did not want to be a charred spider

    But the sight of a figure put her more on edge. She told herself that she might've just been seeing things. Electro was a villain that had once bested even the Amazing Spider-Man many years ago, and continued to, even after May Louise's father had found out ways to stop him. Max Dillion had joined groups such as the Sinister Six (and Sinister-Everything Else), and was one of the Amazing Spider-Man's most formidable foes. But Electro was in the RAFT. He should be in the RAFT with a life sentence. 

    And yet, this swarm of lightning was man-made. May Louise had seen a figure. 

    She was terrified, she realised. 

    Spider-Girl cursed herself. She couldn't be terrified. She shouldn't be so scared of a person that in her logical mind, shouldn't even be here. She was the Amazing Spider-Girl, and she could face a silly man-made lightning storm if she found the source. She had to face it. 

    She set her jaw, determined and webbed two threads upwards. They attached to the roof of the left wing of Brooklyn Visions Academy and Spider-Girl launched herself up into the storm. Her spider-sense was buzzing through her limbs like crazy, and she narrowly dodged one lightning strike mid-spin before swinging past on another web. She landed on the concrete and slowly stood up, the storm and wind rushing past her ears▬loud, furious and making her feel like she stood inside an old television with no signal, feeling and listening to the grey static. 

    Her heart pounded and she glanced around, taking a deep breath and pushing past her fear to do what she did best: make terrible jokes. "Hello?! It's maintenance! I believe someone reported an electrical failure?"

    She cringed to herself afterwards. She was still working on her battle quips. 

    The lightning storm seemed to fade away in its aggression for a moment as if analysing her with its very own pair of eyes. Then, a distorted voice echoed through the electrical hive, surrounding May Louise. "Spider-Man," it seethed, cracking from high-pitch to low-pitch and it made it hard for Spider-Girl to pinpoint its location.

    "Uh▬Spider-Girl," she corrected, holding up her hands in a slight smug confidence. "Girl, not man, though, I won't hold it against you since it is the first time we've met. As long as you don't hold it against me if I admit I have never met a storm that has spoken back to me."

   The lightning buzzed angrily around her as if it growled with annoyance. "Spider-Girl," it spat the name. "I don't want Spider-Girl. I'm here for Spider-Man. Where is Spider-Man?"

    May Louise tried not to be offended. "I'm not sure if you've missed the past decade, but Spider-Man retired. Sorry to disappoint▬but▬" she grinned and gestured to herself, speaking loudly over the noise, "▬lucky you, you have me! It's nice to meet you, I'm Spider-Girl. And if you have any grievances with Spider-Man, feel free to come to them with me before you go ahead and decide to threaten the lives of all of Brooklyn with your obvious short fuse."  

    She paused, waiting for the voice to get her joke. She held out her hands. "Yeah?" May Louise prompted in the following static. "Get it? 'Short fuse', because you obviously have some serious anger issues that need to be sorted out but you're ... it's electrical, so ..." Spider-Girl never knew static could be such awkward silence. "No? Wow, tough crowd..."

    The storm around her sparked and Spider-Girl hunched up, ready to leap away only to cover her eyes at a rather bright flash of yellow. When she lowered her arms, she saw the figure return▬it had materialised from the electricity around her, revealing not Electro, no, but instead it was a girl. A teenage girl, no older than seventeen. 

    Though, from a distance, someone could easily make the mistake. She was a copycat▬with the same star crown above her dark hair and the theme in her supervillain outfit; gold and green insulated stitched suit with wires to a supercharged pack on her back. There was a halo of supercharged power that surrounded her, sparking and making Spider-Girl take a hesitant step backwards when she approached her, clenching and unclenching her hands to control her nerves. 

    "I won't say it again," said the female Electro, and her gaze seemed to flare with the same golden electric glow as the storm around them. "I don't want to see your pathetic copy, I want to see the real Spider-Man. Go and find him, and tell him to come here, otherwise I will fry all of Brooklyn."

    May Louise Parker's heart skipped a fearful beat, but she swallowed the lump in her throat and stood straighter. She tilted her head. "Pathetic copy? Wow..." Spider-Girl's mock-offended hand to her heart moved to gesture at the supervillain in front of her. "I mean, I feel it a bit too far considering ... Wait, who are you again?" she played dumb. She sighed and walked around in a circle, tapping her chin in an attempt to look as though she was thinking very hard. "Are you dressed as ... a Christmas tree? If so▬" Spider-Girl chuckled, "▬awesome costume. You're gonna look great for Halloween."

    Her spider-senses spiked and Spider-Girl twisted her body, dodging the lightning that arched towards her. She glanced back at the teenage villain. "Well! You're never going to get any candy with that attitude▬" Another angry yell and strike, and the air around May Louise twisted as she leapt to the side. "I've never seen a Christmas tree so unhappy. Maybe you should have dressed up as the Grinch, I think that suits you better▬"

    Spider-Girl's web flung forward and struck the Electro copy in the face. She screeched in annoyance and stumbled backwards. May Louise then struck a second web onto the charge on the girl's back and pulled, hoping that if she disconnected it, the girl's power would suffer for it. But as soon as her webs got close, she watched the yellow, electric haze around the supervillain start to fry and burn her webs to nothing. The electricity leapt forwards up her webs and Spider-Girl gasped in pain when it hit her wrist. She doubled over and clutched her right arm, watching her webs turn to smoke and her shooter fry. She pressed the trigger frantically. Nothing came out. 

    Meanwhile, the Electro copycat pulled the webs out of her eyes and fixed a ferocious gaze on Spider-Girl. With a yell, she threw both her hands out and May Louise had no time to react. She cried out and was thrown backwards. Spider-Girl hit the edge of the rooftop and managed to stop herself from skidding right over the edge. She groaned, her insides feeling like they had just turned into mush. Her bones and her limbs ached, and the breath on her tongue tasted burnt and dry.

    "I'm not a Christmas tree," said the teenage girl as she approached Spider-Girl's hunched body. May Louise struggled to get back up onto even her elbows. "And I'm no Grinch." She stopped right in front of her. "I am Aftershock, and I want to see Spider-Man. He needs to pay for what he did to my father▬What he did to me."

    Spider-Girl's arms shook as she managed to push herself up onto her hands, glancing up at Aftershock who glowered down at her. Her voice scratched at her throat: "I'm sorry to say Spider-Man's not currently available. I can leave a message▬?"

    Her entire body convulsed at the next electric shock and May Louise collapsed to the concrete once again. She coughed, seeing smoke lift off her suit like she was a kebab burning on a grill. "Maybe a referral to a therapist?"

    She forced out her left hand and pressed the trigger in front of her. The thread of her webs snagged the legs of a billboard above the school and she tugged. It snapped and fell. 

    Spider-Girl rolled out of the way and Aftershock stumbled the opposite. The advertisement for the school hit the concrete between them, shattering at the impact. With Aftershock distracted, Spider-Girl struggled but managed to pull herself back up onto her feet. She clutched her side, trying to think of what to do. 

    The Amazing Spider-Man stopped Electro, which meant that in theory, the Amazing Spider-Girl should be able to stop Aftershock in a similar way. 

    (Otherwise, she might just fry all of Brooklyn because there was no way Spider-Man was going to show up▬and Spider-Girl was not going to drag her father into this. She didn't need his help. Even worse, though, his showing up meant that she'd never be able to be Spider-Girl ever again). 

    Her gaze found a water tower. Her breath hitched as Spider-Girl was hit with an idea. 

    She took off running towards it, but Aftershock seemed to predict her ideas. May Louise almost blacked out at the next strike. She flew across the rooftop again, and her back hit the brick walls of the rooftop stairwell. The stone cracked at the impact and she hit the concrete. 

    Her mind was in a daze. She could barely move. May Louise shuddered afterwards, every part of her aching with pain▬sluggish and feeling like lead. She couldn't move, no matter how hard she tried to. Spider-Girl gritted her teeth, smoke lifting off her suit▬she noticed the patterns on her sleeves were ripped and burnt. 

    That horrible feeling of terror crawled back up her throat once more as she lay there, vulnerable and in so much pain▬unable to move. Until now, everything about this seemed so easy. She stopped criminals and thugs every day with no trouble. Every supervillain she loved to knock out with a well-planted therwack!, she realised were nothing compared to the supervillains her father grappled with. But he survived them all. He defeated them all. He was her age. 

    May Louise could defeat Aftershock. She had to stop her▬

    She tried to move again only for the pain to flare up and she collapsed once again, thankful that the sound muffled her whimper.

    Spider-Girl struggled to glance up as she felt the shadow of Aftershock loom over her in the lightning swarm above Brooklyn Visions. Each breath she took felt like she was breathing in gasoline▬it burnt and it poisoned her. 

    Aftershock didn't do anything, she just stood over her and stared down. She tilted her head and then crouched before Spider-Girl. May Louise tried to struggle away, but she couldn't. "I'm gonna be honest, I expected more. This was so easy. You really are a pathetic excuse for some superhero, let alone the next Spider-Man."

    She glanced at her hand and snapped her fingers. An electric charge surged at the tip of her fingers and Aftershock held it dangerously close to May Louise's face. She tried to get away, she tried to move, but all of her limbs felt like they were made of ash. "So, tell me, where is the real Spider-Man?"

    May Louise clenched her jaw and her lenses narrowed with the glare she held behind her mask. "You won't▬"

    "He's right here."

    Her eyes widened and her breath hitched. Even Aftershock looked, well, shocked.

    Spider-Girl lifted her head and felt something in her twist and drop with dread and terror▬a different type of terror. A terror that was like bile in the back of her throat and poison in her lungs. She wanted to call out to her father, but the realisation that she couldn't▬that she had to keep her mouth shut, or that she couldn't even find the strength to form words to tell him to leave, was a feeling even worse. 

    The suit still fit. As if all those years never passed, Spider-Man stood tall and strong. He leapt down from the water tower, landing gracefully and walking up towards Aftershock. Spider-Man did not seem afraid at all. He stopped nearby and tilted his head, before snapping a finger at Aftershock. "It's Allison, right? You look just like your father. I see the bad costume ideas run in the family."

    Aftershock looked furious▬so furious that sparks flew off her arms and out of her hands. "You!" she seethed. "I am Aftershock, and you, Spider-Man, will pay for what you did to my father!"

    Spider-Man sighed, hanging his head as if he had just heard that May Louise's younger brother, Benji had broken another pot plant in their backyard with his football rather than a death threat on his life. "All right, kid, I don't have time for this▬" 

    Behind him, he tugged on his webs, and the water tank burst open. 

    May Louise covered her head when water showered down upon the rooftops of Brooklyn Visions, dousing Aftershock and her entire lightning show. It was blinding, and before she could even blink, she felt arms wrap around her tight and swoop her out of the danger. When she felt her father set her down on the rooftop of a building opposite, safely away, May-Louise finally found her voice. "Dad, I▬"

    "Stay down," said her father, and there was no room for arguing. May Louise wanted to cry, but she stayed there, in pain and feeling sick to the stomach as she watched Spider-Man swing back towards the danger. 

    Just like that, all of her hard work, all of her lies and all of her dreams had been burnt to ash▬and it was toxic like the breath she took with each painful wheeze. Her father had found out her secret, and it wasn't just devastating, it was humiliating. What she had almost died to stop, her father had done without wasting a second. The real Spider-Man had saved the day, and not the pathetic copy of him who very well almost destroyed it. 

    She watched the lights die down and the sirens surround. As she found enough strength to sit up, May Louise watched Aftershock be taken by the authorities, her plan thwarted▬and it wasn't by her. 

    May Louise didn't know what to say when her father returned. Spider-Man landed on the rooftop and walked up to her as she managed to struggle onto her feet. He didn't say anything as he held her arm and helped keep her steady▬and she knew he was angry. She could feel it, and she didn't need spider-sense to tell her she was in big trouble.

    "Dad▬" she tried again. Her voice cracked with a thick emotion twisting in her throat. "Dad, I didn't mean▬"

    "Come on," he interrupted, and the curt tone of his voice made May Louise swallow back an aching lump. 

    The silence between them was suffocating as they swung to another building rooftop further away. May Louise was in pain, but that was nothing compared to the guilt and tears of shame that were beginning to burn behind her mask lenses as she realised she had been found out, and there was no way she was going to talk her way out of this one. 

    She landed on the rooftop behind her father, and felt very small. Even decades after leaving the suit behind, it still fit. Spider-Man still stood confident and sure of himself as if he had never taken the mask off. May Louise? She made mistakes, she wasn't confident no matter how hard she tried to be, and her suit that she made by hand without her parents knowing was still a little uncomfortable and awkward at the seams of her sleeves. Standing next to her father▬to the real Spider-Man▬Spider-Girl realised that she had also been lying to herself. 

    Spider-Man pulled off his mask, and Spider-Girl awkwardly pulled off her own, staring back into the stern scowl of her father. May Louise took a shaky breath. Her mother always said she was like her father▬not just by their looks but by their attitude as well. She had his brown hair and his eyes; she had the Parker pride, too. A stubbornness that escaped none of them, even when they needed help the most. Deep down, all May Louise ever wanted to be like was her father▬he was her hero since she could remember. She wanted to be brave, and smart, and to save the world▬to be a hero, too. Now, she felt like a disappointment. 

    "Dad▬" she tried again, not sure what else to say, or how to explain herself.

    "How long?" Peter Parker cut her off, crossing his arms and standing in front of her. May Louise hunched up in his parental shadow▬both embarrassed and frustrated and with no escape plan. But this wasn't her being scolded for staying up too late or not cleaning her room. This was different. Way different. At her silence, her father narrowed his eyes. She's never seen him this mad. "How long have you been doing this, May Louise?"

    She swallowed hard. "Three months," she admitted in a small voice. "Not long after my birthday."

    Peter Parker took a sharp breath through his nose and nodded. She could tell he was trying not to lose his temper. He never lost his temper. Her throat closed up and she shuffled closer, pleading: "Dad, please, you gotta understand▬"

    "Three months," he turned around, running a hand down the side of his cheek. He suddenly looked as though he had aged ten more years. "Three months, May Louise? Christ's sake, are you crazy?" her father spun back to face her and she hung her head, her cheeks burning with shame. "What went through your head? What went through your head whenever I told you to never use your powers like this that made you decide to lie and go behind my back, and your mother's?!"

    She tried to speak but her father was barely stopping to breathe. "Did you not see the danger you just put yourself in?!" he gestured back towards the Academy. "You could have died, May Louise▬is that what you want?!"

    The lump in her throat grew uncomfortable and unbearable. "N▬No, but▬"

    "But what?"

    The frustration and anger in his voice came from a place of love, and fear over what had happened▬fear over May Louise being hurt and in danger, and she knew this, but it didn't help the way her throat closed up whenever she wanted to speak. "But ... I needed to help them."

    Some of the frustration left Peter Parker's face, and what was left was the heavy weight of exhaustion on his brow. He stepped up to her and she winced when his hand brushed her hair off her forehead to examine the cut she had above her brow. Her father glanced at the suit she had made herself and looked very grim. "You don't need to help them," he whispered to her, and she hung her gaze. "Honey, you're fifteen. You need to be at school. You have the chance to live a normal life▬trust me, you want to live a normal life. That's all I want you to have." She felt him kiss her head, still brushing her hair out of her eyes. 

    However, when he said normal, May Louise felt a breath of anger rise in her. She stepped away, frowning up at her father with a flush of livid desperation. "Normal life? You want me to have a normal life?" May Louise shook her head, feeling her vision blur with tears. "You know what a normal fifteen-year-old does? A normal fifteen-year-old can do sports, and go to tryouts, and not have to worry about making themselves seem horrible at the things I like doing just to make sure everyone else can have fun. Can do the things I want to do. A normal fifteen-year-old can't climb up walls, cannot lift things over ten times their weight and size, doesn't get a stupid spider-sense buzzing in their ears▬" she gestured wildly around her head, "▬to remind them even just to clean their teeth! I'm not a normal kid! And I'm so tired of pretending I'm just like everyone else! I don't want to pretend, I want to▬to do this!" she pointed at the symbol on her chest. 

    Later, May Louise would remember the look on her father's face and liken it to the dreadful sinking feeling that followed with realising your worst fear was finally coming true. Peter Parker shook his head. "No, Louise, you don't want to do this▬"

    Right now, she didn't see past her own fears. "Yes, I do!" she exclaimed, hiccuping back a sob. "I want to do this. I want to▬to help them! I want to be a superhero. I want to go out there and be who I am supposed to be. I want to do this!"

    "You don't do this because you want to do it!" her father's voice raised slightly until he realised and he held his breath. He sighed and closed his eyes. Taking another deep breath, Peter continued in a gentler tone. "This is not a game, May Louise. This is dangerous. This could get you killed. This could get the people you care about killed▬"

    "I know this is not a game▬!"

    "You don't know!" she again fell silent at her father's tone. "Think about today, Louise. What would have happened today if I hadn't stepped in?" May Louise clenched her jaw but didn't say a word. She frowned at the ground. "What would have you done? Tell me, what was your plan? How were you going to stop Aftershock from hurting all of those innocent lives? How would you make sure you did the least damage to property that would have hurt all those first responders on the ground? When you were knocked down, how would you get back up? How were you going to stop the bad guy? Because if you don't stop them, all of the deaths they cause▬every innocent person that dies, that weight rests on your shoulders. That's your burden. This isn't about putting a suit on and going out there and fighting crime. This is about sacrifice and responsibility."

    Spider-Man pursed his lips at her lack of an answer. "You don't want that responsibility."

    May Louise chewed back her words, holding her breath in the back of her throat. The way her father said it twisted to an aching pain in her chest. Spider-Man sighed and stepped close once again, resting a hand on her shoulder. 

    "Come on," he said after a sad breath of silence between them. "Let's go home, we'll talk about it more there, okay?"

    But something in her made her shake her head. She stepped back. "No," said May Louise, her heart racing with a painful ache. She turned and pulled on her mask. She heard her father shout but she was already gone, diving into the streets and swinging away.

    She knew he'd follow her. She did her best to get away▬she ducked through narrow alleyways, fighting back angry tears and ran across rooftops, hoping to find a place where her father would never find her. May Louise stumbled slightly in her exhaustion and her sore joints, grasping for the shadows and the crevices▬hiding away from her mistakes and her fears. 

    May Louise only stopped when she couldn't stand anymore. She gasped and slumped in the shadows underneath the Queensboro Bridge. Sticking to the thick support beams and hidden from everyone, Spider-Girl slumped and hung her head.   

    She heard her phone ring, but she ignored it. May Louise tugged off her mask and took a shaky gasp, the lump in her throat crawling up until it was hard to breathe. She broke into silent tears, hiding her face in her arms as she crouched against the metal. 

    May Louise felt like an idiot. She felt like a pathetic idiot. She should have been able to stop Aftershock. She should have been able to save everyone without help. So far, she had been unstoppable. She was the Amazing Spider-Girl. And yet, so many people would have gotten hurt if her father hadn't been there▬she would have failed them all, and it would have been her fault. That realisation hit her and took her breath away, and all she was left with was a sour emptiness. 

    Spider-Man would have been able to get back up. He would have never let himself be struck down in the first place. Afterschock was right. Spider-Girl was a pathetic excuse for the real superhero. She could never be like her father, no matter how hard she tried. 

    May Louise wiped some of her tears away, in pain and feeling miserable. No, it was something worse than miserable▬it was the realisation of defeat. 

    Some part of her felt the urge to check her phone, even though the last person she wanted to see was her father▬

    The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. 

   Spider-Girl stiffened. 

    In the corner of her eye, something shifted▬a glitch of bright colours split apart the metal of the support opposite her. The shadows exploded with a multicoloured light and then it disappeared, almost as if it was never there. 

    May Louise frowned. She pulled on her mask again and crawled up higher, tilting her head at where she had seen the colours. "Okay..." she murmured after a moment, wondering if she had been struck too hard in the head with lightning. "That's ... weird."

    She went to leave it be, but that was when her entire body lit up▬the feeling like a hive of bees buzzing all across her skin made her grow tense. Her eyes found the support leg opposite her and her eyes widened. May Louise stared, shocked to see the metal rip apart like seam from material had split, glitching and morphing together with bright pinks, greens, purples and yellows.

    The wind picked up. She wasn't expecting it. May Louise squealed as her feet were pulled away from the surface with a mighty force she couldn't fight. It grabbed her and tugged her towards the tear, and soon, May Louise's screams were cut off as she disappeared into the colourful depth, the tear sealing up behind her. 

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    a/n: she is her father's daughter istg poor nina. 

    i'm sorry if the pacing is weird in this chapter. it most definitely reflects the gaps i was having in writing this between moving to another uni and everything. i hope it's still okay, and the action isn't too boring and it makes sense. 

    i'm sorta tryna write an origin story in a way, but we'll see how i go because i'm not that creative believe me. 

    (minimal editing. bro i have like no free time on my hands). 

   (ps. the first sentence of the chapter is a comic reference and showcases how may louise is very much like peter haha <3).