the trial of the spider || peter parker

chapter five: enter snake man

"Steve..." Natasha exited the bathroom at Steve and Athena's home.

Steve was seated at the couch with a laptop and a beer. Trying his hardest to image search through the web's best matching backgrounds to Athena's picture.

"Steve," Natasha had to grab his attention again for it to work. Steve looked up and because of what he saw, he sat up more.

"What is that? Is that yours?"

"You mean... these? There's three of them. And they're all positive," Nat gulped. "They aren't mine..."

"Y-you mean to tell me that my- my daughter is pregnant and kidnapped?"

"I guess," She sat next to him. "It also means that Peter is going to be a father."

"Nat we can't tell him. Not right now. He's already frantic and stressed about Athena, knowing there's a kid involved is gonna make it worse."

"We have to. He's gonna find out sooner or later if these pictures keep coming. And think about it, if he knows he'll have a lot more motivation and passion to help find her. He might be able to help more."

"Yeah. Okay," Steve sighed. "I think he's asleep though. We'll tell him tomorrow. Kid deserves uninterrupted sleep."

"So do you, Steve," Nat reminded him. "You're just as important to the team as the rest of us."

"I'll sleep, I promise. But not right now. I need this," Steve glanced at the laptop, then back at Natasha. "I need to feel like I'm doing something to help."

"Okay," She sighed and stood up. He stood as well and hugged her. "I'll head home then. Goodnight, Steve. Tell me how the news runs past Peter, okay?"

"Yeah, definitely. Thank you," He walked her to the door. "Goodnight, Nat."

"Night, Steve."

–

Whether he wanted to admit it or not, Peter had absolutely no new ideas of where his girl was. He'd been swinging from building to building around the entire city for hours now. It's insane how much ground he's covered in a matter of hours. He's crossed counties.

He was just about to give up, when he saw a flash of green smoke in an alleyway in the corner of his eye. He swung a couple buildings down and peered below him. He couldn't believe his eyes. There he was.

The snake man. The one who stole his Athena.

Without hesitation, he landed behind the snake man and attempted to web him, but before he had a chance to launch a web, the green eyed man threw a snake out of thin air to coil around Peter's torso. Tightly.

Peter coughed and fell to his knees in front of the man, but despite his weak position, he still coldly glared at the man.

"Where is she?!" He coughed and gasped for breath after trying to wiggle out of the snake's grip. His eyes shot up to the man when he chuckled.

"The more you fight it, the tighter it'll get," He smirked and stopped just before Peter. "So you're the one she keeps crying for, huh? Peter Parker."

The snake man pulled his mask down to reveal his face. That's when Peter got a good look at him. But what was the most unsettling was a large patch of deep green snakeskin under the man's left eye.

To his confusion, he also saw a scar on the other side of his cheek. The snake man pointed to it. "She's a feisty one, I'll give her that. But she doesn't have a lot of time left."

"Let- let her go! What do you want with her?!" Peter coughed harder. He was losing oxygen and fast. He felt his hands and feet going numb. His face was slightly purple by now. He was shocked he could manage to speak.