NOWHERE LEFT • Peter Parker

nine •

"You disgust me."

March 2025

There was only one heartbeat coming from inside the Art Gallery, and from the lightness of it as well as the soft humming Cecilia knew who it was.

So the brunette who was running on adrenaline and anger broke in through one of the upper windows. The show room was dark but she could hear the LED lights humming down the hallway.

This was a dumb idea, Cecilia knew that. Going after this woman would only ensure her death if she couldn't put an end to this. If her father knew this is what she was doing... it certainly wouldn't end well.

Cecilia's footsteps were silent as she crept between the walls with art on display, her own heart beating erratically in her chest as she approached the back room. She wasn't worried about facing Vanessa, it was the aftermath of it that worried her, but she was done being scared of Wilson Fisk.

The door at the end of the hall was cracked as it cast a warm glow across the hardwood. A soft shadow interrupted the light every now and again as the woman inside walked back and forth.

Cecilia almost felt bad for her decision to corner this woman and interrogate her about her husband. But the image of a man who only wanted to do the right thing, a federal agent who did everything for his son. She then pictured Sami, his face when the news broke, how his cries mirrored the ones she had months prior.

The young Murdock refused to put another kid through that type of pain.

Cecilia pushed the door open and stepped into the back room. The large industrial space filled with paintings as well as lab equipment. The woman in the center of it gasping as she stared like a deer in headlights towards a girl whose life her husband had ruined.

"Vanessa Fisk, I have a few questions for you."

———

Peter groaned as he scratched at the back of his neck. He wasn't sure what was going on but the amount of paintings that he had recovered over the past couple of weeks had doubled.

The boy didn't understand why they wouldn't pick easier targets to get cash, stealing paintings seemed like such an old school thing to do.

And frankly, he was tired of lugging around canvases in the middle of the night towards the police station.

Peter sighed before he bent down and picked up the landscape painting, it was still in the frame. They always were, he also thought that they like cut them out of the frames or something.

He flipped it over so he could look at it right side up, and that's when he heard it. It was a small clink that send a vibration through his left hand. As if something inside the painting had shifted.

"What the—" He muttered before pulling the frame apart. The piece's disconnecting at the corner joint, and as they did a small vile filled with ruby red liquid fell into his palm.

Peter's eyes widened in shock, the painting long forgotten as it fell to dirty ground. He held the vile between his forefinger and thumb and held it up to the street light. It was mostly translucent but when it would catch the light it had an iridescent shimmer.