black treacle - matt sturniolo

Chapter One, Third time meeting Spider-Man?! (Not clickbait)

"Are you seriously ditching me to hang out with Matt instead?"

One thing Robyn hated more than being late was being accused of things that weren't true.

"I'm not ditching you, Spencer," She dropped her shoulders, pressing her index finger and thumb to her brow, "I have to work on my piece for the paper. I've been swamped with Harvard application bullshit and Kennedy just bailed on the school paper. I'm 'ditching you' for Matt because he's the only other writer left!"

Law was a hard course to get into. Harvard was a hard school to get into. What did Robyn decide to try to do?

Both, of course.

Her mother had always told her that success without hard work was worthless. What was the point of bragging about how much food you had if it was fed to you on a silver spoon? That's why, even though she was a third-generation Chinese American and the daughter of Harvard Alumni, Harvard was still barely out of reach.

And Robyn would've resented her parents if what they said weren't true because a lot more had been handed to her on a silver platter: attending Midtown High, not needing to worry about college tuition, living in New York? Going to Harvard Law was the least she could do.

"You know I'd offer my help, but unless you're writing about why we use deuterated chloroform as a solvent in NMR spectrometry I'm pretty useless." Spencer was right, she was practically illiterate when it came to writing anything that wasn't to do with science, and Robyn appreciated the offer but she already had her work cut out for her.

Literally.

And Robyn needed to run because today she received her third anonymous letter this past week.

Okay, calling it a letter was generous. It was a yellow post-it stuck to the top-left corner of her monitor in the newsroom, disclosing Spiderman's location, what time to be there (underlined thrice) and where to stand, signed off with a smiley face.

Anyone with critical thinking and safety skills would discard the post-it and assume it was a joke or a trafficking attempt, especially considering how they'd sent her to both Times Square and a random alleyway.

Basically, the same idea as a strange white van driving around the neighbourhood luring children with candy. The van is probably safer than Times Square, though.

Nevertheless, at 3:58 pm, standing in the middle of the crosswalk, Robyn photographed Spider-Man swinging through the bustling crowd, and the next day at 7:02 am she witnessed him returning a bike to a kid.

And Robyn had lied.

She wasn't meeting with Matt because how could she tell him that she was following post-it notes around like a complete idiot trying to get herself killed? Matt would probably give her a run down about the dangers of going out at night to track down a superhero that fights crime like it was a walk in the park.

Matt would probably mention the fact that he couldn't leave her to walk back home to her own house without getting run over (which was true, more often than not he would have physically pulled her away from the edges of the sidewalk to avoid New York cab drivers from running her over, and he made no effort to be discreet about it: boasting to her mom about how he'd 'saved her life' multiple times now).

But how could she not take up the opportunity? She'd won the attention of thousands all through a measly school paper - all thanks to the mystery person leaving her hints about where to go.

And at the end of the day, it was her writing and her photographs that shone under the limelight, and if that's what she needed to boost her credentials for her Harvard application, Robyn would do what needed to be done.