The Many Loves of Spider-Man

The Wings of a Thrush (Sally Avril, aka Bluebird)

"Come out wherever you are, Loonie!" He shouted through one of the many abandoned train rails. He didn't have time to play hide and seek with the Big Boss of Harlem, he had many personal things to do. He wanted to try and to understand just what happened between himself and those around him. A drastic change happened over night, something that had left him perplexed. Friends that he could fully trust were no longer trusting him, allies who would always have his back were ignoring his words of help, and people that were his family had all but abandoned him to the wolves. He needed to answer all those interrogatives that had surged in his life, but crime never stopped. It was the reason that he was still following Alonzo Lincoln, a villain known as Tombstone.

He traversed through the tracks, his senses on high alert for anything that could actually harm him. He was not about to let himself get captured by the villain, he had too many things to solve that weren't making sense to him lately. But he tried to ignore those thoughts for the time being, his eyes sharply looking to the impasse at his right. Sighing deeply, he turned left and kept following the path that was in front of him. He kept walking deeper into the train system, trying to find the villain that had lured him into this place.

"Why keep doing this to yourself, Loonie? You even stopped doing this..." Spider-Man called out to the villain, yet no response was heard. It was a bit out of Tombstone's vision, the business man had been trying to find a better way of getting money after the whole fiasco of her daughter getting kidnapped by his enemies. But he didn't care, he needed to stop Tombstone once and for all before he kept on harming New York. His senses alerted him, looking at the right. Yet his eyes only stared at a concrete wall.

He walked closer, his senses flaring faster than ever as he approached the wall. Something was definitely wrong, he could almost feel it in his bones. He narrowed his eyes, inspecting the wall and the area around it. He tried to find something, anything that would take him towards Tombstone. With no result, he activated the lenses from his mask. In seconds, his sight changed as he watched the heat signatures of everything around him. He immediately saw that there was an area of the wall that had much exposure to human warmth, his eyes narrowing quite gravely at the left area of the wall. Walking closer, he managed to see that there was a small and almost unnoticeable button with the same coloration of the wall.

"Here goes nothing..." He didn't hesitate, his mind concentrated on trying to stop Tombstone. Pressing the button, the arachnid hero saw just how a door-shaped part of the wall was now visible to the view. He pushed the opening, his eyes coming face to face not only with the villain holstering a gun but with someone from his past. He widened his eyes, staring at the body of someone that he thought had already died. Yet he couldn't put it past Ben, his clone, to have caused more damage than he would have ever expected him to do.

"And finally you have arrived, Spider-Man" The tired voice of the villain communicated, the hero also catching a slight tired tone in it. Yet he didn't even pay much attention to Tombstone, who was looking at him with a slight grin. "I have found her wandering the rails and surviving through the remains that were around" And that, Spider-Man caught completely. It even made him flinch in recoil, looking at the dark haired woman who was looking at him with a small smile. He still regrets the day that he had not been more forceful with her, maybe she wouldn't have experienced death at such an early age. "I lured you here so you could help her. God knows that I am incapable of such kindness"

"Thank you, Loonie..." He had to admit, he completely misjudged the mafia boss completely. A soft grunt escaped from his throat as the hero watched carefully the villain leaving the room through another door. It was then that he allowed himself to really relax, his eyes looking at the woman in front of him with worry and fear. He didn't know what to say, he had thought about what he would say as soon as he could talk with anyone who he had let down. Yet now that he had someone right in front of him, he didn't know what to say.

"See? Not so bad for a street hero, right?" He caught her sarcasm, which actually made him smile underneath his mask. He didn't want to think about it much, but he had surely missed her witty remarks. Just looking as Sally Avril, the vigilante better known as Bluebird, sent him a smirk in return, was enough to make him remember all those moments that she got on his nerves. Which was something he did to his enemies to keep her memory alive. "Though I think it would have been better if I hadn't died in the first place, right?"

"Yeah..." Peter had to kick himself for his response, no tact whatsoever. He needed to show her just how sorry he was for not being there to save her when she needed him. He failed her, and he wanted to feel at least one weight off of his shoulders. He couldn't keep carrying more. "Bluebird... Sally, I'm sorry..." He finally ended up apologizing to the female, who was looking at him with confusion. He clearly expected such a reaction, the apology was as sudden as it could be. Yet he spoke with only the truth, because he needed her forgiveness. He had yet to forgive himself for it. "I... I should have saved you... You shouldn't-"

"Hey..." She shushed him, his words stopping mid way. He looked at her, her brown eyes showing slight despair. He wanted to calm her down, but he knew perfectly well that Sally was a strong woman. So strong that she even decided by herself to become a hero, even if her original intentions were to satiate her own greed. "You saved me more times than I could count. So there is no reason for you to apologize for that, Spidey" But he could see that she had changed, death had changed her. He just regrets that she had to die to be able to understand the meaning of a hero's life. "Or should I call you Parker?"

"H-How? You never-"

"Funny thing to ask..." She interrupted his questions, her eyes looking at him directly in slight glee. He needed to know just how she even knew that Peter Parker was in fact New York's Amazing Spider-Man. If there was a leak of his identity and people found out, he could kiss his slight normalcy out the window. He would even need to relocate his aunt to a safer place, not wanting to risk her safety because people that he didn't want to know of his identity had apparently found it. "When the Jackal revived me, I got curious about the whole thing and spied on your conversation with him" And it was then that Peter wanted to kill his own clone. Ben may have slightly reformed his life back to being a part of his family, but that Jackal episode of his life has been very annoying as of late. Especially when some clones didn't disappear when he stopped him, mainly his villains. Who kept tormenting him on a daily basis. "Got to say, never knew you to have a brother"

"Clone, actually..." He corrected her, his eyes watching the woman look at him with eyes he knew all too well. He took a step back, even when his sixth sense was not warning him at all. The eyes that were showing him such a sensual expression made him wary of the female in front of him. He surely was infatuated with the woman since elementary school and up until middle school, but it had been so long that he never expected to see the woman showing him any kind of care in the world.

"Say... Why don't we have that date you asked me so long ago?" He gulped as he watched the female lick her lips slowly. He didn't dare move another step back, he could see just how the female had her grappling gun back on her hand, hips swaying hypnotically as she neared his position. He was definitely not against going on a date with someone that he still has so much feelings for, but he wanted to help her first. "We can even end it up with a dance and all~"

"L-Let me help you first, and then I'll think about it" He heard her chuckle at him, the sound reminding him of times where the two were friends and not at each other's throat. He had always had a piece of his heart that belonged to Sally, he could not change that. Yet seeing her actually give him a chance for once in his life had been surreal. Though his doubts went away as soon as she gave him a kiss on his right cheek. He relaxed on contact, his mind remembering just how deeply he used to love Sally back at elementary school and part of middle school. He didn't expect much from this, though he did wish it would grow to what he wanted all those years ago. He would protect her this time, he will not fail again