FIREWEAVER | A Spiderverse Fanfic

Chapter Sixteen

♫ ℙ𝗅𝖺𝗒 ♫

'You never realize why you hate falling,
until the bone crush.'

One year and a week. Three hundred and seventy two days since Esme had been bitten. Not by the spider though.

She was falling. Falling between towers with windows reflecting fragmented visions of all the days before. All the moments that passed as quickly as they arrived.

The wind didn't exactly cradle her, more like soared past her ears and sent her hair in ripples around her face. She forgot when her mask had slipped off.

It didn't really matter. Just like it didn't matter how she got here. Why every window was a screen replaying the events that led her here.

She managed to catch one of the visions in full focus before it flickered from view, recognizing the scene a moment on the club's roof top, her and Gavin laughing seconds before he revealed her secret.

It all felt so far away now. All the things that happened afterwards.

She had gotten into the rhythm of sharing her days with two halves of herself, dancing by day and swinging by night. Sharing those two halves with him.

Getting closer to him, sharing every moment in their lives. Whether experiencing it for themselves or telling the other minutes after it occurred.

Walking her home, swinging him to his window. Chasing bad guys with him chiming in her ear. Working harder at her job with his encouragement.

Standing on stage and performing her last play for her old company, and being officially accepted into her new one. Seeing his smiling face as he stood up in the front row, applauding louder than anyone else.

Going out and finding out he had followed her. Getting into a heated argument over the dangers of him being seen with her alter ego. Leaving it there.

But that's not where things went wrong.

The buildings raced past her faster now, like subway carts in a flashing tunnel.

It went wrong in several places. A new proposal to replace some of the historical buildings in New York, developments to institute a new highway as the city motioned to give headway to the new line of electrical cars they planned to release next year.

The huge construction site left unguarded.

Then the parked car that she failed to notice lingering on his apartment's street. How ignorant she had been, her shadow crossing over it every-time she swung to his room window. Right beneath her nose.

Another window pane reflected a familiar dark alley way she wished she never set foot in. The symbol graffitied on the wall as red as the blood that splattered next to it.

Yeah, you never realize why you hate falling til the bone crush.

She could have prevented it.

She looked back at the windows that seemed to mimic her reflections of all her misdeeds. All the way back to El Salvador, eight years old and unable to keep her mouth shut. Getting her father punched in the face by an officer.

Eleven years old and finding her little brother's body in the mulch.

Twelve years old and not good enough to keep her parents from divorcing.

Twenty-one and walking in on her boyfriend and another woman.

Twenty-three and being told she wasn't good enough for a part. Told to 'keep her head down' and 'stick to the wall like the pretty tropical flower' she was.