Marvel's Kid Arachnid: Vol 1

ready to swing?

Harper's school papers fluttered in the wind and they grabbed at one of them that tried to fly away. With a groan, they set their water bottle on the paper and adjusted their mask. At least doing math homework on a roof came with a pretty sight of the city below.

Even thought they had bought another mask, they still needed to get a new one since this one was fraying at the edges. It was annoying, but they'd have to deal with this one for now.

They turned around at the sound of a grunt, as someone landed on the roof.

"Hey, Spidey," Harper said, annoyed, but not at him.

"Whatcha doin' up here?" Spider-Man asked, making his way toward Harper.

"Thought I could do homework on patrol. Feed two birds with one seed, y'know...?"

Spider-Man nodded as he glanced across the horizon, then back at Harper's papers. "Seems like you got a lot."

"Thanks, Captain Obvious," Harper said sarcastically.

"Let me take a look." Spider-Man peered over Harper's shoulder and they moved out of the way so he could get a better look at the paper. "Oh, algebra," he mumbled.

He took Harper's pencil and began to deconstruct the problem, his hand a blur across the homework sheet. Harper found herself struggling to keep up.

Spider-Man began with, "See, if you just carry the three and divide by two..."

"...you get 36," Harper finished, examining the work Spider-Man had done. "How the hell was I supposed to know that?"

"Look, it's easy." Spider-Man went over his steps in great detail, and it was way simpler than what Harper's teacher had taught her. Almost instantly she understood a concept that had baffled her for days.

"That's it?" She asked. "Seriously, you fuckin' kidding?"

"Language."

"Language," Harper mumbled.

They continued with more practice problems, and Harper slowly got better until she was able to solve them on her own. Their tutoring session was interrupted by an alert on Spider-Man's phone, then a sigh.

"Pack up, kiddo, we've got work to do."

Harper nodded and quickly piled her things into her bag. She swung it over her shoulder and was surprised to see Spider-Man holding something for her to take.

"Here," he said, "You'll need this. That mask of yours is falling apart."

Harper took the red spider-man mask from his hand and examined it, a smile coming onto her face. "This is for me?"

"For you. It's one of my old ones, but it'll do for now."

"And!" He added, retrieving something else, "This is yours, too."

Harper took the well-worn webshooter and her smile dropped. "Dude, I said I'm not web-swinging!-"

Spider-Man fasined the webshooter to her wrist and said, "You'll learn today!"

"Today?!"

"Yeah, come on, we can practice on the way to Oscorp!"

Harper groaned. "If you say so..."

Spider-Man stood at the edge of the roof and demonstrated how to release a web- click the button in the center of the shooter, then, shoot!

Harper got into the same position, her hands slightly quivering. She tried to push it aside. She shot a web and it flew far-off into the distance. She only stared at it, too afraid to swing.