INVISIBLE STRING ♱ Peter Parker ¹

My wound existed before me; I was born to embody it.

▎INVISIBLE STRING ╱ Peter Parker

Briar LeBlanc was a name unknown to most at Midtown─the shadow in the corner, the cellist of the school band, the boy who glared through dark brows at so much as the air moving. He had dragged the terrible weight of his grief through childhood, after his father had been lost to the Battle of New York years ago. With his father's death came sorrow, and silence, and snail-paced acceptance, though something deeper would forever linger: an appetite for vengeance.

In the depths of his innocent grieving, Briar was approached by one Adrian Toomes, his father's old business partner and close family friend. With charm and fingers crossed behind his back, Adrian struck a deal with the young boy: with the Chitauri technology his team had recovered following the attack, they would mould Briar into an unstoppable soldier, an ordinary boy by day and the infamous Viper by night. With years of training, his ultimate goal drew near. He would kill Tony Stark in cold blood.

Peter Parker knew Briar only by the shape of his shadow in the school hallway and the whisper of his name before they were made lab partners for their Chemistry assignment. Spider-Man, on the other hand, had been hashing it out with the Viper almost nightly as of late─fights on rooftops, interceptions in local banks, blades drawn and webs slung.

How were either of them to know how closely intertwined their love and hatred were?

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING ╱ Peter Parker
© Written by spacedvst, 2024.