Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales

by Brittney Morris

  Some of the ice in her eyes melts just a little. Something changes and appears in its place—a softness I haven’t seen before—at that. I see my chance to break through more of that ice.

  “Just because you broke him out of prison and helped him create all of this, it doesn’t mean you have to keep going. If being free was his dying wish, he got it,” I continue, hoping I’m breaking through to her, chipping away at her determination at least a little. “Why didn’t you stop there?”

  “You don’t know what it’s like!” she hollers at me, screeching almost, stepping forward. “How could you know how it feels to be left alone, rejected by society, locked away in a prison cell? He’s the only father I’ve ever had. And the world just threw him away like he was nothing. I won’t sit around and do nothing.”

  That hurts.

  Because that’s exactly what I did that day.

  The day I lost the only father I’ d ever had. I did nothing.

  I stand here for too long, lost in my own mind, because Starling lifts her arm to her mouth, leans in, and says softly but with a sharp command in her voice, “Crows. He’s here.”

  Several screeches echo from somewhere above me and bounce off the sky, reverberating off buildings and whatever else is around. I look up and around, expecting to see a whole flock of Crows coming out of the woodwork like I’m in a sequel to Hitchcock’s The Birds.

  But no.

  Just two.

  Two too many.

  Starling’s wings shoot out to their full length, and she leaps into the sky, sending a whoosh of cold air in all directions, knocking me on my back and giving the two… Crows, she called them, time to slam into the ground on either side of me, sending a pounding earthquake in all directions, rattling my brain to the core. I look up at the two faces peering down at me. One I don’t recognize—someone slightly lighter than my skin tone, with short, neon yellow hair and a black mask that covers the top half of their face, ending in a sharp point hanging off the tip of their nose.

  “Shadow,” they say in a raspy voice, extending their wings to either side. I see their feathers are a mix of black and gray, some torn, others missing entirely, but all almost iridescent in the sunlight. “Nice to meet you.”

  Just like Starling, they have long claws branching off their fingers, but these are jet black, not red. The other person has familiar eyes the color of burnt honey, and skin the same tone as mine, with long claws the color of bone, and wings the same color. Each has a skeletal framework with black feathers lining the bottom half.

  “Hollowclaw,” he says, and that voice gives him away instantly despite the bone-colored mask covering his forehead and eyes down to his cheekbones.

  Steven, I think to myself.

  That kid I met at F.E.A.S.T. who said his mother died under the care of Terraheal, the one who told me the only person looking out for me is… me. The one who broke into the convenience store down the street from my house, robbed that poor woman who owned it, and then blamed me for it.

  And then he went and turned her into a zombie-bird!

  They each grab one of my shoulders and pull me to my feet. Steven reels back and punches me hard across the face. I fall back to the ground. My mask suddenly feels sticky against my chin beneath it, and I wonder if my nose is bleeding. I certainly smell blood, anyway.

  “Why are you doing this to people?” I ask.

  As long as they think I can’t fight them, maybe I can reason with them?

  They look at each other, and then reel their heads back in cackles.

  “He wants to know why we’re doing this to people,” mocks the one with the yellow hair, kneeling over me in the black and silver combat boots and flapping their wings. “Aw, Spider-Man’s gone soft, has he?”

  Steven kneels over me and explains.

  “Here’s the thing, Spider-Man,” he says. “Those nanobots have Terraheal’s logo on each and every one of them. We’ve already leaked the blueprints online. Once news gets out that this technology came from them, they’ll be finished. Terraheal needs to pay for what they’ve done. Everyone seems to know that but you. So. You’ve gotta go. Nothing against you, believe it or not. You’re just, uh… an inconvenience that had to be dealt with. Don’t take it personally.”

  “That punch in the face felt pretty personal, man,” I say, rubbing the soreness out of my jawbone. Steven has no idea just how personal this fight is. The store. The incident at F.E.A.S.T. I know more about him than he thinks. Plus, my mom is now a bird-human killing machine.

  There’s that.

  “I don’t know much about either of you,” I lie. I use the time they’re giving me to push myself to my feet again. “But I know enough to know this isn’t what your families want for you.”

  “How do you know about my family?” screeches Shadow, their yellow hair sweeping against their shoulders as they growl. Steven—now Hollowclaw—puts his hand on their chest and steps in front.

  “He doesn’t,” he hisses at me. “He’s trying to get in our heads.”

  “I know Terraheal has done you wrong,” I say, piecing it together myself. “That’s why Starling asked both of you to help her. She’s using Terraheal’s rogue cancer treatment as a bioweapon on the public to sink their company for good. But look at who’s actually suffering. Look around you.”

  Steven’s flashing eyes dart from me to just past my shoulder, and Shadow takes a long glance around at the chaos that is civilians being attacked by six-foot zombie birds, sending black feathers flying through the air and torn clothes all over the streets.

  “Look at who’s really suffering because of your actions,” I say.

  Do these two even know where their families are?

  What if they’re among these people? What if their friends have been turned into zombie birds too?

  “Hollowclaw,” I say, leveling my eyes at Steven. “Do you even know where your dad is?”

  There’s a long moment where Hollowclaw, who I know is really Steven—the Steven I met who was consumed by so much rage it was threatening to eat him up inside—says nothing. He just stares at me in contemplative silence.

  I know why he’s here, working with Starling. He hated feeling powerless after such a loss. I felt the same way, standing at the gravesite as they lowered my father’s casket into the ground. I stood there, replaying all the things I could’ve done differently the day he died. Wondering if I could’ve sat farther away so I could’ve stayed conscious long enough to save him. Wondering if I should’ve sat closer so I could’ve seen any foul play before it happened and dived in to save him.

  So many “could haves,” so many “should haves,” so many “what ifs,” and no way to change the past.

  I remember Peter’s words the other night while we sat on the roof together.

  “In all the time you spend on others, remember to breathe.”

  I still haven’t healed from losing my dad. At this point, it doesn’t feel like I ever will. Mom says it’ll happen. Abuela says it’ll happen. It looks like it’s already happened for Peter, at least enough for him to be a mentor to me and be giving me advice.

  I’m still negotiating the past with myself, beating myself up over what I could’ve done differently. I know what Peter was telling me when he said remember to breathe.

  He meant that I need to take time to heal.

  And so did Steven.

  He just didn’t take it.

  He’s still healing, and until he does, someone like Starling who can offer what feels like a voice, and give him some way to feel like he’s making a difference—in this case, avenging his mother—must look real tempting.

  I’m lucky I didn’t end up in the same situation.

  Hell, I could take the same journey, having possibly just lost my own mom. She’s somewhere in this crowd, probably tearing something to shreds, and if I can’t stop these two, and Starling, and Vulture, she just might be that way forever.

  My blood crawls through my body at the thought.

/>   “Holl,” snaps Shadow, “snap out of it. Let’s go. We have a job to do.”

  Shadow reaches out and claps their hand over Steven’s shoulder.

  It doesn’t take long for Steven to turn back into Hollowclaw, don that enraged look on his face, and whip out his own wings.

  “Off to upload those pics we talked about. Soon everyone will know what Terraheal is really about.”

  He bends into his knees and soars straight up into the sky with Shadow close behind him. They take off across the intersection and around the corner, and my pounding heart’s first instinct screams to follow them.

  But I don’t.

  I stand my ground.

  Let them go.

  Something about the look in his eyes before he left seemed to be tempting me to follow them. Baiting me, almost.

  But why?

  Doesn’t take long to get my answer.

  Suddenly, a huge tangled mess of green metal, jetpack fire, and red spandex flies in from left field, high above the rest of us. Peter’s fighting with Vulture, and he pushes himself away, swings and latches onto a nearby building, and latches onto Vulture with webbing from his other hand. My first instinct is to swing up there and help him. I’m wasting my time trying to talk sense into Hollowclaw and Shadow down here, anyway. But before I can web up there, I spot Starling, scaping the corner of the building behind them, and aiming a grappling hook directly at both of them as they claw and swipe at each other.

  Panic settles into my chest, cold and unwelcome, and I reach up and web myself into the sky before I can think.

  She’s going to shoot Peter.

  “Hey!” I holler, prompting all three of them to turn to me while I pummel into Vulture and we go tumbling through the air. That gives Peter enough time to spot Starling’s red grappling hook and duck before it hits him. I see him grab it and yank Starling right off the side of the building. She yelps as she falls, but quickly finds her wings, swooping up into the air again.

  Now, it’s all four of us in a quiet circle. Peter and I are perched on the side of the building on the corner, and Vulture and Starling hover in mid-air, flapping their red and green winged contraptions and looking between the two of us.

  They exchange confused and surprised glances, before looking back at Peter and I, and exclaiming, “There’s two of them?!”

  Why did that sound like several voices?

  I look at Peter before realizing there are several people leaning out of their windows in the building we’re perched on, gazing up at us and watching the fight. They’re all wearing faces of confusion. I guess several of them chimed in with their surprise that there are two… bird villains? Spider-Mans? Probably both? I guess neither Peter nor Vulture really announced their 2.0s.

  Ah, well. News is out now.

  I exchange a look with Peter, and I just know he’s smiling under his mask.

  “Surprise,” we both announce together, before swinging into action.

  We don’t even need to discuss the plan. The plan is the same as it was before. I take on Starling, he takes on Vulture. We’ll deal with Shadow and Hollowclaw if they show up again. Starling dodges my first attack, swooping down so I sail right past her, but I latch my web onto her torso and clothesline her backward, sending her tumbling.

  Peter has somehow constructed a slingshot apparatus out of webbing and is hurling Vulture around like a spinning top before releasing him into the air. The poor, dizzy old man goes flying and can’t seem to right himself. His back slams into the building across the street, and he lets out a deep groan before plummeting.

  Starling gasps from somewhere below me.

  “Grandpa?!” she screams, diving for him. She sweeps him up in her arms in mid-air and I glance at Peter, wondering what to do next. She lands on the roof and sets Vulture down on his feet like a wobbly toddler who can’t seem to find his footing on his own. She whispers something to him as Peter and I swing up to the roof to meet them.

  “What’s your game here, Vulture?” says Peter, stepping closer. “Terrorizing all these people just because? Taking away their lives? Their humanity, just because you can?”

  “You think my grandfather’s some kind of monster, don’t you?” hisses Starling, stepping forward and in front of him to protect him. “Well, he’s not. He’s given me everything I’ve ever had, and he’s been more of a father to me than you ever cared to find out. But you, Spider-Man…” she starts, “Spider-Boys… you were just going to let him waste away in Rykers for the rest of his life, weren’t you? You just left him to die without even getting the chance to fulfill his dying wish. You’re the monsters—”

  “He’s turned half the city into zombie birds!” I exclaim. Peter glances at me and then looks back to Starling.

  “Sounds pretty monstrous to me,” he says, folding his arms over his chest. “If you think we’re going to stand by and watch while he terrorizes all of New York, you’re sorely mistaken.”

  He glances back at me again and says, “Ha… get it… soar-ly mistaken?” I resist the urge to facepalm my forehead as Peter lowers his voice and flaps his hands gently by his shoulders, “Cuz they’re… they’re birds.”

  “Nice one,” I say, throwing him something for that. Leave it to Pete to keep any situation full of puns. I reach out and give him a dap, but Starling isn’t laughing, and neither is Vulture.

  Starling growls.

  “You think he meant to turn the whole city into birds? Terraheal is the real enemy here, turning his bloodstream into a nanobot hotel, turning him into a walking bioweapon. My grandfather is a victim! They’re the villains you should be after—”

  The bald old man turns to Starling and clasps his green-gloved hand over hers tenderly.

  “Thank you, darling,” he says, “but I’ll take it from here.” Then he turns to Peter and I, and gestures calmly out across the New York City skyline, where there’s a brilliant orange sunset brewing into a purple and red concoction in the sky. “Look around, Spider-Man,” he says with a voice that’s strangely warm and calm. “What you’re looking at is a product of a corporate-funded project gone awry, the woeful results of a miscalculation on the part of a company that claims to want to ‘heal the world.’ Ha! Terraheal. What a joke. I was their guinea pig so they could make millions off a cancer treatment and pay me nothing. They kept me locked up in a cage like an animal.”

  “But they healed you,” says Peter. “Without Terraheal, you might not be here to talk to us today.”

  He looks up at both of us and narrows his eyes, seething with rage. “You think those treatments were a walk in the park?” he asks. “I suffered in there! And then they made it seem like I had a choice in the matter. Well, now they’re paying for what they did to me. Now they’ll realize what a mistake they made to force such a thing on a helpless inmate. If they didn’t want this bad publicity, they should have let me go while they had the chance. These people? These citizens? Their deaths are a necessary expense.”

  Vulture is now shaking his fist at us, with his other fist clenched angrily behind him, but Starling’s recently determined face has been slowly melting into one of confusion and… something else I can see… pain?

  “Grandfather?” she asks, her voice delicate on the wind and a little unsteady. “What are you talking about?”

  His face melts into one of regret as he turns and shuffles his way back to her.

  “Starling, my darling,” he says, cupping a hand against her cheek. “Don’t you see? All of this works in our favor. With so many civilians now infected with nanobots, Spider-Man has no one left to defend! What purpose has a Spider-Man, or even two Spider-Men, if he has no one to protect?”

  To my and—from the looks of his face—Peter’s surprise, Starling doesn’t look too sure of herself.

  “Are they…” she says. “Are they all really going to die?”

  I feel like I might pass out as I think of my mom out there, infected and now… dying.

  “The nanobots,” begins Vulture
, looking from Peter and I to his granddaughter, “will keep them alive for as long as they’re needed.”

  Starling and I both gasp.

  “Dear?” asks Vulture.

  Starling shakes her head uncertainly. In fact, she takes a step back from him when he reaches out for her hand. Starling looks from Vulture, to Peter, and finally, to me. And I don’t know why—maybe because I’m feeling a little lost at what exactly is happening here, maybe because I’m awkward as hell, or maybe because, deep down, I hope I can get through to her. I saw it in her eyes before. There’s a heart somewhere inside that red metal tank. However complicit she’s been in his plan all this time, there’s still hope of a second chance for her. I take a step forward and reach my hand out, as if to say:

  Wait.

  And I don’t exactly know what I mean right now.

  Wait, don’t go?

  Wait, don’t panic?

  Wait, don’t have a nervous breakdown?

  But it looks like she’s about to have all three, so Vulture keeps reassuring her.

  “Starling, none of these people care about us,” he says to her. “All of these people are on their side. None of them would take you in, none of them would feed or clothe you if you were hungry. None of them would even rescue you if you were bleeding in an alley. Whatever happens to them is… an unfortunate side effect of our plan. Don’t forget… in everything, who has your back.”

  Starling pulls away from him with an angry grunt, sprints to the edge of the building, and leaps off.

  I’ve seen this scene before. I’m standing inside the S.H.I.E.L.D. building watching Starling leap out of that window holding that briefcase, as far as I knew, never to be seen again. I let her get away that time. Why? Because I knew she was faster than me. Because I knew I’d never catch her. Because I assumed maybe I could find her again… eventually.

  Now?

  I’m not taking that chance.

  I’m just a guy who doesn’t give up.

  That’s going to be me, I decide, stepping forward and breaking into a sprint myself: a Spider-Man who doesn’t give up. I hear Peter yell behind me.