Latrodectus

The Gunshot

Teenage Peter Parker was swinging his way around the nighttime skyline of New York City, searching for more criminals and thugs to beat mercilessly before they could attempt to commit any more dangerous crimes against the innocent. It was about 10:30 p.m. Most teenage boys would be up at that time anyway, so it really didn't matter for Peter. He was always up in the night and daytime like an actual spider would be, and would later be exhausted during the day in school. There were only about 10 or so minutes left until he would finally wrap up his Spidey game and finally go back home, wake up the next morning, and see Gwen at school that day.

As Peter continued swinging his way over the Big Apple, a sudden heart-stopping sound caught his attention from the other side. It was the sound of a gunshot. Peter quickly turned and swung the other way where the gunshot was heard and shot one web after the other and swung as each one shot out from his wrists frantically. He hoped it wasn't too late to stop a crime from happening. However, he didn't hear a scream, nor did he hear a huge uproar of people. That was strange. You would think that in a city like New York a bunch of people would know when someone's been shot and cause a big tumult, but not in this case for some reason. But whatever the case, Peter was going to find out.

When Peter swung over to where the gunshot was heard, he only found an empty rooftop in the middle of a bunch of other skyscrapers with no one to be seen. He searched around to see if he could sense anything else near, but he could find nothing. Not even a clue. Peter never was a forensic expert anyway.

As Peter anxiously scratched his head, a sudden voice (a feminine voice) caught him off guard.

"You're not that hard to find as they say," said the voice.

Peter quickly turned to see a redheaded female in a black catsuit. She had a utility belt full of gadgets, two guns on her hip holsters, strange looking bracelets on her wrists, and a red symbol in the center of her belt that seemed to resemble a black widow spider's hourglass. Of course to Peter, the woman appeared pretty attractive. He always had a thing for redheads. But what was he doing! He has Gwen, a blonde! That's his girl! No one else's!

"Who are you?" Peter asked a common and predictable question.

"Someone with a thousand names," the woman spoke.

"Well, you wanna tell me one of 'em?" Peter asked with his unusual dry humor.

"I don't believe it's any of your business either."

"Oh, so it's going to be like that, huh?" Peter said, trying to play it off.

"Yes, and it's about to get worse if you don't leave now."

"Sheesh, I was just trying to get to know you better, no need to get all threatening."

"No, I don't mean from me, I mean from them."

"Who?"

Suddenly, a huge group of thugs-about 15 or so-came from inside the building and onto the rooftop and began surrounding both Peter and the mystery woman. They were about hundreds of stories high, so there was no way anyone could hear them getting mugged from above. Though really, the word "mugged" probably won't even fit in this case, given the fact that it's The Amazing Spider-Man putting up with a bunch of thugs. Spidey beats the crap out of thugs all the time on a daily basis. He could manage.

"These are the guys you're telling me to run from?" Peter asked with a slight laugh.

"Don't be fooled, these guys aren't exactly your average thugs," said the redhead.

"Please, I've fought a giant lizard once. What could go wrong with this?"

As Peter said that, one of the thugs pulled out a gun and shot multiple bullets at Peter. Peter easily dodged all of the bullets thanks to his quick reflexes. Suddenly more thugs began to pull out their guns. But as they did so, the redhead quickly pulled out her own two pistols from her hip holsters and shot down two thugs instantly in cold blood before they could shoot first. This was gonna be a brawl.

Peter shot his webs at a thug's face and pulled him onto the ground face-first with great force, keeping the thug on the ground for quite a while. Peter then quickly approached another thug and threw in some quick jabs and kicks and took that one out, and then he quickly moved on to the next one. At the same time, the redhead was also beating the crap out of some thugs with the use of her guns (even though that's not considered "beating the crap out of someone") and her amazing martial arts skills. They seemed to be better than Peter's, which was reasonable since Peter never actually took martial arts classes, he only got them from the help of the radioactive spider bite. The redhead delivered some kicks and flips on the thugs and used them to her advantage, as Peter was doing the same thing.

More and more thugs kept closing in, and more and more of them were getting their butts kicked hard. The redheaded woman then ran out of ammo and instead pistol-whipped the dangerous thugs across their faces, leaving a painful WHOOSH! sound after every blow. The thugs easily fell unconscious after every whip of the light but blunt pistol clashing against their faces.

Peter continued to easily take out multiple thugs with the help of his spider senses and his great hand-to-hand combat skills, with the additional help of his web shooters. He threw one thug into the other, and webbed both of them to where they were stuck to each other.

"Looks like you boys better stick together," Peter joked.

Suddenly, a thug was about to club Peter from behind with a crowbar, but the thug was suddenly stopped by electrocution going all throughout his body and fell to the ground while his body still jerked uncontrollably from the electric volts. Peter then turned to see that the redhead had her fist pointed up to where the thug once stood and revealed that the bracelets she wore around her wrists actually shot electric volts. The redhead wore them inconspicuously like it was jewelry. Peter was completely flabbergasted by the woman completely. Who was she?, he still wondered. But there was no time to think about that. They were still in the middle of something.

There were then only five more thugs remaining, and the redhead was taking on three of them fairy well on her own. She grabbed one of the thugs by the collar and spun around him elegantly like a ballerina and kicked the other two thugs across the face. After she kicked the two thugs, to end her spin, she then planted her legs firmly onto the ground, wrapped her arms around the thug's neck, and used enough momentum to completely flip him onto his back against the cold, hard ground. Flips normally aren't painful enough to keep somebody down for long, since Peter's tried this many times, but this one looked so effective to where if you looked at it in action you could feel the thug's pain course through his spine as it roughly impacted against the stiff concrete. Peter was just utterly baffled by the redhead's skills of combat. They almost seemed better than his. Her fighting was so graceful and elegant as if she was a ballerina, and an arena full of thugs was like a ballroom to her.

They still weren't quite finished yet. Two more thugs remained. One of them was armed with a rifle. The one with the rifle aimed for the redhead. Before he could shoot though, Peter quickly shot a web at the thug's rifle, and pulled it back towards his direction. Peter, while still holding the web stuck to the gun, swung the web and gun in a single circular motion as if it were a lasso and swung the gun straight into the other thug's face, knocking him out cold. The other guard was then distracted by the loss of his rifle, and when he wasn't looking, the redhead quickly rushed towards him and jump-kicked him straight in the face, sending him on the ground unconscious as well.

They won. Their job was over with finally. There didn't seem to be anymore thugs remaining or coming back out. Peter finally had the chance to ask the woman her name, her true name.

"Good work," said Peter heavily breathing from exhaustion.

"Same to you," said the redhead, still standing in the same place where the she took out the last thug with a kick.

After she said that, the redhead turned towards the edge of the roof and began to walk its way.

"Wait!" Peter called.

The woman continued to walk towards the edge of the roof, but stopped once she planted her right foot directly onto the edge and turned her face back to Peter.

"I never did catch your name," said Peter. He was dying to know.

"Mr. Parker, knowing my name is really not as important as you may think," spoke the woman. "It'll lead you nowhere. This is probably the only time I'll ever be around New York like this again in the nighttime jumping across rooftops. But this city isn't my fishbowl. My fishbowl is all the way on the other side of the world. This is your fishbowl, and you are the filter to clean it, not me."

"How did you know my name?" Peter asked in suspicion.

"I have my ways," said the woman.

"Your ways?" said Peter.

"Yes. That's one of many things I'm known for."

"Like your combat skills?"

"Yes, that too."

"That was impressive. I don't think I could ever learn to fight like that."

"You can with the correct discipline, courage, and perseverance. But I think that a teenager of your stature can easily meet those standards."

Peter thought for a second. One, he still didn't know how the woman knew his identity, and two, those words that the woman had just spoken were extraordinary. They were three strong words to becoming not only a leader, but a hero. Was Peter truly a hero, or was that just something that everyone else called Spider-Man because he saves people all the time? Was he a true hero in the heart?

"I have to go now," said the redhead.

She then turned her head again back towards the brightly lit skyline where she was standing hundreds of feet above.

"Wait!" Peter said once again. "I'm sorry, but please tell me your name so that I can remember you."

The redhead then turned back to Peter again with an honest complexion on her face.

"You can remember me as The Black Widow," she finally said.

Suddenly, she jumped down hundreds of feet from the building into elsewhere. Peter quickly ran over to the edge of the roof to where the redhead had jumped and looked down to see nothing but a street full of cars passing pedestrians. She was gone.

"Well, that's enough for tonight," Peter said to himself in bewilderment.