Spider-Man's Arc

Chapter 7 of 10

Two pale spiders sat on Spider-Man's wrist. His bond ached at twenty-five, and hundreds more waited on the walls. He knew the lock now. He needed a bond wide enough to hold them all. But the last two had nearly torn his mind apart. Gwen watched him sway. "You can't push that alone," she said. "Not this kind. You'll snap the whole thing." A voice cut through the dark. "Somebody say snap? I love snapping things." A short figure in red and black dropped from the tunnel mouth. He landed wrong, rolled, and stood like he meant to. Deadpool. Miles groaned. He and this loud mercenary had clashed before, and Miles trusted him about as far as he could throw the masked dog. "Relax, kid. I brought a plan. It's a bad plan. Those are the best ones." Hulk's hand pressed flat on the rock, holding the dark back. "No breaking spiders," he warned. Deadpool ignored him. He crouched by Spider-Man. "You bend your bond to fit two pale ones. Fine. But you're feeding it one at a time, like eating soup with a fork. Grab a whole cluster at once. Shape one pull for all of them." He tapped Spider-Man's skull. "Don't reach. Open. Let the nest fall in." Spider-Man stared at the pale wall. The idea scared him. One pull for a hundred minds could shred his bond forever. "If I'm wrong, I lose all of it," he said. "Then don't be wrong," Deadpool said, cheerful. Gwen gripped his shoulder. "I'll anchor you. If you start to break, I pull you out." Spider-Man closed his eyes. He held his twenty-five. Then he stopped reaching. He opened his mind wide, the way he'd learned the shape of the first pale spider, but bigger, a single door instead of a hand. The cold foreign minds pressed against it. He let them in. Pain flooded his skull. Fifty. His knees buckled. Gwen caught him. Seventy. Blood ran from his nose. He wanted to stop, to slam the door. Deadpool's voice reached him. "Stay open. Almost." A hundred. The bond stretched thin as wet paper. He felt it start to split. "Now, Gwen," he gasped. She hauled him back into himself. He clamped the bond shut around what he'd caught. The strain settled. He opened his eyes. The whole pale wall shivered. Hundreds of huge spiders lifted their legs at once and turned toward him. They moved as one body. His body. He had swallowed the nest. He stood, shaking, and the pale swarm flowed down the rock behind him. "I hold them," he breathed. "All of them." Miles stared at the crawling tide. "That's not a swarm. That's an army." Deadpool clapped. "See? Bad plan. Worked great." But the pale swarm did not settle. It churned at his back, restless, heavier than his mind could carry for long. Holding them cost more each second. Spider-Man realized he had caught the nest. Now he had to learn to command it before it dragged him under.