“Crap,” I say, knowing that if I don’t answer this call, my mom will freak out. “I’ll come find you.”
“Okay, that’s fine!” yells Peter, clearly struggling under something, or fist-to-fist with something. “Just, you know, come whenever you can!”
“On my way, I promise!” I call, before reaching down and clicking the button on the side of my phone. “Mom?”
“Miles Gonzalo, where are you?”
The dreaded question. I shut my eyes and sigh, forgetting that I’m flying through the city at sixty-plus mph. I gasp as I pull my legs up and my feet graze the topmost leaves of a tree.
“Uh, I’m with Ganke, Mom. Why, what’s up?”
“What’s up?” she asks. I hear her whisper something to Abuela in Spanish. “Have you not looked outside lately?”
“I mean,” I say, deciding playing ignorant might be my best bet at playing off that I’m not swinging from buildings and lampposts through East Brooklyn to find the epicenter of the zombie bird outbreak slowly taking over New York. “Looks sunny to me.”
“Miles!” she hollers. She’s frantic now, and I wish there was some way to bring her assurance. “Giant feral bird-people have taken over the city! They’re even derailing subway cars underground! Stay wherever you are. Are you in your dorm? I’m coming to get you—”
“No!” I say back, a little too fast. “I mean, no need, Mom. Ganke and I are fine. We’re on the fifth floor, remember? Whatever bird situation is going on out there must still be far away from us. Are you okay? How are you and Abuela?”
“Oh, I mean,” she says, a loud crash interrupting her, “we’re fine, don’t worry about us. Just, Miles, whatever you do, please stay where you are. Don’t leave your dorm for anything, entiende?”
“Alright, Mom,” I say. I know it’s a lie. But I can’t leave my dorm if I’m not already there, right? So… I’m not technically lying after all. “I’ve gotta go, okay?”
“No, Miles, don’t—”
But I have to hang up on her. I have to call Peter back and find out where he is. With what look like thousands of zombie bird-people all over New York, he’s only one person. One person with super spider-powers. But so am I.
And I know I couldn’t take this on alone.
These things, these people, they must be coming from somewhere, and I know without a shadow of a doubt—to the point that I’d bet my turntables, the most valuable thing I can possibly bet—that Vulture is behind it. And his granddaughter.
I turn the corner just before Times Square and get a full view of the carnage. I gasp, not believing my eyes at first. I see more black vulture birds—more feathers, more claws and talons and snapping beaks—than actual people, packed so closely together I can barely differentiate one from the next.
As I fly past, I shoot my web at the beak of one of the bird beings, shutting them up before they can bear down on an elderly woman through her windshield.
“Miles?” comes Peter’s voice from my phone, finally. “You okay?”
Okay, I get that he wants to make sure I’m okay, and that he’s my mentor and everything, and that the whole city is under hostile takeover by zombie bird Vulture minions, but does he have to ask if I’m okay before asking how I can help? If I’m ever going to grow as Spider-Man into what he is, I’m going to need some independence here.
I don’t want to be “the kid that needs to be checked on” forever.
“Yeah,” I say, “of course I’m alright. Are you okay?”
“Absolutely,” he grunts.
“Sounds like it,” I say. “I’m in Manhattan now. Where are you—?”
But halfway through my question, I see him—a tiny speck of red swinging around the corner of a huge TV billboard, advertising farm-fresh eggs delivered to your door each morning. I wonder if after today I’ll ever want to see anything related to birds, feathers, or eggs ever again.
Which brings me to a horrifying thought. If these nanobots are changing these people’s DNA… can they all lay eggs now?
I shudder and descend into my next swing.
“I see you,” I say, just as a huge blackbird swoops in and hooks itself onto Peter’s web, yanking him backwards midair. I gasp. Hope his shoulders are okay.
But suddenly, he has bigger problems to think about.
He’s tumbling straight at the bird, and they collide in the air and both go plummeting. I panic and dive for them, flinging one web underneath them and hooking onto the building opposite me, and flinging another web up to the top of a second building.
As Peter and bird-brain land in the hammock of my first web, I get flung upward in the space between the two, still connected to them and the roof, but flipping and flipping like a donut on a string. I shut my eyes and wait until I stop spinning and the world stops swirling, and I look down to see Peter catapulting himself up to me. He lands on the corner of the building I’m hanging from, perched there like a frog on the very edge.
“Hi,” he says cheerfully, despite the avian Armageddon around us.
I grin.
“’Sup?”
“I mean,” he says, gesturing to the carnage on the ground below, “clearly, Vulture’s been busy.”
“Any sign of him?”
“Nah,” he says with a shake of his head. “Any sign of Pigeon?”
We both hear a hollering above all the other noise below: one sharp, yet light voice I remember well. It’s screaming, “Go find him then!”
And then I spot her—the red metal tank of a girl, feathers and all, just across the street. Two bird-people—one with huge black wings, and one with boney, almost skeletal gray wings—take off away from her through the crowd in opposite directions.
I can only assume by “him,” she means me.
“Maybe,” says Peter, “it’s best if you… you know… fight over here? While I take on Pigeon? Or… how do you want to do this?”
My eyes are trained on the red bird as my thoughts race. If she looks up here and sees me, she’s coming for me, I know it. I remember all the mistakes I made at S.H.I.E.L.D. I remember how her eyes narrowed with bitterness as she looked at me. The confidence in them. She knew she was going to win that day. She knew what she came for, she knew how to get it, and she knew she’d get away with it.
Spider-Man or not.
I look down at the dwindling numbers of human civilians left, at the fear in their eyes as they scream in terror. There’s so little actual clothing left. These people are so covered in feathers, they’re practically clothed in their new form, but fabric lies in tatters all over the street. I see a little girl being pulled from her father’s arms by her leg, and I watch her face change from one of petrifying fear to one of purpose, determination, and anger. And as she sprouts wings of her own and transforms into one of those gray, feathered beasts, and lunges at the man who was protecting her only moments ago, something in my stomach lurches, and rage fills me where uncertainty used to be.
“No, Peter,” I say, turning to look at him, “I’ve got Pigeon.”
He stares at me for a moment before nodding.
“Alright,” he says. “If you’re sure.”
Peter’s words tell me I’m good to go, but his tone is one of a concerned older brother watching as I prepare to perform a wild BMX stunt into oncoming traffic. I look back down at Pigeon, who’s patrolling the streets like an enraged red tank. She stops in front of a news stand, sizes it up, reels her hand back, and backhands it into splinters and wads of magazine paper. Peter and I both flinch at her strength.
She’s strong, yeah, but I’m faster.
“Pete, no need to keep an eye on me. I’ll be okay. Promise.”
“I’ll leave you to it then,” he says, giving me a two-finger salute against his forehead. “I’ll see if I can track down Vulture in this mess. The birds must be originating from some central source. I guarantee if I can find it, I can find Vulture.”
Peter hops off the side of the building and swings across the gap between bu
ildings, just as he calls out to me, “I’m only a call away!”
I turn my attention back to Pigeon, but I’m too late.
Her next victim, over whom she’s crouched like a lion ready to dive into its prey, is someone I recognize.
Well.
Her dark hair pulled back into a tight bun. Her navy cardigan. Her bright eyes, even now without a trace of fear as she curls herself tighter around a toddler I’ve never seen before, and glares up at Pigeon menacingly.
“Mom?” I whisper to myself. I spring into action, diving through the air and swinging across the street as fast as gravity will let me.
Guess I also wish gravity had an accelerator button.
“Leave her alone!” I shriek. I’m shocked at the break in my own voice as Pigeon sees me and ducks. But I web the side of the building and spring myself off of it, catapulting back at her and tackling her into the street. We go tumbling over each other, kicking up dust and pavement chunks as we go, and I end up on top, straddling her stomach, throwing punches down at her face, but she’s right there ready to defend against all of them with her metal-encased forearms in rapid succession.
Block!
Block!
Block!
Block!
Block!
How the hell is she so fast?!
“Get out of here!” I holler to my mom, but she doesn’t seem to hear me. She’s so focused on the little boy’s needs—his tears, the teddy bear he’s clutching, where his parents might be, and how to get him back safely in their arms.
Pigeon finds a gap between my blows, which gives her a split second of time. That’s all she needs, apparently. She wedges one foot up against my chest, and I go flying off of her, landing on my back on the unforgiving pavement. By the time I shake off the shock of it all, I make out the shape of Pigeon, looming closer to my mom.
“Rio!” I yell, my mom’s real name sounding foreign and strange in my mouth, but I know I can’t call her what she is to me—Mom—while I’m Spider-Man. “Run!”
But instead, she curls herself around that little boy, who Pigeon has around his waist, ripping him from my mom’s hands. And the scream I hear squeezed from my mom’s chest is so blood-curdling, it makes my skin crawl. She’s screaming like Pigeon is ripping a baby me from her. She doesn’t even know this kid, and she feels the urge to protect him this much. I know the feeling. I’m out here getting slammed into the ground for several thousand people I don’t know. Mom and I, we’re not so different. I realize that for the longest time I’ve been wondering what kind of Spider-Man I’m going to be. Wondering if my best is good enough. And I realize, whether it is or isn’t “enough,” it’s all I’ve got.
There are people looking out for me. My mom is one of them.
And I know she would want me to fight these people with all I’ve got, enough or not.
I may not have a handle yet on who I’m working on becoming, but I know who I am right now, in this moment. I’m Miles Morales. Spider-Man. Doing his best. Getting up off the ground and doing something.
Then, to my horror, Pigeon holds up the boy by his shirt collar, out over the crowd of human-bird-monsters.
“No!” I scream, in tandem with my mom. “Don’t!”
“He won’t die,” she insists. “But while he turns, let him serve as a reminder that Terraheal is full of monsters who prey on the weak and the defenseless. They did this to him.”
“No, wait!” my mom and I holler together.
The boy, with blue eyes huge and mouth wide in a shriek, is tossed into the arms of a bird creature, and a sea of them pile on top, each clamoring for a chance to bite him and turn him into one of them. And apparently one of them gets it, because seconds later, he emerges above the sea of black feathers, beaks, and claws, with a beak of his own, snapping at the air as if he’s been raised by pterodactyls all his life.
Rage rips through me, but not before it rips through my mom. She pushes herself to her feet with a war cry like I’ve never heard, and leaps up onto Pigeon’s back. Which is a huge mistake. Because one expansion of Pigeon’s wings, and my mom is shaken off. She falls, but I scramble forward and catch her. I look down at her face, which is equal parts shocked to see Spider-Man, and grateful that I was right there to catch her.
But we’ve gotta get out of here.
I know that if I leave my mom here, she’s sure to keep attacking Pigeon. She won’t sit still, or run, no matter how many times I tell her. Now I know how Peter felt when he first met me—when I was in that alley attacking those two assholes beating up on that third guy. It’s not that I don’t want her to help, or don’t think she can. It’s that I just want her to be safe.
I lock eye contact with Pigeon, who’s pushing her way forward past several bird-people, to get to us, and I reach up and web the top of the building to my left.
And I’m out.
I feel my mom tense in my right arm, and grip me around my shoulders so hard I’m worried she might break me. I clear my throat and disguise my voice.
“You alright, ma’am?” I ask.
“I-I… no. No, not way up here with no floor I’m not. Just… put me down somewhere, please?”
“Certainly,” my voice hurts from talking this low already. “Just as soon as I find a safe place to put you.”
That’s a great question—where do I put her?
If I leave her on top of any of these buildings, I run the risk of her trying to find a way down, via a fire escape or a wilder method, or even taking the stairs if the building’s open, which means she’ll be right in the middle of danger again. I can’t lock her in something, like a dumpster or a public bathroom, because that’s… that’s just wrong.
Hmm…
But I don’t have time to think.
A red-gloved hand is clamped around my neck from behind faster than I can react, and I let go of my web and claw at her fingers, so distracted by having my airflow cut off suddenly that I can’t defend against being flipped over onto my back. I feel myself falling, and I hear my mom screaming, and even though I can feel myself losing air, I cradle myself around her and absorb all of the impact.
BOOM!
And we go tumbling, pavement chunks flying all over the place.
Pigeon is lunging at my mom before I can say or do anything, pinning her shoulders to the ground.
“Get off of her!” I scream, but I’m too late.
Pigeon whistles into her fingers, sending a shrill scream all the way down the street. Thousands of birds go silent, thousands of beaks turn in our direction, thousands of greedy black-feathered beasts turn toward my mother, who’s shaking head to toe. Her eyes are full of tears as she looks out at them. But Pigeon glances at me with a smile.
“Don’t you dare,” I say. “Pigeon!”
But she pushes my mom forward, and three of the birds grab her wrists and her sweater, and her ankles, and her ponytail, and they start to suck her into the crowd of them. She shrieks as I rush forward and grab her free wrist before she can be completely absorbed. I can barely see her face past the cloud of tears in my eyes, but I see her screaming mouth open, and her eyes looking to me, huge and terrified, just as they glaze over and go empty and gray.
“No,” I whisper, “No, please!”
Not my mom.
I can’t lose her.
I can’t lose her too.
But her lips go limp. Her face pales. Her grip around my wrist relaxes. Feathers sprout from her forehead and her temples, and her nose and mouth meld into one hard shell, yawning wide as fangs sprout from her beak. She hisses up at me, which startles me backward, losing my grip on her. And then, I lose her. Into the crowd of other bird beings. I can’t tell her from the others. Her burnt orange cardigan lies in tatters in the street, and I pick up one of the pieces and hold it close to me.
Whatever I have to do, however I have to do it, I’m taking down Vulture, and I’m taking down his granddaughter too. I will turn my mom back. I have to. Suddenly, I feel a kick in my ribs that
knocks me to my side, and when I look up, Pigeon is standing over me, looking down at me with the sunset glinting behind her head, her Afro puffs two lumps under her hoodie. Her smile is sharp, dark, and strangely charming as she slides her red-gloved hand around my neck.
“Before I beat you, Spider-Man,” she says smoothly, tightening her grip around my windpipe until I squirm, “say my name.”
Oh yeah, now’s a great time for small talk about names, while I’m lying on the ground choking to death. Luckily, as if she can hear my thoughts, she lets go of my neck, and I gasp for air and roll to my side, my body wracked with coughs while she keeps talking as calmly as if we’re on a tour of the Brooklyn Zoo and not in the middle of a human-vs-zombie-bird war in the middle of Times Square.
“Starling,” I croak out.
“Correct,” she says triumphantly, as if merely saying it has given up some shred of my dignity. Fine. She can have that. “My grandfather warned me you’d be cunning. Charming, even. Haven’t seen any of that yet.”
“Hey,” I say between coughs as I push myself to my shaky feet.
My knees are wobbly as I stand, and I can’t feel my toes—probably on account of lack of oxygen, but I still manage to glare up at Starling and rasp out, “I’m charming enough. But only to people who don’t try to turn all of New York into half-bird-half-people monstrosities.”
Including my own mother.
“Monstrosities?” she gasps. “Not even close. All winged things are beautiful. Tell me you haven’t woken up from a dream where you were flying, wishing you could fly for real. And now, these people can.”
“You’re serious?” I ask. “Look around, Starling. These people don’t know who they are. They don’t know who or where their families are. Look in their eyes. All they know is kill, kill, kill. You’ve convinced yourself they’re happy?”
My mother would never consent to her body being used as a vessel of pain. Never.
“I’m doing all of this for him,” she hisses. “Not that I owe you an explanation, but you know my grandfather has cancer. His dying wish was to be free.”
“Are you willing to give him that in exchange for the freedom of thousands more?”
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales Page 14
