Chapter 8

I pause and stop in my steps. I look back at her as she stands there and looks me up and down, intrigued. I really don't know what to do in this situation because I know exactly what kind of person the Black Cat is, and I know she is the kind of person who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. Although I remember feeling great relief that all she seemed to want was to steal from rich people and nothing more serious, it would be pretty hard to deal with her if she had much bigger ambitions.

From all my memories of tangling with her and chasing her, I know that she is a selfish, greedy woman who wants everything, and she can sometimes be ruthless enough to get whatever she wants. But, most of all, she is a woman who loves excitement and thrill, and right now, she seems to believe she can get both from me. "You know, sometimes it is better not to know and stay in the dark. Have you never heard the phrase, curiosity killed the cat?"

"Well then, I guess it is a good thing that I have a few more lives to waste. Though I suppose I can understand your hesitation, I am asking you to reveal yourself to me, and I know how you spider guys don't like to do that. With Spider-Man, I never asked to see beneath his mask. I never took mine off in turn because I didn't want a relationship with him as the people under the guise as I thought we were truly the masks we were wearing. That part of him is all I wanted and not the other stuff. However, he didn't seem to be receptive to that idea which is why he has rejected my advances, but with you, I can tell that you are hiding your true self under that mask, somebody else's disguise and the person hiding underneath is fun and wild and just like me, and he is raring to come out. And so, because I am asking to see the person you truly are-"

She whips her domino mask off, exposing her bare upper face to my eyes. "I am willing to reciprocate in turn. after all, you are much more interesting than the Spider since you are as similar to me as you are to him, which interests me oh so much. I can't bear to let this opportunity go. I don't want to wonder just what kind of valuables I could have got my hands on. That is the worst thing for a thief like me, knowing you had something of considerable worth in your hands and letting it slip through your fingers." I stare at her face, and it is incredible just how much beauty that little domino mask is hiding as the area around her eyes is revealed.

I notice that her deep blue eyes have now changed to emerald green that is just as absorbing as her obviously fake blue eyes were (probably some sort of lense or tint on the eyeholes of her mask), but that is it as I already knew who was under the guise. In this world, the Black Cat has yet to be caught by anyone. Having only really been pursued by Spider-Man, and him being easily flustered and confused, he has ended up letting her escape more than once and only managing to retrieve the things that she stole.

But while Spider-Man did not know her real identity, my otherworldly memories did have that knowledge, and because of that, I knew exactly who she was. I knew that she was Felicia Hardy, what she had to go through and why she trained, which was to get revenge, but before she could find the man she wanted to kill, he was run over and killed in a car accident, left unfulfilled she started a life of thievery and enjoying the rush she made a career of it as she wanted to take back control.

"So you took off your little mask, is that supposed to make some sort of connection with me? Because news flash, just because I can see a tiny bit more of your face and your natural eyes doesn't mean that I will take off my own mask and show you my face. I don't know what you are trying to gain here, but I have better things to do with my time, don't follow me." Having had enough of this conversation and finding no reason to remain, I turn back around to leave.

Wanting to leave on the double, I decide to say fuck it, and I point my hand upwards and touch my fingers to my palm to release a strand of web that shoots out to attach to the side of the building. I go to jump off the edge of the building and swing away to actually- "You are scared, aren't you? That's why you are running away, just like he would." -I skid to a stop, still holding onto the web, knowing that I should have just jumped off of the edge of the building and left, and yet I find myself standing still having heard some words that I do not like.

"He is afraid to take off his mask, to expose himself. He has excuses like wanting to protect his loved ones and wanting to have a private life, and while those may, in fact, be true, he also has another reason. The truth is that he is scared. He needs the distinction between his civilian and his heroic identity because if he sheds the mask, then he will not be able to deny who he really is. He doesn't want to be only Spider-Man, and that is why he wears a mask so that he can do what he wants and be an illegal vigilante and so that he can also have his own life separate from that, but if he takes off his mask then he will be fully embracing his true self, and he shies away from that, he wants there to be a time when he can put down the mask and retire, but we aren't like that are we?" She says, and I can't help but listen.

"We don't want to fade away into mediocrity and disappear to live a quiet little life in the suburbs, we want to live a meaningful life full of excitement, thrill and joy, and we want to continue doing that till the day we die. I know I want to, and I think you do too, so will you be just like him and shy away from who you are? Or are you going to embrace who you are and live your life to the max, be your true self?" I don't want to listen to her words, and yet I can't stop. I know that Peter's reasons for protecting his identity are for noble reasons to protect the people around him, and yet I can't deny the fact that there is some truth to her words.

It was always in the back of his mind, the day he could finally stop feeling the guilt about Uncle Ben and the day he could stop repenting for what he had done, finally having retrieved redemption for the terrible thing he had done. Still, in the back of his mind, no matter how much he tries to deny it, he knows that he will never be free of the guilt.

He will always be Spider-Man, no matter how many times he tries to stop, until he is physically unable to do it anymore, and even then, he will probably continue to try and help in whatever way he can. He isn't a coward, but he also isn't true to himself, and he doesn't accept himself, but I am not Spider-Man. I am not Peter Parker. I am Ben Reilly, someone completely different who wants more than to be eternally pinned down by self-loathing and guilt. I want to be myself.

I am in disbelief as I open my hand and let the strand of webbing go. As it leaves my grasp, I feel as if I am letting some other things go with it as well. I watch it swing off, knowing that I am probably making a dumb decision, and yet I turn around to look at her and at the sight of her face, I again feel trepidation, and the smirk upon her face irritates me something fierce.

Still, I am more annoyed at the thought of being like Peter, of being a clone and having no other substance to me. I don't want to walk down the street and have people go, 'Hey, that's that dude, you know, Spider-Man's clone. What's his name again, Clone-Spider, right?' I abhor the thought of it, of being just a remnant of Peter, as if he scraped off a little skin one day, and that skin grew to be me as if that is all I am. So I refuse to have my Facebook profile be 'Science nerd, Arachnid lover, Genetic experiment and Peter Parker's clone. If you want to know more than just look at his bio, I am a copy and paste of him after all.'

I stare at her for a moment as she stands there, exposed in both senses of the word and uncaring of her current position, and she watches me like a hawk with enjoyment in her eyes as if a predator playing with its prey. I know that I might just be doing something that I may come to regret in the future. Even so, my hand reaches up and grasps the top of my mask, and I slowly begin to drag it up.

I am unsure if this is real as I have memories of doing my utmost to never take off this mask, yet I am doing precisely that. Of course, Peter would have never done this, and for good reason, but I don't care about good reason, and I think I am doing this simply because Peter wouldn't, and that is enough reason for me.

It is only when I feel my newly blonde hair flop down against my head and the cold breeze of polluted New York air across my face that I realise I have already taken my mask off. I pull my hand down to my face to look upon the mask of Spider-Man, the red spandex mask, the black lining stitched to look like a web and the white lenses fashioned from the screens of old watches. The maniacal man even went as far as to recreate the costume down to the most minor parts.

I look up from the mask to spot Black Cat paying particular attention to my features as if trying to burn them into her memory, trying to remember every inch and imperfection and store them in her mind. She finally pays attention to my eyes and looks into my hazel eyes as I stare right back into her green ones, she smiles at me, but I can't place exactly what type of smile it is. I don't know what she is thinking.

"I am Felicia Hardy, otherwise known as the infamous thief Black Cat. I used to be an Art Major, but I gave that up due to circumstances. I decided to be free and enjoy my life instead of being someone who is taken advantage of by society. Nice to meet you, ...?" She pauses, which is my cue to talk.

"Ben Reilly..."

------------------------------------

"So, Ben Reilly, welcome to my penthouse suite. Make yourself at home, please." She says as she walks around her furniture and to her coffee table. She takes the duffel bag, unzips it, and turns it upside down so that all the contents can spill out onto the coffee table. I watch as jewellery, cash, diamonds and gold fall down onto the table, and once the bag is empty, she throws it onto the sofa before turning around and going off into another room, leaving me alone in the middle of her penthouse suite.

As I look around her current home, I ponder what in the actual hell I am doing here. After taking my mask off on the rooftop and telling her my newly chosen name, she began to move, telling me to follow behind her. Not knowing what else to do, I listened and chased off after her, not knowing what to expect but knowing that it was better than staying on that rooftop, and she led me to this place.

I spend a few more moments observing the room, but it is just your ordinary luxury penthouse suite with nothing being out of the ordinary apart from the plates piled up in the sink and wrappers and packaging covering the kitchen counters and a whole lot of mess piled up around the room itself, she really does embody a cat with all of the mess she's created here while lounging around.

Finally, the door opens, and she walks back out dressed in an oversized loose-fitting t-shirt that descends to her knees, and I can't tell if she is wearing anything under there... She probably isn't. given her apparent disregard for clothing that she showed earlier and her okayness with nudity, she walks past me to the kitchen. She gets a bottle of wine out of the fridge and picks up a wine glass before plopping down onto the sofa and kicking her legs up onto her pile of goods on the coffee table, and she switches on the tv to watch some inane sitcom.

"So, Ben, what is your story? Also, what is your connection to Spider-Man?"