Unspun

#𝟎𝟐 The Way Through the Woods

DEXTER: (Clears throat.)

SCOUT: —and you must be ruthless.

SCOUT: The Web's main headquarters were formerly in Osaka. Operations have since relocated to NYC, following the Snap and the vigilante Ronin's culling of colleagues in Tokyo; as well as Homeland Security's dismantling of Wilson Fisk's criminal empire. The Web has taken over Fisk's operations, specifically his arms dealing, drug trade, and trafficking operations. It has also established a policing of the criminal underworld, executed through Web footsoldiers—Spiders—who ensure non-affiliated individuals do not interfere with the Web's business nor infringe on potential profits.

This is where Spider-Man comes in. That doorway you were imagining? That web? Imagine a 5'7" asshole dressed in red-and-blue spandex walking right through it and fucking up that spider's hard, honest work.

SCOUT: Since the return of displaced NYC citizens thanks to the Blip, the Web has simultaneously thrived and struggled in maintaining control of NYC. Spider-Man, a costumed superhero who was initially believed to have died fighting Thanos in 2018, was retroactively labelled as having been Blipped when he reappeared twenty four months ago. Four months ago, he intercepted an arms deal in Hell's Kitchen and, we believe, traced the weapons back to the Web lieutenant assigned to the neighbourhood.

SCOUT: That lieutenant was terminated and replaced. Since then, Spider-Man has continued to pursue and investigate Web operations throughout the city. Although there is an almost endless supply of Web personnel to take the place of anyone dispatched or incarcerated by Spider-Man, the Web's primary concern is optics. We prefer to operate discreetly and out of the public eye; attention from a vigilante such as Spider-Man becomes attention from the people of New York, which then becomes attention from law enforcement agencies, both domestic and international.

SCOUT: Neither of which are desirable. For obvious reasons.

SCOUT: (Speaking now in an overdramatic, theatrical voice) Despite his global commitments, the Huntsman has returned to New York to oversee the "Spider-Man Problem". With him in New York are his personal taskforce—the best the Web has to offer—and his family: returning from assignment in Japan is his eldest daughter Redback, who specialises in poisons and bladed combat; and returning from training in Russia is his younger daughter—no codename yet—specialising in ballistics and ranged combat.

DEXTER: That last part was unnecessary.

SCOUT: But we're a family.

DEXTER: I don't appreciate your attitude.

SCOUT: You should really give Spence a codename.

DEXTER: She'll get one when she earns it.

DeWitt family politics aside—

DEXTER: You're forgetting something, Scarlett.

DEXTER: What are the core values of the Web? What is it that we're working for?

SCOUT: ...

SCOUT: Power. Power, and poison.

Yes, poison. Scout knows it, and she knows it well. There is none like that which the father passes to his child.

DEXTER: Good girl.

Let's try that again. DeWitt family politics aside, Spider-Man was at best a nuisance and at worst, an undoing. Scout herself was yet to meet him personally; she'd only seen him through Web bodycam footage or online news videos. Maybe things would be different if she had been in the country—she'd spent the past few months training Web initiates in Osaka, returning to the States only when Dexter requested to see her. In the years she and her sister had been gone, he had learned emotions other than anger; still, it was anger that he nurtured like a third, youngest child. An anger toward Spider-Man. Spoiled and shiny and new, it truly was a child, his undisputed favourite. But there was something different about the resentment Dexter reserved for Spider-Man, something equal parts compelling and incomprehensible.