First Cause • Spider-Man: Homecoming [Unedited]

01

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It's a sunny afternoon in downtown New York City, and as lovely a day as ever to illegally make one's way onto a foreign planet with the sole purpose of committing several acts of thievery. And if the situation calls for it, assault with a deadly weapon.

Just after three o' clock, standard Earth time, so school is out. The roads are congested. Clogging them are cars occupied by parents and guardians, some still clad in their work clothes and others steering with one hand and wiping away mustard stains from the collars of their t-shirts with saliva-coated thumbs.

The sidewalks are brewing with so many people, many of them spill out onto the very edges of the roads. Children bustle past corner shops and fire hydrants on  their skateboards and rollerblades and participate in contests to see who can reach wherever the farthest—little Jimmy, too busy trying to jury-rig the training wheels off his bike, never wins.

The sights, the smells, the language. Oh, the language. She observes and absorbs it all, as she has done for the past twenty days, from the safety of her aircraft. Which hovers stationary just some sixty feet above the hustle and bustle of this sunny afternoon in the city.

She observes and absorbs, as assimilation into this idyllic human environment will be what either aids her mission or assures its failure, the latter outcome not one Gadea Gallcrest can or wishes to risk. Tailoring her accent until she sounds like she's live amongst the humans from birth. Knowing the difference between a hot dog and the one she regularly spies tugging giddily at one end of a leash could be key to maneuvering her way on the ground undetected, and as visibly transparent as so many of these humans seem to be. As so many of them are content to be.

Sitting still through an abundance of days is a skill only the most seasoned and experienced Hands possess, but not of their own volition. One never willingly brings the thin skin of their wrist to the flame, and one certainly never holds it in place as it burns through to the bone. There is almost always a supervising force sitting firmly atop one's shoulders, a force that only grows should one hesitate. A force that harms should one disobey.

A force that runs rampant in Umbra's Grip, a galactic ring of scavenging vagabonds and thieving scoundrels, if Gadea ever saw one.

What does that make you, though? You who works under that force. You who studies the different styles human women's blouses come in and watches children race hazardously around street corners on contraptions, all in their name? You who intends to do as you have always done, as you always will do, and pillage another planet for scraps under the banner of Umbra's Grip? Proudly wearing their pin denoting your rank as a Hand?

Gadea's calloused fingers find said pin on the right breast of her plain grey shirt. A flat copper circle with crudely bent copper wiring in the form of a hand with splayed fingers. No bigger than her thumbnail. No different than her thumbnail. Gadea has worn this little thing for so long, it might as well be a part of her anatomy.