Henry Liverseege,
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD
#01 Spiders and Scorpions
and Wolves, Oh My!
What does it take to be a killer?
This is a question the DeWitts ask, and are asked, often. However, as Scout DeWitt stands in the doorway of the bathroom she and her sister Spencer share—her phone in one hand and a hastily-grabbed Converse shoe (singular) in the other—the question she is asking is, instead, where is that fucking spider?
"He was on the wall," Spencer says helpfully. Over the phone her voice was shaky; whether that was because Scout's six-year-old iPhone's speaker capabilities became more questionable every passing day, or because of her frankly ironic phobia of spiders, Scout wasn't sure. It didn't really matter, to be honest, because either way Spencer was cowering in her room—door shut and locked, like that would stop a spider or any other similarly-sized creepy-crawly from coming inside—and Scout was here, running black-ops on what was most likely a harmless house spider.
"On the wall?" Scout took a cautious step through the doorway, dark eyes scanning the room. "I don't see any spider."
"Then he's moved!"
No shit. "Yeah, I'm looking for him."
"Look for him harder!"
"That's what I'm doing," Scout said in a singsong voice, settling in the centre of the bathroom and crouching. The tiles were cool beneath her feet. "You sure you're not hallucinating?"
"No!" Spencer shrieks, so loud Scout can actually hear her voice from the down the hall. She regrets putting her sister on speaker, and further regrets placing her ear so close to the phone, defeating the very purpose of putting someone on speaker in the first place. "I saw it, Scout! I saw it!"
"I believe you." Eh. "I just don't see him."
"He's in there, I swear. You gotta kill him, or I'm gonna kill myself."
"Don't do that."
"Kill him, Scout! I need you to fucking kill him!"
"Calm down—"
"—Kill him!" The line clicked dead, and a moment passed before Spencer opened her door to repeat herself (as if Scout didn't get it the first fourteen million times.) "Kill him!" Then, she slammed the door shut again.
Sighing, Scout put her phone on the edge of the bathtub and pivoted again, in search of the spider. She didn't have time for this, for the obvious reason—it was stupid—and for scheduling ones. In exactly one hour, Spencer and Scout were expected at Kintsugi, their father's favourite Japanese restaurant, for their monthly family dinner. Dexter DeWitt did not tolerate tardiness, especially not when there was cause for celebration or ceremony. In this case, it was the former: his longtime friend MacDonald Gargan was back in the field. Gargan had had experimental surgery at Dexter's request; though he came out the other side with no major complications, he had still spent the better part of the past few months undergoing physical therapy.
Scout did not know the specific details of the surgery, but there were few men her father called friend, and even fewer that did not have their names on a watch list or registry. Gargan had sadistic tendencies, but in the Web, in the world, who didn't? He knew how to be kind. And he knew how to keep his hands to himself.
All this to say, Gargan was part of the family, which meant this dinner was important and so was the DeWitt sisters' punctuality—even more so. Scout was ready forty-five minutes ago, ever-prepared, ever-poised, while her sister, who was the complete opposite, took her sweet time. Scout judges her sister as non-judgmentally as possible; she calls Spencer her opposite in the most affectionate, complimentary way she is capable. It's a good thing, to be everything Scout is not. It's a good thing, to be disorganised when Scout lives her life in perfect order, to be soft when Scout is hard, unfeeling. To be scared of spiders when Scout is a spider herself.
These are small things, and they do not matter. Because it means that when it comes to the big things, the dark things, the killing things, Spencer can still be saved, all because Scout cannot. Scout likes this balance, however little it serves her; she's used to the undercutting truth of things, the fact of world that everything has its perfect other half, its exact and unobjectionable equal.
What does it take to be a killer?
But, by this logic, this anti-selfness, if Scout is the hunter, Spencer is the hunt. Scout, the predator. Her sister, the prey.
Scout doesn't want to think about this, so she chooses not to. She's always been good at that.
Her feelings aside, it would follow that while Scout needs Spencer, Spencer does not need Scout at all. This is another fact that Scout welcomes a little less warmly into her belief system. Spencer had once been the snotty little girl who clung to her older sister, who loved her more than the world, who could not be separated from her—not by their father, not even by the Blip.
Now, Spencer hates. Hates, hates, hates. Two years have passed and Scout is as resented as their father. Two years have passed and Scout means nothing to her. Two years have passed and Scout is only her sister when there are spiders to kill.
She is fit for the task, however temporary. There will always be more spiders, Scout tells herself, and—no matter what Spencer thinks, no matter what she says in the heat of the moment or, rather, snaps—she will always be Spencer's older sister.
The clock is ticking and her vantage point isn't doing a very good job of vantage-ing. In fairness, squatting on the bathroom floor is not the strategic genius Scout would have liked it to be. She rethinks her approach and stands, holding her shoe with two hands now. It takes a minute for the spider to reveal itself—himself?—but eventually, it does, crawling out from underneath the space between the bathroom counter and the floor.
He's a wolf spider. Objectively, Scout can understand why her sister, why anyone, would be scared of such a creature: wolf spiders are hairy, long-legged, and two of their eight eyes are overlarge. However, she does not subscribe to something as unproductive as fear, especially when said fear is for something so easily defined, something that can so easily be dissected into parts small enough to swallow. Monsters under the bed are one thing—this, however, is a spider on the wall.
Scout, for the most part, finds the wolf spider uninteresting. It is not unique in its size or its hairiness. Its venom is unremarkable and non-lethal; comparable to a wasp's sting, it causes only swelling, itching, and mild pain. The singular characteristic the wolf spider possesses that Scout values, is its hunting habits. Wolf spiders do not spin webs. Instead, they are opportunistic hunters. They ambush, they chase.
Scout could respect that. The brute way was still a way. That said, she preferred her silk, her venom, her webs. Staring the spider down, she watches as he creeps up the front panel of the counter, her unwitting prey. In the corner of her eye, she spots the glass next to the sink, beside the makeup Spencer abandoned when she first encountered the arachnid.
It would be easy to empty the glass and trap the spider instead of killing it. To grab a piece of paper and take the poor thing outside—to let it free, and let it go. Part of Scout wanted to do this. Part of Scout wanted to be kind. The wolf spider, with its eyes and hairs and legs, with its pointless venom, did not know that this was someone else's home. And Scout, of all people, should know that the crime of being small should not be punishable by death. She was small once, too.
But she had been punished with something worse than death. And besides, her sister is scared of spiders.
Scout gets it over and done with, flushing the wolf spider down the toilet before calling Spencer back into the bathroom. Spencer takes a theatrical moment to inspect the space, as if Scout has somehow hoodwinked her, pranked her, turned one spider into a thousand or otherwise found a way to exploit her arachnophobia. Finding the state of the bathroom spider-less to her standards, Spencer offers a curt "thank you" and that is that—she returns to herself, and in the process, she removes herself, too. The emotion from before is gone. The everything from before is gone.
Scout scrapes a lone spider leg off the sole of her shoe, disposing that too in the toilet. Then, she sidesteps around Spencer to wash her hands at the sink. Spencer curves around her—they would not have touched anyway, but still, she avoids her sister, not even wanting to brush against her, not even allowing Scout to approach. Scout falls back, watching Spencer in the mirror.
The sisters could not look anything less alike. Even if you were to strip them of their makeup, their masks, there were few features they shared. Spencer was blessed with the genetic perfection that came with being half-Japanese and half-white; at least, the genetic perfection that most white men with Asian fetishes hoped for when they robbed their sexual partners of agency, reduced them to their race, then trapped them in marriage and childbirth. Dexter's taste in women aside, Spencer was beautiful, albeit ambiguously. She had a heart-shaped face that would have been sweet if it weren't always so blank, and piercing eyes that were almost as sharp as her cheekbones.
Scout had sharp cheekbones too, though hers were inherited from Eiken Ito, not Dexter DeWitt. Of her own genealogy, Scout was not sure; Eiken was mixed white as well, leaving behind some of his vaguely European features as his only legacy for his illegitimate daughter. Scout was beautiful in her own way, and she liked to think it had nothing to do with her race—at least, nothing to do with her parentage. Her jaw was squarer than Spencer's, the slant of her nose sharper and more certain. Her eyes were dark brown, her lashes short and thick, and her lips largely lacked a cupid's bow. And of course, everything was symmetrical. Concussively so. Think of her as striking. Stunning. Any word that can be used to describe both a woman and a weapon.
What did the most to set the sisters apart however was stature, physique. Spencer was short, built like a ballerina with proportionately-long limbs and a slender, swan-like neck—she was all lean muscle, hard and slim and unforgiving. Even though she was still awkward with it, perpetually and physiologically unsure, Spencer had worked for this body. She'd danced since she was eight, and she'd been training with the Web since the moment she was back from being Blipped. Thirteen was late—much later than Scout, who had been trained ever since she could remember—but the severity of ballet had given her a head start. The Web training regimen was punishing, but Spencer already knew how to punish herself. Dancing, killing, wasn't it all the same?
Still, she was just a girl.
Scout, in contrast, had lived in what her father called a "woman's body" for far too long. She'd had the alleged assets that were her thighs, waist and chest since she was twelve, something that her mother had mourned while she was still alive. Scout had considered Shiori might have been jealous—vengeful, even, at the changed state of her own body post-pregnancies. But, now eighteen, barely legal, she understood why Shiori had been the way she was. The biological fact of her daughter's beauty made her desirable. And to be desired in a world like the Web was a death sentence.
Or, again, something worse. Scout's mind jumps to the story of Little Red Riding Hood. She was never told it as a child—or any story for that matter, there is no room for folklore in a world of science and spiders—but she could see the lesson in the tale, the warning. And Scout liked the set pieces; the heroine's youth, the woods' endless dark, the wolf's common villainy. Tricks and claws and teeth, a hunger for girls still young and innocent. Scout knows the wolves of the world, even though no one told her about them when they tucked her in to bed.
How many times had she walked those woods? How many times had she been pulled from the path? How many times had she been swallowed whole?
The clatter of Spencer's makeup brushes on the counter brings Scout back to the bathroom. She finally looks at her own reflection. Despite the insistence of the men around her that she show off a little more, make use of the "gifts" she'd been given, Scout preferred shapeless, modest clothes—high necklines, long sleeves. For the most part, this was permitted by her father: clothes were just clothes. However, there was a standard for these family dinners, an expectation, and so, Scout wore a short, form-fitting dress. It was backless. And bright red, like blood.
It suit her, though with her biological fortune most clothes did. The shade of it was a distant cousin to the colour of her hair—dyed a deep, cherry red—and the dress, by virtue of its design, showed off her back, and the tattoo inked upon it. Spun up and along her vertebrae, it stretched outwards and spanned her shoulders. Admittedly, it was beautiful. But it had not been her choice. And it had hurt. It had really, really hurt.
Still, Scout knew she looked incredible. Pairing the dress with a pair of extra-thick sole Doc Martens, she was elevated above her usual height and towered over Spencer, even more so than she did already. Spencer herself was wearing black, like she always did, a lace maxi dress that was simultaneously appropriate for both a funeral and a party. Scout thought she looked very pretty. In another universe, she and Spencer were getting ready for dinner with a father who loved them the right way, and they were a family where the blood between them was enough, and they felt no need to spill someone else's.
Now, that was a bedtime story. Scout couldn't help but see herself in Little Red Riding Hood; if not for their similar taste in clothing, then their fate. Throughout history, the story has been spun dozens of ways, in versions darker than and different from their predecessors. The one people typically settle on leaves Little Red and her grandmother in the pit of the wolf's stomach, waiting for death or otherwise, deliverance. The Huntsman stumbles by Grandmother's cottage and finds the wolf, asleep in the old woman's clothes. He slays the beast with his trusty axe, and slices open his stomach to set Little Red and Grandmother free.
To Scout, the Huntsman is no hero. And yet, in the narrative she calls her own, he is her only way out.
"Do you want me to do your hair?" Scout asks suddenly, so suddenly even Spencer is surprised. But perhaps she didn't expect her sister to try and interact with her. "I could braid it, like I used to."
Spencer's hair is long and dark. When they were younger, she would crawl up from the foot of Scout's bed and beg her to braid her hair—always in two long plaits, Dutch and dark and glossy. Nowadays, Scout could not remember the last time she and her sister had so much as hugged, let alone the last time she had been allowed to touch her hair. If Spencer wanted it braided, she would just do it herself.
Scout should've known better. Spencer eyes her, unimpressed, in the uniquely cruel way teenaged girls often are. "No, I think I'm good."
Scout doesn't even bother to respond. She just nods, backs out of the bathroom, and heads down the hall.
🕸️
Gargan, to Scout's relative joy, is there to pick them up that exact hour later. Though it's protocol to sit in the back with Spencer when being officially escorted by Web personnel, Scout takes shotgun. There are no hugs, but there are smiles—something rarer and, let's be honest, a little more special.
"Welcome back, old man." Scout climbs into the passenger seat, closing the door behind her and doing her seatbelt. She puts her backpack between her legs before she turns to look Gargan up and down. In periphery, Spencer seats herself in the back, silent and solemn as ever. "Oh, that's weird."
The corner of Gargan's mouth curls upward. "What's weird?"
"I thought you got surgery. But you look the exact same." A pause, then her face splits into a grin. "Still as fuck-ugly as ever."
Gargan laughs. That's rare, too. "Girlie, I'm going to beat you up."
"And I'm gonna put you right back on that operation table if you try." Scout's grin only widens.
Gargan, though a late recruit to the Web, is built for the organisation through and through. Tall and broad, he was built of sheer muscle and brute force. The procedure he'd had, as well as the therapy required afterwards had seen him lose a bit of weight; his features, already sharp and angular, were all the more keen, exacting. But other than that, and the bags under his eyes, and the back brace underneath his dress shirt, he seemed the same old Gargan. Snappy, sarcastic, straw-blond. Scout's favourite asshole.
"You have no idea what you're up against, Scarlett." Gargan checked the rear-view mirror to make sure the street outside the apartment building was clear, then turned the key in the ignition and pulled out onto the bitumen. "I'm a whole different breed now."
Scout rolls her eyes. "You still look pretty human to me."
"Just you wait." Gargan flicks his gaze briefly towards the back, raising an eyebrow. "You good back there, Spence?"
"Just peachy," Spencer replies, her tone measured. In Spencer-speak, Just peachy basically meant fuck off and fucking die. She lacked the rapport Scout had with Gargan and pretty much every other high-ranking member of the Web; because of her inexperience and her late start with training, she'd been passed through a dozen pairs of hands, each one trying—as efficiently and as swiftly as possible—to shape her into a killer. Transferring her from training facility to training facility, city to city and country to country, Dexter never kept Spencer in the same place for long, meaning she never got to know names, faces, hearts or histories.
Scout, on the other hand, probably knew more about the spiders in the Web than anyone. Take Gargan, for example. Full name MacDonald Gargan, Gargan was a New York City native, born and raised in Midtown Manhattan until he enlisted in the U.S. Army at age eighteen. He made his way into the United States Army Military Corps (USAMPC, let's make this easier on ourselves) and, for a time, was a Criminal Investigations Special Agent. Through his investigative endeavours he met military-engineer-turned-mercenary Dexter DeWitt and, although initially repulsed by his work—having been commissioned to investigate it—upon leaving the USAMPC, he took up Dexter's offer of joining him in the Web. Other than this, and there was not much to know. He was a skilled fighter, a skilled strategist. He was an even better detective. He had been engaged once, when he was younger. He wasn't as old as he looked. He had no children, nor any other family to speak of. Just the DeWitts, and the Web.
He was unique amongst their ranks, being the only Web operative to use a non-spider codename: Scorpion. When Scout had questioned it, Dexter had dismissed her. Arachnids, he'd said, and that was all. Gargan, at least, was not obsessed with scorpions as Dexter was with spiders. For this reason, amongst others, Scout preferred to train with the former.
The chatter for the rest of the car ride is idle and quiet. Only when the car comes to a stop outside Kintsugi does Scout properly speak again. Gargan urged them both out of vehicle so he could go park. Spencer gets out, passed again from Gargan's hands into those of Birdeater, a tank of a man who served primarily as Dexter's heavy. Scout however, hangs back, reaching to unzip her backpack where it sits in the legspace of the passenger seat.
"You're gonna be late, Scarlett."
"What's he gonna do?" Honestly? There was a lot that Dexter could do. Scout shrugs off Gargan's well-veiled concern regardless, pulling out an obnoxiously green gift bag and offering it to the other. "I got you something."
"And how did you do that?" Gargan asks, hesitating before a gloved hand reaches to take the bag. He peers inside, then chuckles. "Aw, you shouldn't have."
Scout doesn't answer his question right away. "I just wanted to welcome you back. That's your favourite, right?"
"Yes ma'am." Gargan removes his present from the bag, and holds it up to the fading light. The evening pours through the bottle, colouring it purple like a liquid bruise. "The Kurayoshi—"
"—18 years old pure malt whiskey," Scout finishes the sentence for him. "I got the new guy to buy it for me. Cellar, they call him. He's in procurement."
"Ironic name. Don't worry, I won't snitch on you." Gargan turns the bottle in his hands. "Huh. Y'know, your father got me into this stuff."
Scout knows this already—like her mother, like herself, the Kurayoshi is one of the many things her father imported from Japan and kept for himself in the States. Still, she nods. "I figured. But maybe save it for yourself, yeah?"
"Yes ma'am." Gargan repeats, then puts the bottle back in the bag, then reaches to stow it carefully in the pocket on the back of his seat. "You better get going."
Scout nods again. "I'm gonna leave my bag in here."
"Be my guest."
Scout is halfway out the car when Gargan reaches for her—stopping just short of contact. He knows Scout, knows her boundaries. "Hey, Little Red?"
He's the only person in the world she lets call her that. Scout stops, turning back to look at him. "Yeah?"
"Thank you."
She was still for a second, then smiled again. "No problem, old man. It's good to have you back."
"It's good to be back." Gargan smiles too, the sight so rare to Scout that it's almost unsettling. Then, she leaves the car, closes the door, and steps up onto the curb. Gargan continues down the street.
Dusk has come and gone; there is no bruising now, just black. Even in New York, the so-called city that never sleeps, full of lights and full of life, Scout feels alone. She is the girl in the story, the girl in the stomach, the girl in the red hood swallowed by a darkness so deep you cannot even see the colour of her cape.
Birdeater comes out from the restaurant to collect Scout, waiting for her at the door. She stands on the curb for a few moments longer, listening to the city, to the sirens. Then, she returns to herself, and heads inside.
🕸 hello everyone 😃😃 i want to pretend it hasn't been over a year since i last updated this story but it has been and, first and foremost, i deeply apologise. this story got way more hype than i thought it would (thank you all so, so much--but 11k with only one published chapter is crazy 😭) and i had initially planned to wing it. but if you know me, you know i'm incapable of relinquishing control, so that, married with an emotionally paralysing 2022/2023, left me unable to continue this story.
🕸 but we're back, and we're going to *stay* back. i've planned everything out now and i'm really happy with it. these first few chapters are going to be mostly about scout, and her adjusting to the new mission (which she receives in the next chapter, stay tuned!) but peter is geared to appear very soon.
🕸 i have a lot to say about this chapter. mostly that for people who are familiar with the comics!version of mac gargan, i apologise because this will be a very mcu-ified, web-ified, bayports-ified portrayal of him. as said in the introduction, i am aware that mac's already appeared in the mcu, but i personally felt he was wasted (because the mcu hates spider-man, and hates me, apparently.) this version of him is more accurate to his comics origin, but also not, because it's also intertwined with spencer smythe / spider slayer, and of course my fictional criminal organisation, the web.
🕸 if the mcu can do random shit, so can i 🤣🤣
🕸️ if you remember spencer being a lot younger than scout in the prologue, you would be correct 🤓 but for the planning i've now done, i need the sisters to be closer in age. so i am gaslighting everyone. i have no idea what you're talking about.
🕸 you might have caught a few implications of darker, more triggering themes in this chapter, especially regarding scout and her father. this was purposeful, and something to explore in scout's character arc throughout unspun. this book *is* marked as mature, and although there will be no graphic depictions of child SA or SA in general, i still implore you to put your mental health first and proceed with caution if this is subject matter that might affect you.
🕸 if you are interested in spencer's story, an au called american animals is also available to read on my profile. scout is featured in this story too. the characterisations differ of course because they're set in different universes, but i'm sure you'll recognise core aspects of both sato / dewitt sisters!
🕸 this chapter is dedicated to two amazing people. neplutos, the amazing amaya who has been so supportive of me ever since unspun's inception, who stans scout dewitt almost as much as i do, and who has created these gorgeous graphics for the story:
🕸 she absolutely ate this and i feel so honoured to be the recipient of such beautiful graphics. thank you, amaya!
🕸 this chapter is also dedicated to soulofstaars, aka julia, one of my best friends on this site who has (lovingly) pushed and encouraged me to continue writing unspun these past few months, as well as my other projects. julia's kindness knows no bounds, and she was also lovely to make the following (BREATHTAKING!) gifs for this story:
🕸 these graphics are all in unspun's graphic gallery too, if you'd like to take a look at them and the other beautiful pieces my friends have made!
🕸 i also want to thank everyone for still sticking with this book despite the lack of updates. i will be more consistent, i promise. and i have lots in store for you.
🕸 for many people, the most accessible way to consume the mcu and other marvel / disney media is through disney+. i urge you to find other ways to watch these movies and tv shows (🏴☠️), and stop supporting disney for its connection to the idf and "israel". boycotting is literally the least you can do, especially when it comes to a colonial power who is committing a genocide as we speak. it's such a privilege to be on this app, to have the time to write and create content while innocent palestinian men, women and children are being murdered and removed from their rightful land. i recommend you do your own research and educate yourself, but i also have resources in my carrd (see my bio); starting points for learning what's happening as well as places to donate. i will also link through in-line comments some other wattpad users who have useful information on their message boards and accounts.
🕸 thank you so much for reading. take care.
GRAPHIC BY SOULOFSTAARS 🫂