Title: Stop Clicking Your Red Heels
Fandom: Ultimate Spiderman (Marvel Comics)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jessica Drew takes a shower and her first steps into her new life.
Remember that movie? The one where the guy dresses up like a girls so he can infiltrate some club, get the job, win the bet or whatever? There’s probably a dozen of them so take your pick, really. They all have the scene where he faceplants trying to walk in heels and that heartwarming moment where he realizes that maybe sexism is kinda bad. There’s usually some girl who’s willing to overlook all the lying and cross dressing enough to hook up with him after the big reveal. Good times, right? Comedy gold.
That is not Jessica’s life.
*****
Her first shower as Jessica Drew (as opposed to a gender-flipped Peter Parker knock-off) is at the Jamaica Armory woman’s shelter on 168th Street. She runs her soapy hands down her body, skimming across her breasts and down her flat stomach to tangle in her pubic hair. It’s not pervy. It’s her body and Peter touched his all the time. He marveled at his spider-given muscles and jerked-off to visions of Mary Jane. It’s not any different just cause she has lady parts.
She explores her folds. She’s intimately familiar with Peter’s body but doesn’t have the first clue about her own. Can girls even masturbate with just their fingers or do they need a vibrator or something? Jessica prods and strokes until she hits a spot that sends a zing straight through her whole body. Holy crap, was that her clit? Any chance of her finding that again?
“Come on, chica,” a woman complains from the other side of the shower curtain. “That’s your five minutes. Save some hot water for the rest of us.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Jessica hurriedly rinses off. She can’t believe she just did that. Even Flash Thompson isn’t dumb enough to jerk-off in the shower in the boys’ locker room.
Jessica dries off quickly in the little changing area, wincing as the towel snags on her various cuts. The Oz gave her an increased healing factor, but the morning after the big fight she’s still one giant bruise. Her Spider-woman outfit has seen better days too, but the shelter was kind enough to provide her with some donated clothes. The panties and jeans go on easily enough, but she can’t quite manage the bra. The boys playing spider-dolly dress-up back at the lab had given her a sports bra that went on over her head. This one has hooks and eyes in the back and a wire under the cup that digs into her boobs.
“What’s taking so long?” The woman demands impatiently as she shoves aside the privacy curtain. She is a pretty Hispanic woman in her late-30s with prematurely grey streaks in her dark hair. The irritation in her eyes softens to something like concern as her gaze surveys the landscape of bruises and gashes that cover Jessica’s body.
“I can’t get the bra.”
The woman sets her clothes and towel down on the little bench next to Jessica’s. “Turn around. I’ll get it.”
Jessica turns, sweeping the sopping mass of her hair out of the way, and lets the older woman do the clasp.
“He do this to you before?” The woman asks, touching the bruising on Jessica’s hip.
She thinks about all the times she (Peter) fought with Doc Oc, all the people he’s killed and how he always gets away with it. She bets he’s sitting in some FBI lab right now, coming up with new and horrible ways to ruin Peter’s life. The water from her hair drips a cold line right between her breast and she shivers hard. “I should have killed him.”
The woman turns Jessica back around, gripping her shoulders hard as she stares into her eyes. She has a scar that runs along her hairline and down the left side of her face. It’s not obvious, but it’s there. After a moment she nods like Jessica passed some test and lets go. “Okay, now get out of here so I can take my shower sometime today.”
Jessica throws on her shirt, grabs what’s left of her Spider-woman outfit and scrambles past the curtain into the rest of the room. The middle aged woman brushing her teeth looks up and quickly glaces away as Jessica starts wringing her hair off into an unoccupied sink. The back of her shirt is already soaked and she wishes she knew how to do that towel-turban thing girls always do in the movies. Maybe she should just cut it all off. She’s pretty sure she could pull off Aunt May’s pixie cut except then she’d look even more like Peter than she already does.
She sighs and tries to finger comb out the tangles. She needs a brush. She needs Aunt May. She needs MJ. While she’s wishing for the impossible, why not throw in her parents, Uncle Ben and a free ride to Columbia? Jessica grips the counter and takes a series of deep, steadying breaths. What she needs is to get real. This long, stupid hair isn’t some wig she can just pull off and step back into her regularly scheduled boy’s life. It was never her life. It was always Peter’s, always will be Peter’s.
What she needs is a comb, a toothbrush and a bra that doesn’t include a built-in torture device. Jessica Drew is a girl with no past, no family, no money and no place to live. What she has is a brain, some superpowers and a purpose. Jessica Drew is Spider-woman and today is the first day of the rest of her life. Best get cracking.