Woven in Scarlet
Chapter 1: Friendly Neighborhood Nobody
Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Spider!Reader
Summary: She fought battles that shaped the world, yet no one remembers her face or her name. From the shadows of skyscrapers, Y/N watches a city that thrives without her, a ghost in the streets she once called home. Every victory, every life saved, is hers alone, and the silence of being forgotten is deafening.
A/N: Fem!Spider!Reader.
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The city didn’t feel like home anymore.
New York had always been loud, dirty, and alive. A comfort in the way chaos could sometimes cradle you. Now it was just noise. Car horns. Sirens. People brush past without a glance. All of them breathing, talking, living in a world that had forgotten you.
The late-night rush hour hummed below you, cabs cutting off delivery vans, a guy on a bike yelling at a bus, neon bleeding against rain-slick streets. The city was still breathing, still alive, still utterly indifferent to the girl sitting thirty stories up with her knees tucked to her chest and a mask pushed halfway up her face.
Your fingers absentmindedly touched at the ring still looped on the chain under your suit, pressed cold against your sternum like a secret you couldn’t let go of.
You’d stopped talking out loud to it months ago. Stopped whispering promises into the night. The city didn’t answer anyway.
Every thread that had once tied you to the people who mattered was cut clean. Not frayed. Not burned. Just gone.
A police scanner chirped in your ear… a hold-up, three blocks over, armed, quick in and out. Easy. Your body moved before you even decided to; instinct firing faster than thought, muscle memory carrying you into motion like a spring finally released. You vaulted off the ledge, weightless for half a breath before gravity clawed you down. Then—thwip—a line shot from your wrist, the tension catching with a jolt in your shoulders that was both sharp and reassuring. The city tilted beneath you, skyscraper windows blurring into streaks of yellow and blue as you arced forward. Wind tore at your face, cool and biting, tunneling past your ears like a freight train, and if not for the mask, it would have stung your eyes, pulled tears free and left them streaking back across your cheeks. The pull of each swing yanked at your ribs, your hips, every joint humming with controlled momentum. Webbing latched onto steel and glass, anchors that flexed and held as you let go, kicked forward, and launched again, carving through the air with a precision only years of repetition could make effortless. Webbing latched itself onto steel and glass as your body glided through the night sky.
You hit the pavement in the middle of the street just as the gunmen came bursting out of the bodega. They froze; not because they didn’t know who you were, but because they did.
“Aw, hell,” one muttered, already dropping the duffel bag.
Spider-Girl.
Not the friendly neighborhood kid. Not the rookie. You’d been doing this for years, long enough that the cops gave you a wide berth, long enough that the tabloids had stopped asking if you were dangerous and settled on probably, but useful.
The responding officers didn’t even draw on you when you webbed the men to a streetlight. One of them, a young guy with a nervous jaw, gave you a stiff nod.
“Thanks for the assist,” he said, like the words cost him something.
You returned the nod and disappeared before he could finish saying your name, or what counted for your name now. Not that it mattered. No one ever asked who you were anymore. They’d all stopped remembering a long time ago.
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Your apartment greeted you with the same cold silence it always did.
Fourth floor. Cracked plaster. A kitchen too small to cook in, a window that rattled when the wind pushed too hard against it. No photos. No keepsakes. Nothing that could give you away. Everything that had once been you, every picture, every file, every faint trace of your life, had been erased. Doctor Strange’s spell hadn’t just made you invisible to the world; it had scrubbed every reminder that you had ever existed.
You peeled the suit off piece by piece, the fabric sticking where sweat had cooled against your skin, and tossed it over the back of the only chair you owned.
Even your old suits refused to recognize you now, patterns, functions, memories locked behind the persona you used to be. You’d had no choice but to start over, crafting new suits from scratch, stitch by stitch, as if sewing yourself back into the world one web line at a time.
A bruise bloomed across your thigh, deep purple, already aching, but you didn’t bother with ice.
You made coffee instead. Midnight, bitter, black.
The ring clinked against the mug when you wrapped your hands around it, chain slipping loose, catching the dim light from the street. One of the only pieces of your old life you were somehow able to keep. You stared at it like it might do something, glow, hum, vibrate, remember.
It didn’t.
You sat on the edge of the bed, coffee cooling untouched in your hands, and tried not to think about the way it had once been different. The way the world had known your face, your laugh, the sound of your voice. The way she had.
Wanda.
You pressed your palms to your eyes, hard, until stars burst behind them. You weren’t going to cry. Not again. Not tonight.
Another chirp from the scanner cut through the quiet. Midtown. Large-scale event. Enhanced combatants confirmed. Avengers-level threat.
There was a time when you would have been one of the first people called to join. Back when the Avengers knew who you were. Back when Tony was alive.
Now you were just a vigilante that happened to be in the right place at the right time. The Avengers, or what was left of them, wouldn’t turn down your help but they certainly wouldn’t request it.
They remembered Spider-Girl vanishing with half the universe, only to reappear on that battlefield in Wakanda like no time had passed at all. You’d swung into the chaos, no questions asked, fighting beside legends, bleeding for a world you barely had time to recognize again. They remembered how fast you moved, how hard you hit, how you didn’t hesitate even though you’d just lost five years of your life. But they didn’t remember why you fought like that, the people who mattered, the promises you were trying to keep. To them, you were a weapon that showed up when needed, then faded back into the crowd.
You stared at the device a long time before moving.
The logical thing would be to ignore it. Stay small. Stay safe.
But you were never very good at logic when people were in danger.
By the time you zipped the suit back up, the coffee had gone cold and the city had started screaming.
But the scanner chirped again, and duty, or maybe just habit, pulled you back to your feet.
You hit the streets a minute later, swinging fast, high, clean, a red-and-blue ghost heading straight for a warzone no one knew you’d fought a hundred times before.
The closer you got to Midtown, the louder it became. Panic had a sound. It wasn’t just sirens and screaming; it was the city’s heartbeat going erratic, skipping in all the wrong places. Smoke crawled between skyscrapers, car alarms bellowed, civilians scattered.
You swung down hard onto a traffic light, crouching against the glow. Below, the street was torn apart. An armored SHIELD convoy lay in ruins, metal curled back like paper, agents scrambling for cover behind flipped trucks. A massive enhanced brute, ten feet tall and glowing faintly blue through cracked, stone-like skin, swung what was left of a sedan like a bat.
Arrows whistled from a rooftop. Kate Bishop, still moving like Clint had trained her, clean, precise, efficient. You hadn’t seen her in months, not since the quiet reshuffling of what was left of the team. Back then she’d been green but hungry, desperate to prove herself after Clint introduced her to the Avengers. Now she moved like she’d been fighting in the big leagues a while.
Then another voice cut through the chaos, sharp, Russian, annoyed.
“Move your asses, amateurs!”
Your stomach dropped.
Yelena.
She vaulted off a nearby fire escape like she’d done this a thousand times, twin batons sparking at the tips. She struck the brute’s side, electricity cracking across its ribs. It staggered.
Your throat closed. For a heartbeat, the whole world folded in on itself. Not because she was here, but because of who wasn’t.
Natasha should have been here.
Yelena’s hair whipped over her shoulder as she turned, barking orders at SHIELD agents like she owned the street. It was the same fire, the same controlled chaos, the same refusal to die quietly that Natasha had carried into every fight.
And it hurt.
Not the bruise blooming across your thigh. Not the crack in your ribs from the last hit you took two nights ago. This was different. This was the sharp, breathless kind of pain that lived behind the sternum, the kind that whispered that no matter how close you stood, she wouldn’t know who you were.
You webbed the brute’s wrist mid-swing, yanking it off balance, driving a kick into its jaw hard enough to rattle your teeth.
“Acid head!” Kate shouted from above, losing an explosive arrow. “Go for the cracks!”
Yelena dove low, batons striking the glowing fissures at its knees while you vaulted over its back, webbing both arms to opposite street poles and pulling with everything you had until something deep inside it gave with a wet, horrible snap.
It roared and went down hard, shaking the pavement. SHIELD operatives surged forward to restrain it, cuffing, triaging, shouting orders.
Kate lowered her bow and exhaled, glancing your way. “Nice timing, Spider-Girl.”
Yelena barely looked up as she wiped blood from her cheek. “For once.”
Then Kate hesitated, just for a second, eyes narrowing as she slid the bow over her shoulder. “Haven’t seen you in a while,” she said, casually, like it was just an observation. “Where’ve you been hiding?”
The kind of question that didn’t sound like a question.
You froze. You could feel the words at the back of your throat, clawing to get out, the truth like a dam about to break. But you only shrugged, light, nothing behind it, a lie that felt like sand in your mouth.
“Here and there,” you managed.
Kate nodded once, already turning away, already scanning the rooftops for her next move. “Well… glad you showed.”
And that was it.
No spark of memory. No flicker of recognition. Just another teammate on another chaotic night.
You didn’t stay to listen to the chatter, or the report, or the thank-yous that would never come.
You fired a webline and left before anyone could say anything else, lungs burning, hands shaking, heart cracking all over again.
Not from the fight.
From standing that close to Natasha’s sister, knowing everything you wanted to say would mean nothing.
Later that night, the television flickered in your small apartment, anchors recapping the Midtown chaos: traffic snarled, SHIELD agents scrambling, a towering blue-skinned brute brought down by a swift red-and-blue figure.
Spider-Girl.
You winced as you adjusted the ice over your abdomen.
The clips played over and over. The reporters never mentioned her civilian identity, and no one remembered Mysterio exposing it, just that Spider-Girl had stopped him. No one saw you in those reports. No one connected the victories, the narrow escapes, the countless times you’d saved the day.
You leaned back in your chair, sipping lukewarm coffee, letting the footage run. The city was alive and moving forward, but you weren’t part of its memory anymore. Not in any tangible way.
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The morning stretched slowly. You ate your cereal in silence, listening to the faint rumble of the city through the cracked window. You stirred the spoon around the bowl absentmindedly, eyes tracing the cracks in the wall, thinking about how long it had been since anyone had called your name.
Your studio was small, dim, and mostly empty, just enough space for a bed, a chair, and a half-packed box of instant noodles. No photos, no keepsakes, no reminders that you had ever belonged anywhere.
You grabbed your coat, slipped your mask into your pocket, and walked to the corner grocery store. It was easy to hide your suit underneath your winter clothes, making sure to keep the sleeves pulled up just enough to not peek through the arms of your sweater. The aisles smelled faintly of mildew and plastic.
A kid knocked over a display of soda cans as you passed. Reflexively, you caught a few before they could roll onto the floor. “Careful,” you said quietly. The kid mumbled thanks and ran off, leaving you alone again in the echoing aisles.
You grabbed a few packs of ramen, some bread, and a carton of milk. The cashier gave you a polite nod, but no smile, no recognition, no connection. You weren’t a person here, just another face in the crowd, a shadow moving along with the hum of a city that didn’t need you.
You paid with crumpled bills and carried your small bag back to the apartment, listening to your own footsteps on the cracked pavement. The building was quiet, empty, and waiting for you to fill it with your presence, but you knew it wouldn’t. You were alone. Always alone. No family, no friends, no one left who remembered your laugh, your voice, or even the battles you had fought.
Back in the apartment, you made a small pot of noodles and ate slowly, listening to the loud voices of your neighbors arguing. Sirens wailed in the distance, cars honked, the hum of life went on. And you sat there, invisible, unnoticed, a lone figure in the shadows of the city that had moved on without you.
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