Benjamin Davis Petersen

Blackweb

24

Male, He/Him

Straight

Recently Single

Gifted

Originally classed as Delta, recently upgraded to Beta

Independent

At 6'2" and 180 pounds, Ben has a healthy and athletic build. He tends to dress rather plainly most of the time, no high-fashion brands and no especially striking fashion sense. Give him a plain colored tee and a pair of jeans that fit well, and he'll blend into almost any crowd.

He can appear nervous or fidgety, constantly looking around his environment as if he expects something to happen at any given time. When he does manage to focus, his eye contact can be somewhat disturbing to those who aren't used to his behaviors. He tends to slouch slightly, but when he's on the move he looks straight ahead at his destination and walks with a long, rapid gait.

But this changes when he puts on the mask.

When doing "his civic duty," as he calls it, Ben dons a sleeveless gray, tech-wear style hoodie with a fishmouth collar; a pair of urban camo-patterned cargo shorts, and solid black basketball sneakers. He also puts on a 3D printed mask, designed with free cosplay tutorials from the internet. It bears a striking resemblance to Japanese style Tokusatsu heroes, with a spider theme---two huge eyes dominate the faceplate while six smaller ones form a pattern across the sides and forehead, and the spider's fangs frame the bottom half of his face, which is hidden by a sliding cover.

When he's "in uniform," Ben moves with freedom, grace, and daredevil confidence. Letting out a loud whoop as he sails between rooftops, he presents a striking contrast to his everyday life.

Ben sees events that happen around him through a lens of self-responsibility. If something terrible happens around him, his only choice is to do everything in his power to help. Having the abilities that he does, to him, means that he has more means to help others than normal people would---and thus he is obligated to do more than normal people can. As a result, he pushes back his own resentments and tries to suppress or hide all of his own problems. Rather than ask "why me, universe?" he instead tries to ask, "Why not me? Better me than them." whenever misfortune strikes.

As a result, he has a tendency to overwork himself and try to take on too many burdens at once. He is pulled taut in too many directions, and sometimes it seems like the only way he'd be satisfied with his life is by throwing it away for the sake of someone else. He doesn't open up to most people, and sometimes his insistence on "helping" can come across as unnecessary coddling, or a subtle backhanded put-down towards those who "can't do what he can." In a strange, self-contradictory way, his meek, other-serving nature comes from being convinced that he is held to higher expectations than others as a Gifted.

Vellus hair is short, thin, light-colored, and barely noticeable hair that develops on most of a human’s body during childhood. However, Ben's vellus follicles instead work like miniature spinnerets all over his body to produce a black, supernaturally resilient and strong webbing. Ben has learned how to quickly braid or otherwise shape these webs, and how to "fire" them from his body, in order to produce a number of grapple lines, woven nets, and even "braces" tied around his body for protection.

• Web Types - Ben has learned how to produce webs with different qualities, though these sometimes depend on his diet and tend to run out faster than the "default."
  • Default Web - Proportionally the same as spider silk produced at the thickness of human hair, meaning that it is roughly 20 times stronger, more elastic, etc. Depending on how it's woven together it could even surpass that. It's safe to his webs would be capable of supporting many thousands of pounds...so long as whatever they were anchored to could also hold that much weight. Certainly not Ben's shoulder sockets.
  • Adhesive Web - Web produced in a liquid, glue like form. Ben can use this web in small globs at a time, allowing him to stick to surfaces, or coat another web type in order to catch targets like flies. However, this web can't be sprayed as far as other types, and rapidly dries to the point of peeling and flaking off once exposed to the air.
  • Elastic Web - Webs that have much less tensile strength (as in, they can be cut more easily) in exchange for stretching a great deal more and still popping back to their original shape/size. Ben uses these to launch himself like a slingshot, or quickly weave a net that can catch a thrown object and return it to sender with a little extra. This web can shoot the furthest, but it doesn't make for a good grapple line/swing line because applying force to it just causes it to stretch more.
  • Contracting Web - Webs that start off soft and fluffy like cotton string, but rapidly shrink down to something more like hard rubber, losing well over half their length in the process. The reaction seems sort of similar to muscle fiber contractions, triggered by the moment the web is "cut off" from the spinneret pore and its cells start to "die." As a result, Ben can shoot this web to an anchor point and then allow the contraction to "pull" him like a motorized grapple-gun. Once contracted, however, the web looses all elasticity and rapidly dries out, meaning it's essentially single use per shot.
  • Coating Web - Another liquid type like the adhesive, but also a contracting type in a sense. Ben can spray large globs of this fluid at one time, though it doesn't go far and can't be woven into anything. Like sealing foam, this web rapidly hardens into a crusty shell. In liquid form it's like a thick, sludgy mud, but after hardening is more comparable to epoxy rather than concrete. Unlike his other webs, it's water soluble and gets soft again when wet.
  • Wire Web - A web that shoots a middling distance, not as long as the default or elastic but further than the fluids. However, this web has been hardened to the point it behaves like a steel wire. It can't stretch, and doesn't bend or twist very well (especially after being cut off from his body, like the contracting type) and also does not stick well without help from the adhesive. It is, however, very similar in behavior to piano wire. This makes it Ben's only webbing type that has a direct offensive use besides swinging his body around: homemade razorwire, garrotes, and more.
• Web Braces - Ben uses the webbing to wrap padding around his joints, and sometimes to even make a full vest over his torso or wrappings around his legs. By "holding himself together" in such a way, both protecting and reinforcing himself, he can deliver much harder strikes than a normal human without injury. It also acts like Kevlar, binding fast moving objects that would otherwise cut or pierce him. It's more "bullet resistant" than it is "bullet proof," but it's definitely better than nothing!
• Web Whips - Aside from just flinging himself at people or throwing objects around, Ben's gotten pretty good at manipulating the midphalangeal webs of his hands into thicker braids that can be used like whips. Up to four whips---one for each finger, excluding the thumbs---can be created with each hand, and he manipulates them with a level of dexterity that would make a puppeteer jealous. Their knotted lengths inflict damage much like a flog.

"These were already antiques when I was a kid, sonny. They don't even make 'em no more...Although I guess now they'd be too boring, compared to reality, huh?"

Ben's grandfather was a Delta-level Gifted who managed to pass as a normal human being. But for family friends and neighbors, he was always willing to put his powers to work to make their lives easier. When young Ben asked why he was like this, compared to all the other Gifted who seemed to always be cowering or fighting for their lives, his grandfather took him up to the attic and showed him an old chest full of colorful papers and books. Some of them were literally a hundred years old or more---a collection that must've spanned most of his grandfather's life.

The man spent hours telling his grandson about those comics, and what the stories and characters were supposed to mean. What they were supposed to represent. Not government sponsored test-tube babies (although there was plenty of that in the plotlines). Not environmental eco-warriors (although there were a few authors that made the characters get plenty preachy). And definitely not any new, superior species of humanity (only the villains took that point of view). Ben began to see his grandfather as a real-life superhero.

Unfortunately, when Ben's own powers began to manifest, his parents acted as if they blamed his grandfather for it. As if the same genes weren't in them too. The family grew distant, and Ben became resentful of having to hide his own powers when there were so many opportunities to help people in need. His parents became more strict and controlling, limiting the boy until it almost seemed like he was permanently grounded. Of course, they had reason to fear---any night he was out alone by himself was a night he risked running into the Hunters---but for some reason they felt the only way they could get their points across was to have shouting matches in the living room. Ben eventually settled for just being extraordinarily helpful, polite, and kind to everyone he could, to try and make the world a better place one small step at a time...even if he could've done more, was it really worth the risks his parents were always talking about?

His grandfather got older. The man's health got worse. Ben's own life had gotten busy---he had to keep his powers a secret while going to school, trying to get a job, all that good stuff---and he wasn't able to visit the old man as much as he wanted to. One night, his grandfather called him, in a weak, shaky voice, to tell him that he wasn't doing very well. That he thought the end was near. Ben looked out the window at the city's twinkling night time skyline, and could already hear the verbal reaming he'd get from his parents if he went out, even though by this point he had his own car.

He told his grandfather that he would visit first thing in the morning, and that he loved him. They never got to speak to each other again.

Sitting at the old man's graveside, Ben listened to the hushed whispers of those who had known his grandfather as a younger man. How he'd used his powers to help wherever and whoever he could, regardless of the dangers of being exposed. Regardless of the prejudice normal humans had toward the Gifted. Regardless of the fact that his powers weren't, really, all that "powerful" to begin with.

Ben decided he would no longer let his life be ruled by fear. No more curfews. To hell with hiding his powers. If he could've been brave enough to run out and help anyone else, no questions asked, no reward necessary...then maybe he would've been brave enough to break curfew and go see an old man who was dying all alone.

Hunters and Rebels alike started to receive reports of a semi-costumed Gifted in the city. The individual seemed to show up at petty convenience store robberies, or at the site of car wrecks, and even occasionally at the scene of a Gifted-involved crime. People started calling him "Blackweb" because of all the...well, weird black webs he left dangling around. No one could figure out who he was with. What side he was on. Or who he was. Why he was doing these things.

Ben wasn't sure he needed a reason, anymore. He just felt that he had...a responsibility.

Both Parents still living, both Gifted Carriers. One sister, aged 18, non-gifted. One paternal uncle, also Delta level Gifted, supposedly living in hiding---hasn't been seen in years, no contact with the family.

Ben's last relationship was actually quite positive by all accounts. However, once he made the decision to become a vigilante, he used his grandfather's death as a plausible cause of a "severe mental breakdown" in order to make his girlfriend believe that was the reason for their breakup. She didn't know he was a Gifted, and thus he saw her not only as an innocent bystander that he didn't want to be involved with his new lifestyle, but also as a potential risk. He still doesn't know, to this day, whether she would've turned him in to the Hunters if he revealed himself. The accumulated guilt of all this weighs heavily on him even though he enjoys his newfound freedom far more than he did his old, comfortable life.