Chapter Text
Gwen wouldn’t consider Miles a friend, if she had to be honest. Not in this universe or in any other. He proposed the idea of being friends, but Gwen didn’t even really respond. She just said she had to go and went back to her own universe.
The only regret she had was not wording it better. She should’ve just said that she wasn’t ready to have friends yet, or that she knew she could never see him again, but no. She ended it by saying: “I have to go now.”
She kinda felt bad for not giving a reasonable explanation, but she got over it. She was able to move on. And then she joined the spider-society. Miguel sent her on a mission on Earth-1610, which was Miles’ dimension.
Easy, Gwen thought. Catch the anomaly and then you’re done, it was easier said than done. She didn’t know why, but a small part of her was curious on how Miles was doing. She didn’t really care about him, he wasn’t even her friend, yet she had a slight bit of curiosity on how he was doing at the moment. It has been more than a year since she saw him, surely things have changed.
When she first saw him, he had only been Spider-Man for a few days. He must have improved quite a bit by now. Gwen was quick to push those thoughts away though, she was here on a mission. It would be like the last time she got stuck here, try to avoid distractions and focus on the main issue at hand.
Plus, she had to avoid getting too close to Miles. A certain fate would be waiting for her if she did.
So Gwen was on her way to find the anomaly, swinging gracefully across 1610’s Brooklyn. It always felt so natural to swing around New York, no matter what dimension it was. Nothing would stop her flow. At least, that’s what she thought.
Gwen swung by an apartment when her spider-sense went off. She didn’t wanna let herself get distracted, but her spider-senses wouldn’t stop. Maybe a minute or two of letting her spider-senses lead the way wouldn’t hurt, right? She went onto the fire escape of a building she looked through the window from afar, her senses went off again.
For fuck’s sake, she thought. It was Miles, and his spider-sense gave away that she was here. Of course he would try to strike up a conversation, of course he would have questions, and of course she couldn’t explain any of it because then Miles would wanna be a part of the society, which Miguel won’t allow.
Gwen tried to swing away, make it look like she was never here. But Miles had already spoken. “Wait, Gwen?” She really didn’t have much of a choice now. She wasn’t that rude that she would just ignore him and swing off. So instead of going back to her mission, she swung towards the window of what she assumed was Miles’ room. She didn’t take off her mask, she just sat on the windowsill and waited for Miles to say something.
Both didn’t speak, she should’ve just swung off. That would’ve been less awkward (but probably a lot more rude). “What are you doing here?” Miles asked, breaking the long, awkward silence between the two. Gwen decided to make it clear that she wasn’t here to see him, she had somewhere to be. “I’m on a mission.”
“For who?”
God, he had a lot of questions, but of course he would, she thought. “Miguel O’hara, he leads a society full of spider-people that are trying to keep the multiverse from collapsing.” Gwen was being straight-forward with this. “Look, I really shouldn’t–”
“Wait, wait, wait, you can travel the multiverse now?”
“It’s not like I’m allowed to go anywhere I want to.” That came out pretty harsh, Gwen doesn’t know if she regrets her use of tone or not. She took off her mask, revealing the fact that her hair had grown out again after Miles ripped half of it out, the tips were dyed a light shade of pink too.
Gwen saw that Miles noticed her hair. Growing out her hair wasn’t just because she wanted to move on from Miles, it was also because it brought back memories of home. She wanted to completely forget everything about her home dimension.
“How have the others been?”
“Alright, I guess. I don’t see them often.” Gwen knew she couldn’t keep talking to Miles, she had to stay focussed. “Do you think I can be part of the society? I really wanna see the others.”
It’s not easy to explain why Miles isn’t allowed to be a part of the society. He is apparently an anomaly –which Gwen really didn’t get, how was Miles supposed to know that spider wasn’t supposed to bite him?– so Miguel didn’t want anyone doing anything with Miles.
“Miles, look, it’s a really small elite strike force.” Lies, just lies. Gwen Stacy always lies.
“I can turn invisible.”
“There’s just–” She felt bad, he seemed quite desperate.
“I have like electric powers–”
“There aren’t a lot of slots.” Gwen cut him off, her tone suggesting that she wants to stop talking about this. “I really have to go, I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m grounded anyway.” Gwen doesn’t reply, she just turns around, ready to leave (and never come back). She just wants this mission to be over. She had one more thing left to say though.
“I’m sorry for not saying it clearly before, but I don’t think I can have new friends yet. You and I were just on a mission to get me and the others together. We’re allies, not friends.”
She’s lying, again, she has made new friends.
Gwen noticed the slight hurt look in his eyes, but it confuses her a bit. They weren’t close at all, why was he hurt? She should leave now before she makes things worse. She slipped her mask back on before shooting a web and swinging away, leaving Miles behind again.
Eventually, she was led to a place that wasn’t in the best shape. Random holes in the walls, all kinds of stuff scattered across the room. Shoot, she was too late in catching this villian. Gwen observed the place for a bit, it was obvious she was too late.
Shoot..
“Show me what happened.” She told her watch, and so she saw what happened. The Spot creating a mini-collider, him trying to make himself more powerful, him then getting absorbed by some kind of dark matter and ending up causing an explosion.
“Fuck..” Gwen mumbled to herself. She tried to think of ways to fix this before Miguel or Jess–
“Gwen, hi.”
Oh for God's sake..
“What are you doing?” Jess’ hologram asked. How was Gwen supposed to explain this mess she got in? Hey, my fucking spider-sense led me to someone and I just got a bit distracted, my bad!
Yeah, it sounded like a bad excuse.
“Nothing, I’m good! Everything’s good. Eh.. bye!” But Gwen would obviously need to come clean about this soon. She was distracted, she failed at her job. Nothing good comes out of being Spider-Woman, she thought to herself.
“Where’s the bad guy you were supposed to monitor?”
“He just stepped out for a moment.” Horrible excuse.
“Dude!” Gwen can feel the disappointment Jess had in her, and Gwen couldn’t blame her. She did say she would make it through this mission without any problems, yet she failed at that. “He’s just some villain of the week–” Gwen should’ve just kept her mouth shut and faced the consequences of her actions. Gwen was already fearing the worst for what will happen now. Will she get sent home now? She might accept the consequences, but that doesn’t mean she is still fearing for the worst.
“Did you go see your little friend?”
“Friend? Jess, you know he’s not my friend. I don’t see him as a friend, I don’t see him as anything!” If only Gwen knew Miles had heard that. “Doesn’t matter. Did you see him or not?” Gwen couldn’t lie, she did see him. While it wasn’t exactly by choice and her spider-senses were at fault, she did go see him. “Yes, but only because–”
“Are you kidding me, Gwen?” Jess said, her frustration clear in her voice. Gwen knew she was in trouble, she really didn’t have a good excuse too. “I’m sorry.” Gwen spoke, looking down. But what Lyla said caused her head to shoot straight back up.
“Guys, he’s making his own portals.”
If Gwen wasn’t in trouble before, she was definitely in trouble now. When Jess asked her what Spot’s plan is, she said she doesn’t know. Because she truly doesn’t know what his intentions are. This isn’t going well at all.
“Amazing. My star pupil, everyone.” Gwen felt so disappointed in herself, she didn't try to look at Jess. She looks down at the ground, staring at the teal ballet shoes she always wears when she’s in suit. After a bit, Lyla managed to track Spot down.
Gwen has one hour to fix everything, she won’t allow herself to get distracted this time. But of course as soon as she was in Earth-50101 and about to punch the anomaly..
“What was that all about?” Gwen jumped at the sound of Miles’ voice. Did he follow her? There was no time to think about that because Spot opened a portal which she fell through and she was falling.
Miles caught her though, she couldn’t lie and say she wasn’t grateful he saved her.
“God damnit, Miles!” Gwen yelled out. “You don’t get to just follow me and then spy on a conversation with my mentor.”
“You have a mentor now too? You could’ve mentioned that.”
“Do I have to remind you that we aren’t friends? I don’t have to share everything about myself with you.”
“You don’t have to remind me, because you made it pretty clear to your mentor that you don’t wanna have anything to do with me.” Gwen sighed, she wasn’t in the mood for arguing right now. “Why are you even here? Weren’t you grounded or something?”
“Doesn’t matter right–” Miles glitches, which causes the web that was attached to Gwen to break. She was falling, again. She saw Miles was trying to catch her. The thought of her death didn’t even come to mind. Good thing for the both of them, the local spider here was able to catch them.
Obviously, Pavitr didn’t know who Miles was, so Gwen introduced him in a way that probably could’ve gone better. “Hey Pav, he’s Miles and he wasn’t invited.”
“You weren’t invited and you came anyway?” Did somebody understand her frustration at least a bit? “Right?”
“Hey, new guy must be in love with you.” Pavitr suddenly spoke up. Gwen immediately argued back and Miles did the same. She was glad Miles asked who Pavitr was so they could move on from this conversation. Why did everyone assume they were friends? Gwen has made it clear multiple times that her and Miles weren’t friends. She didn’t have much time to think about this anyway, she couldn’t get distracted again.
Well, their mission failed and now Miguel wanted to see her and Miles back at HQ. This conversation could never go well, seeing as Miles had broken a canon event. Miguel was pretty upset by this and then Miles was explained how canon events worked.
She had seen this before, but the main focus wasn’t exactly on the death of her father, it was focussed on her own death.
Miles obviously tried to fight back, not wanting his father to die. She had to be honest, she could understand where he was coming from, but for her it always felt a bit weird to care about her father. She shouldn’t care, but sometimes she does. That isn’t on her mind as much as her own death and trying to avoid getting sent home though.
Just like Gwen thought, this really didn’t go well. Miguel was trying his absolute best to catch Miles so he wouldn’t disrupt the canon, but he was failing a bit. Gwen didn’t know what to make of seeing Miles getting chased like this. Maybe they weren’t friends, but Gwen couldn’t stand here and watch this happen, Miles wasn’t even really in the wrong for wanting to save his dad. “Miguel, don’t!” She yelled.
But Miguel wouldn’t stop. He kept saying stuff about Miles being an anomaly, about how he shouldn’t have been Spider-Man. Gwen found this quite unreasonable, Miles couldn’t do anything about the fact he was bit, he didn’t exactly ask for this.
“No, you’re lying! I’m Spider-Man!”
“You’re a mistake!” That wasn’t true, but she doesn’t say it out loud. Gwen was already feeling like Miguel went a bit too far, but after seeing Miguel fucking slam Miles against the train, she felt like it has really gotten out of hand. “Miguel, this isn’t what we talked about!”
“You talked about this? You knew? You all knew?” Gwen can see how hurt he feels.
“I didn’t know how to tell you..” It wasn’t exactly a lie this time, but it still felt like one, both to Gwen and Miles. “Miles, it’s for your own good.”
“Who decides that? I’m not a kid, Gwen!” Gwen didn’t say anything anymore. “You could’ve told me, it’s not like you would hurt your friend by saying it!” Miles suddenly spoke up before Miguel shoved him into the metal again. Gwen let Miles’ words sink a little bit. Would it have really made a difference to just say ‘Hey, you could actually see your actual friends again, but you can’t because you have to be part of this society which only sees you as an anomaly!’
She doesn’t reply, she just lets the scene play out.
Gwen felt like this day couldn’t get worse, but it did. She was actually sent home, she had to face her dad again. She felt like she didn’t even do anything wrong. Miguel said that she was the reason he couldn’t catch Miles, that she had let him go.
She felt like she didn’t do that, she tried to avoid him when she was out on her mission. But her fucking spider-sense –the thing that has saved her life on multiple occasions– led her to him. She threw her mask on the ground along with her watch, which was useless since it had been deactivated.
Gwen wanted to scream, cry, but everything was stuck in her throat. Only a few tears from frustrations flowed down her face. She looked at the city of New York, her New York. All the colors blending together like paint on a canvas, it all made her more upset. She doesn’t wanna be here, she wants to be anywhere but here. She doesn’t wanna be home. She hates it here.
Instead of people seeing Spider-Woman as a hero, they see her as a murder. A girl who robbed the life of a teenage boy. Little did everyone –including her own father– know that it was his best friend, a teenage girl, who was responsible for his death.
She really hated this place, not even her room felt like a safe space to go to.
“So it really didn’t work out then, huh? Good thing I thought ahead.” Gwen looked behind her and saw Hobie. She didn’t say anything, she just went up to him and hugged him tightly. “I don’t wanna be here right now.”
“Didn’t I say I was thinking ahead?” Gwen pulled away from the hug and Hobie handed her a box. She quickly opened it and saw a watch, but not one of the spider-society’s watches. No, this one was made by someone, and it wasn’t too hard to guess who made it. “You made your own watch?”
“Sure did, knew there would be a day where we left that fucking hell of a society. Been working on this for a bit.”
“You’re an actual genius, you know right?” Gwen said, putting the watch on. “Alright, we have to go to Miles’ earth. He needs our help since Miguel is probably looking for him right now.” Gwen would usually be against the idea, but she can’t help the feeling that something is wrong.
To her, something felt off. Something told her that she should in fact go out and help Miles. She told him they were allies –well, that’s what she told Miles before he overheard her talking to Jess–, so she had to help him out.
“Look, I know you two aren’t friends, but put that aside for now.”
“I wasn’t gonna protest.”
And with that, the two headed to Earth-1610. But like Gwen had already thought back at her own dimension, something was wrong. She already had a gut feeling that Miles didn’t get away so easily, and that was true.
He was in the wrong universe.