Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You love him, you do, and here’s the miracle:    

He loves you too. 

You are allowed to lick off the colour from his lips, to  listen to the hymns in his pulse, to  bask in the sunlight of his voice.

You are allowed to have him. 

You love each other, you do, and here’s the tragedy:

it’s not enough. 

You are allowed to watch the sun swallow him whole and burn him up, to  stain your fingers to the bone holding him together. To count the constellations in his eyes as they blink out.

You are not allowed to save him.

If Gwen thought about it - and she thought about a lot these days - she never really had a chance.

There’s a rhythm to the universe, from what Gwen can gather - an understanding that there’s a balance, that even in the midst of the nonsensical that there’s some greater purpose. For every action, a reaction. 

Gwen never really thought much about the afterlife, not when there was too much to focus on in what had been for her the now - not when there was an entire world to see and conquer, all her wildest hopes and dreams to fulfill. 

Now - if there really was such a thing as now - Gwen couldn’t help but wonder what her life’s purpose had actually been. Her life had been important while she was living it but now being beyond, Gwen couldn’t help but feel that for as meaningful and purpose-filled as living had been, that she had somehow found an even greater one in death. 

It felt wildly superficial to base her life around her relationship with a man, something that in life she - much less MJ - would have never stood for.

And she didn’t - not really - even if thinking of her life and it’s subsequent end led her to the unmistakable reality that had it not been for her death, that Peter and MJ might not have fallen in love in the first place.

It was weird in a sense, to think of it - her wild and vibrant life being demoted to a footnote in the life of any man, even for one as great as Peter Parker.

But then Gwen thinks, even from the beginning - there was something about him, falling in love with Peter being the first brave thing she had ever really done - dying for him being the last. 

Gwen didn’t regret her choices, didn’t even regret that her boyfriend and best friend found love with each other after she was gone.

In the scope of the universe, seeing only one side of the story - it seemed cruel, for her life and her story to be forever tied to someone else’s love. 

But Gwen knew better than anyone now - that living in the shadow of someone else only meant that the person that left had been larger than life itself, had lived so fiercely and loved so fully that there would never be another like them.

Peter loved MJ, she could see it - Gwen smiling as she watched the two of them.

But Peter had loved her first. Loved her in a different way, a love that felt - and had been - worth dying for. 

When she thought of it that way, the seeming inevitably of her life - and death - being tied to Peter Parker didn’t feel so bad after all. 

“Hey, are you Peter Parker?” 

Gwen watches as the boy in front of her raises his head, brown eyes blinking back at her in confusion as he nods his head, saying, “Yeah?”

Gwen puts a hand out, watching as he studies her for a second before tentatively reaching out his own hand, giving him a firm handshake before smiling.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Gwen.”

“Peter,” he says, smiling back before she lets go of his hand, Peter looking back at her with a curious expression on his face. “But you already knew that?”

Gwen nods, pushing some of her hair back before she says, “Dr. Connors said that you were the one who has the keys to lab 4C?”

Recognition floods his features, nodding his head so quickly that he almost looks like a bobble head, Gwen holding back a laugh as he moves his laptop away from his lap and pats his pockets down. 

“Oh right, right. Shit, where’d I keep them?” He says absentmindedly, Gwen actually snickering as she watches him.

“You do know that losing those keys is like a $100 fine right?” 

Peter winces, standing up when he realizes that the keys aren’t in his pocket, reaching for his backpack as he continues to nod. “Yeah, I know. I know, sorry. I’m sure I have them… somewhere.”

Gwen stands back as he looks, eyes immediately landing on the way his bicep flexes as he unzips his backpack - blinking a few times before shifting her focus back to Peter, only to see the flush of his cheeks as he pursed his lips, searching in vain for the lab keys.

She’d already overheard stories from orientation about the chaotic mess that was Peter Parker, the guy that was rumored to either be a hitman or an escort for as many times as he seemingly disappeared for classes, his jawline and his arms indicating that he had to have spent some time in the gym even if no one ever seemed to see him even being remotely close to the athletic center.

He was an enigma in one sense, never quite catching  a glimpse of him the first month of classes - wondering why they’d never crossed paths before considering they were supposed to be in the same major. 

Then again, Gwen thinks as Peter starts to get frustrated that he can’t find the keys where he’d expected them to be, unzipping yet another pocket in a seemingly never ending loop as pens and papers fell out, all the credits that she’d transferred over from MIT to ESU had given her a head start. 

Dr. Connors class was the only one that didn’t transfer, smirking at Peter with sympathy when she realized how stressed out he was becoming over her relatively simple request.

“It’s fine if you don’t have them, I’m a last minute addition to his his TAs and I just wanted to get a lay of the land before I start, you know.”

Peter glances up at that, twist of his lips changing into a small smile. “That’s awesome. Dr. Connors is really great, he doesn’t take on a lot of TAs so you must be really good.”

Gwen shrugs, hoping that she doesn’t carry over the same kind of arrogant reputation that she had back at MIT but also not wanting to diminish her accomplishments - something her father had always reminded her - before saying, “Good enough.”

Peter snorts at that, an undignified sound but seems to take the beat to consider her again, Gwen watching as his eyes travel up and down as her she narrows her eyes. 

Peter seems to catch himself, shaking his head and closing his eyes when he turns back to his backpack before saying, “Sorry, sorry for--”

“Checking me out?” Gwen counters, watching as he seems to turn an even brighter shade of red as seemingly finds the keys he was looking for, holding them in his hand with an embarrassed smile on his face.

“Yeah, sorry. I just-- you’re new here right?”

“Didn’t know being new meant open range on objectification.” Gwen teases, or at least tries to - realizing that she sounds a bit too serious from the way Peter’s face drops as he tries to correct himself.

“No, no, that’s not-- I didn’t mean it that way at all, I just--”

“Sorry,” Gwen feels embarrassed now, feeling socially awkward in a way she never has before as Peter stops, staring back at her with an apologetic expression on his face. “I was joking.”

“Oh.” Peter says, shoving a hand into his pocket and running a hand through his hair, Gwen watching as the already tangled mess of curls start to stand up slightly as he grins. “Um. Well there’s the keys.”

“Thanks.” Gwen replies, the awkwardness between them feeling so thick that she feels like she could cut it through with a knife, watching as Peter shifts in place for a bit before she comes back to herself, straightening her shoulders as she says, “You mind showing me where it is?”

Peter blinks at that. “Wait, you don’t know where the lab is?”

“No.” Lie. “I met with Dr. Connors in his office, it’s also why he told me to find you.” 

Peter looks back at her expectantly, Gwen putting on the same smile she’s used countless times before - the one that got her exactly what she wanted, a smile that set men at ease and made women want to be around her.

Gwen didn’t need Peter’s - or anyone’s - help, really. She was smart, capable - the girl who was always right and knew it.

But Gwen thought that if she has any chance of making friends at ESU, any small possibility in making sure that her experience here was different than it had been her entire life - she was going to take it.

Asking for help from a cute, mysterious enigma of a man like Peter Parker seemed like a good a chance as any to change up how she usually did things.

Peter smiles wider at that, almost flattered before he frowns, saying, “Wait, he told me about you?”

“Yeah,” Gwen lies easily, “I mean, in so many words. Carlos Rivera is actually the one who told me you had the keys and I hoped you’d be able to help out.”

Her eyes travel back to where his laptop was, seeing the open word doc on it before saying, “Unless you’re busy?”

Peter shakes his head, smiling as he scratched the back of his neck. “No, no not really. Just,” he gestures towards the laptop, “Trying to work ahead on a paper I got due.”

Gwen’s smile turns a little more genuine, always eager to find a kindred spirit when it comes to assignments. “What class?”

“Romanticism in English Lit.” Peter says, the look of exasperation that he has earlier coming back in full force. “It’s an elective and doing it seemed like a good idea at the time but now that MJ’s not even it…” he sighs, trailing off before shaking his head as he goes to  close the laptop. “It’s not a big deal.”

“MJ?” Gwen asks, raising an eyebrow as the smile on his face somehow grows even wider.

“Yeah, MJ. She’s my best friend, one of them at least.” He says, shoving his laptop in his backpack before zipping it up, swinging a strap over his shoulder as he changed the subject. “You transferred here right?”

Gwen nods, letting Peter lead the way as she falls in step beside him - heading in the direction that she knows the lab will be in. “Yeah, from MIT.”

“What made you transfer? If that’s not too personal.” Peter asks, the last sentence rushed and still apologetic - Gwen being able to tell from years of reading people that he still felt bad about so visibly checking her out.

It was interesting, Gwen thought - knowing she was pretty in the same way that she knew she was smart - to see a guy as objectively attractive as Peter Parker acting the way any other nerd guy she’s met in a science class.

The only conclusion she can come to is that Peter is either faking it, a ploy in the same way she gives or had some kind of Cinderella moment after growing up as an ugly duckling.

She hedges her bet on the latter as she says, “Not personal, just wanted a change. How do you like ESU?”

Peter smiles, tightening the grip on his backpack as he says, “It’s great. My dad went here so—“

“Legacy.” Gwen nods towards him, eyes drifting to the nice watch she had already noted, guessing now that even if he seemed to be wearing converse that were well past their expiration date that he had to be some kind of rich snob to have had seemingly as many absences as he did without being kicked out.

“Kinda, yeah.” Peter replies, his voice a little softer as he looks back to her. “What made you choose ESU?”

“What do you mean?” She asks, watching as a little line in the middle of Peter’s forehead starts to form as he thinks.

“You said you wanted a change but I mean, MIT… ESU…” He laughs, Gwen playfully rolling her eyes even if his words poked at something in her gut, wondering why it had taken this long for anyone to ask so specifically about her change.

It was uncomfortable, if only because of Peter’s open and honest expression - his eyes not quite studying her but seeing her in a way that Gwen wasn’t accustomed to, especially from people she just met. 

People tended to look at her as an object of affection or envy, Gwen quickly pushing away the emotions she’s entirely unused to feeling as she says, “MIT feels like a rat race half the time. A lot of stress when we’re all trying to make it in the end.”

Peter nods at that, Gwen being glad that her sense of intuition wasn’t completely off her game as she continues, “I know ESU’s public but it feels more like a family you know?”

She laughs, a light and airy sound that’s been perfect over years and years. “At least that’s what the brochure tells me.”

Peter smiles at her but there’s something in his eyes that Gwen doesn’t recognize, surprising her yet again when he asks, “So you were tired of being competitive?”

Gwen tilts her head as he swipes his ID card into the building, holding the door open for her when she replies, “What makes you think I was competitive?”

Peter laughs at that, following behind her as the door silently close - extending his hand out towards the empty, quiet hallway. 

“Just a guess.” He shrugs, Gwen watching him as they walk forward - his eyes shifting to where the lab was supposed to be when he says, “I don’t know anyone who would want to see the lab they’re gonna TA for after hours unless they’re competitive.”

He smiles like he said some private joke before glancing back at her, nodding his head in one direction. “Well, not many .” 

Gwen isn’t sure how to respond to that, feeling off her game in more ways than one when Peter finally stops - Gwen stopping mid-walk before looking to the door they’re in front of.

“This is it.” Peter says, fishing out the key and unlocking it, opening the door for her as she nods a thank you.

“You do that a lot.” She says, Peter looking confused until she says, “Open doors for people.” 

He smirks, turning the lights on to the lab - Gwen turning her attention towards it as the room lights up inch by inch. 

“It’s polite.” 

“It’s rare.” Gwen says, Peter smiling back at her.

“It shouldn’t be.”

It’s quiet between them for a second before Gwen shakes herself, putting on her tried and true smile and extending a hand out, Peter smiling back at her as she says, “Thanks for helping me out, Peter Parker”

Peter shrugs but his smile is genuine as he extends his own hand out, his hands warm and calloused.

“No problem, Gwen Stacy.” 

Gwen smiles before her mouth drops, Peter’s smile somehow growing wider as she snatches her hand back.

“You knew who I was?”

Peter shrugs again, the twinkle of something mischievous in his eye as he says, “Hard not to know about the MIT-whiz kid who transferred over to ESU in a department as small as ours.”

Gwen feels dumbfounded for the seemingly hundredth time today before Peter pushes the door open a little more, nodding towards the lab. 

“Let me know if you need anything. Connors is great but a little absentminded.”

“Thanks. I will.” Gwen replies, the words feeling almost like a question as Peter just grins. 

“See you around, Gwen Stacy.” 

With that, Peter leaves - the door shutting behind him as Gwen watches him turn back the way they came from the window, blinking a few times before she shakes herself again. 

She turns and faces the lab - an uncomfortable feeling, something she can’t put a name to stirring in her gut as she looks around. 

Peter Parker had clearly known who she was when she walked up but had pretended he hadn’t - though running through the interaction now, that wasn’t completely true.

Yet there was something… off about him, something that she couldn’t quite make sense of - remembering when Peter had looked at her and how it felt in a very dumb way like he was actually seeing her. 

Gwen shakes herself once more, straightening her shoulders and taking a deep breath - deciding on something with the exhale. 

She’d already decided that she was leaving behind her go-getter persona back in Boston, committed to excelling in what she did at ESU but doing it in a way that made her more friends than enemies. 

Peter Parker seemed interesting but Gwen also knew that boys were just a distraction from the things that mattered most. 

Her life. Her future career. All her goals and dreams.

Gwen smiled as her eyes took in the lab, feeling content in the way she only did when was in the midst of a laboratory. 

ESU was going to be a fresh start. 

Gwen was looking forward to living it. 

Chapter Text

Darling, what can I say?  

I loved you. I did. 

With every beat of this bloodsoaked heart, 

With every breath of these hollowed lungs, 

With every step of these burdened bones, 

I loved you. I did.    

But darling, what can I say? 

I loved you first,  

but perhaps she loved you better--      

deeper, purer, sweeter, softer. 

And you loved me      

and you loved her and we all prayed to everything in the sky      

for a forgiving end      

for a tender conclusion.    

But darling, what can I say?   

The Sky is just a bruised heart full of sighing breaths and clouded memories 

and the Sun only has eyes for the love she lost to the depths of the Sea 

and the Stars are too busy shooting themselves out of the night      

seeking desperate their own gentle close           

in some promised land of stardust and supernovas and a thousand other lovers are begging       

for a forgiving end      

for a tender conclusion.   

So darling, what can I say?   

Like every other soulmate       

in every other love story-- 

I loved you. I did.

Gwen knew Peter was an idiot. Yet in so many different ways, even now years after her death - he still surprised her. 

She laughed as she watched the two of them argue, like an old married couple even if they weren’t that - as much as Peter clearly wanted to be - arguing about the silliest of things.

“If you leave this out one more time—“ Gwen could hear Michelle say, feeling Peter’s exasperation from wherever she was.

“Or what? What , MJ? Gonna kick me out?” 

Michelle rolled her eyes and Gwen just grinned, the two of them going back and forth like they always did - so different from who they’d been when she first met them.

How different Peter was with Michelle than he had ever been with her. 

It made sense, Gwen knew - considering how many years Peter and Michelle had been friends, much less dating - watching as their argument dissolve into nothing when he stared into her eyes for a beat before taking a step forward, moving his arms to hold her close. 

Michelle seemed reluctant for a moment before melting into his arms, Gwen glad that for as different as Peter was - so was Michelle. 

All of her fight but none of her fury, choosing her battles. Something Gwen was glad to see even if objectively, she should feel jealous.

Even after the end, she wasn’t jealous - she couldn’t be, had made her choice and her choice had resulted in her death. 

There hadn’t been anything between Peter and Michelle when she was alive, not from what Gwen could tell. And in her absence, if anything it was a weird sort of comfort - the fact that they found solace in each other after she was gone. 

“I’m sorry.” She could hear Peter whisper to Michelle, knowing in the way that only the dead could really know that what Peter was apologizing for wasn’t something as mundane as leaving his shoes in the hallway but was apologizing about something more, an unspoken thing between them Gwen could see just as clearly as the two of them could. 

“You can’t do that. You can’t just—“ Michelle began, only to be cut off by Peter saying, “I know, I know. Rookie mistake.”

Gwen smiled at that, the words seemingly surprising Peter only to see the familiarity flicker over her face - the two of them staring at each other in a way Gwen had seen too many times before.

Neither of them said it but Gwen felt it all the same - the feeling of being missed, that she’d been dead for years and yet the ghost of her still lingered between them - knowing in the way she knew anything that the feeling - that she - would never go away.

Gwen had been the reason, the impetus that had brought them together the way that they were now. Of course, touches of her would still linger between them. 

Peter had been the one to mess up by not calling Michelle and telling her about some last minute Avengers thing, disappearing for hours before finally arriving back - a move that would have infuriated Gwen just as much as it had Michelle. 

It didn’t hurt to think about her life or the loss of it, Gwen having long ago made her peace with the brevity of it and the wasted potential the end of her life had given.

It wasn’t wasted, not really - not when her life had ended doing something noble, something that Gwen could never bring herself to regret.

But if there was anything that caused her any kind of pain, if she could really even call it that, it was the look on both Peter and Michelle’s face anytime they remembered her - a grief that Gwen knew better than anyone not only lingered, but continued to bind them together.

That for as much as they loved each other, deeply and truly loved each other - that neither of them could ever forget that they wouldn’t be together had it not been for the loss of Gwen.

A month after meeting him and Gwen still didn’t know what to make of Peter Parker. 

It was unnerving, in a way Gwen was entirely unused to feeling - walking out of Connors class and still thinking about him, stupid in a way since he hadn’t even showed up to class for the past week.

“Just bring these by whenever you’re finished, Miss Stacy” She heard Dr. Connors say, immediately standing to attention as she smiled.

“Of course, Dr. Connors,” she quickly replied, handily taking the stack of assignments in her hand as he smiled back at her. “I’ll have them back to you by this afternoon.”

His face and whole demeanor was kind, so unlike her old professors that she’d TA’d for - glad that the kind of usual old man creepiness that was so common hadn’t yet found its way to ESU’s chem department.

“Take all the time you need,” he said, adjusting his position with his cane before continuing, “as you know, we’re still waiting for several students to turn in their assignments.”

Gwen smiled passively, her mind inexplicably going back to Peter Parker and his repeated absences - even if he somehow always managed to get on the good graces of half the chem department, turning in his assignments late and yet getting perfect grades.

He was fascinating to her, debating where the hell he could be now when Dr. Connors waved goodbye to her - turning around only to body slam straight into someone else.

The papers go flying everywhere, Gwen’s equilibrium completely thrown off as she hits the ground hard - ready to pounce on whatever jackass had ran into her as she says, “Watch it.”

“You first.” She heard someone say, immediately rubbing her forehead only to see a woman sitting flat on her bottom - staring back at her, eyeing her up and down with a scowl before her face transforms. 

“Wait, shit. You’re Gwen Stacy right?”

“Yeah?” She asks, her head and her ass still hurting from her fall, seeing the way her face transforms into a grimace.

“Fuck, sorry. I thought you were some asshole chemistry nerd, hogging on the hallway.”

Gwen stares at her for a beat as the she goes to stand, brushing herself off and extending a hand as she says, “I was actually looking for you.”

“And you are?” Gwen asks, already knowing the answer as she takes the hand that helps her up - the beads from whatever bracelet she was wearing jingling as Gwen brings her hand back.

“Michelle, but my friends call me MJ.” She makes a face, wincing as she runs her fingers through her hair. “And since I just clocked you in the face, the chances of that happening are probably slim to none.”

“It’s fine,” it’s not , Gwen is quick to say, kneeling back down as she goes to gather the papers that had flown out of her hands, Michelle helping her until they both stand.

”Did you need something?”

“Yeah, actually.” Michelle looks uneasy, her lips twisting like she’s debating what she wants to say, something that gives Gwen the chance to properly study her.

She knew who she was, of course - Gwen was nothing of not efficient. She’d been annoyed with Peter Parker, if annoyance was even the right term - curious about him in a way that she was with everyone she met.

At least that was the reason she gave for why she ended up stalking him as best she could the minute she’d gotten back to her dorm after checking out the lab.

From what she’d heard about him, Peter Parker was an average student who for all his absences seemingly never seemed to flunk out - something that Gwen had initially attributed to him being some kind of trust fund kid.

The truth turned out to be a lot more interesting and to Gwen, a lot more complicated. 

His social media seemed to range from abstract photography and fits of inactivity, giving Gwen the impression that he was either incredibly boring or hiding something - the latter of which feeling more right considering his frequent and unexplained absences.

He was also not a trust fund kid as she had initially believed, though did to seem have some kind of internship with Tony Stark - a fact that fascinated Gwen considering she’d actively searched for the chance to intern at any of SI’s biotech labs for years, the only openings being opportunities specifically for college grads and post-docs.

Peter Parker didn’t make sense on paper, to have that kind of connection and to settle for ESU - a good school but nothing like Gwen would’ve chosen - and had chosen - with the kind of networking that Peter seemed to have.

This has only intrigued Gwen more, doing a deep dive into his friends and finding that he seemed to really only have two.

A Ned Leeds, public profile who tweeted entirely too much and posted daily stories about his life in sunny California.

And a Michelle ‘MJ’ Jones, private and locked on all her accounts save for one - a twitter profile used exclusively it seemed for a journalism class she’d taken a year prior.

Gwen gleaned all the info she could of Peter Parker from Ned’s visible and active profile - feeling less like a stalker and more like a woman doing reconnaissance, fair play since he had seemed to know who she was without her having really known anything about him but it was Michelle that was more interesting to her, if only because of the two, she had been the one Peter had mentioned.

What Gwen hadn’t expected - a seemingly consistent theme when it came to people that revolves around Peter Parker’s orbit - was to have met the woman so suddenly and so soon, clearly wanting something from her though what, Gwen didn’t know. 

“I wanted to know if you’ve seen Peter, actually. Peter Parker.” Michelle asks, looking like she didn’t want to ask about him but felt compelled to do so all the same.

It made sense, from what Gwen had gathered online - the unlikely friendship between the two of them. 

On paper, they seemed so different - at least from what little she had gleaned from a combination of the three social media profiles. 

While neither Peter or Michelle seemed to offer any kind of information, Ned had more than enough - Gwen being savvy enough with people to read behind the lines. 

For all intents and purposes, it seemed as if Ned and Peter were the actual best friend unit, Michelle showing up and making their duo into a trio sometime during their sophomore year of high school.

They seemed relatively inseparable, right up until college - the divergence of Ned moving off to California seemingly being the point at which Peter and Michelle were forced together. 

The trail between them went cold from there, Gwen realizing how obsessive she was being before she’d closed her laptop at the time - hating how insatiably curious she was but now, glad for it - if only for the psychological evaluation she could give for Michelle to be in front of her now. 

Peter Parker clearly had some kind of secret, though what it could be she wasn’t quite sure - the usual gossip of what he got into being something that now on its face, seemed ridiculous. 

“Aren’t you his best friend?” Gwen asks, choosing a risky tactic but hoping it pays off - hedging her bets and her knowledge of how people interact that this will be the way she’ll better understand their dynamic.

It pays off, keeping her face neutral but internally cheering when she sees Michelle’s eye roll, the exasperation written all over her face when she says, “Yeah, so he tells me.”

Michelle shakes her head, sighing as she says, “Look, if you see him, can you tell him to text me?” 

“You can’t text him yourself?” Gwen asks, keeping her tone light and less accusatory, a flash of vulnerability on Michelle’s face - the reason being something that Gwen can’t quite place when she replies, “Yeah, it’s--you’re right. Sorry this was stupid.”

Michelle seems flustered, something that Gwen gets the sense that she doesn’t usually only for the way she frowns, seeing some kind of recognition pass behind her eyes before she shakes her head more furiously. 

“Never mind, sorry I just… slammed into you.”

“It’s fine,” Gwen reassures, meaning it more sincerely this time around, putting on a smile as she says, “At least I’m not an asshole chemistry nerd.” 

That makes Michelle smile, or at least something close to it - her lips turning upwards for a beat when she seems to really look at Gwen, squinting her eyes for a second before saying, “You transferred here right?”

“How does everyone know that?” Gwen asks, Michelle getting a look on her face that looks almost mischievous. 

“Peter mentioned it, it’s why I was looking for you.” That surprises Gwen, wondering if there would ever be a moment when she wasn’t surprised by anything that Peter Parker seemed to do as Michelle continues. 

“We’re uh, we had a fight. Not that you care.” Michelle says self-deprecatingly, Gwen willing her face to be neutral. “I just-- he’s an idiot sometimes and I just wanted to make sure he’s okay.” 

Michelle lets out a sharp laugh. “But you know, he’s a grown ass man. He can figure it out.”

Gwen carefully nods, analyzing Michelle’s body language - the tense way she balls her fist together when she says that and the way her lips are firmly pressed together telling Gwen that despite whatever went was going on between them - Michelle clearly cared, the smile on Gwen’s face turning into something a little more reassuring as she changes the subject.

“Peter mentioned me?” 

Her tone is innocent, or at least Gwen hopes it is - Michelle smirking as she says, “Yeah, apparently you’re a big deal in the chem department, Gwen Stacy.” 

She says it jokingly, but Gwen can tell there’s no bite to it - already knowing the answer but asking the question anyway when she says, “I take it you’re not a science person?”

“Not anymore.” Michelle answers, “Not like Peter is, anyway.”

Michelle seems to switch gears just as quickly as Gwen had when she asks, “Anyway, I know you have some science shit you gotta do anyway,” she vaguely gestures towards the papers Gwen held in her hand - looking at her with a small smile when she says, “I respect a woman who makes a name for herself in a man’s world.”

Gwen smiles at that, putting her shoulders back before saying, “Can’t let anyone walk all over you.” She shrugs, the smile on her face still wide as she says, “Rookie mistake.” 

“Nice.” Michelle says, narrowing her eyes as she smiles. 

It’s awkward for a moment, Michelle looking like she regretted coming to find her - though Gwen can’t help but feel even more intrigued that whatever they’d fought about had been enough to cause her to do so, though now all Gwen could really focus on was that Peter - someone she hasn’t seen since their last encounter a month ago - had been thinking about her too.

Stupid. Silly even.

But Gwen still flexed her fingers over the papers in her hand at the thought of it.

She’d been obsessing way too much about Peter Parker.

Yet apparently Peter had also talked about her. 

Chapter Text

Before, the sky was clear. 

Now it is vast grey like shadowy angel wings

falling like dead leaves from trees:

heavy and violent and weighted,

a burdened beast, like Atlas with weary aching shoulders under the umbrage of gravity. 

A voice whispers: 

you do not have the power to change your fate on this world. 

You do not have the final word. 

Let it go, child:

foolish hopes and futile dreams.

Your fate is easy enough if you accept it.

“Hey Gwen,” Peter says up to the sky - Gwen watching him with fondness as his feet dangle over the fire escape, his hair still wet from the shower he’d just taken, “I thought of you today.”

She watches as he smirks, a sad smile that if Gwen could feel pain would cause her heart to ache as he says, “I think about you all the time.”

Gwen knows he does, feels it in every moment - a part of her wondering if this is why she lingered so long after her death.

If there was a great beyond, Gwen had yet to experience it - bound still to the two people she had loved most in the world before she’d left it.

Two people who now loved each other in a way she could have never expected but was grateful for.

Peter sighs, his shoulders sagging as if he has the weight of the world on his shoulders - Gwen knowing all too well that to Peter, he did. 

“I thought about proposing to MJ again too,” Peter softly whispers, Gwen wishing he could see the smile on her face as he says, “But then I thought of you and I just…”

He trails off, Gwen’s mind going back to the same memory Peter does - when he’d gone down on one knee, the cold whipping around them while snow started to fall - an idyllic moment made even more perfect from the feeling of sheer, unadulterated joy that Gwen had in that moment.

They’d been engaged for less than a month before she died, Gwen wishing that they’d had more time together though in some sense - she knows it would never be enough.

And if they had, Peter wouldn’t be with Michelle - Gwen seeing the conflict on his face before he puts his head in his hands.

“I miss you so fucking much.” Peter says into his burrowed hands, Gwen hoping that the wind that he feels brush against his hair makes him feel less alone - knowing from the silhouette in the window that he wasn’t. “I love her, Gwen. I— I just… I don’t know if…”

Peter lets out another sigh, Gwen watching as he quickly wipes the tears from his eyes - blinking a few times before looking back up at the sky, a sense of longing in his face as he says, “I don’t know if I can do it again.”

Peter says nothing more but Gwen understands - fully and completely in the way only the dead can.

She knew Peter loved her and that a part of him always would. Yet she also knew that Peter loved Michelle - a love that fueled him, that terrified him - a love that reminded him of all he had to lose.

Marrying Michelle was something that Gwen knew he wanted to do - knew still that for all of Michelle’s hesitancy, none of it was bound in a conflict over her love for him.

But Gwen also knew that marriage was yet another reminder that for as much as Peter loved Michelle, that any proposal would be a reminder of his last. That for as much as he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, Peter knew all too well that making that promise didn’t mean it would come to pass. 

That Peter understood - in a way that would ache in her soul if Gwen she still felt pain - that you could have all the love in the world for someone and yet it could still not be enough to save them. 

Gwen tapped her foot against the leg of the table she was at - almost absentmindedly as she stared off into nothing. 

It wasn’t like her to be so distracted but she couldn’t help it, not when she was still running over the litany of essays she had piling up. 

Midterms were only a month away, Gwen hating that no one else on campus seemed nearly as interested in preparing as she did. At MIT, there had at least been a mutual, unspoken understanding of what it took to succeed - a drive that Gwen had come to rely on when it came to the output of her classmates and group work. 

It wasn’t universal, Gwen could still remember the major annoyance that had been her freshman year biology class - a group of students who seemed more focused on bragging about how they were all going to become doctors rather than actually studying to pass their exam. 

They had dropped the class and their major just as quickly as everyone else who saw an episode of Grey’s Anatomy and imagined themselves life savers. 

Even if Gwen had no desire to be a doctor anymore - not that kind of doctor anyway - she was still frustrated with the total lack of ambition that her classmates seemed to have. 

A small part of Gwen wondered if she was being unfair, especially since the people in her group project all seemed relatively nice. But none of them seemed nearly as interested as she did in preparing for their midterm - not a month in advance - that while she’d guessed that no one would show up to her proposed study group, she couldn’t help but feel a little put out that no one actually even bothered to tell her that they couldn’t make it. 

It was aggravating, the flakiness that people had - something that Gwen had little patience for. 

But it made her wonder if she was being too judgemental, the kind of self-awareness that only came from being alone - something that was only exacerbated by the quiet library that she was in. 

As had been the case for the past month and a half, Gwen should’ve expected that the quiet wouldn’t last for long. 

Gwen barely had a chance to react to the crash through the window above her, instinctively putting her hands up when she heard the roar of something that sounded like a train barreling above her - glancing up in disbelief at what she saw. 

It was Spider-Man - in the flesh - throwing punches with someone that Gwen could only describe as a massive rhino-looking suit. Everything moved in slow motion for the first few seconds - the two of them suspended in mid-air before they started tumbling down to the ground. 

Gwen immediately grabbed her laptop from the desk and rushed back to the table behind her, hearing the massive thud and sound of glass crashing as the two of them continued to go at it. 

“Come on, man. This is-- a place-- of learning.” Gwen could hear Spider-Man say, clutching her laptop to her chest as she watched in disbelief as he threw a few more punches, the man in the suit throwing his hands up before rolling around, Spider-Man flipping off of him as he sent a web up and kicked him back down. 

“Admission costs for higher education are overpriced but destruction of property isn’t--” Spider-Man goes to say only for Gwen’s heart to leap up into her throat when the rhino guy stands up and charges after him - Spider-Man deftly avoiding him.

It was like watching some weird kind of twisted dance, Spider-Man swinging around - punching, kicking, Gwen watching as his moves seemed to be coordinated - almost as if he could anticipate what was coming to him.

He wasn’t always quick enough, Gwen wincing as he got hit - hard - slammed down to the ground while the Rhino guy actually roared.

Gwen had never really bothered much with the Avengers or superheroes, had never really needed to since she had lived in Boston her whole life before transferring to ESU earlier in the semester. 

She knew what everyone knew about them - the existence of aliens a few years back, the geo-political bullshit that she’d done a project on when she was in high school, the relative peace that they’d come to from seemingly out of nowhere. 

But beyond pop culture references on late night television or meme pages that she followed online, Gwen’s interactions with any kind of superhero had been non-existent in this moment - much less any knowledge about their powers or what daily life in a city hounded by mind-boggling disasters on a regular basis felt like.  

It was something her father had always talked about - his distaste for superheroes being just as consistent as his adoration for the Red Sox - knowing that if he had been alive, he would’ve hated the idea of his little girl living in New York City by herself.

But Gwen wasn’t his little girl anymore and he wasn’t alive - swallowing that down as she scooted herself further away, glancing around the relatively empty library.

She had to get out of there - guessing that any chance of her surviving this ordeal decreased the longer she stayed where she was. 

The fight resumes in the background, Gwen making a last minute grab for her backpack - shoving her laptop in there as quickly as she can as she glances back to them. 

Rhino guy was throwing punches towards Spider-Man but looked winded, the superhero flinging himself around and kicking at certain spots in the rhino guys suit - Gwen wondering for a fleeting second if they were some kind of pressure points.

Her hypothesis pans out when the rhino guy crumples, tilting over when the leg of his suit goes wonky - yelling obscenities at Spider-Man who just webs him to the ground.

“And stay down.” He says cheerfully, wiping his hands together as if he’d just taken out the trash.

Gwen stares at the two of them in disbelief, only to sling her backpack over her shoulder and scoot back as she quietly goes to stand - only to freeze when she hears, “Miss?”

Gwen turns, the eyes on Spider-Man’s mask widening when he rushes over to her and says, “Are you hurt? Is everything alright?”

She takes a step back, looking at him with an incredulous expression on her face when she asks, “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? Looks like you took a beating out there.”

“Oh I’m fine,” he says, Gwen noticing that he was favoring his right leg as he waved his hand around, “Had better days. But you’re okay?” 

Gwen nods once, tightening her grip on her backpack strap before awkwardly smiling, “Yeah, I’m okay. Thanks?” 

The lilt at the end of her sentence makes him laugh, Gwen smiling at the idea that she’d made an actual superhero laugh even if her father’s words ring in her ears about the necessity of superheroes in the first place. 

“I better go. Unless you need me to stay?”

Spider-Man just stares blankly at her, Gwen quickly following it up with, “For like, witness statements or something?”

The eyes of the mask widen again before Spider-Man puts a hand up, Gwen definitely taking notice of the fact that he was leaning far too much on his right leg before saying, “Oh no, it’s-- you’re fine. You’re good, you’re good.”

“Okay… good.” Gwen says awkwardly, feeling her cheeks flush as she pushes back some hair behind her ear. 

Spider-Man says nothing, the silence between them growing more and more awkward until she says, “So I’m gonna go now.”

“Okay, yeah. Yeah, cool. Stay safe, citizen.” He says, saluting her awkwardly as Gwen laughs - shaking her head slightly before turning away.

She could feel his stare on her as she walked away - Gwen forcing herself to keep looking forward as she made her way out of the library.

This hadn’t been the group study session she had planned but a part of Gwen wondered if maybe it had turned out even better. 

The next time Gwen tries to study in the library it’s only a few days later, simultaneously surprised and yet not that it was just as empty as it had been before. 

A part of her had wondered if people would show up in the hopes of seeing Spider-Man or the damage from their fight, only to realize that the government’s damage control had seemingly cleaned up the mess before the night had ended. 

Gwen settles back in the same spot she had been in before, eyeing the section where the Rhino - as he was officially dubbed by the news - had fought against Spider-Man. 

It was as if nothing had ever happened, Gwen wondering how in the world everyone could be so nonchalant about it only to continuously remind herself that for as new as all of this was for her - this was par the course for New Yorkers. 

She unpacks her things, plugging in her laptop before popping in her headphones - opening up the websites she needs for the research paper she needed to write. 

Papers were the bane of her existence, something that frustrated her since doing the work for a lab report wasn’t difficult yet coherently putting it together something she had always struggled with. 

Gwen doesn’t get the chance to try and figure out how she was going to approach it when she sees someone out of the corner of her eye, eyebrows shooting up when she recognizes who it is. 

Peter Parker, in the flesh - awkwardly holding his backpack in one arm as he trails behind Michelle Jones, watching the two of them in silence as Michelle walks with purpose to the circulation desk for something. 

Peter stands in the same place where Spider-Man and Rhino had fought - staring at the ground by his feet - Gwen staring at him until his eyes meet hers - surprised to see her just as much as she was at seeing him there. 

Michelle and her had parted ways on friendly enough terms but she hadn’t expected to see her, much less the person she had been searching for so soon, smiling awkwardly as Peter blinks at her for a moment before shaking it away.

He walks towards her, his smile immediately disarming her - even if she notices immediately that there’s a slight limp to his walk. 

“Hey--”

“Are you okay?” She asks, cutting him off as his eyes widen. He glances down to himself - as if he was checking to see if he was okay before looking back up at her and saying, “Yeah?”

“You’re limping.” Gwen says, eyebrows furrowing as she studies him up and down. 

She’d never figured out where he’d been in the time that he skipped class but after her awkward meeting with Michelle, he had showed up at the next class period - sitting in the back of the lecture hall and a handful of his late assignments all dropped off at Dr. Connors office box. 

Gwen had reviewed the papers and had been surprised - she had to dock points for their late submission but in all other aspects, they were perfect. 

She still didn’t know what to make of Peter Parker, even more intrigued by him as he stammers, “Yeah, yeah, bad uh, bowling accident.”

“Bowling?” Gwen asks disbelievingly, Peter grimacing as he says, “Well you know how intense those things can get.”

Gwen nods once, Peter rubbing the back of his neck as he says, “I’m fine.”

“What’s your name?”

Peter frowns, looking almost hurt as he asks, “You don’t know my name?”

“Oh I know your name,” Gwen says, a smile on her face as she continues, “I just want to be sure you know your name.”

Peter blinks for a moment before smirking, nodding as he says, “Yeah, it’s uh, Peter. Parker.” 

“Well Peter Parker,” Gwen says, tilting her head, “You better be careful around bowling alleys then. Or libraries.” She nods towards the center of the room. “Apparently superheroes like to have fights at random here.”

“Yeah, I uh, I heard about that,” Peter says nervously, Gwen frowning at his tone as he continues, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Gwen says slowly, “Should I not be?”

“Oh you know,” Peter shrugs nonchalantly, bringing his hand down to tap lightly against his leg, “I heard that there were some students here. And you study a lot cause you’re a TA so I just figured you might be here. Or know someone. You know… who was here.”

Gwen has to hold back a laugh, completely bewildered at how awkward Peter was being as he winces - seemingly hearing his own words back as he says, “Can we just like, start over?”

“Sure.” She says, letting out a small laugh before schooling her face once more and saying, “Hey Peter Parker, how are you today?”

He grins before saying, “Doing okay, Gwen Stacy. How about you?”

“Good. You know, this report for Connors.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, running his hand through his hair before saying, “How does that work anyway? You’re in the class but you’re also his TA?” 

“It’s like an advanced study,” Gwen says, bracing her arms on the table in front of her, “You know like an honors course. Cause I took something similar at MIT but it didn’t transfer.”

“Cool. That’s, that’s really cool.” Peter says, awkwardly tapping his fingers against his backpack only for Michelle to walk up beside him, an amused expression on her face when she says, “Hey loser. Hey Gwen.”

“Hi MJ.” She says, trying out the nickname she’d said when they’d last spoken. “You guys studying?”

“Yeah he’s got a paper in Romanticism. I’m not even in the class but Peter doesn’t know shit about romance so gotta help him out.”

“Ha ha.” Peter says sarcastically, Gwen watching the two of them as Michelle turns back to her. 

“What are you working on?” 

“Oh just stuff for Connors’ class.” Gwen says, waving at the laptop in front of her. “I hate lab reports.”

Michelle purses her lips, patting Peter’s shoulder as she says, “Peter’s great at that. Doesn’t ever turn anything in on time as I’m sure you know,” she grins, “but for as much as he sucks at romance papers, he’s killer help on lab reports.” 

Michelle’s face lights up - Gwen watching as the expression on Peter’s face immediately transforms into a quiet plea when she says, “Maybe you two should work together. I know Peter’s been looking forward to seeing you again.”

“As the TA,” Peter says immediately after, shooting a look towards Michelle that makes Gwen’s cheek flush - seeing the smirk on Michelle’s face as Peter’s attention turns back to her when he says, “Cause I wanted to talk about your feedback or like, see if Dr. Connors had anything specific he wanted me to do.”

“I can’t really talk about grades outside of office hours.” Gwen says, Peter looking a little relieved only for Michelle to say, “Then maybe you two should get together.”

She waits for a beat before smiling, Gwen sure that Peter’s cheeks couldn’t get any more red when Michelle finally says, “For office hours. Of course.”

“Yeah, MJ, that’s great. Thanks, maybe we should--”

“Or better yet, how about right now?” Michelle says, a mischievous grin on her face as she pulls out the chair across from Gwen - motioning for Peter to sit before turning to Gwen and saying, “I know he’s been wanting to talk to you for awhile.”

Peter looks like he wants to die on the spot but Gwen couldn’t help but feel a flutter in her chest at the idea - Peter’s eyes snapping up to meet hers as Michelle says, “I got a bone to pick with the librarian anyway.”

“I don’t want to bother-- we can just meet up another time--” Peter says, only for Gwen to surprise herself when she says, “It’s okay.”

“See?” Michelle says, patting Peter on the shoulder once more as she grins, “All good. Alright, I’ll grab the books you need and whenever you’re done, just meet me on the third floor.”

She shoots a smile towards Gwen before saying, “It was nice to see you again.”

“You too, MJ.” Gwen says quietly, Peter’s knuckles almost turning white from how hard he was gripping the chair in front of him. 

Michelle lefts away just as quickly as she came - the two of them sitting in silence before Peter finally says, “So… that was awkward.”

Gwen smiles, biting her lip before saying, “I think she’s sweet.”

Peter lets out a sharp laugh. “ Sweet is not a word I’d ever use to describe, MJ. Force of nature, maybe.” 

He laughs again, running a hand through his hair before looking back up at her - chewing the inside of his cheek before saying, “But um, she’s not wrong?”

“Hmm?” Gwen asks, tilting her head as he leans on his right side a little more - Gwen noticing it for a beat before looking back to his eyes. 

“I did want to talk to you more.” A beat. “About the last paper.” 

“Oh um, I mean, I meant it. I can’t like, talk about all of it outside of office hours.”

Peter nods before saying, “That’s cool. I get that but if you have some time now, maybe I could talk to you more about the lab report? MJ’s right.” He shrugs, “I can help. If you want.”

Gwen wasn’t used to asking for help - much less receiving it - when it came to anything. 

But Peter Parker was cute, intriguing and clearly interested in her - if his best friend’s actions were any indication.

Everything within her was telling her that there was something else going on with Peter, something that she couldn’t quite place and yet desperately wanted to know. 

Scientifically, that could be reason enough to entertain his request. But emotionally, Gwen knew that wasn’t the reason for why she agreed.

She liked him, for as little as she knew of him. And looking back into his face, seeing the earnest expression in his eyes, Gwen found herself wanting to know more. 

She grins, gesturing toward the chair in front of her as she says, “I’d like that.” 

Chapter Text

There is a version to this story

Where the ending is unbloodied and forgiving 

(Even if the ending is not happy)

And we learn peace

Or at least stillness

And quiet.

But my love

we are not

the gentle version 

of this story.

Gwen watched as Peter paced and back forth, the nervous energy that reminded her so much of how he used to be emanating from the twitch of his finger tips - a reminder that despite how much he’s changed, her Peter was still there.

It was a foolish thing to think really, a reminder that for as much as she watched Peter - that the chances of him being the same as he had been all those years ago would be next to impossible. 

Loss changed people irrevocably, Gwen knew that. And while Gwen was not arrogant enough to believe that she was his greatest loss - she knew just how much her death had affected him. 

Another possibility, Gwen thought - for why she hadn’t moved on. 

Gwen directed her attention to Tony, the lines on his face far more deepened than they’d ever been when she’d known him - the small hints of grey in his hair now streaked and wild, a signal of how much time had passed since she had died.

Time was a concept that didn’t quite exist for Gwen, not in the way it used to - but these physical reminders were there all the same. 

“Kid,” she heard Tony sigh, “I don’t know what you want me to do.”

“Buy the Times ?” Peter says it jokingly, though Gwen can sense that Tony hears the earnestness in it - the slight hint panic as Peter continues to pace back and forth.

“You know I can’t do that.” Tony answers, Gwen smiling in amusement as Peter sends him a look.

“You know what I mean,” Tony clarifies, looking at Peter meaningfully in a way that causes his own shoulders to sag. Gwen watched as Peter seemed to sink into himself - slowly walking to where Tony was, sitting beside him as he said, “she’d never forgive you if you try and stop her.”

“I know,” Peter whispers, his voice cracking as he tries to swallow down something in his throat, Gwen wishing she could comfort him but glad that Tony seemed to understand what he needed too - watching as he put his arm around his shoulder as Peter says, “I know I can’t tell her not to go.”

Peter closed his eyes, Tony’s grip on his shoulders tightening for a moment as Gwen watched Peter try and hold back his tears.

“Pete—“

“But I can’t do it, Tony.” Peter says, Gwen wishing she could wipe the tears falling down his face as he looks to Tony, “I can’t lose anyone else.”

“You’re not going to lose her,” Tony says gently, forcing Peter to look him in the eyes, “it’s only a few weeks.”

“I know, I know,” Peter says, Gwen sensing his frustration as he continues, “I know I’m being a massive hypocrite.”

Tony doesn’t respond at first, Gwen thinking back to the last time Peter had left on an emergency trip with the Avengers - knowing as well as anyone did how awful it was to be left behind, waiting and hoping that Peter would come back from wherever he’d gone off too.

It was the inverse now for Peter - to have to wait for Michelle as she went out on assignment, something that Gwen had watched the two of them argue about for almost as long as Michelle would be gone. 

Traveling to a war zone would have been nerve wracking enough for anyone, Gwen thinks - wondering how Michelle could possibly be brave enough to do so. 

But just as Gwen’s death had changed Peter, so had it changed Michelle. 

All of her fire and passion and determination channeled in a more direct way, taking the kind of chances and risks the Michelle she knew wouldn’t have taken before. More vulnerable, kinder - but just as stubborn, Gwen hearing Peter speak again. 

“I don’t know how to just…” Peter trails off, Gwen watching as Tony puts a hand to his shoulder, tightening his grip for a moment as he says, “I get it, kid.”

“ You don’t .” Peter whispers, his eyes scrunching up as the tears fall down his face - both Tony and Gwen wincing at the reality of Peter’s words.

For all of Tony’s troubles, all the ones Gwen had learned while she was alive and even more now that she wasn’t - he’d never experienced this - the loss of a first love in a painful, terrible way. A love that was not only gone but gone forever.

A love that had died to save him.

“I don’t,” Tony finally says, Peter going to say something more before Tony interrupts him, “No, you’re right, Pete. I don’t. But I know this.”

Peter furiously wipes his tears away, looking up at Tony as he says, “It’s not hypocritical to want to keep MJ safe. But you can’t hold her back.”

“I know,” Peter says quietly, twisting his hands together. “I know I can’t. I love her, Tony.”

Gwen watched as Peter closed his eyes, taking another shuddering breath - feeling as if her heart, though it hadn’t beat for years, breaking at his next words. 

“I love her too much to lose her too.” 

“You know Tony Stark ?” Gwen asks, feigning shock even if her prior stalking of his social media had proved that months ago.

Peter nodded, sheepishly smiling as he rubbed the back of his neck with his hand - an awkward tic that Gwen had noticed he did when he was trying to avoid a conversation. 

They were in the library, in the same place they’d all met - Michelle glancing out from over her laptop on the other side of the table. 

“Know him? Stark’s practically adopted him.” She says with an eye roll, “You would not believe the kind of shit--”

“She doesn’t want to hear about my embarrassing high school stories, MJ.” Peter furiously whispers, Gwen keeping her face neutral but her heart racing - Peter’s eyes snapping over to her as she watched his cheeks flush. 

Gwen shrugs, smiling at him as she says, “Why not? I think we could’ve been friends in high school.”

Peter stares at her for a beat, a small smile on his face - Gwen feeling her own cheeks getting hot until Michelle coughs, the two of them turning to face her only to see the grin on her face.

“Friends huh?”

Peter shoots Michelle daggers but Gwen pretends like she doesn’t notice - as she always does - biting back a smile as she turns her attention back to her laptop. 

Becoming friends with Peter Parker had decidedly not been part of the plan. Yet ever since that day in the library two months ago, Gwen felt as if that was exactly what they were on the path to being.

It hadn’t been intentional, spending an hour talking to him about her lab report only to spend the next three talking about everything else.

Peter was funnier than she expected, a laugh that made her stomach do flips - a smile that made Gwen feel as if all her nerve endings were lighting up at once.

She knew he was smart from his paper but seeing it in person, watching in real-time as he described his ideas for Dr. Connors’ final project had been fascinating - Gwen thinking that she hadn’t ever encountered someone so brilliant yet so committed to wasting it by never showing up to class. 

What Gwen also hadn’t planned - an occurring theme with her life at ESU this far - was spending any length of time with not only Peter, but Michelle. 

It was fascinating watching the two of them interact, eyes darting up over her laptop as she watched them have a silent conversation with their eyes - watching the way Peter’s jaw tightened and Michelle’s eyes lit up - one of her eyebrows raising in some kind of question. 

For all of the information that she’d gleaned during her social media research, nothing compared to what observing them in person. By all accounts, the two of them shouldn’t be friends - much less best friends - a secret part of Gwen wondering if there had ever been something more between them. 

Peter flirted with her too much and Michelle was too pushy for that to be the case, Gwen feeling as if she had a good enough read on people to guess there was more to the story.

Then again, Gwen thought - they were so inherently different - not quite understanding what exactly it was that bound them together but being intensely interested in finding out what it was. 

It didn’t help that they would have moments like they were currently - locked in a silent conversation about several things all at once: only two of which Gwen was now certain. 

The first was Peter’s undeniable crush on her, something that made her cheeks flush even more so as she bit her lip, trying to focus on the paper she had gotten sidetracked on. 

It was embarrassingly obvious, enough that it made Gwen consider asking him out herself - only to talk herself out of it, convinced that it wouldn’t be a good idea - dating being the last thing on her mind. 

The second was something more nebulous, something Gwen couldn’t quite put a finger on but was sure as anything about. 

That Peter Parker had a secret. That Michelle Jones knew exactly what that secret was, though how or why - Gwen couldn’t decipher. 

Asking about Tony Stark and his influence - prior and current - had not been part of the agenda in Gwen’s continuous fact-finding mission in understanding Peter Parker. But when he’d casually slipped his name in conversation, a mistake that he seemed to regret the moment it happened - Gwen had to take advantage of it - just another check mark in her long-running list that there was something that Peter Parker was hiding. 

It’s something she circles back to, helping Peter out from whatever argument he was currently losing with Michelle as she says, “I’d really like to know though.”

Peter looks back to her, watching Michelle out of the corner of her eye as she says, “How’d you meet Tony Stark?” 

Peter rubs the back of his neck absentmindedly again, Michelle’s face turning into a knowing grin as she leans back - Gwen watching Peter stammer along.

“Oh I uh, I had an internship. Back in high school.”

“You had an internship with Stark Industries ? In high school ?” Gwen asks incredulously, playing this information up as being brand new - even if it only confirmed what she already knew.

“Yeah,” Peter nods his head so fast he looks like a bobblehead, “It was with this grant, you know. From the September foundation.”

Gwen nods once, Peter’s hand moving from the back of his neck to the table - Michelle still watching the two of them silently, feeling her gaze on her as he continues, “He’s become a great family friend.” 

Michelle lets out something like a scoff, Peter shooting her another look as Gwen asks, “Are your parents friends with him or…”

Gwen immediately senses the change in body language from both Peter and Michelle, wondering how she had misstepped 

Peter had mentioned that his dad had gone to ESU in their very first conversation, wracking her brain to try figure out why Peter got that look on his face - a look that’s all too familiar to her in a way that suddenly makes her stomach drop.

“Oh, I’m-- I’m sorry.” She whispers, Peter’s head tilting in confusion as he asks, “What do you mean?”

“My dad died… about a year back,” Gwen begins, seeing how quiet and still the two of them become as she says, “I know that look.”

Peter smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “It’s okay. You didn’t know.” 

Gwen’s eyes dance between Michelle and Peter - Michelle keeping her focus on him in a look that Gwen could only describe as protective as he says, “My mom and dad died when I was little. I live with my aunt now. My uncle…” 

Peter stops, Gwen feeling even worse at the idea of bringing up something so heavy on what should’ve been a fun study thing - not when their friendship was so new and until then, they’d rarely talked about much beyond classes. 

“I’m sorry.” She whispers again, Peter shaking his head with a little more purpose.

“Don’t be. It was a long time ago.” 

He says the words but Gwen can feel it, the heaviness that falls over the table just then - Gwen remembering her own father and how the loss of him had permeated so much of her own life, she’d transferred colleges to try and avoid the ghost of him. 

“But uh yeah, Mr. Stark’s a good guy. You’d like him.” Peter says, offering her an encouraging smile - something Gwen accepts even as Michelle scoffs again. 

“Easy for you to say, Peter. You think the man walks on water.” 

Peter sighs, the mood lifting slightly as he turns to Michelle. “Don’t start this again, MJ.”

Michelle shrugs, tilting her head towards Peter as she looks to Gwen. “For someone who grew up poor as shit, Peter’s got a soft spot for billionaires.”

“Not all. Just the one.” Peter says good-naturedly, even if Gwen can sense that Peter’s bothered by Michelle’s comment. 

Michelle’s either oblivious or doesn’t care about the effect it has on him as she says, “The point is that Peter’s been a nerd for a very, very long time.”

“I could’ve told you that.” Gwen says jokingly, Peter turning to her in surprise - only for Gwen to blush as she says, “Only a nerd would study with his TA.” 

Michelle raises her eyebrow, eyes dancing between the two of them again before saying, “Sure. That’s definitely why he wants to study with you.”

“MJ, can you stop?” Peter asks, Gwen unsure of whether he was still annoyed from her prior comments or exasperated that this was her second not so subtle attempt to push them together in the past five minutes. 

Michelle doesn’t back up this time, sitting back as she says, “I’ll stop when you two stop dancing around each other.” 

The silence between them feels just as heavy as it did before, Gwen’s heart starting to race again when Michelle says, “I have to pee. Watch my stuff.” 

She scoots her chair back and leaves, smirking at Gwen as she walks away - Gwen turning her attention back to Peter who has a serious expression on his face. 

“Um--” Gwen begins, only for Peter to say, “You’re right, you know.”

Gwen feels the heat pool in her cheeks, a low buzz crawling up and down arms like goosebumps as she asks, “Right about what?” 

Peter twists his lip, licking them before leaning forward. “I have been a nerd forever.” 

It’s not what she’s expecting - Gwen unsure what exactly that had been in the first place as she smiles and says, “Yeah, I figured as much.”

Peter’s fingers tap against the table for a beat before he says, “But uh, there’s this party later from a kid MJ and I knew back in high school. He goes to Columbia. It’s not really important.” Peter waves his hand before folding them together in front of him, leaning forward even more. 

“I was just wondering though… do you wanna go with me?” 

“To a party?” Gwen asks, seeing Peter’s leg bouncing up and down as he nods. 

“Yeah, I mean. It’s-- it doesn’t start till nine cause you know, parties.” He grins, shaking his head. “I don’t know. Not usually a party person.” 

“So why do you want to go to one with me?” Gwen asks, guessing at the answer but wildly curious about his response, feeling a small sense of pride at the way Peter’s cheeks turn bright red.

He smiles, his voice low but his gaze steady on her as he says, “I think you know.”

Gwen smiles back, seeing MIchelle out of the corner of her eye as she makes her way back to the table. 

“Yeah,” she says, “I think I do.”

The party, Gwen thinks later - is not exactly what she’d imagined. 

It’s at a brownstone in Hamilton Heights for one, so unlike the dorm parties she’d gotten used to at MIT. 

This party - held by a kid named Crash or Dash or Smash, something Gwen hadn’t really heard right and had committed to not stalking beforehand - was relatively low-key, filled with the kind of Ivy League snobs that Gwen was well-acquainted with from growing up in Boston. 

Peter mentioned that he’d meet her there at 9:30, Gwen arriving five minutes late intentionally - not wanting to seem too eager only to be slightly disappointed when she checked her phone and there was nothing there. 

Their texts up to then had been perfunctory, asking about class assignments and library meet-ups. A part of Gwen hoped that would change, even if there’s another part of her that says it shouldn’t - not when she had too much else to focus on. 

Gwen debates for a brief second if she should say anything before caving, tapping out a short message to let him know she arrived before walking in. 

She sees a few people she recognizes, immediately shifting into the kind of friendly conversation she was good at - keeping an eye out for the door or for her phone, getting increasingly disappointed when Peter didn’t show for either.

Another thirty minutes pass before Gwen finally makes her way towards the kitchen - surprised to see Michelle there, holding a cup in one hand and her other in her pocket - a look of slight judgement at the people around her in the same way that Gwen had come to expect from her. 

Gwen immediately walks up to her, smiling as she says, “Hey.”

Michelle turns and nods, a faint smile on her face. “Hey Stacy, good to see you. Glad Peter finally got the balls to ask you out.”

Gwen feels her cheeks get warm once again, simultaneously hating and loving the instantaneous effect that Peter had on her as she says, “He didn’t ask me out. It’s just a party.” 

Michelle smiles like she knows something Gwen doesn’t, smirking before saying, “You guys really are perfect for each other.” 

Gwen ignores that again, brave but not brave enough to really figure out what Michelle really means as she nods to their surroundings. 

“You didn’t strike me as a party person.” Gwen says, watching as Michelle takes a long swig of her drink.

She smiles, raising her cup to Gwen as she says, “Free booze at a rich person’s house. How is that not something I’d be a part of?”

Gwen laughs. “Fair.”

They stand awkwardly for a moment before Michelle speaks up again, asking, “So where’s Peter?” 

“He said he’d meet me here at 9:30,” Gwen says, itching to check her phone again but forcing herself not to.

Michelle smirks again, though Gwen can tell from a month of knowing her that it resembles more of a frown as she says, “Yeah, Peter does that a lot.” 

Gwen tilts her head, Michelle gesturing to the party. 

“Always late.”

“Oh.” Gwen says, moving aside as someone walks past them - taking in her surroundings once more. 

It wasn’t as if Gwen didn’t go to parties, at MIT or even at ESU. She’d made good on her promise to herself, trying to be less of the annoying ambitious girl that she’d been back in Boston and someone that was a little more friendly and approachable, even if no one still seemed nearly as interested in studying ahead as she did. 

But coming out tonight had been a risk for her, one that Gwen had heavily debated making only for what it meant. 

Peter’s invitation had clearly been laced with intention, Michelle’s comments about their casual flirting bringing it to the forefront. 

Gwen had a lot of goals and dreams, enough that boys even as cute and as interesting as Peter Parker shouldn’t be enough to distract her.

But she’d let him, now feeling silly for getting her hopes up at him asking her out on the most casual of dates - something that he clearly couldn’t be bothered to show up to.

Michelle seems to sense her unease, nodding to her. “He’ll be here. Trust me, he didn’t shut up about meeting up with you all day.” 

“Really?” Gwen hates how earnest she sounds but she can’t help it, feeling a flutter in her chest from the way Michelle smiles. 

“Yeah, I’m serious. You guys would be cute together.” 

“Thanks.” Gwen says, unsure of where to go next with the conversation until Michelle says, “Plus like, I don’t like a lot of people but, I like you.”

Gwen’s eyes widen a bit, Michelle rolling her eyes. “Not like that , but yeah. You’re cool, Stacy. Way too cool for Parker but we all have our flaws.”

Gwen laughs, feeling some of the tension in her shoulders loosening at that - getting the feeling that that was exactly what Michelle’s intentions had been as she continues. 

“Peter’s not the best at showing up to things on time he’s got,” Michelle pauses, Gwen studying her as something seems to pass across her face before she says, “ stuff that he’s gotta do sometimes. But he’s a really good guy.”

Michelle rolls her eyes, “A dumbass, but a good guy.” 

“I don’t really like flakes.” Gwen says, the humor she’d felt only moments ago deflating as she takes Michelle’s words in - seeing the way the look on her face transforms. “And I don’t really want to waste my time.”

“Look, this is probably breaking the best friend code or whatever but he does like you. A lot.” Michelle suddenly looks conflicted, shrugging her shoulders slightly as she says, “He’ll be here.”

“Does he really  always do this?” Gwen asks, sensing that she already knows the answer. 

Gwen watches her expression shift once again - as if Michelle was debating something with herself, only to sigh as she says, “Honestly? Yeah, he’s not the best with keeping to his plans.”

Michelle bites her lip, eyes shifting elsewhere as she says, “It sucks but he’s— he’s reliable it matters. He’s my best friend, even if he’s a little frustrating.”

“How exactly did you guys become friends?” Gwen asks, hedging her bets that Michelle would be loosened up more than she usually was because of the drink in her hand.

Her bet pays off when Michelle says, “Decathlon in high school. He was just as bad at showing up to that as he is for anything else in his life.”

Michelle laughs. “Peter’s great, really loyal when it counts. I don’t trust a lot of people but I trust him. It’s why I’m playing wing woman for him now, especially since I knew his sorry ass would be late.” Michelle smirks, tilting her head towards Gwen as she says, “Then again, I am way too good of a friend to him. Should’ve dumped his ass a long time ago.” 

A beat. “But we all have our flaws.”

Gwen smiles, shaking her head in disbelief. 

She didn’t understand why anyone - much less someone like Michelle Jones - would be so interested in keeping a flake for a friend, even if that flake was as interesting as Peter Parker. 

But Gwen can appreciate the loyalty that Michelle has for Peter - thinking that even if he didn’t show up, she could at least make good on her promise to herself about enjoying a fresh start at ESU.

Michelle was funny, if not a little abrasive - the kind of brutal honesty that Gwen could respect from a person who spoke their mind. The kind of ideal that Gwen herself wishes she could be, even if she manifested it different ways. 

Gwen grins, folding her arms together as she says, “You know, MJ. I think we’re going to be best friends.” 

Peter never shows up to the party - something Gwen had figured would happen after another hour had passed while hanging out with Michelle, only realizing it had from the flood of messages she got from Peter. 

Gwen doesn’t answer him, a little tipsy and a little too hurt to do so - thinking that even if her intentions in going to the party had been for a boy that maybe she’d ended up with something better - a friend - her and Michelle laughing as they walked  to the subway stop together and rode back to ESU’s campus. 

It’s not till she’s at her favorite little coffee shop the next morning that she realizes she never texted Peter back - focused on finishing up the assignment she had originally planned on working on the night before. 

It wasn’t due for another two weeks but even if Gwen had enjoyed herself last night, despite Peter being a no-show, she wasn’t going to let anything stand in her way of the goals and life plan she had set out for herself. 

He rushes up to her so quickly that she immediately tenses, glancing up to see him immediately widen his eyes - putting his hands up.

“Sorry, sorry. I didn’t-- I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Hey Peter,” she says, trying to calm her racing heart once again - from the adrenaline of him surprising her or from him being in front of her without Michelle as a buffer, she didn’t know as she continues, “What’s up?”

“I’m so sorry, Gwen. So, so sorry I didn’t show up last night.” Peter shifts his weight back and forth, glancing to the chair across from her.

Gwen stares at him for a beat before nodding to it, Peter looking completely relieved as he sinks into the chair. 

“I tried literally everything to get there in time but when I finally could, you guys were already heading back...” Peter starts to stammer, Gwen frowning as she studies him. 

He looked almost like he’d been in a fight and tried to cover it up, the faintest hint of a bruise across his cheek that in the morning light seemed to fade the longer she stared at him - Gwen shaking her head at how ridiculous that could be as she asks, “So what stopped you?”

“Well,” Peter begins, letting out a short laugh, “remember that we were talking about my old internship? Back in high school?”

“The one with Tony Stark?” Gwen asks in disbelief, still unable to wrap her head around the reality that a high schooler could have any kind of internship at Stark Industries or why Peter would use that as a lie for what he was doing as Peter nods.

“Yeah, that one. Um, I don’t really have an internship with him per se but there’s still like, projects I have to do.”

Gwen just stares at him, Peter rambling forward. “It’s why I miss class so much, you know. With Dr. Connors. I have a note usually, I don’t know if he shares that with you.”

“He doesn’t,” Gwen says, something in her gut telling her that he’s lying to her - even if she doesn't really have a reason not to believe him, “But you don’t have to explain yourself to me.” 

“But I do,” Peter says sincerely, bringing his hands in front of him and leaning forward, “I uh, I was really looking forward to last night.”

“I was too.” Gwen answers softly, shaking her head before saying, “But it was just a party, Peter. It’s okay.” 

“It’s not.” 

The shift in his tone surprises her, just as the look on his face does - seeing the fierceness in his eyes as he says, “MJ told me you guys talked last night.”

He laughs, running a hand through his hair. “Well, more like she yelled at me for being the asshole who asked you out and never showed.”

Gwen smiles. “MJ’s really cool.”

“Yeah, she is.” Peter says, shaking his head. “But she’s not the one who should’ve been there with you last night.”

Gwen waits, Peter looking back at her with an expression on his face that she can’t quite place - eyes dancing across his face as says, “If you’ll let me, I’d like to try again.”

“You want to go to another party?” Gwen asks. 

Peter smiles as he gently shakes his head. “I mean we could if you want but I mean more like… a date.” 

“A date?”

Peter grins, his leg bouncing up and down. “Yeah, you know. Dinner… a movie, the whole cliche thing where I pick you up at your dorm.”

“Will you show up on time?” Gwen asks teasingly, seeing the embarrassed flush of Peter’s cheeks.

“Okay I deserve that. But yes,” he nods, looking just as determined as he had moments before as he says, “I will absolutely be there. Nothing will stop me.”

Gwen debates it for a moment, wanting to tease him further but being unable to because of the way her heart feels like it’s going to burst out her chest - seeing the way Peter’s mouth twists as he waits for her response.

“Am I going to regret this?” Gwen asks, Peter’s smile lighting up something in her chest - his small laugh as he runs his fingers through his hair making her feel like fireworks were vibrating through her veins.

“Probably.” He says, rubbing the back of his neck in the nervous way he always did - smiling at her as he brings his hand down. 

Gwen didn’t like flakes, not even cute ones like Peter Parker. Maybe this was a mistake, a risk that a better part of her reasoned that she didn’t want to take.

But Gwen had already decided that life at ESU was going to be different than at MIT, committed to the idea that she was no longer going to be the stick in the mud everyone used to say she was. 

She remembers her conversation with Michelle last night, the intensity Gwen felt when she told her how much he seemed to like her.

Michelle was funny and honest - almost painfully so. If she thought Peter was a good guy, Gwen had a gut feeling that she could trust her judgement. 

Gwen wasn’t sure if she could trust Peter to keep his promises, but she was sure she liked him. 

Gwen smiles. 

Maybe Michelle was right. 

Maybe some people were worth taking risks for. 

Chapter Text

The thing about looking back is,

hindsight is such a cruel god. 

Everything you loved and long for

is so much warmer 

     and softer

          and achingly unreachable 

through his rosy glasses.

Every step we stumbled and missed

is so much sharper

     and heavier

          and starkly unforgivable

through his unblinking eyes.

Standing here, now,

with his breath snaking down my neck

     and his fingers shivering into the spaces between my ribs–

with the past we lost hovering behind us like the shadows of ghosts

     and the future we never asked for haunting the horizon like a storm–

All I can say, my love, is this:

sweetheart, we were young

Gwen didn’t always watch after Peter and MJ. 

There were times when she focused more on her mom and her little brother, though never for long because it hurt too much - pain something she never really felt and yet sensing an ache anytime she lingered, as if her mom somehow knew she was there.

She watched out over May and Tony in equal measures - two people who couldn’t be more different but loved the two people Gwen had loved most when she left, still there to encourage them and help as much as they could.

Gwen watched out over Michelle in the only way she could when she traveled. Watched Peter as he swung around the city, throwing himself into his patrols - feeling the nervous energy that he carried with him while Michelle was gone.

If her heart could still feel things, it would’ve leapt at seeing them reunite - the palpable sense of relief Peter felt when he held Michelle in his arms again, holding her so tight that Gwen was convinced he’d never let her go.

It was a sense of knowing the other was safe - the certainty that Peter knew in his heart yet couldn’t rest until she was physically in his arms once again, a feeling that Gwen could sense that Michelle felt about him. 

She didn’t always watch them - she wouldn’t, her very presence in the liminal space between death and whatever was to come causing some kind of rift that Gwen could tell weighed on them.

Time - if there was even such a thing - didn’t heal all wounds but it helped, Gwen feeling as if she blinked and months had passed - the two of them curled up on the couch as they usually did, a warm kind of contentment that they were with each other that made her feel at peace. 

Gwen’s brought out of her own musings with Michelle’s voice, cutting through the silence of the apartment as she says, “I’ve been thinking.” 

Gwen watches as Peter shifts his position on the couch, smirking says, “That’s dangerous.”

Michelle rolls her eyes, lightly punching Peter in the arm. “I’m being serious.”

“Okay, okay,” Peter murmurs into her hair, Gwen remembering when he used to do the same for her, “what are you thinking of?”

“Something my translator said to me, from the story I was working on.”

Peter tenses at the reminder that Michelle had been gone, Gwen watching as she sits up and goes for her phone on the side table - Peter waiting patiently as she continues.

“ Dashuria ndonjëherë është e vështirë por vdekja edhe më shumë .” Michelle says haltingly, seeing Peter’s confusion as he shakes his head.

“What does that mean?”

Michelle turns to him, a look on her face that Gwen recognizes as being one that signifies she’s decided something. “It means ‘love is sometimes difficult but death even more so’.”

Peter looks as if he’s at a loss for what Michelle is meaning, Gwen hearing her sigh as she puts her phone down.

“Peter, you know why I took the assignment right?”

He nods, even if Gwen can see his expression is torn - as if he knows the answer but doesn’t want to say it aloud, “Cause it’s a great opportunity and you were passionate about it?”

“Yeah,” Michelle says with a smile, shifting her gaze back to her hands, “But that wasn’t the only reason.”

Peter waits, the kind of patience that Gwen knew hadn’t always come easy for him - just like she knew the kind of vulnerability Michelle was showing hadn’t been easy for her as she says, “I love you, Peter. You know that.”

Peter nods. “I do.”

“I know you have a ring,” Michelle begins - Gwen watching as Peter goes still, his eyes dancing across Michelle’s face as she says, “And I know you why you haven’t asked.”

Peter immediately shifts so that he takes Michelle’s hands, the same kind of determination that Gwen was all too familiar with as he says, “MJ—“

“I would’ve said no, even if you had.” She said, Peter looking simultaneously surprised and as if that was exactly what he expected - Michelle pressing forward, “I think you know that… But it's not because I don’t love you.”

“I know,” Peter nods, “I know that isn’t—“

“It’s just hard,” Michelle’s voice gets thick, Gwen feeling as if she should leave - focus her attention elsewhere as she usually did when their conversations and actions became intimate - feeling like a ghost in more ways than one as Michelle says, “I just can’t stop seeing her .”

Peter’s eyes glisten, Gwen wishing she could comfort them even if she knew that her being there would’ve prevented them from being together at all.

“She was my best friend, Pete.” Michelle continues, biting her lip before she says, “I don’t know how to just let that go.”

She sighs, closing her eyes for a moment while Peter waits - Gwen watching as Michelle tries to find the words to explain feelings Gwen knew were impossible to describe.

“I don’t think you can, MJ,” Peter softly whispers, watching as he gently traced his fingers along her arm, “I miss her too.”

Michelle immediately deflates, the softness in her expression as she studied Peter - a look of love in her eyes that even Gwen could feel. 

She slips her hand into his, Peter squeezing it gently as their fingers intertwined - Gwen sensing the understanding between them, a love built through time and through unbearable tragedy.

They knew each other so well, that if Gwen’s heart could ache it would - the knowledge that even with all of their understanding, Michelle was so reluctant to marry him… that Peter himself struggled with a guilt that shouldn’t be his.

Gwen had made her choice, had known what she was doing from the moment it happened - closing the door behind her even as Peter had screamed out her name.

She had a front row seat to their friendship when she was alive and now in death, watched as the broken pieces that she’d left behind brought them together in a way neither could have ever expected or planned. 

Michelle had been the first person Gwen had told when Peter proposed - remembering the giddiness she’d felt as she rushed over to her apartment the next morning, dragging her to brunch at their favorite place.

She could still feel the warmth of that moment, the indescribable joy - begging for Michelle to be her maid of honor, something that Michelle had rolled her eyes and laughed at, as if she would’ve been anything but - neither of them knowing that Gwen wouldn’t live to even pick out a dress. 

Gwen knew Peter and Michelle loved each other, a love that had been woven together from the shattered pieces of their lives in the wake of her death. 

But she could still understand the hesitation - a sense of guilt so strong between the two of them, despite the deep well of understanding between then - a sense that Gwen could only hope that love could help them recover from.

Gwen didn’t know what to expect for her date with Peter Parker.

After that awkward meet-up, Peter’s smile so bright that it made her stomach do flip flops as he waved goodbye - they’d agreed to try again the next weekend, something that Gwen both hated and appreciated for how much time it gave her to prepare.

Gwen was a planner - always had been, inherent quality inherited to her by her father, thinking of what he would say as she got ready.

He hadn’t liked any of her previous boyfriends for any number of reasons - an old school traditional police chief in more ways than one. She smiled as she put her trusted pearl earrings on, thinking of what he would say of Peter and the fact that she was going out with him when he’s already flaked once before.

No man worth his salt would ever leave a woman waiting, Gwendolyne. Your time is too valuable to be wasted.

Gwen bit her lip, debating which lipstick to choose - trying to ignore the churning sense of nervousness building in her gut.

Her father was right, as he always was - there was no reason to waste her time, for any man - even one as nice and as funny as Peter Parker.

She had plans - goals and dreams and a world to take over. 

In one sense, this was just a date. Gwen wasn’t opposed to having a little fun every now and then. 

But there was something about Peter that stopped her - thrilled her, terrified her - something she couldn’t explain that told her that being with Peter wouldn’t be a distraction, but all consuming, a feeling that she tried her to swallow as she grabbed her red lipstick tube and applied it with ease.

Peter was a good guy, if Michelle was to be believed - something Gwen instinctively did.

She smiled, putting her lipstick away as she stared at her reflection - taking a deep breath and preparing herself for whatever the night had to offer.

“You want a caramel apple?” Peter asks, Gwen forcing a smile as she quickly shakes her head.

“No, I’m allergic.”

“To apples?” Peter asks in disbelief as Gwen says, “No, caramel.”

“Oh.”

He shoves his hands into his pocket, the ringing tones of the merry go around mocking them as they walk together in silence.

Of all the dates she’s ever been on, three stand out to her as being the worst.

The first was, ironically, her very first date - driving around in the back Bobby Martin’s mom’s station wagon when she was fourteen, a piece of spinach stuck to his braces that he refused to take out and a smarmy smile anytime he tried to kiss her - something Gwen felt horrified about because of his mother being in the driver’s seat of said station wagon, awkwardly trying to make conversation and avoid staring at the two of them.

The second had been during her junior year of high school, going out with a guy from her chem class and a group of friends - a date only made terrible because Gwen had not realized it was a date, Evan Lewis showing up to the restaurant they were all in a suit and tie.

The third - senior year prom, Gwen got punch spilled all over her dress and her date ended up making out with the quarterback - was quickly becoming usurped from the awkward as hell night that she’d had so far with Peter Parker.

He’d been late - something Gwen had fully expected and prepared for, only for it still to take another thirty minutes before he’d showed.

He’d brought flowers - something Gwen didn’t know what to do with, especially since they were wilted - smiling awkwardly before shoving them into her desk, pushing the bad feeling in the pit of her stomach away in favor of doing whatever it is that Peter had planned. 

This, Gwen later realized, had been her first mistake. 

Peter clearly had a plan, a detailed one - something that she’d heard hints of from Michelle yet when pressed for details, refused to spill.

“He doesn’t look like it but Peter can be very convincing when he wants to,” Michelle had said with a smirk before rolling her eyes, picking her burger off her plate, “plus, I refuse to have every conversation of ours revolve around his dumbass.”

Fair, Gwen had thought - especially since Michelle’s stories were interesting enough on their own.

Yet this “super detailed plan” had apparently hitched on his arriving on time, rushing over to the restaurant he’d made a reservation for only to find out that they were not only late, but that the reservation he had made was for their sister location.

In New Jersey. 

Rather than make the trek and considering Gwen’s stomach was so loud she’s sure he could hear it, they grabbed hot dogs on their way to some indie movie theater that she’d mentioned in passing once.

It was a nice enough gesture that it almost made Gwen forget that she ate a half-burnt hot dog, the idea that Peter actually remembered something from one of their conversations causing her heart to flutter - only for them to arrive to the theater and quickly realize that while it did show the kind of arthouse movies Gwen thought were interesting - it had a decidedly different take on the weekends.

The cozy quiet of the theater and the sheepish way Peter looked at her in the dimly lit room was immediately thrown off course as soon as the C-grade arthouse porn movie started playing on the screen.

They’d ducked out as quickly as they could - Peter looking more mortified than she thinks she'd ever seen him, even if everything in her just wanted to laugh.

It was ridiculous, how horrendously wrong their date had gone - something that Gwen wanted to joke about but felt as if she couldn’t, so unsure if that would offend Peter or worse - make him think she was truly upset at how everything happened.

She wasn’t, not really - shit happens and she was ready to call it a night, try again another time. 

But it didn’t help that Peter seemed on edge all night, distracted and continuously turning his head - Gwen taking that to mean that he regretted asking her out in the first place. 

It’s what eventually prompted her to suggest the carnival they’d come across - Peter graciously taking the bait and paying for the tickets, even if Gwen had argued that she could since it was her idea.

“It’s the least I can do,” Peter had said with a sad smile, the air between them feeling more awkward by the second.

Now, walking with nearly a foot of distance between each other - Gwen wondered if maybe their date would’ve been better served as a daydream.

This, Gwen realized later, had been her second mistake. 

“So you still gonna work for Dr. Connor’s next semester?” Peter asked, the two of them walking in step with each other, even if Peter seemed to glance behind his shoulder - Gwen not so discreetly looking back to see what he was staring at before saying, “Yeah, I think so.”

He smiles, realizing he’s been caught as she says, “He’s gonna make it a work-study. I can get paid and actually include it in my grad school applications.”

“That’s cool, do you know what you want to study?”

Gwen nods. “Biomedical engineering. PhD, do a post-doc then work either for a tech firm or some kind of academic research lab.”

Peter whistles before saying, “Wow, got your whole life planned out huh?”

“Yep,” Gwen says unashamed, looking back to Peter as she asks, “don’t you?”

Peter lets out a laugh, a loud one that seemingly shakes his whole body, shaking his head furiously, “I’ll be honest, I don’t even know what I’m doing next week.”

Gwen frowns, Peter catching the change of her expression as he quickly amends, “I just kind of— it’s not that I don’t plan, it’s that things kind of have a mind of their own.”

“Not if you plan it well enough,” Gwen says unevenly, wondering if this was a mistake once again when she says, “My contingencies have contingencies.”

Peter smiles. “You sound a lot like MJ.”

Gwen smiles back at that, even if something nudges at her for him to mention that. 

Michelle was great and Gwen liked her a lot, but she’d be a fool not to have truly considered if there hadn’t ever been anything between her and Peter - now having seen them interact in person as much as she did. 

They were friends, best friends from how Peter and Michelle both spoke about it. Gwen wasn’t the jealous type and believed in her own instincts above all.

The two of them didn’t seem to have any prior romantic history, though even Peter seems to recognize in that moment how it must’ve sounded.

“Not that-- I mean you two are like,  super different too. Like, you both are similar but not like--”

“I get it, Peter. I like MJ, she’s really cool.” 

Peter smiles at that, glad for the save as he says, “Yeah she is. But uh, I’d like to hear more about you, you know.”

“Always a good plan when you’re on a date,” Gwen says with a smirk, Peter blushing furiously at that as she laughs. 

“Sorry.” He says sheepishly, only for Gwen to shake her head as she says, “Don’t be. I think it’s great, having a friend like that. Especially one for so long.”

“Have you kept in touch with any people from high school?” Peter asks as they continue to walk through the carnival, Gwen laughing at his question.

“ No , God I couldn’t wait to leave. I’m way more excited about whatever comes next.” 

Peter doesn’t answer, stopping in place - Gwen turning to look at him with a smile, ready to tease him only for her face to fall when she sees the look on his. 

He went from smiling to looking like he was going to be sick, his whole body tensing as he quickly glanced around.

“Are you okay?” Gwen asks, Peter swallowing something down his throat as he furiously bobs his head up and down, reaching a hand for her as he says, “Yeah, yeah, um, I think maybe we should go.”

“Go… where? We just got here--” Gwen goes to say, only for Peter’s hand to make contact with her arm as he says, “Do you trust me?”

Gwen blinks a few times, completely bewildered. What a weird thing to ask , she thinks - only for any chance to respond to be cut off by Peter’s grip on her arm tightening as a shrill scream lets out. 

Both of them turn, Peter whipping around so fast that Gwen could barely see it - hearing maniacal laughter to the left of them.

On instinct, Gwen wants to run - a sharp rush of fear running through her at the reminder of just how hellish living in New York was in more ways than one, a reminder of those first moments in the library had felt like when Spider-Man and some rhino guy had crashed through the window. 

But Gwen can’t rely on any kind of superhero to come and save them, not when Peter looked like he was gonna jump out of his skin - seemingly frozen in fear even if Gwen could see a flash of something she didn’t recognize pass over his eyes as she said, “Come on, we have to hide.”

“I--” Peter says, glancing in the direction of the laughter that’s growing louder and louder and back to her, Gwen shaking her head as she pulls on his arm instead - Peter being surprisingly solid as she jerks in place.

“We have to go. I know you New Yorkers are used to all of this shit, but I’d really like it if I didn’t die before graduation so--”

“No I have to--” He cuts himself as Gwen continues to look on bewildered, only for his body to tense up even more.

It’s then that she sees it - or him from the vague human-like body emanating from the brightness surrounding him - Gwen seeing the bright blue lightning emanating off of his whole body.

Any argument Gwen has dies on her lips just then, feeling more terrified than she had even in the library - her mind screaming at her to run, even if Peter seemed just as frozen in place, his hands curling up into fists as the man yelled, “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” 

“What the hell, Peter.” Gwen whispers, Peter looking back at her with an expression so fierce on her face that it takes her back, almost pleading with her as he says, “Gwen, I have to go.”

“What? Where do you--” She goes to ask only for Peter to scrunch his eyes together, bracing his hands on her arms as he says, “You need to run. Okay? Run and don’t go look back.”

“Peter--”

“ Please , okay? Just-- just trust me. You need to go.” He pleads with her, Gwen hearing the laughter from the electric looking man to get louder as he shoots out some kind of blast with his fingers, everything in her screaming to get away from there as quickly as possible.

“What the hell do you think you’re going to do? Leave it to the cops, to--” Gwen goes to say, to see his eyes widen - pushing her down to the ground so fast that Gwen barely has time to react, immediately feeling his body weight on top of her in a protective stance, only for a shot of electricity to shoot at them not even three feet away.

“Gwen. Go. ” Peter says through gritted teeth, as soon as he helps her up - the crowd around them screaming in terror as he looks at her with a pained expression before running towards the man, Gwen yelling out, “Peter!”

In seconds he’s lost in the crowd, Gwen feeling herself getting pushed back - feeling confused and hurt and frustrated beyond belief as the crowd and her sense of self-preservation carry her in the same direction as everyone else.

What the hell is he thinking? What is he going to do? Gwen thinks to herself as she runs, only to do a double take when she sees a kid on the sidelines - clutching some kind of carnival won animal and crying as they hid behind a control board for a ride.

She cuts through the crowd as quickly as she can, immediately rushing forward and asking, “Are you okay? Where’s your mom and dad?” 

The little boy is crying, too inconsolable to answer her question - another rush of adrenaline and fear shooting across her spine when she sees another blast of electricity.

She holds out her hands to him, beckoning for him to come into her arms as she says, “Come on, buddy. Let’s get out of here.”

“I want my mommy,” he cries, Gwen scooping him up in her arms only to hear more screams - another shot of something that looked like lightning to hit the stand across from them. 

“Me too buddy, come on let’s go.” She says, tears stinging in her eyes when she thinks of what this date from hell had been like. 

She’d thought that walking into the amateur porn show had been bad, but this - Peter ditching her for God knows what, in the middle of something that felt like a page out of a cheesy horror movie - pissed her off to no end, hearing the little boy in her arms cries as she started to run as fast as she could. 

It was terrifying - pure adrenaline pushing her forward as she moved, seeing a woman pushing against the crowd frantically calling out, “Ryan! Ryan!”

“Mommy!” The little boy in Gwen’s arms yells, turning around to face the woman who sees him in Gwen’s arms and cries with relief.

“Oh my God, oh my God , thank you. Thank you so much,” she says, Gwen nodding once before hearing someone yell, “Look it’s Spider-Man!”

Gwen turns just in time to see him, looking different than he had before - the red and blue of the suit that he had on in the library traded in for something that looked infinitely more mechanical, glowing bright eyes as he swung towards wherever the lightning guy was.

Some of the crowd stops moving, just as transfixed as Gwen was as Spider-Man leaped into action - sending out some webs and yelling out something that Gwen couldn’t catch. 

It was just like it was in the library, watching him as he swung into action - deftly dodging some kind of blast only to land a punch straight in the guy’s face, Gwen watching in amazement as things that looked like spider-legs unfolded from his back.

The punch isn’t enough to send the lightning guy down for long, sending off another blast and he and Spider-Man start to go back and forth. 

It’s like a twisted kind of dance once again, Gwen convinced more than ever that Spider-Man had some come of precognitive sense for danger - something whispering to her in the back of her mind that she can’t focus on, not as Spider-Man and the lightning guy continue to tangle back and forth. 

The fight moves closer to the crowd, Gwen instinctively walking backwards only to see a shot of lightning go off above her head - hearing the groan of some kind of machinery and the screams of other people.

It’s as if time moves in slow motion, Gwen staring up at the falling crane - her whole body tensing to move, the other people around her screaming as it starts to fall. 

This Gwen would think later, was her final mistake - a question if she ever would’ve found out the truth had she not been right there, right then.

In an instant, Gwen sees the unmistakable webbing of Spider-Man - turning to glance back at him as he braces himself against the roof of some carnival booth, feet firmly planted on the ground as he pulls back on the web.

“Go! Run !” Spider-Man yells, Gwen blinking back at him for a second before moving away from the crowd, the world feeling as if snapped into place even as her feet started to move - hearing something in the pleading of Spider-Man’s voice that hit with her such a clear and sudden clarity that had it not been for the shock waves of some lightning blast behind her, Gwen would’ve turned around and confronted him right then and there.

Because it was instantaneous - as sure and as clear as anything Gwen had ever known before, more certainty than she thinks she’s ever had in her life.

It snaps her world into focus as her lungs start to burn, running farther and farther away as the fight resumes in the background.

She recognized Spider-Man’s voice, recognized the pleading and the inflection in it so viscerally that it hit her straight in the chest - like all the pieces of a puzzle she hadn’t even realized she’d been making fell into place. 

Gwen looks back, her heart leaping up to her throat as he swings back to face the danger. 

It wasn't possible, it couldn't be, but then he leaps again, sending off a web and making Gwen consider something that would suddenly make every nonsensical thing that had happened in the past few months suddenly make more sense than they ever had before.

Peter . 

Chapter Text

there is something bittersweet, my love, 

     in the settling light of dusk at the edge of the sky

     in the pale splendour of a mausoleum no one visits

     in the dusty pages of a history book long ago forgotten

the grandeur of bygones have haunted us always. 

there is something bittersweet, my love,

     in the echo of your heartbeat in the thunderstorms

     in the shadow of your smile in the sunrises

     in the whisper of your touch in the earthquakes

your lingering afterimage haunts me always. 

there is something bittersweet, my love, 

     in the promises we never got to keep

     in the memories we never got to remember

     in the infinity we never got to share

our unwritten fairytale will haunt me always.

“May?”

“Hmm?” Gwen smiles as she watches May turn to face Michelle, breaking the quiet and comfortable silence they’d been in after May had poured coffee for the two of them.

May’s hair was grayer now, her glasses thicker and her laugh lines deeply embedded across her face only serving as a reminder of how much she lived without abandon.

 She loved May, from the moment she met her - just as May had seemingly loved her. Seeing her now, familiar in the ways it mattered gave Gwen comfort to know that some things never changed.

“Can I ask you something?” Michelle says with a level of uncertainty that’s so unlike her, her long fingers tightly clasped around her mug.

May’s smile shifts then, a gentler expression on her face as she brings her coffee down and says, “Of course, MJ.”

Michelle bites her lip, Gwen sensing the trepidation from her posture just as she can sense May’s confusion - watching as her eyes dance across Michelle’s face until she speaks. 

“Is everything okay?” May asks, letting the question linger as Michelle considers it - slowly nodding her head after beat.

“Yeah, everything’s… everything's great. My uh, my story’s getting a lot of attention,” Michelle says distractedly, the corner of her mouth slightly upturned, “Robbie wants me to go out again.”

May’s whole demeanor shifts into the neutral, counselor mode that Gwen was all too familiar with - a by-product of the volunteer work that she did at the homeless shelter. 

“Is that something you want?”

Michelle taps her fingers against the mug, her mouth twisting a bit and eyes downcast before she says, “I don’t know.”

May smiles, leaning forward as she says, “That doesn’t sound like the MJ I know.”

Michelle lets out a sharp laugh at that, bringing her eyes back up to May - Gwen seeing the warmth and understanding in them just as much as Michelle can.

“Peter’s not going to like it…”

“Peter would understand,” May rightfully amends, leaning back and bringing her coffee cup to her lips before saying, “If it’s what you want, he’d support you.”

“That’s just it,” Michelle says, Gwen watching as her face twists into something more conflicted than Gwen thinks she’s ever seen her, “I don’t know if it’s what I want or if it’s just—“

She cuts herself off then, eyes shifting to May before glancing down again to the table they’re at - May taking a sip of her coffee before bringing it down again.

May, unlike Peter - at least the Peter that Gwen had fallen in love with - was patient, infinitely more so. She let the silence fill the space between them, giving Michelle the chance to process whatever it is she needed to say, to give room to the storm that was building in Michelle’s heart.

Gwen knew what Michelle was afraid of and from the look on May’s face, could sense that she did as well.

Michelle had always been a force of nature - passionate and determined, ready to take on the world and daring it to take on her.

But there were layers to her that Gwen knew only few people got to see - hidden behind walls that had been carefully crafted over the years, impenetrable and unyielding to everyone but the most determined to overcome them.

Gwen had been one of them, leaving a hole shaped her like when she left - sensing even now how much Michelle wrestled with a guilt that should never have been her own. 

If Gwen could regret anything of her last night, it was that she never got to say goodbye to Michelle - the last time they spoke being significant in that it was so perfectly mundane, laughing and joking with each other as if they didn’t have a care in the world. 

It was that memory, along with so many others that passed through her in that moment - knowing the words she wants to say and yet still couldn’t bring herself to put a voice to.

That Michelle was excited about her story, the thrill of getting accolades that were so richly deserved - a story that Michelle had poured so much into to tell.

And yet that Michelle was hesitant about doing another, not for the danger or even what it meant for her relationship with Peter - but for a small voice in the back of her mind whispering to her, a conflict that even Gwen didn’t know the answer to herself.

Leaving again wouldn’t break the two of them - death itself had brought them together. Yet leaving again, throwing herself into work that took her halfway across the world - weeks after telling Peter she wouldn’t marry him even if he’d asked - sent off a message that Gwen could sense Michelle wasn’t sure she wanted to give. 

That all she’d be doing was what she had done all her life before Gwen had died - running away, as fast and as far as possible. 

And yet, maybe it was the truth - feeling the thought come just as quickly as it left, the subtle twitch of Michelle’s mouth telling Gwen that she hated the idea of it just as much as she hated that she hated the thought.

Michelle had never been one to tie herself to the whims and musings of anyone - her heart and her inner life hidden behind those towering walls. 

She loved Peter - deeply, truly, their relationship only deepened from the years and years of friendship between them. 

But loving Peter made her vulnerable - physically and emotionally, in a way that still didn’t come naturally to her - even if Gwen knew the exact hour when she’d started to.

It’s that vulnerability that Gwen can see cracked across her face, stifled as quickly as she can as Michelle grinds her teeth - seemingly unwilling to say the words in the moment even if May would understand most of all.

Michelle loved Peter. But she wasn’t sure if she wanted to marry him - her own commitment issues paling in comparison to the hole shaped like Gwen in her heart - a ridiculous notion in Gwen’s eyes as if Michelle was somehow trying to reach for a happiness that wasn’t hers.

Michelle knew that was nonsensical just as much as Gwen did, yet it was still there - an irony Gwen thinks, considering her initial thoughts and questions concerning Peter and Michelle’s relationship when she first met them. 

Rather than say the words aloud, to say that she felt like a replacement even if she knew that she wasn’t, that she was afraid that she was running away from him and yet also afraid that she’d allowed herself to be so wrapped up in a man - much less Peter - that she’d consider him over her career, Michelle switched gears asking, “When do you and Lionel leave again?”

May studies Michelle for a bit before answering her question, letting the unspoken words between them hang in the air as she says, “Tonight, we’re just taking a short trip to a bed and breakfast out of the city.”

“Five years though that’s— that’s great,” Michelle says with a smile, something that’s forced - both Gwen and May seeing right through it.

But before May can call her out on it, Michelle rushes forward - standing up as she says, “I should probably go, so you can pack. Thanks for the coffee, I really—“

“Lionel lost his wife too, some years back.”

Michelle freezes, staring at May who just takes a sip of her coffee before continuing, “You know, I used to joke with Ben that if I ever died first that I’d haunt him if he remarried too soon. He’d laugh, thought it was the funniest thing in the world.”

May’s expression softens, a faraway expression on her face before she says, “He used to tell me that he’d never let that happen because he’d be the one to die first.”

Gwen can feel Michelle tense up at that, sensing from being her best friend that Michelle wanted to try and see if she could comfort her in some way - something that didn’t come naturally to her and yet she’d learned how to do over the years only for May to smile, turning her attention back to Michelle. 

“Lionel’s wife used to say the same. We laugh about it now, wonder if they knew.”

“Do you think they did?” Michelle asks, her voice low as Gwen watches May smile. 

“No, but life’s funny that way. And that’s the thing, MJ,” May says, reaching a hand across the table, “it’s life . One that you and I still get to have.”

Michelle just stares at May, Gwen feeling the love between the two of them and the wisdom of what May was trying to tell her. 

“You deserve to live a full life sweetheart,” May says gently, Gwen seeing the tears forming in Michelle’s eyes.

She quickly wipes them away with her free hand, trying to keep her voice steady even if her words only serve to make Gwen feel as if she was sitting between them still. 

“So did she.”

Gwen’s heart was pounding in her ears, her lungs burning as she ran up the stairs from the subway stop closest to Michelle’s dorm - her mind bringing back every single interaction she’s had with Peter Parker at the forefront of her memory in flashes.

Peter was always late to class, some random excuse time and time again that for anyone else - Gwen would’ve guessed that he would be dropped from the class by now.

But he wasn’t - because he always had a good excuse, remembering him mentioning the fact that Tony fucking Stark had written him some kind of recommendation.

The reason why Michelle had been so worried the first day they’d met, the faraway expression on Peter’s face when she’d seen him at the library ther first time - limping from the same leg that Spider-Man had used the day before. 

She knew the unofficial bio of Spider-Man, had looked him up right after her first encounter with him - but the idea that the hero she’d met was also the guy who not so subtly flirted with her for the past few months was both mind boggling and made a surprising amount of sense. 

How could I have been so stupid? , Gwen thinks to herself - skidding to a stop in front of the building that Michelle lived, wishing that she hadn’t lost her phone in the shuffle - wondering now if Michelle was even at home. 

A part of her thought that she should run in the opposite direction - should go back to her own dorm, close the door to her room and on the relentless drama that seemed to surround Peter Parker everywhere he went.

But it had never been in Gwen’s nature to let things go without learning all that she could and she wasn’t going to start now, summoning up all her courage as she marched into the lobby and made the trek up the stairs - remembering the last time she’d been over to Michelle’s place and her off-hand comment about how unreliable the elevators were.

Her legs ached and her lungs felt like they were on fire but that wasn’t the worst part, the sinking feeling growing in the pit of her stomach as she made her way up the two flights of stairs she needed. 

Peter was Spider-Man, something that Gwen knew in her gut. But while Peter lying to her made sense - an infuriating, aggravating amount of sense - it hurt in a different way to think that Michelle had too, even if there was a small voice that whispered to her in the back of her mind.

The closeness of their friendship, the recognition for why they had been drawn together after their mutual friend Ned had left for college - Michelle must’ve known Peter was Spider-Man since they were in high school. No doubt one of the few in his life who did considering that for as nice as Peter was, she never really saw him with any other friends. 

Rationally, Gwen knew that it was understandable that Michelle wouldn’t betray Peter’s trust with that - especially for someone that the two of them had only known for a little under six months.

But it still hurt, enough that when Gwen finally reached Michelle’s door and knocked furiously - she began to wonder what exactly she was going to say. 

Michelle opens the door in a panic, almost as if she was expecting someone else - only for her eyes to widen in confusion when she sees Gwen.

“Gwen, what—“

“I know about Peter.”

Michelle freezes, hand still extended and holding the door open. She glances towards the empty hallway before nodding Gwen in.

Gwen looks around to the empty room, glad that she had a single and wouldn’t have to awkwardly dance around a coded conversation with a nosy roommate listening in. Yet Michelle immediately looks uncomfortable, closing the door and staring at Gwen before her expression shifts into something so neutral it’s almost unnerving.

“What do you mean you know about—“

“I know he’s Spider-Man,” Gwen says, daring Michelle to deny it.

She’s surprised to see that Michelle’s neutral expression turns into a smirk, letting out a small laugh as she says, “God, I knew it. Ned owes me $20.”

“What?” 

Michelle sighs, rolling her eyes and throwing up her hands. “Gwen, you would not believe how much Peter and I fought about him telling you. Obviously,” she motioned towards herself, “I thought he should but Peter’s just…”

She trails off, rubbing her forehead before saying, “He’s got a lot of weird, shitty coping mechanisms and keeping people safe is one of them. And it’s not my secret to tell.”

“Keeping people safe?” Gwen asks, intuitively guessing where Michelle was coming from but still reeling enough from the night’s events that she wanted it to be explained.

“I know it’s kind of a dick move but—“

“No, it’s— it’s not like he’s known me that long,” Gwen quickly says, logic winning out over the sliver of hurt she’d felt not even moments before, “I don’t blame him I just—“

“I do,” Michelle says definitively, motioning for them to sit on her spare bed. Gwen slips off her shoes then follows after her, Michelle curling a leg under her as she sits down and says, “He really likes you Gwen. And take it from someone who’s been around his sorry ass since we were fourteen, I know the difference between a crush and how into you he is.”

Gwen must look shocked, enough that Michelle seems to realize that she’s put her foot in her mouth. She winces and says, “Fuck, tonight was your first date right?”

“Yeah…” Gwen says, Michelle tensing suddenly as she says, “Wait, what happened? Did he ditch you again? I swear to--”

“No, he didn’t-- he didn’t ditch me. I mean he did, kind of. It’s hard to explain,” Gwen starts to ramble, a mixture of conflicting emotions running through her. 

She still feels like she’s reeling from the realization that Peter was Spider-Man that Michelle had all but confirmed, the adrenaline from the terror she’d felt while she ran for her life still flowing through her bloodstream. But despite all of that, there was still the unmistakable flutter in her gut at Michelle’s confession that Peter liked her, something that was so blatantly ridiculous that if Gwen had more of her wits about her she’d immediately squash it down.

As it was, she just felt frazzled in a way that she never was as she says, “It was awful, MJ. We ended up at some carnival and a guy with lightning come out of his hands just started to--”

“Thor?”

“No, not Thor,” Gwen quickly interrupts, seeing the confusion on Michelle’s face as she says, “I don’t know who it is. How do you guys keep up with all of this?”

“Keep up with…?” Michelle asks, Gwen sighing as she puts her head in her hands. 

“All this superhero bullshit. New York is so fucking weird.” Gwen says with a frustrated sigh. Michelle laughs, Gwen bringing her head out of her hands as she smirks back at her, “Yeah you’re telling me.”

Gwen can’t help but smile, bringing her hands down as Michelle asks, “Wait so back up, what happened tonight?”

Gwen sighs, curling her legs under her before saying, “It’s a long story.”

For as sarcastic as Michelle is, she’s a surprisingly good listener - allowing Gwen to detail her and Peter’s date from hell without interruption, only for them to be cut off when Michelle’s phone starts to buzz. 

She ignores it, encouraging Gwen to continue only for it to buzz again - Gwen looking pointedly at it as she asks, “You sure you shouldn’t answer that?”

“It’s probably just that guy from my physics lab who keeps trying to get in my pants. What happened after you grabbed the little boy?”

Gwen goes to say something further only for the phone now to buzz so much it almost falls off her desk, Michelle sighing as she glances to it only for her eyes to widen when she sees who it is.

She immediately answers, “Peter?”

Gwen freezes - feeling like she’s been caught, barely hearing the frantic tinny voice of Peter on the other line.

“Wait, wait slow down. What’s going on? Are you okay?” Michelle asks, Gwen immediately feeling on edge. Michelle looks back at her and says, “Peter calm down, it’s okay. Gwen’s-- Gwen’s okay. She’s here.” 

She can’t hear what Peter says but the relief is evident from the way his voice shifts, Michelle smirking as she says, “Yeah, she’s fine. I can’t believe you took her to a porno , Parker. What the hell were you--”

But whatever Michelle tries to joke is immediately stopped, Gwen instinctively leaning forward as Peter says something else on the other line. Michelle glances at Gwen’s person before saying, “Do you have your phone?”

Gwen shakes her head, “No, I lost it at the carnival.”

Michelle nods and says, “Yeah, Peter found it. He’s-- he’s on his way.”

Peter says something else, Michelle’s expression turning into something that resembles a grimace as she says, “Don’t bother, Peter. She knows.”

His voice is silent on the other line, Gwen wanting to lean in and hear whatever he has to say as Michelle smirks again.

“She’s taking it pretty well, all things considered. Don’t worry, Parker. I’m here to hype you up as always.”

Gwen lets out a laugh, Michelle smiling at her before it falls - listening to whatever Peter has to say. 

“Yeah uh, she’ll be here. See you in a minute.” Michelle nods. “Bye.”

She hangs up, Gwen watching her as she lowers the phone from her ear before asking, “So he’s coming here?”

Michelle nods again, eyeing her up and down. “That’s okay right?”

“Yeah, yeah of course,” Gwen says quickly, “Of course he--”

“He was terrified,” Michelle interjects, Gwen pausing as she stares at her, “He found your phone and was trying to call you and explain but he-- he couldn’t.”

Gwen doesn’t know what to say to that, all her own emotions of what this night had been suddenly causing a sinking feeling in her stomach for how it must’ve looked from Peter’s perspective - how she’d disappeared and without her phone, he would’ve had no way to make sure she was okay.

The date from hell might’ve been objectively terrible but for all Peter knew, it could’ve been that much worse. 

“He asked if you’d meet him on the roof, he-- he wants to see you,” Michelle says, throwing Gwen out of her thoughts. 

“The roof?” She asks incredulously, Michelle nodding as if that was the most normal thing in the world. “Don’t worry, I got an in with maintenance so it’s easy access.” 

Gwen laughs, Michelle’s expression turning protective before she says, “But um, you don’t have to. I can tell Peter that you’ll talk to him tomorrow, if you just want some time… you know.” Michelle shrugs, looking a little uncomfortable in a way that Gwen’s never seen her before as she says, “Peter’s my best friend but he deals with some weird shit, Gwen. It’s… it’s a lot.” 

She smiles more genuinely, the corner of her lips raising slightly before saying, “If you want me to tell him to fuck off for you, hang out here with me instead… I will.” 

Gwen looks back at Michelle with a grateful smile, knowing her well enough by now to understand that she means it completely - thankful in a way that she can’t quite articulate that Michelle would be so willing to push aside one of her closest friends for the sake of making sure she was okay. 

Then again, Gwen thinks - if anyone could understand what it was like to be around this kind of superhero bullshit - Michelle would. 

Gwen extends a hand out towards Michelle, resting it gently on her arm before saying, “No, it’s okay. I uh, I should probably let him know I’m okay.”

“I mean it Gwen,” Michelle says more firmly, “if you don’t want to--”

“No, no it’s okay,” Gwen says with a smile, Michelle studying her face before finding whatever she’s looking for. She leans back, Gwen nodding once more.

“I want to.”

Gwen doesn’t know if it’s the cold or residual adrenaline but her whole body feels like it’s vibrating from anticipation, Michelle finangling with the door to the roof.

“So wait, who’s the guy in your physics lab?” She asks, hearing Michelle laugh. 

“Some rich kid who thinks his last name means I should give a damn. He’s not important.” Michelle says as she opens the door.

“ Sounds kind of important,” Gwen says, rubbing her hands against her arms, “You’ve mentioned him like three times already in the past week.”

Michelle rolls her eyes, Gwen smiling at her as she walks out onto the roof.

“Yeah well, he’s a flirt and a little bit of an asshole so you know he’s just my type,” Michelle says sarcastically, Gwen frowning as she does. 

“You deserve a good guy, MJ.” 

Michelle shrugs, though knowing her as well as she did she could now can sense that it’s just a little too forced as she says, “It’s fine. Speaking of good guys,” Michelle nods towards the roof, “Romeo’s out there waiting for you.”

Gwen smirks, glancing over to see Spider-Man - Peter - swinging to the rooftop, glancing around before unmasking himself. 

She knew it was Peter but it’s still a little of a shock to see him, the vacant expression in his eyes as he looks her over - less like he’d checked her out the first day they’d met and more like he was making sure she wasn’t hurt - stirring something in her gut.

“Call me later,” Michelle says quietly, Gwen turning to her to see her nod once before shutting the door - leaving Gwen and Peter alone on the rooftop.

She turns back to Peter, watching as he wrings his mask in his hand. He looks rough, like he’d been thrown around the inside of a washing machine. But he’s standing, staring at her with a look she can’t place - a mixture of apologies and shame that Gwen immediately wants to wipe away.

She takes a few steps forward, Peter meeting her halfway.

“Is everything--”

“Are you--”

They both start at the same time, Gwen pressing her lips together as Peter’s eyes search her face. 

“You go first,” Gwen says, Peter’s mouth twisting into a grimace as he wraps his fingers around his mask again.

“Gwen, I— I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you, after the party but I just… I didn’t know how to…” he trails off, Gwen waiting as he gathers his thoughts.

“What did MJ tell you?”

“Not much, she said you should be the one to talk to me about all of this. That it’s not her story to tell.”

Peter laughs, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand as he says, “Yeah, that sounds like her.” 

Gwen bites her lip, realizing that’s not the complete truth and feeling a little more emboldened than she normally would.

“She did say something… about you.”

Peter stiffens at that, straightening up as he stares at Gwen. 

In any other instance, for any other person - Gwen wouldn’t mention it. Would let it go, allow the other person to fill in the gaps and make a fool of themselves. But for as frazzled and discombobulated as Gwen is feeling, Peter’s the one more at risk here.

He’d ditched her tonight, true but for something that was objectively good - Gwen feeling a surge of empathy for him now and a rush of shame for every single moment that she thought of Peter being an inconsiderate flake.

It made perfect sense now, why Michelle stuck with him - another confirmation that Gwen’s gut was never wrong. Peter was a hero , a thankless job from everything she could imagine - remembering the complaints her father would give when he’d come home after a rough patrol.

But when her father died, he died with honor - a flag given to her mother and a plaque that collected dust over their fireplace, the mayor calling herself to give them condolences for their loss.

Peter didn’t get any of that because Spider-Man was a secret - a secret that he’d kept for reasons she could completely understand. 

“She said that you… you like me. A lot.” Gwen says haltingly, Peter’s eyes dancing across her face, “And that’s why you didn’t say anything.”

Peter lets out a laugh, sharp and a little unhinged as he says, “Yeah, yeah I do.”

“I like you too,” Gwen says softly, the look in his eyes then feeling like a crushing weight in her chest. 

It makes sense, in the abstract - for Peter to think she’d be done with him after this. That he’d lied to her by omission.

But Gwen couldn’t help but think how terribly lonely his life had to be - another wave of understanding for the loyalty Michelle had for him and why she was so insistent on pushing them together. 

“I’m really sorry for leaving you tonight,” Peter says, taking another step forward.

“It’s not like it could’ve gone any worse, ” Gwen replies, Peter’s face blanking before he actually laughs, Gwen smiling as she takes yet another step.

They’re inches away from him now, Peter smiling at her as he says, “God, this whole night was terrible wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it was,” Gwen answers honestly, “But um, I’d be down to try again. If you want.”

Peter’s eyes dance across her face, a question in them as he asks, “ Do you want to?”

Gwen considers it for a half-beat before she takes the leap, moving herself forward until their lips meet.

It’s quick, chaste - Peter’s hand awkwardly moving to her arm before she leans back, Peter looking a little dazed as says, “Is that a yes?”

Gwen laughs at that, Peter smiling again before his face turns into something a little softer. He leans forward this time, pressing his lips against hers.

They still had so much to talk about - about the night, about him being a superhero - yet in that moment, all Gwen could think of was the press of him against her, the way his mouth moved setting off butterflies in her stomach and causing her heart to beat so fast that it felt like it was going to burst out of her chest.

Peter laughs in between kisses as he whispers, “I can hear your heartbeat.”

“That’s amazing,” Gwen replies, pulling him in a little closer, “And a little creepy.”

Peter laughs again, Gwen feeling the smile on his lips. 

It’s not the end of the night that Gwen had imagined by a long shot. 

Yet feeling the cool breeze in the air around them, Peter’s hands pulling her closer to him, all Gwen could think is that it still felt like a beginning. 

Chapter Text

The story starts like all the rest:

two people are in love. 

They kiss like the stars burn in their lips

They talk like the sun itself listens to their voices

They dream like the skies have no boundary

They forget the world is not a paradise,

that even writings in stone fade away,

that happiness has a deadline.

The story ends like all the rest:

two people say goodbye. 

It was almost to be expected for something to happen to Peter - a constant in the universe that Gwen had wondered about in life and yet still had no answer for in death.

Peter used to joke about Parker luck with her, enough that it was a long-running explanation for any mild inconvenience in their lives.

The subway running late, their food at restaurants being lukewarm, the heater breaking in the middle of the night - all of it attributed to “that damn Parker luck - Gwen remembering his small smiles and flirtatious winks to try and make her laugh.

Yet Gwen didn’t laugh when she felt it, a low hum and shift in the small pocket of the universe she inhabited - bringing her attention to Michelle as she rushed to the Compound.

Gwen was dead but not omniscient, not enough to know what had happened anymore than Michelle did - watching her curl her fingers over the steering wheel, pushing past the speed limit as if it was a suggestion as she drove on.

By the time she arrived, Gwen hadn’t gone away from her - hoping that Michelle felt comforted even if such a thing was impossible to convey.

Michelle leapt out of the car, pushing past the double doors and running straight into Tony. 

“Where is—“

“MJ, we should sit.” Tony tries to say, Gwen watching Michelle’s expression change from one of concern into panic - snapping her mouth shut as her eyes danced across Tony’s face.

Michelle lets Tony lead her to a bench just outside of the medical bay - Gwen sensing her barely contained nervousness and seeing the grim expression on Tony’s face.

“How is he?”

Tony sighs. “He’s stable.”

”How bad is it?” Michelle asks before Tony can try and appease her, Gwen seeing a familiar look on his face. 

Gwen loved Peter long enough to know what it was like to almost lose him, her own last decision having been to save his life at the cost of her own. 

She knows all too well what it looks like to be on the receiving end of a Tony Stark bedside talk, sensing that Michelle was uninterested in the assurances that he’ll be okay - Tony’s shoulder’s sagging as he physically deflated.

“It’s… not looking good, kid,” Tony says, rubbing a hand over his face. “They put him under, hoping it’ll give his healing a shot at helping him out, but…”

Tony trails off, Gwen watching Michelle’s expression tighten as Tony says, “It’s bad.”

It’s not the words that Tony would’ve told her nor the tone he would’ve taken. Gwen didn’t put up with anyone’s bullshit but there was something different in how her and Tony’s relationship had been - warm and comforting and playful.

From all Gwen had gathered in life, Michelle and Tony hadn't always seen eye to eye - a begrudging acceptance of the other when they realized neither was going anywhere anytime soon. 

Yet that made their relationship layered in a way that Gwen could appreciate now, the realistic approach they had to the world and to what it could mean to lose the one person that had brought them together.

Something that Michelle understood, Gwen thought - in multiple ways.

“Can I see him?” She hears Michelle ask, her voice thick but firm as she looks at Tony - almost daring him to tell her she can’t even if all three of them know he never would.

Tony nods, just as Gwen expects - standing and leading her wordlessly down the hall to where Peter was at.

He goes to open the door when Michelle pauses, Tony looking back to her and seeing the flash of something almost like fear across her face.

“How bad?” Michelle asks, barely above a whisper.

Tony’s face falls, taking a deep breath as he says, “Michelle—“

“ How bad ?” She repeats, Gwen watching as her eyes glisten - recognizing her question for what it was just as Tony does.

Michelle didn’t like surprises, nor did she care for being unprepared. It’s a feeling Gwen could relate to, though considering what Tony says next - Gwen isn’t sure if the alternative could be that much worse. 

“Six broken ribs, a shattered femur and torn ACL, thirteen different breaks across both arms and a hip fracture that healed wrong by the time we got to him,” Tony says without taking a breath, Gwen seeing Michelle’s wince as he continues, “But Cho was worried most about the bleeding in his brain.”

“What the fuck did he do?” Michelle asks, Gwen knowing as much as Tony did that she didn’t actually want or care to know the answer - focused more on the consequences of what his alter ego entailed. 

“One of his ribs cut into his lung. He healed around it, Cho had to fix it in surgery. She… she doesn’t trust him to breathe on his own right now, not with everything else that his healing is working on.”

Michelle nods, looking numb before her expression shifts - Gwen watching as she seemingly steels herself for what she’s about to see just as Gwen does, looking to Tony as she nods.

Tony searches her face for a beat, finding whatever he’s looking for before opening the door - Gwen hearing Michelle’s soft gasp when she sees him.

Gwen could have chosen to be with Peter, as she sometimes did when he was injured - some kind of comfort beyond the grave.

But anytime she did so, Gwen almost felt as if she should hold her breath - feeling something almost like fear at the possibility that she would end up seeing him in her liminal plane of existence.

It was better, Gwen thought, to be with Michelle. To watch as she made her way to his bedside - the familiar hiss and whirring of the ventilator synchronizing with the steady beeping of Peter’s heart monitor.

Gwen isn’t sure how much time has passed when Tony finally leaves - watching as he presses a gentle hand and squeezes Michelle’s shoulder.

She waits, wondering if she should take her leave too - Gwen always feeling a little uncomfortable with how close to death Peter felt in these moments.

She’s stopped by Michelle’s voice, somehow soft yet firm all at the same time as she says, “You left your dishes in the sink again.”

Michelle stares at Peter’s still form, Gwen watching her eyes as they travel down the length of him - the only movement being the steady rise and fall of his chest.

It was just as bad as Tony had described - if not worse. Any part of his body not wrapped in bandages or in casts was bruised - ugly dark blue, purple and yellows coloring the indents of his skin from his bare chest up. 

His eyes were taped shut, but Gwen could still see the dark purple all around them - his lips cracked around the tube shoved down his throat and his hair matted, hoping Michelle couldn’t see the blood still seemingly flecked in them.

Michelle takes another breath - Gwen hearing the waver in it as she says, “I told you the last time you did that, I’d leave it in the sink. I’m not cleaning your shit up, Parker.”

There’s no bite to her words, Gwen feeling the anguish that courses through Michelle in that moment - knowing that if anyone were around, she would’ve held it in.

She couldn’t know that Gwen was right there with her, wishing that she could hold her hand and comfort her - watching instead as Michelle lets out a harsh breath, reaching a hand out to gently take Peter’s - rubbing her thumb over the few fingers that she could see from the cast.

“Don’t you dare make me wash that plate, Pete,” Michelle says, her voice cracked and raw with a grief that Gwen can see written all over her face. “You don’t get to do that. Not to me.”

If Gwen’s heart could ache, it would - watching as Michelle’s eyes closed, knowing her well enough to guess that she was trying her hardest not to cry.

“ Please Peter,” Michelle whispers, Gwen wishing with everything within her that Peter could respond as she says, “I already lost Gwen.”

Michelle opens her eyes at that, blinking back tears.

“I can’t lose you too.”

Gwen hummed to herself as she worked, bopping along to a song that had been stuck in her head for the past week when Dr. Connors clears his throat.

“Yes Dr. Connors?” She asks, turning to him to see the smile on his face.

“Called your name three times, Ms. Stacy. Daydreaming again are we?” He asks goodnaturedly, Gwen blushing furiously.

“Sorry Dr. Connors.”

He shakes his head, putting a hand up as he says, “No, it’s my fault for offering you a summer work study. Even the best and brightest deserve a break.”

Dr. Connors smiles, nodding towards the clock on the wall across from them as he says, “Go ahead. I can finish up the rest of this here.”

“Are you sure?” Gwen asks, sitting up a little straighter. The possibility to leave and actually have a chance at surprising Peter was incredibly intriguing but Gwen knew it could wait, especially since the chances of Peter actually being ready on time were slim to none.

Dr. Connors nods before saying, “Very. I was young once too, Ms. Stacy. Go,” he smiles, “I’ll see you next week.”

“Thank you, Dr. Connors,” Gwen says, carefully disposing of her gloves and safety goggles. Clean up takes less than ten minutes, considering being in a lab is second nature to her by now - especially after having worked the entire summer on the same project.

Before she leaves, Gwen looks back to Dr. Connors and says, “I’ll be here at 8am sharp on Monday.”

“I know you will, Ms. Stacy. Now go,” he smiles, “enjoy your weekend.”

Gwen beams. “I will.”

By the time Gwen makes it to the dorm she was in for the summer, she feels as if she’s vibrating - checking in with her mom as she dumps her lab stuff and changes. 

Peter had been thrilled she got off early, sending her a text that as soon as he was free - working an actual SI internship of his own - he’d be there. 

“I miss you, Gwendolyne. I don’t like that you’ve been cooped up in that lab all summer,” she hears her mom say through the speakerphone, Gwen laughing as she changes from the clothes that smelled a little too much like formaldehyde into something more appropriate for the New York humidity. 

“I haven’t , mom. Promise. I’ve gone to the Gugg like thirty times, went to the movies last week and—“

“Spending all your time with that boy?”

Gwen flushes, smiling as her cheeks turn bright pink. “Peter’s a good guy, mom.”

“I know,” her mom says not unkindly, “makes me wonder that if you two hadn’t made that weekend trip, I wonder if I would’ve seen you at all.”

Guilt edges at Gwen then, biting her bottom lip only for her mom to say, “Don’t go making that face you do. I just want you to be smart, hon. Don’t you think you two are moving a little fast?”

Gwen looks at her reflection in the mirror, chewing the inside of her cheek as she thinks.

If a year ago someone told her that she’d not only meet a boy that she’d actually want to spend some time with, much less date, Gwen would’ve laughed. 

If six months ago someone told her that the cute boy she’d been flirting with also moonlit as a superpowered vigilante - spandex and all - Gwen would’ve rolled her eyes. 

But the thing that threw her the most, even more than the superhero thing, was how quickly she’d fallen completely and totally head over heels for him. 

It was patently ridiculous, the silliest thing that Gwen could have ever admitted to herself. Yet it also felt brave , new and exciting that a part of her knew everyone felt during the rush of their first love. 

Gwen had plenty of boyfriends before Peter, had even fancied herself in love with some of them. But being with Peter felt different in a way that she couldn’t explain to her mom, much less to herself - knowing any explanation she could give would only make her sound like a fool in love.

Which she was, Gwen wouldn’t deny it - but there was so much more to it than that. 

After their failed first date, they fell into a relationship so easy it felt like breathing. Like standing on the edge of a pool, terrified of the deep end, only to slip in and wonder why you'd ever been scared of it in the first place. 

It felt fast yet also unbelievably slow - wondering how she'd ever lived without Peter's dopey texts in the morning, his swings across from the lab when he was out on patrol. Even his snores were something Gwen loved, lightly tracing small circles on his bare back as he slept - the two of them a tangle of limbs and legs in her small twin bed.

“Moving too fast would be moving in with him, mom,” Gwen says, ignoring the memory of a conversation that her and Peter had not even a week before discussing just that as she puts her hair into a ponytail, “we’re just dating.”

“He looks at you like your father looked at me.”

Gwen stops, staring at the phone for a beat while her mother sighs.

“Just… just be careful, Gwendolyne. You have a lot of dreams and goals.”

“Mom, I know--”

“You’ve never been one to push them away for a boy,” her mom interjects, Gwen’s features softening as she picks up the phone, “don’t let Peter be the exception when you are the exceptional one.”

Gwen smiles at that, bringing the phone up to her mouth as she looks at her reflection in the mirror.

“Don’t worry mom, I won’t.”

Her mom’s words come back to her at the most inopportune time, Peter’s hands roaming underneath her shirt as he left a trail of kisses from her lips to her neck. 

“Do you think we’re going too fast?” 

Peter’s hand pauses just under her chest, freezing for a second as he looks up at her confused. 

“Did I-- I’m sorry, I thought--”

“No,” Gwen laughs, before sitting up - Peter immediately doing the same as he searches her face, “I mean… us.”

Peter still looks just as confused as he did a few seconds ago, raising an eyebrow as he leans back on Gwen’s twin bed. 

“Did something… happen?” Peter asks, Gwen shaking her head.

“No, that’s not--” she sighs, “Never mind.”

Peter’s hand rests on her arm, Gwen looking up at him to see a familiar expression on his face.

“Talk to me.”

Gwen bites her lip, searching Peter’s face in return for a moment before saying, “It’s just something I’ve been thinking about. Do you remember our first date?”

Peter winces, tilting his head. “I actively try to forget about it, so no.”

She playfully shoves him, Peter grinning as she says, “I mean it. Do you remember when you asked me about what I wanted to do in five years?”

Peter nods, “Yeah. PhD in Biomedical Engineering. Do a post-doc then--”

“No, I mean, do you remember what you said?”

Peter frowns, his eyebrows furrowing - Gwen watching as he tries to remember. “Not… really?”

“You said that you weren’t even sure what you were going to do the next week,” Gwen says carefully, Peter laughing as he says, “Yeah, that sounds like me.”

When Gwen doesn’t laugh, Peter quickly sobers up - straightening his shoulders as he says, “Does that-- does that bother you?”

“No,” Gwen carefully lies, Peter looking at her like he doesn’t believe her when she clarifies, “I mean it does but not-- not in the way you think.”

“Is it because of Spider-Man?” Peter asks, looking as if he both did and didn’t want to hear the answer as Gwen shakes her head. 

“No it’s not that, not really. It’s more,” Gwen sighs, her shoulders sagging, “I don’t know. I just-- I talked to my mom today and I was just… made me think about some things.”

“Like?” Peter gently prods.

“Like… how sustainable this is, Peter. I-- I love you,” she says, sharing a quick glance with him. The words were still new between them, even if the feelings had been there for months - seeing from the blush that crept across Peter’s face and the way his eyes lit up that he liked hearing it just as much as she liked saying it. 

“But,” Gwen begins, “I just wonder what being in love with you means. For me.” 

“I don’t understand--”

“I have things I want to do, Peter. Things I want to accomplish,” Gwen says, Peter pursing his lips as she says, “And I don’t know if that’s always going to be in New York.”

Peter looks conflicted at that, Gwen pressing forward as she says, “And it’s not like we have to make any big decisions today or anytime soon but I just-- things are going really well with Dr. Connors. His research grants being renewed for another year and the paper we’ve been working on just got accepted for publication.”

Peter’s eyes widen in surprise, “Gwen, that’s awe--”

“And,” Gwen interrupts, “we’re going to be juniors, Peter. Juniors . That’s just a year away from being a senior and graduation and I know you kind of joked about living together in the fall but I’m not sure if that’s such a great idea? Or maybe it is and I’m just second-guessing it but--”

“Gwen, we don’t have to--”

“You barely make it to class as it is, Peter. What are you going to do when we graduate? Or if I end up getting into a doctoral program across the country? You’re not going to leave New York. And I wouldn’t want you to, not for me. Not when you save lives all the time.” She says in a rush, Peter looking more and more perplexed as Gwen sighs. 

“I just wonder sometimes if we’re on different paths… just delaying the inevitable.”

Peter absorbs that for a beat before his face hardens, looking at Gwen with a firm expression on his face as he shakes his head and says, “We’re not.”

“Peter--”

“We’re not ,” he says more definitively, Gwen holding her tongue considering she’d interrupted him several times in the past few minutes. “Gwen, I love you. And no offense, but you’re wrong.”

It’s Gwen’s turn to be confused, staring at him as Peter takes her hand. “We’re not on different paths.” 

He leans forward, kissing her softly before whispering, “ You’re my path.” 

It’s the sweetest thing he’s ever said to her, Gwen feeling her heart leap up in her chest as he brings a hand to her cheek. But for as romantic as it is, it’s not very realistic - Gwen leaning back as she says, “Peter… I’m being serious.”

“And so am I,” Peter says more definitively, leaning back just enough to stare into her eyes. “I love you, Gwen. I… I haven’t felt like this before.” 

Gwen understands the feeling, Peter bringing a hand down as he says, “I’m not saying we have to move in together or that I know what’s gonna happen in the next year or five years or ten but I know that whatever happens, I want to be right there with you.”

Gwen can’t help but smile at that, a sense in the back of her mind telling her that this isn’t enough but the rush that she feels overwhelming everything else - kissing him again. 

“You’re smooth, has anyone ever told you that?”

Peter grins, “Yeah, you should hear what the nightlife has to say about it. Pretty much known for my smart mouth.”

Gwen’s eyebrow raises, Peter’s eyes flashing with something that makes her stomach churn in anticipation. “Really?”

Peter leans forward, kissing her slowly before she leans into it - allowing him to push her back on her twin size dorm bed. 

The dorms weren’t the most romantic of settings, another point in favor of getting their own apartment - even if they’d technically only been dating for less than a year. 

But Gwen did at least live in a single, the rattle of the air conditioner whirring to life serving as a familiar background noise as Peter’s mouth began to move with more purpose - hands gently roaming as she brought him even closer. 

It wasn’t as if the conversation was over, nor did Gwen get the impression that Peter was intentionally trying to shut it down. 

But Gwen didn’t let herself dwell on it for too much longer as Peter’s thumb hooked just under the bottom of her cotton shorts - communicating that he was planning on showing other ways he could put his mouth to good use.

Gwen sighed, Peter searching her eyes for a moment before she smiles, Peter smiling as he kisses her once again - letting everything fade away and for once living in the moment with him. 

It’s not till a few weeks later, when Gwen’s squealing and throwing her arms around Michelle that she thinks back to her and Peter’s conversation - Michelle hugging her back tightly in return.

“I missed you,” Gwen whispers, Michelle laughing as she leans back - smiling at Gwen as she says, “I don’t know, sounds like you and Peter were doing just fine without me.”

“The city was in shambles without you, MJ. Barely holding on,” Peter quips, gesturing for her bags as Michelle rolls her eyes. 

“I can carry my own suitcase, Pete. Did it for three months all across Europe.” 

“I know you can ,” Peter says a little impatiently, “But now you don’t have to. Come on, it’ll be faster.” 

Michelle squints at him for a moment before relenting, Gwen barely holding back a giggle as she says, “Fine. You’ve always been a sucker for punishment anyway.”

Peter mutters something under his breath that Gwen doesn’t catch but Michelle clearly does, going to say something only for Gwen to interject and say, “You have to tell me everything .” 

Michelle smiles, laughing as she says, “I talked to you guys all the time.”

“Exactly,” Gwen says pointedly, the two of them marching up the stairs after Peter to the apartment Michelle was subletting, “you told us everything. But I want to hear everything .” 

Michelle seems to catch on to her meaning only for Peter to yell out, “I can still hear you, you know.”

“Tough shit, Parker,” Michelle calls out, Gwen actually snickering as she shares a mischievous glance with Gwen, leaning closer to her as Michelle whispers, “Not like we asked for him to have freaky spider powers anyway. Did I tell you about Greek guy yet?”

“I CAN STILL HEAR YOU!” Peter calls out, both Gwen and Michelle laughing as they make their way up the stairs - Gwen smiling from ear to ear as Peter and Michelle start to playfully bicker back and forth. 

When they finally make it up the stairs, Peter’s already in her apartment - the door wide open as Michelle calls out, “Don’t leave my suitcase in the living room. If you’re gonna volunteer your labor, you might as well finish the job.”

“It’s hot , MJ. Why doesn’t your AC ever work?” Peter whines, Gwen giggling as Michelle rolls her eyes and closes the door behind her. 

“Well that’s shitty New York apartments for you. Not everyone’s on a billionaire’s payroll.”

Peter glowers at her. “You’ve been home for five minutes. Can we go at least another ten before you start talking shit about Mr. Stark?” 

“But it’s my favorite hobby,” Michelle counters, Gwen catching the smirk on her face, “second only to talking shit about you.”

“Ha ha, very funny. Where do you want this?” Peter says, lifting up Michelle’s massive suitcase as if it weighed nothing. Something Gwen knows that for Peter, it likely didn’t. 

Michelle points to her room, Peter making a show of lugging it over there as Gwen laughs. 

“Don’t let him fool you, he missed you too.”

“Course he did,” Michelle says with a certainty that Gwen understood, “his dumbass wouldn’t know how to function without me.”

She winks at Gwen, before saying, “Then again, he finally got off his ass and started dating you so who knows? There’s hope for him yet.”

Gwen smiles at that, Peter walking back in and clapping his hands together.

“Okay done. Can we go eat now?” 

Yet as soon as he says the words, his phone buzzes - reaching for his pocket only to frown when he reads the screen. 

“What is it?” Gwen asks, Peter’s expression hardening as he shakes his head.

“Nothing good. Some shit in the sewers. I gotta go,” He glances to Michelle, a smirk on his face as he says, “Rain check on dinner?” 

Michelle rolls her eyes before nodding towards the window. “Yeah dork squad. Gwen and I got shit to catch up on anyway.” 

He walks up and hugs her, Gwen watching as Michelle hesitates just for a beat before hugging him - Peter leaning back and turning to Gwen. 

He kisses her quick, glancing around the apartment as he says, “You still got my spare suit?”

“No, sold it on eBay. You wouldn’t believe how much Stark tech goes for these days.” 

Peter blanches at that, Michelle rolling her eyes. “Kidding. Yeah, it’s where you left it the last time.”

Peter rolls his eyes in return, rushing back to her bedroom as Gwen says, “I thought you didn’t like eBay.”

“I don’t,” Michelle says with a smile, “I just like to give him shit for relying so much on Stark’s money.”

“Why don’t you like him?” Gwen asks, wondering if Michelle would finally give her a straight answer. She’d met Tony Stark - something that Gwen still couldn’t believe - several times over already, thinking that while she didn’t have any other billionaires to compare him to, that he was nice enough. 

“Do you want it alphabetically or by theme?” Michelle deadpans, just as Peter is rushing back into the living room - pressing hard on the emblem in the center of his chest. 

“Okay, if I’m not back in an hour then eat without me.”

“Jokes on you,” Michelle says with a smirk, “we’re not waiting for you at all.”

He rolls his eyes, glancing at Gwen with a smile. “You’ll wait for me right?”

Gwen smirks, folding her arms in a mirror of what Michelle looks like just then, “Rookie mistake, Pete. MJ is always right.”

Peter looks offended at that for a beat only for Gwen to laugh, walking up to him and kissing him. 

He melts into it for a second before leaning back almost reluctantly, pulling his mask over his face as he calls out, “I’m serious, I’ll only be gone an hour.”

“Yeah we’ve heard that before,” Michelle says, “don’t die okay?”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Peter quips back, looking at Gwen before one of the eyes of the mask winks at her - walking towards Michelle’s window and swinging away. 

She watches him, the sight of him suiting up and throwing himself out into the world something she’s not sure she’ll ever get over when Michelle says, “So were you serious or do we really have to wait for his dumbass?”

Gwen laughs, turning back to Michelle with a smile on her face. 

For as perfect as the summer had been - spending her days working on research that made her proud, her nights exploring the city and every other moment in between with Peter - there was a person missing from their duo, something Gwen hadn’t realized how sorely she’d missed until this moment. 

Spring semester of sophomore year had passed by quickly after her and Peter’s disastrous first date quickly blending into summer - Michelle jetting off for a study abroad in Spain and only just arriving back hours ago.

They’d stayed in touch throughout the whole summer - calls, texts and video chats - but it was different without her, especially for moments like this, Peter jetting off to the face the unknown and leaving Gwen alone to wait in anticipation or dread. 

Nothing terrible had happened to Peter yet but there was always that fear, Gwen realizing that this was also the thing she’d tried to articulate with Peter but couldn’t until this very moment. 

It was a dangerous thing to love Peter Parker, in more ways than one. Something that Michelle understood intimately - sensing from her body language that for all her jokes and sarcasm, she was trying just as much not to think about whatever it was that Peter had swung towards as Gwen is. 

She couldn’t anticipate the future, but she could be thankful for this - Gwen finally feeling as if things were just as they should be. 

“Nah,” Gwen says with a smile, “come on, let’s get something to eat.” 

Chapter Text

Here’s to the fallen ones,

to the ones who never stood a chance

and the ones who lost theirs,

to the ones who soared only to plummet,

and the ones who never knew the sky.

And here’s to the star-crossed lovers,

To the ones who had to walk away

and the ones left behind,

To the ones who shared forever and a kiss

and the ones who only shared a promise.

And here’s to the tragic tales,

To the words we should’ve said but didn’t

and the ones we shouldn’t have but did,

To the mistakes we didn’t know to avoid

and the blessings we didn’t know to catch.

Gwen wondered if it ever got any easier, being an unwitting spectator as Peter’s body repaired itself. 

At least before, when she was alive - Gwen had people to surround her. Michelle, May, Tony, a litany of doctors and medical professionals that examined charts and administered medicine. 

It was a sick dance, the back and forth of it something Gwen hated, especially for how powerless she felt.

Yet now, it was worse in a sense, to be in the state of existence that she was - no comfort or understanding of what was to come and yet still being completely unable to alter the outcome.

Time was an ephemeral concept for Gwen to begin with but she could tell it was inching forward; in the way Peter’s bruises skin changed colors, in the adjusted schedule that May, Michelle and Tony all took in visiting him, in the repetition of the checks that Peter’s medical team participated in.

It was in moments like these that Gwen spent more time with her family - only to see them smile and laugh, a contrast from the anxiety that surrounded Peter’s precarious treatment. 

But then it shifted, as it always did - Gwen feeling herself being missed as she watched Peter settle back into their apartment. 

“And if you need—“

“I’m fine, Tony. Promise,” Peter says with a smile, Gwen watching May, Tony and Michelle all share a look that just makes her laugh - hearing Peter’s exasperated sigh once again as he says, “Seriously, you guys. It’s fine. I’m okay.”

There’s a tense silence for a half-beat, Gwen sensing that each of them were reminded of how Peter had looked not even a two weeks ago - the tense atmosphere when Peter’s heart had stopped and he’d been rushed into surgery.

It stopped two more times while he was on the table.

Gwen wasn’t around to see it. 

Hearing it told to May, long after the danger had passed, was the closest thing to fear she’d felt since the moments just before her death - the possibility that she would see him again in a way she didn’t hope to anytime soon. 

Yet Peter, as he always did, recovered - to the point now where he had insisted on moving back to he and Michelle’s tiny apartment.

This wasn’t the first time Peter had hobbled around on crutches, looking better than he had in weeks as he rested on his couch. 

But it was the first time that Gwen could remember that he had been out of it for so long - how brutal his injuries had been and how long of a recovery his stay in the medical bay had been.

Knowing Peter as well as she did, Gwen could guess that was exactly why he was keen to get a move on and back to everyday life - willing to suffer in silence if need be, just so that he wouldn’t be stuck to a hospital bed.

Something, Gwen sees, isn’t lost on the three people who loved Peter most.

“Peter,” May begins gently, “I know that you’re ready to get out there but--”

“I’ll be fine , May,” Peter says a little more urgently, sounding more like he did when Gwen knew him. A little more petulant, jaw jutting out as he presses his lips together. 

“No one’s saying you’re not, Pete but,” Tony shares a glance with May before looking back to Peter, “Just cause you got the all clear to head home doesn’t mean that--”

“I’m not going out as Spider-Man okay?” Peter snaps, Gwen catching him flinch as he closes his eyes. 

Gwen knew this side of Peter just as the three of them did, agitated at himself and the world for how slow his recovery was going this time around. 

Peter had been through his fair share of scrapes, pulling himself together and fighting till the end - the memory of Gwen’s last night coming back to her, moments before she’d made a decision that had sealed her fate and saved his. 

But the grit and determination that Peter has conflicts with his present reality, still very much on the mend emotionally as well as physically as he sighs. 

“Sorry, I’m-- I’m sorry. I’m just,” he gestures vaguely towards he and Michelle’s apartment, “ready to be home you know? Back to normal.”

Tony presses his lips together, looking as if he’s going to say something only for May to rest her hand on his shoulder - a small smile on her face as she says, “We’ll leave you to it then.”

Peter immediately looks contrite, Gwen watching as his eyes dance between the two of them as he says, “May--”

“No, she’s right, Pete. We’ll uh, we’ll leave you two to it.” Tony says, shooting a meaningful look towards Michelle that Gwen can’t decipher the meaning to. 

Michelle seems to, a grim smile on her face as she says, “Thanks for helping me bring Mr. Dramatic home.” 

Peter rolls his eyes as May and Tony laugh, the tension in the room lifting slightly as Michelle grins. 

Gwen watches as they say their goodbyes, catches the looks that the three of them share - silent communications that make Gwen wish that she too could be a part of it, just like she had so many times before. 

When Tony and May are gone and it’s just the two of them, Gwen waits - a sense in the air that there’s something between the two of them. 

She’s proven right when Peter finally speaks from his place on the couch, a thoughtful expression on his face as he looks out the window and says, “Hey Em?”

“Yeah?” Gwen hears Michelle call out from the kitchen. 

“What uh, what happened to the story? The one Robbie wanted you to go on?”

Gwen waits with Peter, the spoon she’d heard in the kitchen coming to a stop while Peter looks over to where the kitchen was.

Michelle doesn’t answer but finally emerges, mug of tea in her hand as she walks over to her place on the couch and says, “I didn’t take it.”

Peter looks conflicted, Gwen knowing him well enough to see the guilt on his face as he says, “I’m sorry.”

Michelle shrugs. “Don’t be. There’ll be other stories.”

The words she doesn’t say go unspoken but are clearly felt - Gwen seeing the quirk of Michelle’s lip, a tell if there ever was one of the conflict of emotions running through her. 

Gwen had been there when Michelle had turned down the story, eyes still set on Peter’s eerily still form. It had been only days after Peter had gotten hurt, when the chances of him recovering had felt more like a far off dream than any kind of reality.

Gwen had wondered if Michelle would regret it, waiting for some kind of sign when May had asked her the very same thing not even a week ago. 

Yet just as she hadn’t then, she doesn’t seem to now, blowing onto her hot cup of tea as she says, “Robbie says I’ll be first on the list for the next one.”

Gwen watches as Peter seems to run through the gamut of emotions - worry, guilt, pride, fear - before finally swallowing down something in his throat and saying, “I think you should take it.”

His voice is even, casual but Gwen catches onto his meaning just as Michelle does, looking at him over her mug as she says, “Really?”

Peter’s features shift, nodding as he adjusts himself on the couch - one of his legs still wrapped up in a cast as he says, “Yeah, I do. I’m-- I’m sorry if I made you feel like you can’t. Or that I don’t support you.”

Gwen waits, watching just as Michelle does as he collects his thoughts. 

“I… I want you to be happy, MJ. And if going out there, writing stories somewhere else makes you happy then I-- I can’t be the one to hold you back. I won’t.”

Peter looks so set, so determined - a ghost of a memory coming back to her, different words but the same intent coming back to Gwen as Michelle puts her mug down. 

“You don’t hold me back, Pete. I don’t-- that’s not it.”

Michelle’s eyes shift downward before glancing up to meet Peter’s as she says, “You almost died, Pete. And I don’t…”

Michelle trails off for a beat, both Peter and Gwen listening with rapt attention as she says, “New York is my home. My friends are here. My career is, too. I don't know if I could give all that up."

“But you shouldn’t have to give up anything, MJ. Not-- not for me or the city,” Peter says more determinedly, facing Michelle as best he can as he says, “Wherever you want to go, whatever you want to do I-- I’ll support you. I promise, I--”

“You almost died, Pete,” Michelle repeats, Peter pressing his lips together as she shakes her head, “And I couldn’t do anything .”

Gwen watches as Peter purses his lips as Michelle says, “I know you just want me to be safe. That you want to protect me. But sometimes… sometimes I want to protect you too. And I can’t do that if I’m halfway across the world, finding out that you died and I was--”

Michelle cuts herself off, Gwen wishing she could be the one to reach out a hand to her.

It hits her then that this was a Michelle who had suffered a loss so deep and so devastating that it had changed her. She was still Michelle, still passionate and ready to take on the world.

But that world was just a bit smaller, a bit more focused - the world not just inhabiting the people she loves but centered more firmly around them.

Gwen could see the pain in her eyes, recognizing that feeling of being the one who was left at home as Peter gently takes her hand into his, brushing his thumb against her palm. 

“MJ... “ 

“I love you,” Michelle says, Gwen hearing how thick and heavy her voice sounds. 

“I love you too,” Peter softly whispers, Gwen getting the sense that their conversation and their tone is about to shift - from the way that Peter’s hand caresses against Michelle’s and the look on his face. 

This likely isn’t the end of their conversation by a long shot nor was a declaration of love enough to solve the issue. But Gwen, for as much as she lingered, had no desire to invade upon their privacy in these intimate moments - letting herself fade from their apartment as Peter moves towards Michelle. 

It hits her, looking after her mom - busying herself in her garden - that for the first time that she could remember neither of them had mentioned her. 

Anytime Peter got hurt. Anytime they had a fight - Gwen could feel herself be mentioned, knew that the loss of her still hung between them in a way that ranged from bitter to sweet. 

It’s striking, the realization - enough that if Gwen’s heart could still beat it would skip. The loss of her was still there, Gwen knew that as well as anyone - years being meaningless to describe the weight of someone’s loss. 

But there was something different between them, new and yet wholly familiar - borne out of the dynamic they’d had long before Gwen had ever arrived and in a moment of sharp clarity, recognizes that they’ll continue to have long after she’s gone. 

Gwen’s already gone from their lives, had been for years. Yet this shift, nearly imperceptible in the grand scheme of things serves as a sign for Gwen in more ways than one. 

All she wanted was for the two of them to move forward, to live long and live well - glad that the two of them had found each other in a way that none of them could’ve imagined when she was alive. 

But she wasn’t anymore. She hadn’t been alive for years. 

And for the first time, watching as her mother hummed to herself as she worked her garden, Gwen began to wonder if life’s continual move forward meant that it was time for her to finally let go. 

Gwen slams the door in a huff, Michelle lifting her head up from the couch with a raised eyebrow.

“Trouble in paradise?” She asks teasingly, Gwen growling in frustration as she slips off her shoes and heads towards the kitchen - frustrated both from the day’s event and the hunger gnawing in her stomach.

Gwen doesn’t answer at first, grabbing a peach tea from the fridge and slamming it shut.

“You okay?” She hears Michelle asks, curiosity and trepidation in her voice as Gwen walks out of the kitchen and back into their living room.

Moving in with Michelle hadn’t been a part of her initial plan for the semester. But when Michelle’s own roommate flaked weeks before the term was about to begin, it seemed to be kismet - particularly as the reality of life living in the dorms for her junior year really wasn’t as cost efficient as Gwen had originally calculated.

That and the chance for Peter to swing by - literally and figuratively - made things a lot easier if she lived in an apartment with one of the few people who knew his secret.

It’s that secret that’s frustrating her now, ignoring Michelle’s question and snapping open the peach tea - angrily drinking the cold liquid and ignoring Michelle’s stare. 

Gwen knew her well enough by now to know that Michelle would never push her - a firm believer in allowing people to speak their mind when they wanted to and to stay away from feelings if they were too uncomfortable. 

Gwen swallows down some of her drink before sighing, expelling the aggravation she feels as she plops down on the couch beside her.

Michelle waits for a minute before resuming her sketching, the sound of pencil scratching on paper the only sound in the room as Gwen tries to collect her thoughts.

It was stupid - Peter was being stupid. She’d thought his over protection was cute at first - the way he would follow her after class, the way he’d check in and see if she was okay during lab.

But now it was getting to the point where it was almost suffocating, leading to their first real fight that didn’t have to do with choosing a movie or a place to eat.

Gwen takes another swig of her drink, cycling through the hurt expression on Peter’s face that had quickly turned to anger when Gwen had snapped back - vehemently arguing against her claims that he didn’t trust her. 

She knew that he did trust her, but his bullshit excuse that he didn’t trust the world around them - didn’t trust Dr. Connors even was paranoid in more ways than one. It didn’t make sense to Gwen how Peter could be so unbelievably smart and yet still so dumb . 

Gwen drinks her peach tea in silence, Michelle steadily sketching something out on her sketchpad as Gwen sighs. She didn’t feel like rehashing it all out with Michelle for several reasons - most of which came from Michelle’s own request the moment Gwen and Peter became official.

“I love you both, but I’m not in this relationship. You too are,” she’d said in that matter-of-fact way Michelle always was. Gwen understood that Michelle didn’t want to be in the middle of them, not in that way - something that she could appreciate considering that while Michelle and Peter had known each other for years, Gwen was still undoubtedly her friend. 

Yet there was another part of her that didn’t want to talk about her and Peter’s fight because of how much she hated the idea that they were fighting, even if Gwen knew that this was the kind of fight that would only bring them closer… once they found some kind of solution.

Gwen was logical, methodical - a planner to a fault. She knew there had to be some way to resolve Peter’s boundless paranoia, but what it was - she didn’t know.

She lets her mind wander, letting the fight seep out of her the longer she’s sitting there - finally turning to Michelle and seeing her eyebrows pinched in concentration, her tongue sticking out as she worked on her sketch.

“What are you working on?” Gwen asks, Michelle glancing up with a smirk.

“Bringing back an old series of mine. People in crisis,” she says, switching her pad around for Gwen to see - laughing so hard she spills a little of her peach tea. 

It’s Gwen, just as she is on the couch but with a twist - wings coming from her back and the peach tea exchanged for something that Gwen could only describe as a royal scepter. It’s rough, clearly unfinished but still wonderful - Gwen smiling at Michelle who gives a rare and genuine smile back. 

Gwen wipes away at the spilled tea on her shirt and says, “In crisis huh?”

Michelle studies her for a moment, switching the sketchpad to be back on her lap before saying, “Yeah, used to do a lot of them in high school. Mostly of Peter.” 

It’s nonchalant and totally benign, yet Gwen sees it exactly for what it is - Michelle’s own way of extending a branch out to invite Gwen to talk about whatever’s bothering her, even if it did bring up Peter. 

Gwen’s smile deepens at that, feeling a surge of love for the one person who’d become just as important to her in her short time at ESU as Peter, if not more so. She was touched that Michelle would invite in a critique on one of her oldest friends for the sake of allowing her to process, even more heartened at the idea that Michelle would be willing to listen. 

For as much as Gwen appreciates the gesture, she doesn’t want to think about Peter right now - still a little too hurt and stung from the insinuation that she couldn’t take care of herself, pursing her lips before saying, “Guess I’m in good company then.”

Michelle’s eyes are steady on her, as if she could see right through what she was doing - a deflection from the conversation. Gwen stares back, trying to read Michelle’s inscrutable expression only for Michelle’s face to shift - putting her sketchpad down and reaching for her cell phone.

“You hungry? I was gonna order a pizza but since you’re here, maybe curry?”

Gwen smiles, her shoulders sagging in relief that Michelle seemed to understand her without having to say a word as she says, “You don’t have to get curry just cause I’m here. If you want pizza then--”

“It’s fine,” Michelle interjects, unlocking her phone and thumbing through the screen. “It’s supposed to rain tomorrow anyway and I don’t know about you but having some good leftovers tomorrow will make the day suck less.”

Gwen laughs at that, curling up her legs underneath her as Michelle goes to dial for their favorite place. 

As Michelle‘s voice carries throughout the apartment, chatting with the person taking their order, Gwen settles back into the couch - letting herself dwell in the safety of their apartment.

She hadn’t lied per se, being considered one of Michelle’s “people in crisis” in relation to Peter wasn’t so bad - even if she was still pissed at him and for how their argument had ended.

It was maybe immature, maybe growing pains, maybe a harsh dose of reality for what had so far just been a sweet summer love.

As she watches Michelle talk into the phone, Gwen smiles to herself - a feeling in her gut that everything would work itself out okay.

Gwen didn’t know how to resolve this problem with Peter, if it was really something she could or should solve - a voice in the back of her mind telling her that for as stubborn as she was, Peter’s issues went far deeper than anything to do with her.

She loved him, even if Gwen wasn’t too foolish to think that love alone was enough to fix it.

But it was enough to let Gwen let the issue settle for another day, content to spend the evening with her best friend - trusting, or at least hoping, that no matter what happened between her and Peter - at least she had Michelle. 

Chapter Text

In another life, 

My hair is faded  

And your skin is lined 

But my eyes are still blue  

And your grins are still wide 

And our fingers are still entwined.  

In another life, I kiss you before you go.

 You kiss me when you come back.  

There are no wedding bells, 

And silence is enough.  

In another life,  

There are no miracles. 

My lungs are still fragile

 And you are dead on a table somewhere.  

But at least I get your body back.  

At least I follow you soon after.

In another life,  

I catch you  

And we fall 

Together.

  In another life, 

 your bones are dust and my memories are ghosts and we are both forgotten, a pair of faded names in stone, dead and long long gone.  

In another life, 

life is a blessing and death is not a tragedy.

“You nervous?”

Gwen holds back a laugh as Michelle glares at Tony, looking through the mirrored reflection as she says, “Shouldn’t you be with Peter right now?”

Tony just waves a hand before folding his arms together, smiling at her with an affection that makes Gwen smile. 

“You look beautiful,” Tony says, Gwen agreeing with the statement as Tony just beams at her. 

Michelle scoffs as if she didn’t need the affirmation, something Gwen knows well about Michelle. She’s still glad Tony said it, a moment that’s gentle between the two of them in a relationship that not always been. 

Gwen’s not sure how long it’s been since Peter was hurt - the last time, at least. Time was always an ephemeral concept for her but now, if there even is a now, it’s especially so. 

It’s as if Gwen blinks and the scene before her has shifted, Michelle now back in her and Peter’s apartment. She thinks she’s alone, Gwen’s not sure and doesn’t want to move from where she is - a sense that her time, if there is such a thing for her, is running short. 

“I miss you,” Gwen hears her whisper, a sense of bittersweet melancholy washing over her as Michelle stares at her reflection. 

It’s as if the universe stops for the two of them, Michelle straightening up a little as she looks at her reflection - for the briefest moment Gwen feeling as if Michelle could sense that she was there. But it’s gone just as quickly as it arrives, Michelle letting out a small laugh and shaking her head as she turns the light off in the bathroom and moves back to her bedroom. 

Gwen follows after her, only to confirm that she’s alone - a pang running through her at seeing the mess of half-opened gifts in the corner. 

The casual affection Tony had given her, the makeup that Michelle is wearing that’s a bit fancier than anything else she usually wears, even the fact that she’s alone now - Peter’s Spider-Man suit nowhere to be seen. 

Michelle had always joked that Peter would be late to his own wedding, an actual contingency plan that the two of them had tried to figure out when it was Gwen who had a ring on her finger and a promise to give. Staring at Michelle now, a warmth and a sadness running through her at the ring that’s now delicately held on Michelle’s hand - walking through their empty apartment on what Gwen can only assume is their wedding night - Gwen feels an ache that’s difficult to place. 

This is the life that would’ve been hers, she knows but it isn’t, just as she can’t rightfully say she’s jealous. She’s happy for the two of them, just as she’s been happy that they found happiness with each other. Gwen can’t help but think what would’ve been yet finds that she can’t - her own memories of how her life had been drifting away from her just as she feels time drifting away from her. 

She blinks and she’s back with her mother, watching as she hums to herself and cooks in the kitchen - the light streaming in from the kitchen telling Gwen that a day has passed, if not longer. 

A part of Gwen wants to go back to wherever Peter and Michelle are, check in on them and see if everything worked itself out. She’s not even sure if they ended up getting married, if they did and Peter skipped out on their wedding night, or what all happened. Yet there’s a part of her that thinks it’s not for her to know regardless, a feeling that reminds her of what Michelle always used to say when it came to issues between her and Peter.

Gwen isn’t there with them, hadn’t been alive for years. Whatever existence she has now, it’s a choice she’s made, one that Gwen starts to believe that is coming to an end. 

She doesn’t want to go yet nor does she feel a pull towards anywhere in particular - content to watch her mother now do the dishes, the warm light that was streaming in through the window turned into a soft orange hue - the clearest indication that time was clearly passing just as Gwen notices that her mother is wearing a different outfit now than she had been not even a second before. 

Time is shifting away from Gwen, just as it always was meant to. There’s a peace that she feels even then, melancholy and bittersweet at the knowledge that for as much as she wrestles with her own mortality, with her own existence, with her own life - that the people she loves have already done the work in learning how to live without her. 

Gwen hasn’t and she knows this, has known it from the moment that she moved from one plane of existence to the next. 

Gwen had decided to stay and now it was as if the universe was telling her something that she’s known deep in her gut. 

Her time - whatever that means - is coming to an end. 

She hopes when it does that she’s ready for it. 

Gwen is seething, barely contained anger ripping through her endlessly like a wave that she can’t control. It doesn’t help that she’s absolutely freezing, bobbing her legs up and down and running her hands over her arms as she bounces back and forth. 

Peter was late. Again . It was something she’d fully expected to happen from the moment Peter had promised that the two of them would make it to Boston for Thanksgiving, something that she had told herself that she was okay with because it was an inevitable part of Peter’s life. Gwen didn’t hold the fact that Peter was Spider-Man against him, she knew what she was doing from the moment that she found out the truth. 

But knowing the truth and living it were two entirely separate things, almost two years of dating now and still feeling as if she was playing catch up on her own life. 

Gwen blows hot air on her mittened hands as she waits, looking around the dark skyline for any sign that Peter was on his way. She should’ve stayed inside to wait for him but she knows that this would’ve just pissed her off even more, especially since the apartment was quiet and empty now that she’s moved in with Peter. 

Junior year passed quickly, far too quickly in Gwen’s eyes. There was so much that she had to do - in life, in her classwork, in the seemingly endless applications to grad school. Gwen could barely stand the stress, even more so since it felt that she was alone in the apartment that her and Peter shared more times than not. 

She had plenty of friends but Michelle was her best friend - the only one who truly understood what it felt like to be left in the lurch because of some drama or issue with Peter being taken away, the memories of the last time Peter got hurt and airlifted out to the Avengers Compound rattling around in her brain. 

Gwen shakes away the memory just as she shakes her head in trying to get some warmth, scanning the skyline and wondering if maybe she should give up this stupid tradition of waiting for him on the rooftop. 

It wasn’t something they did often because it wasn’t practical. Gwen was, above all else, practical and methodical in everything that she did. But dating Peter - loving him - had forced her to reconsider her militant desire to have everything in order since everything about him was the opposite of that. 

It’s been twenty minutes and Peter shows no sign of showing up, debating with herself if it would be worse to show up late together or for Peter to show up much later - if he ended up showing at all. Gwen knew that the city got ridiculous over any kind of holiday and that for as much as Peter was open to the idea of spending the day with Gwen and her family, Gwen could easily see the tension in his eyes at leaving the city unattended for a few days. 

Gwen takes a deep breath that’s meant to be calming but only aggravates her further, blowing hot air out her mouth as she scans the skyline one more time. 

Her mother had taken off work to make sure that she would be there on time to pick up Gwen from the train station. Peter may not be able to help his schedule, but Gwen can - setting her shoulders straight and walking towards the roof exit. 

She’d deal with his hurt feelings later for not waiting around for him, just as she hopes she’s calmed down enough not to be angry at him for something that she should’ve already anticipated. 

Gwen doesn’t feel any of that just yet, forcing the roof exit door open and making her way down to the apartment as she gets ready to leave. 

“Do you have the reagent ready?” 

Gwen looks up from her lab desk, Dr. Connors shifting his weight back and forth as Gwen forces a smile. 

“I do. I still have to--”

“Why didn’t you bring it over?” Dr. Connors’ snaps, Gwen looking back at him in confusion as she looks at him up and down. 

“I was going to,” Gwen says carefully, a creeping sensation in the back of her neck at how annoyed Dr. Connors looks as she says, “But I still haven’t finished running a--”

“I don’t need your excuses, Stacy. I expect results. You’ve worked in my lab long enough to know better,” Dr. Connors says harshly, Gwen’s eyebrows furrowing as she goes to say something only for him to wave his hand around dismissively. 

“Have it on my desk before the end of the day,” he says before turning away, Gwen watching in confusion. 

One of the few things that had stayed consistent in her life since she’d started at ESU had been her work with Dr. Connors in his lab. The work was tedious and exciting all at the same time and while Dr. Connors had always had a reputation of being a bit of a hardass, he’d never been anything but professional and polite with Gwen. 

For the past year, she’s seen him get more and more stressed but chalked it up to a projection of her own feelings - much less the knowledge that his grants were constantly in a state of flux with the university funding department for administrative people who expected results without taking consideration of the work that was required to put into it. 

Her computer dings, signaling the test that she was waiting for is ready as Gwen pushes that out of her mind - too stressed about everything else going on in her life to dwell too much on what’s happening with him. 

“You sure you’re okay?” 

“Yeah,” Gwen says, stabbing her foot with a fork as Michelle looks at her with an amused expression. “I’m fine.” 

Michelle says nothing, only for Gwen to give out an aggravated sigh once more as she glances up to her - Michelle just staring at her like she doesn’t believe her but isn’t going to beg her to spill out her feelings. 

It was another thing she appreciated about her, the assumption of aloofness from anyone else when Gwen knew better than most that it was really just a safeguard against those who would take advantage of her. 

“Sorry,” Gwen says, taking another deep breath and feeling her shoulders relax as Michelle props her head up with her hand, “I’m just really stressed.”

“What do you mean? It’s the time of our lives ,” Michelle says with a wink, Gwen laughing at the memory of that stupid email the university had sent. It was a graduation reminder that had been meme’d to death on social media yet ESU had stubbornly stuck to it, reminding Gwen more of what a cheesy high school reminder would be rather than an official college newsletter. 

Whoever worked in administration was clearly having fun with their job, something Gwen wasn’t going to begrudge them for considering how little fun she feels like she has lately. 

“I get what you mean though,” Michelle says, Gwen smiling at her as she moves her own food around on her own plate, “I don’t think I’m ready for it.” 

Gwen sits up a little straighter at Michelle’s tone, a rare show of vulnerability in public that unnerves her as she asks, “Ready for what?”

“Life,” Michelle says with a slight laugh, only for Gwen to see that it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I thought I wanted to be a writer but writing doesn’t exactly pay the bills does it?”

Gwen smiles at her sympathetically before saying, “Still haven’t heard back?” 

Michelle shakes her head, Gwen pursing her lips as Michelle sighs. “I’d honestly take an internship at the Bugle at this point.”

“No you wouldn’t,” Gwen says with a laugh, Michelle glancing up to her and laughing before saying, “No I wouldn’t. God, could you imagine though? Getting paid to write shitty articles about Peter? I have years of material to work with.” 

Gwen grows quiet at that, Michelle laughing at that before sensing the change in Gwen’s demeanor as she says, “You guys still doing okay?” 

Gwen shrugs, moving her own food around her plate as she says, “It’s fine.”

“If you keep saying things are fine--”

“It’s not great , but it’s whatever. He’s just… he’s never there , MJ. I’m alone, all the time and it’s fine most days because we’re both so busy but I can’t even remember the last time we just had a moment just us ,” Gwen says, Michelle looking at her sympathetically as Gwen looks away. “He showed up to Thanksgiving almost a day later and you should’ve seen the way my mom looked at him.”

Gwen sighs again, sitting back in her chair as she stares down at her food. “I love him. I do, but--”

“But it’s hard to love someone who makes it hard to do so,” Michelle says as if she understands, Gwen recognizing not for the first time that if anyone truly does, Michelle would. 

“Yeah. I don’t know how you do it, MJ,” Gwen says, half-joking and half-serious as Michelle just smiles at her. 

She takes her head out of her hand and shrugs, leaning forward as Gwen watches. 

“I made my peace with how Peter is a long time ago. He’s never going to change. He was a disaster before he ever became...” she tilts her head, Gwen smiling despite herself as Michelle continues, “And he’s gonna be terrible at being a human regardless.”

“Why stick around?” Gwen asks, Michelle smirking as she says, “Believe me, I ask myself the same question all the time.”

Michelle folds her arms together, leaning forward on the table as she says, “Why do you ?” 

Gwen instantly recognizes what she’s walked into just as Michelle stares back at her blankly, sighing again as she says, “I love him.”

“Love doesn’t pay the bills. Love doesn’t make your mom think you can do better,” Michelle counters, playing the devil’s advocate Gwen knows she hates but is clearly doing for her own benefit - a sign of love for her if there ever was one. 

“No, it doesn’t.”

“No it doesn’t,” Michelle repeats, Gwen knowing as well as she does that even if it wasn’t - it was still the truth. 

Gwen loved Peter and knew that he loved her back. The two of them deserved better than him sure, to have a friend and a boyfriend that couldn’t be relied on to keep his word. 

But for every flaw that Peter has, for every problem that being a part of his orbit gave - there was something still about him that kept drawing her in, something that made the most rational, capable person that Gwen has ever known willingly stick around with him. 

Something that had convinced her that even if she had big dreams and goals, that the love she has for Peter was worth fighting for. 

Gwen had to believe that it was enough. 

Gwen’s still thinking about her conversation as she’s brushing her teeth, hearing the window in the living room creak open. 

She rinses then spits, putting her toothbrush up as Peter walks in - still in the suit with the mask off. 

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Gwen says, going to move out of his way only to see the massive bruise across his face - standing to attention as she gently brings a hand to his cheek. 

“Peter, what--”

“It’s nothing,” he says quickly, moving her hand away as he sidesteps her and moves towards the shower. 

“It doesn’t look like nothing,” Gwen says, as Peter takes off the suit - turning on the shower and stepping in without looking back. Gwen can feel the frustration emanating off of him but it only serves to make her more upset, hating the feeling like she’s the one nagging at him when Peter looks like he’s been slammed into a building face first. 

The hot water in the bathroom starts to steam it up, enough that Gwen doesn’t feel like pushing it as she walks out of their tiny bathroom and into their bedroom - pacing back and forth. 

It wasn’t in Gwen’s nature to let things go , especially since this wasn’t the first time Peter came home cut up and bruised this week alone.

Peter didn’t usually hide what was going on with him concerning Spider-Man, not after the last disastrous encounter that he had that led to one of the most painful conversations they’d ever had about their life and their relationship. Gwen refused to be the damsel waiting alone at home for him yet here she was, pacing back and forth in their tiny bedroom - wrestling with the desire to want to know what’s going on with him and bristling at the idea that he’s making her all but beg him to tell her what is going on. 

Gwen deserved better than this, she knew this - but she loves him more than her own pride, loves him more than some kind of feeling of sticking up for herself when she knows Peter only tries to withhold things as some backwards way of protecting her. 

It didn’t make it right, but at least Gwen understood it - Michelle’s face from earlier that day coming back to mind as the water from the shower turns off. 

She folds her arms, then unfolds them - trying and failing to calm down so that she doesn’t escalate things into a fight when she didn’t want one. She has an early class tomorrow and if Peter’s backpack was any indication, he still had a mountain of homework he hadn’t done. But Gwen was tired of this feeling, as if Peter could continue to do this and just expect her to take it. 

Peter walks out of the bathroom in only a towel, all the fight leaving her when she sees just how cut up and bruised that he is. 

There’s harsh slashes rippling over his chest in a way that’s almost grotesque, almost like claws that sends a shiver down her spine as Peter glances up to her - Gwen seeing the exhaustion and the pain written all over his face and posture. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, everything in her wanting to tell him that it’s okay and that they can talk about it later only for the stubborn part of her to not want to give that out. She knows to do so would only push off the inevitable or worse, make things between them even worse. 

Gwen loves him too much not to fight for him, just as she believes Peter loves her enough to want to fight for her too. 

“Talk to me,” she whispers, staying rooted in place as Peter stares at her - swaying slightly as his hand grips the towel tighter. 

“I can’t ,” he says through gritted teeth, anger rushing through her only for him to take a few steps forward as he says, “I don’t… I don’t know how to--”

“What? I can’t keep doing this with you, Peter,” Gwen whispers, Peter looking at her in surprise as his eyes widen - Gwen noticing how bloodshot and harried they look.

“Are you breaking up with me?” 

“What?” She asks, shaking her head in disbelief. They’d fought more in the past few weeks than they ever had, especially after Thanksgiving but this isn’t what she wanted. Gwen can’t believe Peter would go there as she says, “No? Why do you--”

“I don’t. I’m not--,” he quickly says, muttering something under his breath as he wipes his hand over his face, sighing into his hand as his shoulders sag, “It’s been a long night. I’m just gonna--”

“Peter.” 

Peter looks back up to her, Gwen gently bringing a hand to his face. He closes his eyes and leans into it, Gwen closing the distance between him as she brings another hand up to the other side of his face. 

“I can’t help you if you won’t let me,” she says, Peter snapping his eyes open and looking at her with an expression she can’t quite place - searching her face as he says, “You shouldn’t have to help me.” 

“No,” she answers affirmatively, Peter’s eyes watering slightly, “I shouldn’t. But I want to. But you have to let me." 

He takes a shuddering breath, Gwen frowning as he says, “I really messed up. Gwen, I-- I messed up.”

He takes hold of her then, Gwen taken aback by it only to immediately melt into it - pressing her face into his neck, still slick and hot from the shower he’d just taken. 

“Talk to me,” she murmurs, thinking again of her own mother and the times she would catch her and her father consoling each other after a long night on patrol.

The thought occurs to her that she’s just repeating history, forcing down her own needs for her partner - Gwen never having the courage to ask her mother how she felt about her dad going out every night knowing how much she hated the idea that there may eventually be a time that he wouldn’t.

Her dad’s fate unsettles her, just as Peter’s sobs into her shoulder do - everything within her wanting to push and find out what exactly happened, just as she wants to confront him with continuing to rely on her without communicating. 

It wasn’t sustainable and it couldn’t continue to be, not for a life that she wanted to have with him. Not for the little ring box she knows he had already talked to her mother about despite how disastrous Thanksgiving had been. Not for her own sense of self and sanity and well-being as a person, much less in this relationship.

Yet Gwen doesn’t bring it up, even for as much as she should - an overriding sense of care billowing out from over her as she starts to rub Peter’s back soothingly, the longer he’s in her arms the more he just melts into her. 

Gwen knows she’ll have to face this with him, that their life together won’t be able to withstand the pressure that they continue to place on it if she’s the only one carrying the burden between them - the image of her mother at her father's funeral seared into her memory. 

She forces herself not think of that, swallowing it back down as Peter sobs into her shoulder - a dread building in her gut at what could possibly have happened to cause this. 

Chapter Text

i never asked to be immortal.  

i never asked to be a hero.    

all i wanted was to help someone so that perhaps      

 for a moment the ghosts in my mind  

could be quiet                 

drowned out by the beat of my blood                                   

      by the rush of my rage.   

but you see legends never die and heroes never grow old.   

but you see  

never dying             

Or growing old             

or fading out like distant memories should does not mean that you live forever.   

but you see they say heroes always do what’s right  but they do not say that  

what is right by the world      

 is not always right by you                                    

or by your heart                                   

or by your lover––   

i wish i had known before  

i leapt up into the sky and became a star 

but i suppose                      

that is why                                                

 they never say it.

Time starts to lose meaning for Gwen. 

It’d been an ephemeral concept for her since she died. Gwen couldn’t rightfully say she could discern when time was passing save for the change in decor. The change in weather. The change in the time of day when she blipped across the lives of the people she loved most. 

She found herself with her family more and more, her not so little brothers thriving in school and her mother making the tentative leap out into the dating world - more comfortable with the idea it seems as time went on.

Time. A thing that Gwen had never felt she had enough of and yet here it was, slipping from her fingers like water.

The moments that she spent watching Michelle, alone in the apartment that she shared with Peter - sketching something as she stated off into the city - were comforting to Gwen, a sense of peace that her best friend had found her own peace with where she was.

The moments she spent watching Peter, feeling the joy that emanated off of him as he swung through the city and the happiness of coming home after a long patrol, slipping off his suit and slipping into her with Michelle - it solidified things for Gwen in a way that not much did.

Gwen had stayed behind because she wasn’t ready to leave, just as she knew they hadn’t been ready for her to be gone. 

Time was an ephemeral concept for Gwen, living - or not living as the case may be - on a clock with a timer that had long since expired. 

Gwen’s time was running out. 

She had to make the best of it. 

“Dr. Connors, is everything okay?” 

Gwen waits, concerned and a little disturbed if she was being honest with how weird that he was being. 

Things had been… tense in the lab lately, for lack of a better term. It didn’t make any sense to her when things were looking up for him.

He’d actually been given the grant that they spent half a semester fighting the administration for, full steam ahead on starting a project that if all went well - could easily lead to doctoral research.

Gwen had originally planned on going abroad for grad school, before her life here in New York, before Peter. It was something that her mother still disagreed with her about, but Gwen was insistent - at peace with her decision and at the work that she would be doing with Dr. Connors. It would be that much harder, she reasoned to herself and to her mother, to start from the ground up in a lab with people she didn’t know and in a country she’d only been on vacation to before. To be able to continue her research from undergrad and segue it easily into a doctoral program would only serve to position her as an even better candidate for research and development firms in the city.

The fact that she had a close relationship now with Tony Stark and a not so subtle open invitation to work at any number of his labs or at SI subsidiaries wasn’t lost on her.

Michelle had surprisingly disagreed with her plan, just as her mother did - something that Gwen hadn’t quite understood since the alternative would break up their little trio.

“I just think you need to consider the bigger picture here,” Michelle had said over lunch once, a lunch that had turned a little tense and illustrated just how similar they were. 

“What bigger picture?” Gwen had asked, stabbing at her salad with a little more fervor. “I’m going to continue the research I’ve been doing with Dr. Connors. I’m-- I’m marrying Peter. It makes sense personally and financially and--”

“But it isn’t what you wanted , Gwen. You shouldn’t-- you shouldn’t make a decision just because it’s easier for Peter ,” Michelle said, Gwen remembering how fervently she shook her head. “Your dreams matter just as much as--”

“ He is part of my dream, MJ. It’s-- I thought you were happy for me,” Gwen had argued back, hurt and a little insensitive at how similar Michelle’s speech was to her mother’s months and months ago. 

“I am,” Michelle had said, even if there was a hesitancy to it. The conversation had shifted then from a text from none other than Peter himself, asking if Gwen would be free to meet him before she went to her next class. 

The argument, if it could even be called that, still hung between them - no doubt contributing to the bad mood that Gwen is in as she waits for Dr. Connors to respond. It’s the only explanation she can give to herself later for how persistent she was or how she missed the signs, pressing forward again as she asks, “Dr. Connors?”

“I’m fine, Ms. Stacy,” he replies tersely, hovering over the lab desk that he’s at as Gwen inches closer to him to try and see what he’s working on. 

“I need you to look at this sample that I have. I’m not sure if what I’m seeing is just an artifact or if it’s--”

“Stacy, if you expect me to hold your hand like this when you're a doctoral student then you are woefully unprepared for graduate education,” Dr. Connors snaps, turning to her so fiercely and so quickly that Gwen takes a step back.

If Gwen didn’t know any better, Dr. Connors looks as if his eyes are almost red - sweat beading across his temples and his skin the faintest tinge of green. She’s at a loss for words, not just for his physical appearance but for how sharp he’s being with her - Dr. Connors never so much as raising a voice to her even under the worst of circumstances in all the time that she’s known him.

Dr. Connors seems to recognize that he’s snapped at her but doesn’t make an effort to apologize, coldly turning his shoulder and looking back to his slide as he says, “You’re dismissed.”

“Dr. Connors--”

“Leave my lab, Stacy. Before I reconsider your place here next year,” he replies, tone even and filled with a malice that Gwen doesn’t understand. 

If Gwen was more with herself and less stressed from the fight she’d had from Michelle, maybe she would’ve stuck up more for herself - would’ve told him off and demanded that he speak with her with the kind of professionalism that she deserves.

But she doesn’t, second guessing herself in more ways than once as she takes a step back away from him - going to clean up the experiment when Dr. Connors says, “Leave it!”

Gwen grits her teeth, even as her chin wobbles - leaning back on the promise that she told herself years ago that she’d never cry in front of her male colleagues or bosses no matter how they treated her, especially in a world that was just as cut-throat and unwelcoming as the lab sciences were.

Gwen grabbed her book bag, grabbed her laptop and left without another word - bringing out her phone and calling the one person who would understand.

“Hello?”

“Meet me at Jerry’s? Fifteen minutes?” She says shakily into the phone, bundling up her coat as she walks with purpose towards the subway. 

“Yeah of course,” the familiar voice on the other end says, the tension that Gwen is carrying in her shoulders already melting away at the sound of their voice, “Is everything okay?”

“It will be,” Gwen says definitively, quickening her pace and ducking her head as she walks to the bus stop.

“What do you think it could be?” Michelle asks as she takes a sip of her tea, Gwen shrugging as she bobs her knee underneath the table - her own hands clasped around the steaming cup of coffee.

“I don’t know,” Gwen says as she bites her lip, avoiding Michelle’s steady gaze as she brings her coffee cup up to her lips. “I can’t believe I just ran .” 

“Your boss all but told you to fuck off,” Michelle says with a bite to her voice, “ And basically implied that if you didn’t, that he wouldn’t have you in his lab for next year.”

Gwen glances up to her, seeing the anger in Michelle’s eyes as she continues, “I’d leave too.”

“No you wouldn’t,” Gwen says quickly, quietly, knowing that if Dr. Connors had caught her on a better day that neither of them would be sitting here to begin with - that she would have figured out a way to demand answers without acting like a pushover.

But she hadn’t because she wasn’t having a better day, Michelle’s anger falling away from her face as Gwen continues, “Maybe he’s right and I shouldn’t have all my eggs in one basket. That’s what you were trying to warn me about anyway right?”

“Gwen--” Michelle begins, only for Gwen to shake her head.

“I don’t want to fight. We uh, we suck at fighting,” Gwen says with a laugh that she doesn’t quite mean, seeing the tightness in Michelle’s eyes as her grip around her own mug of tea becomes stronger. 

“Yeah, Peter said that he’s not sure what’s worse,” Michelle said, lips upturning. “Us together or us when we’re…” 

She trails off, averting her gaze away from Gwen for a beat.

“You know I support you right?” Michelle asks quietly, the din of the coffee shop that they’re at filling the space between them.

“Of course, MJ,” Gwen says, swallowing down her own pride and her own insecurities as she says, “It just kind of… felt like you didn’t. I don’t understand why you wanted me to leave when this would be perfect for everyone.” 

Michelle looks back to Gwen, an unreadable expression on her face before it turns fierce - leaning forward as she says, “ Of course I don’t want you to leave. Gwen,” Michelle says with a laugh, “you’re my best friend. More so than even Peter, at this point. I-- I can’t imagine life without now, Stacy.”

Gwen laughs before she smiles, Michelle holding her gaze as she says, “You’re stuck with me.”

“And you’re stuck with me,” Gwen says, nudging Michelle with her foot underneath the table as Michelle continues.

“I just want you to do everything you ever wanted to do, Gwen. I am so fucking happy for you and Peter and I can’t wait to harass the hell out of you two, mostly Peter, every step of the way to the altar.”

Gwen laughs again, Michelle winking at her as she leans again, “Though you say the word and we’ll run. Name a time and place. I got the numbers of one of Stark’s credit cards, we could disappear.”

“How do you--” Gwen says through her laughter, Michelle smiling at her as Gwen just shakes her head. “MJ, you’re something else.”

“I’m your maid of honor, ” Michelle says with a smirk, Gwen rolling her eyes at the faux seriousness in her voice, “and future godmother of your children or whatever.”

“Children?” Gwen says with a laugh that’s a little too loud, Michelle looking entirely too pleased with herself, “You’re worse than my mother.” 

“Please, little rugrats with Parker’s big brown eyes and your blonde hair? You can’t tell me you guys haven’t thought about it,” Michelle says knowingly, Gwen barely able to hide her smirk as her fingers curl over her coffee mug.

They had thought about it, Peter being the little shit that he was and joking on more than one occasion that they had to make sure they practiced so that when the time came for them to be ready to have kids, they’d be prepared.

Gwen had laughed but hadn’t complained, cheeks warming at the memory of that particular night and the many nights and days and everything in between that she was going to have with Peter Parker.

There’s a part of Gwen that thinks she should tell him about what happened with Dr. Connors, if only because it bothered her so much that she actually left to decompress with Michelle. But there’s another part of her that holds back, already mentally checking it off her list as something that wasn’t worth mentioning for how much it would uproot their plans. 

Peter had gotten so much better about leaning on Gwen, so much better about sharing what was he going through and truly, thoroughly trusting her with the things that he faced as Spider-Man. Gwen knows that she’ll never be able to fully understand, but she also knows that this minor thing - in the grand scheme of things - wasn’t worth the stress and long conversation that would surely unfold because of it.

Especially when, in Gwen’s mind, it was only spurned on because of her own sense of unease from her argument with Michelle. 

An argument that now seemed settled for now, trusting in her gut that Michelle was telling her the truth - that she loved her and supported her and wanted the best for her - as she smiles and says, “We have, but not anytime soon. Which reminds me, are you still down for the carnival tonight?”

“Carnival? It’s like thirty degrees outside?” Michelle says with a laugh, gesturing out to the window. “It’s supposed to snow .” 

“Come on , MJ. When are we going to get a chance to do this kind of stuff after we graduate?”

“Plenty because none of us are leaving the city,” Michelle deadpans, Gwen laughing as she throws her head back. 

“You know what I mean . As us , as just-- stupid college kids doing stupid college kid things,” Gwen bounces back, Michelle quirking up an eyebrow at her. “It’ll be fun.”

“Fun, to ride around on cheap as hell death traps they call rides, freezing our asses off as we eat overpriced food and compete with little booth games that are rigged against us?” Michelle asks with her lips upturned into a smile, Gwen knowing Michelle well enough by now to know she’s teasing but still has every intention of going.

“Yes, exactly that.”

“Fine,” Michelle says dramatically, Gwen’s grin widening as she continues, “If I must .”

“You must ,” Gwen insists, the stress and the anxiety of the day’s troubles already falling away. It’s a joy that carries her throughout the rest of the afternoon, finishing up an assignment and on the subway ride there - meeting Peter who shifted his weight back and forth and rubbed his hands together as he smiled at the two of them as they walked to him together.

“Hey,” Peter says with a smile, leaning forward to kiss her - Gwen laughing into it for how frozen and chapped his lips feel.

“Hey yourself,” Gwen replies sweetly, staring up at him as Peter just grins back at her - wondering if she was ever going to get tired of being on the other end of his smile and feeling as if she was the only person in his world.

“Can we hay ride it out of here or something? It’s fucking freezing,” Michelle says with a shiver, Peter and Gwen both laughing as Peter pulls Michelle into a hug, Gwen giggling at how fiercely he hugs her and how Michelle always pretends to be annoyed by it before returning it. 

“Nice to see you too, MJ. And you wouldn’t be freezing if you finally wore that coat that Tony made you.”

“I’ll wear Stark tech when I’m dead,” Michelle bounces back, Peter snorting as he subtly lifts his sleeve-- showing that he’s wearing his spider suit underneath his clothes and his gloves.

“I’d be dead if it wasn’t for this. Come on. If he can add in thermal regulators to this and you trust him to make sure it helps me , why won’t you just accept the coat that he made for you?”

“Because I mentioned being cold one time and then he decided I needed a whole fucking outfit, Parker. That’s not weird to you?” Michelle bounces back, the two of them devolving into the same kind of banter they always did when they got around each other.

Gwen smiles as she walks with them, the two of them flanked on each side of her as she loops her arms through theirs.

“ Come on , let’s go,” Gwen says, pulling them forward as Peter and Michelle both laugh only to continue their not quite argument - Gwen staring forward at the carnival in front of them and of the snow starting to lightly fall from the sky. 

It was almost kismet to think of her and Peter’s first failed date to a carnival, marveling at how far they’d come and where their lives had led them.

She’d been so nervous then, so unsure of Peter and his affection for her - the opposite of how she feels now, warm and secure and a ring on her finger as she walks arm in arm with two of the people she loves the most.

The stress of the day is all but gone now, Gwen surprising Peter with a kiss on the cheek before unlocking her arms and winking back at Michelle as she says, “Last one to the cocoa stand has to pay.”

Michelle laughs as Gwen rushes past the two of them, turning to face them as she walks backwards. 

Gwen thinks she’s never felt more free, more full of love, and never more incandescently happy than she’s ever felt in this moment and filled with a hope that no matter what happens next - for graduation, with Dr. Connors, or whatever else, that their lives will have more moments just like this.

Happy. Content. With the world right at their fingertips. 

As Michelle races up to meet Gwen, Peter pantomiming himself doing the same as Gwen giggles - she can't help but think as long as they have each other, everything would always turn out okay.

Chapter Text

the end does not always arrive

with the crash of a thunderstorm. 

there are no screaming winds

          and no rain to drown your sorrow. 

no lightning rips the sky in half.

no stars plummet out of the night.

sometimes, when it all ends

the battlefield is empty.

the cannons are silent.

the grenade never burst. 

the bullets are still sleeping in the gun.

sometimes, 

you skip the blaze of a wildfire

     tearing down a hundred years of growth.

you skip the supernova and the volcano.

you just end

with the ashes:

     nothing but leftover pieces,

     too small to hold in your hands,

     fluttering away in the wind.

and all you have left

is scattered dust on the ground,

not enough even to bury–

     only enough to disappear

     like it was never there.

sometimes, 

it just

It ends for Gwen just like it began.

Quiet. Stillness.

Being with Peter.

Gwen’s existence, if it could be called just a thing, was just a vapor— a long gone remnant of a person and a time that didn’t exist anymore.

She can feel herself drifting, in and out like it was a dream, before finally settling on a quiet rooftop— looking over the night sky with Peter by her side.

Peter isn't in the suit for once— just staring off into the distance. His eyebrows are furrowed in the same way it always used to be when she was alive to love him— the same way he used to look when he was deep in thought, places that even still in death that Gwen can’t touch. 

“It’s almost Valentine’s Day.”

Gwen studies him, wondering for the briefest of moments if he could somehow sense her. Whether he does or doesn’t, Peter continues, smirking as he says, “There’s a place I like to go to, once a year. Nobody knows. I don’t make a big deal of it.”

Peter bites his lip, looking down to his hands as he says, “It’s important I think, to remember people. I— remember everything about you.”

Peter’s breath catches then, Gwen waiting. Watching. A peace and a recognition that this moment— right here with Peter— would truly be her last.

Fitting, Gwen thinks. Her last choice on earth had been to stay for Peter, to save him. Her first choice after had been to stay for Peter, to watch over him.

Her last moment before she drifts into the great unknown, being with him— it still felt like she was making her own choice.

“You know when you lose someone you love, everyone tells you to pick up and move on or ‘don’t dwell on the past’ because it’s— it’s what she would want,” Peter says lightly, Gwen wondering how she ever missed anyone telling him such silly, foolish things. All the people that Gwen knew to be important to Peter supported him endlessly.

But Gwen wasn’t always with him, even in death, Peter pressing forward.

“That’d made me laugh like— how would I ever want to forget you.”

Peter smiles, a sadness and a peace in his eyes that Gwen had hoped so desperately for him to have and felt even more at peace with her finally letting go to see him having achieved it. 

“The way your hair would fall across your face. The way you sipped your soda…” Peter trails off, looking back over the city.

“Hello Gwen, my funny valentine.”

Gwen waits, watches— feeling the softest pull towards a place she’s never been as Peter continues to softly whisper.

He speaks as if he’s talking to her, the city noise fading away as she hears the story of them— the story of her — from his perspective.

She laughs when Peter describes their first meeting and first date and could cry at how he describes their first fight. There’s a wistfulness in his tone as he tells her about the things he missed most about her, of how much he loved her— Gwen noticing belatedly as he uses his hands to describe some story that he’s wearing a ring on his finger.

Gwen smiles at that, focusing now on how he looks— older than what he’d been when she fell in love with him, than when she died for him, yet still so painfully young that if Gwen’s heart could ache— it would.

“For years, I tried to make sense of your death,” Peter says as Gwen continues to smile— the pull towards elsewhere growing stronger. “Something— anything — that I could call good after all that… bad.”

Peter sighs, suddenly looking so much older than what he is— the thought occurring to her of just how much Peter Parker has lost, how many people that he’s loved has died and how her own bravery still lead to him a guilt she thinks is misplaced— something that she can still see echoing in his mind.

“And all the time I’ve been sitting up here talking to you, I remembered something I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone. The night of your funeral, MJ came to see me at the apartment. I was… putting it mildly, rude to her.”

“You were a dick.”

Gwen is just as surprised as Peter is when they both turn, Michelle smiling at him from the roof access door.

Peter lets out a laugh, smiling before he asks, “How long have you been listening?”

“Long enough,” Michelle says, walking up to him as Peter reaches for her.

“I— I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to hear—“

“It’s okay,” Michelle says as she interjects, interlocking her fingers with him and sitting on the other side of Peter— Gwen watching the two of them with a smile on her face.

“I miss her too.”

Peter loosens his grip in her hand to throw his arm around her, Michelle snuggling closer to him as they both stare off into the city— Gwen feeling herself fade as the two of them sit in a warm, comfortable silence— thinking back to that night and how far they’d come.

Neither of them had been ready for each other then, a part of Gwen wondering if they ever would have had she not died. 

But they are together now, just as Gwen is long gone— feeling herself being pulled towards another place and for the first time, being willing to fade into it.

Gwen isn’t sure of what comes next, her own fear motivating her to linger in this world for far longer than she likely ever should have— a fear that’s nowhere to be seen as the city, as Peter, as MJ and the rest all fade away from her. 

All Gwen knows for certain is that no one could take away what her and Peter shared. Not the joy she’ll cherish forever or the grief he’ll carry with him just as long. 

Every moment they had together was a priceless gift and if Gwen could take comfort in just one thing before she faded into the great unknown, it was that she had made a choice— long before her last.

Gwen had made the choice to love.

Whatever was next for her, wherever Gwen went— it didn’t matter.

Gwen had loved. 

Gwen had been in love.

Gwen had loved hard in her life and been loved just as much. 

The last thing she feels before she finally passes through the veil from one world to the next— is that love, a love that even death couldn’t separate.

Love had brought her into Peter’s world.

Gwen smiled before allowing herself to finally rest— letting all that love carry her through. 

Gwen smiled as Peter and Michelle playfully bickered back and forth, feeling as if she was almost floating with how much better the night had turned out. 

All the stress of the day had completely melted away when she was with them, joking about the terrible carnival games and screaming on the creaky rides like they were just kids.

Gwen’s fingers are intertwined with Peter as they walk along the street towards their apartment, stopping at Michelle’s who throws her head back in laughter from some stupid joke Peter made.

“Later losers,” Michelle says with a smile before flipping Peter off, Peter doing the same as Gwen grins.

“Jerry’s tomorrow?”

“Obviously,” Michelle says with a wink before she waves, Gwen and Peter both seeing her off before they continue walking to where their apartment is.

Peter’s gloved hand is warm in hers, Peter letting go only to slide his arm over her shoulders as she huddles closer - the two of them walking in tandem with each other as she sighs.

“Long day?”

“Yeah,” Gwen says with a yawn, looking up to Peter who’s beaming at her. She kisses him quickly, Peter nipping at her lips and making her laugh as they make their way home.

She wonders if she should bring up Dr. Connors and how weird he’s been lately only to dismiss it as they fall into a comfortable silence. That was the best part, Gwen thought, of being with Peter.

With him, words didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they were together. 

It doesn’t take long to make it back to their apartment, a stroke of luck - and a little side intervention from a certain billionaire - that they were able to live so relatively close to Michelle when they moved in as a couple. Gwen didn’t mind it nearly as much as Peter or Michelle did, especially since it gave them a chance to walk Michelle home anytime they went out— that it made it that much easier to go over to her place anytime Peter was out on patrol.

Gwen thinks they may actually get a night to themselves, stepping into the quiet apartment and locking the door only for Peter’s phone to start buzzing— Gwen looking back at him as she shrugs her coat off.

“Duty calls?” She asks, Peter sighing then frowning as he thumbs through the notification.

“Yeah, I gotta go,” he says, rolling his eyes before starting to strip his outer layers for the suit below. “Shocker’s making a mess of things on Broadway.”

“Yikes,” Gwen replies, only for Peter to wave her off before digging around for his mask in his backpack. 

“Trust me, that’s not even the worst of it. You wouldn’t believe some of the shit I’ve seen in the sewers with—“

The phone buzzes again, Gwen laughing as Peter makes a disgruntled sound and shoves his mask on, Gwen walking up to him before he can cover his lips.

“See you when you get home,” she says as she kisses him before gently pushing him towards the window.

“Don’t wait up,” Peter says before shoving the mask the rest of the way down. 

“I won’t,” Gwen jokes, Peter laughing before he does the funny little wave he always does when he leaves.

Gwen watches him go, wondering if she’ll ever get used to the feeling that it’s like a part of her heart was leaving right along with him anytime he went out. He’d been working so hard lately, as Spider-Man and as Peter Parker— Gwen taking her coat off the rest of the way and making a mental note to talk to Tony, maybe take him up on the offer of paying for an actual honeymoon. 

Despite how tired she felt on the way home, she’s wide awake now— her joke of not staying up not likely going to be true considering how torn up Peter’s been anytime he came in.

Gwen’s just debating whether to make a cup of coffee to work on her senior thesis only for her stomach to seize when she rifled through her book bag and her laptop comes up missing.

Shit , Gwen thinks, closing her eyes and remembering exactly where she left it— tucked under some papers on her desk in Dr. Connors lab.

Gwen checks the time, wondering if it’d be worth the trip over to ESU for her laptop when she could just as easily get it in the morning— only to grimace when she thinks of the break-ins that had been reported around the science labs lately. Her laptop was replaceable but the four months of written work were not, kicking herself for failing to upload anything to a cloud service like Michelle had recommended.

Gwen debates for a second before making a decision, shrugging her coat back on and grabbing her keys both to the apartment and to the lab.

She texts Peter as she makes her way down the stairs, the lack of response as she walks out of their building indicating to her that he was already absorbed in what had called him out to begin with. 

Gwen slips her phone into her pocket, pausing for a second to wonder if she should text Michelle too— only to dismiss it since Gwen remembered her mentioning an early morning the next day.

Gwen secures her phone, tightens her grip on her keys and her book bag and makes her way to the subway— already looking forward to the cup of coffee she’ll have when she gets back home.

Gwen is surprised to see the lights on at the lab, walking through the empty hallways of ESU quietly as she frowns.

What the hell? She thinks, scanning her keycard into the lab and stepping in-- glancing around and seeing no one. 

Gwen doesn’t want to waste anymore time than necessary, making a beeline to where her lab desk is and feeling a rush of relief that her laptop is exactly where she’d left it-- only to frown when she sees that all her equipment from earlier is still laid out too. 

Dr. Connors had said that he would put things away, Gwen chewing at the inside of her cheek and wondering whether she should go ahead and put it all away or wait till later on the next day as she puts her laptop in her book bag only to startle when she hears clattering off to the side-- her heart jumping in her chest that someone might be in there with her.

Gwen knows better than to call out, closing her book bag and moving to make a quick getaway only to freeze when she hears a familiar voice-- a chill running down her spine as he says, “Ms. Stacy. I thought I told you to leave.”

“Dr. Connors?” Gwen asks, tilting her head and squinting to see where he was-- only to inhale sharply when he walks into view.

The green tint from earlier, the red of his eyes that she’d thought she imagined-- it’s all there now in technicolor but transformed, the creature in front of her sounding like Dr. Connors but looking nothing like him as he says, “You never have been able to follow simple directions, have you? Always looking for another way in.”

Gwen instinctively takes a step back, hand hovering over her keys and the pepper spray as she takes him in. His skin is scaly, almost reptile like-- eyelids flickering like a lizard and a long tail behind him, Gwen’s throat going dry as he laughs.

“I hadn’t planned on finding you tonight but you-- you’ll do just fine,” he says menacingly, sharp razor like teeth showing as he smiles at her.

Gwen takes another step back, hand moving to hover over where her keys are only for Dr. Connors to move lightning fast-- Gwen not even getting the chance to scream as his webbed, slimy hand grabs at her wrist and wrenches the keys out of her hands-- pushing her back against the wall and covering her mouth with his other reptile-like hand as her heartbeat starts racing. 

“Scared?” Dr. Connors asks, Gwen evaluating her options for how to get out of this and get out of it fast as he continues, “You should be. I do apologize Ms. Stacy, for my rudeness earlier. You’re merely a means to an end.”

Gwen doesn’t know what he means but also doesn’t care, adrenaline and terror running through her in equal measures as she struggles underneath him as Dr. Connors’ toothy grin grew wider.

“Oh it’s no use struggling, Ms. Stacy. You should know by now that there’s nothing that’ll stop me from achieving my goals.”

He leans in, Gwen seeing her reflection in his red lizard-like eyes as his snarls.

“And you’re just the ticket I need to get them.”

Gwen can’t help but think that she made the wrong decision tonight, struggling with whether she should want to break free or should want to hold tighter as Dr. Connors flings himself across the city, holding her tight in one hand as he destroys anything in his path.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Dr. Connors yells out, Gwen’s heart leaping up into her throat and closing her eyes as Dr. Connors flings her into the air-- a scream erupting before she can stop it only for Dr. Connors to catch her at the last minute, laughing maniacally as they make their way to whatever destination he’s headed towards.

Gwen can guess from his half-crazed mutterings that he’s looking for Spider-Man, some antidote or injection that he wants to bargain her for. Gwen should be more terrified that her advisor is currently flinging her around like a ragdoll through New York City and no longer her advisor but some lizard mutant of some kind.

But Gwen can’t help but feel a flood of terror at thinking that Dr. Connors knew who Spider-Man really was-- only for that to squashed when Dr. Connors starts talking about him.

“Spider-Man thinks he’s smart enough to fool me? To think that I don’t know what he’s planning? Shocker may be an idiot but he’s at least good at taking direction, Ms. Stacy. Unlike you,” Dr. Connors snarls, Gwen opening her eyes and seeing that they’ve already made it to the Brooklyn Bridge-- cars honking and people screaming as Dr. Connors yells out in the distance.

“WHERE ARE YOU SPIDER-MAN?” He yells, only to hold Gwen tight as he launches himself up the railings of the bridge-- Gwen’s heart seizing first in fear then in relief when she sees a familiar flash of red and blue come her way.

“LET HER GO!” She hears Peter yell, a fury in his voice that Gwen doesn’t think she’s ever heard before.

“Spider-Man, watch out!” Gwen calls out, hoping that Peter picks up her signal that Dr. Connors doesn’t know who she is to Peter-- belatedly wondering if even Peter knows that this lizard creature is Dr. Connors to begin with.

“Hand over the antidote, Spider-Man, or you’ll have innocent blood on your hands,” Dr. Connors bites back with a growl, leaping forward till they’re at the top of the bridge-- Gwen closing her eyes involuntarily from the sudden shift in momentum.

Only to be cut off in mid-air when Peter swings himself up and kicks at Dr. Connors, the man grunting in pain and letting her go on instinct-- Gwen being too terrified to scream as she falls.

Peter swoops in and grabs her by the waist, gently cradling her to his chest as she holds on tight. He lands her on the other side of the bridge, Gwen’s heart pounding in her chest as she looks up to the white eyes of his mask and sees them widen. His suit is already torn to hell, scorch marks up and down his side and a deep gash across his chest. Whatever fight he’d been in before, it’d taken it out of him-- only for now to be seemingly panicking that she’s here as he says, “Gwen? What-- what are you doing here? What’s--”

“It’s Dr. Connors,” Gwen says in a rush, terrified as she sees Dr. Connors recovers from his fall and yell as he climbs across the wires of the bridge to where they are. “He’s-- whatever the hell that is.” 

Peter lets out a sharp exhale, grip tightening on her for a second before he says, “Gwen, you need to go.”

“Peter, I’m--”

“Gwen. Go, ” Peter says sharply, a prickle running down her spine only for it to turn into fear once more when the mask eyes widen once again-- throwing her out of the way as Dr. Connors barrels towards them.

It’s like slow motion, a sickening crunch of bones that makes Gwen’s stomach twist into knots as she sits up and sees the two of them tangle together-- Peter’s head snapping against the pavement only to web himself out of the way. Dr. Connors yells out obscenities as he does, the two of them moving in a dance that has Gwen rooted into place even if everything within her is telling her to run.

She should run, she has to run-- she’s of no use to Peter up here and considering how awful he looked, she’d end up distracting him and cause him to get hurt or worse. But Gwen can’t leave-- not when she knows Peter and knows how well he can fight, seeing him struggle as the two of them go back and forth.

It’s awful and it’s terrifying, enough that Gwen reaches for her phone in her pocket only to swear when it’s gone-- no chance of calling any number of the Avengers she has on speed dial because of the trek Dr. Connors had taken her across the city. 

Peter is losing , Dr. Connors getting the upper hand more times than he should as Gwen watches in horror-- hearing Peter cry out as Dr. Connors slashes the open wound on his chest and then cuts at his back with his tail in mid-air. 

Peter punches him hard, Dr. Connors yelling out in pain as he falls and scrambles not to hit the ground, his body and his claws grabbing at the edge of the cords before he falls down to the bridge below.

Peter looks as if he’s going to swing down after him only to look back at Gwen, clutching his side protectively with one side and using his other hand to swing him towards her. 

He doesn’t land so much as he falls, Gwen rushing forward and wincing when she sees just how much Peter is bleeding and how wet his breathing sounds. 

“Gw’n-- you gotta, you gotta go--”

“Where’s the antidote?” Gwen asks, glancing over his shoulder and hoping that whatever Peter had done had put Dr. Connors out for the count-- only to hear him yell out as the eyes of the mask start to stutter.

“The what?” Peter asks, Gwen forcing her hands under his armpit and raising him up higher-- Peter only barely helping her as they half-walk, half-drag themselves to where the roof access door is. 

“The antidote? Dr. Connors said you had something that could stop him,” Gwen says in a huff, Peter seeing the roof access door and putting more weight to his actions. If Gwen knew him, she knew that his focus was to get her out of harm’s way but Gwen’s mind was elsewhere, the roar of Dr. Connors in the distance growing louder and louder. But if he were to do that, if he were to go back out there— Gwen can’t say with confidence that he’ll make it back to her.

“Yeah, ‘m belt,” Peter gasps out as they push through the doors, Gwen leaning him down to his side as she reaches for it.

“Where is it?” 

“Why? Gwen, you--” Peter gasps, “You need to go. You need--”

“Peter, where is the antidote?” She says more firmly, looking up to the mask before making a split-decision to rip it off of him-- needing to see his eyes.

Peter looks beat to hell, a bruise across his cheek and his left eye, lip busted and looking dazed as he frowns as she pads alongside his belt.

“Gwen, what are you--”

“I love you. You know that right? I love you so much,” Gwen says, her half-baked plan coming to fruition, feeling a sense in her gut that she needs to say this even if everything within her hopes desperately that she’s just being dramatic.

“I love you,” Peter gasps out, frown growing deeper as Gwen finally finds the vial that looks like an epi-pen, heartbeat pounding in her ears at wondering if she’s making the smartest or dumbest choice of her life. 

Only for her eyes to lock with Peter’s-- a million things that she wants to say on the tip of her tongue and none of the time to say them as her chin trembles. 

It hits her then, how much she loves this man-- enough to do the incredibly stupid thing that she’s about to do, knowing the alternative of running away or watching him die would be too much for her to stand as she grabs his hand.

“I’m sorry,” she says, Peter still looking confused only for the realization to hit him a beat too slowly, Gwen pressing her thumb hard to where the web shooters are for one hand and webbing his other down to the ground-- Peter’s eyes widening as he immediately struggles against the weight of his own webs. 

“Gwen, don’t--” Peter yells out, but Gwen’s already up-- standing and glancing up to the lock at the door as she pulls, the door slamming shut behind her as Dr. Connors finally makes his way back to the top, limping and with one arm looking almost dislocated from the fall. 

“Get out of my way, Ms. Stacy or you just might get hurt,” he snarls, only for his red eyes to widen when Gwen flashes the vial in her hand.

“Get out of my way, Connors,” she bites back, circling around and away from the door as Dr. Connors glances to it before seemingly making his decision-- moving towards her with a predatory focus. 

She can hear Peter screaming at her, Gwen’s throat constricting as she backs towards the opposite edge and waves around the vial. 

“This is what you want right? You get this and you’ll leave Spider-Man alone?”

“GWEN DON’T! GWEN!” She hears Peter cry out, Dr. Connors turning in surprise only to focus back on Gwen-- teeth baring again as he moves forward.

“You know Spider-Man?” Dr. Connors laughs, a sound that sends a chill down her spine as she backs up and he walks forward. “And to think we’ve gone back and forth for months, months of trying to track him down when he was right under my nose the whole time.”

“I give this to you and you leave him alone,” Gwen says through gritted teeth, already knowing there’s no chance that she’s handing this over to him but hoping he believes her to be stupid enough to do so anyway as he smiles.

“Of course, of course. I did say you were just a means to an end.”

He barrels forward, Gwen popping the cap off the vial as moves to clutch at her neck with his good hand-- Gwen popping off the cap of the vial and hanging over him threateningly. 

“You wouldn’t dare,” he says, Gwen hearing the smallest hint of fear in his voice, the two of them precariously close to the edge. 

In an instant, Gwen thinks of everything she had ever lived through-- flashes and instances passing by her quickly.

Her mom’s smile and the warm yellow of her kitchen. Her father holding her up on his shoulders.  Her little brothers playing in the snow. 

Gwen thinks of the moment she first met Peter, of the awkwardness and the flukes that had all led to it. 

She thinks of what it felt like to kiss him the first time and the moment she fell in love - a sense of destiny in it that she hadn’t been able to explain until right then. 

She catches a glimpse of her engagement ring on the hand extended over Dr. Connors - a sharp ache in her chest at the life and the love and the future that she knows she’ll never get to have. 

“That’s the problem Dr. Connors,” Gwen says , her voice even - courage and fear and anger flowing through her, “You never should’ve underestimated me.”

Gwen smiles, jamming the vial hard into his neck and plunging the injector down-- Dr. Connor’s red eyes growing wide as she whispers.

“Rookie mistake.” 

Dr. Connors roars, in pain and in agony-- hand letting go of her as Gwen’s stomach flips, moving quickly into a free fall.

She hears him roar just as she hears another sound of something almost like metal crunching, falling too fast to even scream as she stares up into the sky-- only to see Peter without his mask.

“GWEN! NO!” Peter yells out, flinging himself off the bridge.

It’s as if time moves in slow motion again, Gwen looking back up at him as she falls-- Peter sending out a web back towards the bridge and another straight towards her.

She can hear the terror in his voice and can see it in his eyes as he flings his hand out to her— desperate as the web attached to the bridge snaps tightly, his other hand still extended towards her. 

Gwen holds his gaze-- quick, brief, feeling the flash of something almost like hope when the web finally reaches her. 

Gwen closes her eyes. 

And then feels nothing at all.  

Chapter Text

goodbye, hero mine. 

i will watch you walk away now

without complaint or anger or resentment.

after all, hero mine, 

you were never mine to hold, 

and you will never be mine to hate. 

you are too sweet for lips like mine to taste, 

and you are too sad for hearts like mine to carry.

i’m sorry that i  was too greedy. 

i’m sorry that i forgot you are not here

     to be grasped by my hands

     or called by my voice.

hero mine,

i will take your rejection as a gift.

i will give you a smile in return

as a gift for you, 

     if you want it

     if you will take it.

thank you

for making this goodbye

as sweet

                  and serene

                                       as it is.

Gwen’s eyes snap open— sharply exhaling as she glances around the bridge, seeing Peter pulling himself up over the edge.

“Pete?” She asks, only to immediately get the sense that he can’t hear her—looking down at herself and then back up to him. She can see him frantically pull something or someone up. Dr. Connors is now nowhere to be found— likely having fallen to the icy, black water below.

“I did it, I did it,” Peter mutters to himself, Gwen thinking that if she could feel her heart—a beat passing at the realization that she can’t —it would still be hammering hard in her chest. 

Yet all Gwen can feel is a preternatural peace when she sees Peter wince as he pulls on the web.

Gwen knows what’s on the other side of that web in a way that she can’t explain, a calm in the universe and in the back of her mind when she sees it right in front of her— Peter laughing to himself in relief only to be cut off when he gently pulls her body over the bridge’s edge. 

“Gwen?” Peter asks, Gwen taking a step closer even if she feels a gentle pull towards somewhere— dismissing it as she looks to Peter.

“Gw—Gwen? Gwen, look at me,” Peter says, Gwen thinking that if her heart was still beating that it would break as he pushes back her hair, his words getting frantic even if his touch is still gentle.

“Gwen? Gwen, look at me. Look at— Gwen. Gwen, don’t— I saved you,” Peter says desperately, Gwen moving until she’s kneeling beside him.

She doesn’t look at her body, forcing herself away from the reality of a situation that she’d known would happen from the moment she locked Peter in the stairway— forcing instead her attention to Peter whose voice starts to break in a way that threatens to shatter Gwen.

“No, no, no, no, Gwen please. Please , I need—look at me okay? I need— I need you to open your eyes, Gwen,” Peter whispers, his gloved hand pushing back her hair and gently cradling her face— adjusting his hold on her until he has her closer to his chest as Gwen watches.

“Gwen, look at me. Look at me Gwen, please,” Peter starts to plead, Gwen seeing the tears in his eyes as his hands pull her closer to him. “Please, please , Gwen don’t— you can’t do this. You can’t do this. You can’t—“ Peter lets out a choked sob, his shoulders shaking as he cradles  her closer to him.

Everything within her wants to reach out, to hold him, to assure him that she’s right here— that she hasn’t left, even if the pull to leave is stronger now.

“I saved you,” Peter whispers, pressing a kiss to her forehead before leaning his forehead against hers, “I saved you, honey don’t you see? You gotta wake up now okay?” 

Peter takes a shuddering breath, leaning up and holding her even closer, his whole body shaking as he says, “Gwen. Please .”

There’s a pull there, a sense of knowing that Gwen can’t explain that tells her that this isn’t where she should be— that there is something else, somewhere else— that she should go to now.

Not yet , she thinks to herself as she stares at the man she loved so much in life, a love that she still feels even in death.

She loved Peter Parker. Gwen loved him enough to die for him.

As Peter holds her body tighter, pressing her close to chest and as he rocks back and forth— Gwen makes another choice not to leave him just yet.

If Gwen thought about it - and she thought about a lot these days - she never really had a chance.

There’s a rhythm to the universe, from what Gwen can gather - an understanding that there’s a balance, that even in the midst of the nonsensical that there’s some greater purpose. For every action, a reaction. 

Gwen never really thought much about the afterlife, not when there was too much to focus on in what had been for her the now - not when there was an entire world to see and conquer, all her wildest hopes and dreams to fulfill. 

Yet there it was, the truth of where she was— of what she was—watching as the world continued to spin even when she was no longer physically in it. 

She watched as Tony Stark arrived too late on the bridge where she died— seeing a man that she’d grown to love choke up when he realized what he was staring at even as Peter pleaded with her to come back to him.

She watched as the news spread, first with her friends and throughout the city— a cover story involving a deranged, unstable professor and his unfortunate student turned victim— one that Spider-Man had been too late to save. 

She watched her life became a footnote in the nightly news, another cautionary tale of male power and of privilege and of the dangers of trusting vigilantes—thinking that if she still had a say, that she’d like to take back the narrative, would rage against the assumption that she was robbed of her own choices, to fight back against the idea that all she could be was a footnote to another man’s story. 

She watched her mother learn that her only daughter had died just as cruelly and as suddenly as her father, Gwen thinking that if she could still feel pain that she would feel this as her mother sunk to the floor of her yellow kitchen, clutched at her chest and cried.

She watched as May, the woman who would’ve become her mother-in-law, held Peter tight— Peter still looking dazed and if he was half-dead himself when Tony had finally pulled him away from Gwen— Peter’s eyes staring off into nothing as May sobbed. 

Gwen watched as Michelle disappeared, desperate and angry and so horrifyingly overwhelmed— holing herself up in her apartment and refusing to come out until the day of Gwen’s funeral— the sun shining bright as Gwen was lowered into the ground.

The pull to leave was always there, a gentle tug towards somewhere else. But Gwen kept dismissing it, telling herself that she couldn’t leave yet. She still had so much to do, even if Gwen knew there was no doing for her anymore.

She wasn’t quite sure of what her existence was— fully cognizant that she wasn’t alive yet still drifting from place to place, as if she could think it and then she would appear. She couldn’t move within or interact with the world but she could watch— finding comfort in hovering close to Peter who seemed as if he was barely hanging on, May and Tony’s constant presence seemingly being the only thing keeping him grounded. 

Gwen was still testing out her new brand of existence, if it could even be called that, on the night of her funeral— shifting from sitting with her mother as she huddled her brothers close to her in a room at the Stark penthouse until she’s suddenly watching Michelle take a deep breath and knock at the door of Peter’s apartment. 

Gwen waited right along with her, wishing she could hold her and or hug her tight— to let her know that the guilt that she feels of the simplicity of their last words was misplaced and that the anger that Michelle feels for Gwen not calling her to help is justified.

The door opens and both Gwen and Michelle look to Peter— still in his suit, tie loosely hanging from his neck and the overwhelming sense of alcohol emanating off of him.

Gwen wonders why he’s alone now, just as Michelle must be, frowning as she looks at him up and down. 

“Are you drunk?” Michelle asks instead of a hello, Peter’s grip on the door tightening as he glares at her.

“What do you want?” He snaps, Gwen freezing at the bitterness in Peter’s voice just as Michelle does. Unlike Gwen, Michelle takes a step forward— holding his gaze as she says, “I came to check up on you.”

Peter laughs, sharp and still filled with a bitterness that would churn up Gwen’s insides as he sniffs.

“You—you came to check up on me? Check up on me? ” Peter says, wiping his nose with the back of his hand as he leans away from the door. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Pete,” Michelle says quietly, Peter shaking his head and stumbling backwards as Michelle stares at him. 

“No,” Peter says harshly, slurring his words, “No you don’t—you don’t get to fucking— disappear and then just—just show up and—”

“Peter,” Michelle says with a bit more firmness, stepping fully into the apartment. 

“Get out,” Peter lashes out, tears brimming in his eyes and filled with a fury that would take Gwen’s breath away— thinking that if she still could, she’d feel an ache in her chest at what her decision had wrought for him, what her death meant for the two of them. 

She wonders if Michelle knows the truth of what Gwen did the night she died compared to the story that was told, wonders still if Michelle knows the truth of what Peter was still struggling with, something that Gwen didn’t hold against him.

Gwen had made her decision to save him, made her decision to die for him before he’d ever sent the web that snapped her neck. She knew what she was risking when she took that vial, just as much as she knew that had Peter not caught her, that she would’ve been dead the moment she hit the water. 

Yet Gwen knows, a surety she can still feel from knowing Peter as well as she does, that Peter will spend years running through every decision he made that night, wondering if and how he could’ve done things differently. 

“Peter,” Michelle says a bit more firmly, Peter putting his head in his hands.

“ Leave MJ,” Peter says harshly, turning away from her as he braces one hand against the couch. “It’s all you ever know how to do.”

Gwen knows it’s a low blow just as Michelle does, seeing the stricken look on her face— guilt and shame and anger flooding her features in equal measure.

Michelle turns to face the door— pressing a hand to it. But then Michelle, in a way that doesn’t surprise Gwen in the slightest, makes her own decision— seeing a clarity on her face that turns into resignation as she closes her eyes and pushes the door until it closes with a soft click.

Michelle turns back back to Peter, Gwen watching as the two of them stare at each other— only for Peter to break first, moving until the two of them are intertwined in each other’s arms— Peter’s apologies ringing in her ears as he sobbed into Michelle’s neck. 

Michelle loved Peter, she could see it so clearly— choosing to stay with him when he needed her most, even if the thought occurs to Gwen to wonder if Michelle was truly staying for him or, if she knew her best friend as well as she did, Michelle was staying for her . 

Gwen loved Peter and knew that Peter loved her back— a love that tore him open from the inside out, a love that even then in a moment of despair— she hopes he’ll feel again someday.

Gwen feels one last pull to somewhere else as she watches them and in that moment, Gwen makes another decision— a more permanent one. One that Gwen thinks she already made in life and that it was only fitting to continue in death.

Gwen decides that she can’t leave yet. Not when there’s still too much between them. Not when they still need her.

She can’t do anything for them, can’t hold them or touch them or even let them know she’s there. 

But Gwen can’t leave them—not in this way, not before they’re ready, not before she is.

Gwen didn’t regret her choices. Gwen had already decided to leave them in one instance. She can’t— she won’t — do it again. 

In the scope of the universe, seeing only one side of the story - it seemed cruel, for her life and her story to be forever tied to someone else.

But Gwen knew better than anyone now - that living in the shadow of someone else only meant that the person that left had been larger than life itself, had lived so fiercely and loved so fully that there would never be another like them— just one week after her death proving to her that her decision caused enough ripples to create a tidal wave. 

As the two of them hold each other, sinking down to their knees and clutching at each other tightly— Gwen trusts that that someday will happen.

And when it does, Gwen thinks with a sad smile— she’ll be right there, hoping and cheering him on.

She had decided to stay.

Gwen was looking forward to seeing it.