Work Text:
Loving you was young, and wild, and free
Loving you was cool, and hot, and sweet
Loving you was sunshine, safe and sound
A steady place to let down my defenses
But loving you had consequences
Consequences - Camila Cabello
All the Peters knew her name.
Gwen didn't care much at first. Sure, she hadn't introduced herself to anyone yet, but the HQ was full of people and word of who she was must have gotten through word of mouth. Nothing too out of the ordinary.
Her recruitment had been an extraordinary condition, after all.
Her recruitment. It was more of a rescue than a recruitment.
In recruitments your superiors don't look at you with barely disguised pity as you run from parents who point guns at your heads after pouring their hearts out. Quite a story, packed with drama and heartbreak that Gwen could understand how it leaked out and spread among the spiders.
Tragic and unexpected consequences of minor events was a spider thing after all, wasn't it?
But from there, she began to notice the details.
At how some of her colleagues sometimes stared at her with a haunted look. How some were on the verge of actual tears. Others with a distant, fond smile, the same used to seeing an old photo and memories that were long lost. In the most disturbing cases, eyes filled with guilt and remorse.
That last one always made her skin creep and shrink.
Still, Gwen gave the benefit of the doubt.
The last few days had been traumatic, and let's just say she was admittedly not an optimist. The stress must still be kicking in, playing tricks on her head, seeping into how situations were viewed.
That's why she was in the Spider Society, to leave everything behind, a fresh start. No paranoia would spoil her second chance. She was already on thin ice. Miguel might be a Spider-Man, but he was nowhere near as tolerant and complacent as most of them. The debt she owed seemed greater than that perception.
No, she would focus on things that mattered. Like looking for a new place to live. Or forgetting the feeling of the spider sense buzzing about her own father. Or on not screwing up and getting kicked out. On how she would be homeless if she got kicked out.
Or, and in her opinion the most important, in seeing him again.
Because even before she discovered the interdimensional clocks, before the whole mess at the museum, Gwen was already missing Miles.
And man, how she thought of him, even more so after the resentful events. A part of her had accepted that she would not be able to see him again, that her best friend would belong to her most precious memories until the end of her life like an untouched and valuable painting.
The other part ignored this along with a vehemence and drive that frightened her.
This was just one of the many effects Miles had on her. When it came to him, Gwen was inclined to believe in the impossible, that there must be another way. That things can change. He had changed her, hadn't he? A different, but welcome sight into her life. And how she missed his presence live and in color, at the height of his shining glory.
Of course, Gwen had her picture. Heroin work was risky and cell phones fragile devices, she would never forgive herself if her one picture disappeared into the void. She had always been a believer that all media needed to have a physical copy anyway.
He was still nowhere near the real boy.
It was only a few hours, two days at most. Rationally, he shouldn't change it so fundamentally the way he did. But Miles is fundamentally a ray of sunshine and a blessing of the multiverse and the web of destiny into existence, so the quality - the depth - of their bond would not be surprising.
Because they understood each other. Not as spiders, not the powers, not the responsibilities. They understood each other.
Miles read it like an open book like no one else did and Gwen understood it as a clean, smooth song. An instant connection between reality that seemed planned, as if the multiverse had bent just for them to meet.
They were there for each other. As like-minded individuals. As friends. As...
In whatever form that was.
Miles was her best friend and her heart ached at the thought of the distance between them. Now more than ever. And Gwen wanted that again. To see him, to know how things were going at school, in crime fighting, with his parents. If he was happy, if he had any college in mind, how his drawings were going, how his mourning for his uncle was going, if he was resting and taking care of himself.
Gwen wanted to be there. And she wanted to know everything. And support him in everything.
It was kind of embarrassing, frankly. How could it be physically possible for her joy to be so attached to someone. Especially after all that had happened. But again, it was Miles.
The sweetest person she had ever met. The boy Gwen could swear was made of goodness and sunshine. The one who even through so much pain and suffering and broken heart, persevered and brought them home. Brought her home.
Taking on so much responsibility and such a young mantle just to do what is right.
She didn't say anything the first day.
The information from the portals was registered in her brain, of course. But her ears were ringing and her whole body was torn between crying and fainting. By the second, Gwen had already started to cook up a whole speech to convince Michael to let her see him, maybe Miles would even want to join Socity! You could even see him light up when he heard about numerous Spider-Men walking around an ultra-high-tech base.
And he would accept it, because of course he would accept it.
He would be crazy to reject such an amazing spider-man like Miles.
It was a week of going over the words again and again without stopping, while she tidied up her little room at HQ, on her days off from missions, during meals. It had to be perfect. A killer letter of recommendation. Miles would be so happy!
"Miguel, excuse me," At the end of the week, she finally put the plan into action, after a mission that she personally strived to be successful entitled to bring in a new recruit from Earth-138. Gwen was in person; such a matter could only be handled that way.
The older spider-man looked with her over his shoulder, not even turning from the screens to which he observed each reality with annoyance before turning his attention back to his work, but Gwen was undeterred. For Miles.
"I think you've heard of him, but I'd like to know if-"
"Miles Morales, right? Earth-1610?" Miguel's tone was cutting and cold, but calm and by the looks of it he already knew so Gwen took that as the win.
"That, I wanted to know-"
"If you can see it?" Okay, the conversation was smoother than expected.
"Exactly." She smiled with relief.
"I thought Jessica would have informed her already, but since she didn't, I can do it myself." He turned, an impassive face, his figure tall and imposing on the raised platform. "You are strictly forbidden from any interaction with Miles Morales of Earth-1610 in any form, especially through interdimensional travel."
Gwen's face fell. Miguel couldn't be serious.
"But, why? It doesn't make sense-"
"You are strictly forbidden from any interaction with Miles Morales of Earth-1610 in any form," The emphasis in the words was tinged with a barely contained fury that made her take a step back. However, the anger didn't even compare to the venom in the next few. "Especially through interdimensional travel. And if you do that, I will have to take action befitting the gravity of the situation."
A cold shiver ran down Gwen's spine. The words died on her tongue.
"Good, we're clear," Miguel went back to work, leaving Gwen stunned.
It made no sense! He couldn't do that!
However, it was a losing battle for the moment. To insist would be stupid and might even affect how Michael viewed Miles, and Gwen didn't want to risk that for him. Another time she would try again.
All right, just think of a better argument.
She would see Miles again, Gwen knew that.
A few days later, Jessica reported that Hobbie Brown agreed to house her after Miguel decided, according to the other spider-woman, on a measure of having a fixed dimension for her to belong to. Something about it being better than sleeping at HQ, she said.
Gwen could read a warning, thank you very much.
Hobbie was an anarchist from a completely totalitarian dimension and played punk rock against monsters and supervillains, not getting along very well with Miguel from what she heard and witnessed. He was also a very nice, kind guy and not only agreed to host her, but offered to take any questions from the new arrangement in person. It was no surprise that they became friends so quickly.
When they met, however, Gwen noticed that he had the same distant look as some of his colleagues when they looked at her.
"Something wrong?" The whole situation had been ignored long enough and the latest events were enough to bring the annoyance of it to light. Perhaps Hobbie would provide some answers and since they would be living together for a while, nothing better than to establish open communication up front.
He crossed his arms behind his head, posture relaxed and guitar on his back. "It's nothing, little Gweny. It's just strange to see you in the land of the living, that's all."
Gwen blinked once. Twice. She heard right? "I...died in your reality?" There was overflowing disbelief in the inquiry. A few notes of disturbance if you were paying attention.
"I mean, it's more like almost any reality. But you don't have to worry about that." He joked with a smile that died when he saw how pale she had become. "You...don't get it?"
"What I don't get it?"
Hobbie was silent.
Gwen frowned. "Hobbie, I don't get it?"
Miles has never felt so happy and so screwed up at the same time.
He should have seen the signs, the obvious hovering in front of his face. But no. The realization had to come like a train and hit him with devastating force.
He liked Gwen. Truth clears as day for anyone to see. Hell, he was sure she knew. He wasn't being subtle; he didn't want to be subtle. Miles might well have spoken the words out loud if nervousness hadn't messed up his brain and left any line of thought reduced to molasses. However, it didn't erase the reality.
Miles liked Gwen. That was not the problem.
Facing the facts, they were from different worlds, literally. Rationally, Gwen and the memories of their time together would now be stored fondly in a corner of his mind, and all would move on as the adventure of a life that was. Of his eternal "what could have been". Anyone would accept that, that there wasn't much to be done.
Miles was not just anyone.
It started with the drawings.
Miles drew his uncle almost every day religiously. Images of Aaron, not Prowler - never Prowler - filled every page of his notebook, there would be at least one drawing in each. Poses, expressions, colors, all different. Singular and unique for a man who was singular and unique.
There was something about art, he liked to think, about how lines and figures could bring a reality that dwelled within a person that served so many purposes and intensions. Miles was talking to the world with his drawings. About what he cared about. Who he loved. In his own way, with his hands and paints, his uncle would be immortalized. His message, that Aaron Morales mattered and always would. He would never be forgotten. Not if it depended on him.
Be it on your mural or your sketches.
Miles should have read the signs right there. Of how it happened naturally, fluidly, right.
More of a sketch of Aaron, or it should be. He didn't question how the shape of the jaw was softer and unmarked, the face younger and brighter instead of experienced and familiar. The blue eyes he saw and lost himself in every time in his dreams. The yellow like sunflowers, which coincidentally were his new favorite flower.
Gwen was soon filling his page. God, how he missed that face.
He stood just below where a smiling sketch of his uncle filled the paper. Two people whose faces were burned into his brain, an irreversible chemical change that had happened since he had been bitten by the spider. Miles decided right then and there that he would draw them every day, too. That just waking up one day and realizing that he had forgotten what she looked like was not an option.
He should have read better what that meant.
Then it went into your daily life.
In how everything seemed to have a part of her in there, seeping in and diluting with his everyday life. Pit in how the golden hour he appreciated evoked her immediately, or how the bus ticket never left his things, in how watercolors, ribbons and pastel shades suddenly seemed much more interesting to use in the stickers.
His mother found it strange. Ballet was a dance to be respected, sure, but it had never been his cup of tea. So, when Miles arrived asking for a few dollars to attend a performance of The Nutcracker at a nearby theater, Rio Morales would obviously ask why.
Expanding his worldview, was his excuse. That as one belonging to a city as artistic and expressive as New York City, it would be a crime not to delve into the possibilities of culture gain offered. To this day Miles knows that his mother did not buy the explanation. She gave the money anyway.
The presentation was beautiful. There was grace and lightness, strength hidden in precise and shrewd movements. It suited her well. An explosion of color and light, a magical vision. He wondered if Gwen had already performed, if she would mind if he went to see her.
Then his father. Supporting art and self-expression has always been an important part of the Morales, but when Miles came out of the back of the craft store full of paints in pastel shades saying he would try out a new style, Jeff couldn't hide his surprise. The paints were taken home and Miles discovered why she looked all pink, orange, blue and yellow.
Because Gwen is all overflowing colors in mesmerizing pastel tones, a watercolor that paints strength and lightness. Sensitivity and sadness, joy and brightness. Gwen could have emotions and an existence in spectrums as minute as the colors. He wished that day that he could have only seen more.
Finally, a simple profession fair was all it took to turn the key.
There were many possibilities for him, his advisor said. That his blank sheet of paper could be filled in in imaginary ways. Well, how nice then that he had already imagined exactly what he wanted to do. The physics booth called his name, and Miles was sure he could have spent every hour of his visit in it.
He loved science as much as he loved art. And the idea of helping the world in a white coat was just as appealing as in his black and red uniform. Scientist, it had always been his answer of what he wanted to be when he grew up. His focus in such a field, however, had been a little centered lately.
Quantum physics has never been so fascinating in your life.
When then it was reported that Princeton had the largest particle generator he had ever heard of? Miles knew that he needed to go to that college. The amount of discoveries that could be made were beyond imagination. New elements, studies of the behavior of the universe.
He laughed managed even as far as traveling between universes. Then he stopped laughing.
The idea simmered for a few minutes before it hit home. He...could do that.
It would take effort and time, but he was Miles Morales, he could do it. The idea alone made him glow. To see everyone again, Peter, Peni, Noir, Ham, to see her again. God, he could see her again! Sure... it's still Princeton, and a few extra nights of sleep would be lost in the process, but it would be worth it! Absolutely!
He...he...
Then his train of thought stopped, and suddenly Miles felt his face getting very, very hot, his stomach churning, and a dizziness all at once. And this led to a spiral of emotions and realizations inside his room (without Ganke, obviously) in front of his desk, pencils tapping frantically on the table, a newly drawn picture of the one occupying his thoughts at the moment.
Miles knew he liked Gwen. But he underestimated how far his feelings would go.
Of course, his heart had to love the one person he was unable to see.
He didn't even want to think about what that could mean.
Gwen did not fear her own death.
Not being in that line of work. Not when death filled every gap and oozed into her daily life. Not when her relationship with inevitable fate was so closely linked that her body could feel it coming as it could recognize an old friend. Not when this was her inevitable fate.
The costume would catch up with her one day, Gwen knew that.
But to be marked by death in this way? Actively pursued by it in the way you saw?
Gwen didn't fear death because she was a spider, it was part of her duty. But not the other one. Not the other, and the others long after her.
In the end, the suit didn't matter. It was written in the web of fate, the tragic end to its counterparts sooner or later.
Because Gwen Stacy - not Spider-Woman - does not have a happy ending. Gwen Stacy has pain, heartbreak, a certain death. Gwen Stacy falls for Spider-man in every universe and in every universe, it doesn't end well.
What should all this - all this twisted manifest destiny - mean for Gwen who lives, then?
Because this Gwen breathes, cries, and fights. This Gwen who lost Peter, not the other way around. An exception to the rule? A ball out of the curve? A variation that the universe felt sorry enough for? What was that supposed to mean? Good fortune? Blessing?
Gwen did not feel blessed in the least.
Because this Gwen still had pain, grief. This Gwen had already lost her father and would lose him more deeply soon. This Gwen still fell-
Her tears were hot against her cheeks, her face bathed in the orange color of her repeated ending. Her eyes were glazed over at the image, one step not even taken to move.
It was understandable why Jessica was very reluctant after hearing her questions. Of why the others looked at her as a vision, because - now that she had stopped to think about it - there were animals, Peters, other spiders, never others of her. Gwen said she would ask Miguel, Jessica relented.
So yes, this Gwen was marked for disgrace as much as the others. Losing what she loved most. A marked burden. It had already begun; the rest would be a matter of time.
Gwen Stacy did not have a happy ending. Gwen Stacy would inevitably dance with death.
But Gwen Stacy would never forgive herself she couldn't at least tell Miles about her own fate.
Because Gwen Stacy was also a spider, and she knew what would happen to him.
For the first time, Gwen quarreled with Jessica. She respected Spider-Woman almost like the mother she didn't have, but Miles mattered. Miles was worth it. So, Gwen demanded, persisted, and questioned.
Miguel couldn't forbid her to see him, it didn't make sense.
She couldn't see Miles, he said. Nonsense. Why not? What was so nefarious and devastating attached to such a good person that she was required to avoid it like a plague? To the point of hiding the truth about her own father from him.
She broke into Miguel's living room. He was not happy about it at all.
Miguel was a spider, but not even remotely like the others. That didn't stop the words.
Gwen demanded to see him or at least some answers. It was enough that one of them was marked to disaster. Answers then she had.
It's how she hated every word.
That Miles is an anomaly and not just an anomaly, but the main anomaly. How he should not be a Spider-Man. There was an unholy venom in those words.
She wished she could order Miguel to take it back. What was said next shut her up.
That she shouldn't interfere. Not if she wanted to keep his universe intact. Unless she wants to test the luck of his reality.
And who will be responsible when it all falls apart. And what measures will be taken at the time to prevent this from happening.
She left without saying anything.
Gwen cried that night, cried that she couldn't see him. Not...yet.
Her plans would have to change. First, let the dust settle, going home was not an option. Then, wait for a mission in his universe. And then she could tell the whole truth.
Yes, it would work. She just needed to know how to do it.
Miles ended up wondering what that could mean.
Neither option proved to be less nerve-inducing.
Not that loving Gwen was bad.
They understood each other, as no one could in reality. Of course, there were other spiders, other people who knew what it was like to take on the suit so young, the difficulty of balancing civilian life with heroin.
But they had this connection, a connection that seemed to defy all space-time. One that only life and death situations forged in fleeting, but important moments could have.
Therein lay the problem. For as much as he loved her, as much as life had blessed him with gifts beyond imagination, Miles still could not go against the fundamental laws of the universe.
Loving Gwen meant loving someone who was virtually impossible to live with.
Even if the plan to work with dimensional travel stood, Miles would basically dedicate his life to the cause of seeing her again. It would mean taking weeks, months, years in search, in addition to being Spider-Man.
That he would love no one else but her, because if he was going to do that, it would have to be for real. That he would be giving his soul, his heart, and his future to someone an entire reality away.
Miles Morales knew what love was too well not to commit. Learned from the best to take everything lightly.
He remembered when he saw his parents as a child. How they respected each other, how he thought that if he ever had anyone, he wanted it to be like that. In how his father, after a hard shift from Mom, would give her a soothing message on her shoulder and prepare a hot tea.
Or how after particularly difficult calls, Mom would hug his dad and they would go out on the terrace and she would listen to him vent, listening patiently. And everyone would then end up eating Dad's favorite dish. As they were both the rock of the other.
Loving Gwen meant taking risks that would never have to be taken if it were anyone else.
A high bet that could be too high.
Objectively Miles was willing? To devote years of his life to pursuing someone he couldn't even feel the same way about? Who might he realistically never see again? To put his heart in the hands of a girl who could tear him to pieces and disappear without a trace?
I could give up. His universe was big. There could be someone else.
However,...just the thought of it being someone else, of it not being her, made his stomach clench and the mood immediately darker. No, Miles loved Gwen only, whatever the consequences of that might be.
So, he decided to embrace his situation.
If it was Gwen that Miles loved, then it would be done where. Even if she wasn't here, even if he had to bend the multiverse to reach her, even if she couldn't think of him as he thought of her.
Miles Morales loved Gwen, and that alone was more than enough.
Then it turns out that all did not end well and that love alone was not enough.
Because Miles knew he loved Gwen. And he really wanted to love less. Maybe if he did, his betrayal wouldn't hurt so much.
But she had messed it up, and as Gwen knew how she had messed it up. It did not mitigate the dread that sucked at her soul when theirs met. A thread between them as literal as it was metaphorical.
A thread he broke. How could he not? After all she had done what more could Gwen expect?
Miles should have given up on seeing her when he had the chance. Her sweet memories would still be intact now.
And Gwen knew. She knew him well enough. It didn't hurt any less.
She deserved that pain. His retribution for her deplorable attitude. What did Gwen expect besides heartbreak and broken hearts? Wasn't that her canon?
The clues were there. In the visit, on Earth-500101, at HQ, in the explanation of canonical events. All it took was attention, Miles reasoned.
Maybe the web of fate was right. Maybe all that was left for them was a devastating end in the end.