Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

New York City was always in motion and its people had to be too, or risk getting eaten alive. I was a New Yorker, born and raised in Queens, I was a cop's daughter, and I was a drummer, movement was second nature to me. I could never sit still or stay in one place, not physically and not really emotionally either. It was New York, we moved on, it's what we do. I was Gwen Stacy, I moved on, it's what I do.

That being said, nobody got to dictate how I moved. Which was why, despite being five minutes late for school on a Monday, I was on the subway going in the opposite direction. I would go back to school eventually, maybe after lunch... maybe tomorrow? I wasn't sure, but I knew I wasn't going there now. Cutting class probably wasn't my best option, nor was it strictly necessary. If I told my dad I wasn't ready to go back to school, he would have completely understood, in fact, he asked me about five times this morning if I wanted to stay home, but it meant talking. Talking about a lot of stuff I didn't want to or know how to talk about, and probably making an appointment to talk to someone else about the same stuff.

Did I need therapy? I mean, probably, who didn't? But I sure as hell didn't want therapy.

It was easier to just cut class, and pretend like I went and everything was normal. If it were a fancier, more exclusive school like Visions or Gotham Prep, it might be a bigger issue, but at Midtown? They weren't likely to even notice I was gone, much less call my dad about it. Gotta love public schools, right?

My only real concern was-

"Miss?"

That.

I took a deep breath, looking up from the floor of the subway to meet the eyes of the man standing a few feet away from me. He was tall, a little over six feet, with dark skin and short hair covered by a beanie. His clothes, save for the yellow vest, were all black, with a radio on his hip. He looked somewhere between bored and annoyed, his eyes shifting between me and a PDA.

Transit authority. I would handle it.

My dad didn't like taking his PRT squad car anywhere that wasn't work-related, so we used and paid for the subway all the time. So, at least I really had paid, I pulled my MetroCard from my backpack and offered it to him. He shook his head, motioning for me to pull my headphones out. I begrudgingly obeyed, looking up at him.

"Miss, how old are you?" He asked me.

Of course.

"Nineteen." I tried my best to sound nonchalant and convincing.

A lot of sixteen-year-olds could probably pass as college students, but I was 5'2 on a good day, and could easily be described as rail thin if I were any taller. Combine that with a little bit of baby face, and I'd fit in more at a middle school than on a college campus.

"Do you have ID?" He raised an eyebrow.

"No, I'm sorry. Left my wallet at home."

He sighed, shaking his head.

Most transit officers minded their own business. Yes, stopping random teenagers was a thing they could do, and probably were supposed to do, but it wasn't worth most people's time or effort. I guess I was just having particularly bad luck today. And this month. And this year...

I guess I sort of got it, save for random in-service days or illness, there were really only three types of teenagers who rode the subway at this hour on a school day. A lot of them were Homeless kids, be it that they were kicked out, grew up on the streets, or ran away from a different state. There were also criminals, which had some overlap with the homeless kids, usually gang members, drug addicts, or if you were particularly unlucky, plain-clothes supervillains. The last group, and probably by far the most common, was kids cutting class, especially considering this stop was less than five minutes from Midtown, one of the largest public schools in the state. And given that midtown had just been out for all of last week...

Maybe I should have considered an alternative mode of transportation.

"You got a name, kid?" He asked, I rolled my eyes.

"I'd really rather not..."

Unfortunately for me, telling him my name means telling him my last name. Gwen Stacy might not be anyone of importance, but PRT Captain George Stacy sure as hell was. That meant, at minimum, a call to my dad. I've already gone into why that isn't an option.

Luckily for me...

"And, actually, this is my stop." I smiled, grabbed my backpack, and started to move to the doors.

This wasn't necessarily where I had meant to get off, but a little walk was vastly preferable to this.

"Miss, wait-" He extended a hand, but I knew he wasn't actually allowed to touch me, much less make an effort to restrain me. Every lawyer on the East Coast would want to take on a lawsuit that cut and dry. If he knew for sure I was cutting class, he might have been justified, but on the off chance he was wrong... it wasn't worth it.

I pushed past a few people in the crowd, earning some sideways glances from the people paying enough attention to hear the transit agent call after me, but nobody was interested in more than a glance. I just kept my head down and kept moving, like I always did, like everyone else in this city always did.

I kept moving until-

This could be you! A wall-sized poster in front of me read, golden text over a red banner, a red arrow looping back to a photograph of a man in motion. His legs were bent and spread wide, his right arm at his side while his left was extended toward the sky, gripping what looked like a rope. He wore a red and blue suit, the red portions covered by a black web pattern, and the mask having no mouth or eye holes, every inch of his skin under the costume covered. The spider emblem on his chest was as iconic as any logo in the world, especially in New York.

Spider-Man.

Well, the first Spider-Man.

New York's favorite son. One of the biggest heroes in the world, from right in our own backyard. He was, according to all stories, born in New York, raised in New York, was a New York Ward, and worked his way up to the head of the New York Protectorate. All that while he was still, presumably, in his prime. He embodied the city in a lot of ways, it didn't exactly make sense to swing around on webs in a city without skyscrapers and despite being a big shot, he was just as likely to help a kid find their lost cat or a tourist find directions as he was to save people from a burning building or fight a supervillain. He was a New Yorker, he was ours, and his mask was plastered all over the city.

Despite the best efforts of city workers to change that, considering that as of three months ago, he was more a painful reminder than a point of inspiration. I almost laughed at how unfortunate the text at the bottom of the poster was.

If you or a loved one wants to make a difference, call today: Followed by a few numbers for local PRT branches.

It was a pretty miserably aged poster. His message, or maybe the message the PRT used him to push, was simple: Heroes could be from the same place you are, they could be your brother, your neighbor, your best friend. They could be you. Unfortunately, as of three months ago, this poster was implying that you could be brutally and publicly murdered.

It was the reality of having powers and using them, but it wasn't exactly the message the PRT wanted out there. This wasn't exactly Dad's job, but I wonder if he'd do something if he knew this poster was still up.

Then again, I definitely wasn't the person to ask about PR.

--

The walk from the subway station to the cemetery was about fifteen minutes. By late October, the heat of summer had long since died off, but it wasn't so miserably cold that it was unbearable like it would be in a few weeks. It was brisk, but it was honestly sort of nice.

Boring as thinking about the weather was, it was at least something to think about.

I wasn't a negative person, at least I didn't like the idea of being one. It was just that the past few months, and especially the last two weeks, have given me a lot to feel cynical, bitter, and jaded about. I imagined it would level out eventually... that or I would have a mental breakdown.

I didn't like being such a bummer, and I would have sworn that I usually wasn't. It was just...

I sighed, reading the headstone in front of me.

Peter B. Riley
8/1/2007 - 10/13/2023
Cherished friend and beloved nephew.

That. That wasn't the only reason I was fucked up, but it was a major one. Peter Riley had been my best friend since third grade, one of the two people I cared most about in the world, and just like that, he was gone. People kept throwing around words like grief and mourning, but that never sat quite right. I hadn't cried, I didn't even really feel sad, I just felt numb.

I walked closer to the headstone, noting the fact that it was soaking wet. It had almost certainly been pressure washed this morning, which meant it had been vandalized.

Well, vandalized again.

His funeral had been attended by less than ten people, including the priest. He had been quietly buried the next day, Friday. By Monday, his headstone had been desecrated three times. Four, now.

Peter wasn't exactly the most popular person to start with. We were both bullied when we met, but most of that had stopped for me around middle school, for various reasons, puberty had been good to me, my dad was a hero getting more recognition, and I didn't do a lot to make myself a target. For him though, the bullying only got worse for him as we got older. Guys on the football team shoving him down in the halls, girls asking him out as a prank on more than one occasion, hell, even teachers talking behind his back. To almost everyone, he was a loser.

And then he was a monster.

"Hey, Pete." I sighed, running my hand along the top of the gravestone and dropping to a knee.

I almost expected a response, but the late October breeze was all that greeted me. I shifted positions, moving to lay flat on my back, directly under the headstone. Lined up with where his body would be if he were... himself.

"I cut class today." I said, keeping my voice low enough that I wouldn't disturb anyone else who may be in earshot.

"Could've handled that better, maybe, but here I am." I sighed. "I don't really think a week off is enough time after everything, but... you know how school is."

The wind rustled through the leaves, blowing my hair back into my face. The water from the pressure washer was still coating the ground, I only realized now how wet my hair and the back of my jacket were.

"Am I going crazy? I'm talking to a buried corpse like I expect you to say anything. I thought talking to you, even like this would help, but right now it's just making me painfully aware that you're gone. I..."

I drummed my fingers on the dirt to the side of me, grimacing and taking a deep breath.

"I'm sorry. I can't help but feel like this, all of this, is my fault."

It was, wasn't it?

I mean, to some degree, it was his bullies fault, but I'm probably what pushed him over the edge and I'm absolutely the reason he's dead.

He didn't talk to me about what happened, about what broke him, he didn't talk to anyone. Maybe if I had forced the issue, gone to his house... maybe he would have talked then. So, I was left to guess, to piece things together.

Wednesday the eleventh, after school, he got punched hard in the eye, shattering his glasses and almost knocking him out in front of the entire football team. The guy who punched him was Flash Thompson, our high school quarterback with an IQ just slightly higher than his jersey number. Flash had bullied Peter since they were in Kindergarten, he'd always been stronger, faster, and seen Peter as an easy target. It was par for the course, but I was sick of it.

I stood up for him, told Flash to fuck off, and got in his face. He was a muscular guy and over a foot taller than me, so he laughed and started making fun of Peter for needing a girl to fight his battles for him. I'm not exactly proud of what I did next, but I was so sick of him giving Peter shit.

I punched him in the throat.

The football team laughed at Flash, at least for a minute, at least for long enough for me to get Peter away from them. But Peter wasn't exactly happy with me. I kind of got it, I showed him up, I stood up for him 'cause he couldn't stand up for himself, but... he just shoved me off, and told me to leave him alone.

I gave him the night to cool off, but when he didn't show up to school on Thursday, I started texting him. And kept texting him when he didn't show up Friday either.

And then, that night was homecoming.

"What did you do, Peter?" I asked. My hand running up along his headstone. "And why didn't you talk to me?"

I knew no answer would come, but it didn't need to. While I may never get specifics, I understood his motivation, it was the last thing he said to me.

"I just wanted to be special... like you."

I sat up with a start, my eyes darting to the side as a telltale beep from a police car echoed through the graveyard. An all-black van, with white and blue letters that read New York PRT, Parahuman Response Team rolled through the hills of the cemetery coming to a stop at the curb nearest where I was lying.

A man got out of the car, he was muscular with greying blonde hair, dressed in all black, and a bulletproof vest with "PRT" on the back. He was tall, often leaving me to crane my head to look up at him. His gun, a pistol, was on his hip, but his hands were nowhere near it. He let out a deep sigh, relief washing over his face.

This was my dad, PRT Chief George Stacy.

"Gwen," He called. "There you are."

"Um, hey Dad..." My eyes didn't look up to meet him.

"Overheard a call about a teenager potentially cutting class."

"Isn't that a little above your pay grade, Captain Stacy?" I forced a smirk.

"Call it intuition. Same way I knew where you'd be." He said. "Need a ride?"

I looked back at the headstone, sighing gently under my breath.

"If you're done, that is." He added.

"Yeah, I'm done. I... I guess." I shrugged. "I was just talking to myself."

"Gwen, if you ever wan-"

"I'm fine, Dad," I said, he opened his mouth to speak again so I cut him off. "Let's go, yeah?"

He paused, his eyes drifting down to me as he sighed softly.

"Yeah, okay."

--

The Parahuman Response team, or PRT, was responsible for dealing with, as the name implies, Parahuman threats, without being Parahumans themselves. They also, relevant to my life, tended to pull a lot of their recruits from the police. Which is how my dad got here.

Why pull from cops? Well, given the difference between the number of Parahumans and the number of humans, it pays to have PRT agents able to function as cops when there wasn't a supervillain actively doing something. All PRT agents were cops, but not all cops were PRT agents.

My dad was a good cop, as good a cop as he could be. He always told me he started to train, took up the badge, and took every promotion possible because if he didn't, someone else would. He put himself in the position to be the one making the calls, so he knew the calls being made were just and fair. It was honorable, and he tried his best to be worthy of it.

Unlike superheroes, my dad didn't have a mask or secret identity. Obviously, the most famous people in the city were capes, but the most famous people with publicly known names, save for athletes, actors, and musicians, were PRT officers, especially officers of rank and officers who made high-profile arrests. Both of which applied to my dad.

I was shaken out of my thoughts by the sound of a phone ringing over the car Bluetooth. Dad was making a call.

"Midtown High School. How can I help you?" A woman's voice on the other end answered.

"Hello, this is George Stacy." My dad started, his voice was low and easy to listen to. "I'm so sorry, I had a very chaotic morning and I didn't get a chance to call in until now. My daughter, Gwen Stacy, isn't feeling well, and she won't be coming in today. Again, I'm sorry for the late call."

"Oh, no problem. Hope she feels better." The woman said.

"Me too." Dad sighed, hanging up the phone after a quick exchange of goodbyes.

I raised my eyebrow. My dad was cool, never the type to pressure me or push me beyond what I could handle, but he also always tried to make absolutely sure I understood how critically important school was. To take me home, with no discussion, without even asking if I wanted to go to school... he was pretty clearly concerned about me.

"You're endorsing this?" I asked.

"I kind of figured you weren't in the place to learn right now." He responded, eyes fixed on the New York traffic.

"I mean, I'm not really, but that's not an excuse-"

"I wouldn't send you to school with a sprained ankle or a gaping wound, I'm not making you go when you're..." he sighed. "When you're feeling how you're feeling."

I guess that was fair, he didn't know exactly what was wrong with me, just that something was. It was an invitation to talk about it, he had given me plenty of those.

"Yeah..." was all I could manage to say.

We sat in silence for maybe ten seconds, the only sound was the turn signal echoing through the car as we turned right.

"Gwen, I can't make you, but I wish you'd talk to me." He said. "I know you're going through a lot."

You don't know the half of it.

"Between what happened at the concert, you quitting the band, and Peter..." he sighed. "I'm worried about you, Gwen. You keep saying you're fine, but how can I believe that when you do things like this?"

"I'm fine, I'm just not ready to go back to school yet. Do you blame me?"

"No, I'm not...: He sighed, rubbing his temple. "I just don't want to see you suffer. You haven't talked to anyone, you haven't even cried. If you don't address your emotions, you're never going to heal, sweetheart."

My eyes fixed themselves on the floor of Dad's patrol car. I couldn't really do anything but shrug. I couldn't tell him everything, I couldn't tell anyone everything. What could I even say? "I'm sad my best friend is dead?" That was obvious and saying it to someone didn't help. I couldn't really say I felt like it was my fault, because the reason why would give away a lot I couldn't talk about. I couldn't say the mystery haunted me, because nobody else knew about the mystery, I couldn't say that I was still traumatized after the concert because every time I even think about that night my head starts to burn.

There wasn't a point in talking about it. Not with him, and sure as hell not with a therapist. I had the outlets I needed, I just...

"I just need time, Dad," I said. "There's not really anything to unpack, I just need time to process it, I guess. He's gone, and I'm sad he's gone, there's not that much more to it, you know?"

"I... I just worry about you. You'd be surprised how much you actually have to say when you sit down with someone and-"

I sighed, rolling my eyes and shifting them out the window. He caught on immediately, stopping himself mid-sentence.

"Sorry." He said. I just waved my hand.

We sat in silence again, driving in the general direction of our apartment. I kept my eyes out the window, following every curve, twist, and spiral on the old churches and skyscraper office buildings we passed. When I was a kid, I used to imagine flying through the city, soaring above the skyscrapers, watching the traffic from below. I think every kid, at least in my generation, fantasized about being a superhero.

Some actually made that dream come true.

One building stood high above the skyline of all the others. A long, wide, tower ending in a point. It was sleek, modern, with a black frame and blacked-out windows. They were two-way, you could see out from the inside, but nobody on the outside could see in. It was iconic, a New York fixture. There were no signs on the outside, and there didn't need to be, everyone knew what the building was.

The New York PRT Headquarters.

That was where my dad worked, and more relevantly, and where the heroes of the New York Protectorate and Wards operated. They had a rotating group of heroes, over the years. Deaths were an occupational hazard and other capes were frequently transferred into or out of the city. But the heavy hitters, the superstars, remained mostly the same, and the Protectorate as an organization was easy to root for by design.

It was almost like a sports team, they even had trading cards. People had their favorite members and speculated on forums whenever a new cape arrived, I think someone even developed a point system for fantasy sports for them. Of course, people speculated and even rooted for other capes too, PRT-sponsored teams like New Wave or the St. Pavlov Foundation, as well as associated vigilantes and even villains. Cape culture was a multi-billion dollar industry, and basically, wherever you were in New York, you could see the black tower that stood as a monument to it.

It was a constant reminder, whether that was comforting or terrifying depended on you...

"I'm going to catch her." My dad spoke up, his voice barely above a whisper.

"What?" I asked.

"I'm going to catch her, Ghost."

"Ghost?" I cocked an eyebrow. "She has a name now?"

"As far as we can tell, she doesn't have an official one. Giving them a code name helps with communication and coordination, and not to mention the media."

"Why Ghost?"

"Don't have a clear read on her power, but she's fast and silent, people say she just appears and disappears when they look away. So... Ghost."

"Ghost wasn't taken?"

"Not by any active capes, and not recently by anyone in the northeast. Every good name has been used a couple times."

"Huh..." My eyes didn't shift back from the buildings outside the window.

"I promise, Gwen. It wasn't fair what happened with Peter-"

With, not to, I noted that.

"What he did wasn't right,"

I knew

"But he didn't deserve to die for it."

I knew.

"And nobody gets to make decisions like that and not face consequences."

I knew!

"I..." I spoke up. "Do you have any leads?"

"We have to figure she's a student at Midtown. That's still a lot of girls to go through, but there are only so many, you know?"

"Or maybe she was a guest from another school that someone took to homecoming." I sighed.

"Heh, yeah. Maybe. Not a bad idea, I'll make a Detective out of you yet." He smirked.

"Don't think so, big guy."

"Can't blame me for trying, can you?" He laughed.

"I guess not." I shrugged, just a bit of the tension rolling off. I needed to push on one more thing before I lost the nerve.

"Dad?" I asked. "Are you sure she meant to kill him? I mean, it seemed like she was trying to keep people saf-"

"Whether she meant to or not," He cut me off. "She did. A mask isn't so different from a badge, and when you put it on, you need to know your own strength and take responsibility for the damage you cause. I knew Peter, you knew Peter, and I find it really hard to believe that, even after triggering, lethal force was the only way. She has to answer for that, we give some leeway to steeet villains and vigilantes, but killing is one of those lines you can't cross."

"Yeah..." I trailed. "Yeah, that makes sense."

"I just... I can't bring him back, Gwen, but I can at least try to give you and his family closure and see justice done for him." He said. "I love you, and I loved Peter too."

"I love you too..." I said. "And I know he loved you."

There wasn't much else to say, as we pulled up outside of our apartment in Queens. He gave me a soft smile as I grabbed my backpack, and moved out of the car. My dad raised a hand once I opened the door.

"You gonna be okay if I go back to work?" He asked. "I could tak-"

"I'll be fine, dad." I smiled. "Just gonna drum a little, maybe take a nap."

"Okay, sweetheart. Text me if you need anything, yeah?"

"Thanks, Dad." I said.

I got out of his squad car and looked up at our building. It was old, maybe close to a hundred years old by now. The heating went out randomly in the winter, and it didn't have central AC. It didn't even have a parking garage or lot, so my dad would frequently have to find street parking up to five or six blocks away. It was shitty, and we talked about moving, but the rent was, from what I understood, really cheap.

Not that we were struggling, but he hadn't made much until he rose through the ranks of the PRT. We only still lived here because he was trying to save up enough to buy a house within the next year or two. It sucked a little, that he'd probably move into it around the time I graduated, but... I didn't know what I was doing after high school anyway, so I may stay there yet.

The trip up to our apartment was easy. Lobby, elevator, go down the hall, unlock the door, walk through the living room, turn left, and go into my room.

Close the door. Lock the door.

I sighed, crouching down and unscrewing the head from my drum kit. I kept my room pretty neat, saved any reason for my dad to come in here, especially now. Though, I think this hiding spot would work either way.

Tucked inside, I moved my hand under the blanket I had put there as a decoy, pushing past the spandex and police radio I had stashed and finally reaching a small wooden box, closed by a padlock.

I pulled it out, spun the lock to the correct combination as I moved, and placed the box on my desk, opening it to reveal a test tube vial half-filled with clear liquid. That liquid was my life's greatest mystery. Every search I did, everything I did, short of something stupid like drinking it, turned up nothing. But I was a Stacy, and when we put our minds to something, we didn't let it go easily.

Whatever this was, Peter's final act was handing this to me as he died in my arms. I was not letting this go unsolved. I had a plan and I would act on it tonight.

"What did you do, Peter?"

Chapter Text

I spent most of the day planning, going over diagrams and floor plans, and double-checking exactly the equipment I would need. Science was always one of my better subjects in school, I found chemistry pretty fun actually. Considering what a genius Peter was, he and I made pretty kickass lab partners.

I guess in some ways we were collaborating on this too.

My dad came home around six, we ate dinner and made mostly vague small talk until he went to bed and I pretended to do the same. He knew something was going on with me, logically I knew that, but I could keep him from knowing exactly what. I felt bad not explaining, but... after everything how could I?

If he wouldn't arrest me for murder, at the very least I'd be on the Wards by Friday.

Once I was sure he'd had enough time to fall asleep, I returned to my secret hiding space, once again pulling out the box that held the test tube, this time pulling the spandex with it. It was full body and skin tight, most online stores were pretty good about selling obvious costume pieces discreetly. They knew in most cases they were selling to vigilantes at best, but if the PRT lowkey decided that villains were an important part of the ecosystem, retailers weren't going to make a stand against them.

Still, I was careful. I bought the spandex from one retailer, the mask from a costume store, and the dye I used to color it from a local craft store. The end result was something I was pretty happy with.

The majority of the suit was split with a black bottom half and a white top half. For a pop of color, I added pink accents to the underarms and painted most of the hood pink. The hood was probably my favorite part of the body suit, it set it apart from a lot of other street-level vigilantes. My mask covered my full face but was fairly breathable, the only real adjustment I had made to it was painting two large circles that resembled eyes in pink.

From there, I wore aqua pointe shoes. The body suit had feet built in, but... it was a little extra pop of color and I had gotten so used to wearing them while doing athletic things from my years of ballet. Of course, these were pointe shoes I had bought exactly for this purpose, I wasn't willing to wear anything Dad may have seen.

The only other thing I wore was technically more gear than costume. Small wrist-mounted bracelets with cartridges of fluid attached to them. These were a creation of my own design, but taking major inspiration from the original Spider-Man. The fluid inside produced a sticky, solid, rope-like string that resembled a spider's web when it made contact with air. Functionally, they let me swing from buildings, lamp posts, and trees. It wasn't exactly flying, but it was still surreal.

After checking for the dozenth time that nobody was on the street, no lights were on in the apartments around me or across the street, and nobody was sitting in their car, I finally took a deep breath and opened the window of my bedroom. Flexing a hand, I applied my power to it, put my other hand next to it, and climbed out, closing the window behind me with my feet.

My power, well powers I guessed, were strange but incredibly useful.

Normally someone would have a central power, and if they were lucky a few auxiliary powers that went along with it. There were some exceptions, the original Spider-Man, Omni, and Druid were notable examples. The most common reason for someone to have multiple powers, all around a similar level, and my reason was cluster triggers.

Cluster triggers were a lot to get into, hell trigger events were more than I really wanted to think about but to make a long story short, trigger events were the worst day, hour, or even worst minute of your life, but the trade-off was that it sparked your powers into existence. Nobody was sure exactly what caused them, but there were plenty of theories by people way above my pay grade. A cluster trigger was one event that triggered multiple people, mass shootings, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters were fairly common clusters. They all got a primary power and additional smaller powers based on the people around them.

Mine was, more complicated, but also something I really didn't enjoy reflecting on.

The point is, I triggered when a group of people did and had a small suite of powers as a result.

The strongest and most obvious of them was the one I was using to secure myself to a vertical wall.

I had the ability to reorient forces like gravity around me. It wasn't enough to fly, I couldn't just float, but I could walk on walls or entirely upside down as easily as if I were standing on the ground. With just a small exertion of my power, right, left, or up all became down, relative to me. Which meant some minor weird stuff like jumping could make me fall up. The only real drawback was that I needed a visible surface to orient myself on.

It had some other minor benefits, I could make myself fall slowly, I could entirely ignore things like wind or water currents, and I sort of suspected that if someone hit me, I could lessen the force at least a bit. It was my main one, and on its own, it was pretty good.

The other powers I had figured out, didn't come as naturally.

I initially thought it was part of my first power set until I did a little more reading, but I seemed to have supernatural speed and agility. I had done gymnastics and ballet when I was younger, but even being rusty I found myself better than Olympic level. As for speed, wasn't anywhere near a top-end speedster, people that could sprint coast to coast in an hour, but I would shatter basically every human running record if I tried.

The next was a really helpful accessory to my power, I had the ability to temporarily remove sensory effects from people or objects. I mostly used it to make my footsteps silent, but it could make people stop talking, make a screen go dark or a note unreadable, it could probably affect smell, touch, or taste, but dulling those senses came in handy less often.

I had a danger sense, like a twinge in the back of my mind when something that was either a threat to my safety or mental state was about to happen. It wouldn't tell me exactly what, but I could get a general direction of where it was coming from and the timing.

I also had innate knowledge, a Tinker power, that let me make minor Microtech. Gadgets, sort of. The main thing was my web shooters, but I also insulated my suit with that power and have been working on some sort of remote control drone.

Speaking of gadgets, I could apparently turn basically anything that ran on electricity off or on with a touch. That was one I was still finding a consistent use for.

And the last... I still wasn't sure of the specifics on. It was like... very very minor mind control. I sort of had the ability to plant small ideas into people's heads. "There's nobody in here" if a guard was patrolling somewhere I needed to be or "I should turn around." I wasn't sure of the limit or exact circumstances, but I knew it was there and it had happened too many times to be a coincidence.

That made seven powers that I could identify. At least from what I had found from practicing over the last few months. The trickle of discovering them was very slow, and there could have been more, but I didn't think so. It also meant at least six other people in my cluster, which... with what I had gathered from some of my dad's papers, meant very interesting things if I ever ran into any of them.

It was a lot of powers, though in the grand scheme of things I wasn't exactly in the top tier of capes. I could hold my own, though, and that's what mattered. Not that I'd be fighting tonight.

When I reached the roof of my apartment complex, I looked out across the sea of rooftops. Despite it being late at night, lights from buildings, billboards, and cars still lit up most of the city at ground level. That was New York for you.

I took a running start, jumping across short gaps between buildings and getting around five or six blocks away from my apartment, I at least wanted to keep some distance from my actual living place. As soon as I thought I was far away enough, I jumped off the roof and into the streets, reaching my right hand up and hitting the trigger under my glove.

My web launched from the small hole in my suit and stuck to the side of the apartment building across the street, as I fell, I pulled it tight and swung with it, letting go on the upswing and releasing another.

It wasn't flying, but damn if it wasn't one of the coolest feelings in the world.

I swung for a while, it sure as hell was better than any other form of transport in both fun and speed. My arms would get tired after a while, but I was building up a tolerance. I tried to keep as high as possible, but naturally, a few people at street level did get pictures of me, which I guess just came with the territory. I was unknown, but so were most big-time capes once, and old photos of them went for tens of thousands online. And even if that wasn't true, this was New York City and I shot webs.

After a few minutes, I reached the corner of a rooftop across from a large white and chrome skyscraper, the word "Alchemax" lit up in neon on the side of the building. This was my target, the entire reason I was here.

Whatever Peter gave me, I didn't have the appropriate equipment to figure out what it was at home or school, but Alchemax was a world-renowned science lab, they'd have mass spectrometers to spare. All I needed was access codes and an opportunity, both of which I had managed to get from prior snooping adventures.

Since I became, uh, this, three months ago, I was sort of hard to classify. I wasn't a hero, not by conventional means, but I didn't like to think of myself as a villain. Breaking into a science lab was technically a crime, but it was for a good reason. This didn't hurt anyone and the ends justified the means. That and... I had saved people before, or at least tried to, an incident with a burning building about a month into things still gave me nightmares...

I shot a web toward a balcony on the far end of the office building, swinging across the gap and reorienting my gravity when my feet were pointed at the side of the building. Walking up a building like I'd walk down a street never really stopped feeling surreal. I shook the wind current off with my power and just kept climbing, stealing a few glances at the streets dozens of stories beneath me.

New York City at night was magical, but this angle was something else entirely. Headlights blending with streetlights, blending with neon, creating a technicolor glow backlit by gold. Sounds of horns blaring, commercials in window displays, and people idly talking made their way up to me, normally annoying sounds on their own, with the distance they made a sound that was unmistakably New York.

Seeing things from this angle was a hell of an experience.

It only took me about half a minute to get to the balcony, vaulting over and reorienting my gravity to normal. The balcony was simple, a few chairs, a glass table, and some plants, fake plants, for scenery, it was standard, it felt like it was ripped from some generic "corporate balcony" stock photo.

The balcony only had one door, entirely made of tinted glass, save for the black pull bar and the small number pad next to it. When I scouted this place, I was a little surprised a balcony fifty stories in the sky required a code to get back in, but I guess I might not have been the only one who could get up here and wanted access to what Alchemax had.

I entered the code I had observed a few nights ago, flexing the sensory part of my power to silence the beep as the light on the pad turned green. I grabbed onto the bar, pulled it open, and went into the lab.

The chemistry lab, one of many in the building, was immaculately clean. It was as presentable as the balcony. The countertops were basically sparkling and everything was neatly put away in locked cabinets. Luckily, what I needed didn't fit in a cabinet.

The mass spectrometer was in the corner of the room, a large white machine connected by several cables to a computer monitor. I had never actually used one before, but I'd done about as much research as I could before coming here. I'd make it work, I had to, for Peter.

I booted the machine and the computer monitor up, immediately being met by a loud humming noise that filled the room. I probably should have expected that, wherever in their patrol the guards were, that would draw their attention immediately. I didn't want to get into a fight, I could, but as much as I didn't want to be a Ward straight off the bat, I also didn't want to assault people just doing their jobs.

The sensory removal part of my power was useful for a lot, but I wasn't sure that it could handle a large machine that was constantly humming and vibrating. There wasn't really a way around this, and I'd come too far to turn back now, so I'd have to improvise.

I put it out of my mind, pulling the small box from my bag and removing the vial. I had been careful to keep the cork in it and avoid the liquid getting contaminated, this would really be the first time whatever this was would be exposed to open air. I quickly uncorked it and put it in the drawer for analysis, at least what I made the educated assumption was the right drawer.

Now, it was just a matter of-

Move. Behind.

The tingling in the back of my head went off, giving me just enough warning that something was about to happen. I shot my head around, noting the door behind me, someone was coming.

I had just enough time to tap the monitor, using my small electric control to turn it off instantly, before launching webs toward the ceiling at the far side of the room, zipping myself to them, and obscuring myself behind a hanging light fixture.

Not a moment later, a small beep filled the room as a figure walked out of the darkness of the hallway and into the lab. I snuck glances from my hiding place, dark as it was, I was able to get a few things.

They weren't a guard, that was obvious enough. The most obvious feature, even in the dark was the white and red full-face mask, made to look like a demon. That was obviously not standard issue for guards, not unless their uniform policy had changed.

Beyond that, they were dressed in a long purple and black hooded jacket, one that held just the slightest amount of heft to indicate that it was reinforced, I couldn't see much of their outfit beyond the jacket, save for the long black heeled boots with purple metal bars that looked like claws running down the feet of them. That and the submachine gun hanging from their hip.

The figure, despite the reinforced jacket, was fairly obviously a teenage girl. She was thin, with long, straight, black hair, and probably a little shorter than I was. They could have, I guessed, been a particularly small adult woman or a very thin and effeminate boy, but... well, Occam's Razor.

Then, something else caught my eye, what I thought was a trailing belt initially started to twitch. As I looked closer, I realized exactly what it was, a tail. A tail covered in black fur. I shifted my focus back to the figure's face, making out what looked like animalistic ears hidden just under the hood of her jacket.

If the Demon mask wasn't enough, the animalistic traits confirmed it. She was with The White Fang.

Being a PRT Captain's daughter gave me a lot of insight into local criminals, but even if I wasn't I would know who they were. They were responsible for most of the petty organized crime from Harlem to Brooklyn and their graffiti was all over New York.

They were, at least on the surface, a marginalized group fighting for their rights. The group was entirely made up of Faunus, a small group of people that originated from Hawaii. In the late 90s, a supervillain who called himself Jackal, who has long since been put in the Birdcage, hired a small army of thugs and took over Maui for a little under a year. He was eventually stopped, and the island liberated, only to find that he had made a majority of the island's population his guinea pigs.

That was how the Faunus were born. Jackal was a bio-tinker, and before that, a geneticist, the Faunus were human test subjects from Maui fused with animal DNA, who developed animal traits as a result. Typically things like wings, arachnid spinners, or, like in the case of this girl, ears and a tail. They could do, ultimately, very little for them to reverse the transformation and when they began to have children, those children were also Faunus.

Then, they were ostracized, seen as freaks, monsters, or subhuman. A lot of them, looking for a fresh start or tired of getting gawked at by tourists and strangers, left the island. Only to find just as much prejudice in the continental states. New York, specifically the White Fang, had the largest known group of them. As a result of the White Fang being largely seen as a criminal organization, a lot of businesses in the city, banned Faunus outright, or at the very least closely monitored any of them that came into their stores. Anti-discrimination laws were still struggling to keep up.

From what I knew, they were actually pretty good about sticking to what they said they'd do for a number of years, not entirely non-violent, but limiting themselves to just property damage and only really acting against politicians, judges, and other people who willfully passed policy that hurt them.

Then, their original leader was arrested and Birdcaged and their new one had been much more focused on revenge and street crime. It wasn't really in my place to pass judgment on that, but if they were here... I at least wasn't just gonna drop down and introduce myself.

The girl walked toward the mass spectrometer. She placed her hand on top of it, feeling the reverberations. I was fine, as long as she didn't-

She opened the drawer.

I grimaced, that sample was my only hope of figuring out what happened to Peter and why. I could deal with her interrupting the scan, what I couldn't deal with was someone taking it. I had to get it back, even if that meant fighting her for it.

The girl lowered her hood, pressing an earpiece on one of the animal, what clearly looked like feline, ears. I thought I remembered hearing that most Faunus with animal ears couldn't actually hear out of their human ears, so they had to get custom-made gear that fit their functional ears.

"Sir?" She spoke, her voice soft.

She paused a moment.

"One of the machines up here is running, but the lab looks empty. Advise?"

She looked around giving a cursory glance over the room, checking behind counters and even out onto the balcony. One thing I'd learned in my previous attempts at stealth was my saving grace, people very rarely looked up.

"Yes, I'm sure there's nobody here." She spoke.

She again waited for a response.

"Yes, I can." She said.

Man, I really wished I could actually hear what the other half of this conversation was saying.

"The machine?" She asked, turning back around to the mass spectrometer.

Fuck, I was hoping she forgot. I sighed, reaching pretty deep into my bag of tricks here, probably leaning on my least reliable power, but I had to just hope it would work.

"I'm not sure what it is," She said, running a hand along it.

I focused intently on her, calling on the master element of my power set, just praying it did something. It only actually worked about fifty percent of the time, and I hadn't actually figured out a trigger that made it at all more consistent, but I had to try.

Basic solvent, disregard it. I thought to her, repeating it in my head as she inspected the machine.

"Some sort of scanner or autoclave maybe? There's not much in here, just some water I think." She said into her headset.

Fuck yes!

I tried to keep myself from celebrating as she stepped away from the mass spectrometer, continuing her conversation.

"Anyway, they aren't here yet and there aren't any guards on this floor."

Can't help but wonder who they were...

"Yes, sir, coming down." She said, putting her hand on the door handle. "Sir, are we ready? What are we doing with the guards?"

"I..." she recoiled. "We can't. Other capes are one thing, but civi-"

I couldn't make out the words, but I could make out the fact that the person on the other end snapped at her.

"Ye-yes sir. On my way." She said, sighing before she pushed the lab door open.

I waited ten seconds, making sure she was clear before dropping back to the lab floor, I applied silence to my feet as I landed, not taking chances against someone with feline hearing. I needed to go, whatever this was, it was above my paygrade. I was breaking into a science lab in a costume, yes, but I wasn't exactly ready to throw down with one of the biggest gangs in New York at a moment's notice. I'd like to tip the PRT off, anonymously, that something was going down here, but that's the most I-

Wait, she had asked what about the guards. Implying... what? I mean, obviously that they were still alive, but potential victims, bystanders in a gang fight, hostages? I... I was just one girl, I wasn't equipped to deal with all this, but at the same time... if I didn't act, who would? Who would even get here in time?

This was it, wasn't it? This was when I had to choose what type of person I wanted to be. Hell, this was when I had to find out what type of person I was. I could take the sample, leave, and come back another night, but I'd be leaving these guards to die or worse.

Or I could, as an unknown on her own, paint a target on my back with one of the biggest gangs in New York, and step in.

What should I do? What would Dad do? What would Peter want me to do?

Goddammit.

I put the cork back into the vial and slid it back into the box, placing it gently back in the bag I had brought with me, before exiting out the same door the girl with cat features had. As soon as I was in the hallway, I webbed my bag to the wall, no point taking that into a fight. It was, from there, a short walk until I reached a corridor that shot down the length of the building, ending in what I assumed was the lobby. Even from this high up, I could see several people down there. That was my target.

I was grateful, again, that nobody bothered to look up and that the lights were off, as I reoriented gravity, zipping down ten or fifteen floors at a time, sticking to the wall, and setting webs up another ten or fifteen floors down. I went until I was at about the fifth floor, easily within earshot and close enough to get a much clearer visual.

About forty men and women, all of them visibly Faunus and wearing demon masks patrolled the lobby, or stood still, watching from where they were. About twenty people in security guard uniforms knelt, blindfolds wrapped around their eyes, some gently weeping, others putting pressure on minor injuries.

In the middle of the lobby stood a man, he wore a mask like the others, two large horns protruding from the top of it. Unlike the rest of the White Fang members in the lobby, he wasn't dressed in their standard-issue uniform. He wore a dark jacket like the girl had, with red and white insignia of a rose on the back. His clothes under the jacket were all black, the jacket looked like Kevlar and it looked expensive, something they wouldn't give out to just any random soldier.

Of course they wouldn't, and of course he wasn't. I knew him, at least vaguely.

Dad's files and the media called him Warlord, the second in command of the White Fang.

That was... a problem, the main area where I lacked was straight-up power, and he had it in spades. He'd been major enough to have his power pretty well understood by now. He was a kinetic energy absorber, he would functionally get charged when other people or objects made contact with him, and he could release the energy back out in bursts as either projectiles or one massive attack. The thing that made it a bit of a twist on that standard power set was that his body didn't absorb it, instead, the power had to be absorbed and stored through whatever he was holding.

Which was why, despite it being useless for most capes in a fight, he used the sword he had on his hip. His power and that sword could be a hell of a thing when they got charged up, there was a video on YouTube of him cutting clean through a tank at a military base.

And, well, I was way less durable than a tank.

The only other thing to keep in mind, there was speculation he had a minor secondary power, one that made him able to sense where attacks would land or slowed down his perception of time. It wouldn't make much sense for him to regularly deflect bullets with his sword without something like that.

Before I could really think of a plan of attack, the elevator on the main floor chimed. The girl with the cat ears and tail walked across the lobby floor, standing by his side. Given the way she was dressed compared to the normal infantry, she was probably also a cape. I'd be flying blind as to what her power was, though.

Warlord gave her a small glance before stepping towards the blindfolded guards.

"Unfortunately, for you all, you were at the wrong place, at the wrong time." He said. His voice was deep, a low commanding bass.

"This isn't personal, but we can't afford to have loose ends."

The girl with cat features grabbed his arm, he shrugged her off, giving her a pointed glare from behind his mask.

"Hey, buddy..." An older man, one of the blindfolded guards spoke up. "I get it, I get that you need to operate a certain way, you can't let people live, it's bad for business."

Warlord scoffed.

"These guys, they're just doing their jobs, nobody here is making more than twenty an hour, nobody here is older than thirty, except for me."

I took a better look at the man, he could have been anywhere from a harsh forty to a very fit seventy, grey hair, not much facial hair to speak of, and fairly short with a gravelly voice. His tone wasn't offputting, almost... grandfatherly. And it seemed like he cared for his people.

"I'm chief of security here," He went on. "You wanna make an example, make it me. But these guys have wives, young kids, some of them are working on college degrees. You can make your statement with me, send my boys home, and I promise you not a single one of them is going to say a word."

The man was firm, staring in the direction of Warlord despite his blindfold. Warlord approached him, sword drawn, as soon as the sword came out I tensed, ready to move if and when I had to.

Was I really about to fucking do this?

"Stand him up," Warlord ordered, the two thugs nearest him did as they were told.

"You ask me for mercy?" Warlord asked.

"Yes." The security chief responded. "For my men."

"I intend to show you exactly as much mercy as your kind has shown mine." He hissed.

"It's a terrible thing, the way people treat you. I've voted with you every time it's on the ballot, most people I know have."

"And where has that gotten us, exactly?"

The security chief sighed.

"That's what I thought," Warlord spat. "Voting doesn't work, action does."

"Then take action, if you want to torch this place, take whatever you want, we will stand aside. Nothing in here's worth our lives, we won't call anyone, just let my men go."

He paused for a minute, I watched the catgirl, seeing what looked like a mix of hope and desperation as her posture shifted, moving herself slightly closer to him.

"Take his blindfold off." Warlord ordered, again his men did as they were told.

"I don't want this night to be unknown, just the opposite actually." He went on.

"Then we'll tell everyone."

"Why send twenty people to do one person's job?" His voice carried the air of a smirk. "You can stay alive, you can tell them exactly who did this, but first I'm gonna make you watch."

"Why?" His voice broke, stunned.

"Because you haven't seen half of what this world can do. You haven't suffered like we have suffered. Humans don't know pain, which is why it's our job to educate them."

He grabbed one of the guards, a young man, maybe about twenty-one or twenty-two. The man had been crying, and he screamed when he was grabbed, nothing but barely a coherent "please" and "no" between sobs.

The catgirl tensed, averting her eyes from what Warlord was about to do. She wasn't going to participate, but she wasn't going to stop it either.

Which left it up to me.

I didn't have great odds here, forty-some on one based on manpower alone, and at least two on one as far as capes were concerned. I had only really ever been in one proper "cape fight" and it wasn't-

It didn't go well.

But it wasn't suicide, my danger sense and agility made me as hard to hit as anyone, even if I couldn't really hit back.

I had to remember my goal wasn't to win, I didn't have to beat all of them, I just had to get the guards out, get back upstairs to grab my bag, and leave. That was all, I just needed to take the fire and clear a path. I could do that.

I had to rely on dodging and agility, and use my webs to disarm, especially when it came to Warlord.

I could do this, I had to.

Up until this night, I had been Gwen Stacy, even when out in costume, I still thought of myself as Gwen Stacy. I hadn't even come up with a name yet, but now? I was something different.

I was a vigilante.

I was a hero.

I was Ghost.