Chapter Text
On a train…
Gwen had expected a portal, something subterranean on the Earth side, but instead she skidded across the carpeted floor of a train in her Asgardian armor, she groaned and rolled over. She wrapped her hand around the hilt of her sword and got up on all fours. She realized quite abruptly that her armor was ill-fitted for her body which seemed to have shrunk substantially.
She looked around herself and noticed the train car was filled with children who looked to be ten or eleven. She held the armor to her chest and after chanting the spell to make her sword shrink and attach to her necklace, she grabbed her war skirt. If she hadn’t her armor would have fallen off. She’d lost several inches and while she was still muscular, she was about the size she was when she was a kid.
She blushed when she realized every single set of eyes on the train was staring at her. They were all dressed in black robes. Gwen smiled and backed away slowly. She bumped into a tall boy, probably eighteen. His robe had green on it and a patch with a snake-thing. He had his arms crossed.
“Is this some sort of joke. Where is your robe, first year?”
She spoke and her voice sounded younger, also she seemed to have developed a very Irish accent that sounded strange to her own ears.
“Funny story…”
He glared down at her. He was quite big looking to her new shorter stature.
“Do I look like I’m laughing first year? What is this? Early Hallowe’en? Oy, what’s your name first year?”
Gwen smiled as innocently as she could.
“Gwen Stacy?”
He snorted.
“You’re a Stacy? You sure seem pretty pathetic for a Stacy. Get in your robe and get in your seat! We’re almost at the station.”
Gwen saw a robe lying on the ground where she fell. She grabbed it up and nodded. She bit her lower lip.
“So… where can I get changed?”
He growled and pointed. Gwen rushed off and found a bathroom. She quickly pulled off the armor which was easy because basically she just let it go, and it fell off. None of what she had been wearing from Asgard was going to work here. She bundled the armor up with the straps and her belt. Her underclothes were stuffed in her robe’s pockets. They were fairly deep which was a nice change of pace from the usual clothes she would wear.
She looked at herself in the mirror. She was her eleven year old self. The only difference was her hair length, which was her new shorter cut along with the pink tips. She shook her head.
“Where the hell did the portal take you?”
Her reflection didn’t answer back, she hadn’t been expecting it too. She came out and the older boy was still glaring at her.
“Seat, now. I don’t care if every single one of your family has been in Slytherin, you’re not going to get any special treatment from me.”
Gwen looked around the train. She saw students with all manner of creature. Only one creature was alone, and she laughed to herself. Of course, a spider. There was an overly large spider, the size of a cat lounging on a seat. The other children sitting beside it were squeezing away from the arachnid.
Gwen walked to the seat and held out her hand. The spider crawled up her arm and perched on her shoulder rubbing her front legs together. She had been afraid of spiders for the longest time but once she became part spider she developed an affinity for them. There was a time she’d squeal until her dad killed them. Now she was more live and let live treating them like kindred spirits. This one obviously recognized her even if she didn’t.
The girls who had been sharing her seat were a little less intimidated by the spider. Gwen wished she knew its name. She wasn’t sure what was going on or even where she was. She had to warn SHIELD about the alignment but… how? She hadn’t tried to form her bracers; She couldn’t see anything that remotely looked like technology here and until she had a better idea of what was going on she figured it was best just to fit in.
The girl who was sitting beside her leaned over.
“Gwen, what happened? That was so weird. One minute you were standing there then there was a flash and suddenly you were in that weird armor. Did you use magic? I thought it wasn’t allowed outside Hogwarts?”
Gwen shrugged.
“I guess someone…. Wanted to prank me? The armor didn’t even fit…”
The girls around her all made ‘o’ faces and they started debating who had done it. Their guess was a Weasley because that was their thing. Apparently every single one of them had been a Gryffindor going back to Hogwart’s founding, which they supposed made sense they would pick on someone whose family had always been Slytherin. Gwen was having trouble following their back and forth chatter. From what she understood she was friends with these girls… or the other Gwen, she wondered if that Gwen had ended up where Gwen should have landed. The former teenager was starting to confuse herself, so she gave up.
She glanced over when she realized one of the girls was talking to her.
“So, what are you going to do to get them back? How gross is it that that Rose is a mudblood? It had to have been the Weasley’s who else would prank a Stacy and think they could get away with it?”
Gwen shrugged she remembered what her vengeance for her mother’s death had cost her. Also, she knew it was no prank, she’d done this by going through the portal. She just answered.
“Who cares? I don’t. Revenge is stupid. You just end up hurting yourself.”
The three other girls gasped. Like she’d just said the most shocking thing they ever heard. Gwen was starting to think the Gwen she had seemed to replace was a mean girl. Actually, the head of the mean girls. They all started laughing nervously then seemed to get over it. Like Gwen had just been joking. Gwen shook her head. Okay, crazy vindictive, head of the mean girls.
Gwen was trying to figure out where she’d seen the girl sitting beside her. Then suddenly she realized this was Liz Allen when she was eleven. One of the other girls with them actually laughed.
“Oh, you had us there! You’re going to send Terrorantuala after them, aren’t you?”
Gwen glanced at the giant spider on her shoulder. She could see that name, but it was a mouthful. She ran her finger along the spider’s abdomen gently and it snuggled closer to her hair.
“I think I’m going to call her Terra now.”
She looked out the window as they pulled up to a train station. She, along with the other first years were ushered onto boats that floated across the water gracefully towards a brightly lit castle. Gwen looked up at it with wide eyes. She’d never seen the like and the boat approach was designed to give students a sense of awe. Gwen had to hand it to this Hogwarts school’s PR people; It was working. Then she blinked a few times as she recalled a book her mother had read to her and a game Peter had been gushing about.
“Holy shit….”
Liz and her alternate’s cronies looked at her with shocked expressions. Gwen looked at her ‘friends’.
“What?”
None of her ‘friends’ said anything more and looked a little intimidated as Terra rubbed her front legs together. Gwen heard this weird whisper forming in her ears as the spider rubbed her legs together.
“You are not her, but you feel like home… sister.”
Gwen looked around but no one was talking. Then she looked at the spider and said.
“Wait you can talk?”
She heard a strange sound come out of her mouth that were not words. The spider’s eight shiny eyes looked at Gwen it rubbed its legs together again, and Gwen started to hear the whisper.
“You understand?”
She blinked a few times. She’d never tried talking to spiders before and it’s not like she got up close to them often, at least close enough to hear their legs rubbing together. She shrugged. It made sense in a lot of ways.
“I guess… I do I’m part spider.”
Terra got closer to her ear. Strangely Gwen had no negative reaction.
“Sister.”
Gwen glanced around and no one seemed to be hearing their conversation.
“So… uh, this is Hogwart’s right? Like wizards? And these girls were… uh, her friends? Sorry about umm… replacing her by the way.”
The spider kept rubbing her legs together.
“Yes, yes, yes. She was cruel and would break my webs if I didn’t do as she demanded. She was a vile fleshy thing.”
Gwen smiled slightly. At least the spider liked her.
“Let’s make a deal, sister. You do you, I’ll do me and we’ll help each other out how we can. That includes you spinning webs wherever you’d like that isn’t in my bed or places people will sit. I recall there is a creepy groundskeeper and cat… you might want to avoid them… and like is Terrorantula your real name? Do you want me to use a different one? I think we’re stuck in this together so let’s just start off fresh, I’m not her, I’m not mean at least I try not to be. But… like I only have one rule and that’s no poisoning people or hurting them unless we need to in self-defense. It’s my code…. And uh… I have a… erm thing inside me that sometimes comes out when I get really mad and well if that happens, you’ll know… there are tentacles just… run away. Its never hurt anyone I care about… but I would rather limit the chances of you getting hurt. Oh, and probably don’t eat anyone else’s pets I’ll have to keep that in mind… Symbie can get a bit gulppie. Deal?”
She held up her finger and Terra touched it with her front legs.
“We are one, sister.”
Gwen dug into her memories for information on Hogwart’s and then she recalled a giant spider species. Suddenly she asked.
“Are you, like an Acromantula?”
The spider moved back and forth.
“I used to be, before her mother caught me. She shrunk me and now I am this.”
Gwen frowned.
“I’m sorry. If I can find a way to fix you then I will, and I’ll let you go back to your… uh people. What is your real name then? I know they can talk to humans…”
The spider tapped her legs nervously, finally she spoke.
“I am Zertie.”
Gwen smiled.
“Hi Zertie, I’m Gwen. I’m glad I have a real friend here. Back home Liz is my archnemesis… at least at school.”
Zertie played with Gwen’s hair leaving some web behind unintentionally. Then she cringed away as Gwen pulled the web out with a small laugh.
“You would not believe the places I find this after I go out spider-personing.”
Zertie spread her legs out and looked at Gwen with inquisitive eyes.
“That is punished… I am sorry.”
Gwen played with the web in her hand making a small ball of it.
“Zertie, you’re a spider, you make webs, its natural. Trust me, I know. Especially now. This one time I made a spider web across two buildings to catch this giant worm… it was like… fifty, sixty feet long. Nearly ripped my arms out of my sockets holding it together but it was really pretty web until you know the worm ran into it.”
Gwen giggled softly.
“And this one time I had some webbing on my hand and I was going to the washroom and my hand got stuck to my underwear… I was jumping up and down in the girl’s bathroom like a weird spider-monkey thing… I think the other girl who was in there thought I was crazy. And don’t even get me started on the things my hands and feet have gotten stuck to since I got spider-zapped. Picture my hand stuck to a subway train trying desperately to pull my hand off of it while running to keep up… I mean if I’d hit the wall, it wouldn’t have been funny, but I didn’t… Wow, I never told that to anyone else. God I was such a disaster when I first got my spider-powers. Anyway, I get the whole spider thing. I can’t say I’ve ever had eight legs or eyes but like the webs getting everywhere totally get that.”
Zertie danced on her legs in a way that made Gwen smile. The spider rubbed her front legs together.
“We make web together?”
Gwen smiled.
“We’ll see, I need a slightly bigger one then you and I probably have to keep the whole spider-woman thing… I guess it’s spider-kid now? On the down low I have a feeling the adults wouldn’t love that. I vaguely recall some government… thingy.”
Zertie rubbed her legs together as she inched closer to Gwen’s hair again.
“Ministry of Magic. Old you and family were not liked. Rumors you a dark wizard in the making. Unforgivable curses. Born with old magic.”
Gwen raised an eyebrow.
“Oh wow. No wonder the other kids look at me like I’m going to eat them. I thought it was you, no offense but humans, don’t love spiders.”
Gwen sighed and shrugged.
“Oh well, in my world my dad shot me because he thought I was dangerous, and my cousin wants me dead… well at least spider-me dead. Guess different universe, same shit…”
Gwen looked up as the boats entered an underground harbor. One by one they pulled up to the docks. She got out when it was her turn. The caretaker scowled at Gwen and Zertie and pointed his gnarled finger at the spider.
“If that thing comes after my cat again it’ll be bug spatter.”
Gwen glanced at Zertie and then narrowed her eyes at Argus Finch.
“If she does go after your cat, it’s because your vicious little fur-covered monster went after her first.”
All eyes were on Gwen and she blushed. She realized her unfiltered response probably didn’t go over very well with the two professors present. Gwen didn’t like cats, not one bit. One had scratched her when she was little, and she’d hated them ever since. Since her spider-personhood became a thing, the feeling was mutual. Symbie had just made their reactions worse.
Gwen rushed after Liz and the others. She realized she’d just messed up badly. She should have kept her mouth shut. Keeping a low profile seemed like the best thing to do in this random, strange situation she found herself in and she’d literally just done the opposite. Then she realized while she was still mentally her fifteen year old self… she had the body and brain of an eleven year old and probably the brain chemistry to match. She groaned. As she rode the lift up to the main floor Zertie spoke to her in spider-speak.
“I don’t like cats either they tear webs, scare food-prey and hunt spiders.”
Gwen nodded in agreement.