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Gwen Stacy was perpetually loud.
Everything about Gwen Stacy was bold and did not go unnoticed, Cindy Moon was quickly realizing. She had only truly just started to get to know the girl (the last time they met had certainly been on difficult terms), and she had only just started to get Gwen to not entirely hate her entirely because they were getting to know eachother in a (somewhat) calmer setting. By getting to know one and other it was quickly apparent to Cindy that just because two people had the same super-powers, did not necessarily mean they were the same. It was immediately apparent that her and Gwen Stacy were very different and had very different upbringings - then again, most people didn’t have an upbringing that was really comparable to Cindy’s. A bunker was really no place to transition into your years as an adolescent into an adult. Years of solitude made Cindy somewhat sensitive to sound. She wasn’t necessarily traumatized by it, she just tended to hear everything more, even without the heightened “silk sense”. She just tended to notice the infliction that people made in their voices more, or responded more sensitively to large noises or drastic changes in noises.
She recalled how loud she had been at first, desperately trying to yell and fight her way out. Then suddenly, things just became more and more silent. While she had her tapes and her movies, it wasn’t the same as noise happening organically, those sounds were recordings of noise and could be controlled by adjusting the volume as necessary; it was entirely different hearing a loud noise that was a complete surprise that you weren’t expecting. And a life of isolation did not grant one that opportunity. It was a strange thing to miss, but Cindy’s upbringing was, for lack of a better term, strange.
Gwen Stacy meanwhile, surrounded with noise, everything was loud and boisterous. Gwen carried herself with a confidence in her not just her voice, but all of her actions; Even the way she walked just seemed louder. Her strides were long and powerful, with her foot being placed firmly on the ground. When Cindy walked beside her, she could hear her footsteps and how loudly they amplified - Gwen had a voice and presence that demanded to be heard, and her mannerisms madd that part of her character all the more apparent.
Though picking up on Gwen’s behaviors was a lot better than picking up /after/ her, which was what Cindy found herself doing at the current moment. While Jessica was off finding the Earth-65 version of herself, Cindy and Gwen retreated back to Gwen’s home. Apparently her father lived there with her too, but he was nowhere around, but that seemed to be the norm around here. That was clearly a good thing, because Cindy couldn’t imagine anyone else having to live in this mess.
One of the few things that Cindy liked about her bunker was the control that she had in the space. Granted, it was the only thing she had control over in her life, but she could at least do what she want and keep it as she liked. She tended to like to keep as tidy as she could - the clutter she found stressful. Clutter in general was a somewhat foreign concept to her, though it seemed that there was a lot about Gwen that was foreign to her; apparently having the same powers did not translate to having the same cleaning habits, shockingly.
“How old is this pizza box?” Cindy asked Gwen, lifting the box that was sitting on the couch of the living room, looking disgusted while doing so.
“What?” Gwen asked from the kitchen where she was loudly blasting loud rock music from her laptop and following along with the beat with a spoon in place of a drumstick as she (slowly) unloaded the dishwasher. Some cleaning, at least.
Cindy had quickly made note of this noise, particularly the drumming of the pen. That sound was oddly satisfying to her, and she didn’t really know why. “I think I had pizza on...Tuesday? I don’t know, it’s hard to remember when you’re crossing dimensions and whatnot.”
“Ew.” Cindy grabbed the box and shamelessly chucked it out the open window. Maybe some stray cats could stomach it.
“Don’t do that! The neighbors are so damn nosy, I don’t need them coming to do a police investigation or something when I’m hiding out two people from another universe as well as a secret identity,” Gwen exclaimed, raising her voice as she got frustrated, which Cindy immediately took note of the increase in sound. There she was again, the presence and voice that demanded to be heard. And she was.
All of the noise that Cindy could hear were noises that Gwen was making - Gwen drumming the spoon, Gwen playing the pop punk music, Gwen tapping her feet in tune with her ‘drumming’, Gwen was raising her voice and arguing over something irrelevant. And meanwhile, Cindy...was silent; She didn’t make an effort to respond and make it an argument, she was quickly finding herself encompassed by all of the sounds in the tight living space. It was not a bad thing or a sensory overload. No, she actually liked it, she liked it a lot. There was a sort of comfort in the constant noises and stimulation, as well as a fascination for the girl who spent years in silence in just how loud one person could be.
“Cindy? What gives, you’re staring?” Gwen’s voice and a new sound dragged Cindy away from her brief trance. Cindy blinked, not really remembering how much time had passed in between Gwen’s last comment and the new question. Had she been staring? Shit, that was probably a little weird.
“Sorry, I...guess I’m more tired than I thought. I mean, it was a long day, with a lot of new discoveries...” Cindy wasn't going to think about the other version of herself, nor her missing parents. She had spent enough time doing that and caused enough drama over it all earlier. Gwen was finally coming around to her, and she was in no position to be turning down friends. Everything would work itself out one way or another, there was no point in obsessing over the unknown.
Cindy felt stiff for some reason, and then noted how a brief period where only the music was playing; still Gwen’s noise though. This was the quietest the home had been since they got back here earlier today, and she hated it. Gwen, thankfully, disturbed this sole noise though with a loud yawn.
“It is getting pretty late,” Gwen commented as she reached over to pause the loud music, a brief moment of utter silence passing between them as Gwen’s tapping of her pen and feet had also stopped. Cindy suddenly felt strangely tense, and she didn’t know why. “Wanna go to sleep? I’m sure Jess is fine and the crabby mother will probably freak out if we go looking for her or something.”
“What about Reed?" Cindy asked, knowing the super genius in the basement was hard at work making the portal back to Earth-616.
Gwen scoffed. "Like I'm going down there again! Tried earlier when we first got back to see if he needed anything, he practically bit my head off. Super geniuses, they're overrated."
"Works for me." Cindy yawned herself. “Where am I sleeping again?”
“The couch.” Gwen said, gesturing to the couch that Cindy had just removed a pizza box from.
“No,” Cindy said immediately, disgusted in the idea alone.
“I’m going to put a blanket over-” Gwen tried.
“/No/. Nope, sorry goodbye,” Cindy told the other sternly, noting how her own voice had raised to a significantly higher level as she argued with Gwen. For the first time since she met the blonde Spider-Woman, her own voice had been the louder one; Cindy found this odd. Not to say that she hadn’t given Gwen a taste of some serious attitude since they met, but just because Gwen was so /loud/ and Cindy by nature and years of solitude just tended to be quieter.
“It’s not /that/ old...at least I don’t think so.” Gwen sighed. “Alright, fine, we can share my bed I guess. Don’t tell any of the boys in your universe about this though, especially not that Peter Parker over there. I don’t need him getting off to the idea of his dead girlfriend and ex-girlfriend sharing a bed.”
“Ew. Way to give someone a nice thought before they go to sleep.” Cindy explained, but Gwen just smirked at Cindy, seemingly proud of what she said. There was that smugness once again. Somehow, Gwen wore it well - it complimented that loud and bold presence of hers. Cindy wondered why she didn’t find this more obnoxious. Sure, she herself could be obnoxious when she wanted to be, but Gwen brought it to an entirely different level - a loud one. Shouldn’t this bother her more? Gwen was /annoying/ and sloppy.
“Come on, let’s go.” Gwen led Cindy to her own bedroom, whistling along the way. The lack of silence didn’t even surprise Cindy anymore, no, there was a sense of familiarity and expectation that Gwen Stacy was just going to be loud, which wasn't a bad thing
Cindy hadn’t seen Gwen’s room yet, but the idea of expecting certain things had become pretty routine based on what she was learning about Gwen and her character. So when Gwen opened her door to a messy room with a floor that was literally impossible to see, Cindy was not even surprised.
“Nice room,” She said sarcastically as she hopped her way over the unidentified mess of clean versus dirty clothes. “It’s tempting to just sleep on the ceiling, y’know. There’s less of a chance of some stink monster coming to get me through the mess.”
“Be my guest, I know you can get up there.” Gwen rummaged through her clothes on the floor and went through several different shirts before finding one that she believed was not dirty. She ripped off the current t-shirt she was wearing and threw it on. Cindy blushed and averted her gaze away, not sure why she was surprised. Did Gwen really seem like the kind of girl too timid to change in front of someone? Hardly.
“Alright, well...thanks for the warning. Most people would use the bathroom,” Cindy mumbled, her voice falling a bit quieter, her gaze still averted away.
“Hey, my room, my rules. It's not exactly a /bad/ sight, thank you very much,” Gwen said confidently, and Cindy felt her blush get a little deaper for some reason. “Did you want another shirt to wear?”
Cindy looked down at the “Mary Janes” home made t-shirt that Gwen had given her earlier when they first came back here. After seeing the room, she had her questioning regarding the cleanliness of it, but she was still able to somewhat smell the scent of laundry detergent on her current shirt versus sweat or food, so it seemed like a safe bet to keep it on. “I’m...good, thanks.”
Gwen nodded, before she looked to her bed which was littered with assorted items, from books, drum sticks, to her damn Spider-Woman suit. “Crap, hang on.” Cindy watched as Gwen proceeded to shove off everything right onto the floor, amplifying the quiet nature of the room with more noise, as expected.
“Do you want to move some of those to the book-” Cindy glanced over to the bookshelf which was currently holding assorted items from old stuffed animals, more clothes, and other assorted crap - not a single book was on it. “Right. Why put books on the bookshelf when there is all this space on the floor? And why hang up your suit, wrinkles are all the rage when fighting evil.”
“What can I say, never a dull moment with me,” Gwen said before joining Cindy in the bed. She reached over to turn off the light on her nightstand, Cindy had since closed her eyes so she could not see this. But she did hear it since Gwen knocked over several unknown items onto the floor in the process. “Sleep tight, don’t let the stink monster bite.”.
Cindy scoffed. “If it does, I blame you entirely and will consider that a warranted reason to fight you.”
Gwen snorted at Cindy’s response, but didn’t say anything back. At this point, only noise that Cindy could hear was Gwen’s breathing. She opened her eyes and glanced over to her fellow Spider-Woman. They were close, but not touching. The idea of being close to someone didn’t bother her. She had her fair share of kisses and such since out of her bunker. But the silence...there it was again. Though her nature gravitated to that persisting silence, it suddenly felt so foreign after being around someone like Gwen all day who was just constantly making noise. Cindy felt stiff. She suddenly found herself thinking back to the bunker, and the nights of silence that she had grown so used to. She grew used to the silence, because she didn’t have a choice.
Sometimes she would leave the tapes she was given on at night when the silence got too much even for her to handle. She shifted and opened her eyes. She noticed a small TV on the other side of the room near the book shelf with no books.
“Gwen?” Cindy asked.
“Mmm?” Gwen grunted but didn’t move.
“Do you mind if I turn on the TV?” Cindy asked, sitting up.
“Good luck finding the remote, but sure.” With permission, Cindy got up and crossed the room to go and turn on the television manually. She coincidentally found the remote on the floor by the television and brought it back to the bed with her. She looked to Gwen who was still silent, clearly trying to fall asleep. The only noise aside from Gwen’s breathing and the city traffic she could hear were the recorded voices on the television, something she used to find solace in. Cindy frowned. Turning on the television wasn’t helping, if anything it was making it worse and bringing her back to the bunker, the last place she ever wanted to be again.
“Do you know any good shows that are on this late?” Cindy asked suddenly, unsure why she kept on talking to Gwen while she was trying to sleep.
“No,” Gwen replied stiffly.
“Do you have...I think it’s called Netflix? Still learning things, sorry. But it’s that thing where you can watch like tapes but you just click on the title from a menu? Peter had it, we used to watch a lot,” Cindy inquired.
“My gaming console is busted and that plays the Netflix,” Gwen said without moving or opening her eyes.
“Okay, do you have any ta-” Cindy began before Gwen sat up and shot her a glare.
“Cindy. Usually sleeping kind of involves being quiet. I don’t mind if you want the TV on, I sleep with it on sometimes. But like...mind asking me about my favorite TV shows and movies after I at least get a few hours of sleep?” Gwen asked, rightfully frustrated.
“Right. Yeah. I’ll shut up, sorry.” Cindy brought her gaze back to the television as Gwen laid back down. Cindy wasn’t really watching the television, she was more so listening to it and trying to find familiarity and comfort in its noise. She shut her eyes and tried to focus on the sounds of some news program - was that Jameson talking? Maybe, who knew.
It wasn’t working, and the feeling of restlessness returned to her and the anxiety over the silence came back. She reached over to try and grab the remote but ended up finding something else. Drumsticks. Unsurprisingly, pairs of drumsticks were everywhere. She recalled the noise Gwen made earlier in the kitchen with the spoon, where she matched the beat of the punk song she had been listening to. Cindy took one of the sticks and tapped it along the nightstand, mimicking the noise that Gwen was making earlier.
It was comforting, making the same noise that Gwen did; it was the same feeling she found herself having in being around Gwen - the noise, the constant noise. The noise of a real person, something that had once been a foreign concept to her, and still somewhat unfamiliar but also desirable and reassuring.
Cindy was so focused on her drumming attempt, she didn’t even notice when Gwen’s hand reached forward and grabbed the sticks and threw them across the room. “Cindy are you like...trying to be a super asshole or something? If you wanna be loud and make noise then go in the living room.”
“No, I do wanna sleep,” Cindy explained with a frustrated sigh.
“Really, you coulda fooled me?”
“No, it’s just...I /want/ to sleep. But it’s hard for me to when it’s too quiet. It makes me…” Cindy began but her voice trailed off. Cindy saw Gwen shift to sit up from the corner of her eye, a look of concern on her face.
“Makes you...what?” Gwen asked the other curiously. Cindy frowned and bit her lip.
“Think about when I was...y’know, in the bunker. It was always silent there, just me and artificial noises. I know it’s stupid and I’m a superhero, I’m a really good one too! I shouldn’t be fixating on something like that still, and it normally doesn’t bother me, it shouldn’t. I should be over this...but I guess I’m not as tough as I think I am.” Cindy paused. “So when you make noise...I don’t know, it kind of just reminds me that I’m not there anymore. That there’s a life that’s going on, that I get to now be apart of.” Cindy shook her head. “That’s stupid, isn’t it?”
“Maybe a little,” Gwen admitted bluntly.
“Wow, thanks.” Cindy said with an eyeroll.
“But...it doesn’t mean it’s wrong to feel that way.” Gwen reached over and gave the other a hug. As she did so, Cindy’s heightened sensitivity to sound enabled her to hear Gwen’s breathing crystal clear. The comfort returned. “I can’t relate. Sure, we have the same powers...but I didn’t go into a bunker for ten years because of them. And having to do that, Cindy, that sucks, it super sucks. I mean, I never realized just how lucky I was until I heard your story. I can’t even imagine how you must feel sometimes...” Gwen tightened her hold on Cindy, Cindy did the same, resting her chin against the other’s shoulder.
“But.” Gwen began. “If for some reason you like to hear me obnoxious, I can definitely help out with that. I’m super obnoxious.”
“Believe me, I know,” Cindy smirked.
Gwen chuckled. “And don’t think for a second this makes you any less tough, because it doesn’t. I think real strengths are when people can honestly admit a weakness they have. It takes a lot of courage, so don’t sell yourself short.” Gwen pulled back, biting her lip. "And I'm sorry...just in general. I shouldn't have lost my patience with you so much today, or even back with the Inheritors, and just in general. I haven't really given you a fair chance."/p>
"No, you had every right to be angry with me. I can certainly be brash and selfish, and I know I can act without thinking when it comes to making decisions. I guess I just get so eager to even have decisions to make..." Cindy mumbled, hardly expecting or even thinking she warranted an apology.
"Hey, I do everything brash and selfishly without thinking, welcome to the club," Gwen joked with a smirk.
Cindy smiled. "Well, this is my first time in a club. How exciting." Cindy looked Gwen in the eye, an earnest and gentle expression on her face. “But thank you. For being patient with me, and taking time to understand. It means a lot.”
“Hey, anytime.” Gwen yawned. “But, I kind of want to sleep also. And unless I sleep talk and aren’t aware of it. I don’t really know how to make that noise that you need.”
“Well, it’s not exactly a lot of noise I need or anything. Sometimes just hearing something like breathing helps, especially when we’re this close.” Cindy paused. “Sorry, that...probably sounded really gay, didn’t it?”
“Yeah, it did. But...this whole sharing a bed thing is already there, so I guess cuddling is sort of expected at this point.” Gwen settled back down and pulled Cindy to lie with her. She wrapped her arms around Cindy.
Cindy let her chin lie on Gwen’s shoulder so her ears were right by her lips...she heard the soft breathing of Gwen, a reminder that she was not alone, that she was free. “Remember, no telling your Peter Parker or any other gross boys about this when you go back.”
“I promise.” Cindy said with a chuckle. “Thank you, Gwen. I know it’s strange, but…”
“Hey. Spider-Women gotta stick together.” Gwen reached over to press a kiss to Cindy’s forehead. Cindy blushed, but should she really be surprised? Gwen was brash, bold, and unpredictable. Cindy loved it. “Now, sleep.”
Cindy smiled and resumed her position resting along the crook of Gwen’s neck. Holding another person, hearing the small stirs of Gwen as she shifted and her breathing steady and relaxed...it made her able to do the same. She was free and never going back, and now she had the reminder of that freedom that she needed.
After all, Spider-Women had to stick together.